He told how the drunk man tried to follow him, still telling him how it wasn’t anything upstairs, and he said that when he come back down again and thought about the drunk fellow, he was gone. But I reckon it was some time before he remembered to think about Brown again. Because he went on up the stairs and begun hollering again, opening the doors, and then he opened the right door and he found her.”
He ceases. Then there is no sound in the room save the insects. Beyond the open window the steady insects pulse and beat, drowsy and myriad. “Found her,” Hightower says. “It was Miss Burden he found.” He does not move. Byron does not look at him, he might be contemplating his hands upon his lap while he talks.
“She was lying on the floor. Her head had been cut pretty near off; a lady with the beginning of gray hair. The man said how he stood there and he could hear the fire and there was smoke in the room itself now, like it had done followed him in. And how he was afraid to try to pick her up and carry her out because her head might come clean off. And then he said how he run back down the stairs again and out the front without even noticing that the drunk fellow was gone, and down to the road and told his wife to whip the team on to the nearest telephone and call for the sheriff too.
And how he run back around the house to the cistern and he said he was already drawing up a bucket of water before he realised how foolish that was, with the whole back end of the house afire good now. So he run back into the house and up the stairs again and into the room and jerked a cover off the bed and rolled her onto it and caught up the corners and swung it onto his back like a sack of meal and carried it out of the house and laid it down under a tree.
And he said that what he was scared of happened. Because the cover fell open and she was laying on her side, facing one way, and her head was turned clean around like she was looking behind her. And he said how if she could just have done that when she was alive, she might not have been doing it now.”
Byron ceases and looks, glances once, at the man beyond the desk. Hightower has not moved. His face about the twin blank glares of the spectacles is sweating quietly and steadily. “And the sheriff come out, and the fire department come too. But there wasn’t nothing it could do because there wasn’t any water for the hose. And that old house burned all evening and I could see the smoke from the mill and I showed it to her when she come up, because I didn’t know then. And they brought Miss Burden to town, and there was a paper at the bank that she had told them would tell what to do with her when she died. It said how she had a nephew in the North where she come from, her folks come from. And they telegraphed the nephew and in two hours they got the answer that the nephew would pay a thousand dollars’ reward for who done it.
“And Christmas and Brown were both gone. The sheriff found out how somebody had been living in that cabin, and then right off everybody begun to tell about Christmas and Brown, that had kept it a secret long enough for one of them or maybe both of them to murder that lady. But nobody could find either one of them until last night. The countryman didn’t know it was Brown that he found drunk in the house. Folks thought that him and Christmas had both run, maybe.
And then last night Brown showed up. He was sober then, and he come onto the square about eight o’clock, wild, yelling about how it was Christmas that killed her and making his claim on that thousand dollars. They got the officers and took him to the sheriff’s office and they told him the reward would be his all right soon as he caught Christmas and proved he done it.
And so Brown told. He told about how Christmas had been living with Miss Burden like man and wife for three years, until Brown and him teamed up. At first, when he moved out to live in the cabin with Christmas, Brown said that Christmas told him he had been sleeping in the cabin all the time. Then he said how one night he hadn’t gone to sleep and he told how he heard Christmas get up out of bed and come and stand over Brown’s cot for a while, like he was listening, and then he tiptoed to the door and opened it quiet and went out. And Brown said how he got up and followed Christmas and saw him go up to the big house and go in the back door, like either it was left open for him or he had a key to it.
Then Brown come on back to the cabin and got into bed. But he said how he couldn’t go to sleep for laughing, thinking about how smart Christmas thought he was. And he was laying there when Christmas come back in about a hour. Then he said how he couldn’t keep from laughing no longer, and he says to Christmas, ‘You old son of a gun.’ Then he said how Christmas got right still in the dark, and how he laid there laughing, telling Christmas how he wasn’t such a slick one after all and joking Christmas about gray hair and about how if Christmas wanted him to, he would take it week about with him paying the house rent.
“Then he told how he found out that night that sooner or later Christmas was going to kill her or somebody. He said he was laying there, laughing, thinking that Christmas would just maybe get back in bed again, when Christmas struck a match. Then Brown said he quit laughing and he laid there and watched Christmas light the lantern and set it on the box by Brown’s cot. Then Brown said how he wasn’t laughing and he laid there and Christmas standing there by the cot, looking down at him.
‘Now you got a good joke,’ Christmas says. ‘You can get a good laugh, telling them in the barbershop tomorrow night.’ And Brown said he didn’t know that Christmas was mad and that he kind of said something back to Christmas, not meaning to make him mad, and Christmas said, in that still way of his: ‘You dont get enough sleep. You stay awake too much. Maybe you ought to sleep more,’ and Brown said, ‘How much more?’ and Christmas said, ‘Maybe from now on.’ And Brown said how he realised then that Christmas was mad and that it wasn’t no time to joke him, and he said, ‘Aint we buddies? What would I want to tell something that aint none of my business? Cant you trust me?’ and Christmas said, ‘I dont know. I dont care, neither. But you can trust me.’ And he looked at Brown. ‘Cant you trust me?’ and Brown said he said ‘Yes.’
“And he told then about how he was afraid that Christmas would kill Miss Burden some night, and the sheriff asked him how come he never reported his fear and Brown said he thought how maybe by not saying nothing he could stay out there and prevent it, without having to bother the officers with it; and the sheriff kind of grunted and said that was thoughtful of Brown and that Miss Burden would sholy appreciate it if she knowed. And then I reckon it begun to dawn on Brown that he had a kind of rat smell too.
Because he started in telling about how it was Miss Burden that bought Christmas that auto and how he would try to persuade Christmas to quit selling whiskey before he got them both into trouble; and the officers watching him and him talking faster and faster and more and more; about how he had been awake early Saturday morning and saw Christmas get up about dawn and go out.
And Brown knew where Christmas was going, and about seven o’clock Christmas come back into the cabin and stood there, looking at Brown. ‘I’ve done it,’ Christmas says. ‘Done what?’ Brown says. ‘Go up to the house and see,’ Christmas says. And Brown said how he was afraid then, but that he never suspected the truth. He just said that at the outside all he expected was that maybe Christmas just beat her some. And he said how Christmas went out again and then he got up and dressed and he was making a fire to cook his breakfast when he happened to look out the door and he said how all the kitchen was afire up at the big house.
“ ‘What time was this?’ the sheriff says.
“ ‘About eight o’clock, I reckon,’ Brown says. ‘When a man would naturally be getting up. Unless he is rich. And God
