“At least he got himself decently killed,” Miss Jenny snapped. “He did more with a horse than you could do with that aeroplane.”
“Sho,” Simon breathed against the pantry door. “Ain’t dey gwine it? Takes white folks to sho’ ’nough quoil.”
And so it surged and ebbed through the succeeding days; wore itself out, then surged again when old Bayard returned home with another application of salve. But by this time Simon was having troubles of his own, troubles on which he finally consulted old Bayard one afternoon. Young Bayard was laid up in bed with his crushed ribs, with Miss Jenny mothering him with savage and cherishing affection and Miss Benbow to visit with him and read aloud to him, and Simon had come into his own again.
The top hat and the duster came down from the nail, and old Bayard’s cigars depleted daily by one, and the fat matched horses spent their accumulated laziness between home and the bank, before which Simon swung them to a halt each afternoon as of old, with his clamped cigar and smartly-furled whip and all theatrics of the fine moment. “De ottomobile,” Simon philosophized, “is all right fer pleasure en excitement, but fer de genu-wine gentlemun tone, dey am t but one thing: dat’s hosses.”
Thus Simon’s opportunity came ready to his hand, and once they were clear of town and the team had settled into its gait, he took advantage of it.
“Well, Cunnel,” he began, “looks like me en you’s got to make some financial ’rangements.”
“What?” Old Bayard brought his attention back from where it wandered about the familiar planted fields and the blue, shining hills beyond.
“I says it looks like me en you’s got to arrange erbout a little cash money.”
“Much obliged, Simon,” old Bayard answered, “but I don’t need, any money right now. Much obliged, though.”
Simon laughed heartily. “I declare, Cunnel, you sho’ is comical. Rich man like you needin’ money!” Again he laughed, with unctuous and abortive heartiness. “Yes, suh, you sho’ is comical.” Then he ceased laughing and became engrossed with the horses for a moment. Twins they were: Roosevelt and Taft, with sleek hides and broad, comfortable buttocks. “You, Taf’ lean on dat collar! Laziness gwine go in on you someday en kill you, she.” Old Bayard sat watching his apelike head and the swaggering tilt of the top hat. Simon turned his wizened, plausible face over his shoulder again. “But sho’ ’nough, now, we is got to quiet dem niggers somehow.”
“What have they done? Can’t they find anybody to take their money?”
“Well, suh, hit’s like dis,” Simon explained. “Hit’s kind of all ’round cu’i’s. You see, dey been collectin’ buildin’ money fer dat church whut burnt down, en ez dey got de money up, dey turnt hit over ter me, whut wid my ’ficial position on de church boa’d en bein’ I wuz a member of de bes’ fambly round here. Dat ’uz erbout las’ Chris’mus time, en now dey wants de money back.”
“That’s strange,” old Bayard said.
“Yessuh,” Simon agreed readily. “Hit struck me jes’ ’zackly dat way.”
“Well, if they insist, I reckon you’d better give it back to ’em.”
“Now, you’s gittin’ to it.” Simon turned his head again; his manner was confidential, and he exploded his bomb in a hushed, melodramatic tone: “De money’s gone.”
“Dammit, I know that,” old Bayard answered, his levity suddenly gone. “Where is it?”
“I went and put it out,” Simon told him, and his tone was still confidential, with a little pained astonishment at the world’s obtuseness. “And now dem niggers ’cusin’ me of stealin’ it.”
“Do you mean to tell me you, took charge of money belonging to other people, and then went and loaned it to somebody else?”
“You does de same thing ev’ry day,” Simon answered. “Ain’t lendin’ money yo’ main business?”
Old Bayard snorted violently. “You get that money back and give it to those niggers, or you’ll be in jail, you hear?”
“You talks jes’ like dem uppity town niggers,” Simon told him in a pained tone. “Dat money done been put out, now,” he reminded his patron.
“Get it back. Haven’t you got collateral for it?”
“Is I got which?”
“Something worth the money, to keep until the money is paid back.”
“Yessuh, I got dat.” Simon chuckled again, unctuously, a satyrish chuckle rich with complacent innuendo. “Yessuh, I got dat, all right. Only I never heard hit called collateral befo’. Naw, suh, not dat.”
“Did you give that money to some nigger wench?” old Bayard demanded.
“Well, suh, hit’s like dis—” Simon began. But the other interrupted him.
“Ah, the devil. And now you expect me to pay it back, do you? How much was it?”
“I don’t rightly ricollick. Dem niggers claims hit wuz sevumty er ninety dollars er somethin’. But don’t you pay ’um no mind; you jes’ give ’um whutever you think is right: dey’ll take it.”
“I’m damned if I will. They can take it out of your worthless hide, or send you to jail—whichever they want to, but I’m damned if I’ll pay one cent of it.”
“Now, Cunnel,” Simon said, “you ain’t gwine let dem town niggers ’cuse a member of yo’ fambly of stealin’, is you?”
“Drive on!” old Bayard shouted. Simon turned on the seat and clucked to the horses and drove on, his cigar tilted toward his hat-brim, his elbows out and the whip caught smartly back in his hand, glancing now and then with tolerant and easy scorn at the field niggers laboring among the cotton rows.
Old man Falls replaced the cap on his tin of salve, wiped the tin carefully with the bit of rag, then knelt on the cold hearth and held a match to the rag.
“I reckon them doctors air still a-tellin’ you hit’s gwine to kill you, ain’t they?” he asked.
Old Bayard propped his feet against the hearth, cupping a match to his cigar, cupping two tiny match-flames in his eyes. He flung the match away and grunted.
Old man Falls watched the rag take fire sluggishly, with a pungent pencil of yellowish smoke that broke curling in the still air. “Ever’ now and then a feller has to walk up and spit in deestruction’s face, sort of, fer his own good.
He has to kind of put a aidge on hisself, like he’d hold his ax to the grindstone,” he said, squatting before the pungent curling of the smoke as though in a pagan ritual in miniature. “Ef a feller’ll show his face to deestruction ever’ now and then, deestruction’ll leave ’im be twell his time comes. Deestruction likes to take a feller in the back.”
“What?” old Bayard said.
Old man Falls rose and dusted his knees carefully. “Deestruction’s like airy other coward,” he roared. “Hit won’t strike a feller that’s a-lookin’ hit in the eye lessen he pushes hit too clost.
Your paw knowed that. Stood in the do’ of that sto’ the day them two cyarpetbaggers brung them niggers in to vote ’em that day in ’72. Stood thar in his Prince Albert coat and beaver hat, with his arms folded, when ever’body else had left, and watched them two Missouri fellers herdin’ them niggers up the road to’ds the sto’; stood right in the middle of the do’ while them two cyarpetbaggers begun backin’ off with their hands in their pockets until they was cl’ar of the niggers, and cussed him.
And him standin’ thar jest like this.” He crossed his arms on his breast, his hands in sight, and for a moment old Bayard saw, as through a cloudy glass, that arrogant and familiar shape which the old man in shabby overalls had contrived in some way to immolate and preserve in the vacuum of his own abnegated self.
“Then, when they was gone on back down the road, Cunnel reached around inside the do’ and taken out the ballot box and sot hit between his feet.
“‘You niggers come hyer to vote, did you?’ he says. ‘All right, come up hyer and vote.’
“When they had broke and scattered he let off that ’ere dang der’nger over their heads a couple of times; then he loaded hit agin and marched down the road to Miz Winterbottom’s, whar them two fellers boa’ded.
“‘Madam,’ he says, liftin’ his beaver, ‘I have a small matter of business to discuss with yo’ lodgers. Permit me,’ he says, and he put his hat back on and marched up the stairs steady as a parade, with Miz Winterbottom gapin’ after him with her mouth open. He walked right into the room whar they was a-settin’ behind a table facin’ the do’, with their pistols layin’ on the table.
“When us boys outside heard the three shots we run in. Thar wuz Miz Winterbottom standin’ thar, gapin’ up the stairs, and in a minute hyer come Cunnel with his hat cocked over his eye, marchin’ down steady as a co’t jury, breshin’ the front of his coat with his hank’cher. And us standin’ thar, a-watchin’ him. He stopped in front of Miz Winterbottom and lifted his hat agin.
“‘Madam,’ he says, ‘I was fo’ced to muss up yo’ guest room right considerable. Pray accept my apologies, and have yo’ nigger clean it up and send the bill to me. My apologies again, madam, fer havin’ been put to the necessity of exterminatin’ vermin on yo’ premises. Gentlemen,’ he says to us, ‘good mawnin’.’
And he cocked that ’ere beaver on his head and walked out.
“And, Bayard,” old man Falls said, “I sort of envied them two Nawthuners, be damned ef I didn’t. A feller kin take a wife and live with her fer a long time, but after all they ain’t no kin. But the
