“What have they done? Can’t they find anybody to take their money?”
“Well, suh, hit’s lak 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, and ez dey got de money up, dey turnt hit over to me, whut wid my ‘ficial position on de church boa’d and bein’ I wuz a member of de bes’ fembly ‘round here. Dat ‘uz erbout las’ Chris’mus time, and now dey wants de money back.”
“That’s strange,” old Bayard said.
“Yessuh,” Simon agreed readily. “Hitstruck me jes’ zackly dat way.”
“Well, if they insist, I reckon you’d better give it backto’em.”
“Now you’s gittin’ to it.” Simon turned his head again; his manner was confidential, and he exploded his bombshell in a hushed melodramatic tone: “De money’s gone.”
“Dammit,I know that,” old Bayard answered pettishly. “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 that you took charge of money belonging to other people, and then went and loaned it to somebody else?”
“You does de same thing ev’y day,” Simon answered. “Ain’t lendin’ out 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’ lak dem uppity town riggers,” Simon told him. “Dat money done been put out, now,” he reminded his patron.
“Getit back. Haven’t you got collateral for it?”
“Is I got which?”
“Something worth the value of the money, to keepuntil the money is paid back.”
“Yessuh, I got dat” Simon chuckled again, a satyrish chuckle, with smug and complacent innuendo. “Yessuh, I got dat, all right. Only I never heard it called collateral befo’. Naw, suh, not dat.”
“Did you give that money to some nigger wench?” Old Bayard demanded.
‘Well, suh, hit’s lak dis—” Simon began, but the other interrupted him.
“Ah, the devil. And now you expect me to pay it back, do you? How much is it?”
“I don’t rightly remember. Dem niggers claims hit wuz seventy er ninety dollars er somethin’. But don’t you pay ‘um no mind; you jes’ give ‘um whatever 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 a cent of it.”
‘‘Now, Cunnel,” Simon said, “you ain’t gwine let dem town niggers ‘cuse a member of yo’ fambly of stealin’,isyou?”
“Drive on!” old Bayard shouted. Simon turned on the seat and clucked to the horses and drove on, his cigar tilted toward his hatbrim, his elbows out and the whip caught smartly back in his hand, glancing now and then at the field niggers laboring among the cotton rows with tolerant and easy scorn.
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 said.
Old Bayard propped his feet against the hearth, cupping a match to his cigar, cupping two tiny matchflames in his eyes
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 axe to the grindstone,” he said, squatting before the pungent curling of thesmoke 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 ary other coward” he roared. “Hit won’t strike a feller that’s a-lookiln’ hit in the face lessen he pushes hit too clost. Your paw knowed that. Stood in the do’ of that sto’ the day them two cyarpet- baggers brung them niggers in to vote that day in ‘72. Stood thar in his Prince Albert coat and beaver hat, with his arms folded, when everybody 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 cyarpet-baggers begun backin’ away with their hands in their pockets until they was clar 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 lifted 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 dern’ger over their haids a couple of times, then he loaded hit again and marched down the road to Miz Winterbottom’s, whar them two fellers boa’ded.
“‘Madam,’ he says, liftin’ his beaver, ‘I have a smallmatter 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
