mind.'
'That ain't my department. Where's Bigboy?'
'He must have got out. Damn you, you have killed me.'
'That is why I come. You die now, for you ain't no more use to me.'
Earl turned.
Around him, flames rose. He looked. Elmer had already lit up the Store.
In the distance, heavy shooting suggested Elmer and Bill had moved on to the guards' barracks.
Farther out, the steady crack of Jack's.270 suggested that the old man was doing his damage, steady as a rock.
Earl turned. The Big House itself hadn't been touched.
Time now to go visit Mr. Warden. who were they?
Bigboy had made it to the piney woods, and he watched the destruction of Thebes from afar. Shots rang out, men fell. Always, with the inevitability of sacks of corn dropped off a truck. These fellows could shoot, that was clear.
But it was more than just shooting. It was determination. There was no hesitation or reluctance; instead, as Bigboy was an expert in such matters and would quickly recognize, it was maximum force applied without conscience but with considerable skill.
Already the place was ablaze. The Store was gone; that meant all records, all debts, all supplies, all the things that sustained Thebes were ashes in the wind, as the flames ate through the wood structure and devoured it, and all that was inside.
The Big House still stood, but Bigboy had heard shots from within it.
Somebody whacked the warden, you could count on that.
The world was ending.
Thebes was destroyed.
There would be no coming back from this night.
He had read the shots well and, leaving the old man hanging, had quickly come across two men shot through the head from afar, which convinced him that standing and fighting was a tragic mistake. So he bailed out a rear window, slithered across the yard toward the tree line, as shots rang out from everywhere. He meant to head to the guards' barracks, where he could rally his boys, distribute weapons from the strong room, and begin a defense. But he saw that that was too far gone; the point had been reached where all was lost, and the prudent thing was to survive for another day, conceding that these outriders would carry the night. On top of that, he had no weapons, no shirt, not a thing to fight with: except, of course, his whip.
He made it to the trees, and gathered himself. He had no compass and knew an ordeal lay ahead. But he calculated swiftly, saw that in two days hence, the prison launch would arrive up from Pascagoula, and he could forage for that amount of time at least, and emerge then, with a report and a future.
All that changed in a second.
That second came as the Whipping House itself ignited from within. The fire ate it with a vengeance. He could see it glow, smoke, throw spark and gas, and then almost explode, as flames reached the old wood roof and began to eat with a pig's gusto. In seconds the building was engaged totally, and seconds after that, one half of it collapsed in upon itself, throwing up a blast of dust and spark.
Then his eyes traveled to the other end of the house, and he saw a fellow coming out, carrying a man.
This was the first of them he had seen. He saw and read cowboy, for the man was sheathed in a duster and had a ten-gallon hat on, and had a cowboy's leanness and sinewy grit.
Bigboy tried to figure it out: Cowboy. Posse. Outriders. It had not occurred to him till that moment to contemplate his antagonists. That would come later; now was merely to survive. It amazed him nonetheless that this fellow was not law enforcement by uniform and not some kind of rogue Negro; he was just a goddamned cowboy from the last century or from the pictures, in on a night of helling and town-busting.
Then Bigboy realized who it was this cowboy carried. It was dead old Fish. He'd gone in and carried out Fish. That's when he knew who it had to be.
It was Bogart.
Bigboy had a moment of stupefaction. His lungs dried up even as his heart began to pound. He settled back, feeling extreme displeasure rocket through his body, as well as fear. His knees began to tremble, and his hands followed. He more or less fell apart, gagging on this reality, chewing it over for a few seconds.
How?
How the hell?
How on God's earth?
He searched his memory and again saw the man swallowed by the black river, sliding downward beneath its moon-riddled surface, trailing a wake of bubbles. No one ever comes back from that one.
Was he a ghost? Was he a conjurer's trick? Was he an illusion? Was Bigboy losing his mind? But Bigboy didn't have the kind of mind one can lose; it was too obdurate, too anchored in the realistic to be delicate enough to break free and float toward madness.
Then Bigboy realized he'd made a tremendous discovery. For if he had come across Bogart of a sudden face- to-face, he would have staggered into shock and the man could have dealt him a fatal blow while he stood there knock-kneed, sucking wind. But now he knew: Bogart was back again, somehow, and worrying about how or why had no point on this fiery evening.
It occurred to Bigboy that he would kill him again tonight. This time he would kill him right and proper and completely. He tried to think where such a thing could happen, where he would catch the man unexpected, and kill him with his whip. He would whip him to death as he had so many others, for that is what he was the best at. He did not want to fight him again with fists; the man was a hellion. The whip would be excellent: take his skin, take his will, take his eyes, take his hands, make him perish in pain so penetrating and absolute you beg for death, even when it's a long way off.
Then he understood what must happen and where he must go.
He turned and slid off into the piney woods, almost happy.
THE shots awakened Warden.
He jacked up in bed, hearing them crash all about. The flare of burning fires dappled his far wall, as a flame- orange glow suffused the room through the windows.
His first reaction was the phone, the only one to the outside. He could call Jackson, they could radio the nearest state police barracks in Hattiesburg and in… But the phone was dead.
Then he felt the presence in the room.
He was not alone.
The other sat facing him in the dark.
'Hello, Cleon,' came a voice from across the years.
'Davis! Davis, damn your soul!'
'I have come home.'
'What are you doing? What is this monstrosity? What is happening?'
He saw his brother had a revolver, and his hand slid to his own under the pillow.
'Why, I've come back to destroy the plantation, every Negro's dream.
I've even managed to cajole some white boys into doing the dirty work for me.'
'You are insane.'
'Quite possibly. But insanity has its uses. It enabled me to succeed in a far-reaching plan and to accomplish the impossible. Remember, Cleon, how you used to humiliate the little pale nigger boy who was your brother? And now he's here with an army of gunslingers for a night of fire and brimstone.'
'You were not a Negro, not ever. Were you a Negro, none of this need have happened, for you would have known your place and accepted it. You were mixed! We can have no mixing of the races, for that is the source of all evil and the end of us all, white people and Negro people.'
'My, how you do go on.'
'You are the worst of us. You are a murderer. Whatever you became it is because of Father. You owe all to him. Yet you killed him.'
'I did, and would again. He killed my mother.'
