hideous and black, with its hand extended. He eased his arm from around the woman and disappeared silently into the woods. She, as soon as she turned her eyes, fled screaming down the highway. The gorilla stood as though surprised and presently its arm fell to its side. It sat down on the rock where they had been sitting and stared over the valley at the uneven skyline of the city.
CHAPTER 13
On his second night out, working with his hired Prophet and the Holy Church of Christ Without Christ, Hoover Shoats made fifteen dollars and thirty-five cents clear. The Prophet got three dollars an evening for his services and the use of his car. His name was Solace Lay field; he had consumption and a wife and six children and being a Prophet was as much work as he wanted to do. It never occurred to him that it might be a dangerous job. The second night out, he failed to observe a high rat-colored car parked about a half-block away and a white face inside it, watching him with the idnd of intensity that means something is going to happen no matter what is done to keep it from happening.
The face watched him for almost an hour while he performed on the nose of his car every time Hoover Shoats raised his hand with two fingers pointed. When the last showing of the movie was over and there were no more people to attract, Hoover paid him and the two of them got in his car and drove off. They drove about ten blocks to where Hoover lived; the car stopped and Hoover jumped out, calling, “See you tomorrow night, friend”; then he went inside a dark doorway and Solace Layfield drove on. A half-block behind him the other rat-colored car was following steadily. The driver was Hazel Motes.
Both cars increased their speed and in a few minutes they were heading rapidly toward the outskirts of town. The first car cut off onto a lonesome road where the trees were hung over with moss and the only light came like stiff antennae from the two cars. Haze gradually shortened the distance between them and then, grinding his motor suddenly, he shot ahead and rammed the back end of the other car. Both cars came to a stop.
Haze backed the Essex a little way down the road, while the other Prophet got out of his car and stood squinting in the glare from Haze’s lights. After a second, he came up to the window of the Essex and looked in. There was no sound but from crickets and tree frogs. “What you want?” he said in a nervous voice. Haze didn’t answer, he only looked at him, and in a second the man’s jaw slackened and he seemed to perceive the resemblance in their clothes and possibly in their faces. “What you want?” he said in a higher voice. “I ain’t done nothing to you.”
Haze ground the motor of the Essex again and shot forward. This time he rammed the other car at such an angle that it rolled to the side of the road and over into the ditch.
The man got up off the ground where he had been thrown and ran back to the window of the Essex. He stood about four feet away, looking in.
“What you keep a thing like that on the road for?” Haze said.
“It ain’t nothing wrong with that car,” the man said. “Howcome you knockt it in the ditch?”
“Take off that hat,” Haze said.
“Listenere,” the man said, beginning to cough, “what you want? Quit just looking at me. Say what you want.”
“You ain’t true,” Haze said. “What do you get up on top of a car and say you don’t believe in what you do believe in for?”
“Whatsit to you?” the man wheezed. “Whatsit to you what I do?”
“What do you do it for?” Haze said. “That’s what I asked you.”
“A man has to look out for hisself,” the other Prophet said.
“You ain’t true,” Haze said. “You believe in Jesus.”
“Whatsit to you?” the man said. “What you knockt my car off the road for?”
“Take off that hat and that suit,” Haze said.
“Listenere,” the man said, “I ain’t trying to mock you. He bought me thisyer suit. I thrown my othern away.”
Haze reached out and brushed the man’s white hat off. “And take off that suit,” he said.
The man began to sidle off, out into the middle of the road.
“Take off that suit/’ Haze shouted and started the car forward after him. Solace began to lope down the road, taking off his coat as he went. “Take it all off,” Haze yelled, with his face close to the windshield.
The Prophet began to run in earnest. He tore off his shirt and unbuckled his belt and ran out of his trousers. He began grabbing for his feet as if he would take off his shoes too, but before he could get at them, the Essex knocked him flat and ran over him. Haze drove about twenty feet and stopped the car and then began to back it. He backed it over the body and then stopped and got out. The Essex stood half over the other Prophet as if it were pleased to guard what it had finally brought down. The man didn’t look so much like Haze, lying on the ground on his face without his hat or suit on. A lot of blood was coming out of him and forming a puddle around his head. He was motionless all but for one finger that moved up and down in front of his face as if he were marking time with it. Haze poked his toe in his side and he wheezed for a second and then was quiet. “Two things I can’t stand,” Haze said, “—a man that ain’t true and one that mocks what is. You shouldn’t ever have tampered with me if you didn’t want what you got.”
The man was trying to say something but he was only wheezing. Haze squatted down by his face to listen. “Give my mother a lot of trouble,” he said through a kind of bubbling in his throat. “Never giver no rest. Stole theter car. Never told the truth to my daddy or give Henry what, never give him…”
“You shut up,” Haze said, leaning his head closer to hear the confession.
“Told where his still was and got five dollars for it,” the man gasped.
“You shut up now,” Haze said.
“Jesus…” the man said.
“Shut up like I told you to now,” Haze said.
