drinking pretty good, that restless weather all that week before the storm had riled up everybody's nerves the way it will, and the nigra in the kitchen fixing supper heard everything they said about the Injun girl that Waller had found hanging in the boat shed. Hannah was upset and she told Cox, The least thing you could do is bury her. Cox said, That squaw ain't my business. Said if Hannah wanted her buried so damn bad, then go bury her herself or let the nigger do it.
'That's me,' Little Joe said. Again I seen something in his eye I didn't care for.
'This ain't no joke,' I warned.
'Nosuh, it ain't.'
Hannah was never one to hold her fire, so she come right out with something about Cox's manlihood he didn't care for, and he called her by some very ugly name. The nigra allowed as how he always liked Miss Hannah, always respected her real good-he said that twice, make sure we heard it-so he dast not repeat the dirty name Mist' Cox called her, but it was that foul word got her old man into it. Green Waller told Cox that was no way to talk to a lady, and Cox said, I ain't talking to no lady, unless you mean this fat lady out of the circus. And Waller said, White trash like you wouldn't know a lady if she come from church to help your mother off the whorehouse floor. And Hannah screeched at her old man to shut his drunken mouth, cause she knew loose talk about Cox's mother was a bad mistake. White trash has their honor, too, and loves their mothers good as anybody.
Cox said, That done it, and hauled out a pistol. Waller was scared but wouldn't quit, so he just cackled. He was crazy with love for that big woman, you know, and showing off for her, letting her know he weren't some drunken hog thief, the way Watson said. He pointed right at his own heart, said, Are you skunk enough to shoot a old man twice your age?
Maybe Old Green had Cox figured for another Dutchy Melvin, dangerous talker with his heart in the right place. Hannah Smith didn't make no such mistake. She's fighting to get up out of her chair, to get between them, she is hollering, Don't pay no attention to that drunk old idjit! Little Joe claimed he come in from the kitchen, said, Nemmine, Mist' Leslie, he just foolin. But Cox had more excuse already than his kind ever needs, and he drew down on Waller. Lined him up real careful, being so drunk, arm wobbling, you know-Sit still, you sonofabitch, is what he told him.
Waller's still cackling, but he seen the muzzle, and that cackle's starting to go high, more like a rooster. His hands are coming up real slow so as not to flare the man behind that pistol, cause it's high time to get serious, the fun is over.
Ever hear a gun go off in a small room? The nigra thought the roof fell in. They all set there a minute in the crash and echo, staring at Waller, and him looking back, kind of puzzled, trying to cackle like it all must be a joke but spitting up a lot of fizz and blood.
'Well, hell,' Old Man Green Waller whispered in the echo. He looked kind of sheepish. And them were his last words, though Hannah shook him. The nigra backing up into the kitchen was pretty sure he seen God's light die out in Waller's eyes.
And Hannah whispered, 'Oh, dear Jesus, Green, won't you never learn? Oh Christamighty, Green.'
Hannah barged out of her chair and waddled to the kitchen, from where there come a howl of purely woe. She screeched at Cox for a yeller-bellied dog, and Cox grabbed up his gun and took out after her, never thought to duck till the split second before he went through the kitchen door. That flinch saved his life, cause Hannah Smith damn near beheaded him. She split the pine frame with her big two-bladed ax, which she always kept behind the kitchen door. She took a bullet in the shoulder, dropped the ax, then headed for the stairs, hunting a weapon, cause she had no chance of escape across the yard.
When Cox picked himself up off the kitchen floor, he pointed his gun at Little Joe, dead furious the nigra had not warned him. Said, Don't you move, boy, I got business with you.
Miss Hannah were so cumbersome that Cox caught up with her at the first landing. He give her room, knowing how strong she was, he stood a step below while they got their breath. Sounded like they was snarling, Little Joe said. Hannah weren't the kind to beg for mercy, and knew she wouldn't get none if she did. So Little Joe claimed he tried again, he said, Mist' Leslie-, and Miss Hannah screeched, Get away while you got the chance, boy, cause he'll kill you!
At the first shot, the nigra run outside, he was past the cistern by the time the shooting ended. He hadn't took no side in the argument, he was just scared that Leslie Cox aimed to murder any witnesses, settle Watson's payroll once and for all. He heard a shout and then some kind of crash. Then Cox was hollering, telling him to get his black ass up the stairs, give him a hand with this here sea sow, that's what he called her.
Cox shot poorly, being drunk, and sure enough, she were bleeding like a sow by the time he finished her. She went close on to three hundred pound, so he couldn't work her carcass down that narrow stair, and he got sniggering so hard with nerves that he fell down the whole flight and hurt his shoulder, which was when he commenced to holler for the nigra.
By now Little Joe was hid back in the mangrove, wouldn't come out when the man hollered, so Cox yells out the window he won't hurt him, he just needs a hand, and if the nigra don't come out, why, he's going in there after him, shoot him in the belly, leave him right there for the gators or panthers or bears or snakes, whichever was hungriest and got to him the first. Had big crocs up them southern rivers, too, least back in them days, but maybe Cox never knew that or forgot to mention it.
The nigra is so scared that his brain quits on him, I guess, cause after a while, he decides he will come out. Watson's skiff is tied up in the mangroves down below the house, but he can't reach that skiff without crossing the clearing. He knows Cox needs him, for a while, at least, and playing along is his one chance to reach that skiff-that's what he told us, and I don't believe a nigra would know how to make that up. So he waits a little for Cox to simmer down, and then he comes out, asking for mercy when Cox raises up the gun. But Cox just marches him into the house, hands him a gun, makes him shoot into both bodies. Says, Now you're in it right along with me.
Only a nigra would know, I reckon, why he never put his bullet into Cox instead. Probably Cox had him covered the whole time, and anyway, shooting a white man just ain't a thing your average nigra thinks to do, leastways back then. And if he shook that day holding a pistol like he shook at Pavilion Key, he wouldn't have hit a lean feller like Cox on the first ten tries.
So then Cox tells him he's successory to the crime, and will hang for murder if he ever breathes one word about it.
Well, they drug poor Hannah down the stairs and out into the yard, got blood on everything. We'll have to gut her out, Cox said, so she don't gas up. They weighted her with pig iron, done the same for Waller, and rolled 'em both into the river, but they don't do nothing with that Injun girl that's hanging in the shed. Cox went right on acting like she wasn't there.
Cox tells the nigra to go mop that blood that's nastying up the house, 'get everything tidied up real nice for Miss Edna.' Cox is in a high state of excitement, but he has to laugh when he says this, he's putting down a lot of shine. Before Little Joe can find the mop, Cox waves his gun and pushes Waller's glass at him. Don't let's go wasting that good likker, boy! Tells him they're in this thing together so might's well be friendly, tells him to set down and drink with him, try out some of his nigger conversation. Seems like these two knowed each other someplace, but the nigra wouldn't say how come, least not to me.
Not that they talk. They sit there drunk and getting drunker, Cox's gun square on the table. Little Joe's not only scared to be setting at a table with a white man, he's scared that Cox will blow his head off any minute. He is feeling dizzy. Maybe Cox has forgot about the skiff, maybe he aims to take care of his black sidekick soon's he gets his breath. His one chance is that Leslie Cox don't want to be alone there with his dead, knowing he is bound for Hell already. So them two set there getting drunk and looking at flies on the walls while they think over the day's work. Finally Cox informs the nigra that Mister Watson wants Dutchy Melvin dead. Once that is taken care of, Les Cox says, everything is going to be just dandy.
Pretty soon the nigra slips back to the woods and don't come out again till two days later. Cox is wandering around the yard, yelling and cursing. This was October the 13th, a few days before the hurricane. Cox has had no sleep, and his nerves are shaky. He swears he won't hurt Little Joe if Little Joe will tell Mister Watson how Les Cox were not at fault, tell him how them two drunken old fools went after Les for no damned reason-look at that there ax mark on the door!-how they give him no choice but to shoot in self-defense. And if Mister Watson was to ask why they sunk them bodies, why, heck, they done that so nobody wouldn't come snooping around to bother Mister Watson with no stupid questions.
Little Joe was surprised to see Les Cox so skittish. He doubted Mister Watson would believe that story, but he
