treated you right, now, ain't I? Ain't I always done the very best I could by you?'
'Yes, yes, suh Mistah Nick,' he said eagerly, 'an' I done right by you, suh, ain't I, Mistah Nick? Now, ain't that the truth, suh? Ain't I been a plumb good nigger for you?'
'Well, sir,' I said, 'I reckon I could call you that, all right.'
'Yes, suh, Mistah Nick. Any of them bad niggers startin' trouble, I always comes an' tells you, suh. Any of 'em steal a chicken or shoot crap or get drunk or all 'em other things bad niggers do, I always comes right an' reports it to you, now don't I, suh?'
'Well, sir,' I said. 'I reckon you're right about that, too, and I ain't forgettin' it, Uncle John. But just what are you getting at anyways?'
He gulped and choked, swallowing a sob. 'Mistah Nick, I won't say nothin' about-'bout what happen tonight. Hones', Mistah Nick, I won't say nothin' to no one. You just let me go an'-an'-'
'Why, sure I will,' I said. 'Ain't keeping you from leaving now, am I?'
'Y-You really means it, Mistah Nick? You really ain't mad at me none?! Can go home right now, an' just keep my big ol' mouth shut forevah an' evah?'
I told him that of course he could leave. But I'd feel a lot better if he first told me how he happened to be here with Tom Hauck's body.
'You don't do that, I might be kind of suspicious of you. I might figure you'd done something bad and was trying to hide it.'
'No, suh, Mistah Nick! Doin' something bad was jus' what I didn't! I try to do good, an' then I get all mixed up, ol' foolish me an'-an'-oh, Mistah Nick!' He covered his face with his hands. 'D-Don't be mad at me, suh. Uncle John, he don't know nothin' at all. He don't h-hear nothin' an' he don't see nothin', an'- an'-please don't kill me, Mistah Nick! Please don't kill ol' John.'
I patted him on the back, letting him cry for a minute. Then I said I knew he hadn't done nothing wrong, so why would I want to do anything bad to him. But I'd sure be obliged if he told me just what had happened.
'Y-You-' He uncovered his face to look at me. 'You really ain't gonna kill me, Mistah Nick? Honest?'
'God-dang it, you callin' me a liar?' I said. 'Now, you just start talkin', and don't you tell me nothing but the truth.'
He told me what had happened, why he had brought Tom Hauck's body back to his farm house.
It stacked up just about the way I thought it would.
He had come across the body early that evening while he was out hunting 'possum, and he'd started to come into town to tell me about it. Then, with so many varmints around, he figured it might be best to bring the body in with him. So he'd loaded it on his old spring wagon, along with the shotgun, and headed for town again.
He was about halfway there when it struck him that it might be a pretty bad idea to show up in town with the remains; in fact, it was a god-danged bad idea to be caught even in the same neighborhood with them. Because a lot of people might figure he had a first-class motive for killing Tom. After all, Tom had given him a hard beating and intended to beat him again if he got within grabbing range. He just couldn't lead a very happy life as long as Tom was around, so it wouldn't be any surprise at all if he killed him. Anyways, Uncle John being a colored fella, he wouldn't get the benefit of any doubts.
Tom Hauck was completely no good, and the community was well shet of him. But they'd still lynch Uncle John. It would sort of be their civic duty, the way they'd see it; part of the process of keeping the colored folks in hand.
Well, so poor old Uncle John had got himself in a pickle. He couldn't take Tom's body into town, or even be seen with it. And Tom being a white man, he couldn't bring himself to just dump the body off in a ditch somewhere. There was only one thing he could do, as he saw it; only one thing that would be acceptable to Tom's white ghost and the All-Knowing God that he had been taught to believe in. He'd just take the dead man back to his own home and leave him there.
'Now, don't that seem fittin', Mistah Nick? You see how I figgered, suh? I reckon now, it sho' wasn't the right thing to do, seem' as how Miz Rose carry on so bad, an'-'
'Well, now, don't you worry none about that at all,' I said. 'Miss Rose was just upset seeing her husband dead, and pretty ugly-dead, at that. It's probably goin' to take her quite a while to get over it, so maybe we'd better move the body somewheres else until then.'
'But-b-but you say I could leave, Mistah Nick. You say I jus' tell you the truth, an'-'
'Yes, sir, that's what we'd better do,' I said. 'So just you hurry up, and turn your wagon back around.'
He stood there, head bowed; his mouth working like he was trying to say something. There was a long roll of thunder, and then a jagged flash of lightning, lighting his face for a moment. And somehow I had to look the other way.
'You hear me, Uncle John?' I said. 'You hear what I tell you to do?'
He hesitated, then sighed and climbed up on the wagon. 'Yes, sub, I hear you, Mistah Nick.'
We drove back to the house. It began to rain while we were loading Tom's body, and I told Uncle John to stand on the porch until I was dressed so that he wouldn't get no wetter than he had to.
'You're probably kind of hungry,' I said. 'You want I should bring you a cup of hot chicory? Maybe a little pone or somethin'?'
'I reckon not, thank you, suh.' He shook his head. 'Miz Rose probably got no fire this time o' night.'
'Well, we'll just build one up,' I said. 'No trouble at all.'
'Thank you, suh, I guess not, Mistah Nick. I-I ain't real hongry.'
I went on in the house and dried off with a towel Rose gave me, and it sure felt good getting back into my clothes. She was pestering me with questions while I dressed: what were we going to do and what was I going to do, and so on. I asked her what she thought; did she reckon she'd ever feel safe with someone knowing what Uncle John knew.
'Well-' She wet her lips, her eyes turned away from mine. 'We can give him some money, can't we? Both of us will. That should, uh, well, he wouldn't want to say anything then, would he?'
'He takes a drink now and then,' I said. 'No tellin' what a fella will do when he gets enough booze in him.'
'But he-'
'And he's a very religious fella. Wouldn't be at all surprised if he figured he ought to pray for us.'
'You can send him away somewhere,' Rose said. 'Put him on a train and send him up north.'
'He can't talk up there? He wouldn't feel more free to do it away from us than he would here?'
I laughed and chucked her under the chin, asking her what she was so squeamish about. 'Here I thought you was a real tough woman. It didn't bother you at all about what happened to Tom.'
'Because I hated the son-of-a-bitch! It's not the same with Uncle John, a poor nigger man who was just trying to do the best he could!'
'Maybe Tom was doing the best he could, too. I wonder if we did any better.'
'But-but, Nick! You, why you know what the bastard was like.'
I said, yeah, I knew, but I'd never heard of anyone killing Tom's wife, and Tom sleeping before and after with the party that did it. Then, I laughed, cutting her off before she could butt in. 'But this is different all right, honey,' I said. 'This you know about before it happens. It ain't something you learn about afterwards, so you can say, well, what can I do about it, and it ain't really my doin'.'
'Nick-' She touched my arm, sort of frightened. 'I'm sorry I lost my head tonight, honey. I guess I can't blame you for trying to hurt me.'
