'It ain't really that,' I said. 'I reckon I'm just kind of tired of doing things that everybody knows I'm doing, things they really want and expect me to do, and having to take all the blame for it.'
She understood; she said she did, anyway. She put her arms around me and held me for a little while, and we talked a couple of minutes about what would have to be done. Then I left because I had a pretty full night's work ahead of me.
I had Uncle John drive up in the back country, about three miles behind the farm. We unloaded Tom's body there, in the edge of some trees, and Uncle John and I took such shelter as we could a few feet away.
He sat down at the base of a tree, his legs being too wobbly to hold him up any longer. I hunkered down a few feet away from him, and broke open the barrel of the shotgun. It looked fairly clean, clean enough to be safe, anyways. I blew through it a couple of times to make sure, and then I loaded it with the shells I'd taken from Tom's pockets.
Uncle John watched me, all the begging and praying in the world in his eyes. I relatched the barrel, and sighted along it, and he began to cry again. I frowned at him, feeling pretty fretted.
'Now, what you want to carry on like that for?' I said. 'You knew what I was goin' to have to do right along.'
'No, s-suh, I believe you, Mistah Nick. You different f'm other white folks. I believe every word you say.'
'Well, now, I think you're lyin', Uncle John,' I said, 'an' I'm sorry to hear you. Because it's right in the Bible that lyin's a sin.'
'It's a sin to kill folks, too, Mistah Nick. Worse sin than lyin'. Y-You-you-'
'I'll tell you somethin' Uncle John,' I said. 'I'll tell you something, and I hope it'll be a comfort to you. Each man kills the thing he loves.'
'Y-You don't love me, Mistah Nick…'
I told him he was god-danged right about that, a thousand per cent right. What I loved was myself, and I was willing to do anything I god-dang had to to go on lying and cheating and drinking whiskey and screwing women and going to church on Sunday with all the other respectable people.
'I'll tell you something else,' I said, 'and it makes a shit-pot-ful more sense than most of the goddam scripture I've read. Better the blind man, Uncle John; better the blind man who pisses through a window than the prankster who leads him thereto. You know who the prankster is, Uncle John? Why, it's goddam near everybody, every son-of-a-bitch who turns his head when the crap flies, every bastard who sits on his dong with one thumb in his ass and the other in his mouth and hopes that nothing will happen to him, every whoremonger who thinks that piss will turn into lemonade, every mother-lover supposedly made in God's image, which makes me think I'd hate like hell to meet him on a dark night. Even you, particularly you, Uncle John; people who go around sniffing crap with their mouth open, and acting surprised as hell when someone kicks a turd in it. Yeah, you can't help bein' what you are, jus' a pore ol' black man. That's what you say, Uncle John, and do you know what I say? I say screw you. I say you can't help being what you are, and I can't help being what I am, and you goddam well know what I am and have to be. You goddam well know you've got no friends among the whites. You goddam well ought to know that you're not going to have any because you stink Uncle John, and you go around begging to get screwed and how the hell can anyone have a friend like that?'
I gave him both barrels of the shotgun.
It danged near cut him in two.
15
What I wanted things to look like was that Uncle John had shot Tom with his own gun and then Tom had got the gun away from him and shot Uncle John. Or vice versa. Anyways, when I got to thinking about it afterward, it seemed to me that people weren't going to see it that way at all. Which meant that they were apt to start looking for the real killer. And for a spell there, I was pretty worried. But I didn't need to be. As plumb crazy as it was, with Uncle John getting killed almost two days after Tom and with both of 'em obviously dying almost the instant they was shot, it turned out no one thought anything of it. They didn't wonder at all about how one dead man could've killed another.
Of course, both bodies were wet and muddied up, so you couldn't say offhand just when they'd died; and we just ain't equipped to do a lot of scientific examination and investigation here in Potts County. If things look a certain way, folks usually figure that's the way they are. And if they'd had a mind to kick up a fuss about anyone, it wouldn't be Tom Hauck or Uncle John.
The plain fact was that no one much gave a good god-dang about either one of 'em. It was a plain case of good riddance to bad rubbish as far as Tom was concerned; and who cared about one colored fella more or less, unless it was some other colored folks, and who cared if they did care?
But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself a little…
I dropped the shotgun between Tom and Uncle John. Then, leaving John's horse and wagon where they were, I plodded back across country to the Hauck farm.
It was pretty late by that time, or pretty early I should say. An hour or so short of dawn. I hitched up, without going to the house, and headed for town.
The livery stable door was open, the hostler snoring like a buzz saw up in the hayloft. A lantern stood burning in a tub of sand, casting a flickering light along the row of stalls. I put up the horse and buggy without hardly a sound, and the hostler went on snoring. And I went out into the dark again, the dark and the rain.
There wasn't no one on the street, of course. Even without the rain, no one would have been out at that hour. I got to the courthouse, took off my boots and sneaked upstairs to bed.
The dry-warm felt awful good after them wet clothes, and I guess I was plumb wore out. Because I went to sleep right away, instead of tossing around fifteen, twenty minutes like I usually do.
Then, just about the time my head touched the pillow it seemed like, Myra started yelling and shaking me.
'Nick! Nick Corey, you get up from there! My goodness, do you want to sleep all night and all day, too?'
'Why not?' I mumbled, hanging on to the pillows. 'Sounds like a danged good idea.'
'I said to
I let her get me up, and I talked to Rose for a minute or two. I said I was sorry to hear that Tom wasn't home yet, and I'd probably get out and take a look around for him, even if I wasn't sure that the sun would stay out and it wouldn't start raining again.
'I'll prob'ly do it, Rose,' I said, 'so don't you worry none. I reckon I'll prob'ly start lookin' for him today, even if it does start raining again and I spoil my clothes like I did last night, not to mention catchin' an awful cold. Or if I don't get out today, I'll sure do it tomorrow.'
I hung up the phone and turned around.
Myra was frowning at me, tight-mouthed and disgusted-looking. She pointed to the table and told me to sit down, for pity's sake.
'Just eat your breakfast and get out of here! Start doing your job, for a change!'
'Me?' I said. 'I do my job all the time.'
'
'Well, that's my job,' I said. 'Not doing nothing, I mean. That's why for people elect me.'
She whirled around so fast her skirts spun, and went out into the kitchen. I sat down at the table. I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost twelve o'clock, practically dinner time, so I didn't eat much except some eggs and ham and grits and gravy and seven or eight biscuits, and a bitty bowl of peaches and cream.
I was having a third cup of coffee when Myra came back in. She began to snatch up the dishes, muttering to herself, and I asked her if they was something the matter.
