Flags in the Dust (30 page)

But at supper the storm brewed and burst again. Behind the swing door of the butler’s pantry Simon could hear them and young Bayard too, trying to shout them down. “Let up, let up,” he howled, “for God’s sake. I can’t hear myself chew, even.”

“And you’re another one,” Miss Jenny turned promptly on him. “You’re just as trying as he is. You and your stiff-necked, sullen ways. Helling around the country in that car just because you think there may be somebody who cares a whoop whether or not you break your worthless neck, and then coming
into the supper table smelling like a stable-hand! Just because you went to a war. Do you think you’re the only person in the world that ever went to a war? Do you reckon that when my Bayard came back from The War, he made a nuisance of himself to everybody that had to live with him? But he was a gentleman: he raised the devil like a gentleman, not like you Mississippi country people. Clod-hoppers. Look what he did with just a horse,” she added. “He didn’t need any flying machine.”

“Look at the little two-bit war he went to,” young Bayard rejoined, “a war that was so sorry that grandfather wouldn’t even stay up there in Virginia where it was.”

“And nobody wanted him at it,” Miss Jenny retorted. “A man that would get mad just because his men deposed him and elected a better colonel in his place. Got mad and came back to the country to lead a bunch of red-neck brigands.”

“Little two-bit war,” young Bayard repeated. “And on a horse. Anybody can go to a war on a horse. No chance for him to do anything much.”

“At least he got himself decently killed,” Miss Jenny snapped. “He did more with a horse than you could do with that aeroplane.”

“Sho,” Simon breathed against the pantry door. “Aint dey gwine it? Takes white folks to sho’ ’nough quoil.” And so it surged and ebbed through the succeeding days; wore itself out, then surged again when old Bayard returned home with another application of salve. But by this time Simon was having troubles of his own, troubles which he finally consulted old Bayard about one afternoon. Young Bayard was laid up in bed with his crushed ribs, with Miss Jenny mothering him with savage and cherishing affection, and Miss Benbow to visit with him and read aloud to him; and Simon came into his own again. The tophat and the duster came down from the nail,
and old Bayard’s cigars depleted daily by one, and the fat matched horses spent their accumulated laziness between home and the bank, before which Simon swung them to a halt each afternoon as of old, with his clamped cigar and smartly-furled whip and all the theatrics of the fine moment. “De ottomobile,” Simon philosophised, “is all right fer pleasure en excitement, but fer de genu-wine gen’lemun tone, dey aint but one thing: dat’s hosses.”

Thus Simon’s opportunity came ready to his hand, and once they were clear of town and the team had settled into its gait, he took advantage of it.

“Well, Cunnel,” he began, “looks lak me en you’s got to make some financial ’rangements.”

“What?” Old Bayard brought his attention back from where it wandered about the familiar planted fields and blue shining hills beyond.

“I says, it looks lak me en you’s got to arrange erbout a little cash money.”

“Much obliged, Simon,” old Bayard answered, “but I dont need any money right now. Much obliged, though.”

Simon laughed heartily. “I declare, Cunnel, you sho’ is comical. Rich man lak you needin’ money!” Again he laughed, with unctuous and abortive heartiness. “Yes, suh, you sho’ is comical.” Then he ceased laughing and became engrossed with the horses for a moment. Twins they were: Roosevelt and Taft, with sleek hides and broad, comfortable buttocks. “You, Taf’, lean on dat collar! Laziness gwine go in on you someday, en kill you, sho’.” Old Bayard sat watching his apelike head and the swaggering tilt of the tophat. Simon turned his wizened, plausible face over his shoulder again. “But sho’ ’nough, now, we is got to quiet dem niggers somehow.”

“What have they done? Cant they find anybody to take their money?”

“Well, suh, hit’s lak dis,” Simon explained. “Hit’s kind of all ’round cu’i’s. You see, dey been collectin’ buildin’ money fer dat church whut burnt down, en ez dey got de money up, dey turnt hit over ter me, whut wid my ’ficial position on de church boa’d en bein’ I wuz a member of de bes’ fambly ’round here. Dat ’uz erbout las’ Chris’mus time, en now dey wants de money back.”

“That’s strange,” old Bayard said.

“Yessuh,” Simon agreed readily. “Hit struck me jes’ ’zackly dat way.”

“Well, if they insist, I reckon you’d better give it back to ’em.”

“Now you’s gittin’ to it.” Simon turned his head again; his manner was confidential, and he exploded his bomb in a hushed melodramatic tone: “De money’s gone.”

“Dammit, I know that,” old Bayard answered, his levity suddenly gone. “Where is it?”

“I went and put it out,” Simon told him, and his tone was still confidential, with a little pained astonishment at the world’s obtuseness. “And now dem niggers ’cusin’ me of steal-in’ it.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you took charge of money belonging to other people, and then went and loaned it to somebody else?”

“You does de same thing ev’y day,” Simon answered. “Aint lendin’ out money yo’ main business?”

Old Bayard snorted violently. “You get that money back and give it to those niggers, or you’ll be in jail, you hear?”

“You talks jes’ lak dem uppity town niggers,” Simon told him in a pained tone. “Dat money done been put out, now,” he reminded his patron.

“Get it back. Haven’t you got collateral for it?”

“Is I got which?”

“Something worth the money, to keep until the money is paid back.”

“Yessuh, I got dat.” Simon chuckled again, unctuously, a satyrish chuckle rich with complacent innuendo. “Yessuh, I got dat, all right. Only I never heard hit called collateral befo’. Naw, suh, not dat.”

“Did you give that money to some nigger wench?” old Bayard demanded.

“Well, suh, hit’s lak dis——” Simon began, but the other interrupted him.

“Ah, the devil. And now you expect me to pay it back, do you? How much is it?”

“I dont rightly ricollick. Dem niggers claims hit wuz sevumty er ninety dollars er somethin’. But dont you pay ’um no mind; you jes’ give ’um whut ever you think is right: dey’ll take it.”

“I’m damned if I will. They can take it out of your worthless hide, or send you to jail—whichever they want to, but I’m damned if I’ll pay one cent of it.”

“Now, Cunnel,” Simon said, “you aint gwine let dem town niggers ’cuse a member of yo’ fambly of stealin’, is you?”

“Drive on!” old Bayard shouted. Simon turned on the seat and clucked to the horses and drove on, his cigar tilted toward his hatbrim, his elbows out and the whip caught smartly back in his hand, glancing now and then at the field niggers laboring among the cotton rows with tolerant and easy scorn.

Old man Falls replaced the cap on his tin of salve, wiped the tin carefully with the bit of rag, then knelt on the cold hearth and held a match to the rag.

“I reckon them doctors air still a-tellin’ you hit’s gwine to kill you, aint they?” he said.

Old Bayard propped his feet against the hearth, cupping a
match to his cigar, cupping two tiny matchflames in his eyes. He flung the match away and grunted.

Old man Falls watched the rag take fire sluggishly, with a pungent pencil of yellowish smoke that broke curling in the still air. “Ever’ now and then a feller has to walk up and spit in deestruction’s face, sort of, fer his own good. He has to kind of put a aidge on hisself, like he’d hold his axe to the grindstone,” he said, squatting before the pungent curling of the smoke as though in a pagan ritual in miniature. “Ef a feller’ll show his face to deestruction ever’ now and then, deestruction’ll leave ’im be ’twell his time comes. Deestruction likes to take a feller in the back.”

“What?” old Bayard said.

Old man Falls rose and dusted his knees carefully.

“Deestruction’s like ary other coward,” he roared. “Hit wont strike a feller that’s a-lookin’ hit in the eye lessen he pushes hit too clost. Your paw knowed that. Stood in the do’ of that sto’ the day them two cyarpet-baggers brung them niggers in to vote ’em that day in ’72. Stood thar in his prince albert coat and beaver hat, with his arms folded, when ever’body else had left, and watched them two Missouri fellers herdin’ them niggers up the road to’ds the sto’; stood right in the middle of the do’ while them two cyarpet-baggers begun backin’ off with their hands in their pockets until they was clar of the niggers, and cussed him. And him standin’ thar jest like this.” He crossed his arms on his breast, his hands in sight, and for a moment old Bayard saw, as through a cloudy glass, that arrogant and familiar shape which the old man in shabby overalls had contrived in some way to immolate and preserve in the vacuum of his own abnegated self.

“Then, when they was gone on back down the road, Cunnel reached around inside the do’ and taken out the ballot box and sot hit between his feet.

“ ‘You niggers come hyer to vote, did you?’ he says. ‘All right, come up hyer and vote.’

“When they had broke and scattered he let off that ’ere dang der’nger over their haids a couple of times, then he loaded hit agin and marched down the road to Miz Winterbottom’s, whar them two fellers boa’ded.

“ ‘Madam,’ he says, liftin’ his beaver, ‘I have a small matter of business to discuss with yo’ lodgers. Permit me,’ he says, and he put his hat back on and marched up the stairs steady as a parade, with Miz Winterbottom gapin’ after him with her mouth open. He walked right into the room whar they was a-settin’ behind a table facin’ the do’, with their pistols layin’ on the table.

“When us boys outside heard the three shots we run in. Thar wuz Miz Winterbottom standin’ thar, a-gapin’ up the stairs, and in a minute hyer comes Cunnel with his hat cocked over his eye, marchin’ down steady as a co’t jury, breshin’ the front of his coat with his hank’cher. And us standin’ thar, a-watchin’ him. He stopped in front of Miz Winterbottom and lifted his hat agin.

“ ‘Madam,’ he says, ‘I was fo’ced to muss up yo’ guest-room right considerable. Pray accept my apologies, and have yo’ nigger clean it up and send the bill to me. My apologies agin, madam, fer havin’ been put to the necessity of exterminatin’ vermin on yo’ premises. Gentlemen,’ he says to us, ‘good mawnin’. And he cocked that ’ere beaver on his head and walked out.

“And, Bayard,” old man Falls said, “I sort of envied them two nawthuners, be damned ef I didn’t. A feller kin take a wife and live with her fer a long time, but after all they aint no kin. But the feller that brings you into the world or sends you outen hit.……”

——

Lurking behind the pantry door Simon could hear the steady storming of Miss Jenny’s and old Bayard’s voices; later when they had removed to the office and Elnora and Caspey and Isom sat about the table in the kitchen waiting for him, the concussion of Miss Jenny’s raging and old Bayard’s rocklike stubbornness came in muffled surges, as of far away surf.

“Whut dey quoilin’ erbout now?” Caspey asked. “Is you been and done somethin’?” he demanded of his nephew.

Isom rolled his eyes quietly above his steady jaws. “Naw, suh,” he mumbled. “I aint done nothin’.”

“Seems like dey’d git wo’ out, after a while. Whut’s pappy doin’, Elnora?”

“Up dar in de hall, listenin’. Go tell ’im to come on and git his supper, so I kin git done, Isom.”

Isom slid from his chair, still chewing, and left the kitchen. The steady raging of the two voices increased; where the shapeless figure of his grandfather stood like a disreputable and ancient bird in the dark hallway Isom could distinguish words:….… poison.…… blood.…… think you can cut your head off and cure it? ….… fool put it on your foot, but.…… face, head.…… dead and good riddance.…… fool of you dying because of your own bullheaded folly.…… you first lying on your back, though.……

“You and that damn doctor are going to worry me to death.” Old Bayard’s voice drowned the other temporarily. “Will Falls wont have a chance to kill me. I cant sit in my chair in town without that damn squirt sidling around me and looking disappointed because I’m still alive on my feet. And when I come home to get away from him, you cant even let me eat supper in peace. Have to show me a lot of damn colored pictures of what some fool thinks a man’s insides look like.”

“Who gwine die, pappy?” Isom whispered.

Simon turned his head. “Whut you hangin’ eround here fer, boy? Go’n back to dat kitchen, whar you belongs.”

“Supper waitin’,” Isom said. “Who dyin’, pappy?”

“Aint nobody dyin’. Does anybody soun’ dead? You git on outen de house, now.”

Together they returned down the hall and entered the kitchen. Behind them the voices raged and stormed, blurred a little by walls, but dominant and unequivocal.

“Whut dey fightin’ erbout, now?” Caspey, chewing, asked.

“Dat’s white folks’ bizness,” Simon told him. “You tend to yo’n, and dey’ll git erlong all right.” He sat down and Elnora rose and filled a cup from the coffee pot on the stove, and brought it to him. “White folks got dey troubles same as niggers is. Gimme dat dish o’ meat, boy.”

In the house the storm ran its nightly course, ceased as though by mutual consent, both parties still firmly entrenched; resumed at the supper table the next evening. And so on, day after day, until the second week in July and six days after young Bayard had been fetched home with his chest crushed, Miss Jenny and old Bayard and Dr Alford went to Memphis to consult a well known authority on blood and glandular diseases with whom Dr Alford, with some difficulty, had made a formal engagement. Young Bayard lay upstairs in his cast, but Narcissa Benbow had promised to come out and keep him company during the day.

Between the two of them they got old Bayard on the early train, still protesting profanely like a stubborn and bewildered ox. There were others who knew them in the car and who remarked Dr Alford’s juxtaposition and became curious and solicitous. Old Bayard took these opportunities to assert himself again, with violent rumblings which Miss Jenny ignored.

They took him, like a sullen small boy, to the clinic where
the specialist was to meet them, and in a room resembling an easy and informal summer hotel lobby they sat among quiet, waiting people talking in whispers, and an untidy clutter of papers and magazines, waiting for the specialist to arrive. They waited a long time. Meanwhile Dr Alford from time to time assaulted the impregnable affability of the woman at the switchboard, was repulsed and returned and sat stiffly beside his patient, aware that with every minute he was losing ground in Miss Jenny’s opinion of him. Old Bayard was cowed too, by now, though occasionally he rumbled hopefully at Miss Jenny. “Oh, stop swearing at me,” she interrupted him at last. “You cant walk out now. Here, here’s the morning paper—take it and be quiet.”