All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By (29 page)

Tyrone looked at Jackson with new interest. "That would explain some things," he admitted. "I've chased him before, you see, horseback, times when I thought I just might have him. Then he'd disappear, like a fox that knows every bolt-hole and hollow tree on the plantation." He turned thoughtfully to Nhora. "If daddy Hackaliah could just get a good look at him—"

"That's another reason to suspect he's Beau," Nhora said. "He's been careful to avoid anyone who might recognize him."

Tyrone shrugged, unable to make up his mind. "Well, it's a long shot, don't you think? I wouldn't be so quick to believe it; too many questions need to be answered first." He winced and held up his left hand, studied the splinted finger. "How long before it stops throbbing? I can feel it all the way up the back of my neck."

"It'll hurt for a few days, I'm afraid. Try not to use the hand at all. Would you like a sling?"

Tyrone shook his head disdainfully, then smiled at one of the colored maids who had been hanging around the kitchen and sneaking looks at him. "Lillian, I haven't seen you to meeting for about a month now."

"My mama's been visiting from Belzoni, reverend. And you know how she likes the Antioch Baptists."

"I know. Well, come on back and bring your mama too. Maybe we can
persuade
her away from the Baptists."

The women giggled and his smile got bigger, feeding on their admiration. Tyrone had the graceful carriage and sexual self-esteem of a Moorish prince, but he lacked maturity, which tempered his confidence and subtly devalued his poise. He was at home here, but he seemed to glance around too much, as if anticipating a ghost of hostility, whispers of disapproval from dead generations.

"I didn't know you were a preacher," Jackson said.

"Oh, yes. Preacher, school principal, full-time mechanic now that everybody else has gone off to war. Thanks to Boss I graduated from Fisk University up in Nashville. I remember how he come across me when I was just four years old, back when daddy Hackaliah had that big old shady place on the Forked Deer. I had me a handful of manuscript, some book Boss was writin', pages he threw out in the trash. And I was tryin' so hard to puzzle out the words my eyes were bugged.

"'You can't read that, you're too little.'

"I just looked him right straight in the eye. 'I'm goin' to, though,' I said.

"Well, he laughed. Said, 'Listen, my little judge—from then on, that was always his name for me—'you get to where you can read what I wrote there, and by God I'll send you to college.'

"'Course I couldn't accomplish it all by myself, but I'd get people to read me bits and pieces, and I'd work on the little words till they was familiar, then go on to the big words. That was
all
I did. Other kids come around to play, I'd tell them, 'Can't play with none of you now, I'm too busy.' Eighteen months later I sat Boss down, those pages was fallin' apart by then, but I read it all to him. He didn't say nothing, just took a key off his ring, the key to his private library. 'Don't never let me catch you outside loafin' when you can be in my library.' He spent a lot of hours with me there, too. I knew Latin by the time I was ten. No matter that he didn't owe me nothing. He kept his word about the college."

Tyrone shook his head as if he still couldn't believe Boss Bradwin's generosity. "There are days when I'll just be out walkin', all wrapped up in myself, and somethin' steals over me. My skin begins to prickle, I'll look up real sudden expectin' to see him ridin' his horse at me across the fields. But times have changed. Times have changed."

His mood shifted abruptly and there was a look of outrage in his remarkable eyes. Often they were almost colorless, pools of liquid glass, but they were quick to pick up the soft hue of lamplight, the deep color of Nhora's blouse when she stood next to him, the dark or light of his emotions. Such was his intensity and appeal that they were all silent while he brooded. Then Tyrone flexed his left hand carefully, and looked up.

"I hope you plan to stay awhile," he said to Jackson, with the smile of a preacher winning converts. "A few days ago this would have meant a twenty-mile ride to the next-nearest doctor."

"I understood there was a colored doctor in town."

"Old Lamb?" Tyrone looked sad. "He won't be with us much longer."

"Why, what happened?" Nhora asked.

"Just old age. Too many things wrong that can't be fixed. Two weeks ago he took out his teeth and refused to eat. He'll sip a little water, that's all. Nobody can reason with him. He just sits on his front porch in that old cane rocker, day and night, rain or shine, his eyes fixed down the road, like he's waitin' on the Angel of Death."

"That's terrible."

"It may be," Tyrone said thoughtfully. "But when a man feels he's put in his time, and there's nothin' left but to suffer, you can't blame him for wantin' to die." He got down from the stool he'd been sitting on. "Don't suppose I could look in on Champ for a couple of minutes?"

"I'm sure it's all right," Nhora said, then looked to Jackson for confirmation.

"I hope he's asleep, but we could go up."

Jackson had suggested to Nhora that a man be on duty near Champ at all times. Bull Pete was guarding the third-floor hall when they went upstairs. Everything was peaceful, said Bull Pete, smiling like a man who knows how to keep the peace. He bummed a match from Tyrone for his pipe. Aunt Gary Gene, shoeless, was sitting in a chair by the playroom windows. Her eyes were closed and she didn't open them, but she acknowledged their presence by nodding and smiling.

Champ, on his back, breathed through his mouth without distress. His skin was dry. He was drowsy but responsive when Nhora sat down beside him, taking one of his hands in hers. Tyrone stood behind her, but of the light. In this room his force seemed blunted by intimations of trespass. His eyes roved.

"Not too long now," Jackson cautioned them.

"Hello, Champ."

"Nhora. What are you crying about?"

"I'm just h-happy you're going to be all right."

"I'll pull through."

"So good to have you home."

"Yeah. Good to be here." He lifted his eyes, straining to see. "Who's that with you?"

Tyrone jittered, perhaps unconsciously, as he looked down at the sick man.

"Champ, it's Judge."

"Who?"

"You know, Tyrone."

"Oh, Tyrone. Haven't heard you called 'Judge' since we were kids."

"Don't know why I said that. Somethin' about this playroom bring it all back to me."

"Did you ever come up here?"

"Pew times, I snuck up when I knew there wouldn't be nobody else around."

"That's right. Clipper caught you once, didn't he?"

"No, I outrun him. I expect he chased me a good two miles, cussin' all the way." Tyrone laughed. "Clipper never liked me much. He was little, but he'd fight."

"He sure would." Blacker memories of Clipper intruded, turning Champ's tentative smile into a grimace.

"How are you, Tyrone?"

"Can't complain. I hear they awarded you the Silver Star. Champ, I just want to let you know we're all real proud."

Champ didn't have anything else to say. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Tyrone looked uncertainly at Jackson, who shrugged.

"I think we should go."

"Couldn't I sit here a little while longer?" Nhora pleaded. "I won't disturb him."

Jackson agreed, and went out with Tyrone.

"That scar," Tyrone said. "They just about cut his head off."

"He was very lucky."

"Sometimes I wonder what it's like, to fight the war. I was set to go the day after Pearl Harbor, only they found scar tissue on my lungs. Scars like Boss had from tuberculosis, which got him discharged from the army. I never knew I was that sick. One winter I had a bad cough that hung on past spring, I was down to skin and bone by the time it wore off. But I wasn't more than a day or two in bed, nobody paid no mind."

They started down the stairs, and Tyrone looked around with satisfaction. "Nhora's fixin' this old place up. She's made plenty of changes around here, this plantation is better run than it ever was with Boss in charge. Would you have a brandy with me, doctor? I could sure do with a brandy night now."

"Thank you," Jackson said, fascinated by Tyrone's unabashed show of proprietorship.

"I'd like for you to see Boss's library. Four thousand books, more or less. He catalogued them all by himself. His papers are there, too, and manuscripts—seldom a day went by Boss didn't write something. Down this hail here."

They paused before a pair of mahogany doors ten feet high. Tyrone produced a single key on a chain.

"This key? It's the same one Boss gave to me a long time ago, when I proved to him I was somebody worth his time. Nhora has the other key. No need to keep the library locked anymore, but it's like a sacred trust to me. Nhora, we been goin' through his papers in our spare time, see what there is might be published. When he died, Boss was working on a biography of General Jo Shelby, and a history of Dasharoons plantation that makes good readin'."

The library was a cramped, dusty, untidy oblong two stories high. Bookshelves and wooden filing cabinets stood everywhere, even in front of the draped windows, but the shelves couldn't contain all the accumulated volumes. They were stacked on the floor like aimless pillars from a ruined culture, piled on and under a big antique writing table; books were asprawl in the seats of two leather reading chairs. Even at high noon only streaks of sunlight would penetrate this monkish stronghold. But the artificial light was good and mellow, and Tyrone turned on a standing fan to circulate the warm air. He left open one of the doors to the hail and took a dark bottle of Napoleon brandy from a liquor cabinet beside the Louis XV table.

"Eighteen ninety-four," he said, "and still goin' strong." The glasses were clean, fragile crystal. Tyrone poured generously from the bottle, which was two-thirds empty. "Boss only touched this when he was ma celebratin' mood," he said. "It's lasted a good many years. But I'm of a mind to believe he wouldn't begrudge us tonight."

He savored the brandy, swallowed, rolled his tongue around inside his mouth. "Most of the time," he said, "I don't have an appetite for liquor. It would make a wrong impression on my flock, don't you see? I tell them prayer will pacify. And that's good advice. But I also recognize that when a man is so wrought up he don't know if he wants to laugh or cry, only strong drink will do."

"Amen," Jackson said with a smile.

Tyrone held up his splinted hand. "I wouldn't have got this if I'd had my mind on what I was doin' tonight. I was broodin' away about poor Nancy. I'm happy Champ's landed home in one piece, but Lord, he's suffered so, with no end to it that I can tell. Such a change come Over him when we talked about Clipper. It happened more than two years ago, but how can any man forget what we all saw that day? My own faith was sorely tested."

"You were there, Tyrone?"

Tyrone nodded. "Standin' at the very back of the chapel. The wedding day was sultry, and overcast. The Blue Ridge mountains were on fire a few miles away. You could smell the smoke inside. Not a breath of air was stirring. No human hand moved the chapel bell, but it began to toll. There was a supernatural presence in the chapel, we all felt it. By 'supernatural' I don't mean the Almighty. I believe in a God who is just and righteous in his anger. My God would not put innocent people to the sword, 'less he had some
plan
, a greater purpose in mind. That's why I said to Nhora, and I say unto you, God in his anger just turned his back so that the evil in Clipper would burst like a boil—all the corruption was allowed to spew forth as a lesson for us to study, and profit from."

"Unfortunately it would seem that Boss had little time to reflect on the moral lesson being offered. And what about the poor girl who had her throat sliced open?"

Tyrone said confidently, "Their blood was shed so that Clipper would stand revealed in all his wickedness. Wasn't a revelation to me, but I grew up with Clipper."

"As did many others."

"Yes, but Clipper always had a special dislike for me; he showed me early what a devil he was. Never liked to have me come around the house, it killed his soul that I had a key all my own to the library. He couldn't ever lay a hand on me while I was in here readin', Boss just wouldn't stand for it. As long as I stayed around the library I was safe, but like I told Champ, I'd get the urge to sneak upstairs to the playroom. I never saw toys like those boys had! I could have helped myself to a few lead soldiers, they had hundreds, but I never stole a thing from nobody. Only Clipper made out like I did.

"Caught up to me one day in a field when I was comin' home from school. Clipper had a friend with him, one of the Skinner boys, they was just looking to pass the time by makin' me miserable. Clipper was three years younger but almost as big as I was, and strong for his age. I wasn't much of a fighter, never saw the sense of it. He got me down and roughed me up, like always, but no matter how much I was hurt I never showed it. That always frustrated him, then by and by he'd get bored and just go away. But this time he pretended to find one of his lead soldiers in my pocket. He must have put it there while we wrestled.