Of Love and Dust (26 page)

“No sir,” I said, shaking my head.

“Will you talk to the boy?”

“I’ve talked to him already,” I said. “But I’ll talk again.”

“If you can’t stop this, Mr. Kelly, I’m afraid what’ll happen to all of us,” Bishop said. “That boy touch Bonbon, them brothers go’n ride.”

He looked at me a long time to show me what that meant. Then he opened his umbrella and followed Aunt Margaret down the steps. He carried his handkerchief in the other hand. He started wiping his face and neck soon as he went out of the gate.

I stood at the end of the gallery watching them. Bishop looked so weak and scared walking there beside Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret was probably scared as he was, but she had extra strength to keep her going—extra strength she got from believing in God. Bishop went to church every Sunday, but he didn’t look to God for his strength. He looked to that big house up the quarter. And right now that big house wasn’t setting on very solid ground.

I stayed on the gallery a while, then I went to Marcus’s room. He was laying on the bed in his shorts. We looked at
each other, but we didn’t say anything. I went to the window where it was cooler and turned to look at him again. He was still watching me, waiting to hear what I had to say. I didn’t know what to say to Marcus.

“Something on your mind, Jim?” he said.

I just stood there looking at him. He sat up on the bed.

“Why did you go to Marshall the other night, Marcus?” I asked him.

“Tell him to get me off free,” he said. “I told him to get me off free and give me that field car and some money, and I was go’n take Louise ’way from here.”

I didn’t believe Marcus had said this to Marshall. You see, I knew the white people around that area. Knew them pretty good. I knew if a black man had said that, he wouldn’t have lived to come out of that room.

“I told him Bonbon was go’n have to come after us, and he was go’n be free of him.”

I still didn’t believe him.

“That’s why I went there,” he said.

I leaned back against the window to look at Marcus. Now I did believe him. I believed him because I remembered he had killed and it didn’t mean a thing. I believed him because I remembered he had fooled that dog and jumped through that window to get to Bonbon’s wife. I believed him because I remembered he had stuck his foot in that door—“that slavery had built.” I believed everything Marcus said. I just couldn’t understand why Marshall hadn’t killed him for saying it.

“He just stood there and let you say all that?”

“He told me to get the hell out his library. But I could see he was thinking ’bout what I had said.”

“He might be thinking about telling Bonbon what you had said, you ever thought about that?”

“That’s the last thing he’ll be thinking ’bout doing,” Marcus said. “He got to get rid of Bonbon, not me. I’m a nigger, me. I ain’t nothing but a nigger. Bonbon is the man.”

“And you think he’ll get you off free, to let you leave here with Louise?”

“He’ll get me off. Might let me wait a while—try to make me sweat—but he’ll get me off.”

“If he get you off, how does he know Bonbon’ll follow you?”

“Because Bonbon own people’ll kill him if he don’t. Because this is the South, and the South ain’t go’n let no nigger run away with no white woman and let that white husband walk around here scot-free. Not the South.”

“You think you know the South, huh?”

“I know that much ’bout it.”

“How about the part where the white man let the nigger get away with the white woman, Marcus?”

“He ain’t got no choice. He might not like it, but he ain’t got no choice. He got to get rid of Bonbon. Bonbon done stole too much from him, and he know long as Bonbon here Bonbon go’n keep on stealing. Not that Bonbon don’t have a right to steal after what he made Bonbon do. Yeah, I know he made Bonbon kill a man for him. Now, since Bonbon stealing to pay for the killing, he want somebody to kill Bonbon. Well, not this boy. I ain’t killing for him, I’m making him a safe and sound deal. Get me off and I’ll get her ’way from here and Bonbon’ll come after us. If that suit him, all right; if it don’t, fuck him; I’ll find another way to get out of this hole.”

“Marcus, do you want my advice about all this?”

“If you go’n say work here ten years, forget it.”

“That’s what I’m going to say, Marcus. Do your work and forget all these deals. They’ll never work out. All you can
do is make things harder for yourself and for everybody else around here.”

“Things can’t get harder for me, Jim. I’m a slave here now. And things can’t get harder than slavery.”

“The pen can be harder.”

“I ain’t going to no pen. That’s why I got put here.”

“And that’s why you ought to do as well as you can.”

“Be a contented old slave, huh? That’s what you mean?”

“You’re not a slave here, Marcus. You’re just paying for something you did.”

“I don’t think I ought to pay for defending myself. And I ain’t go’n pay for killing that country-ass nigger. Black sonofabitch ought to don’t go round with pretty women if he know he can’t fight.”

“You trying to be funny, boy?”

“I ain’t trying to be funny. I just say I ain’t go’n pay for that chickenshit sonofabitch. Fuck him.”

“You don’t care if the whole world burn down, do you? Do you, Marcus?”

“Long as I ain’t caught in the flame, Jim,” he said.

I looked at him and I felt pity for him.

“Jim, why you keep arguing with me?” Marcus said. “You the only friend I got, and you keep arguing with me.”

“I want you to be a human being, Marcus.”

“I’m a human being. I just don’t look at things the way you do. You, you want care for everybody. Me, I don’t care for nobody but me. I been like that too long now to go round changing.”

“That’s not a good way to be, Marcus.”

“I can’t be no other way. Now, please, Jim, just let me ’lone. I need some rest. I’m tired.”

He laid back down.

45
 

Monday, about five o’clock, Marshall Hebert showed up in the field for the first time. I looked across the field and I could see the dust about a quarter of a mile away coming down the back road. Just in front of the dust was that ’41 Ford Marshall used for his field car. I looked over my shoulder at Bonbon riding horse behind Marcus. He looked across the field toward the dust, then he looked at me. I was much higher up than he was, so he looked at me so I could tell him who was coming. I didn’t have to call Marshall’s name, I just nodded my head. Bonbon wouldn’t have heard me anyhow, because the tractor was making too much noise. He turned the horse around and started back toward the other headland. We were pulling corn on the bayou now, and there were trees on the bayou at one end of the field. The trees were mostly gum, willow and cottonwood. You had a few ash and cypresses here and there. In the morning the shade from the trees was on the water, but in the evening the shade was on the headland. Bonbon knew that Marshall was going to park under the trees instead of at the end where there wasn’t any shade, and that’s why he had gone back the other way. Soon as he rode away, I slowed up the tractor. John and Freddie hollered at me to speed it up, but I didn’t
pay them any mind. When I got to the end, I gave Marcus a couple minutes rest before I started back down the field again.

Marshall had already parked his car under the trees at the other headland. Bonbon had gotten off the horse to talk to him. I didn’t like to see them that close together. I didn’t think Marshall had come out there to say anything to Bonbon about Marcus—he couldn’t afford that. But if that wasn’t his reason, then what was it? Why wasn’t he at the front sitting on his gallery drinking like he always do?

I looked back over my shoulder. The two punks were right up on the trailer, pitching corn like two machines. They knew the big boss was out there, and now they had to show off for him. Marcus was about ten feet farther behind. He was dead tired. His pink shirt was wet and sticking to his chest.

“Move up,” Freddie called.

I turned to the front and looked at Marshall and Bonbon on the other headland. They were still talking. Bonbon held the bridle reins in one hand, and he was leaning on the car, talking to Marshall through the window.

The tractor
putt-putt-putted
on toward the headland. I didn’t feel good about seeing Marshall out there at all. I had a tightness in my chest. It came there soon as I saw that car headed in this direction.

“It’s probably nothing,” I told myself. “He’s probably asking him how long it’s going to take us to finish that corn. He want us to hurry so we can get into that hay before the bad weather. So stop being such a coward; stop it.…”

When I came up on the headland, Marshall drove the car closer to the tractor. I nodded to him, but he didn’t see me; he was already looking toward the back of the trailer. When Marcus finished out his row and came to the side of
the trailer where the car was parked, I could see how Marshall started watching him. Marcus spoke, but Marshall didn’t answer. He had something in his mouth, probably a piece of candy, that he moved from one side of his mouth to the other. Every time his mind shifted from one thing to another, that piece of candy moved around in his mouth, too.

“How much you got, Geam?” Bonbon asked me.

He had led the horse up to the car again. He was standing a little to the front of the door where Marshall was sitting. He had made the horse turn so the horse wouldn’t stand between Marshall and the tractor. In this way I could see everybody. I could see Bonbon, I could see Marshall; and if I dropped my eyes a little, I could see Marcus against the trailer. I looked back at the corn in the trailer. It was about two foot from the top.

“Almost full,” I said.

“When you get back to the other end, hitch up and knock off,” Bonbon said.

“Right,” I said. “Freddie, one of y’all, go get the water jug.”

Freddie started up the headland. The jug was under one of the trees down by the water. When we pulled corn on the bayou, we always kept the jug close to the water where the ground was cooler. Before Freddie had gone ten feet, his girlfriend John had caught up with him. Then both of them went up the headland, giggling. Bonbon squinted at them, and I looked at them, too. I don’t think Marshall ever did; I don’t think he took his eyes off Marcus a second after Marcus came to that side of the trailer. Now he said something to Bonbon. Bonbon started looking at Marcus, too. But he didn’t look at Marcus in his usual hard way. He had quit that. Now, when he looked at Marcus, it was like he was trying to figure him out. He wanted to know why Marcus
wore a pink shirt and brown pants when everybody else wore khakis; why he wore the cap when everybody else wore a straw hat; why he wore the black and white, low-cut shoes when everybody else wore brogans. Maybe Bonbon already knew why Marcus did this. This was Marcus’s way of showing how much he hated the place. The only trouble was nobody was getting hurt by it but himself. After studying Marcus from head to foot, Bonbon looked up the headland.

A slight breeze stirred the leaves over our heads. The breeze hit me on the left side where my shirt was a little damp, and a cold glass of beer couldn’t have pleased me more. When Bonbon felt the breeze, he took off his straw hat and passed the flat side of his wrist over his forehead. He kept the hat off a second longer so the breeze could blow through his hair. I don’t think the breeze hit Marshall inside the car. If it did, he didn’t show it. He was looking at Marcus all the time.

“No, it wasn’t corn and hay that brought him out here,” I thought. “It wasn’t corn and hay at all.… Now I had good reason for feeling that tightness in my chest.”

After the breeze had blown away, Bonbon stuck his hat back on and looked across the field where we had been working. His back was slightly turned to Marshall, so Marshall looked at him now. But from his face, you wouldn’t have thought he had anything against Bonbon. His face didn’t show any hatred at all. If you didn’t know what was going on, you would have thought he was contented with his overseer.

Marshall shifted the piece of candy in his mouth. He was looking at Marcus again; and Marcus was looking back at him now. But he wasn’t just looking at him, he was staring at Marshall. “Well?” he was saying. “You made up your mind about that car and that money?” And Marshall was saying
back to him, “If I told him you went through that window, he would kill you before you moved from that trailer.” Marcus said back, “You ain’t go’n tell him nothing. And me and you both know you ain’t go’n tell him nothing, don’t we?”

I can’t read minds, but if eyes could talk, this is what Marcus and Marshall were saying to each other.

John and Freddie came back and Freddie handed me the jug and we started back down the field. But just before we did, this is what happened. Marcus walked up to about arm’s reach of the car and stared down at Marshall’s face. Bonbon didn’t see this because he was getting back on the horse. John and Freddie didn’t see it either because they were on the other side of the tractor. The only reason I saw it was because I thought they had to say something to each other after they had been looking at each other like that. When Marcus walked up to the car, Marshall stared right back at him. Then he moved his head a little to the side and spit the piece of candy out of the window. It might have touched Marcus’s pants leg, but I’m not sure.