A Gathering of Old Men (24 page)

“What am I supposed to do?” Lou asked him.

“You figure that out,” Mapes said. “Just leave me alone.”

Leroy got winged
. It wasn’t bad, no more than a scratch, but he was over there sniveling like a gut-hanging dog. Luke told him to shut up, we all told him to shut up, but he went on sniveling, sniveling like some kinda gut-hanging dog.

“I’m dying,” he said. “I’m dying. Y’all don’t even care.”

“If you don’t shut up, you will be dying,” Henry told him. “Big killer you turned out to be.”

“Y’all didn’t say they had all them guns,” he said.

“No shit,” Henry said.

“I’m dying,” he said.

“Shut him up,” Luke whispered. “Shut him up.”

“Shut up,” Henry whispered viciously. Then I heard a slap. “Shut the fuck up.”

Now he really started his sniveling.

“I’m go’n give myself up, I’m go’n give myself up.”

“You walk out of here, and I’ll blow your back off,” Henry said. “You in it, fucker. You go’n stay here till the end.”

“Mapes?” Leroy called. “Mapes?”

“Shut up,” Henry said, and hit him in the mouth.

“No,” he said, crying. “Mapes?” he called.

“What?” Mapes answered from the yard. We couldn’t see him, only hear him. From his voice, he sounded weak. Luke hadn’t intended to kill him when he shot him, only to stop him. “What you want?” he called back.

“This here is Leroy. Leroy Hall. I ain’t nothing but a child, Mapes.”

“That’s too bad,” Mapes called back.

“I’m a white boy, Mapes,” Leroy called.

“That’s too bad, too,” Mapes said.

“Satisfied now, fucker?” Henry said.

He got crazy with his sniveling now. He was all bent over with his sniveling. Just coughing and spitting. If the niggers didn’t know where we were before, they sure knew where we were now.

Luke inched a little bit from behind the back tire of the tractor out into the road. He looked up the quarters, down the quarters, then moved back.

“Seen anything?” I asked him.

“How can you see a nigger at night?” he said to me. “Hey, Mapes?” he called.

“What you want, Luke Will?” Mapes called back.

“Got a boy hurt pretty bad. I want to get him outa here.”

“Go on and take him out,” Mapes said.

“Them niggers will shoot us.”

“Shoot them back,” Mapes said. “Shoot them like you shot me.”

“One of them niggers shot you. We didn’t shoot you.”

“I have witnesses you did it,” Mapes called. He rested a second before he went on. “And you’re going to pay for it. Every last one of you.” He rested again. “If you get out of here alive.”

“He want them niggers to kill us.” Leroy started sniveling again. “He want them niggers to kill us.”

“And I told you to shut up,” Luke said, and swung around and kicked him. He kicked him again and again. “I told you to shut up, to shut up, to shut up,” he said, kicking him.

Henry, Alcee, and I grabbed Luke and held him down while Leroy crawled out of the way.

“Take it easy, Luke,” I said. I had him by the shoulders. “Take it easy, Luke. Take it easy.”

He was breathing hard. He had tired himself out kicking Leroy. But he had enough strength to raise his arm and knock the hell out of me. Any other time he woulda had a fight on his hands, but I knew what was bothering him now. He had brought us here, and now everything had backfired, and he didn’t know how to get out of it.

Leroy was laying over there in the ditch, balled up on his elbows and knees. Nobody paid him any mind.

Luke moved up against the tire again.

“Mapes,” he called. “I’m out of bullets. You go’n let them niggers shoot us down like dogs?”

Mapes didn’t answer him. But Charlie did, from down the quarters. You could hear him, but you couldn’t see the black ape.

“I got some extra shells,” he called to Luke. “How many you need, Luke Will? Send one of your boys to come get ’em.”

“I wonder what them niggers been drinking to make them all so brave,” I said to Luke.

Luke moved around the tire and looked down the quarters; then he moved back against the tire again.

“They all over the place, Luke,” I said. “Ain’t no way we can get out of this.”

“You backing out too?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

I knew him too well. He could be mean when he wanted to. Mean toward anybody. He looked at me a while; then he looked at Alcee and Henry under the front trailer.

“Y’all boys all had enough, huh?” he asked. “Is that it?”

We had enough, but nobody would dare say it.

“I hope y’all know how Clyde’s going to take this,” Luke said, and moved back against the tire. “Say, Mapes?” he called toward the house. “Call them niggers off, we ready to turn ourselfs in.”

Mapes didn’t answer him.

“Mapes, can you hear me?” Luke called again.

“I can hear you,” Mapes said. He sounded weaker than he did before. “Talk to Dimes. He’s in charge.”

“Hey, Dimes,” Luke called.

“I can hear you, Luke Will,” Dimes called back. Then a second later we heard him say, “Hey, Charlie—Mr. Biggs.”

“That’s all right, you can call me Charlie,” Charlie answered from down the quarters. “We all in the dirt now, and it ain’t no more Mister and no more Miss. And it ain’t no deal. They go’n put me in that ’lectric chair for one, might’s well put me in there for two. No deal.”

“That nigger sounds like he means it,” I told Luke.

Behind us, in the ditch, Leroy went on with his sniveling. Henry and Alcee lying under the front trailer looked over at Luke, waiting to hear what he had in mind. Luke looked back at them; then he looked at me—a look I had never seen before. Luke was bigger and stronger than anybody around him, never had to back down to anything. But now he looked worried, real worried.

“If you make it and I don’t, look after Verna and the kids,” he said to me.

“What?” I said. Because I didn’t expect to hear that.

“How many shells you got left?” he asked.

“Couple,” I said. “We can make a run for it. Make Tee Jack swear we never left there tonight.”

“What about him?” Luke said, nodding toward Leroy.

“Fuck him,” I said. “Nobody told him to get shot.”

I could hear him sniveling behind me.

“Give me your shells,” Luke said.

“Then I won’t have any.”

“Take his. He can’t use them.”

I passed him the two shells I had, and he put them into the gun.

“Luke,” I said. “We can still get out of this. Don’t do nothing foolish.”

“Verna and the kids, if I don’t make it,” he said.

“Mapes won’t let them niggers shoot us down like dogs.”

He grinned to himself. Then he looked at me a long time, shaking his head.

“Mapes ain’t in charge no more, Sharp,” he said. “Charlie is. We got to deal with Charlie now. You ready to deal with Charlie, Sharp?”

I wasn’t ready to deal with any Charlie, and he knew it. He moved back against the tire and looked down the quarters where Charlie was waiting.

Charlie was up
in the ditch, I was right behind him. Yank and Tucker and Chimley was over to the right. I think Clabber was somewhere back there, too. I crawled up even with Charlie and laid there ’side him. He was like a big bear laying there.

“Light me a stub, Dirty,” he said.

I had a couple in my pocket, and I got out one and lit it. I handed it to him, and he took couple of good draws and handed it back to me.

“Charlie?” Lou called, from Mathu’s yard.

“What you want?” Charlie answered.

“Let them turn themselves in, Charlie.”

“No, sir,” Charlie called back.

“It’ll be murder now, Charlie,” Lou said.

“It was murder before,” Charlie said.

“No, Charlie,” Lou called. “With Beau it was self-defense. Candy will swear to that.”

Charlie didn’t answer him. He reached for the cigarette, and I handed it to him. He turned his head to draw on it, so the people up the quarters couldn’t see the light.

“Charlie,” Lou called again.

“I ain’t gone nowhere,” Charlie answered him.

“I got your parrain here, Charlie,” Lou said. “He wants to come out there and talk to you.”

“I don’t want Parrain out here,” Charlie said. “Parrain told me to stand. I’m standing up to Luke Will.”

It was quiet after that. Pitch black and quiet. Charlie laid there like a big old bear. And I was right there ’side him.

“You scared, Dirty?” he asked me.

“Not here ’side you, Charlie.”

“Don’t never be scared no more, Dirty,” he told me. “Life’s so sweet when you know you ain’t no more coward.”

I nodded my head. But I wanted some more.

“Charlie,” I said.

He was looking up the quarters toward the tractor.

“Charlie,” I said again.

“Yeah, Dirty?” he said, still looking up the quarters.

“What you seen back there, Charlie?”

He didn’t answer me. Just laying there like a big bear, with that double-barrel shotgun ’cross his arm.

“Charlie, what you seen in them swamps?” I asked him again.

“You seen it, too, Dirty,” he said, not looking at me.

“I didn’t see nothing, Charlie. What did you see?” I asked him.

“All of y’all seen it,” he said.

“No, I didn’t see nothing,” I said. “I’m just here, Charlie. Like all the rest. I didn’t see nothing.”

He looked back at me. “You got it, Dirty,” he said. “You already got it, partner.”

“Got what, Charlie?”

He grinned at me. “Light me another stub, Dirty.”

I fished in my pocket for another one and took it out. While I was lighting it, I heard Lou calling from Mathu’s yard.

“I’m coming out there, Charlie,” he said.

“You not getting my gun,” Charlie called back. “Go take Luke Will’s gun.”

“Luke Will, I’m coming out there,” Lou called.

“You ain’t taking this gun,” Luke Will called back to him.

It was quiet a little while. Charlie was smoking the cigarette, smoking it hard, like he had to hurry up and finish with it. Then I saw him getting up. I whispered to him to get back down, but he kept on getting up. I heard Lou hollering to him to stay down, but Charlie wasn’t listening to anybody. He was headed straight toward that tractor. And he hadn’t made more than two, three, maybe four steps when I heard the first shot. I saw him staggering but he didn’t go down; I saw him shooting but not sighting. I saw Lou out there waving his hands, telling everybody to stop, stop, stop. He was running all over the place, saying stop, stop, stop. I saw Charlie still going toward that tractor, but he wasn’t shooting now, just falling, slowly, slowly, slowly till he had hit the ground. Then you had nothing but shooting from then on. I was shooting, and it sounded like everybody in the world was shooting. It went on like that for about a minute. Then it was quiet, quieter than you ever heard in your life.

Then we all gathered out in the road. Over by the tractor, I saw Lou standing over somebody laying back against one of the tractor wheels. I heard somebody saying that we had got the son of a bitch.

But we had all gathered around Charlie. Mathu had knelt down ’side him and raised his head out of the dust. They had really got him. Right in the belly. He laid there like a big old bear looking up at us. He was trying to say something, but it never came out. He kept on looking at us, but after a while you could tell he wasn’t seeing us no more. I leaned
over and touched him, hoping that some of that stuff he had found back there in the swamps might rub off on me. After I touched him, the rest of the men did the same. Then the women, even Candy. Then Glo told her grandchildren they must touch him, too.

There were
three funerals two days later. Beau and Luke Will were buried in Bayonne; Charlie was buried at Marshall. The trial took place the following week, lasting three days. Candy hired her own lawyer, Clinton, to defend the blacks. The Klans defended Luke Will’s friends. And you’ve never seen a sadder bunch of killers in all your life—on either side. Everybody had something wrong with him—scratches, bruises, cuts, gashes. They had cut themselves on barbed wire, tin cans, broken bottles—you name it. Some had sprained their ankles jumping over ditches; others had sprained their wrists falling down on the ground. And some had just run into each other. Everybody was either limping, his arm in a sling, or there was a bandage round his head or some other part of his body. Out of all that, only one had been shot—Leroy.

They had all taken baths, and wore their best clothes. For three days, if you sat close enough to the front, you smelled nothing but Lifebuoy soap and mothballs.

The courthouse was packed every day, about an equal number of blacks and whites, with nearly half being people from the news media. They had come from all over the South. Even
the national press was represented. Fix was there with his crowd—including Gil, who sat with the family. (By the way LSU beat Ole Miss, twenty-one to thirteen. Both Gil and Cal had over a hundred yards each.) The Klans and the Nazi Party were there to lend moral support to Luke Will’s friends. The NAACP was there, some black militants were there, and so were the state troopers, who stood by watching all and searching most of those who went in. Judge Ford Reynolds presided. Judge Reynolds is seventy, hair white as snow, face perpetually red from drinking, and he looks like the archetypical grandfather, or what you would want your grandfather to look like. He is very rich, always happy, vain about his good looks, and has a great sense of humor. And he admitted from the beginning that not only had he never presided over a case quite like this one, but that he had never heard of one like this in all his thirty-five years on the bench. He warned that the trial would be conducted orderly. And he further warned the court that they should not mistake that old white-headed man on the bench as soft, because he could be as hard as anyone else, and harder if need be.

“All right,” he said. “Swear in your first witness. Let’s get started.”