Of Love and Dust (22 page)

“The old man say you done a good job for me last week,” Bonbon said to Marcus. “Now he want you do a good job for him. Rake, broom—everything in the tool shop.”

Marcus looked over the yard and looked at Bonbon again. He didn’t mind the work at all. Or if he did, he wasn’t going to let Bonbon know it.

“That’s if you don’t want do it, Geam?” Bonbon said to me.

I shook my head.

“You sure now?” he said, squinting at me.

“I’m sure,” I said. “I’m making it on down.”

“See you, Geam.”

“See you later.”

I walked away, he walked away; Marcus was still there.

37
 

After a while Marcus went to the store. The store was full of people, Negroes and Cajuns. The Cajuns were drinking at the little bar in back; the Negroes were making grocery at the front counter and drinking in the little side-room. Everybody looked at Marcus when he came in. Some of the Cajuns even turned around to look at him. Marcus bought his food and went back outside. His dinner was a loaf of bread, a half pound of baloney sausage, and two big bottles of cold drinks. He sat under the pecan tree to eat his dinner. The Negroes who went by the tree nodded to him, but hardly opened their mouths, and not one of them stopped to talk. The Cajuns who came out of the store or went in the store just looked at him.

When Marcus got through eating, it was about one o’clock and he went back to the yard. He looked over the yard before he went to the tool shop to get his rake and broom. He said it was a joke to even think he could rake that yard in a day, to even think he could rake all those leaves in a week. No, it wasn’t the leaves they wanted done—Bonbon and his crowd wanted him to try to escape. Since it was too hot to hunt rabbits and possums now, they wanted to hunt niggers. But he wasn’t running. At least, he wasn’t running now. He was going to pull corn, he was going to rake leaves, he was going
to do everything else they wanted him to do. Then when they had forgotten all about him he was going to make his move.

Marcus got a rake and broom out of the tool shop and started working. The whole yard was covered with leaves. There were as many leaves by the tool shop as there were anywhere else, so Marcus started raking them up soon as he came out the door.

Marcus had been working about an hour when Marshall Hebert came out on the back gallery and looked down at him. Marshall wore his seersucker suit, his panama hat, and he had a drink in his hand. He watched Marcus ten or fifteen minutes before he came down in the yard. He didn’t come directly to Marcus at first, he stood back a ways looking at him. Marcus knew he was there without looking around. He had seen him on the back gallery and he had seen him coming down the stairs.

“If you one of them fat old punks, you better go mess with somebody else,” Marcus thought. “I’ll pull corn, I’ll rake leaves, but I ain’t messing with no punk—I don’t care who he is.”

He went on with his work. He had started to sweat. Raking leaves here was much harder than raking them in Bonbon’s yard. There was too much grass here, especially the bullhead grass. Every now and then the rake got hooked in the grass and Marcus had to lean over and pull it loose.

Marshall came closer. He was standing only a few feet away from Marcus now. Still, he hadn’t said anything. And Marcus hadn’t looked at him since he came in the yard.

“See Mr. Sidney got you working,” Marshall said.

“Yes sir,” Marcus said, not looking around.

Marshall grunted. Marcus raked the leaves without looking at him. Everything was quiet for a while.

“What’s your name?” Marshall asked.

“Marcus,” Marcus said, without looking at him.

“Marcus what?” Marshall asked.

“Payne,” Marcus said.

Then it was quiet again. Marshall could have been drinking, but Marcus wasn’t sure. He went on working.

“When do you think you’ll run, Marcus?” Marshall asked.

Marcus looked around now, he jerked around. Marshall was raising the glass to his mouth. When he lowered his hand, his cold blue eyes looked straight at Marcus.

“So you not a punk,” Marcus thought. “So you know it, too.”

“Run?” he said. “Run where?”

Marshall didn’t answer him; he didn’t think it was necessary to answer Marcus.

“I ain’t going nowhere,” Marcus said.

“Next week?” Marshall said. “Next month?”

“No time,” Marcus said.

“No?” Marshall said, looking at the dark shades over Marcus’s eyes.

Marcus raised his hand and moved the shades back against the bill of the cap.

“The day you want to go, you let me know,” Marshall said. “I can have a car there for you. There could be money, too.”

“I’m satisfied right where I’m at,” Marcus said.

“Are you?” Marshall said.

He looked at Marcus from his blue shirt to his brown striped pants to his black and white, pointed-toed shoes. He knew that anybody who wore clothes like these didn’t have any idea of staying in one place too long, and especially on a plantation. He looked up at Marcus’s face and grunted.

“You’re going to run, boy, and you know it,” he said. “But you won’t live to get out of this parish.”

He looked at Marcus as he raised the glass to his mouth. He looked at him while he drank, and he was still looking at him when he lowered his hand.

“Ten years for killing a nigger, and you didn’t even get near that pussy,” he said.

“Five years,” Marcus said. “And that’s if I’m guilty.”

“You’re guilty,” Marshall said. “And it’s ten. Time for killing niggers just went up.”

He looked away. His coat was unbuttoned and Marcus could see how his big stomach hung over the belt. Marcus thought: “One hard lick in the belly with this rake and I could have guts all over the yard.”

Marshall looked at him again. He knew what Marcus was thinking.

“Not me,” he said. His cold blue eyes looked straight in Marcus’s face. “The man killing you in the field out there.”

A blaze shot up in Marcus’s body and his head and he thought he was going to fall. He started trembling so much, he had to grip the rake tighter to steady himself.

“Nobody killing me nowhere,” he said, quickly and calmly as he could.

“No?” Marshall said.

“No,” he said, calmly as he could.

“Give him time, he will,” Marshall said.

“I guess you go’n see to it,” Marcus said.

“I’ve got nothing to do with it,” Marshall said.

Marcus felt like raising up that rake and bringing it down on Marshall’s head. But he knew he would surely die if he did this. If he held out, he knew he would get away.

“I’ll take my chance,” Marcus said.

“Yes,” Marshall said. “I’m sure you got that in mind. But you can’t get away from here without help, and I’m the only man who can help you.”

“That’s if I kill for you,” Marcus said.

“Kill for me?” Marshall said. “Who said anything about killing for me? You better watch your tongue, boy. It’s not safe to talk like that. I said I would help you get away if you decided to run. I said nothing about killing for me. You can get yourself killed for talking like that. You be careful now.”

They faced each other a while, then Marshall looked over his shoulder toward the crib. Marcus looked over there, too. He could see the two trailers of corn parked before the crib door. Marshall turned back to Marcus.

“Those children stay sick here lately,” he said. “I wonder if it’s mumps going around.”

Marcus didn’t say anything. He felt a big knot rising up in his throat. But he looked straight at Marshall to keep Marshall from knowing how he felt.

“You can unload that corn tomorrow,” Marshall said, and walked away.

Marcus watched him raising the glass to his mouth as he went across the yard. Marcus felt his eyes burning: he was crying.

38
 

Marcus came down the quarter about seven o’clock that night. (I wasn’t there, I had gone to Bayonne with Snuke and them to see that woman again. Aunt Margaret told me what time he came home.) The next day he got up about six and went to the yard to unload the corn, and he didn’t come back down the quarter until around three that evening. He laid down on the gallery a couple hours, then he got up and took a whore bath at the hydrant. I was home then; I was in the kitchen ironing a pair of khaki pants on the table. I thought he was going to dress and go somewhere, but after he took his bath, he came inside and went to bed. The next morning he went in the field, and still he hadn’t said anything to me. Neither one of us had said a word to each other in over a week now. When we came in for dinner, he hopped off the trailer at the house and went in the yard. This was the first time he hadn’t gone up the quarter since he and Louise started looking at each other. When I went by the house, I saw her sitting on the gallery watching the tractor. When I came back down the quarter with the two empty trailers, she was looking for him again. That evening he went back in the field and pulled the sack when he got too far behind, and when he came in that night he hopped off the
trailer and went in the yard. Louise was looking for him when I came up the quarter. She was standing up this time. When I was coming back, I saw her and her little girl walking across the yard. She looked at me like she wanted to ask me a question, but we didn’t even nod to each other.

That same night she sent word to Aunt Margaret—“Don’t come to work in the morning, come in the evening.” Aunt Margaret went fishing the next morning, and that evening between four and four thirty, she went back up the quarter. She and Tite were sitting out on the front gallery when Bonbon left that night. She expected to hear the dog barking a minute or two after Bonbon had gone, but ten minutes passed and she hadn’t heard a thing. A half hour, and nothing; then a whole hour, and nothing.

Aunt Margaret could hear Louise walking around in the bedroom. She went from the door to the window, from the window to the door. Then it was quiet—like she was standing at the window—then she started walking again. She came into the living room. She stayed in there a minute, then she went into the kitchen. She was in there a while, then she went out on the back gallery. Next, Aunt Margaret saw her walking across the yard. She looked small and lost under the black, moss-heavy trees, Aunt Margaret said. “Yes,” she thought. “That’s what it is. That’s what it done come to now.” Louise went to the gate. “But how?” Aunt Margaret thought. “How in the world could the Master let a thing like that happen—Ehh, Lord.” Louise held on to one of the pickets in the gate and looked out in the road. Then Aunt Margaret saw her coming back to the house. Just before Bonbon was supposed to get back, Louise told Aunt Margaret she could leave. But the next day she sent word to Aunt Margaret to come back up there again that evening. Aunt Margaret went back. She sat on the gallery, waiting for the dog to bark. But the dog
was more quiet that night than he had ever been before. After Tite fell asleep in Aunt Margaret’s arms, Aunt Margaret put her in bed and came back on the gallery. Louise came to the front door where Aunt Margaret was sitting.

“Margaret?” she said.

Aunt Margaret looked over her shoulder at Louise. The light was behind Louise, throwing her shadow on the gallery.

“Tell him to come up here,” Louise said. “Tell him he better come up here.”

She went back to her room. Aunt Margaret heard her slamming the door. Aunt Margaret sat there a little while longer, then she came on down the quarter. She didn’t stop by her place, she came on down to my house. I was sitting in the kitchen at the table. I offered her a cup of coffee, but she didn’t want any. After she had been sitting there a while, telling me how Louise had been acting up there, then she told me what Louise had said.

“You want tell him for me?” she asked.

“He’s out there on the gallery, Aunt Margaret,” I said. “Didn’t you tell him when you came in?”

“I can’t talk to that boy,” she said.

“I’m not talking to him, either,” I said.

“Then you won’t tell him?”

“Why does he have to know in the first place, Aunt Margaret? Can’t you just tell Louise you forgot? At least that’ll keep him from up there.”

“And suppose she holler?”