Of Love and Dust (32 page)

“You hurt, Marky-poo?” she said softly. “You hurt?”

I started to pull her away from him, but I changed my mind. It wasn’t because Bonbon was sitting there—I didn’t care about Bonbon. I didn’t care if he killed me just like he had killed Marcus. I didn’t pull her away from him because this was going to be their last time together.

“You hurt, Marky-poo?” she said again. “You hurt?”

She laid her face against his. She didn’t say another word long as I was there; she didn’t even cry.

The reason why Sun had been running in the road was because he had seen it all. This is what he saw.

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Sun Brown had gone to Frank Morris’s plantation earlier that day. His sister had sent word that her oldest girl was in trouble, and Sun had gone there to see what he could do. He and his sister and the girl sat out on the gallery talking all evening. The girl was in trouble, all right; she had got caught and the boy didn’t want to marry her. Around five o’clock, when Sun got ready to leave, they still didn’t know what they were going to do about the girl. Sun promised to send a few dollars whenever he could spare it; then he left for home. Hebert’s plantation was six or seven miles from Morris’s plantation, and Sun had to walk all the way. Around six thirty, he came up to Jacques Guerin’s place and he saw Bonbon and Marshall and Jacques and two or three other Cajuns standing along the fence, looking at a Brahma bull in the yard. Sun stopped in the road to look at the bull. He didn’t care about the bull, but he didn’t feel good passing his boss and his overseer without speaking. They hadn’t seen him because all of them had their backs turned toward the road. Marshall pulled out his watch and checked the time and put the watch back in his pocket. Bonbon looked over his shoulder and saw Sun standing out there. Sun raised his hand and waved. Bonbon didn’t wave back; he just looked at Sun, wondering why he was out there. Sun wanted to tell Bonbon he had got permission from Mr. Marshall to go visit his sister, but Bonbon was too far away. Sun didn’t know what to do, so he grinned and waved again. Marshall and the other Cajuns looked at him, and he waved at Marshall. Like Bonbon, Marshall didn’t wave back, either. He
pulled out his watch to check the time again. When the bull went across the yard, everybody turned to look at the bull.

Sun started walking. He wasn’t thinking about the men who hadn’t waved at him, he wasn’t thinking about his pregnant niece, he was just thinking about the hardship man had to live with. Sun thought he had as much hardship as any other man—and maybe a little more. When he came up to the plantation store, he remembered that Sarah had told him to buy some rice and a piece of salt meat. He went inside and he noticed that there weren’t any Negroes at the store. Old Godeau asked him where everybody was, and he said he didn’t know. After paying for the rice and meat, he started for home. As he came in the quarter, he noticed how quiet everything was. He couldn’t understand why it was like this and why he felt scared all of a sudden. He started looking for people in the road, but there wasn’t a person anywhere. When he came up to Mrs. Laura Mae’s house, he hollered in at her. Mrs. Laura Mae didn’t answer him. That was strange, because usually Mrs. Laura Mae was sitting on the gallery this time of evening and she loved talking to people. Sun felt more scared now and walked faster. Then he saw a car coming toward him—no, he saw the dust. The dust was flying all over the quarter. In front of the dust was a car, coming up the quarter with no lights on. The car stopped in front of Bonbon’s house, and somebody got out and ran in the yard. Sun had come up to the car by the time the other person came back with a package in his arms, and now he saw that the other person was Marcus. Marcus threw the package on the back seat of the car and ran back in the yard. Sun was so dumbfounded he couldn’t move. He couldn’t understand what was going on, either. Marcus and Louise running away together was the last thing to come in his mind.

Then he looked over his shoulder. He had not heard the
other car, he had not seen any lights—because there weren’t any lights; he had felt the other car coming toward him. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t run. So he fell in the ditch and crawled in a bunch of weeds where they wouldn’t see him.

The car stopped and Bonbon got out. He looked at the car and looked toward the house before he went in the yard. Sun could tell that Bonbon didn’t know what was going on, either. After Bonbon had gone in the yard, Marshall got out of his car and went to the field car. Sun could see him searching in the dashdrawer. Then he got out of the car with a paper bag. He took the bag to his own car and drove away. Sun was watching Bonbon now. Bonbon still had not gotten to the gallery—he still didn’t know what was going on. He had even stopped on the walk and looked back toward the road so Marshall could tell him what was happening. He didn’t start toward the gallery again until Marshall had driven away. Sun looked toward the gallery. Marcus, Louise and Tite were standing there. Marcus was in front with a package in his arms, and Louise was behind him, holding Tite by the hand. Bonbon still didn’t know what was going on—Sun could tell by the slow, careful, thinking way he went toward the house. Then as he came in the small yard, Marcus threw the package to the side and jumped on the ground to fight him. Sun said Marcus had all the chance in the world to get away from there, and he couldn’t understand why Marcus didn’t run. Sun was screaming inside—“Run, boy; run, run, run.” But instead, Marcus jumped on the ground to fight. Bonbon moved toward the house quickly now. When he came to the end of the gallery, he stooped over and picked up something by the steps. Sun could tell that it was a scythe-blade, and not a hoe or a shovel, from the way Bonbon swung it at Marcus. Marcus ran to the fence and jerked loose a picket that was used there for a prop. He and Bonbon
started fighting. Marcus was blocking the scythe-blade more than he was trying to hit with the picket. Sun could hear the noise that steel made against wood and that wood made against wood. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t run. He couldn’t even shut his eyes or plug up his ears.

When the fight started, Louise jumped off the gallery and crawled under the house. The little girl started toward the steps, but the sound of blade against wood and wood against wood made her move back. She tried again—she tried several times; but each time she did, it looked like Marcus and Bonbon were fighting right by the steps, and Tite had to go back upon the gallery.

Sun still wanted to run, but he couldn’t run. Even when Marshall Hebert went back up the quarter—with the lights on and driving fast—Sun still couldn’t get up and run. He couldn’t get his eyes off that little girl who was trying to come down those steps.

Then, for a second, everything was too quiet. Then he heard a scream, and he jerked his head to the left. He saw that Marcus had lost the picket and he saw Bonbon raising the blade. He had time to shut his eyes, and even though he couldn’t see, he heard when the blade hit. When he was able to look again, he saw Bonbon standing there with the blade in his hand. Bonbon swung the blade far across the yard and went up on the gallery to get his little girl. He sat down on the steps with the little girl in his arms.

Sun still couldn’t move. He didn’t move until he heard the tractor coming up the quarter. Then he jumped up and started running. He ran all the way home. He didn’t tell anybody what he had seen. He wouldn’t tell anybody what he had seen for a whole week. He wouldn’t even come out of his house. The only person he let come to him was his smallest daughter who was too young to talk and ask questions.

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There wasn’t a trial, there was a hearing. Bonbon got off with justifiable homicide. According to the record, this is what happened: Marcus had stolen Marshall Hebert’s car and was trying to run away with Louise when Bonbon accidentally caught them. Marcus started a fight and Bonbon killed him trying to protect himself. Nothing was brought up at the hearing about Marshall.

Bonbon left the plantation the day after the hearing. The night before he left, he came down to the house and tried to explain things to me. He told me he knew Marshall had put Marcus up to this—that Marcus was supposed to kill him, not him killing Marcus. But Marcus didn’t have the gun that Marshall had put in the dash drawer. Bonbon told me he had seen Marshall searching in the other car after he went in the yard, but he didn’t know until after the fight what Marshall was looking for. He told me he didn’t want to fight Marcus, he was hoping Marcus would run from him. If Marcus had made any attempt to run, he would have let him go, and there wouldn’t have been a thing said about it. But when Marcus didn’t run, he had to fight him. Not just fight him, but he had to kill him. If he hadn’t killed Marcus, he would have been killed himself. The Cajuns on the river would have done that.

I sat on the gallery listening to Bonbon, but I couldn’t
feel any pity for him. Far as I was concerned, all the human understanding we had had between us was over with now. He saw this in my face and I could see how it hurt him. He left the house and the next day he left the plantation with his little girl. Pauline left a couple nights later with the twins. The same night of the fight, some people had taken Louise to a hospital in New Orleans. Not long after that, they took her to Jackson—the insane asylum.

The Saturday after Bonbon and Pauline left the plantation, Marshall Hebert called me to his library.

“You better leave from here,” he said.

“Yes sir, I was thinking about that, myself,” I said.

“These Cajuns know you and that boy lived in the same house, and they might get it in their heads to do you something.”

I nodded. He wasn’t worried about the Cajuns hurting me. He wanted me to leave because I knew the truth about what had happened. He was afraid I might start blackmailing now and he would have to get somebody to kill me.

Marshall was sitting behind his desk. He pushed a big envelope across the desk toward me. I picked up the envelope and took out the letter.

“It’s only a recommendation,” he said. “Telling people that you’re a good worker.”

After I had read the letter, I folded it neatly and put it back in the envelope. Then I laid the envelope on the desk.

“You don’t want it?” he said, getting red in the face.

“No sir, I’ll get by,” I said. “Thanks very much.”

I went back home and packed my things; then I went up to Aunt Margaret’s house. I told her that everything I had left in the house was for her. If she couldn’t use them, she could give them away.

“Sit down and eat something ’fore you leave,” she said.

It was about three o’clock in the evening. I sat down at the table, and Aunt Margaret dished up a big plate of meat and rice and set it in front of me. She got a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, too.

“Yes, you have to leave,” she said, nodding her head thoughtfully.

“I know,” I said, eating.

“You see, you won’t forget,” she said.

“I can’t, Aunt Margaret.”

“That’s why you got to go,” she said. “You’ll just keep reminding him.”

“You forgot already, Aunt Margaret?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said.

The food was good. I ate slowly, looking across the table at her.

“When you live long as I done lived, you learn to forget things quite easy,” she said.

“I can’t. He killed Marcus; Bonbon didn’t.”

“That’s what you saying,” she said.

“That’s what we all know,” I said.

“I don’t know nothing,” she said, looking straight in my eyes.

“I was thinking about leaving anyhow,” I said.

“Why didn’t you go before now?”

I looked across the table at her. I loved Aunt Margaret very much.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She nodded. “I know,” she said.

“But you don’t know Marshall Hebert was the one who killed Marcus?”

“No, I don’t know that,” she said.

I ate and looked at her. “I’ll be like this one day,” I thought. “But Marcus never would have been like this.”

“I wonder where they at now,” she said.

“Pauline and Bonbon?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.”