A Gathering of Old Men

by Ernest J. Gaines

  I heard a groan from the women sitting on the steps.

  “Look at that, look at that,” one of them said. “A old man like Billy Washington—just look at that.”

  “Mapes, I’m going to remember that,” Candy said, stabbing her finger toward him. “I’ve got a lot of witnesses. I’m going to remember that.”

  Mapes paid her no attention.

  “Let’s try it again, Uncle Billy. How come you so far from home?”

  “I kilt him,” Uncle Billy said, his bald head bobbing.

  Pow went Mapes’s hand again. Blood dripped from Uncle Billy’s mouth, but he would not wipe it away.

  “Stand him over there, bring me another one,” Mapes said to Griffin.

  “You’re going to beat them all, Mapes?” Candy asked him. She was mad enough to hit him, but Mapes probably would have hit her back. I didn’t like what was going on either, but I knew that had I interfered, Mapes would have knocked hell out of me and thrown me in the back of his car.

  “You better get her out of here,” he said to me.

  “Like hell he will,” Candy said. “This is my land, in case you forget.”

  “You better stay out of my way,” Mapes warned her.

  “Like hell I will.”

  “Like hell you won’t,” he said.

  He turned to the old man that Griffin had just brought up there.

  “What are you doing from behind those trees, Gable?” he asked.

  Gable was a thin, brown-skinned man with white hair and high, prominent cheekbones. He was impeccably dressed—brown sports coat, plaid shirt, a string tie, brown trousers, and shoes well shined. He had taken off his hat, which he held against his leg, not to his chest as Uncle Billy had done. Also unlike Uncle Billy, who never raised his eyes higher than Mapes’s chest, Gable looked him straight in the face. “I kilt him,” he said.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Gable,” Mapes said. “You’ve had enough trouble in your life already. Now, I ask you again, how did she get you from behind those trees?”

  “I shot him,” Gable said.

  Mapes clamped his teeth so hard that the muscles in his heavy jowls began to quiver. His right hand came up slowly—then pow. Gable’s face jerked to the side, but came right back. His eyes watered, but he stared Mapes straight in the face.

  The women on the steps groaned. The little girl and the smaller boy covered their faces. The men watched quietly.

  “You can do it all day long,” Gable said to Mapes.

  Mapes slapped him again. Gable’s face jerked to the side just a little. His eyes blinked for a moment; then he was looking Mapes in the face again.

  The muscles in Mapes’s heavy jowls continued to quiver. He did not like what he was doing, but he didn’t know any other way to get what he wanted.

  “Stand him over there, bring me another one,” he said.

  “Not the other cheek?” Gable asked. “Both times you hit the same one—not the other one?”

  Mapes’s big face flushed with anger. The jowl muscles continued to twitch. He did not answer Gable.

  Griffin took Gable by the arm and led him over to where Uncle Billy was standing. I saw Uncle Billy looking at Mapes and grinning. I could have told Mapes then that he wasn’t going to get anywhere by slapping them.

  “Why don’t you use a stick or a hose pipe?” Candy said to Mapes. “No sense bruising your hands on old people who can’t fight back.”

  “They all have shotguns,” Mapes said.

  “You know they won’t use them.”

  “That’s right,” Mapes said. “I know they won’t use them, and we know they didn’t use them, don’t we?”

  “I told you I did it,” Candy said.

  “Sure,” Mapes said. “And my name is Santa Claus.”

  Griffin was moving among the crowd. Suddenly he had become very brave. He wasn’t choosing the first one he came to; he was being picky now. He was going to get the one he wanted. The people did not look at him as he moved toward them. They didn’t seem afraid; they just didn’t think he was important enough to look at. But as he approached the steps, Aunt Glo’s little grandson Snookum suddenly stood up before him. Griffin told him to sit back down before he slapped him down. Griffin was very tough around the very old and the very young. But instead of sitting back down, the boy jumped off the steps and started toward Mapes. Candy, who had not been standing too far away from Mapes, now got between him and the boy, and told the boy to go back. He stopped, but he did not return to the steps until his grandmother called him. He went back and sat on the steps next to her, and she put her arm around his shoulders. Then both she and he looked back at Mapes, and both seemed ready to be slapped, if either or both were his choice. Candy turned back to Mapes, but only stared at him, and did not say anything. I didn’t say anything either. But I knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of them by slapping them around.

  Griffin had already chosen someone else, the quarter’s preacher, Reverend Jameson. Griffin couldn’t have chosen a sadder figure. His shirt was already fully wet from perspiration. He looked as if he were about to have a heart attack, he was so afraid of Mapes. Mapes didn’t like it either that Griffin had brought him the preacher. He had wanted someone with a gun. But now he had no choice but to go on with what he had started.

  “What are you doing down here, Reverend?” he asked. “Why aren’t you at home reading your Bible?”

  Reverend Jameson looked down at Mapes’s feet. He did not raise his eyes as high as Mapes’s chest.

  “I ain’t got nothing to say, Sheriff,” he said, without raising his head.

  “You better think of something to say,” Mapes said. “What are you doing down here?”

  Reverend Jameson shook his head, but never raised his eyes.

  “I’ll ask you one more time, Reverend,” Mapes said. “What are you doing down here?”

  The old man remained quiet. Beads of sweat covered his bald head. Pow went Mapes’s hand across his face. Sweat flew from his bald head. Unlike the two other old men, whose faces snapped to the side when Mapes hit them, Reverend Jameson staggered and fell flat on his back. The people looked at him, but no one said anything. After a while he raised his head and looked at Candy the way a little dog would look up at its mistress after it has been punished. But Candy showed him no sympathy. None of the others did either. And he slowly pushed himself up and stood before Mapes again.

  “Well?” Mapes said.

  He shook his head, which was still bowed. “I ain’t got nothing to say, Sheriff.” And down he went again.

  He sat up just as he had done before, and stared down at the ground. Then, as he started pushing himself to his feet, suddenly every last person in the yard and on the porch, whether he was sitting, squatting, or standing, began forming a line up to Mapes. Candy was at the head of the line.

  “I’m next, Mapes,” she said.

  Mapes stared at her with those hard, ash-colored eyes, and his flushed heavy jowls trembled even more violently. I thought he was going to hit her for sure now, and I was just about ready to step between them when he jerked his head and walked away, and I knew he wanted me to follow him out into the road. He leaned back against his car and crossed his legs and folded his arms across his chest. He was a big man—two sixty, two seventy—and he looked very tired. I leaned back against the car beside him, and both of us looked into the yard. The people had begun moving around again. Candy was attending to Uncle Billy, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. And I noticed for the first time that the only person who had not gotten into the line was Mathu. He still squatted against the wall with the gun cradled in his arms. He was smoking a cigarette and looking out at us.

  “You know he did it, don’t you?” Mapes said. He had calmed down some.

  “Who?” I said.

  “You know who I’m talking about.” Yes, I knew who he was talking about. We were both looking at him squatting there.

  “Why don’t you arrest him?” I said.


  “On what charges?” Mapes asked.

  “Killing Beau, I suppose.”

  “How can you prove it?” Mapes said. “Because Beau was killed here in his yard? That’s no proof. Clinton would have that thrown out of court in two seconds flat. And she knows that, too.”

  “What about the gun?”

  “You didn’t look very close, did you?” Mapes asked me. “Every last one has the same make gun—twelve-gauge. Everyone probably has the same numbered shell in the gun right now. No, you can’t arrest him on that. But he killed him, all right. The only one with nuts enough to do it.”

  He got a half roll of Life Savers out of his pocket and reached it toward me. I shook my head. He put one of the Life Savers into his mouth, and the pack back into his pocket. He sucked on the Life Saver while he looked at Mathu squatting against the wall.

  “You seen Charlie?” he asked me.

  “No, I haven’t seen him.”

  “He’s probably hiding somewhere back there in the field,” Mapes said. “We can pick him up anytime. But he didn’t do it. Mathu did. And she arranged this little get-together. Not him. He never would have. He’s a tough old goat just like you see him there. He probably would have turned himself in by now if she hadn’t got into it, but he doesn’t want to go against her. Where she got all these old men from, only God knows. Look at them. Look at those old guns.”

  We both looked at the old men with their shotguns. Candy had finished attending to Uncle Billy and Gable, and she had gone back to the steps to stand beside Aunt Glo and the children. She and Aunt Glo were talking and looking out into the road at us.

  “My God, man, can’t you talk to her?” Mapes said to me. “I don’t want any trouble on this place. That Baton Rouge crowd’s already getting drunk for that game tomorrow. Some of them wouldn’t want anything better than a necktie party tonight.”

  “I tried talking. She wouldn’t listen,” I said.

  “You tried throwing her butt into the back of that car?” Mapes asked.

  “No, I didn’t try that, Mapes,” I told him. “I hear there’s a law against kidnapping people. Especially on their own place.”

  “There’s a law against harboring a murderer, too,” Mapes said. “You ever heard of that law?”

  I didn’t answer him. I looked at Candy standing beside the steps talking to Aunt Glo.

  “You two are going to make a hell of a marriage,” Mapes said.

  “Don’t get personal, Mapes,” I told him.

  “When is the date?” he asked, and grinned.

  “Just don’t get personal, all right, Mapes?”

  He exhaled a deep breath while he looked at me. I wasn’t much of a man in his eyesight. He looked back at Candy.

  “Maybe Beau was living in the past, and maybe he wasn’t, but she damned sure is,” he said. “She still thinks she can do as her paw and the rest of them did fifty years ago. Well, it’s not going to work. He isn’t getting out of this.”

  “You seem to have something personal against him.”

  Mapes grunted. “That’s where you’re wrong. I admire the nigger. He’s a better man than most I’ve met, black or white. But he killed a man—and she’s not getting him out of it. If she had any sense at all, she would have taken him to jail hours ago. Because if Fix doesn’t show up, others may. And they won’t be coming here to talk. But I don’t suppose she realizes that.”

  He looked at me to see if I had any comments. I had nothing to say. He looked past me. “Well, here comes Herman,” he said.

  The hearse drove slowly down the road. It went by us, then stopped in front of Mapes’s car, and the coroner and his assistant remained inside awhile looking out at the people. The people in the yard and on the porch looked back at the hearse.

  The coroner got out and looked at the people again before coming toward Mapes. He was a small, clean-shaven man with steel-rim glasses. He could have been in his mid- or late sixties. He wore a seersucker suit, a panama hat, a white shirt, and a small polka-dotted bow tie. His well-shined black shoes were covered with dust.

  “Herman,” Mapes said.

  But Herman did not speak. Instead, he just looked up at Mapes, and I could see his blue eyes through the thick lenses asking Mapes what it was all about. Mapes moved the Life Saver around with his tongue and nodded to the assistant, who had followed the coroner over to us. The assistant, who was named George, was a much younger and larger man. He was blond and balding.

  “George,” Mapes said.

  “Mapes,” George said.

  Then George started looking at Mapes exactly the way that Herman was doing. They wanted Mapes to say something to them. They thought Mapes owed them some kind of explanation about what was going on. Mapes didn’t say anything. He looked into the yard where all the people were looking out at us. He moved the Life Saver around before turning back to Herman. Old Herman was still looking up at him.

  “Don’t you think you ought to get started?” Mapes said.

  Herman waited about ten more seconds before he said, “Sure, Mapes.” Then he looked up at Mapes another ten seconds before he said anything to George. “Bring that stretcher and a blanket,” he said. Then, while George was getting the stretcher and blanket out of the hearse, Herman looked up at Mapes another ten or fifteen seconds before going into the yard. After a while, Mapes and I followed him.

  “How long you reckon he’s been dead?” Mapes asked.

  Herman was on one knee looking down at Beau.

  “Two, maybe three hours, I suppose,” he said.

  “More like three,” Mapes said. “That would put it around noon, wouldn’t it?”

  “Around that time, I suppose,” Herman said.

  “I been here half an hour,” Mapes said. “Got here around two-thirty. That would have given them—her—a two-and-a-half-hour jump—”

  “What?” Herman said.

  “Just talking to myself,” Mapes said.

  Herman couldn’t hold back any longer, and jumped to his feet. For an old man he could really get up fast. He got up right against Mapes’s chest. He was about half the size of Mapes.

  “What the hell is going on around here, Mapes?” he said, pushing up against Mapes’s stomach. “You’re talking to yourself while a bunch of niggers stand around here with shotguns and a white man lays dead in the grass. I demand to know what the hell is going on around here!”

  “You and George better get him into Bayonne,” Mapes said calmly.

  George was standing there with the stretcher and the blanket. Herman was still staring at Mapes through those thick lenses which made his eyes look about the size of partridge eggs. You could not pass your hand slantwise between Herman’s chest and Mapes’s stomach.

  “I don’t know any more than you do,” Mapes said, looking over Herman down at the corpse.

  “Don’t you think you ought to hurry up and find out more than I know?” Herman asked, still looking up at Mapes.

  “You take care your business, I’ll take care mine,” Mapes said.

  “Sure,” the coroner said, and nodded. He turned to his assistant. “All right, George.”

  George spread the blanket out on the grass, and he and Griffin picked up Beau by the arms and legs and laid him on the blanket. Then George wrapped the blanket well around and over Beau, and he and Griffin laid Beau on the stretcher and took him out to the hearse. Everyone in the yard and on the porch watched what was going on, but remained quiet.

  “Don’t you think you ought to hurry, Mapes?” Herman asked him one more time. “Not only Fix—but what about his friends on the lane?” Behind the thick lenses his blue eyes got even bigger when he mentioned the friends on the lane. The eyes, not the words, gave the meaning of what he had just said.

  “Don’t spread this around,” Mapes said, and moved the candy about in his mouth.

  The coroner shook his head. “Oh, no, Mapes,” he said. “I won’t tell a soul. I’ll just tell them Beau has a chill in all this hot weather—that’s why
I got him wrapped up like this.”

  “The rest of it, I mean,” Mapes said.

  “The shotguns?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Don’t worry,” the coroner said. “Nobody would believe me anyhow. Would you, Mapes?”

  Mapes didn’t answer him. The coroner looked around at the people, then back at Mapes again. But he could see that Mapes had no more to say to him, and after looking up at me helplessly he left the yard. George was already in the hearse waiting for him. After they had driven off, Mapes took off his hat and wiped the sweatband. He wiped his face and neck while he looked at the people on the porch.

  “All right,” he said when he had put the hat back on. “The ones who don’t stay here get moving. The rest of you move back there on the porch. I mean right now.”

  But nobody moved.

  “What’s the matter with you all?” Mapes asked them. “Can’t you all hear, either? I said move.”

  “I kilt him,” Uncle Billy said. Uncle Billy stood by the garden fence where Griffin had put him half an hour ago. His lips were swollen from where Mapes had hit him. He seemed as proud of his swollen lips as was Crane’s boy in The Red Badge of Courage.

  Mapes stared at him a second, then went toward him. Everyone expected Mapes to pop him again. Instead, he jerked the gun out of Uncle Billy’s hand, ejected the shell and raised it to his nose. Then he put the shell back, and slammed the gun into the waiting hands.

  “Who told you to fire that gun, Uncle Billy?” Mapes asked him.

  “Nobody,” Uncle Billy said.

  “Candy, didn’t she?” Mapes asked.

  “No, sir,” Uncle Billy said.

  “You still go to church, Uncle Billy?” Mapes asked him.

  “A deacon at Little Shadrack Baptist Church,” Uncle Billy said.

  “If I got a Bible, would you still say you shot Beau, Uncle Billy?”

  Uncle Billy licked his bottom lip, and he lowered his head as though he had to give this great consideration. Mapes waited. We all waited. Mapes got tired waiting.

  “Well?” he said.

  Uncle Billy raised his head and, looking Mapes straight in the eyes, he nodded.