Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “‘And for a future chieftain,’ the second elder said. ‘Just look at his eyes as he follows the movements of that squaw serving that fine roasted quail! I wouldn’t like to be in the place of that quail!’

  “‘Or in the place of that squaw with the hamstrung legs,’ the impatient one said. ‘Not unless she canters herself and serves him!’

  “And then, noticing that I was watching, he pretended to work up a great anger. Throwing back his head and beating his chest he yelled, ‘Bring me my Colt of the blue-tempered steel! Hand me my club with the six-pound head! Bring me my horse and my death-dealing rifle and I’ll feed these turtle-legged teasers of appetites a big meal of lead! I, Starving Konukno have spoken, and to this I swear!’

  “That’s when one of the others winked at me and said, ‘Pay him no mind, Black One, he has only a few teeth left and is always impatient of the gut and the bowels.’

  “So then they proceeded to discuss the proper places to tickle the serving squaws to make them move faster. But there is no need to recall what they said, because after all the years and great changes you can hear the conversation continued in the barbershops of the State Negroes. Those old men had been around too long to worry about their dignity, so old Konukno could allow himself the impiety of boasting—which in a younger man would have been in bad taste. It was part of their joke and as they kept working themselves up for the feasting I enjoyed listening. At their age there was nothing left for them to do except eat, drink, talk, and tell lies. Yes, and disagree with how everything was done by men who were younger—which is the privilege of old men—Yao!”

  “If you say so,” Hickman said. “But what about the sick man, did he ever get fed?”

  “I was coming to that,” Love said as once more he took a long, high look into the trees.

  “At this point I looked up and saw the Chief helping his son to his feet. He was smiling, and I watched him pat the young man on his left shoulder with great tenderness, then he stepped around and with his knife he cut the thongs from the young man’s wrists and ankles. Hickman, you should have heard the shouts and whooping that greeted his action. Then came a glad thunder during which the son stood smiling and rubbing his wrists. And as the noise grew louder, he spread out his arms like a true chief and smiled. And in that moment he was like something that was very young and innocent, and his smile was like the pure smile of a child while it’s sleeping. With that the shouting really soared, and it went on and on until the old Chief raised his hand. Then the Chief helped his son to take his seat and the feasting began.

  “For a while I was so busy eating that I had no eyes for the sick man or anyone else. For during the period when Shagatonga’s medicine was working I had eaten very little because of my being as one with the sick man. His burden was mine. And to the extent that it was possible it was my task to endure what he endured and feel what he felt. It hadn’t been easy, so by now I was nervous and hungry. So when the Chief freed the hands of his son he freed me of a great burden. So now, as I say, I was eating. Eating with the concentration of a starving animal, when I became aware that the noise of celebration had become so quiet that I could hear the faraway howling of a dog. And when I raised my head I saw that the Chief was now standing and looking down upon the head of his son. All eyes were upon them, eyes of the old men, the young braves, the women, and the children. Some held pieces of food in their hands, and there were strange expressions on their faces. Then as I narrowed my eyes and looked at the son I understood—and Hickman, that moment was terrible….”

  “What happened, man?” Hickman shouted. “What’s all this bopping and stopping?”

  “Hickman, he’d changed! Right in the midst of the feasting he had changed….”

  “All right! But how? In what way?”

  “From what he’d been. Changed as the weather changes between seasons. Changed as winter is different from summer. Changed and become different as a ghost is different from the living. Only as it turned out he could still walk, talk, and eat, and even hunt, but his humanity had left him….”

  “His humanity,” Hickman said. “Man, talk like a State Negro and tell me what you mean!”

  “Hell, didn’t I say his humanity was gone? What are we discussing—bears? Is that what you think I’ve been talking about? Don’t you admit that we of the People have humanity?”

  “Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be interested. I just want you to be more specific so I’ll know what you mean.”

  “And you call yourself a man of medicine! Hickman, I mean that he had lost that which makes man man—now do you understand? He was no longer the man that he had been, and he had forgotten his name—which is one of the first signs of the living dead. A very bad sign.”

  “Do you mean he had amnesia?” Hickman said. “There was a faithful member of my church who had that, so I understand something of amnesia.”

  “You do, do you,” Love said. “Well, I hope you do and that it’s not a matter of you State folks giving a thing a name and thinking you understand it. Yao! And I hope you understand the rest of it.”

  “So try me, what is the rest?”

  “His loss of control over his body’s urges. He was here and not here. He was well-named and no longer knew his name. He was now neither man or animal but some strange untamed thing of no specific name. He was sitting there with all the clans watching, and with his father the Chief looking on he began devouring everything in sight. He was stuffing himself until his cheeks puffed like balloons and his eyes burned like embers! With unchewed grub spilling from the corners of his mouth and falling to the ground. He was running amok with eating, and not even the silence and dismay of the crowd could stop him. I watched him reach for water and when he drank it was with the thirst of a horse that had covered many miles in the desert. And just as noisy. He snorted spray from his calabash like a mule, poured water down his throat until it distended his belly, and he kept snorting and drinking until he pissed his britches. And all of that before the eyes of his people! He had changed, I tell you, he had changed! But as we learned in the days that followed, that was not all.

  “For now there was no moderation left in the man, neither in the matter of taking in or giving out. When he gave, he gave everything—horses, dogs, blankets, his knife and rifle. Even pairs of his Eastern shoes with the thick soles and scotch-grain uppers. And when you offered to share with him he left you nothing. In everything he did he was like a locomotive running on a downhill grade with the brake shoes busted, the fireman and engineer both dead, and the brake-man twenty cars back lying lap-legged drunk in the tail-end caboose. So don’t try to pin him down with some simpleminded word like ‘amnesia’—hell, the man was a walking calamity!”

  “I withdraw my suggestion,” Hickman said. “It had to be more than amnesia.” “Yes,” Love said, “and even worse, you could hear and smell him coming even from a great distance because of the violence his bowels did to his britches. Whenever it was possible we tried to keep upwind of him, because when the stench of him blew in your direction the smells that blow now from the packing plant out west of town would have been no competition. Amnesia? Who ever heard of such an amnesia?”

  “All right,” Hickman said, “so I was wrong and it was something else.” “Are you telling me? As old as I am I have seen only one case like it. The man was out of control! In all things he was like a stampede of wild horses! And while his explosions of energy might have been to his advantage with women, no squaw in her right mind would risk such wear and exhaustion. With women lined up in sufficient numbers—Yao!—and with thick enough colds in their heads to keep out his stinking, he could have fathered a whole tribe in the course of nightfall and morning! He would have been like a stallion among the mares, a seed bull among the heifers. This is mere speculation, but Hickman, there’s no need for guessing when it comes to his hunting.

  “When he hunted anyone could see the damage he created, there’s no guessing about it. For one of the strangest effects
of his condition was that he had become even more deadly as a marksman than he’d been before, and he was one of the best. He killed and he killed. He lay waste the game. He brought down more animals than the hoof-and-mouth disease. On the hunt he was like a blast of fire. And soon the game flew before him as though they’d been given the word. The fish deserted the streams or lay still in the shadows. Or maybe they went on a diet and became vegetarians. The birds found distant cover or learned to feed in the nighttime.

  “So bad days came to the People, and all because of this Chief’s son who had lost that which makes a man human.

  “Hickman, I have thought on these matters for a long time and I appreciate your being willing to listen. I told it to the boy but I have no idea how much he understood. Maybe for you, being a preacher, there’s a worn-out moral in it. But think on it anyway. First there was his time with the bitch bear. Then his life in the East, about which I know little. Then came his return as a great hunter and teacher who improved the crops and the bloodlines of horses. Then came the broken taboo and his being taken over by spirits that were evil. Everything that we knew to do was done to save him, but for all of the wise medicine of Shaga-tonga, the Old One of the mountain, there was nothing left to be salvaged. We did our best, but the evil spirits took him over….”

  “Once,” Hickman said, “I played a concert at an army hospital that was full of fellows like that. It’s a sad thing to happen to anybody, and a terrible thing when it happens to such a promising young man. What was finally done about him?”

  “For a time we tried to live with what had happened, for this had been a much-loved young man—Yao! But soon, under the lashing of the hard times that followed, that love began to change into its opposite. So the council made up of the chiefs and wise men of all the clans came together, and for three days they discussed the problem. And so it was agreed that since everything that might have appeased the angry spirits had been done but failed to save him, the Chief’s son would be escorted to the high sad place where the cliff overlooked a deep valley. That was their sad but final decision, and in the interest of all the People the old Chief agreed….”

  With the thought, Absalom, Absalom, my son, Hickman looked up to see Love staring into his face with eyes so bright that he felt a chill. Then the high-pitched voice continued.

  “All through the night the old Chief sat by himself in the council lodge, smoking and singing a certain sad song of anguish. Then, before day broke the next morning, the party assembled and set out on its journey….”

  “Did you …”

  “… Yes, I went along. The old Chief led the way, and the one who had been his only son rode on horseback behind him. The Chief set a slow pace, with his sad eyes turned to the hills as he led the blind pony by its bridle, and the son came swaying and rolling behind him. He had been barbered and bathed and dressed in his buckskins, beads, and feathers, and wore on his braided head the black Stetson that he’d worn when he returned from the East. To divert his attention one of the elders had given him a great melon which had been chilled in a spring, and he rode with it cradled in his arms. Rode with his head lowered above it, giving it such attention that he had no eyes for the trail along which he was traveling. This I know because I was riding as the last of seven medicine men arrayed in a row directly behind him. He was totally involved, caressing and babbling to it, and when he bit into it and began eating, some of the elders became upset by his affair with the melon.

  “‘Such a thing should not be permitted,’ one of them said, ‘for it is not right for a man to be eating at such a time as this!’

  “‘Maybe not,’ another said, ‘but at a time like this what does it matter? Why not let him have his pleasure and think of how glad he made us during that spring of his returning?’

  “‘I remember,’ he was answered, ‘I remember it all too well, but that springtime is long gone, and this time is a time of winter in summer. His is no way for a man to act in such a time.’

  “‘Why not think of his father and what he has to do?’ I said. ‘Think of what he must be thinking. He is a good Chief and a good father—just look how he holds up his head.’

  “‘That is true, Black One,’ the elder said, ‘but on such a grave occasion as this he should not be allowed that melon.’ And so it went.

  “We were climbing into the hills by now, and I watched the Chief’s son with full attention. Sometimes he would look into the sky and smile, then he would lower his head to the melon again, and it went on like this for miles and miles, until we were close to that special place. It was high and eerie, and when we reached a certain point the Chief went ahead of the party, leading his son by the blind pony’s reins to a spot at the edge of the cliff.

  “Now the rest of us formed a tight group some distance behind them and sat waiting quietly on horseback. The light was gray and beyond the edge of the cliff huge cloud-like shapes that were threatening were slowly arising. Then in the foreground ahead the blind pony of the sick man let go with some droppings, and in the chill of the air I could see it steaming and drifting. And yet, there in the cold air, I was shivering and sweating.

  “For in that moment I was one with the son, the doomed man, with all of my powers. And with the Chief, his father. Sitting there astride my pony I trembled, and with blood running from my nose I could see drops of it falling upon my hands and feel it cooling. Then I was watching the Chief dismounting and helping his son to dismount from the pony. And as I watched I swayed on my pony. I remembered the night in the cave with Shagatonga, the Old One, and how the story of the life of the tribe and the deeds of the sick man’s fathers had unfolded before me, and how the under-flesh of his skull had looked when the peeled skin of his forehead had covered his nose. Yao! I remembered, and thought of the change in the times and feared for the life of the People.

  “And in wanting to help I was concentrating so hard that my blood was dampening my temples. And since my duty prevented me from fainting I passed into a state that was rare—not of unconsciousness, but somewhere beyond. And yet I was still there with the others. I could see, smell, and hear, but it was like looking at a scene unfolding through fire. I was with the sick man, watching his swaying from side to side as he mouthed on the melon. And in that last moment I tried with all of my powers to return him to normal.

  “Hickman, I tried, I tried! With all my powers of mind I tried to make him drop the melon and take his place with dignity—Yao! Because for a people who had been taught to live and die with honor it was his moment of ultimate dignity.

  “But I failed, I was unable to help him. And with blood dripping from my nose I watched him eating as I surrendered him to his ancestors and felt defeated and sad that the tribe had lost an exceptional young man.

  “Hickman, he never stopped eating. When we lifted him from the back of the pony he was eating. And as we guided him to his position near the edge of the cliff he was eating. And when the old Chief his father began addressing our gods in a voice that echoed and quavered he had his face deep in the rind as he snuffled and gobbled the meat of the melon—Yao! And when his father turned him to face the west he stumbled into position and kept eating. Aye! He was eating! And as I watched the Chief retreat a short distance before raising his rifle and sadly taking aim he was so busy eating that he paid no attention. And when the rifle rang out in the silence his head jerked back in surprise as though he’d heard his name called in a crowd while moving among strangers. And as he slumped to the earth he was still grasping that melon in hands that were dying.

  “Then, as though blasted by cold winter winds, I shivered and lurched on my pony. And with teeth chattering like dry seeds in a gourd I shuddered as I watched the old Chief raise his arm to the skies in fulfillment of his duty. Then as he turned and retreated from the edge of the cliff, I could see a bloodred sun rise up in the distance. And as the Chief bowed his head and began descending the mountain alone, we moved to the son through the red dawn of morning.

  “I was
the first to reach where the dead son had fallen and there was a smile on his face, and just below the thin bluish scar which puckered the skin of his forehead I saw a single seed of the melon which glowed ghostly white in the dawn of daylight….”

  [EGYPT]

  WHAT A TERRIBLE SACRIFICE for a father, Hickman thought, and in a scene evoked by the incantatory rhythms of the old Native’s voice he imagined the old Chief standing alone on the mountain as he gazed into the sky above an ancient, bloodstained pyramid such as those Millsap once described after a trip to the Aztec region of Mexico. Then, hearing the clatter of trolley cars passing in the street blend with the drone of a plane overhead, he found himself standing dangerously close to railroad tracks along which a tandem of two huge locomotives were speeding with a train of rumbling boxcars.

  It was strange, yet here he was, pinned on the wrong side of the track with boxcars sweeping past to a rhythmical pounding of wheels on rails; while there, far in the distance, where the tracks curved to the left, the two engines were speeding toward a trestle which spanned a wide-yawning gorge. And looking back to the void out of which the train was emerging he could see boxcars still flying toward him while smoke pouring back from the engines swirled in the air above them like a message being written in retrograde. And now as he took a quick look back to the trestle toward which the engines were plunging he seemed to be standing nearby and watching the gorge stretch ever wider and wider in what appeared to be a race between locomotive and chasm, engineers and time—then, with an earthshaking rumble, the locomotives raced over the trestle, and he found himself back at the crossing and thought, Hickman, at the speed it’s tooling it’ll soon be past, so get set to get going—but as he stared at the cars sweeping past he froze with uncertainty.