Of Love and Dust

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “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?”

  “From what you’ve been saying, she’s not going to holler,” I said.

  “How do you know?” she said.

  I didn’t answer Aunt Margaret. We could go on like that all night.

  “All right,” she said, standing up. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Remember this when you come up to my house and want eat.”

  She walked away from the table. She thought I was going to stop her. She went all the way in the front room, then she came back.

  “You still refuse to do it?” she said.

  I didn’t answer her. I was looking out of the window. It was pitch-black outside.

  “Say yes or no,” she said.

  “I said no already, Aunt Margaret.”

  “Look at me when you say no,” she said.

  I turned to her.

  “Say it now,” she said.

  Aunt Margaret looked so pitiful standing there, I knew I couldn’t turn her down again. “There you go, James Kelly,” I thought, “there you go. You’re letting that soft heart of yours get you into trouble again.”

  “I’ll do it, Aunt Margaret,” I said.

  I saw a great relief come on her face. She would rather do anything in the world than say one word to Marcus. She told me good night and left.

  39

  I sat at the table with my face propped in my hands. I was trying to figure a way to go to Marcus. I wanted to go to Marcus; I had been wanting to go to Marcus for the last couple days because I thought he needed somebody to talk to. But I knew before Marcus and I exchanged a dozen words he was going to say something to make me mad.

  About ten minutes after Aunt Margaret had gone, I heard somebody coming in the room. I thought it was either Jobbo or Snuke Johnson. Sometimes Jobbo would come by with his harp, or Snuke would come by in his car and we would go riding somewhere. I didn’t look up until the person stopped at the middle door. Then I saw it was Marcus
. He still wore the pink shirt and the brown pants he had worn in the field that day. He had his cap in his hand. He had on his black and white pointed-toed shoes. The dew and grass had just about rubbed all the polish off the shoes now.

  “Speak to you?” Marcus said.

  “I was just getting ready to come out there,” I said.

  “I heard y’all talking.”

  “You know?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  I motioned toward the chair on the other side of the table. I didn’t know what Marcus wanted to talk about, but I was sure it was going to make me mad. He sat down at the table. He had been out of the field two or three hours, but he still hadn’t washed his hands or his face. I could see the dirt on his face and the rings of dirt around his neck. His pink shirt had brown sweat stains around the armpit and on the shoulder where he had been dragging the sack.

  Marcus sat at the table fumbling with his cap. This was the first time we had sat down together in over a week. He didn’t know how to start the conversation. He passed his tongue over his lips and started to say something, then he fumbled with the cap again.

  “Can I have a beer—if you got one?” he said.

  I had a couple bottles in the icebox. I got them out and gave him one. I sat back at the table with the other bottle.

  Marcus drank and set the bottle on the table. He was still looking at the bottle instead of me. He started to say something, but he raised the bottle to his mouth again.

  “We been talking,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything. He raised his head and looked at me.

  “We think we getting to like each other some,” he said.

  I still didn’t say anything to him. Just waiting. Both of us knew he was going to make me mad.

  “Maybe a lot,” he said.

  “I suppose you mean you and Louise, Marcus?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Well, what are you telling it to me for?”

  “You the only friend I got, Jim.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not your friend, Marcus. I was stuck with you. That old lady in Baton Rouge stuck you on me. I’m not your friend.”

  He didn’t hear a word I said. Even when I was talking I could see he wasn’t listening. He raised the bottle to his mouth and set it back again.

  “She want leave from here,” he said. “She want me get her ’way from here.”

  “Then do it,” I said. “There’s a bus running out there twice a day.”

  “Guess you still mad at me, huh?”

  “I’m not mad at all, Marcus,” I said. “You said she want you to take her away; I said there’s a bus running out there twice a day.”

  He looked at me awhile, then he started wiping the frost of the bottle with the side of his finger.

  “We go’n need help,” he said.

  “Did you ask Bonbon?”

  “No, but Marshall say he’ll do it.”

  He had raised his head and he was looking straight at me because he knew how that was going to hit me. I didn’t try to show it, but I could feel how warm I had got all of a sudden. My mind shot back to Saturday before last. I remembered how Marshall had looked at me when I told Bonbon I was taking Marcus a Coke. He had looked at me like he was thinking about Marcus at that moment, himself.

  “What did you say, Marcus?”

  “He’ll help me.”

  We looked across the table at each other. We were so quiet now I could hear my heart beating.

  “That’s if I kill Bonbon for him,” Marcus said, looking straight at me.

  “You playing with me, Marcus?”

  “He told me that Saturday when I was raking that yard.”

  I didn’t say anything—I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe I was hearing Marcus say it.

  “He asked me when I was go’n run. I told him I wasn’t go’n run. He said if I didn’t Bonbon was go’n kill me in the field. If I got him first there might be a car and some money waiting.”

  “You’re lying, Marcus.”

  “Why you think he bond me out? You think he care anything for my nan-nan?”

  “Yes; because she told me so. She told me that night when I took you to Baton Rouge; she told me the other Sunday when she came here. Yes, I believe that’s why he got you out. Yes, Marcus.”

  “Well, you wrong, and she wrong. He got me out to kill Bonbon. He got something ’gainst Bonbon or Bonbon got something ’gainst him, and he want Bonbon out the way.” Marcus stopped and looked at me. His eyes were sad. I didn’t know his eyes could get so sad. But I supposed it was like that with anybody who tried to be tough all the time. “I ain’t no dog, Jim,” he said. “I killed that nigger ’cause that nigger was go’n kill me. But I ain’t no hunting dog to go round killing people for nobody else.”

  At first I didn’t believe Marcus, but now I did. Because while he was talking, I was thinking about Marshall and Bonbon. I knew, from what Miss Julie Rand had said, that there was bad blood between them. And if Marshall wanted to get rid of Bonbon, what better way to do it than use Marcus to do it for him. Marcus already had the reputation for fighting, and anybody who worked around him and Bonbon could see that they didn’t get along. So why not use Marcus to get rid of Bonbon. And who would believe Marcus if he said Marshall had put him up to do it.

  I looked at Marcus across the table. I felt sorry for him, but I didn’t want to show it. Because if what he was saying was true, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Marshall was too big. If it was just Bonbon who wanted to hurt Marcus, you might be able to prevent that. Bonbon was nothing but a poor white man, and sometimes you could go to the rich white man for help. But where did you go when it was the rich white man? You couldn’t even go to the law, because he was the law. He was police, he was judge, he was jury.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. Because that was the easiest thing to say. That’s always the easiest thing to say when you can’t do anything about it. “No, I can’t believe that,” I said.

  “Believe it if you want,” Marcus said.

  “Is that what you’ve been thinking about doing, Marcus?”

  “I been thinking ’bout plenty things,” he said. “I know now I got to get ’way from here and get ’way from here soon.”

  “Don’t try that, Marcus.”

  “I can’t stay here ten years, Jim.”

  “It’s five—that’s if you’re guilty, Marcus.”

  “He say I’m already guilty and it’s ten. They changed all the rules the day after I killed that nigger.”

  “He’s just pushing you, Marcus. He’s doing it to see what you’ll do. If you don’t bite for his bait, he’ll leave you alone and try somebody else.”

  “It’s not just him. I got to get ’way from here for myself. If I don’t Jim, I’m go’n get in plenty more trouble. I know that.”

  “If you try this, Marcus, you’ll really get in trouble,” I said.

  “Some people get away. You always hear ’bout people getting away.”

  “Most of them get caught, Marcus,” I said. “And you’re talking about taking Louise, too. You’ll never make it.”

  “Sooner or later, Jim, I got to try,” he said. “I got to get ’way from here.”

  “It won’t work, Marcus,” I told him again. “You’ll need money, you’ll need food, you’ll need a car. It won’t work. You’ll just end up in Angola.”

  “I can’t stay here ten years, Jim,” he said. He was getting mad now and his voice was getting high. “I can’t even stay here ten weeks,” he said.

  “You can if you make up your mind to do it, Marcus,” I said. “If you try, if you try hard. And I’ll be around here—I don’t know how long—but I’ll be here. I’ll do all I can to—”

  “I can’t stay here,” he screamed at me now. “Can’t you see I can’t stay here. Can’t you see I ain’t like that. Can’t you see …”

  PART THREE

  40

  Five minutes after Bonbon left the house F
riday night, the dog started growling. Louise went out in the yard and led the dog to the other side of the house while Marcus came in through the back door. Then Louise came up on the front gallery, passed by Aunt Margaret and Tite, and went in the room where he was.

  There wasn’t any noise tonight. No dresser behind the door, no armoire falling. No chairs slamming against the wall; no running, no jumping, no slapping. The room was quiet as the gallery, quiet as the yard, quiet as the whole plantation.

  When Tite fell asleep in Aunt Margaret’s arms, Aunt Margaret took her inside and put her to bed. Then she came back on the gallery and sat in her rocker again. Louise came out of the bedroom and went in the kitchen. Aunt Margaret heard her setting things on the stove, and she could smell the food when Louise dished it up and brought it back to the bedroom. Louise didn’t latch the door or put anything behind it, and Aunt Margaret could hear them talking in there.

  That was Friday night. Sunday morning Bonbon left the house early to go hunting with his brothers. Louise found out the day before that he was supposed to go hunting, and she had even sent word to Aunt Margaret then to come up there Sunday after church. Soon as church was over Aunt Margaret went home and changed clothes and went up the quarter. When she came in the yard, she found Tite sitting under one of the trees making mud pies. Tite was stirring the mud in a bowl and laying the pies out on a piece of tin in the sun. Aunt Margaret talked with her a while; then she went up on the gallery and sat down. She expected to hear the dog barking a few minutes after she was there, but half an hour went by and still the dog hadn’t made a sound. Then, as she started inside to get a drink of water, she glanced toward the bedroom door. The door was opened just a little, but enough so Aunt Margaret could see there were two people laying on the bed.

  “My Master, my Master,” she said, and ran to the door. But just before shutting it, she opened it wider to say something to Marcus and Louise. They laid on the bed naked. Both of them laid on their backs, and Louise was in Marcus’s arms. “Y’all gone stone-crazy?” Aunt Margaret said to them. “Y’all know that child out there? Y’all got no sense of shame, none at all?”