All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By

by John Farris

  "Did Clipper realize you were his half-brother?" Jackson asked.

  Tyrone didn't answer, and he looked so relaxed against the table Jackson thought he might have gone to sleep. Then Tyrone stirred, picking up the bottle of brandy. He looked at Jackson with a hint of admiration.

  "You do keep a sharp eye out," he said. "The more I get to know you, the better I like you. Have another, Dr. Holley?"

  Jackson nodded. Tyrone poured them each a dollop.

  "It was never spoke of around here, but he knew. Picked it up from what wasn't said. Everybody understood Boss to be a lecher with a keen interest in poontang, and he joked about that too: There'd been two, three babies turned out lots darker than me. Well, those chillun just never had no significance for Boss. Never saw himself in them. But my mother, Boss really doted on her. She was light, not even high-yella, kind of smoky cream color. He set her up in business down in New Orleans a little time after I was born. She got run over by a brewery wagon one fine day, but that's another story. There never was a joke about her or me. Still, Clipper knew what—who I was, and so did Champ. Now, Champ was older, and never gave any trouble, but he always did have a lot on his mind. He wasn't Boss's favorite by a long shot; that made him anxious and eager to please and he had to work hard to get Boss to notice him at all. Clipper had plenty time for me. Clipper had all his great-granddaddy's hatred for black people stored up inside—and Sylvanus Bradwin the first was a slavemaster with a fearsome reputation. This house was built on the bodies and blood of Africans. Clipper was just naturally bad to niggers, but the fact that he was related to one—and had to look that nigger in the face almost every day—drove bun wild."

  "Did he give you more trouble, after the fire in the field?"

  "Dropped a rock off the roof that knocked me out for two days. Put a baby rattlesnake in my bed— What's the matter, doctor?"

  Jackson had shuddered involuntarily, almost spilling some of the brandy from, his glass. He was able to smile. "Snakes. I don't like them."

  "They don't bother me as much as Clipper thought. I just plucked that little rattler up by the hackles and tossed it out the window. Oh, I was glad to see Clipper go off to school, his thirteenth year. But from what Nhora tells me, his meanness didn't stop. He was bad with the little girls—and some grown-up women, too, who ought to know better. He was a devil, and that was never more plain to me than the day he died." Tyrone's head tilted forward moodily, and he sniffed deeply of the brandy fumes. "Because he didn't die, you see. Not like he should have."

  "What do you mean? Nhora said he committed suicide by swallowing—"

  "Swallowed his saber and crashed through a window to the ground. When I got to him, and I was the first one there, he was still alive, his gory teeth clenched on steel. But he was grinnin' at me; there was hell-light shining through his eyes. I'm a strongman, doctor, strong in my faith, but I couldn't bear that sight. My knees shook and I was cold to the roots of my heart. There was a pile of paving stones nearby covered with a tarpaulin. I pulled off the tarp and threw it over him. Last thing I saw was his eyes blazing, and I still dream about them. His eyes in my dreams are hotter than the fire he set, the fire that was meant to burn me black, blacker than all the other bastard babies Boss brought forth, black as the nigger I refused to be. Then I see him lyin' in his grave, eyes open, blazin', schemin' to get even with me. And I wake up like a little child in my bed, cryin' for the mama I never had."

  Tyrone's hand, however, was steady as he lifted his glass to his lips. "Champ and Clipper and little Judge," he said. He seemed to be talking to himself. "And Beau—maybe we should think about Beau now. What if it's true, and he has come back?" Tyrone studied Jackson, trying to take this notion seriously. "Beau was the best of them, from what I hear, but that was a long time ago. What's left of old Beau now?"

  "Not much, perhaps. He seems to be holding a grudge against everyone who lives at Dasharoons. That could be the result of some twisted ideas about patrimony."

  "The only way to get at the truth is to run Early Boy to ground. Easier said than done." Tyrone gave a start, flinching from a movement in the doorway. Jackson turned too. Hackaliah stood there, nodding almost imperceptibly, his face without expression.

  "Heard voices," he said to Tyrone. "Didn't know it was you."

  "Who else, daddy?" Tyrone said, takin a deep breath. "No need for you to stay up."

  "Somethin' happen to your hand?"

  "Caught it 'tween two gears. Be okay. Long as you're here, maybe you could answer somethin's on my mind. I don't remember Beau, I just barely remember the night he left home, all the killin' that was goin' on across the Ridge. But you and Beau, you were real close, daddy."

  "That's so."

  "Spared your life, didn't he?"

  Hackaliah appeared to draw himself more closely together, as if anticipating a hard knock or two. His yellowing eyes were decidedly unfriendly, but he looked at the floor and his tone didn't change.

  "No tellin' what Boss would've done to me, didn't matter to him how I was in the right. His blood was up, he was a wild man. So I got horsewhup, and I could've been shot. Beau stopped him the only way he could: knocked his own father down with the butt of a rifle. Ruint his mouth for all time." Hackaliah's own mouth twitched in satisfaction; then he wearied of the emotion, held tight to his shaking head with one big hand.

  "What chance Beau's alive today?"

  "Ain't give much thought to Beau in a long while."

  Hackaliah's voice had faded to a whisper. He also had the ability, Jackson noted, to fade into the background of a room so completely he was like a piece of battered furniture one is accustomed to having around and can't quite decide to throw out.

  "Shit you ain't, daddy," Tyrone said, tense and angry not to have the old man's eye. Jackson glimpsed what it must have been like for so many years, the two men linked to each other in a sham of propriety that was humiliating to everyone but Boss, and possibly his mistress. "You do think about him. You think about how good it'd be here now if Beau never left. Don't you, daddy? Well, suppose he is alive."

  "I don't know. It just can't be, that's all."

  "Suppose. You wouldn't let him slip back without lettin' us know, would you?" He said this with a smile, but the implication of a threat brought the old man's eyes slowly back to him. Hackaliah seemed more perplexed than frightened.

  "Crazy even to talk about such a thing," Hackaliah said at last. "Can I go now?" The obvious note of servility matched the deadness in his eyes, as if he had a blind spot where he was now looking.

  "You 'could stay and have some of this brandy with us," Tyrone proposed, slipping into indifference.

  "I don't believe so. I never have taken a drink in Boss's house. And I never will."

  Tyrone yawned. "Times change, daddy. Want me to coax you, is that what you want?" His voice became almost a falsetto. "Have some of this delicious fifty-year-old brandy, daddy Hackaliah. I know you ain't never tasted nothin' like it in your whole life."

  "It's not your place to invite me to drink in this house," Hackaliah said ruthlessly.

  Tyrone turned and smacked the tabletop in annoyance. "Oh, get on out of here then, daddy! I don't want to fight with you. I knew my place better than you. I always known my, true place, and don't forget that."

  Hackaliah went out the door without comment, leaving Tyrone rigid with tension. He busied himself clearing the leather chairs of books, flopped down in a chair, waved his hand for Jackson to sit. "Brings out the worst in me," he muttered. "Don't know why. He never treated me all that bad; no matter how much sass I gave him."

  "Was he married to your mother?" Jackson asked, sitting on an arm of the vacant chair.

  "Oh, sure. But nothing ever happened in bed, you understand. She was reserved for Boss. But I suppose daddy Hackaliah wasn't so old he didn't get a letch now and again for what he couldn't have."

  "Perhaps his desire did get the best of him on occasion. After all, Boss horsewhipped him."

&nb
sp; "I don't think that had to do with my mother. Happened the night of the Chisca County War."

  "What was the Chisca County War?"

  "A massacre; that was just the name they gave it afterward in the newspapers. Wasn't too many colored men shootin' back that night. I suppose you learned in school how slavery was abolished in this country after the Civil War, but don't you believe it. Oh, a colored man works for wages or shares now, but shares can't buy him nothin'. He's still always in debt to the big boss man, and all he's ever got is shacks and dirt and the, cold wind in February. Even with the war on, there's six, seven hundred men workin' this plantation, and twenty-live years ago there was over a thousand. Dasharoons was the biggest mule market in the South, maybe in the world. But it was the human mules who had all the grief. Thank God there's always been a colored man with gumption, willing to stand up and declare for the rest of us. In 1920 his name was Elias Pearman. And what he said was, 'If you don't get paid enough to eat right or wear shoes on your feet, don't work till you do get paid.' That's just a commonsense philosophy, but it didn't set well with the boss man, at Dasharoons or anywheres else. White trash tried to kill Elias Pearman, but he was cool and nimble under fire, as well as lucky. All the boss man did was stir up sentiment in favor of Elias, which probably wouldn't have happened if they'd just allowed him to speechify. No speech made in the history of the world has had the power of a single drop of shed blood, and coloreds hereabout were so sunk in misery very few recognized a savior in their midst. And, it's true, there were colored men dead set against Elias, because they feared the wrath of the boss. As you might know, Boss Bradwin was the most powerful boss of all."

  "You mentioned a massacre; is that how he chose to exercise his authority?"

  Tyrone shook his head. "From what I've been able to learn, talkin' to those that was there, readin' Boss's own journal, I don't believe he had a thing to do with the attempts on Elias Pearman's life. Boss was the biggest, but he was the smartest too. He had to realize that in the long run Elias couldn't do him much harm. Boss was rich, but times was poor, and when a poor man was reachin' for a dollar you didn't offer him two. I don't condemn Boss, because he was a man of his times. But he took pride in the fact he'd been a soldier, he thought he was a born general and only bad luck had held him back from a brilliant career. The truth is he wasn't good enough in the only real fight he ever had on his hands, and a lot of innocent blood got spilled because he lost control, of himself and the men he tried to lead."

  "How did the confrontation with your people come about?"

  "Because of Beau, who was not like his daddy at all. He had ideals, and true concern for sick and hungry men. He was a young Bolshevik, at a time when folks around here was not too well acquainted with that word. Through Hackaliah he met Elias Pearman, and was swayed by his radical arguments. Beau thought it would be sensible for Boss, a scholarly man who studied history and knew about revolutions, to meet a genuine revolutionary. Not the evil-minded anarchist he'd been hearing about, but a prophet of the change that was surely going to come.

  "Boss finally agreed, after a couple of all-night discussions that hotted up enough to keep my daddy wide-eyed awake in his bed up under the attic. Boss must have loved Beau a lot, because he wasn't impressed with the boy's political philosophy. In fact Beau caused him considerable pain and embarrassment among his peers. But you have to hand it to him, he was willing to let Beau think his own thoughts and make his own mistakes in life. 'The hard way is the way that sticks,' Boss wrote in his journal. And he went forth to debate with Elias Pearman, an angry man who could handle the language ever' bit as good as Boss himself."

  "It was a public forum?"

  "At the Vauxhall community church on Chisca Ridge. It's all colored there—except for Boss and Beau there wasn't another white man in the church that night. Tension was high. Took courage for Boss just to walk in without so much as a peashooter on his person. After all, Elias was a radical man despised by whites, and shots had been fired in his direction. But Boss knew what he was doing. He knew he had the respect of most colored, even if they didn't love him. And he knew just how to ease the tension. Held out his hand to Elias and fixed him with a keen eye. 'Been lookin' forward to this.' Ooo-wheeee! Everybody relaxed. Then the two of them, two giants, commenced to talk. They had at each other, but it was fair; it was clean. I do wish I could have been there that night, before the flames and the killin'."

  Tyrone broke off and abruptly got up to rummage in the cabinet next to the table, like a hungry man in search of a midnight snack in the kitchen. He brought out a majolica humidor.

  "Boss left these fine Havana Upmann cigars behind. Now and then I get the urge to smoke one. How about you, doctor?"

  Jackson, impatient to hear the rest of the story, declined. Tyrone, awkward because of his injured hand, finally got the cigar going, drew on it fiercely and sat down again. He was a greenhorn with a cigar, however; it didn't suit him and emphasized a certain callowness of manner. He seemed to be smoking it only as an expression of obscure privilege.

  "Their debate lasted a good three hours. The trouble started away from church. Maybe Boss didn't know his men were out there. I expect some of the white sharecroppers at Dasharoons got worried and came to keep an eye on things, and brought along their shotguns for company. Then word got passed around in town: 'Boss Bradwin gone up to Vauxhall tonight, and there's a thousand niggers layin' for him.' That kind of twisted story. So they came on horseback, and they came in flivvers, armed and mean. They gathered just outside of Vauxhall. It was a dark night. Just imagine what the colored people, those that wasn't in church, thought when they got wind of this mob on their doorsteps.

  "Nobody to this day knows if a colored man opened up with a gun in the dark, or if it was one of the mob that was millin' around got spooked and lost control of his trigger finger. But a man named Griffin Albright, who was Boss's top foreman at the time and a personal friend, pitched down off his horse, back of his head shot away. The church all of a sudden emptied out, everybody runnin' to see what had happened. Boss was right up front, highly visible in his white suit, else the mob would have cut down on 'em. Griffin Albright's brother Bob had the dead man in his arms; he was screamin' and carryin' on. It was an ugly situation, with colored men faced off against white across the road, only a little bit of a yellow streetlight shinin' down between. But Boss took the upper hand right away. He calmed Bob Albright and sent him and a couple others away with the body, a smart thing to do. Then he turned to Elias Pearman.

  "I want the nigger that did this," he said.

  "'It looks to me,' says Elias, cool as always, 'like all the guns are in your hands.'

  'There was a growl from Boss's men, but Boss stared them down. Then he turned back to Elias. 'Does that mean,' Boss said, 'you think one of these men shot Griffin Albright in the back of the head?'

  "Elias nodded. 'Check your own guns for one that's just been fired.'

  "That was a good suggestion, but Boss never had the chance to act on it. All the armed men held their guns in the air, firing round after round. It must have sounded like the crack of doom. A panic would've started, but Elias shouted at his people not to run.

  "When the gunshots died away Boss said, 'You have one hour to hand over the nigger that killed Griffin Albright.'

  "Some say Elias smiled at Boss, but it was a bitter smile. "I'll ask about this matter. And then I'll come and tell you what I know. Will you accept my word if I tell you it was not a colored man who did the shooting?'

  Tyrone paused and rubbed his eyes, pondering the long-ago confrontation as if it were an invisible chessboard set in front of him.

  "I think Boss's nerve failed him then; he had all those men behind him loaded for bear, their weight was on his back. But still he had control, and time to lead them all back from the edge of the abyss. 'I've got to know you some tonight, Elias, and I think you're a righteous man.' He could have said it simple as that, and walked away with his dignity.


  "What he said was, 'Bring me a nigger in one hour, or you'll regret it.'"

  "After that, there was no backin' down for either of them."

  Tyrone sat smoking and brooding over the climax of his story. Jackson said, "Where was the sheriff while this was going on? Or was there no pretense of law in Chisca Ridge?"

  "There was a good sheriff back then, and he kept the peace. Happened to be away on a fishin' trip. Boss had all kinds of badges from state authorities, gave him the right to make arrests. All he wanted was to come up with some poor colored boy to shut away in jail for a while. It could've been settled Boss's way. Colored people knew when they had to cooperate with the boss man, so lynch fever wouldn't take over. But Elias Pearman was there, and Boss made the mistake of puttin' it to him on a personal basis, 'stead of takin' Elias aside and kindly explainin' how things had to be done to cool the heat from the murder, if that's what it was.

  "Elias didn't say another word to Boss; he led his people back to the church. Boss probably thought he'd got his point across. He left a few dependable men there on the street of Vauxhall Community to keep an eye on things and withdrew with the rest to a higher point up the ridge, in a pasture that overlooked the church. A couple of jugs got passed around and there wasn't much ugly talk, it was dark and chilly up there and the men just wanted to go home. Boss and Beau sat on a runnin' board and talked to each other. It was quiet in Vauxhall for almost an hour. Then commenced singin' in the church, soft at first. 'By and by we will see Jesus.' Boss checked his watch once or twice, gettin' worried, I don't doubt. It was no time for hymns.

  "They heard it then. 'There's a nigger runnin'—there's two of 'em!' Lanterns flashed in the street and the woods below; the chase was on. More gunfire. Screams this time. Boss stood up.