“We’ll get him tonight though,” Mr. Hubert said. “We’ll bait for him. We’ll throw a picquet of niggers and dogs around Tennie’s house about midnight, and we’ll get him.”
“Tonight, hell,” Uncle Buck said. “Me and Cass and that nigger all three are going to be half way home by dark. Ain’t one of your niggers got a fyce or something that will trail them hounds?”
“And fool around here in the woods for half the night too?” Mr. Hubert said. “When I’ll bet you five hundred dollars that all you got to do to catch that nigger is to walk up to Tennie’s cabin after dark and call him?”
“Five hundred dollars?” Uncle Buck said. “Done! Because me and him neither one are going to be anywhere near Tennie’s house by dark. Five hundred dollars!” He and Mr. Hubert glared at one another.
“Done!” Mr. Hubert said.
So they waited while Mr. Hubert sent one of the niggers back to the house on old Jake and in about a half an hour the nigger came back with a little bob-tailed black fyce and a new bottle of whiskey. Then he rode up to Uncle Buck and held something out to him wrapped in a piece of paper. “What?” Uncle Buck said.
“It’s for you,” the nigger said. Then Uncle Buck took it and unwrapped it. It was the piece of red ribbon that had been on Miss Sophonsiba’s neck and Uncle Buck sat there on Black John, holding the ribbon like it was a little water moccasin only he wasn’t going to let anybody see he was afraid of it, batting his eyes fast at the nigger. Then he stopped batting his eyes.
“What for?” he said.
“She just sont hit to you,” the nigger said. “She say to tell you ‘success.’ ”
“She said what?” Uncle Buck said.
“I don’t know, sir,” the nigger said. “She just say ‘success.’ ”
“Oh,” Uncle Buck said. And the fyce found the hounds. They heard them first, from a considerable distance. It was just before sundown and they were not trailing, they were making the noise dogs make when they want to get out of something. They found what that was too. It was a ten-foot-square cotton-house in a field about two miles from Mr. Hubert’s house and all eleven of the dogs were inside it and the door wedged with a chunk of wood. They watched the dogs come boiling out when the nigger opened the door, Mr. Hubert sitting his horse and looking at the back of Uncle Buck’s neck.
“Well, well,” Mr. Hubert said. “That’s something, anyway. You can use them again now. They don’t seem to have no more trouble with your nigger than he seems to have with them.”
“Not enough,” Uncle Buck said. “That means both of them. I’ll stick to the fyce.”
“All right,” Mr. Hubert said. Then he said, “Hell, ’Filus, come on. Let’s go eat supper. I tell you, all you got to do to catch that nigger is—–”
“Five hundred dollars,” Uncle Buck said.
“What?” Mr. Hubert said. He and Uncle Buck looked at each other. They were not glaring now. They were not joking each other either. They sat there in the beginning of twilight, looking at each other, just blinking a little. “What five hundred dollars?” Mr. Hubert said. “That you won’t catch that nigger in Tennie’s cabin at midnight tonight?”
“That me or that nigger neither ain’t going to be near nobody’s house but mine at midnight tonight.” Now they did glare at each other.
“Five hundred dollars,” Mr. Hubert said. “Done.”
“Done,” Uncle Buck said.
“Done,” Mr. Hubert said.
“Done,” Uncle Buck said.
So Mr. Hubert took the dogs and some of the niggers and went back to the house. Then he and Uncle Buck and the nigger with the fyce went on, the nigger leading old Jake with one hand and holding the fyce’s leash (it was a piece of gnawed plowline) with the other. Now Uncle Buck let the fyce smell Tomey’s Turl’s coat; it was like for the first time now the fyce found out what they were after and they would have let him off the leash and kept up with him on the horses, only about that time the nigger boy began blowing the fox-horn for supper at the house and they didn’t dare risk it.
Then it was full dark. And then—he didn’t know how much later nor where they were, how far from the house, except that it was a good piece and it had been dark for good while and they were still going on, with Uncle Buck leaning down from time to time to let the fyce have another smell of Tomey’s Turl’s coat while Uncle Buck took another drink from the whiskey bottle—they found that Tomey’s Turl had doubled and was making a long swing back toward the house. “I godfrey, we’ve got him,” Uncle Buck said. “He’s going to earth. We’ll cut back to the house and head him before he can den.” So they left the nigger to cast the fyce and follow him on old Jake, and he and Uncle Buck rode for Mr. Hubert’s, stopping on the hills to blow the horses and listen to the fyce down in the creek bottom where Tomey’s Turl was still making his swing.
But they never caught him. They reached the dark quarters; they could see lights still burning in Mr. Hubert’s house and somebody was blowing the fox-horn again and it wasn’t any boy and he had never heard a fox-horn sound mad before either, and he and Uncle Buck scattered out on the slope below Tennie’s cabin. Then they heard the fyce, not trailing now but yapping, about a mile away, then the nigger whooped and they knew the fyce had faulted. It was at the creek. They hunted the banks both ways for more than an hour, but they couldn’t straighten Tomey’s Turl out. At last even Uncle Buck gave up and they started back toward the house, the fyce riding too now, in front of the nigger on the mule. They were just coming up the lane to the quarters; they could see on along the ridge to where Mr. Hubert’s house was all dark now, when all of a sudden the fyce gave a yelp and jumped down from old Jake and hit the ground running and yelling every jump, and Uncle Buck was down too and had snatched him off the pony almost before he could clear his feet from the irons, and they ran too, on past the dark cabins toward the one where the fyce had treed. “We got him!” Uncle Buck said. “Run around to the back. Don’t holler; just grab up a stick and knock on the back door, loud.”
Afterward, Uncle Buck admitted that it was his own mistake, that he had forgotten when even a little child should have known: not ever to stand right in front of or right behind a nigger when you scare him; but always to stand to one side of him. Uncle Buck forgot that. He was standing facing the front door and right in front of it, with the fyce right in front of him yelling fire and murder every time it could draw a new breath; he said the first he knew was when the fyce gave a shriek and whirled and Tomey’s Turl was right behind it. Uncle Buck said he never even saw the door open; that the fyce just screamed once and ran between his legs and then Tomey’s Turl ran right clean over him. He never even bobbled; he knocked Uncle Buck down and then caught him before he fell without even stopping, snatched him up under one arm, still running, and carried him along for about ten feet, saying, “Look out of here, old Buck. Look out of here, old Buck,” before he threw him away and went on. By that time they couldn’t even hear the fyce any more at all.
Uncle Buck wasn’t hurt; it was only the wind knocked out of him where Tomey’s Turl had thrown him down on his back. But he had been carrying the whiskey bottle in his back pocket, saving the last drink until Tomey’s Turl was captured, and he refused to move until he knew for certain if it was just whiskey and not blood. So Uncle Buck laid over on his side easy, and he knelt behind him and raked the broken glass out of his pocket. Then they went on to the house. They walked. The nigger came up with the horses, but nobody said anything to Uncle Buck about riding again. They couldn’t hear the fyce at all now. “He was going fast, all right,” Uncle Buck said. “But I don’t believe that even he will catch that fyce, I godfrey, what a night.”
“We’ll catch him tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow, hell,” Uncle Buck said. “We’ll be at home tomorrow. And the first time Hubert Beauchamp or that nigger either one set foot on my land, I’m going to have them arrested for trespass and vagrancy.”
The house was dark. They could hear Mr.
Hubert snoring good now, as if he had settled down to road-gaiting at it. But they couldn’t hear anything from upstairs, even when they were inside the dark hall, at the foot of the stairs. “Likely hers will be at the back,” Uncle Buck said. “Where she can holler down to the kitchen without having to get up. Besides, an unmarried lady will sholy have her door locked with strangers in the house.” So Uncle Buck eased himself down onto the bottom step, and he knelt and drew Uncle Buck’s boots off. Then he removed his own and set them against the wall, and he and Uncle Buck mounted the stairs, feeling their way up and into the upper hall. It was dark too, and still there was no sound anywhere except Mr. Hubert snoring below, so they felt their way along the hall toward the front of the house, until they felt a door. They could hear nothing beyond the door, and when Uncle Buck tried the knob, it opened. “All right,” Uncle Buck whispered. “Be quiet.” They could see a little now, enough to see the shape of the bed and the mosquito-bar. Uncle Buck threw down his suspenders and unbuttoned his trousers and went to the bed and eased himself carefully down onto the edge of it, and he knelt again and drew Uncle Buck’s trousers off and he was just removing his own when Uncle Buck lifted the mosquito-bar and raised his feet and rolled into the bed. That was when Miss Sophonsiba sat upon the other side of Uncle Buck and gave the first scream.
II
When he reached home just before dinner time the next day, he was just about worn out. He was too tired to eat, even if Uncle Buddy had waited to eat dinner first; he couldn’t have stayed on the pony another mile without going to sleep. In fact, he must have gone to sleep while he was telling Uncle Buddy, because the next thing he knew it was late afternoon and he was lying on some hay in the jolting wagon-bed, with Uncle Buddy sitting on the seat above him exactly the same way he sat a horse or sat in his rocking chair before the kitchen hearth while he was cooking, holding the whip exactly as he held the spoon or fork he stirred and tasted with. Uncle Buddy had some cold bread and meat and a jug of butter-milk wrapped in damp towsacks waiting when he waked up. He ate, sitting in the wagon in almost the last of the afternoon. They must have come fast, because they were not more than two miles from Mr. Hubert’s. Uncle Buddy waited for him to eat. Then he said, “Tell me again,” and he told it again: how he and Uncle Buck finally found a room without anybody in it, and Uncle Buck sitting on the side of the bed saying, “O godfrey, Cass. O godfrey, Cass,” and then they heard Mr. Hubert’s feet on the stairs and watched the light come down the hall and Mr. Hubert came in, in his nightshirt, and walked over and set the candle on the table and stood looking at Uncle Buck.
“Well, ’Filus,” he said. “She’s got you at last.”
“It was an accident,” Uncle Buck said. “I swear to godfrey—–”
“Hah,” Mr. Hubert said. “Don’t tell me. Tell her that.”
“I did,” Uncle Buck said. “I did tell her. I swear to God—–”
“Sholy,” Mr. Hubert said. “And just listen.” They listened a minute. He had been hearing her all the time. She was nowhere near as loud as at first; she was just steady. “Don’t you want to go back in there and tell her again it was an accident, that you never meant nothing and to just excuse you and forget about it? All right.”
“All right what?” Uncle Buck said.
“Go back in there and tell her again,” Mr. Hubert said. Uncle Buck looked at Mr. Hubert for a minute. He batted his eyes fast.
“Then what will I come back and tell you?” he said.
“To me?” Mr. Hubert said. “I would call that a horse of another color. Wouldn’t you?”
Uncle Buck looked at Mr. Hubert. He batted his eyes fast again. Then he stopped again. “Wait,” he said. “Be reasonable. Say I did walk into a lady’s bedroom, even Miss Sophonsiba’s; say, just for the sake of the argument, there wasn’t no other lady in the world but her and so I walked into hers and tried to get in bed with her, would I have took a nine-year-old boy with me?”
“Reasonable is just what I’m being,” Mr. Hubert said. “You come into bear-country of your own free will and accord. All right; you were a grown man and you knew it was bear-country and you knew the way back out like you knew the way in and you had your chance to take it. But no. You had to crawl into the den and lay down by the bear. And whether you did or didn’t know the bear was in it don’t make any difference. So if you got back out of that den without even a claw-mark on you, I would not only be unreasonable, I’d be a damned fool. After all, I’d like a little peace and quiet and freedom myself, now I got a chance for it. Yes, sir. She’s got you, ’Filus, and you know it. You run a hard race and you run a good one, but you skun the henhouse one time too many.”
“Yes,” Uncle Buck said. He drew his breath in and let it out again, slow and not loud. But you could hear it. “Well,” he said. “So I reckon I’ll have to take the chance then.”
“You already took it,” Mr. Hubert said. “You did that when you came back here.” Then he stopped too. Then he batted his eyes, but only about six times. Then he stopped and looked at Uncle Buck for more than a minute. “What chance?” he said.
“That five hundred dollars,” Uncle Buck said.
“What five hundred dollars?” Mr. Hubert said. He and Uncle Buck looked at one another. Now it was Mr. Hubert that batted his eyes again and then stopped again. “I thought you said you found him in Tennie’s cabin.”
“I did,” Uncle Buck said. “What you bet me was I would catch him there. If there had been ten of me standing in front of that door, we wouldn’t have caught him.” Mr. Hubert blinked at Uncle Buck, slow and steady.
“So you aim to hold me to that fool bet,” he said.
“You took your chance too,” Uncle Buck said. Mr. Hubert blinked at Uncle Buck. Then he stopped. Then he went and took the candle from the table and went out. They sat on the edge of the bed and watched the light go down the hall and heard Mr. Hubert’s feet on the stairs. After a while they began to see the light again and they heard Mr. Hubert’s feet coming back up the stairs. Then Mr. Hubert entered and went to the table and set the candle down and laid a deck of cards by it.
“One hand,” he said. “Draw. You shuffle, I cut, this boy deals. Five hundred dollars against Sibbey. And we’ll settle this nigger business once and for all too. If you win, you buy Tennie; if I win, I buy that boy of yours. The price will be the same for each one: three hundred dollars.”
“Win?” Uncle Buck said. “The one that wins buys the niggers?”
“Wins Sibbey, damn it!” Mr. Hubert said. “Wins Sibbey! What the hell else are we setting up till midnight arguing about? The lowest hand wins Sibbey and buys the niggers.”
“All right,” Uncle Buck said. “I’ll buy the damn girl then and we’ll call the rest of this foolishness off.”
“Hah,” Mr. Hubert said again. “This is the most serious foolishness you ever took part in in your life. No. You said you wanted your chance, and now you’ve got it. Here it is, right here on this table, waiting on you.”
So Uncle Buck shuffled the cards and Mr. Hubert cut them. Then he took up the deck and dealt in turn until Uncle Buck and Mr. Hubert had five. And Uncle Buck looked at his hand a long time and then said two cards and he gave them to him, and Mr. Hubert looked at his hand quick and said one card and he gave it to him and Mr. Hubert flipped his discard onto the two which Uncle Buck had discarded and slid the new card into his hand and opened it out and looked at it quick again and closed it and looked at Uncle Buck and said, “Well? Did you help them threes?”
“No,” Uncle Buck said.
“Well I did,” Mr. Hubert said. He shot his hand across the table so that the cards fell face-up in front of Uncle Buck and they were three kings and two fives, and said, “By God, Buck McCaslin, you have met your match at last.”
“And that was all?” Uncle Buddy said. It was late then, near sunset; they would be at Mr. Hubert’s in another fifteen minutes.
“Yes, sir,” he said, telling that too: how Uncle Buck waked him at dayligh
t and he climbed out a window and got the pony and left, and how Uncle Buck said that if they pushed him too close in the meantime, he would climb down the gutter too and hide in the woods until Uncle Buddy arrived.
“Hah,” Uncle Buddy said. “Was Tomey’s Turl there?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “He was waiting in the stable when I got the pony. He said, ‘Ain’t they settled it yet?’ ”
“And what did you say?” Uncle Buddy said.
“I said, ‘Uncle Buck looks like he’s settled. But Uncle Buddy ain’t got here yet.’ ”
“Hah,” Uncle Buddy said.
And that was about all. They reached the house. Maybe Uncle Buck was watching them, but if he was, he never showed himself, never came out of the woods. Miss Sophonsiba was nowhere in sight either, so at least Uncle Buck hadn’t quite given up; at least he hadn’t asked her yet. And he and Uncle Buddy and Mr. Hubert ate supper and they came in from the kitchen and cleared the table, leaving only the lamp on it and the deck of cards.
Then it was just like it was the night before, except that Uncle Buddy had no necktie and Mr. Hubert wore clothes now instead of a nightshirt and it was a shaded lamp on the table instead of a candle, and Mr. Hubert sitting at his end of the table with the deck in his hands, riffling the edges with his thumb and looking at Uncle Buddy. Then he tapped the edges even and set the deck out in the middle of the table, under the lamp, and folded his arms on the edge of the table and leaned forward a little on the table, looking at Uncle Buddy, who was sitting at his end of the table with his hands in his lap, all one gray color, like an old gray rock or a stump with gray moss on it, that still, with his round white head like Uncle Buck’s but he didn’t blink like Uncle Buck and he was a little thicker than Uncle Buck, as if from sitting down so much watching food cook, as if the things he cooked had made him a little thicker than he would have been and the things he cooked with, the flour and such, had made him all one same quiet color.
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