A Gathering Of Old Men (V1)txt

by Ernest J.Gaines

  "You know why, don't you, Clatoo?"

  I nodded my head. She looked at me awhile; then she glanced at Mathu and faced the road again. You'd do anything in the world for him, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? I thought to myself.

  Jameson had been watching her, too, and now he saw another chance to break in.

  "And what's that suppose to do, fool Mapes?" he asked her. When she didn't answer him, he turned to me. "Y'all think Mapes that crazy? The man on his back right here in Mathu's yard, the tractor out there still running, right in front of Mathu's house. Some of y'all live far as Silo, the old Mulatto Place, Bayonne—ten, twelve miles from here. Don't y'all know Mapes go'n know half of y'all couldn't be nowhere near this place when this happened? Y'all all gone plumb crazy?"

  "Reverend Jameson, just shut up," Beulah said. "Just shut up. Nobody listening to you; so just shut up. Go on back home, like Candy said. Nobody listening to you today."

  "Maybe I ought to shoot him," Rooster said. "You think I ought to shoot him, Dirty Red?"

  "No, let him slide," Dirty Red said. "He might change 'fore the shooting start."

  Couple of the men laughed at Rooster and Dirty Red.

  It was quiet for a while; then we saw the dust. We couldn't see the car, just the dust coming down the quarters high over the weeds. We all thought it was Mapes, till the car pulled up and stopped. Through the naked bean poles in Mathu's garden, through the weeds and bushes on the ditch bank, I could make out that little blue sports car that Candy's boyfriend owned. She went out in the road to meet him. The rest of us settled back again.

  Louis Alfred Dimoulin

  aka

  Lou Dimes

  Now what I was trying to figure out was who in Marshall Quarters could—not would—kill Beau Boutan. There were nothing but old people there. The young ones had all gone away, leaving only the old and a few children. So who could do it? Not Charlie. Too many times I had seen Beau speak to him as you would speak to a dog, and he would not raise his head, let alone his voice. Then who? Janey was too hysterical to make any sense over the telephone when I called the house. All she could say was hurry up and get there because Candy needed me. Candy needed me? I had been knowing Candy for three years, and during all that time I had never known her to need anybody.

  I drove the thirty-five miles from Baton Rouge to Marshall in exactly thirty minutes. Why I didn't have every highway patrolman in the state of Louisiana on my tail was just a miracle. When I came up even with Marshall House, I saw the Major's and Miss Merle's cars in the yard. Candy's big LTD was not on the lawn in front of the door, so I figured she was still in the quarters where Janey had said she was.

  The length of the quarters was little less than half a mile, beginning with the highway and going back into the fields. The bushes and weeds grew so tall on either side of the road that the road seemed no wider than a king-size bed sheet. Somewhere down there I could make out a tractor and a car. As I came deeper into the quarters, I noticed that there were no people around. The doors and windows of the few old houses were open, but no one sat out on the porches, and no one stood in the yard or worked the gardens. The place looked as if everyone had suddenly picked up and gone. Knowing the past reputation of Beau's family, I figured that was the smartest thing to do.

  I had barely stopped the car when I saw Candy coming out into the road. She seemed calm, not nearly as excited as I thought she should be. Surely not nearly as worried as I was.

  "I'm glad you got here," she said.

  "What happened?" I asked after getting out of the car.

  "Over there," she said, nodding back over her shoulder.

  I looked in that direction, but I couldn't see a thing for the weeds and bushes along the ditch bank.

  "What happened, Candy?" I asked her again.

  "I killed him," she said, looking me straight in the eye.

  She turned to go back into the yard, but I grabbed her arm.

  "What did you say?"

  "I killed Beau," she said, and pulled her arm free.

  I stood there a moment. I could feel my heart pounding, pounding; no, not only could I feel it pounding, I could hear it trying to jump out of my chest. I shook my head. No, I hadn't heard what I thought I had heard, and I went after her. But I had only gone to the front of her car when I suddenly stopped again. Like I had run into a brick wall. It was a wall, all right, but a wall twenty, thirty feet away from me. Not a wall of brick, stone, or wood, but a wall of old black men with shotguns. I don't know how many there were—fifteen,

  eighteen of them; standing, squatting, sitting—scattered all over the place. And waiting. Waiting. But not for me. That was obvious. Some of them acted as though I was not even there.

  When I felt it was safe to go into the yard, I crossed the ditch over to where Candy was standing. At her feet lay Beau Boutan, his mouth and eyes still open, his face caked with sweat and dirt, his dark brown hair speckled with dry grass seeds. He was about thirty, roughly handsome, maybe a hundred and seventy-five pounds. He wore khaki pants and khaki shirt and cowboy boots. His straw hat, bottom side up, lay in the weeds a few feet over to my left. A shotgun lay in the weeds a couple of steps to my right. I stooped over and picked up a thick, hairy, sweat-and-dirt-caked wrist, held it a moment, and dropped it back down. A half-dozen flies flew away from the coagulated blood on his chest, but came back almost immediately.

  I stood up and looked around at the people again. Not one had said a single word or moved an inch. Some were looking at me, most were not. I stared at the one nearest me. He could have been in his seventies, but sometimes it's hard to estimate their ages. He looked about the average age of all the others with guns. He wore overalls and a denim shirt, an ageless gray felt hat, brogans laced with cowhide, but no socks.

  "Um the one," he said.

  Not with anger. Not threatening. If proud, not boasting. Simply, without my asking, "Um the one."

  I looked at another one. He was squatting over by the garden fence smoking a cigarette. With the stock of the gun on the ground and the barrel across his knee, he was looking out at the tractor in the road. He showed so much more interest in that damned tractor than he did me that I almost turned around to look at the damned thing again myself.

  "You there?"

  He nodded. He must have had great lateral vision, because he knew I was talking to him without ever looking in my direction.

  "I kilt him," he said.

  I picked out another one sitting on the bottom step with his head bowed. He was tapping the stock of the gun against a brick in the ground. I wondered if that damned gun was loaded.

  "You on the step?"

  He didn't stop tapping the brick for a second. Didn't even raise his head.

  "Yes, sir, I did it."

  I see, I thought; I see. All heroes, huh?

  I looked at the preacher standing away from the rest. Pathetic, bald, weary-looking little man. He was the only one there who seemed frightened. He was sweating, probably from arguing with them.

  "Can you tell me what's going on down here, Reverend Jameson?"

  "You better ask her, Mr. Lou," he said, nodding toward Candy. "She done already told me to shut up or go home."

  I turned back to Candy, who was standing only a couple of feet behind me.

  "Well?"

  "Well what?" she said, looking up at me.

  "Didn't you hear them?"

  "I heard them."

  "You still say you did it?"

  "I did it."

  "You're lying, Candy. You know I know you're lying."

  She got angry now. She told me she didn't care whether I believed her or not. She told me that Charlie and Beau had gotten into a fight back there in the fields, and Charlie had run up here to Mathu's house. She was here talking to Mathu.

  Charlie had been here only a minute or two when Beau came after him with a shotgun. She told him not to come into the yard, he did, and she took Mathu's gun and shot him. She said she didn't care who didn't believ
e her, that's the way it happened.

  "And what are they doing here?" I asked her.

  "To protect me, I suppose."

  "Since when?"

  She couldn't answer that. I looked down at Beau, at the flies gathered on his chest.

  "Can't somebody at least bring something out here to cover him up?" I said.

  "Corrine," Candy called to the woman on the porch. "Go inside and get me a sheet or something."

  Corrine, wearing a gray dress that could have been blue or purple once, got up from the rocker and went inside the house. A moment later she returned carrying a bedspread that could have been green, pink, blue, or purple once, but now it, too, had faded to a dull gray like the dress that she wore. She reached it toward one of the men nearest the porch, and he brought it to me. I watched him as he came toward me, but he avoided my eyes. After passing me the spread, he returned to the porch to take his post.

  "You called Mapes?" I asked Candy.

  "Miss Merle was down here," she said. "I told her to call him after you went by."

  "For God's sake, Candy, before Mapes gets here, tell me the truth. Did Mathu do this?"

  "I've already told you the truth," she said. "I did it."

  "Fix is going to demand a nigger's blood, Candy. You know that, don't you?"

  She came up closer to me, her head even with my chest, her eyes blazing, her mouth trembling she was so angry.

  "I killed that son of a bitch," she said. "That's what I'm going to tell Mapes, what I'm going to tell radio, what I'm going to give television. I killed that son of a bitch. Now, I called you here because I need you to stand beside me. Because I don't have anybody else. Nobody else. But if you don't want to stay, you can go on back to Baton Rouge. I don't beg."

  We stared at each other. She could see I didn't believe a damned thing she had said. The longer we looked at each other, the angrier she became. Her mouth tightened into a straight line. She wanted to hit, but she held back. She knew she still needed me.

  I turned from her to look at those old fools around me. I didn't know who I felt the most pity for. I knew she hadn't done it, and she would get out of it. But somebody had to pay for Beau's lying there.

  They saw the dust before I did. When I looked over my shoulder, Mapes had already stopped out in front of the house. He was sitting on the passenger side of the black Ford Fairlane, one of his deputies driving. They sat there watching us about a minute before getting out of the car. Mapes got out slowly, as though he was very tired. He was about my height, six three, six four, but he outweighed me by a hundred pounds at least. He was in his late sixties. He wore a gray lightweight suit, a gray hat, white shirt, and a red tie. His deputy, who wore a beige suit and tie but no hat, got out on the other side. He seemed to be in his early twenties. He was about five eight, and weighed round a hundred and forty pounds. Even from this distance you could see he was scared. He was unarmed, and he reached back into the car for a gun. Mapes spoke to him from over his shoulder, and he put the gun back.

  Mapes took off his hat and wiped the sweatband with a handkerchief; then he wiped his forehead, the sides and the back of his neck; then he put the hat back on his head, and

  the handkerchief back into his pocket. He did all that while watching us. He turned his head, not his body, to check out the tractor whose motor was still running. Thirty seconds of this, and he looked back at us again. He raised his hand to his mouth and removed a piece of candy, probably what was left of a Life Saver. After inspecting it a moment, he flipped it away and came into the yard. He didn't look at all surprised by what he saw. I was sure he had never seen anything like it before, but he had been around a long time, and he had seen many other strange things, so it was possible that nothing surprised him anymore. The deputy followed him into the yard, sticking as close as a small frightened child would stick to his father.

  Mapes nodded, he didn't speak. I nodded back, but Candy didn't. Mapes stared at me with those ash-gray eyes another second; then he looked down at the spread. He nodded again. It was not to me this time; it was to his deputy. But the deputy was busy watching the old men with the shotguns.

  "Griffin," Mapes said to him.

  The deputy didn't answer.

  "Griffin," Mapes said again.

  Griffin turned from the old men to look at Mapes, but he seemed uncertain that Mapes had called his name.

  "You said something, Sheriff?"

  Mapes nodded toward the ground. Griffin glanced back over his shoulder toward the old men before leaning over and pulling back the spread. He quickly turned his head when he saw the bloody shirt, dirty face, dirty brown hair of Beau Boutan. Mapes didn't turn his head; he looked down at the body a good thirty seconds, and told Griffin to cover it up again. Griffin didn't hear him. He was busy watching the old men with the shotguns.

  "Griffin," Mapes repeated.

  Griffin glanced up at Mapes, but Mapes had already turned away. Griffin covered up the body without looking at it.

  "Go turn off that thing," Mapes said.

  "Sir?" Griffin asked.

  "The tractor, Griffin," Mapes said impatiently.

  Griffin started toward the road.

  "Griffin," Mapes called. His voice remained level, without inflection, yet meaningful.

  "Yes, sir?" Griffin answered.

  Mapes didn't turn around, so Griffin had to come back to face him.

  "Get on that radio. Tell Russ—no one else—Russell to go back on that bayou and keep Fix there. No one else but him—and keep Fix and that crowd back there until he hears from me. And tell Herman to come out here and pick this up. But don't tell him who it is."

  Griffin nodded, and started to leave again.

  "Griffin," Mapes said, his voice still level.

  Griffin stopped.

  "First, turn off tractor," Mapes said. He was looking at Griffin as though Griffin were not very bright. "Second, call Russ. Third, call Herman. Tell him to come out here and pick up a dead body. No name. Fourth, can you remember all that between here and the car?"

  "Of course, Sheriff."

  Mapes stared down at Griffin until Griffin walked away. Then he turned his attention toward the old men with the guns.

  "I counted seventeen, eighteen of them," he said. "Is that all of them?"

  "I didn't count them," I said.

  "And you?" he asked Candy. He did not look directly at her, he spoke to her from the side. Already he seemed to suspect that she had something to do with all these people being here.

  "I don't know how many there are," she said. "But I can tell you what happened. I killed him."

  Mapes looked down at her from over his left shoulder. He still suspected that she had gathered all these people here, but you could see he didn't believe that she had killed Beau Boutan.

  "Over what?" he asked her.

  "Beau Boutan still lived in the past," she said. "He still thought he could beat people like his paw did thirty, forty years ago. He started beating Charlie back there in the field, and Charlie ran up here to Mathu's house. I was standing there by the door talking to Mathu. We asked him what happened, and he said Beau hit him with a stalk of cane. A few minutes later Beau followed him on the tractor with the shotgun. When he stopped that tractor out there, I told him not to cross that ditch. I told him more than once, 'Beau, don't you cross that ditch.' Did he listen? You just don't beat people with a stalk of cane and hunt them like they're some kind of wild animal. You don't do that. I told him to stop, don't cross that ditch. I hollered at him not to cross that ditch. When he didn't stop, I reached and got that shotgun Mathu keeps beside the door. And I'll swear to that in court."

  Mapes continued to look at her from the side. Once, while she was talking, he shot a quick glance at me. I could tell he didn't believe anything she was saying. Now she could see it, too.

  "I'll swear to it in court," she said again. "And that's my story to the press."

  Mapes grunted and turned to look at the people again. They had been watc
hing and listening, but remained quiet. Even the children who sat on the steps were quiet but watching. The deputy came back into the yard and stood next to Mapes.

  "Bring me one of them," Mapes said to him.

  "Which one, Sheriff?" Griffin asked.

  "One that can talk," Mapes said, without looking at Griffin.

  Griffin left.

  Candy had been standing a little behind Mapes, but now she moved in front to face him.

  "I told you I did it," she said. "Why are you questioning them?"

  Mapes didn't answer her.

  "Candy, please," I said. I reached out to touch her, but she jerked her arm away from me.