by Don Marquis
CHAPTER XVII
We got to Bairdstown early enough, but we didn't go to work there. Wewasted all that day. They was something working in the doctor's head hewasn't talking about. I supposed he was getting cold feet on the hullproposition. Anyhow, he jest set around the little tavern in that placeand done nothing all afternoon.
The weather was fine, and we set out in front. We hadn't set theremore'n an hour till I could tell we was being noticed by the blacks,not out open and above board. But every now and then one or two or threewould pass along down the street, and lazy about and take a look atus. They pertended they wasn't noticing, but they was. The word had gotaround, and they was a feeling in the air I didn't like at all. Too muchcaged-up excitement among the niggers. The doctor felt it too, I couldsee that. But neither one of us said anything about it to the other.
Along toward dusk we takes a walk. They was a good-sized crick at theedge of that little place, and on it an old-fashioned worter mill. Abovethe mill a little piece was a bridge. We crossed it and walked along aroad that follered the crick bank closte fur quite a spell.
It wasn't much of a town--something betwixt a village and asettlement--although they was going to run a branch of the railroad overto it before very long. It had had a chancet to get a railroad once,years before that. But it had said then it didn't want no railroad. Sountil lately every branch built through that part of the country grinnedvery sarcastic and give it the go-by.
They was considerable woods standing along the crick, and around a turnin the road we come onto Sam, all of a sudden, talking with anothernigger. Sam was jest a-laying it off to that nigger, but he kind ofhushed as we come nearer. Down the road quite a little piece was agood-sized wooden building that never had been painted and looked likeit was a big barn. Without knowing it the doctor and me had been pintingourselves right toward Big Bethel.
The nigger with Sam he yells out, when he sees us:
"Glory be! HYAH dey comes! Hyah dey comes NOW!"
And he throwed up his arms, and started on a lope up the road toward thechurch, singing out every ten or fifteen yards. A little knot of niggerscome out in front of the church when they hearn him coming.
Sam, he stood his ground, and waited fur us to come up to him, kind ofapologetic and sneaking--looking about something or other.
"What kind of lies have you been telling these niggers, Sam?" says thedoctor, very sharp and short and mad-like.
Sam, he digs a stone out'n the road with the toe of his shoe, and kindof grins to himself, still looking sheepish. But he says he opinionateshe been telling them nothing at all.
"I dunno how-come dey get all dem nigger notions in dey fool haid," Samsays, "but dey all waitin' dar inside de chu'ch do'--some of de mos'faiful an' de mos' pra'rful ones o' de Big Bethel cong'gation been darfo' de las' houah a-waitin' an' a-watchin', spite o' de fac' dat reg'lahmeetin' ain't gwine ter be called twell arter supper. De bishop, he dartoo. Dey got some dese hyah coal-ile lamps dar des inside de chu'ch do'an' dey been keepin' on 'em lighted, daytimes an' night times, fo' twodays now, kaze dey say dey ain't gwine fo' ter be cotched napping whende bridegroom COMeth. Yass, SAH!--dey's ten o' dese hyah vergims dar,five of 'em sleepin' an' five of 'em watchin', an' a-takin' tuhns athit, an' mebby dat how-come free or fouah dey bes' young colo'hed mensbeen projickin' aroun' dar all arternoon, a-helpin' dem dat's a-waitin'twell de bridegroom COM eth!"
We seen a little knot of them, down the road there in front of thechurch, gathering around the nigger that had been with Sam. They allstarts toward us. But one man steps out in front of them all, and turnstoward them and holds his hands up, and waves them back. They all stopsin their tracks.
Then he turns his face toward us, and comes slow and sollum down theroad in our direction, walking with a cane, and moving very dignified.He was a couple of hundred yards away.
But as he come closeter we gradually seen him plainer and plainer. Hewas a big man, and stout, and dressed very neat in the same kind of rigas white bishops wear, with one of these white collars that buttons inthe back. I suppose he was coming on to meet us alone, because no onewas fitten fur to give us the first welcome but himself.
Well, it was all dern foolishness, and it was hard to believe it couldall happen, and they ain't so many places in this here country it COULDhappen. But fur all of it being foolishness, when he come down the roadtoward us so dignified and sollum and slow I ketched myself fur a minutefeeling like we really had been elected to something and was going totake office soon. And Sam, as the bishop come closeter and closeter, gotto jerking and twitching with the excitement that he had been keepingin--and yet all the time Sam knowed it was dope and works and not faiththat had made him spotted that-a-way.
He stops, the bishop does, about ten yards from us and looks us over.
"Ah yo' de gennleman known ter dis hyah sinful genehation by de stylean' de entitlemint o' Docto' Hahtley Kirby?" he asts the doctor veryceremonious and grand.
The doctor give him a look that wasn't very encouraging, but he noddedto him.
"Will yo' dismiss yo' sehvant in ordeh dat we kin hol' convehse an'communion in de midst er privacy?"
The doctor, he nods to Sam, and Sam moseys along toward the church.
"Now, then," says the doctor, sudden and sharp, "take off your hat andtell me what you want."
The bishop's hand goes up to his head with a jerk before he thought.Then it stops there, while him and the doctor looks at each other. Thebishop's mouth opens like he was wondering, but he slowly pulls hishat off and stands there bare-headed in the road. But he wasn't reallyhumble, that bishop.
"Now," says the doctor, "tell me in as straight talk as you've got whatall this damned foolishness among you niggers means."
A queer kind of look passed over the bishop's face. He hadn't expectedto be met jest that way, mebby. Whether he himself had really believedin the coming of that there new Messiah he had been perdicting, I nevercould settle in my mind. Mebby he had been getting ready to pass HIMSELFoff fur one before we come along and the niggers all got the fool ideaDoctor Kirby was it. Before the bishop spoke agin you could see hiscraziness and his cunningness both working in his face. But when he didspeak he didn't quit being ceremonious nor dignified.
"De wohd has gone fo'th among de faiful an' de puah in heaht," he says,"dat er man has come accredited wi' signs an' wi' mahvels an' de poweho' de sperrit fo' to lay his han' on de sons o' Ham an' ter make 'em desde same in colluh as de yuther sons of ea'th."
"Then that word is a lie," says the doctor. "I DID come here to try outsome stuff to change the colour of negro skins. That's all. And I findyour idiotic followers are all stirred up and waiting for some kind of amiracle monger. What you have been preaching to them, you know best. Isthat all you want to know?"
The bishop hems and haws and fiddles with his stick, and then he says:
"Suh, will dish yeah prepa'shun SHO'LY do de wohk?" Doctor Kirby tellshim it will do the work all right.
And then the bishop, after beating around the bush some more, comes outwith his idea. Whether he expected there would be any Messiah come ornot, of course he knowed the doctor wasn't him. But he is willing toboost the doctor's game as long as it boosts HIS game. He wants to be inon the deal. He wants part of the graft. He wants to get together withthe doctor on a plan before the doctor sees the niggers. And if thedoctor don't want to keep on with the miracle end of it, the bishopshows him how he could do him good with no miracle attachment. Fur hehas an awful holt on them niggers, and his say-so will sell thousandsand thousands of bottles. What he is looking fur jest now is his littletake-out.
That was his craftiness and his cunningness working in him. But all ofa sudden one of his crazy streaks come bulging to the surface. It comewith a wild, eager look in his eyes.
"Suh," he cries out, all of a sudden, "ef yo' kin make me white, fo'Gawd sakes, do hit! Do hit! Ef yo' does, I gwine ter bless yo' all yo'days!
"Yo' don' know--no one kin guess or comperhen'--what des bein'
whitewould mean ter me! Lawd! Lawd!" he says, his voice soft-spoken, but moreeager than ever as he went on, and pleading something pitiful to hear,"des think of all de Caucasian blood in me! Gawd knows de nights er myyouth I'se laid awake twell de dawn come red in de Eas' a-cryin' out terHim only fo' ter be white! DES TER BE WHITE! Don' min' dem black, blackniggers dar--don' think er DEM--dey ain't wuth nothin' nor fitten fo'no fate but what dey got-- But me! What's done kep' me from gwine ter detop but dat one thing: _I_ WASN'T WHITE! Hit air too late now--too latefo' dem ambitions I done trifle with an' shove behin' me--hit's too latefo' dat! But ef I was des ter git one li'l year o' hit--ONE LI'L YEAR O'BEIN' WHITE!--befo' I died--"
And he went on like that, shaking and stuttering there in the road, likea fit had struck him, crazy as a loon. But he got hold of himself enoughto quit talking, in a minute, and his cunning come back to him beforehe was through trembling. Then the doctor says slow and even, but notsevere:
"You go back to your people now, bishop, and tell them they've made amistake about me. And if you can, undo the harm you've done with thisMessiah business. As far as this stuff of mine is concerned, there'snone of it for you nor for any other negro. You tell them that. There'snone of it been sold yet--and there never will be."
Then we turned away and left him standing there in the road, still withhis hat off and his face working.
Walking back toward the little tavern the doctor says:
"Danny, this is the end of this game. These people down here and thathalf-cracked, half-crooked old bishop have made me see a few things aboutthe Afro-American brother. It wasn't a good scheme in the first place.And this wasn't the place to start it going, anyhow--I should have triedthe niggers in the big towns. But I'm out of it now, and I'm glad ofit. What we want to do is to get away from here to-morrow--go back toAtlanta and fix up a scheme to rob some widows and orphans, or somethinghalf-way respectable like that."
Well, I drew a long breath. I was with Doctor Kirby in everything hedone, fur he was my friend, and I didn't intend to quit him. But I wasglad we was out of this, and hadn't sold none of that dope. We bothfelt better because we hadn't. All them millions we was going tomake--shucks! We didn't neither one of us give a dern about them gettingaway from us. All we wanted was jest to get away from there and not getmixed up with no nigger problems any more. We eat supper, and we setaround a while, and we went to bed purty middling early, so as to get agood start in the morning.
We got up early, but early as it was the devil had been up earlier inthat neighbourhood. About four o'clock that morning a white woman abouta half a mile from the village had been attacked by a nigger. They wasdoubt as to whether she would live, but if she lived they wasn't nodoubts she would always be more or less crazy. Fur besides everythingelse, he had beat her insensible. And he had choked her nearly to death.The country-side was up, with guns and pistols looking fur that nigger.It wasn't no trouble guessing what would happen to him when they ketchedhim, neither.
"And," says Doctor Kirby, when we hearn of it, "I hope to high heaventhey DO catch him!"
They wasn't much doubt they would, either. They was already beating upthe woods and bushes and gangs was riding up and down the roads, andevery nigger's house fur miles around was being searched and watched.
We soon seen we would have trouble getting hosses and a rig in thevillage to take us to the railroad. Many of the hosses was being riddenin the man-hunt. And most of the men who might have done the driving wasbusy at that too. The hotel-keeper himself had left his place standingwide open and went out. We didn't get any breakfast neither.
"Danny," says the doctor, "we'll just put enough money to pay the billin an envelope on the register here, and strike out on shank's ponies.It's only nine or ten miles to the railroad--we'll walk."
"But how about our stuff?" I asts him. We had two big cases full ofsample bottles of that dope, besides our suit cases.
"Hang the dope!" says the doctor, "I don't ever want to see it or hearof it again! We'll leave it here. Put the things out of your suit caseinto mine, and leave that here too. Sam can carry mine. I want to be onthe move."
So we left, with Sam carrying the one suit case. It wasn't nine in themorning yet, and we was starting out purty empty fur a long walk.
"Sam," says the doctor, as we was passing that there Big Bethelchurch--and it showed up there silent and shabby in the morning, like aold coloured man that knows a heap more'n he's going to tell--"Sam, wereyou at the meeting here last night?"
"Yass, suh!"
"I suppose it was a pretty tame affair after they found out their Elishawasn't coming after all?"
Sam, he walled his eyes, and then he kind of chuckled.
"Well, suh," he says, "I 'spicions de mos' on 'em don' know dat YIT!"
The doctor asts him what he means.
It seems the bishop must of done some thinking after we left him in theroad or on his way back to that church. They had all begun to believethat there Elishyah was on the way to 'em, and the bishop's credit wasmore or less wrapped up with our being it. It was true he hadn't startedthat belief; but it was believed, and he didn't dare to stop it now.Fur, if he stopped it, they would all think he had fell down on hisprophetics, even although he hadn't prophesied jest exactly us. He wasin a tight place, that bishop, but I bet you could always depend on himto get out of it with his flock. So what he told them niggers at themeeting last night was that he brung 'em a message from Elishyah, Samsays, the Elishyah that was to come. And the message was that the timewas not ripe fur him to reveal himself as Elishyah unto the eyes of allmen, fur they had been too much sinfulness and wickedness and walkinginto the ways of evil, right amongst that very congregation, anddisobedience of the bishop, which was their guide. And he had sent 'emword, Elishyah had, that the bishop was his trusted servant, and intothe keeping of the bishop was give the power to deal with his people andprepare them fur the great day to come. And the bishop would give theword of his coming. He was a box, that bishop was, in spite of his crazystreaks; and he had found a way to make himself stronger than ever withhis bunch out of the very kind of thing that would have spoiled mostpeople's graft. They had had a big meeting till nearly morning, and thepower had hit 'em strong. Sam told us all about it.
But the thing that seemed to interest the doctor, and made him frown,was the idea that all them niggers round about there still had the ideahe was the feller that had been prophesied to come. All except Sam,mebby. Sam had spells when he was real sensible, and other spells whenhe was as bad as the believingest of them all.
It was a fine day, and really joyous to be a-walking. It would of beena good deal joyouser if we had had some breakfast, but we figgered wewould stop somewheres at noon and lay in a good, square, country meal.
That wasn't such a very thick settled country. But everybody seemed toknow about the manhunt that was going on, here, there, and everywhere.People would come down to the road side as we passed, and gaze after us.Or mebby ast us if we knowed whether he had been ketched yet. Women andkids mostly, or old men, but now and then a younger man too. We noticedthey wasn't no niggers to speak of that wasn't busier'n all get out,working at something or other, that day.
They is considerable woods in that country yet, though lots has beencut off. But they was sometimes right long stretches where they wouldbe woods on both sides of the road, more or less thick, with underbrushbetween the trees. We tramped along, each busy thinking his ownthoughts, and having a purty good time jest doing that without therebeing no use of talking. I was thinking that I liked the doctor betterfur turning his back on all this game, jest when he might of made somesort of a deal with the bishop and really made some money out of itin the end. He never was so good a business man as he thought he was,Doctor Kirby wasn't. He always could make himself think he was. But whenit come right down to brass tacks he wasn't. You give him a scheme thatwould TALK well, the kind of a josh talk he liked to get off fur his ownenjoyment, and he would take up with it every time instead of one thathad more prom
ise of money to it if it was worked harder. He was thinkingof the TALK more'n he was of the money, mostly; and he was always sayingsomething about art fur art's sake, which was plumb foolishness, fur henever painted no pictures. Well, he never got over being more or less ofa puzzle to me. But fur some reason or other this morning he seemed tobe in a better humour with himself, after we had walked a while, than Ihad seen him in fur a long time.
We come to the top of one long hill, which it had made us sweat toclimb, and without saying nothing to each other we both stopped and tookoff our hats and wiped our foreheads, and drawed long breaths, contentto stand there fur jest a minute or two and look around us. The road runstraight ahead, and dipped down, and then clumb up another hill about aneighth of a mile in front of us. It made a little valley. Jest aboutthe middle, between the two hills, a crick meandered through the bottomland. Woods growed along the crick, and along both sides of the road wewas travelling. Right nigh the crick they was another road come outof the woods to the left-hand side, and switched into the road we wastravelling, and used the same bridge to cross the crick by. They wasthree or four houses here and there, with chimbleys built up on theoutside of them, and blue smoke coming out. We stood and looked at thesight before us and forgot all the troubles we had left behind, fur acouple of minutes--it all looked so peaceful and quiet and homeyfied andnice.
"Well," says the doctor, after we had stood there a piece, "I guess webetter be moving on again, Danny."
But jest as Sam, who was follering along behind with that suit case,picks it up and puts it on his head agin, they come a sound, from awayoff in the distance somewheres, that made him set it down quick. And weall stops in our tracks and looks at each other.
It was the voice of a hound dog--not so awful loud, but clear and mellowand tuneful, and carried to us on the wind. And then in a minute it comeagin, sharper and quicker. They yells like that when they have struck ascent.
As we stood and looked at each other they come a crackle in theunderbrush, jest to the left of us. We turned our heads that-a-way, jestas a nigger man give a leap to the top of a rail fence that separatedthe road from the woods. He was going so fast that instead of climbingthat fence and balancing on the top and jumping off he jest simplyseemed to hit the top rail and bounce on over, like he had been throwedout of the heart of the woods, and he fell sprawling over and over inthe road, right before our feet.
He was onto his feet in a second, and fur a minute he stood up straightand looked at us--an ashes-coloured nigger, ragged and bleeding from theunderbrush, red-eyed, and with slavers trickling from his red lips, andsobbing and gasping and panting fur breath. Under his brown skin, wherehis shirt was torn open acrost his chest, you could see that nigger'sheart a-beating.
But as he looked at us they come a sudden change acrost his face--hemust of seen the doctor before, and with a sob he throwed himself on hisknees in the road and clasped his hands and held 'em out toward DoctorKirby.
"ELISHyah! ELISHyah!" he sings out, rocking of his body in a kindof tune, "reveal yo'se'f, reveal yo'se'f an' he'p me NOW! Lawd GawdELISHyah, beckon fo' a CHA'iot, yo' cha'iot of FIAH! Lif' me, lif'me--lif' me away f'um hyah in er cha'iot o' FIAH!"
The doctor, he turned his head away, and I knowed the thought workingin him was the thought of that white woman that would always be anidiot for life, if she lived. But his lips was dumb, and his one handstretched itself out toward that nigger in the road and made a wipingmotion, like he was trying fur to wipe the picture of him, and thethought of him, off'n a slate forevermore.
Jest then, nearer and louder and sharper, and with an eager sound, likethey knowed they almost had him now, them hounds' voices come ringingthrough the woods, and with them come the mixedup shouts of men.
"RUN!" yells Sam, waving of that suit case round his head, fur onenigger will always try to help another no matter what he's done. "Runfo' de branch--git yo' foots in de worter an' fling 'em off de scent!"
He bounded down the hill, that red-eyed nigger, and left us standingthere. But before he reached the crick the whole man-hunt come bustingthrough the woods, the dogs a-straining at their straps. The men was allon foot, with guns and pistols in their hands. They seen the nigger,and they all let out a yell, and was after him. They ketched him at thecrick, and took him off along that road that turned off to the left.I hearn later he was a member of Bishop Warren's congregation, so theyhung him right in front of Big Bethel church.
We stood there on top of the hill and saw the chase and capture. DoctorKirby's face was sweating worse than when we first clumb the hill.He was thinking about that nigger that had pleaded with him. He wasthinking also of the woman. He was glad it hadn't been up to himpersonal right then and there to butt in and stop a lynching. He wasglad, fur with them two pictures in front of him he didn't know what hewould of done.
"Thank heaven!" I hearn him say to himself. "Thank heaven that it wasn'tREALLY in my power to choose!"