by Don Marquis
CHAPTER XXI
There was something sort of careless in his voice, like he had jestdropped in to see a show, and it had come to him sudden that he wouldenjoy himself fur a minute or two taking part in it. But he wasn't goingto get TOO worked up about it, either, fur the show might end by makinghim tired, after all.
As he come down the aisle fumbling in his coat, he stopped and begun toslap all his pockets. Then his face cleared, and he dived into avest pocket. Everybody looked like they thought he was going to pullsomething important out of it. But he didn't. All he pulled out was jestone of these here little ordinary red books of cigarette papers. Thenhe dived fur some loose tobacco, and begun to roll one. I noticed hisfingers was long and white and slim and quick. But not excited fingers;only the kind that seems to say as much as talking says.
He licked his cigarette, and then he sauntered ahead, looking up. Ashe looked up the light fell full on his face fur the first time. He hadhigh cheek bones and iron-gray hair which he wore rather long, and veryblack eyes. As he lifted his head and looked close at Doctor Kirby, achange went over both their faces. Doctor Kirby's mouth opened like hewas going to speak. So did the other feller's. One side of his mouthtwitched into something that was too surprised to be a grin, and one ofhis black eyebrows lifted itself up at the same time. But neither himnor Doctor Kirby spoke.
He stuck his cigarette into his mouth and turned sideways from DoctorKirby, like he hadn't noticed him pertic'ler. And he turns to thechairman.
"Will," he says. And everybody listens. You could see they all knowedhim, and that they all respected him too, by the way they was waitingto hear what he would say to Will. But they was all impatient and eager,too, and they wouldn't wait very long, although now they was hushingeach other and leaning forward.
"Will," he says, very polite and quiet, "can I trouble you for a match?"
And everybody let go their breath. Some with a snort, like they knowedthey was being trifled with, and it made 'em sore. His eyebrows goes upagin, like it was awful impolite in folks to snort that-away, and he issurprised to hear it. And Will, he digs fur a match and finds her andpasses her over. He lights his cigarette, and he draws a good inhale,and he blows the smoke out like it done him a heap of good. He seessomething so interesting in that little cloud of smoke that everybodyelse looks at it, too.
"Do I understand," he says, "that some one is going to lynch some one,or something of that sort?"
"That's about the size of it, colonel," says Will.
"Um!" he says, "What for?"
Then everybody starts to talk all at once, half of them jumping to theirfeet, and making a perfect hullabaloo of explanations you couldn't getno sense out of. In the midst of which the colonel takes a chair andsets down and crosses one leg over the other, swinging the loose footand smiling very patient. Which Will remembers he is chairman of thatmeeting and pounds fur order.
"Thank you, Will," says the colonel, like getting order was a personalfavour to him. Then Billy Harden gets the floor, and squares away fur alongwinded speech telling why. But Buck Hightower jumps up impatient andsays:
"We've been through all that, Billy. That man there has been tried andfound guilty, colonel, and there's only one thing to do--string him up."
"Buck, _I_ wouldn't," says the colonel, very mild.
But that there man Grimes gets up very sober and steady and says:
"Colonel, you don't understand." And he tells him the hull thing ashe believed it to be--why they has voted the doctor must die, the roomwarming up agin as he talks, and the colonel listening very interested.But you could see by the looks of him that colonel wouldn't never beinterested so much in anything but himself, and his own way of doingthings. In a way he was like a feller that enjoys having one partof himself stand aside and watch the play-actor game another part ofhimself is acting out.
"Grimes," he says, when the pock-marked man finishes, "I wouldn't. Ireally wouldn't."
"Colonel," says Grimes, showing his knowledge that they are all standingsolid behind him, "WE WILL!"
"Ah," says the colonel, his eyebrows going up, and his face lightingup like he is really beginning to enjoy himself and is glad he come,"indeed!"
"Yes," says Grimes, "WE WILL!"
"But not," says the colonel, "before we have talked the thing over abit, I hope?"
"There's been too much talk here now," yells Buck Hightower, "talk,talk, till, by God, I'm sick of it! Where's that ROPE?"
"But, listen to him--listen to the colonel!" some one else singsout. And then they was another hullabaloo, some yelling "no!" And thecolonel, very patient, rolls himself another smoke and lights it fromthe butt of the first one. But finally they quiets down enough so Willcan put it to a vote. Which vote goes fur the colonel to speak.
"Boys," he begins very quiet, "I wouldn't lynch this man. In the firstplace it will look bad in the newspapers, and--"
"The newspapers be d---d!" says some one.
"And in the second place," goes on the colonel, "it would be against thelaw, and--"
"The law be d----d!" says Buck Hightower.
"There's a higher law!" says Grimes.
"Against the law," says the colonel, rising up and throwing away hiscigarette, and getting interested.
"I know how you feel about all this negro business. And I feel the sameway. We all know that we must be the negros' masters. Grimes there foundthat out when he came South, and the idea pleased him so he hasn't beenable to talk about anything else since. Grimes has turned into what theNorthern newspapers think a typical Southerner is.
"Boys, this thing of lynching gets to be a habit. There's been a negrolynched to-day. He's the third in this county in five years. They allneeded killing. If the thing stopped there I wouldn't care so much. Butthe habit of illegal killing grows when it gets started.
"It's grown on you. You're fixing to lynch your first white man now. Ifyou do, you'll lynch another easier. You'll lynch one for murder and thenext for stealing hogs and the next because he's unpopular and the nextbecause he happens to dun you for a debt. And in five years life willbe as cheap in Watson County as it is in a New York slum where they feedimmigrants to the factories. You'll all be toting guns and grudges andtrying to lynch each other.
"The place to stop the thing is where it starts. You can't have it bothways--you've got to stand pat on the law, or else see the law spit onright and left, in the end, and NOBODY safe. It's either law or--"
"But," says Grimes, "there's a higher law than that on the statutebooks. There's--"
"There's a lot of flub-dub," says the colonel, "about higher laws andunwritten laws. But we've got high enough law written if we live up toit. There's--"
"Colonel Tom Buckner," says Buck Hightower, "what kind of law was itwhen you shot Ed Howard fifteen years ago? What--"
"You're out of order," says the chairman, "Colonel Buckner has thefloor. And I'll remind you, Buck Hightower, that, on the occasion youdrag in, Colonel Buckner didn't do any talking about higher laws orunwritten laws. He sent word to the sheriff to come and get him if hedared."
"Boys," says the colonel, "I'm preaching you higher doctrine than I'velived by, and I've made no claim to be better or more moral than any ofyou. I'm not. I'm in the same boat with all of you, and I tell youit's up to ALL of us to stop lynchings in this county--to set our facesagainst it. I tell you--"
"Is that all you've got to say to us, colonel?"
The question come out of a group that had drawed nearer togetherwhilst the colonel was talking. They was tired of listening to talk andarguments, and showed it.
The colonel stopped speaking short when they flung that question at him.His face changed. He turned serious all over. And he let loose jest oneword:
"NO!"
Not very loud, but with a ring in it that sounded like danger. And hegot 'em waiting agin, and hanging on his words.
"No!" he repeats, louder, "not all. I have this to say to you--"
And he paused agin, pointing one long wh
ite finger at the crowd--
"IF YOU LYNCH THIS MAN YOU MUST KILL ME FIRST!"
I couldn't get away from thinking, as he stood there making them takethat in, that they was something like a play-actor about him. But he wasin earnest, and he would play it to the end, fur he liked the feelingsit made circulate through his frame. And they saw he was in earnest.
"You'll lynch him, will you?" he says, a kind of passion getting intohis voice fur the first time, and his eyes glittering. "You think youwill? Well, you WON'T!
"You won't because _I_ say NOT. Do you hear? I came here to-night tosave him.
"You might string HIM up and not be called to account for it. But howabout ME?"
He took a step forward, and, looking from face to face with a dare inhis eyes, he went on:
"Is there a man among you fool enough to think you could kill TomBuckner and not pay for it?"
He let 'em all think of that for jest another minute before he spokeagin. His face was as white as a piece of paper, and his nostrils wasworking, but everything else about him was quiet. He looked the masterof them all as he stood there, Colonel Tom Buckner did--straight andsplendid and keen. And they felt the danger in him, and they felt jesthow fur he would go, now he was started.
"You didn't want to listen to me a bit ago," he said. "Now you must.Listen and choose. You can't kill that man unless you kill me too.
"TRY IT, IF YOU THINK YOU CAN!"
He reached over and took from the teacher's desk the sheet of paper Willhad used to check off the name of each man and how he voted. He held itup in front of him and every man looked at it.
"You know me," he says. "You know I do not break my word. And I promiseyou that unless you do kill me here tonight--yes, as God is my witness,I THREATEN you--I will spend every dollar I own and every atom ofinfluence I possess to bring each one of you to justice for that man'smurder."
They knowed, that crowd did, that killing a man like Colonel Buckner--aleader and a big man in that part of the state--was a differentproposition from killing a stranger like Doctor Kirby. The sense of whatit would mean to kill Colonel Buckner was sinking into 'em, and showingon their faces. And no one could look at him standing there, with hisdetermination blazing out of him, and not understand that unless theydid kill him as well as Doctor Kirby he'd do jest what he said.
"I told you," he said, not raising his voice, but dropping it, andmaking it somehow come creeping nearer to every one by doing that, "Itold you the first white man you lynched would lead to other lynchings.Let me show you what you're up against to-night.
"Kill the man and the boy here, and you must kill me. Kill me, and youmust kill Old Man Withers, too."
Every one turned toward the door as he mentioned Old Man Withers. He hadnever been very far into the room.
"Oh, he's gone," said Colonel Tom, as they turned toward the door, andthen looked at each other. "Gone home. Gone home with the name of everyman present. Don't you see you'd have to kill Old Man Withers too, ifyou killed me? And then, HIS WIFE! And then--how many more?
"Do you see it widen--that pool of blood? Do you see it spread andspread?"
He looked down at the floor, like he really seen it there. He had 'emgoing now. They showed it.
"If you shed one drop," he went on, "you must shed more. Can't you seeit--widening and deepening, widening and deepening, till you're wadingknee deep in it--till it climbs to your waists--till it climbs to yourthroats and chokes you?"
It was a horrible idea, the way he played that there pool of blood andhe shuddered like he felt it climbing up himself. And they felt it. Afew men can't kill a hull, dern county and get away with it. The way heput it that's what they was up against.
"Now," says Colonel Tom, "what man among you wants to start it?"
Nobody moved. He waited a minute. Still nobody moved. They all lookedat him. It was awful plain jest where they would have to begin. It wasawful plain jest what it would all end up in. And I guess when theylooked at him standing there, so fine and straight and splendid, it jestseemed plumb unpossible to make a move. There was a spirit in him thatcouldn't be killed. Doctor Kirby said afterward that was what come ofbeing real "quality," which was what Colonel Tom was--it was that in himthat licked 'em. It was the best part of their own selves, and the bestpart of their own country, speaking out of him to them, that done it.Mebby so. Anyhow, after a minute more of that strain, a feller by thedoor picks up his gun out of the corner with a scrape, and hists it tohis shoulder and walks out. And then Colonel Tom says to Will, with hiseyebrow going up, and that one-sided grin coming onto his face agin:
"Will, perhaps a motion to adjourn would be in order?"