A Gathering of Old Men (8 page)

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 watching 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.

“Because they’re black and helpless, is that why you’re picking on them?”

He ignored her. He was watching Griffin lead one of the old fellows toward him. The old man had to be eighty. Griffin was probably afraid of anyone younger. The old man wore overalls, a khaki shirt, and an old felt hat. He was a clean-shaven old fellow, walked with quick steps, leaning a bit forward. Candy moved to the side as Griffin led him up to Mapes. When Griffin released his arm, he took off his hat and held it to his chest. His head was shaved as clean as his face. He looked up at Mapes a second; then his eyes came down to Mapes’s chest. He had a nervous twitch that made his bald head bob continually as if he were always agreeing with you. He was quite a bit shorter than Mapes, maybe even a foot shorter. Mapes let him stand there awhile before saying anything to him.

“How come you so far from home, Uncle Billy?” Mapes asked him.

“I kilt him,” the old man said, without raising his eyes from Mapes’s chest. His bald head never stopped bobbing.

“Now, I don’t have time for that, Uncle Billy,” Mapes said. “This is my fishing day. I ask you again, how come you so far from home?”

“I kilt—”

The back of Mapes’s hand went
pow
across Uncle Billy’s face, and spit shot from the old man’s mouth as his head jerked to the side. Mapes had hit him so quickly that I hadn’t seen it coming or expected it.

I heard a groan from the women sitting on the steps.

“Look at that, look at that,” one of them said. “A old man like Billy Washington—just look at that.”

“Mapes, I’m going to remember that,” Candy said, stabbing her finger toward him. “I’ve got a lot of witnesses. I’m going to remember that.”

Mapes paid her no attention.

“Let’s try it again, Uncle Billy. How come you so far from home?”

“I kilt him,” Uncle Billy said, his bald head bobbing.

Pow
went Mapes’s hand again. Blood dripped from Uncle Billy’s mouth, but he would not wipe it away.

“Stand him over there, bring me another one,” Mapes said to Griffin.

“You’re going to beat them all, Mapes?” Candy asked him. She was mad enough to hit him, but Mapes probably would have hit her back. I didn’t like what was going on either, but I knew that had I interfered, Mapes would have knocked hell out of me and thrown me in the back of his car.

“You better get her out of here,” he said to me.

“Like hell he will,” Candy said. “This is my land, in case you forget.”

“You better stay out of my way,” Mapes warned her.

“Like hell I will.”

“Like hell you won’t,” he said.

He turned to the old man that Griffin had just brought up there.

“What are you doing from behind those trees, Gable?” he asked.

Gable was a thin, brown-skinned man with white hair and
high, prominent cheekbones. He was impeccably dressed—brown sports coat, plaid shirt, a string tie, brown trousers, and shoes well shined. He had taken off his hat, which he held against his leg, not to his chest as Uncle Billy had done. Also unlike Uncle Billy, who never raised his eyes higher than Mapes’s chest, Gable looked him straight in the face. “I kilt him,” he said.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Gable,” Mapes said. “You’ve had enough trouble in your life already. Now, I ask you again, how did she get you from behind those trees?”

“I shot him,” Gable said.

Mapes clamped his teeth so hard that the muscles in his heavy jowls began to quiver. His right hand came up slowly—then
pow
. Gable’s face jerked to the side, but came right back. His eyes watered, but he stared Mapes straight in the face.

The women on the steps groaned. The little girl and the smaller boy covered their faces. The men watched quietly.

“You can do it all day long,” Gable said to Mapes.

Mapes slapped him again. Gable’s face jerked to the side just a little. His eyes blinked for a moment; then he was looking Mapes in the face again.

The muscles in Mapes’s heavy jowls continued to quiver. He did not like what he was doing, but he didn’t know any other way to get what he wanted.

“Stand him over there, bring me another one,” he said.

“Not the other cheek?” Gable asked. “Both times you hit the same one—not the other one?”

Mapes’s big face flushed with anger. The jowl muscles continued to twitch. He did not answer Gable.

Griffin took Gable by the arm and led him over to where Uncle Billy was standing. I saw Uncle Billy looking at Mapes and grinning. I could have told Mapes then that he wasn’t going to get anywhere by slapping them.

“Why don’t you use a stick or a hose pipe?” Candy said to
Mapes. “No sense bruising your hands on old people who can’t fight back.”

“They all have shotguns,” Mapes said.

“You know they won’t use them.”

“That’s right,” Mapes said. “I know they won’t use them, and we know they didn’t use them, don’t we?”

“I told you I did it,” Candy said.

“Sure,” Mapes said. “And my name is Santa Claus.”

Griffin was moving among the crowd. Suddenly he had become very brave. He wasn’t choosing the first one he came to; he was being picky now. He was going to get the one he wanted. The people did not look at him as he moved toward them. They didn’t seem afraid; they just didn’t think he was important enough to look at. But as he approached the steps, Aunt Glo’s little grandson Snookum suddenly stood up before him. Griffin told him to sit back down before he slapped him down. Griffin was very tough around the very old and the very young. But instead of sitting back down, the boy jumped off the steps and started toward Mapes. Candy, who had not been standing too far away from Mapes, now got between him and the boy, and told the boy to go back. He stopped, but he did not return to the steps until his grandmother called him. He went back and sat on the steps next to her, and she put her arm around his shoulders. Then both she and he looked back at Mapes, and both seemed ready to be slapped, if either or both were his choice. Candy turned back to Mapes, but only stared at him, and did not say anything. I didn’t say anything either. But I knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of them by slapping them around.

Griffin had already chosen someone else, the quarter’s preacher, Reverend Jameson. Griffin couldn’t have chosen a sadder figure. His shirt was already fully wet from perspiration. He looked as if he were about to have a heart attack, he was so afraid of Mapes. Mapes didn’t like it either that Griffin
had brought him the preacher. He had wanted someone with a gun. But now he had no choice but to go on with what he had started.

“What are you doing down here, Reverend?” he asked. “Why aren’t you at home reading your Bible?”

Reverend Jameson looked down at Mapes’s feet. He did not raise his eyes as high as Mapes’s chest.