Even as I hurried toward Clouds Creek, my criminal sire, roaring with drink, was driving Major Coulter’s cart like a loose chariot, careening around the Court House Square, scaring and scattering old ladies, dogs, and children, whipping his poor roan bloody. When one wheel was struck off by the wood sidewalk and the buggy pitched him headlong into the mud, he was seized and hauled forthwith up the courthouse steps and through the courtroom to the cells behind. Next morning he was charged with disturbing the peace, endangering life and limb, resisting arrest, and public drunkenness-everything the constable could think of that might hold him without bail until the next session of the circuit court.
I knew none of this when on Sunday before church, I went to collect my wage. From the stoop, I called good morning to the Colonel’s wife as she crossed the corridor. Aunt Lucy only shook her head and did not answer. Then her husband came. He did not offer his hand, only coldly informed me that someone had reported a charred corpse in the Deepwood ruin and someone else had seen me on the road near Deepwood early yesterday morning. “It seems you were carrying a weapon. And a shot was heard.”
He stood in wait, perhaps still hoping that I might explain. I was struck dumb. Who would have gone into that ruin? And just stumbled on a body beneath stacked timbers? Tap had betrayed me.
“You must leave this district.” Colonel Robert’s voice seemed far away. “You have no future at Clouds Creek.”
“Sir? If my work-”
“It has nothing to do with that. You are an exceptional young farmer.” Having no son of his own, he looked truly bereaved. He drew forth a money packet. “I’ve included fair payment for your hogs. Now go at once, you are in danger here.”
I searched his face as a shot bird follows the hunter’s hand descending to wring its neck. There was no absolution in that gaze. I wanted to howl, It is not just! It was an accident! And he was already dying! An inner screaming, a ringing like crazed bells. I must have gone straight over backwards. Later I recalled a faraway whump made by my head and shoulders as I struck the ground.
Muffled hog grunts and the croon of chickens. Cold white winter sun.
“Edgar, try to sit up.”
“He fainted, did he? Wily as the father!”
A close warm smell of horse tack, burned tobacco. “He has these spells. Look at his color.” Less patiently, the man’s voice said, “Mrs. Watson, please do as I ask. Fetch him a blanket.”
Rummaging, she called, “Does he know his father is in jail?”
I rolled away, sat up-“I’m fine”-fell sideways. Taking me under the arm, Colonel Robert tried to help me up off the cold earth onto the steps. Wrenching away made me dizzy and I sat down hard. I said, “It was not my doing. I never wished him harm.”
Cousin Robert nodded, leading me behind the house out of sight of the road. “Yet you know what was done and you know who did it.” He paused a moment. “I have come to know you, Edgar. You are prideful and stubborn. You will not betray the guilty. And since, to defend yourself, you must accuse-” He put his big hands on my shoulders, squeezing hard to make sure I understood that he understood. “Pay attention, Edgar. Men are out looking for you. If you’re caught, you could be shot or hung.” He offered his hand. “You have had a hard bad road for one so young and were set a poor example. I am truly sorry.”
“It is not just,” I growled in a stony voice, as my kinsman’s face began to blur. When I blinked my eyes clear, his hand was still extended. It withdrew at just the moment my own hand started upward to accept it.
“God knows it is not just,” he agreed quietly, scanning the countryside. “That is the way of His world.” He crossed the yard to the back stoop. With a last warning to stay off the roads till I crossed the Georgia line, he closed the door behind him. On the white wall of his house, in winter shine, the window glass, clear and empty, reflected the black limbs of the trees.
All my life I have recalled the proffered hand of Colonel R. B. Watson, the grained and weathered skin of it, the wrist hairs like finespun golden threads in the cold sunlight.