Henry brushed coon scat off a fish box for his visitor. Yes sir, he agreed, he had gone down to the shore that day. He had done so because his Miz Ida had told him to go keep an eye on Mist’ Dan Senior.
“Why did you carry your rifle down there if you never meant to use it?”
“I don’t know, suh.”
“If you don’t know, then why should I believe your story?”
“I don’t know, suh.” Neither insolent nor evasive, careful to speak in an open, earnest manner, Henry had looked his inquisitor straight in the face.
Lucius tried to be hard-minded and objective. “My father knew that Mr. D. D. House adopted you when you were little, and that you owed a debt to Mr. House. And we can assume that my father saw you standing in that crowd of armed frightened men who might panic and gun him down at any second. He knew that you were a crack shot, and he knew you might feel obliged to shoot if any of the House men became threatened. That correct so far? And being afraid of him, you probably feared that he might shoot you unless you shot him first—was that your thinking?”
“Nosuh,” Henry mumbled, suddenly retreating into negritude. “Wouldn’t nevuh shoot Mist’ Edguh Wasson, nosuh, wouldn’t nevuh shoot no white mans, nosuh.” When Lucius gave him a severe look, he hunched a little in subservience, neck bent, eyes cast down. “White folks ’customed to seein Nigger Henry with Mist’ Dan’s old rifle. Maybe dat las’ afternoon, dey imagine dey seen Henry raise it up like he fixin to shoot.” He shook his head. “Jus’ mistaked dereself, dass all. Dem mens was busy watchin yo’ daddy, see what he might do, dey nevuh paid no mind to no ol’ nigger. Anyways,” he wheedled, “dem white folks roun’ de Bay was allus good to me. Dem Chrishun folks wouldn’ nevuh tell no lies ’bout po’ Henry.”
Lucius had jumped up in a rage. This man had lived his whole life among whites, and spoke like one, and furthermore, Henry knew well that Lucius Watson would never be taken in by this performance. What Henry was saying to him was, Is this minstrel show what I must offer before you will let me live my life in peace?
Henry Short stood motionless, staring straight back at him. Then he blinked and slowly shook his head. That might have been all the denial Lucius needed, but Henry, reverting to his normal voice, resumed, unbidden, as if alerted long before to Lucius’s coming, and to the inevitability of his questions, and to the necessity of answering him, at whatever risk. Very carefully, Henry said, “Mist’ Edguh knew as good as anybody that Henry Short would never raise a gun against him.” Lucius searched his face for any sign of ambiguity. It remained impassive. They held that gaze and then, minutely, both men nodded.
After that meeting, their paths would cross from time to time along the rivers. They would lift their hats or make a vague half wave. Rarely, they smiled, then looked away and kept on going. Both were outcasts, taken in by the same outcast family, and that alone should have disposed them to a common trust, yet they shared an instinct not to seek the other out. They had spoken together only twice, yet felt no need to speak, because they knew. And though neither man would have referred to this odd bond in terms of friendship, a friendship was what, in its mute way, it had become.
High cirrus. Sun. A strange loud racketing, rising and falling, coming downriver.
“Ah hell.” Whidden stood up. They hurried the blind man back toward the boat.
Ibis and egrets scattered out across the sky, their squawking lost in the oncoming noise, which grew violently loud, as if the airboat had sprung free of the river surface, to rise over the treetops and crash down on them. Though it had not emerged from behind the bend, leaves shuddered and spun where the windstream from its airplane propeller tore at the trees. Then the motor howled—“They seen the Belle!”—and the airboat skidded into view, skating out wide onto the open river. There it idled, slopped by its own wake. When it circled back toward the bank, the metal hull pushed a bow wave crossways to the current.
Perched on a platform raised above the propeller, which was housed in a heavy wire cage over the stern, Crockett Junior in black T-shirt and dark glasses yanked at the controls with dexterous grabs and swings of his good arm. Dummy and Mud on the deck below were jamming clips into their carbines. On the bow, straining to jump, crouched the brindle dog.
“Ah hell,” Harden repeated, cranking the engine.
Andy and Sally were already in the cockpit, and Lucius was ready to let go the lines when Whidden raised a hand to check him. He cut the engine and, in no hurry, joined Lucius on the bank. An attempt at flight could excite a predatory instinct which might get them shot at, and anyway, the airboat could overtake them within seconds.