Lost Man's River(285)

“Mist’ Edgar looked red-eyed, all wore out, like he’d laid awake most of that week. Spoke in a low and scrapy voice, said, ‘Henry, you got no business here. You get on home.’ And I seen he would not tolerate me. I seen the murder shinin in his eye.”

“Would not tolerate your color?”

Henry closed his eyes. He was running out of time. “Nosir. What I told you. Nigger-actin-to-be-a-man. Somethin like that.” His dry mouth twitched in that gaunt shadow of a smile. When Lucius fed him water in thin sips, he nodded minute thanks, shifting and settling his pain before resuming. In a hurry to expel his truth, he talked too fast, exhausting himself. Lucius touched his arm to slow him down.

“Knowin this here black feller could shoot, your daddy didn’t take no chances. He hefted up that double-barrel nice and easy, like he was fixin to hand it over to Mist’ Dan. But by the little shiftin of his feet, I knowed he was gettin set to swing that gun, shoot from the hip. I was standin apart, out in the shatters, so it weren’t no trick to blow me off that line.” Henry nodded. “Show them others he meant business. Show ’em that the next one he shot might be a white man.”

In a bout of agony, Henry gasped. He raised a hand and lowered it again onto the Bible. “Lord is my witness, I believe that Mist’ Edgar was dead soon as his gun come up. What Henry Short done or did not do never made no difference.”

Henry was not looking at him now but past him. “Mist’ Edgar’s gun come up in a snap swing, and mine did, too,” he murmured after a while. “He had me beat cause I held my fire, still prayin I would not have to shoot.” Henry spoke in sorrow, as if truly regretful that Mr. Watson had not killed him. “His gun misfired, Mist’ Lucius. I seen his eyes go wide—out of his surprise, y’know—but it was too late.” He sighed. “I had pulled that trigger, not knowin there was no need of it, not knowin the good Lord had already went and saved me.”

Henry closed his eyes. “It was all over so fast! Mist’ Edgar was fallin. Somebody has shot Mist’ Edgar Watson! Took me a minute to understand who might of done it. I was starin at him lay in there while them men shot and shot, and all I could think was, Henry Short, you will die here, too.”

“Is it possible you miscalculated, Henry? Maybe figuring he might shoot you, you fired first—”

Henry Short grimaced, raising his hand a little, then lowering it again onto the Bible. “Nosir. Weren’t no time to figure nothin.”

“Bill House—?”

Henry shook his head. “I heard his shot. Mist’ Bill shot just behind. Young Mist’ Dan, Old Mist’ Dan—all them Houses was good shots, and very likely hit him, but Mist’ Watson was already fallin by the time they fired.”

“You know you hit him.”

The wrapped hands jerked on the coarse coverlet.

“And you know you killed him.”

Hollowed out like little leather dishes, the burned man’s temples pulsed. When Lucius put a rag of water to his lips, he could muster up no thanks. His eyes had closed. “Hell is waitin, Henry Short,” the burned man whispered.

For a long while he lay quiet, yet he seemed intent, as if trying to hear a distant birdsong in the late spring woods. When Lucius shifted and cleared his throat, the burned man lifted the stiff club of his mitt as if to hush him. When it seemed that he might sleep and not awaken, Lucius leaned and whispered at his ear.

In the stillness, it seemed that this last question had been asked too late. Henry Short had gone and he would not return. But the lids opened and for a long moment those inflamed eyes met Lucius’s gaze.

In a cardboard suitcase underneath the cot, Lucius found a large heavy cigar box bound in tarred fish line. Henry nodded, and he opened it, knowing already that the box contained old belt buckles and metal buttons, small rusted pocketknives, a few spent bullets.

Bones and skulls? Henry Short nodded. Had he ever told anyone about this? Just Lee Harden. Nobody else? He shook his head. Why not?

Henry closed his eyes without a word. Yet Lucius imagined that he understood. Perhaps Henry Short had kept his secret out of loyalty to Ed Watson, who had “seen” him. Or perhaps he had done it because of his unnameable friendship with Ed Watson’s son.

The sojourners in the brown room rushed to the cot, for Henry’s heart had faltered. Spasms yanked his body as one hand flew up and his eyes went wide. When he fell back, he lay as if transfixed, red eyes rolled back in his skeletal brown head in a stare of wonder, mouth stretched in a famished yawn of mortal yearning.

Then, in a twitch, the failing heart in the mortal husk of Henry Short restored faint blood to the grayed skin, and the mouth eased, and the eyes softened and dampened and came back to the room with a dim shine of bewilderment and wonder. Once again, the white mitt wandered weakly on the rough coverlet, seeking Lucius’s hand. He whispered, “No more secrets, Mist’ Lucius. No more lyin.”