The Gardener's Son(12)

GREGG Take it and get out.

McEvoy stares at the gold piece. When he looks up his eyes are filled with hatred. Gregg looks at McEvoy and then he looks at the coin and then he looks at McEvoy again. Then his face drains. He jerks suddenly at the top drawer of his desk. McEvoy snatches the pistol from his belt.

MCEVOY Dont.

Gregg scrabbles in the desk drawer for his pistol and McEvoy fires. Gregg is knocked back sitting in his chair. He reaches again for the drawer and McEvoy fires again. Gregg reels in the chair. He puts a hand to his side and rises.

GREGG You raggedyassed crippled son of a bitch.

Gregg lurches toward the safe in the comer of the room.

Interior. Office outside James Greggs door. Mr Giles running to see what has occurred. McEvoy swings past him on his crutch and makes for the outside door.

MR GILES You wretched boy, what have you done?

Gregg lurches from his office bleeding at the mouth and holding a small derringer pistol.

MR GILES Captain Gregg. Good god, captain.

Gregg pauses, his eyes swimming.

GREGG Mr Giles, he’s murdered me.

Gregg stumbles on a few steps until he can see out the door and there he raises the pistol in both hands and fires at McEvoy in the street. McEvoy turns. He is standing in the street holding the pistol in one hand. Gregg is standing in the doorway, swaying, holding his pistol at his waist in both hands and looking down at McEvoy. There is a frozen moment and then McEvoy's face turns anguished and he raises the pistol and cocks it and levels it at Gregg. It hesitates for just a moment. Then it fires. Gregg collapses in the doorway. McEvoy's father has stopped a few yards down the street from where his son is holding the pistol. The clatter of machinery in the background suddenly comes to a halt. There is an immense silence. Figures appear at the door of the mill. They are all watching Mr McEvoy as he approaches his son. He is walking very straight and dignified and he is crying. He holds out his hand for the pistol. McEvoy is breathing hard. His face changes from hatred to anguish. The father holds out his hand for the pistol. McEvoy turns the pistol on his father for a moment. The older man takes yet another step toward his son. He is almost close enough now to put his arm around his son. He is crying quietly. McEvoy lowers his head. He hands the pistol to his father. They stand there, the boy looking down at the ground and the father looking at the boy, holding the revolver clumsily by the barrel.

Exterior. The Gregg home. Mrs Gregg is in her garden, bonneted, cutting back the dry winter shrubs. She raises up. She listens to the silence. She looks toward the mill. She takes off her bonnet and starts for the house, calling for the boy and telling him to get the carriage.

Exterior. Mill. Silence. There are faces at the windows and figures standing in the doorways. Six or eight members of the board of directors come down the steps from the mill office with James Gregg on a litter improvised from the balustrade dividing the inner and outer office and ease him into the bed of a springwagon. They are furtive and they regard the mill and the watching workers fearfully. Two of the members climb into the bed of the wagon to attend him and the horse starts off at almost a walk with the other members following like mourners at a wake. Gregg is alive. He looks at the faces at the mill and they look back with a variety of expressions, from apathy to mild interest to genuine sorrow. The mill blurs away. The train whistle blows.

Exterior. Mrs Gregg's carriage coming along the road. She is sitting very erect, worried but stoic. The black driver is worried and urges the horses along.

Exterior. Mill. Silence. Mrs Gregg's carriage comes into view with the horses still at a smart trot and stops in the road before the mill office. She climbs down from the carriage and crosses the open space and enters the office. The workers watch her go. The train whistle calls in the farther distance. The horses whinny and stamp. In a few moments she comes to the door. Her face is stunned. She looks down the front of the mill to all the faces that are watching her. They stare back. She comes down the stairs. She stumbles toward the carriage. A man appears at the mill office door but he doesnt know what to do. Mrs Gregg crosses to her carriage. All watch her. Her face is crumpled with grief.

MRS GREGG Dear God please dont take him. Please God dont take him.

Interior. Aiken County courthouse. There are nine black and three white jurors. The blacks wear light-colored clothes, the whites dark-colored. There are two black lawyers and one white lawyer for both the prosecution and the defense. Sheriff and judge are white. The prosecuting attorney, Mr P L Wiggins (black), reads the indictment to the jury. Robert McEvoy sits with his lawyers.

PROSECUTING ATTORNEY That Robert McEvoy, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil on the twentieth day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy six with force of arms at Graniteville in the county and state aforesaid in and upon one James J Gregg in the peace of God and of this state then and there being, did make an assault and that he, the said Robert McEvoy, a certain pistol of the value of five dollars, then and there loaded with gunpowder, and divers leaden balls, which pistol he the said Robert McEvoy then and there had and held to, against, and upon the said James J Gregg, then and there feloniously willfully and of his malice aforethought did shoot and discharge and that he the said Robert McEvoy with the leaden balls aforesaid out of the pistol aforesaid then and there by force of the gunpowder shot and sent forth at aforesaid the said James J Gregg in and upon the chest and in and upon the left side of the abdomen of him the said James J Gregg, then and there feloniously willfully and of his malice aforethought did strike penetrate and wound, giving unto the said James J Gregg, then and there with the leaden balls as aforesaid sent forth out of the pistol aforesaid, divers mortal wounds of the depth of six inches and of the breadth of two inches each, of which said mortal wounds he the said James J Gregg, from the twentieth day of April in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy six until the twenty first of April in the year last aforesaid at Augusta in the county of Richmond in the state of Georgia did languish and languishing did die. And so the jurors aforesaid upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the said Robert McEvoy the said James J Gregg in manner and form as aforesaid feloniously and willfully and of his malice aforethought did kill and murder, against the form of the Act of the General Assembly of this state and against the peace and dignity of the state of South Carolina.