Bishop drank his lemonade and looked down at the sun on the floor. When we first came back there the sun had barely reached the top step; now it had crossed the step and had come about a foot inside the kitchen. Bishop was looking down at the sun like he expected to see it move if he looked at it long enough. When a bunch of flies lit on the floor in front of him he watched the flies. When they flew away, he raised his head. Aunt Margaret was quiet all the time—just waving that big yellow straw hat before her face.
“I been seeing it coming ever since that boy came there,” Bishop said. “I could see it in the clothes he wore—them pink shirts, them two-tone shoes. I could see it in the way he rode on that tractor, the way he strutted across that yard. I saw the way he looked at that Cajun from the side. And Mr. Marshall saw it, too—and that’s when he started watching him. Every time the boy came to the yard, he put himself in a place to watch him. He even went riding in the quarter to look for him. Not ready to speak to him—not yet—just to look at him. Then last Saturday he made his move. He stood on the back gallery a long time before he went out there where he was. I watched them from the dining room. I kept saying, ‘No—Lord, please don’t let him, please don’t let him.’ I saw how the boy jerked around when he told the boy what he wanted him to do. I had a glass in my hand. The glass fell and broke.”
Bishop had spread the wet pocket handkerchief on his knee to dry out, but now he picked it up to wipe his face and neck. He looked at me long and sadly. His thick glasses made his eyes look bigger and sadder than they really were.
“He didn’t get Marcus out of jail to kill Bonbon, did he?”
Bishop frowned and groaned. He started shaking his head like he never would stop. Nothing else I could say could have hurt him more than that.
“He got him out for her,” he said. “For her. He got him out ’cause she came there crying. He didn’t know that boy from Adam. It was his clothes, the way he walked across that yard; it was the way he looked at that Cajun: these was the things that gived him the idea. No, he didn’t get him out to kill him. God knows, I wish he had never heard of that boy, or Miss Julie Rand.”
Bishop looked down at the floor again. Aunt Margaret went on fanning. Everything was quiet, while I waited for Bishop to go on.
“Exactly what is it Bonbon got on Marshall?” I asked.
Bishop raised his head slowly and looked at me. He didn’t like the way I said “Marshall”; I should have said “Mr. Marshall.” Then he started looking at me the way Miss Julie Rand had looked at me when I asked her that same question. He didn’t want to tell me what the bad blood was between Marshall and Bonbon. It would have been different if it was something just about Bonbon. Bonbon was a poor Cajun, and he would have talked about Bonbon all day. But things were a little different when they were about Mr. Marshall. At the same time, he knew he had to tell me because he needed me. He glanced at Aunt Margaret to see what she thought. Did she think it was all right to let Marshall and Bonbon’s secret out? Aunt Margaret was fanning and not looking at either Bishop or me. She had given up hope. The world was crazy. If she could save Tite out of all this madness, she would be satisfied. As for Marcus and Louise, and now Bonbon and Marshall, she had given up on them. So Bishop got no help from her at all. If he wanted to tell me, then it was up to him.
“Mr. Marshall had a brother called Bradford,” Bishop said. “He was a gambler, a big gambler, but he used to lose much more than he ever won. One night he lost a great deal more than he could ever pay back. He signed a letter to the man who had won the money, then he came home and packed up his clothes and left. Nobody knows where he went and nobody knows if he’s living or dead. A week or so after he left, the other man showed up with the letter, claiming his money. I heard him and Mr. Marshall squabbling over the money in the library. He left without getting the money, and a few weeks later he was killed in a saloon—another gambler killed him. The place was packed full of people and there was nothing but noise and moving with people trying to get out. While all this was going on, the second man was killed, too. Bonbon was there that night. People figure he killed the second man after he had put him up to kill that other one …”
Bishop let out his breath like he had been holding it in a long time. I waited for him to go on.
“He been doing anything he want ever since then,” Bishop said. “Mr. Marshall been trying to get him ’way from here ever since. He’s offered him money, but he won’t take it. He’s offered other people money to get Bonbon way from here, but they won’t take the money, either. Bonbon got too many brothers; and you can’t spend money from the grave.”
“So he makes Bonbon work Marcus like a slave so Marcus can get mad enough to kill him?” I said. “He can see how much Marcus already hates this place, and he thinks if he press him enough, sooner or later he will have to kill Bonbon …?”
Bishop lowered his head. It was the truth. But Bishop couldn’t ever say anything like that about Marshall Hebert. He would rather put it all on Marcus: Marcus’s clothes, his strutting, his side glances at Bonbon.