We was go’n walk him to the car, we was go’n all shake his hand, we was go’n watch the car leave, and then we was go’n all go home.
But Luke Will had to show up.
Charlie was in front leading the way. Mapes was right behind him. Then Mathu, then Candy, Lou, Clatoo, and me. When Luke Will called out there in the road, nobody but Charlie and Mapes had gone through the door. Mapes blocked the door to keep the rest of us inside, and he hollered for Charlie to hit the floor.
Charlie said: “Me hit the floor? Hit the floor for what, for something like Luke Will? I ain’t scared of no Luke Will, man.”
He pushed Mapes out his way and came on back inside. He went up to Mathu and reached out his hand.
“I’m go’n need it again, Parrain.”
Mathu pushed it on him, and grinned. He was proud of Charlie. Charlie swung back toward the door with the gun ready.
“Let me handle this,” Mapes said.
“This my fight,” Charlie said. “He come here to lynch me, not you.”
“This everybody’s fight,” Clatoo said. “It ain’t go’n be no lynching here tonight.”
“Y’all stay back inside,” Mapes said. “What you go’n do with them empty shotguns, use them for clubs?”
“They was empty,” Clatoo said. “If you think they still empty, turn your head.”
Mapes was standing in the door, filling the door. He looked back.
Clatoo had broke down the barrel. The rest of us was all doing the same.
“That’s right,” Clatoo said. “Every man in here got a loaded gun, and extras in his pocket. We wasn’t scrapping pecans backa that house.”
“You’ll pay for this,” Mapes said to Clatoo.
“No, he go’n pay for it out there,” Clatoo said, nodding outside. “He go’n pay for a lot of things.”
Mapes looked at Clatoo; then he looked at the rest of us. Nobody looked down, so he turned back and called to Luke Will.
“Go home, Luke Will,” he said.
“You send that nigger out here and I’ll go home,” Luke Will called back.
“You got your answer, Sheriff,” Charlie said. “Now you go’n move?”
Mapes glanced back over his shoulder and started calling to his deputy. He was calling, not loud, just out the left corner of his mouth. That little deputy was in the back of the room. He had his gun out, holding it, looking at it, but he wasn’t moving toward Mapes. Mapes called him again.
“I ain’t raising my hand against no white folks for no niggers,” Griffin answered him.
“Well, Sheriff?” Charlie said.
Mapes didn’t look at Charlie or answer Charlie. He looked back toward the road.
“Luke Will, what happened to Hilly?” he called.
“I put him to sleep for a while, he’s all right,” Luke Will called back. “You sending that nigger out here or not?”
Mapes started ’cross the garry.
“Don’t act no fool, Mapes,” Luke Will called. “I can see every step you make. Don’t act no fool, now.”
Mapes had left his gun propped against the steps, and I saw him looking over there as he crossed the garry.
Luke Will hollered at him again. “Don’t come out here by yourself, Mapes. I’m warning you, now.”
Mapes snatched the gun from against the steps as he hit the ground. I was standing in the door between Charlie and Clatoo, and I could see Mapes good. I saw him knock off the safety and swing the gun to the crook of his other arm. Before he could make two more steps, you had a shot and Mapes went down. They hadn’t killed him, just winged him, ’cause I could see him grabbing his arm, trying to get back up. He was too big to get up.
When that gun went off, Charlie and Clatoo bust out the door, and I wasn’t too far behind them. Charlie went right, toward down the quarters. Clatoo went left, into Mathu’s garden, but he didn’t stop there. He kept going through the garden, over into the weeds, and I wasn’t more than a step behind him.
I could hear screaming back there in the house. I could hear shooting in the house, and even more screaming. Somebody opened the window, ’cause the light from the window fell across the garden, and me and Clatoo hit the ground and started crawling through the weeds. The weeds was dry, and you could hear it breaking, and the people in the road started shooting at us, but we kept down. When we reached that barbed-wire fence next to Rufe’s old house, we laid down and kept quiet. I could hear Clatoo breathing hard, and I was just as tired. I had scratched my face in two or three places crawling through the weeds.
I could still hear lot of shooting from the house. Not everybody had got out, ’cause every now and then you could see a shadow go by the window. Every time a shadow went by the window, somebody from the road shot back at the house.
“I want to get that son of a bitch myself,” Clatoo said.
“No more than I do,” I said. “We didn’t all get a chance at Beau, but we got a chance at him.”
We crawled closer to the ditch so we could get a better look at the tractor. But it was so dark, and the weeds so thick, you couldn’t see a thing till somebody shot. Then all you could see was the red fire from the gun.
I could hear the weeds cracking behind us, and I looked back, and I saw Mat, Jacob, and the Lejeune brothers crawling over to us.
“Everybody all right?” Clatoo asked.
“I think so,” Mat said. “Little scratches here and there, but all right.”
“Who was doing all that shooting in the house?” Clatoo asked.
Jacob laughed. “Billy Washington and Jean Pierre. That’s why I thought it was safer out here.”
“Nobody got hurt?” Clatoo asked.
“Just the ceiling,” Jacob said.
“Thank God,” Clatoo said.
We laid there quiet for a while.
“What now?” Mat said. He was right up against me, and he was breathing hard.
“We got to spread out,” Clatoo said. He turned on his side and looked back at us. “Mat, you and Jacob get in Rufe’s yard by that mulberry tree. Bing, you and Ding go farther up the quarters and cross the road. Holler, and fire. Mat, you and Jacob fire next, then me and Coot, and I just hope the rest of ’em do the same.”
Mat and Jacob started out first, then Bing and Ding Lejeune. You could hear the weeds breaking as they crawled over into Rufe’s yard. And even after the Lejeunes had gone all the way up to Corrine’s house, you could still hear dry weeds breaking. Them over by the tractor shot each time they heard the weeds breaking.
Me and Clatoo lay there waiting for the two Lejeunes to cross the road, and I could hear Jameson over by the house calling on God to have mercy on all of us. If it wasn’t Jameson calling on God, it was Glo calling for her little grandson Snookum. Jameson, then Glo; Glo, then Jameson. I heard Dirty Red call to Rooster to go shoot Jameson and shut him up. Jameson musta heard it too. There wasn’t another word from him.
The Lejeunes had crossed the road. Now one hooted, and both of them fired. Them at the tractor fired back in that direction. Mat and Jacob hooted, and fired. The ones at the tractor turned and fired that way. Clatoo looked at me and nodded. We both got on our knees, hooted, fired, and fell back down. We got one of them, ’cause I could hear his scream. Me and Clatoo looked at each other and grinned, and reloaded.
From down the quarters, everybody was firing. I could tell Rooster’s high-pitched voice, Dirty Red’s dry, hoarse voice—and Yank’s voice. Yank didn’t hoot like the rest of us. He hollered the way you holler at a rodeo when somebody’s riding a bucking horse. “Ya-hoo,” and shot. They had spread out good, and now all the way down the quarters they was hooting and shooting. I didn’t know the last time I had felt so good. Not since I was a young man in the war. Lord, have mercy, Jesus.
“You got anything left?” Clatoo asked me.
“Two more,” I said.
“We’ll shoot again, and save the last one,” Clatoo said.
He got up on his knees and elbow and cupped his mouth to throw his voice.
“Mat, Jacob, Ding, Bing, fire at that tractor.”
They hooted and fired. You woulda thought you was listening to a bunch of Indians—Lord, have mercy. Clatoo looked at me. We got up quick, fired, and fell back down. Clatoo turned on his side and cupped his mouth: “Down the quarters—fire.” And down the quarters, they was firing even before Clatoo had finished saying it.