Charlie was up in the ditch, I was right behind him. Yank and Tucker and Chimley was over to the right. I think Clabber was somewhere back there, too. I crawled up even with Charlie and laid there ’side him. He was like a big bear laying there.
“Light me a stub, Dirty,” he said.
I had a couple in my pocket, and I got out one and lit it. I handed it to him, and he took couple of good draws and handed it back to me.
“Charlie?” Lou called, from Mathu’s yard.
“What you want?” Charlie answered.
“Let them turn themselves in, Charlie.”
“No, sir,” Charlie called back.
“It’ll be murder now, Charlie,” Lou said.
“It was murder before,” Charlie said.
“No, Charlie,” Lou called. “With Beau it was self-defense. Candy will swear to that.”
Charlie didn’t answer him. He reached for the cigarette, and I handed it to him. He turned his head to draw on it, so the people up the quarters couldn’t see the light.
“I ain’t gone nowhere,” Charlie answered him.
“I got your parrain here, Charlie,” Lou said. “He wants to come out there and talk to you.”
“I don’t want Parrain out here,” Charlie said. “Parrain told me to stand. I’m standing up to Luke Will.”
It was quiet after that. Pitch black and quiet. Charlie laid there like a big old bear. And I was right there ’side him.
“You scared, Dirty?” he asked me.
“Not here ’side you, Charlie.”
“Don’t never be scared no more, Dirty,” he told me. “Life’s so sweet when you know you ain’t no more coward.”
I nodded my head. But I wanted some more.
“Charlie,” I said.
He was looking up the quarters toward the tractor.
“Charlie,” I said again.
“Yeah, Dirty?” he said, still looking up the quarters.
“What you seen back there, Charlie?”
He didn’t answer me. Just laying there like a big bear, with that double-barrel shotgun ’cross his arm.
“Charlie, what you seen in them swamps?” I asked him again.
“You seen it, too, Dirty,” he said, not looking at me.
“I didn’t see nothing, Charlie. What did you see?” I asked him.
“All of y’all seen it,” he said.
“No, I didn’t see nothing,” I said. “I’m just here, Charlie. Like all the rest. I didn’t see nothing.”
He looked back at me. “You got it, Dirty,” he said. “You already got it, partner.”
“Got what, Charlie?”
He grinned at me. “Light me another stub, Dirty.”
I fished in my pocket for another one and took it out. While I was lighting it, I heard Lou calling from Mathu’s yard.
“I’m coming out there, Charlie,” he said.
“You not getting my gun,” Charlie called back. “Go take Luke Will’s gun.”
“Luke Will, I’m coming out there,” Lou called.
“You ain’t taking this gun,” Luke Will called back to him.
It was quiet a little while. Charlie was smoking the cigarette, smoking it hard, like he had to hurry up and finish with it. Then I saw him getting up. I whispered to him to get back down, but he kept on getting up. I heard Lou hollering to him to stay down, but Charlie wasn’t listening to anybody. He was headed straight toward that tractor. And he hadn’t made more than two, three, maybe four steps when I heard the first shot. I saw him staggering but he didn’t go down; I saw him shooting but not sighting. I saw Lou out there waving his hands, telling everybody to stop, stop, stop. He was running all over the place, saying stop, stop, stop. I saw Charlie still going toward that tractor, but he wasn’t shooting now, just falling, slowly, slowly, slowly till he had hit the ground. Then you had nothing but shooting from then on. I was shooting, and it sounded like everybody in the world was shooting. It went on like that for about a minute. Then it was quiet, quieter than you ever heard in your life.
Then we all gathered out in the road. Over by the tractor, I saw Lou standing over somebody laying back against one of the tractor wheels. I heard somebody saying that we had got the son of a bitch.
But we had all gathered around Charlie. Mathu had knelt down ’side him and raised his head out of the dust. They had really got him. Right in the belly. He laid there like a big old bear looking up at us. He was trying to say something, but it never came out. He kept on looking at us, but after a while you could tell he wasn’t seeing us no more. I leaned over and touched him, hoping that some of that stuff he had found back there in the swamps might rub off on me. After I touched him, the rest of the men did the same. Then the women, even Candy. Then Glo told her grandchildren they must touch him, too.