Free Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner Page A

putting the money in his pocket.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘I seen um. Watched um.’ Nor did he doubt this for a moment because he remembered Ephraim, Paralee’s father before he died, an old man, a widower who would pass most of the day dozing and waking in a rocking chair on Paralee’s gallery in summer and in front of the fire in winter and at night would walk the roads, not going anywhere, just moving, at times five and six miles from town before he would return at dawn to doze and wake all day in the chair again.
    ‘All right,’ his uncle said. ‘Then what?’
    ‘That’s all,’ Lucas said. ‘He was just stealing a load of lumber every night or so.’
    His uncle stared at Lucas for perhaps ten seconds. He said in a voice of calm, almost hushed amazement: ‘So you took your pistol and went to straighten it out. You, a nigger, took a pistol and went to rectify a wrong between two white men. What did you expect? What else did you expect?’
    ‘Nemmine expecting,’ Lucas said. ‘I wants——’
    ‘You went to the store,’ his uncle said, ‘only you happened to find Vinson Gowrie first and followed him into the woods and told him his partner was robbing him and naturally he cursed you and called you a liar whether it was true or not, naturally he would have to do that; maybe he even knocked you down and walked on and you shot him in the back——’
    ‘Never nobody knocked me down,’ Lucas said.
    ‘So much the worse,’ his uncle said. ‘So much the worse for you. It’s not even self-defense. You just shot him in the back. And then you stood there over him with the fired pistol in your pocket and let the white folks come up and grab you. And if it hadn’t been for that little shrunk-up rheumatic constable who had no business being there in the first place and in the second place hadno business whatever, at the rate of a dollar a prisoner every time he delivered a subpoena or served a warrant, having guts enough to hold off that whole damn Beat Four for eighteen hours until Hope Hampton saw fit or remembered or got around to bringing you in to jail—holding off that whole countryside that you nor all the friends you could drum up in a hundred years—’
    ‘I aint got friends,’ Lucas said with stern and inflexible pride, and then something else though his uncle was already talking:
    ‘You’re damned right you haven’t. And if you ever had that pistol shot would have blown them to kingdom come too——What?’ his uncle said. ‘What did you say?’
    ‘I said I pays my own way,’ Lucas said.
    ‘I see,’ his uncle said. ‘You dont use friends; you pay cash. Yes. I see. Now you listen to me. You’ll go before the grand jury tomorrow. They’ll indict you. Then if you like I’ll have Mr Hampton move you to Mottstown or even further away than that, until court convenes next month. Then you’ll plead guilty; I’ll persuade the District Attorney to let you do that because you’re an old man and you never were in trouble before; I mean as far as the judge and the District Attorney will know since they dont live within fifty miles of Yoknapatawpha County. Then they wont hang you; they’ll send you to the penitentiary; you probably wont live long enough to be paroled but at least the Gowries cant get to you there. Do you want me to stay in here with you tonight?’
    ‘I reckon not,’ Lucas said. ‘They kept me up all last night and I’m gonter try to get some sleep. If you stay here you’ll talk till morning.’
    ‘Right,’ his uncle said harshly, then to him: ‘Come on:’ already moving toward the door. Then his uncle stopped. ‘Is there anything you want?’
    ‘You might send me some tobacco,’ Lucas said. ‘If them Gowries leaves me time to smoke it.’
    ‘Tomorrow,’ his uncle said. ‘I dont want to keep you awake tonight:’ and went on, he following, his uncle letting him pass first through the door so that he stepped aside in his turn and stood looking back into the