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The Belled Buzzard
by
The house was set on a little hill among cleared fields and was in other respects much like the squire’s own house except that it was smaller and not so well painted. There was a wide yard in front with shade trees and a lye hopper and a well-box, and a paling fence with a stile in it instead of a gate. At the rear, behind a clutter of outbuildings–a barn, a smokehouse and a corncrib–was a little peach orchard, and flanking the house on the right there was a good-sized cowyard, empty of stock at this hour, with feedracks ranged in a row against the fence. A two-year-old negro child, bareheaded and barefooted and wearing but a single garment, was grubbing busily in the dirt under one of these feedracks.
To the front fence a dozen or more riding horses were hitched, flicking their tails at the flies; and on the gallery men in their shirtsleeves were grouped. An old negro woman, with her head tied in a bandanna and a man’s old slouch hat perched upon the bandanna, peeped out from behind a corner. There were gaunt hound dogs wandering about, sniffing uneasily.
Before the constable had the horse hitched the squire was out of the buggy and on his way up the footpath, going at a brisker step than the squire usually traveled. The men on the porch hailed him gravely and ceremoniously, as befitting an occasion of solemnity. Afterward some of them recalled the look in his eye; but at the moment they noted it–if they noted it at all–subconsciously.
For all his haste the squire, as was also remembered later, was almost the last to enter the door; and before he did enter he halted and searched the flawless sky as though for signs of rain. Then he hurried on after the others, who clumped single file along a narrow little hall, the bare, uncarpeted floor creaking loudly under their heavy farm shoes, and entered a good-sized room that had in it, among other things, a high-piled feather bed and a cottage organ–Bristow’s best room, now to be placed at the disposal of the law’s representatives for the inquest. The squire took the largest chair and drew it to the very center of the room, in front of a fireplace, where the grate was banked with withering asparagus ferns. The constable took his place formally at one side of the presiding official. The others sat or stood about where they could find room–all but six of them, whom the squire picked for his coroner’s jury, and who backed themselves against the wall.
The squire showed haste. He drove the preliminaries forward with a sort of tremulous insistence. Bristow’s wife brought a bucket of fresh drinking water and a gourd, and almost before she was out of the room and the door closed behind her the squire had sworn his jurors and was calling the first witness, who it seemed likely would also be the only witness–Bristow’s oldest boy. The boy wriggled in confusion as he sat on a cane-bottomed chair facing the old magistrate. All there, barring one or two, had heard his story a dozen times already, but now it was to be repeated under oath; and so they bent their heads, listening as though it were a brand-new tale. All eyes were on him; none were fastened on the squire as he, too, gravely bent his head, listening–listening.
The witness began–but had no more than started when the squire gave a great, screeching howl and sprang from his chair and staggered backward, his eyes popped and the pouch under his chin quivering as though it had a separate life all its own. Startled, the constable made toward him and they struck together heavily and went down–both on their all fours–right in front of the fireplace.
The constable scrambled free and got upon his feet, in a squat of astonishment, with his head craned; but the squire stayed upon the floor, face downward, his feet flopping among the rustling asparagus greens–a picture of slavering animal fear. And now his gagging screech resolved itself into articulate speech.
“I done it!” they made out his shrieked words. “I done it! I own up–I killed him! He aimed fur to break up my home and I tolled him off into Niggerwool and killed him! There’s a hole in his back if you’ll look fur it. I done it–oh, I done it–and I’ll tell everything jest like it happened if you’ll jest keep that thing away from me! Oh, my Lawdy! Don’t you hear it? It’s a-comin’ clos’ter and clos’ter–it’s a-comin’ after me! Keep it away—-” His voice gave out and he buried his head in his hands and rolled upon the gaudy carpet.
And now they all heard what he had heard first–they heard the tonk-tonk-tonk of a cowbell, coming near and nearer toward them along the hallway without. It was as though the sound floated along. There was no creak of footsteps upon the loose, bare boards–and the bell jangled faster than it would dangling from a cow’s neck. The sound came right to the door and Squire Gathers wallowed among the chair legs.
The door swung open. In the doorway stood a negro child, barefooted and naked except for a single garment, eyeing them with serious, rolling eyes–and, with all the strength of his two puny arms, proudly but solemnly tolling a small rusty cowbell he had found in the cowyard.