Horrible Harvest

The wrath come. That night. Gladys fussed and fumed for hours. Letting Douglas know, clear as day, he was a stupid, and pigheaded man who’d sure enough violate God’s direction if he accompanied me to the Dakotas, and he’d get himself kilt on top of it.

Douglas kept his Tennyson temper in check, and he didn’t plead his case. He didn’t scold her nor lord over her as the man of the house. He just come back to the same argument over and over again. Removing Mr. Miller from this world would be a kindness. The man had started another school. He was building another gaggle of warmongers and racialists, and his brand of hate would be passed on and on through the eons and forever onward. The head of the snake needed removed.

She had first-hand recollection of the ways of Mr. Miller. It was a tough argument to talk around. Wasn’t a decent thing about the man. It was past time he be sent to the Devil, and she knew it.

She exited the room and spotted me right off. I seen the fire she was bringing my way, and I ain’t gonna lie, I was more than sure she was gonna burn me to the ground. She come at me with heavy footfalls. “Lord, says I’m to love you, Augustus Tennyson, so I do. Lord says, you gotta good heart, ‘cause he give it to you. So, I too say you do, you gotta heart of gold. But I got eyes of my own, I see that heart of yours is covered up with hate and mad. God, he says there’s good in you. I say it don’t matter if it’s in you. You gotta let it out. I ain’t asking you to listen to God ’cause I know you don’t believe. I’m asking you to listen to me. Bring my husband home to me ‘cause I don’t know if I got it in me to forgive you if you don’t. Don’t chase me away from God, Augustus. Bring my man home to me.”

I nodded, and she stormed past me, exiting the house through the kitchen door.

“You got her riled,” Bobby said, from a chair next to the wood-burning furnace.

“It was bound to happen – Sooner or later. I have that effect on most people.”

“Does this mean the day has come?”

“What day?”

“The day – The one you warned me about. You said, there would be a day when you would leave to finish some unfinished business. Is that where we are?”

I hesitated. “It is.”

“You’ve made a good bit of money working for me, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“You wanna leave that all behind?”

“Want’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Right. Right. This is a mission – A calling. A – ”

“A need.”

He chuckled. “I’ve known you a number of years now, Augustus, and the one thing I would not call you is a man of need – With the exception of that pipe of yours, but you’ve even curtailed that habit a good bit since we first met.”

“The world’s out of balance, Bobby. It’s time I threw a few bodies on the scale to even things out.”

“You know that’s not the way things work. Balance is an illusion, boy. Things will never be even. You throw bodies on the scale – Someone’s going to follow after you to toss yours on to satisfy their sense of balance. It’s a back-and-forth deal. There’s no one and done with what you’ve got in mind.”

“Regardless, I am no longer under your employ.”

“You’ll be taking Felix?”

“No.”

“Well, I don’t want him. He’s useless without you.”

“Not to worry. He’ll be escorting Gladys and Virginia to Charleston.”

“Evers and Yates?”

“They tend to their own. You could do worse. If I were you, I’d move Evers up to my position. He’s got it in him, and Yates will be his whip when needed.”

“You reckon I can get them cheaper than what I paid you and Felix?”

“You could, but you won’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“‘Cause I won’t be too happy if you don’t treat my friends right.”

Bobby smiled. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”

I smiled back, and said, “Something’s been weighing on me.”

“Do tell.”

“These schemes of yours – I was pleased with them at first ‘cause you was prying money out the hands of plantation swill. They come by their riches by stepping on the negroes and poor. Good on you for conning them out of money they ain’t got a right to possess.”

He spread his arms and said, with a laugh, “I am their comeuppance. So, sayeth the Lord.”

“But in that arena – back there – The gallows – The hangings – The burnings – With all them white shits dressed in rat pelts and wearing silly headgear – I come to believe we ain’t all that different than them.”

He laughed. “Well, that’s just not true at all. We are better dressed. By a whole hell of a lot, we’re better dressed.”

“You like your jokes and such, but I’m right.”

“Never said you weren’t. We’re like them, but for different reasons. That’s what you don’t understand. They’re in it for the hate. We’re in it for the money.”

“That ain’t a big enough difference for me no more ‘cause at the end of the day, folks get strung up or burnt or kilt a hundred different ways. The reasons that happens don’t make a goddamn.”

“It’s starting to sound like we may be on the different side of things, Augustus.”

“I reckon we might be.”

“Is that gonna be a problem for me?”

“No.”

He smiled.

I added, “Not for a good while anyhow. In the meantime, I’ma borrow some of Gladys Tennyson’s faith and invest it in the notion that you’ll change your ways. Find you a way to steal from the rich without doing it off the backs of poor folks, black or white.”

“Do my ears deceive me. Did Augustus Tennyson find Jesus?”

“Nah. I just finally took a look in that mirror everyone’s going on about.” I headed for the door. “My horse.”

“What about it?”

“I’ll be needing her, and another for my brother. Guns, too – Hell, I suppose I even owe you for my clothes and bowler.”

“Owe me?”

“Money – You know – that thing that matters most to you in this world. How much?”

He laughed. “Kid, I’ve been cheating you on your percentages ever since we ripped off those rubes in Chattanooga. Take what you need, and we’ll call it even.”

I exited the house without comment.