Hearing nothing, they extended their thoughts and their imaginations out and into the surrounding meadows. In the early morning the land had been filled with its usual concoctions of sound. Here and there, with stubborn persistence to custom, there had been voices singing, the honey laughter under the mimosa branches, the pickaninnies rushing in clear water laughter at the creek, movements and bendings in the fields, jokes and shouts of amus.e.m.e.nt from the shingle shacks covered with fresh green vine.

Now it was as if a great wind had washed the land clean of sounds. There was nothing. Skeleton doors hung open on leather hinges. Rubber-tire swings hung in the silent air, uninhibited. The washing rocks at the river were empty, and the watermelon patches, if any, were left alone to heat their hidden liquors in the sun. Spiders started building new webs in abandoned huts; dust started to sift in from unpatched roofs in golden spicules. Here and there a fire, forgotten in the last rush, lingered and in a sudden access of strength fed upon the dry bones of some littered shack. The sound of a gentle feeding burn went up through the silenced air.

The men sat on the hardware porch, not blinking or swallowing.

"I can't figure why they left now now. With things lookin' up. I mean, every day they got more rights. What they want want, anyway? Here's the poll tax gone, and more and more states pa.s.sin' anti-lynchin' bills, and all kinds of equal rights. What more more they want? They make almost as good money as a white man, but there they go." they want? They make almost as good money as a white man, but there they go."

Far down the empty street a bicycle came.

"I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned. Teece, here comes your Silly now."

The bicycle pulled up before the porch, a seventeen-year-old colored boy on it, all arms and feet and long legs and round watermelon head. He looked up at Samuel Teece and smiled.

"So you got a guilty conscience and came back," said Teece.

"No, sir, I just brought the bicycle."

"What's wrong, couldn't get it on the rocket?"

"That wasn't it, sir."

"Don't tell me what it was! Get off, you're not goin' to steal my property!" He gave the boy a push. The bicycle fell. "Get inside and start cleaning the bra.s.s."

"Beg pardon?" The boy's eyes widened.

"You heard what I said. There's guns need unpacking there, and a crate of nails just come from Natchez-"

"Mr. Teece."

"And a box of hammers need fixin'-"

"Mr. Teece, sir?"

"You still still standin' there!" Teece glared. standin' there!" Teece glared.

"Mr. Teece, you don't mind I take the day off," he said apologetically.

"And tomorrow and day after tomorrow and the day after the day after that," said Teece.

"I'm afraid so, sir."

"You should should be afraid, boy. Come here." He marched the boy across the porch and drew a paper out of a desk. "Remember this?" be afraid, boy. Come here." He marched the boy across the porch and drew a paper out of a desk. "Remember this?"

"Sir?"

"It's your workin' paper. You signed it, there's your X right there, ain't it? Answer me."

"I didn't sign that, Mr. Teece." The boy trembled. "Anyone can make an X."

"Listen to this, Silly. Contract: 'I will work for Mr. Samuel Teece two years, starting July 15, 2001, and if intending to leave will give four weeks' notice and continue working until my position is filled.' There." Teece slapped the paper, his eyes glittering. "You cause trouble, we'll take it to court."

"I can't do that," wailed the boy, tears starting to roll down his face, "If I don't go today, I don't go."

"I know just how you feel, Silly; yes, sir, I sympathize with you, boy. But we'll treat you good and give you good food, boy. Now you just get inside and start working and forget all about that nonsense, eh, Silly? Sure." Teece grinned and patted the boy's shoulder.

The boy turned and looked at the old men sitting on the porch. He could hardly see now for his tears. "Maybe-maybe one of these gentlemen here ... " The men looked up in the hot, uneasy shadows, looking first at the boy and then at Teece.

"You meanin' to say you think a white man white man should take your place, boy?" asked Teece coldly. should take your place, boy?" asked Teece coldly.

Grandpa Quartermain took his red hands off his knees. He looked out at the horizon thoughtfully and said, "Teece, what about me?"

"What?"

"I'll take Silly's job."

The porch was silent.

Teece balanced himself in the air. "Grandpa," he said warningly.

"Let the boy go. I'll clean the bra.s.s."

"Would you, would you, really?" Silly ran over to Grandpa, laughing, tears on his cheeks, unbelieving.

"Sure."

"Grandpa," said Teece, "keep your d.a.m.n trap outa this."

"Give the kid a break, Teece."

Teece walked over and seized the boy's arm. "He's mine. I'm lockin' him in the back room until tonight."

"Don't, Mr. Teece!"

The boy began to sob now. His crying filled the air of the porch. His eyes were tight. Far down the street an old tin Ford was choking along, approaching, a last load of colored people in it. "Here comes my family, Mr. Teece, oh please, please, oh G.o.d, please!"

"Teece," said one of the other men on the porch, getting up, "let him go."

Another man rose also. "That goes for me too."

"And me," said another.

"What's the use?" The men all talked now. "Cut it out, Teece."

"Let him go."

Teece felt for his gun in his pocket. He saw the men's faces. He took his hand away and left the gun in his pocket and said, "So that's how it is?"

"That's how it is," someone said.

Teece let the boy go. "All right. Get out." He jerked his hand back in the store. "But I hope you don't think you're gonna leave any trash behind to clutter my store."

"No, sir!"

"You clean everything outa your shed in back; burn it."

Silly shook his head. "I'll take it with."

"They won't let you put it on that d.a.m.n rocket."

"I'll take it with," insisted the boy softly.

He rushed back through the hardware store. There were sounds of sweeping and cleaning out, and a moment later he appeared, his hands full of tops and marbles and old dusty kites and junk collected through the years. Just then the old tin Ford drove up and Silly climbed in and the door slammed. Teece stood on the porch with a bitter smile. "What you goin' to do up there? up there?"

"Startin' new," said Silly. "Gonna have my own own hardware." hardware."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, you been learnin' my trade so you could run off and use it!"

"No, sir, I never thought one day this'd this'd happen, sir, but it did. I can't help it if I learned, Mr. Teece." happen, sir, but it did. I can't help it if I learned, Mr. Teece."

"I suppose you got names for your rockets?"

They looked at their one clock on the dashboard of the car.

"Yes, sir."

"Like Elijah and the Chariot, The Big Wheel and The Little Wheel, Faith, Hope, and Charity, eh?"

"We got names for the ships, Mr. Teece."

"G.o.d the Son and the Holy Ghost, I wouldn't wonder? Say, boy, you got one named the First Baptist Church?"

"We got to leave now, Mr. Teece."

Teece laughed. "You got one named Swing Low, and another named Sweet Chariot?"

The car started up. "Good-by, Mr. Teece."

"You got one named Roll Dem Bones?"

"Good-by, mister!"

"And another called Over Jordan! Ha! Well, tote that rocket, boy, lift that rocket, boy, go on, get blown up, see if I care!"

The car churned off into the dust. The boy rose and cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted one last time at Teece: "Mr. Teece, Mr. Teece, what you you goin' to do nights from now on? What you goin' to goin' to do nights from now on? What you goin' to do do nights, Mr. Teece?" nights, Mr. Teece?"

Silence. The car faded down the road. It was gone. "What in h.e.l.l did he mean?" mused Teece. "What am I goin' to do nights?"

He watched the dust settle, and it suddenly came to him.

He remembered nights when men drove to his house, their knees sticking up sharp and their shotguns sticking up sharper, like a carful of cranes under the night trees of summer, their eyes mean. Honking the horn and him slamming his door, a gun in his hand, laughing to himself, his heart racing like a ten-year-old's, driving off down the summer-night road, a ring of hemp rope coiled on the car floor, fresh sh.e.l.l boxes making every man's coat look bunchy. How many nights over the years, how many nights of the wind rushing in the car, flopping their hair over their mean eyes, roaring, as they picked a tree, a good strong tree, and rapped on a shanty door!

"So that's that's what the son of a b.i.t.c.h meant?" Teece leaped out into the sunlight. "Come back, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What am I goin' to do nights? Why, that lousy, insolent son of a ... " what the son of a b.i.t.c.h meant?" Teece leaped out into the sunlight. "Come back, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What am I goin' to do nights? Why, that lousy, insolent son of a ... "

It was a good question. He sickened and was empty. Yes. What will will we do nights? he thought. Now we do nights? he thought. Now they're they're gone, what? He was absolutely empty and numb. gone, what? He was absolutely empty and numb.

He pulled the pistol from his pocket, checked its load.

"What you goin' to do, Sam?" someone asked.

"Kill that son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Grandpa said, "Don't get yourself heated."

But Samuel Teece was gone around behind the store. A moment later he drove out the drive in his open-top car. "Anyone comin' with me?"

"I'd like a drive," said Grandpa, and got up.

"Anyone else?"

n.o.body replied.

Grandpa got in and slammed the door. Samuel Teece gutted the car out in a great whorl of dust. They didn't speak as they rushed down the road under the bright sky. The heat from the dry meadows was shimmering.

They stopped at a crossroad. "Which way'd they go, Grandpa?"

Grandpa squinted. "Straight on ahead, I figure."

They went on. Under the summer trees their car made a lonely sound. The road was empty, and as they drove along they began to notice something. Teece slowed the car and bent out, his yellow eyes fierce.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Grandpa, you see what them b.a.s.t.a.r.ds did?"

"What?" asked Grandpa, and looked.

Where they had been carefully set down and left, in neat bundles every few feet along the empty country road, were old roller skates, a bandanna full of knicknacks, some old shoes, a cartwheel, stacks of pants and coats and ancient hats, bits of oriental crystal that had once tinkled in the wind, tin cans of pink geraniums, dishes of waxed fruit, cartons of Confederate money, washtubs, scrubboards, wash lines, soap, somebody's tricycle, someone else's hedge shears, a toy wagon, a jack-in-the-box, a stained-gla.s.s window from the Negro Baptist Church, a whole set of brake rims, inner tubes, mattresses, couches, rocking chairs, jars of cold cream, hand mirrors. None of it flung down, no, but deposited gently and with feeling, with decorum, upon the dusty edges of the road, as if a whole city had walked here with hands full, at which time a great bronze trumpet had sounded, the articles had been relinquished to the quiet dust, and one and all, the inhabitants of the earth had fled straight up into the blue heavens.

"Wouldn't burn them, they said," cried Teece angrily. "No, wouldn't burn them like I said, but had to take them along and leave them where they could see them for the last time, on the road, all together and whole. Them n.i.g.g.e.rs think they're smart."

He veered the car wildly, mile after mile, down the road, tumbling, smashing, breaking, scattering bundles of paper, jewel boxes, mirrors, chairs. "There, by d.a.m.n, and there! there!"

The front tire gave a whistling cry. The car spilled crazily off the road into a ditch, flinging Teece against the gla.s.s.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h!" He dusted himself off and stood out of the car, almost crying with rage.

He looked at the silent, empty road. "We'll never catch them now, never, never." As far as he could see there was nothing but bundles and stacks and more bundles neatly placed like little abandoned shrines in the late day, in the warm-blowing wind.

Teece and Grandpa came walking tiredly back to the hardware store an hour later. The men were still sitting there, listening, and watching the sky. Just as Teece sat down and eased his tight shoes off someone cried, "Look!"

"I'll be d.a.m.ned d.a.m.ned if I will," said Teece. if I will," said Teece.