Clenching Storky's forearm, Peter asked, "Will you do it for me? Right now?"

"Not this minute, Master Peter. I got you to look after. But I sures will do it. And I tells Master Selby about it when he comes home, so that Ta-Ta don't get herself more bottles of that powerful stuff this week than she's needing."

Peter tried to laugh, but it hurt. "Hell, Storky, give her all she wants."

Storky scowled. "And have her falling out that upstairs window of hers, Master Peter?"

He nodded. She was right. Then, looking around the study, he asked, "You said Father's not home yet?"

"At the judge's, I reckons."

Peter sighed, wondering what Selby would say about what had happened here this morning. The fight with Monk. Ta-Ta shooting him, her own son, just to save Peter. And also, Selby still had not recovered from the shock of losing Melissa.

But Storky had other things for Peter to think about, more specific details. Rolling him over on his stomach to bathe the welts on his back, she said, "Just in case 293.

you likes to know, Master Peter, while you were passed out in here, Nero had that Monk's carcass carted away from the yard out back. Mama Gomorrah said that the best place to stick trash like that was in the ground. She wants him buried near the Shed in case any spooks try to get out of him. She said that she could whip any bad spooks right back into the ground. So Monk's being buried over there. Probably already in the ground."

Did Storky know about his relationship with Monk? Peter wondered. Did she really know why Ta-Ta had shot him? Because of Storky's particular way of storing facts until she could use them, Peter never could tell exactly what Storky knew. But he did have to say now, "Monk never had a chance, Storky. Any spooks in him were the Tuckers!"

"And they're gone," Storky said, "and that's good riddance!"

Ponderously Peter said, "They're gone, but poor Monk's being buried. It's sad, Storky. It's not really fair, is it?"

"How can you say that? Sometimes your heart is too big, Master Peter! That trash nigger tried to kill you."

Peter began to explain his feeling about Monk to Storky, but then he stopped. There was no use.

Storky had more of her own to say, though. Washing Peter's shoulder with damp cloths, she said, "But there's one thing worse that can happen to a trash nigger. One thing worse than burying him. And that's setting him free. Oh, buries me any day!"

Medicine now stung into Peter's welt.

Storky continued, "Especially no-account niggers who's just nothing but troublemakers. Sets them free or sells them to poor white trash. 'Course, with poor white trash, niggers gets to lord it over them, bragging about the quality folks that used to own them. Poor white trash don't stand a chance with a head-proud nigger. Never has. Never will."

Peter's mind was still swimming. "What are you talking about, Storky?"

"Niggers, Master Peter. Niggers. If there's one thing I knows about, it's niggers. Especially if she has a pup in her belly."

294.

"You're talking about Lilly!" Peter remembered her now, too, how she had shouted to get Peter's attention so Monk could attack him.

Storky grunted. "I even hate to say that trashy slut's name. After Ta-Ta shot that Monk, all that Lilly could say was he knew about buried money. Buried money! Ha! She's crazy in the head as well as being a slut."

Peter thought now. He said, "Lilly does give us a problem. Monk did say she was pregnant."

"Pregnant? With Monk's sucker? Then I say gets her off this place for sure."

"Yes, Storky. I think you're right. Setting Lilly free would be the best thing to do. But I just can't send her out into the world. I have to give her something. Some papers. Some notes to go working. I'll have to give her some money, too."

Storky laughed at his generosity. "Give her papers to go to work, and she rips them up! Gives her a hundred dollars at breakfast, and she has nothing by dinner. That wench is trash through and through!"

"But I just can't send her away from the Star without anything, can I, Storky?"

"You can't rightly asks me, Master Peter. I just a nigger myself. But whatever you do decides, I sees that it's done. In fact, I can sees to it right now. I knows I got fifty dollars in the kitchen from dairy money from that Turpin bunch for the last seven years. I can gives that to Lilly quick as a flash, and a slap in the face to go with it! And if you wants work for her, how about that place called Treetop House? They got jobs there for freed niggers to do. And there's a wagon traveling from Troy to Treetop House once a week. That Lilly can hop on that wagon from Troy and be gone from these parts in no time, Master Peter. Plus, on tops of all that, Master Peter, I know where the deeds of manumission are kept. Right in this room. I knows that since the last big Witcherley fight. So, whatever you decides to do, Master Peter, you tells me, and I tries to helps you."

Despite Storky's protestations, Peter sat up on the couch and hugged her. She squirmed, trying to free herself, warning Peter that he should rest.

295.

Holding her hands in his, he said, "But I can't keep lying down." Invigorated by the tonic of Storky's control of life, he said, "I got to clean myself up to go pay a call."

Storky stared at him, repeating, "Pay a call?" "I've got two new little girls, Storky. Two new little baby girls." He stood up from the couch, feeling a bit shaky at first. Also, the thought of Melissa returned to him now, of her body lying upstairs in the small parlor. But he would try to think of her in some happier place. He had to concentrate his life now on what he was going to do for his three daughters-Imogen, Veronica, and Victoria.

The sky was darkening as the Tuckers approached Jack Grouse's farm. They sat side-by-side on the wooden seat of their wagon. A mountain of furniture, barrels, and bundles rested in a heap behind them in the wagon.

The Tuckers' reconciliation had not been long-lived. They had begun arguing when they discovered the slave ledger in the hole under the chinaberry tree instead of their money. The flour sack had disappeared. And Claudia Tucker accused her husband of stealing the money. But he said that she had buried it in another place.

Claudia next said that Monk had taken the money.

But Chad Tucker disagreed. He said that black people were not that intelligent. The Tuckers' only other suspects were white people-Peter Abdee, Albert Selby, or both. And if either Abdee or Selby had taken the money-and left the slave ledger in its place-the Tuckers both agreed that they should leave the Star as quickly as possible. They did not even collect Tucker's wages from the big house.

Having taken the road to Carterville, the Tuckers turned right at the fork and were now traveling on a trace that passed through a thick of willows.

The horse was beginning to balk and nicker.

"A rattlesnake nearabouts,," Tucker grunted, using a rope to beat the old horse. He ha,d given his bullwhip to Monk.

296.

Claudia muttered, "It ain't going to help, you strapping the hide off the animal."

"You want to drive?" Tucker shouted at her.

She snapped, "I'd probably do a damned sight better than you."

Before Tucker had time to answer, the figure of a man stepped onto the trace in front of them.

The man held up both hands for Tucker to stop.

"What the hell?" Tucker said, reining the horse.

"Fool!" Claudia whispered. "What you stopping for? Run him over. He might be a thief."

"What we got to rob?" Tucker said, and then stood in the wagon to see who the man was.

As the man walked toward the wagon, Chad Tucker saw that it was Jack Grouse.

But Jack Grouse was not smiling as Tucker remembered last seeing him smile. His lean face was set in contempt.

"What's the trouble?" Tucker called.

Looking at the willows on the right, Grouse nodded. Then he nodded to the left of the trace.

More men emerged from both sides of the wagon. They surrounded the Tuckers. Three of the men carried guns.

Grouse ordered, "Get down, Tucker."

"What is this?" Tucker asked, looking around him. "Who are these men?"

But then he began to recognize their faces. One was Marvin O'Shea. One was George Gresham. Another was Johnny Tolmer. Bob Colborn and Zebedee Flannery were there, too. They were all men who had bought slaves from Tucker-sick slaves, old slaves, slaves stolen from the Star and sold to these men at night. Tommy Joe Crandall was among the wronged men.

Claudia Tucker pulled her shawl around her shoulders and gasped, "My God, my God, my God."

Jack Grouse repeated, "Get down, Tucker. We don't want to hurt your missus. We got no bone to pick with her."

"Claudie," Chad Tucker whispered from the side of his mouth, "Claudia, say something to stop them."

She remained motionless on the wagon seat.

297.

Grouse repeated, "Get down, Tucker, unless you want us to shoot your wife by accident."

Pulling away from her husband, Claudia hissed at him, "Get down, you yellow coward. You want me to get hurt, too?"

The other men were beginning to close in now around the Tuckers' wagon. Their mouths were slowly sneering under the shadowy brims of their greasy hats.

"What is this?" Tucker asked nervously. "What you all doing here? Grouse, you said you'd give me a job."

"I'll give you something, all right. But it ain't going to be no job." He beckoned again to the trees.

A black man now emerged from behind a willow. He dragged an iron machine behind him.

Tucker did not recognize the Negro or the piece of iron. He asked, "What's that?"

"You must remember seeing that on the Star," Grouse said, walking toward the Negro and the machine. "It's called the scavenger's daughter. And look who's pulling it here. You should remember him, too, Tucker. It's Cal."

Tucker squinted at the Negro. "Cal? I'll be damned. It is Cal."

Grouse said, "Cal was dying when you sold him to me, Tucker. He almost died, but he finally came through."

"That's good. That's real good," Tucker said, trying hard now to think of a way to escape. "That's what I understood you to say yesterday."

Grouse continued in his dry voice, "Surprised you don't recognize the scavenger's daughter, though. It's been around the Star for years. I bought it off your boss, Albert Selby."

Tucker said, "Selby?"

"Well, indirectly," Grouse said, looking at the iron bars connecting a head clasp to the hand and feet irons. "It's an old-time torture instrument. And we're going to lock you up in it, Tucker. We're going to lock you up in it and see if you can help nurse Cal better."

"Lock me up? Nurse Cal better? I thought you said Cal was . . ." Tucker was beginning to shake.

Grouse wryly explained, "Oh,'Cal is over his old 298.

sickness. But lately he's been eating too many green apples and peaches. Cal's got himself the shits real bad."

"Oh, yeah?" Tucker said nervously.

Grouse continued, "Cal's got himself the green-apple shits. And being we folks over here keep our places so clean, we ain't got no hole for Cal to dump all that shit rearing to explode from his ass. So me and my friends here thought we'd lock you up in the scavenger's daughter and let Cal shits in your mouth. Shits all he wants, and you eats it, Tucker."

Tugger gagged.

"Tucker, you're the only man in this country we thinks has a right to eat nigger shit."

Tucker began to shake his head.

"Now, let me explain how this iron contraption works." Grouse beckoned to one of the men. "Tommy Joe, you come here and help me open this."

Tommy Joe Crandall emerged from the crowd of waiting men.

Grouse called to Tucker, "You remember Tommy Joe, don't you, Tucker? It was Tommy Joe's wife who turned pecker-crazy and ran off North with a nigger. According to Tommy Joe, she got her taste for black meat at your place, Tucker. Seems that it was you who turned poor Mary Crandall into a bitch hi heat for black men."

Tucker shouted, "Listen to me. Wait a minute. Let me explain about Mary Crandall. That wasn't my idea. That was her idea." He pointed at his wife.

Claudia gasped on the wagon seat beside him. Pulling the shawl tighter around her throat, she shouted, "Get me out of here! Get me away from this monster!"

Tucker lunged for her.

A gun exploded behind him in the night.

Tucker stopped.

Moving around the wagon, Jack Grouse said, "We'd hate to kill you just yet, Tucker. But you harm that lady there, and we'll do it." He reached to help Claudia Tucker from the wagon.

Clambering down to the ground, Claudia gasped, "My savior. My savior. I've been praying for years.

299.

For years I'm been praying some kind soul would see through him." She was sobbing into Grouse's shoulder.

Tucker stood on the wagon. "You bitch. You lying, conniving bitch."

Sniffing, Claudia Tucker raised her head. But without facing her husband, she said, "I tried to help you, Chad Tucker. I tried. You never told me where you got that extra money. But I suspected all along you were up to no good. Oh, why didn't you talk to me? We could've talked, and maybe I could've told you you were wrong. Wrong!"

"You lying bitch."

Grouse motioned for the men to pull Tucker from the wagon. And then, wrapping his arm around Qaudia Tucker, he said, "Ain't nothing you can do now, ma'am. I suggest you go down the road apiece to my house. The missus is there. You rest there."

Gulping back her tears, Claudia nodded. She did not turn to look at her husband. She said to Grouse, "He ain't been easy to live with, Mr. Grouse. But what's a poor woman like me to do? I ain't been well. I ain't well at all."