A Fable

‘He had only ninety-four dollars and a few cents,’ the lawyer said.

‘The old Negro has got the rest of it in the tail of that frock-coat,’ the ex-deputy said.——truth, love, sacrifice, and something else even more important than they: some bond between or from man to his brother man stronger than even the golden shackles which coopered precariously his ramshackle earth——

‘I’ll be damned,’ the lawyer said. ‘Of course that’s where the money is. Why the hell I didn’t——Hush, and listen to me a minute. There’s nothing more I can do here, so I’m coming back to town as soon as they unlock the garage in the morning and I can get my car. But you are already on the scene, you can do it quicker than I can by telephone from here. Get in touch with your people and get notices spread up and down the valley as quick as you can—placards, descriptions of all three of them——’

‘No,’ the ex-deputy said. ‘You must stay there. If anything further comes out of the charge, it will have to originate there. You must be there to protect him.’

‘The only one who will need protection here is the first man who tries to lay a hand on the man who earned as much money as they believe he did, with nothing but his bare hands and a three-legged horse,’ the lawyer said. ‘He’s a fool. If he had stayed here, he could have had the sheriff’s badge without even running for it. But I can do everything necessary by telephone from my office until we catch them.’

‘I said from the first that you didn’t understand,’ the ex-deputy said. ‘No: that you still did not believe me, even after I tried to tell you. I dont want to find him—them. I had my turn at bat, and struck out. You stay there. That’s what you are for,’ the ex-deputy said, and hung up. Though still the lawyer didn’t move, his end of the connection still open, the smoke from his cigar standing like a balanced pencil on a carven hand until the other New Orleans number answered and he spoke to his confidential clerk, describing the two Negroes, rapid and explicit and succinct:

‘Cover all the river towns from St Louis to Basin Street. Watch the cabin or stable or whatever it is in Lexington, of course; if he doesn’t go back home himself, he might try to send the child back.’

‘You’re in the middle of a pretty good place to look for him now,’ the clerk said. ‘If the sheriff there wont——’

‘Listen to me,’ the lawyer said. ‘Listen carefully. He must not reappear here under any condition. He must not be found at all until he can be picked up for something like vagrancy in some city big enough for nobody to know who he is, or care. Under no condition must he come into the clutches of any local officers in any town or hamlet small enough even to have heard of that three-legged horse, let alone seen it. Do you understand?’

A moment: then the clerk: ‘So they really did win that much money.’

‘Do as I tell you,’ the lawyer said.

‘Of course,’ the clerk said. ‘Only you’re too late. The owner of the horse has already beat you. The police here have had that notice ever since yesterday, and I imagine the police everywhere have it by now—description, reward and all. They even know where the money is: in the tail-pocket of that preacher’s coat the nigger wears. It’s too bad every house he passes dont have a wireless, like ships do. Then he would know how valuable he is, and he would have something to trade with you on.’

‘Do as I tell you,’ the lawyer said; that was the second day; then the third day and the lawyer had established his headquarters or post of command in the judge’s chambers next the courtroom in the courthouse, not by the consent or even acquiescence of the judge who was a circuit judge and merely followed the itinerary of his court and did not live in the town and was not even consulted, nor by the acquiescence of the town either but by its will, so that it did not even matter whether the judge was a Mason too or not; and in the barbershop that day the lawyer saw last night’s St Louis paper bearing something which even purported to be a photograph of the old Negro, with the usual description and even a guess at the amount of money in the tail of the frock-coat, the barber, busy with another client, having apparently glanced at least once at the lawyer where he stood looking at the paper, because the barber said, ‘That many folks hunting for him ought to find him,’ then silence and then a voice from the other end of the shop, speaking to nothing and no one and with no inflection: ‘Several thousand dollars.’