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injure you, you did not brood over biblical admonitions about an eye for an
eye. You buried your enemies alive. Anger wasn't a problem.
If someone challenged your authority, as the dandruff-flecked minister had
when he allowed Ira's wife to confide her husband's sexual habits to him, you
publicly humiliated the person in such a way he would dread sleep because he
might see you in his dreams.
In fact, when anger was controlled and carefully nursed, then sated at the
expense of your enemies, the experience could be almost sexual.
But disobedience on the part of people whose wages he paid was another matter.
These were usually white trash whom a Bedouin would not allow to clean his
chamber pot, self-hating and genetically defective creatures whom he had
housed, fed, and provided medical care for, given their children presents at
Christmas and on birthdays, and sometimes seen commissioned in the army.
Disobedience from them amounted not only to ingratitude and betrayal but
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contempt and arrogance, because they were indicating they had read his soul
and had concluded he could be deceived and used.
Clay Hatcher was a perfect example, a self-pitying imbecile who blamed his
stupidity on his wife and killed her with an ax while she was fixing his
supper, then burned down his own house with all his possessions in it to hide
his crime.
Ira had to laugh thinking about it. He wondered what Hatcher had to say when
the Knights of the White Camellia told him the law was the law and they hoped
he wouldn't hold it against them when they broke his neck. After all, they
were just poor whites like himself, trying to do the right thing.
But Ira had to take himself to task for not anticipating Rufus Atkins'
treachery. Atkins was a cynic and pragmatist and knew how to eat his pride
when a greater self-interest was involved. But under those flat, hazel eyes
and skin that was like seared alligator hide lay a mean-spirited, sexually
driven, and resentful man who, like all white trash, believed the only
difference between himself and the rich was the social station arbitrarily
handed them at birth.
Ira Jamison had left Flower's house that morning and had gone immediately to
Rufus Atkins' newly acquired property, but he was nowhere in sight. The prison
guards overseeing the convict workmen were no help, either, shaking their
heads, speaking in demotic French that Ira could barely understand.
So he tried to put himself in the mind of Rufus Atkins, hung over, probably
filled with rut, growing more depleted as the sun climbed in the sky,
realizing he had fouled his own nest and made an enemy of the only man in
Louisiana who could give him access to the social respectability he had always
coveted.
He had his driver take him to the saloon on Main Street, to the jail, to a row
of cribs on a muddy road out by the Yankee camp, and finally to McCain's
Hardware Store.
McCain's eyes were scorched, his face discolored, as though it had been
parboiled, his breath like fly ointment. Ira saw him swallow with fear.
"How do you do, sir?" Ira said.
"Mighty fine, Colonel. It's an honor to have you in my store."
"Do you know Captain Atkins?" Ira asked.
"Yes, suh, I do. Not real well, but I do know him."
"If you see him, would you tell him I wanted to pay my respects, but
regrettably I have to return to Angola this afternoon," Ira said.
"Yes, suh, I'll get the message to him. He's building himself a fine house. He
comes in here reg'lar for nails and such."
"That's what I thought. Thank you for your goodwill, sir," Ira said.
Ira had his driver take him back to Rufus Atkins' tent, where, as he expected,
Atkins was not to be found. He instructed the driver to take the carriage down
the road, out of sight, and not return until Ira sent for him.
A light rain began to fall and Ira sat on a cane chair by Rufus Atkins'
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worktable and looked out the tent flap at the convicts perched on top of the
framing for Atkins' house. He wondered what kind of thoughts, if any, they had
during their day. Did they ever have an inkling of the game that had been run
on them and their kind? Did they ever think of possessing more than a woman's
thighs and enough liquor to drink? The best any of them could hope for was to
become a trusty guard and perhaps survive their sentences. If their fate was
his, Ira believed he would either take out a judge's throat or open his own
veins.
But ultimately most of them deserved whatever happened to them, he thought.
They were uneducable, conceived and born in squalor and hardly able to
concentrate on three sentences in a row that didn't deal with their viscera.
Even Flower, who was the most intelligent Negro he had ever known, was somehow
offended because he had told her she reminded him of his mother. His father
had said there was no difference between the races. That morning Flower had
certainly proved she was half-darky, acting rudely after he had journeyed all
the way from Angola to see her. What a waste of his time and affections, he
thought.
Ira heard a sound like a music box playing in the rain, rising and falling as
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