Chapter 1
"Now listen," she said. "I
want you to run, and I don't want you to stop running. I want you to go tell
Rufe and Reverend Jameson, and Corrine and the rest of them to gather at Mathu's
house right...
Chapter 2
Lord have mercy, Jesus, what now? Where do I turn? Go where
first? The Major? For what? He's already drunk out there on that front garry,
and it's just twelve o'clock. Miss Bea? That's like talking...
Chapter 3
I
looked back at her. I didn't jerk my head around, I looked at her slowly. I had
known Candy for over twenty-five years. She was no more than five or six when
her mother and father were killed in...
Chapter 4
Then
that oldest boy of Berto, that sissy one they called Fue, come running down the
riverbank and said Clatoo said Miss Merle said that young woman at Marshall,
Candy, wanted us on the place right...
Chapter 5
When I
looked around, I saw Ella standing in the door with her hands on her hips. So
big she was filling up that whole door.
"Wha...
Chapter 6
Mathu
was one of them blue-black Singaleese n*****s. Always bragged about not having
no white man's blood in his veins. He looked down on the rest of us who had
some, and the more you had, the more...
Chapter 7
Jameson
came round the end of the garry where I was sitting. He was crying now. He was
pressing his lips tight, but I could see tears running down his face. […]
...
Chapter 8
"You
seem to have something personal against him."
Mapes
grunted. "That's where you're wrong. I admire the n*****. He's a better...
Chapter 9
Mapes was a lot of things. He was big, mean, brutal. But
Mapes respected a man. Mathu was a man, and Mapes respected Mathu. But he didn't
think much of the rest of us, and he didn't respect us. [â€...
Chapter 10
Gil
turned back to Candy. "You never did like Beau," he said. "You
never liked any of us. Looking at us as if we were a breed below you. But we're
not, Candy. We're all made of the same bone, the s...
Chapter 11
Miss
Merle's birdlike red mouth tightened and untightened two or three times. From
her eyes, you could see that she was questioning God's reason for putting her
here at the same time He did the res...
Chapter 12
Fix
looked from Gil to the woman sitting on the bed with her head bowed. She had been
quiet a long time, but never once raised her head to look at anyone. Fix looked
at the little boy in his lap an...
Chapter 13
You know, I sympathize with him. 'Cause you see he never
wanted none of this. Never wanted to be responsible for name and land. They
dropped it on him, left it on him. That's why he drinks the way...
Chapter 14
"Give
us a couple minutes," Clatoo said. "You can spare us that."
Mapes
looked back at us on the walk. More of us had raised our...
Chapter 15
"I'm ready to go now, Sheriff," Charlie said to
Mapes. "I'm ready to pay. I done dropped a heavy load. Now I know I'm a
man."
"Af...
Chapter 18
Then I saw Lou crawling fast on the other side of the house.
He was crawling on his knees and elbows, crawling fast. Then something made him
stop, and he looked under the house at me. It was dark u...
Chapter 19
But we had all gathered around Charlie. Mathu knelt down 'side
him and raised his head out of the dust. They had really got him. Right in the
belly. He laid there like a big old bear looking up at...