“Something like that.
I reckon I’ll move on.”
“Well, Jefferson’s a good town.
But it ain’t so good but what a footloose man like you can find in another one enough devilment and trouble to keep him occupied too. ...
You can leave your grip here until you are ready for it, if you want.”
He waited until noon and after.
He waited until he believed that the sheriff had finished his dinner.
Then he went to the sheriff’s home.
He would not come in.
He waited at the door until the sheriff came out—the fat man, with little wise eyes like bits of mica embedded in his fat, still face.
They went aside, into the shade of a tree in the yard.
There was no seat there; neither did they squat on their heels, as by ordinary (they were both countrybred) they would have done.
The sheriff listened quietly to the man, the quiet little man who for seven years had been a minor mystery to the town and who had been for seven days wellnigh a public outrage and affront.
“I see,” the sheriff said. “You think the time has come to get them married.”
“I don’t know.
That’s his business and hers.
I reckon he better go out and see her, though.
I reckon now is the time for that.
You can send a deputy with him.
I told her he would come out there this evening.
What they do then is her business and hisn.
It ain’t mine.”
“Sho,” the sheriff. said. “It ain’t yourn.” He was looking at the other’s profile. “What do you aim to do now, Byron?”
“I don’t know.” His foot moved slowly upon the earth; he was watching it. “I been thinking about going up to Memphis.
Been thinking about it for a couple of years.
I might do that.
There ain’t nothing in these little towns.”
“Sho.
Memphis ain’t a bad town, for them that like city life.
Of course, you ain’t got any family to have to drag around and hamper you.
I reckon if I had been a single man ten years ago I’d have done that too.
Been better off, maybe.
You’re figuring on leaving right away, I reckon.”
“Soon, I reckon.” He looked up, then down again.
He said: “I quit out at the mill this morning.”
“Sho,” the sheriff said. “I figured you hadn’t walked all the way in since twelve and aimed to get back out there by one o’clock.
Well, it looks like—” He ceased.
He knew that by night the Grand Jury would have indicted Christmas, and Brown—or Burch—would be a free agent save for his bond to appear as a witness at next month’s court.
But even his presence would not be absolutely essential, since Christmas had made no denial and the sheriff believed that he would plead guilty in order to save his neck.
‘And it won’t do no harm, anyway, to throw the scare of God into that durn fellow, once in his life,’ he thought.
He said: “I reckon that can be fixed.
Of course, like you say, I will have to send a deputy with him.
Even if he ain’t going to run so long as he has any hope of getting some of that reward money.
And provided he don’t know what he is going to meet when he gets there.
He don’t know that yet.”
“No,” Byron said. “He don’t know that.
He don’t know that she is in Jefferson.”
“So I reckon I’ll just send him out there with a deputy.
Not tell him why: just send him out there.
Unless you want to take him yourself.”