Hearing nothing, they extended their thoughts and their imaginations out and into the surrounding meadows.
In the early morning the land had been filled with its usual concoctions of sound.
Here and there, with stubborn persistence to custom, there had been voices singing, the honey laughter under the mimosa branches, the pickaninnies rushing in clear water laughter at the creek, movements and bendings in the fields, jokes and shouts of amusement from the shingle shacks covered with fresh green vine.
Now it was as if a great wind had washed the land clean of sounds.
There was nothing.
Skeleton doors hung open on leather hinges.
Rubber-tire swings hung in the silent air, uninhibited.
The washing rocks at the river were empty, and the watermelon patches, if any, were left alone to heat their hidden liquors in the sun.
Spiders started building new webs in abandoned huts; dust started to sift in from unpatched roofs in golden spicules.
Here and there a fire, forgotten in the last rush, lingered and in a sudden access of strength fed upon the dry bones of some littered shack.
The sound of a gentle feeding burn went up through the silenced air.
The men sat on the hardware porch, not blinking or swallowing.
“I can’t figure why they left now.
With things lookin’ up.
I mean, every day they got more rights.
What they want, anyway?
Here’s the poll tax gone, and more and more states passin’ anti-lynchin’ bills, and all kinds of equal rights.
What more they want?
They make almost as good money as a white man, but there they go.”
Far down the empty street a bicycle came.
“I’ll be goddamned. Teece, here comes your Silly now.”
The bicycle pulled up before the porch, a seventeen-year-old colored boy on it, all arms and feet and long legs and round watermelon head.
He looked up at Samuel Teece and smiled.
“So you got a guilty conscience and came back,” said Teece.
“No, sir, I just brought the bicycle.”
“What’s wrong, couldn’t get it on the rocket?”
“That wasn’t it, sir.”
“Don’t tell me what it was!
Get off, you’re not goin’ to steal my property!”
He gave the boy a push.
The bicycle fell.
“Get inside and start cleaning the brass.”
“Beg pardon?”
The boy’s eyes widened.
“You heard what I said.
There’s guns need unpacking there, and a crate of nails just come from Natchez — ”
“Mr. Teece.”
“And a box of hammers need fixin’ — ”
“Mr. Teece, sir?”
“You still standin’ there!”
Teece glared.
“Mr. Teece, you don’t mind I take the day off,” he said apologetically.
“And tomorrow and day after tomorrow and the day after the day after that,” said Teece.
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“You should be afraid, boy.
Come here.”
He marched the boy across the porch and drew a paper out of a desk.
“Remember this?”
“Sir?”
“It’s your workin’ paper.