Stewart, weaving a little from the waist, pointed a finger up at the boy. “Oh, sure you knowed all the time.” He smiled. “That’s why you said so much yesterday! Boy, don’t lie to me; you didn’t know nothing more about it than we did. So don’t lie to me because I’m apt to take it personal.”

Bobby-Joe backed up a step. “Well, all right, so I didn’t know yesterday, but you-all heard me when I said I didn’t believe that blood business Mister Harper was trying to feed us. I didn’t believe that crap, and that’s what it was too: crap! How the hell can something what happened a hundred fifty years ago—if it happened at all—how can that have something to do with what happened this week? That ain’t nothing but tripe. No sir, it was that northern nigger, that agi…agi…what they call fellows what come in and stir up trouble?”

“Agitators.” Loomis stuck in his answer though Bobby-Joe had hardly paused.

“That’s right, Mister Loomis, them agi-TAT-ors. He came down here, him in that big black car, and got all the niggers to move off, go somewhere else instead of staying here where they belongs.”

“But he didn’t know nothing about it, Bobby-Joe.” Thomason did not know why he kept resisting an idea that seemed so easy to accept. Perhaps it was his store-keeping mentality, the numbers and figures he had to tally and carry, keeping him from believing something he probably wanted to believe. “Or else why did he come back here? Ain’t no man dumb enough to come calling on you after he raped your wife or knocked up your daughter. He’ll leave you alone, or run, or hide, but he won’t come knocking on your door.”

Bobby-Joe put one foot on the porch and leaned forward. “I always thought you was plenty smart, Mister Thomason. You been smart enough to fool folks into thinking your prices is fair, but you ain’t smart enough to see he’d come back here just out of ordinary, everyday meanness to crow over us, and see how his plans worked out. That’s why he come back.”

“Say now, maybe the boy’s got something.” Stewart turned his head to look up at Thomason, nodding.