So the white men circled the camp and when they had it surrounded, Dewitt Willson called out for the Negroes to give up. The white men lit torches so the African could see he was ringed by fire, horses, and men with rifles. The Negroes jumped to their feet and right away saw it wasn’t no use, since all they had was African weapons, and they threw them down on the ground. But the African bolted up on top of the rock straddling the baby and made a full circle taking stock of what he was up against because he was alone and he knew it, since by then all the Negroes had scattered into the bushes or were standing around like they’d never seen him before and didn’t know him from a third-century Roman Catholic Pope.

There he stood on the rock, alone, glistening in the fire, almost naked, his eyes just hollows of black. Then he stepped down. Someone raised a rifle.

“Wait!” Dewitt shouted. “See if we can take him alive. Don’t you understand? That’s the point. Take him alive!” He was standing up in his stirrups waving his arms for attention in the firelight.

Some fellow took this to mean that he should be a hero, and thinking he could run down the African, raced his horse straight at him, but the African just grabbed the fellow off the horse’s back like you might catch a ring on a carousel and popped his back over his knee like a dry wishbone and tossed him aside.

“If you shoot, aim for his limbs,” Dewitt was yelling.

Someone from the other side of the circle fired, and they could see the bullet go right through the African’s hand and dig into the ground near Dewitt’s horse, but the African didn’t seem to connect the report with any pain he might-a felt in his hand, didn’t even wince or move. Someone else shot him just above the knee and blood ran down his leg like a ribbon.

Keeping his back to the rock, where the baby was sleeping, he made a full, slow circle, eying them all, eying the auctioneer’s Negro too, who was standing next to Dewitt, but not stopping at him, or showing any anger or bitterness, stopping only when he came to Dewitt Willson and staring at him. They stared at each other, not like they was trying to stare each other down, more like they was discussing something without using words. And finally it seemed like they came to an agreement because the African bowed slightly like a fighter bows at the beginning of a match, and Dewitt Willson raised his rifle, sighted the African’s upturned face, and shot him cleanly just above the bridge of his wide nose.