“You listen to me,” he said, trembling with quiet. “I don’t want to have to whip you again like I did when you were a child.” He was almost hissing. “The next time I might kill you. I been running this plantation thirty-five years and never had to beat a nigger old as you are. Never had any trouble out of none of Cora’s children before either, but you.” The old man sat down. “I don’t have trouble with my colored folks. They do what I say or what Talbot says, and that’s all there is to it. If they turn in crops, they get a living. If they work for wages, they get paid. If they spend their money on licker, or old cars, or fixing up their cabins—they can do what they choose, long as they know their places and it don’t hinder their work. To Cora’s young ones—you hear me, boy?—I gave all the chances any nigger ever had in these parts. More’n many a white child’s had, too. I sent you off to school. I gave your brother, Willie, that house he’s living in when he got married, pay him for his work, help him out if he needs it. None of my darkies suffer. You went off to school. Could have kept on, would have sent you back this fall, but I don’t intend to pay for no nigger, or white boy either if I had one, that acts the way you been acting.” Colonel Norwood got up again, angrily. “And certainly not for no black fool! I’m talking to you like this only because you’re Cora’s child—but you know damn well it’s my habit to tell people what to do, not discuss it with them. I just want to know what’s the matter with you, though—whether you’re crazy or not? And if you’re not, you’d better change your ways a damn sight or it won’t be safe for you here, and you know it—venting your impudence on white women, ruining my niggers, driving like mad through the Junction, carrying on just as you please. I’m warning you, boy, God damn it!…Now I want you to answer me, and talk right.” The old man sat down in his chair again by the whisky bottle and the partly opened drawer. He took a drink.

“What do you mean, talk right?” Bert said.

“I mean talk like a nigger should to a white man,” the Colonel snapped.

“Oh, but I’m not a nigger, Colonel Norwood,” Bert said, “I’m your son.”

The old man frowned at the boy in front of him. “Cora’s son,” he said.

“Fatherless?” Bert asked.

“Bastard,” the old man said.

Bert’s hands closed into fists, so the Colonel opened the drawer where the pistol was. He took it out and laid it on the table.

“You black bastard,” he said.

“I’ve heard that before.” Bert just stood there. “You’re talking about my mother.”

“Well,” the Colonel answered, his fingers playing over the surface of the gun, “what can you do about it?”