“Tom!” Cora cried, falling across his body. “Colonel Tom! Tom! Tom!”

“He’s dead,” Bert said. “I’m living though.”

“Tom!” Cora screamed, pulling at the dead man. “Colonel Tom!”

Bert bent down and picked up the pistol. “This is what my father wanted to use on me,” he said. “He’s dead. But I can use it on all the white men in Georgia—they’ll be coming to get me now. They never wanted me before, but I know they’ll want me now.” He stuffed the pistol in his shirt. Cora saw what her son had done.

“Run,” she said, rising and going to him. “Run, chile! Out the front way quick, so’s they won’t see you in the kitchen. Make fo’ de swamp, honey. Cross de fields fo’ de swamp. Go de crick way. In runnin’ water, dogs can’t smell no tracks. Hurry, son!”

“Yes, mama,” Bert said slowly. “But if I see they gonna get me before I reach the swamp, then I’m coming back here. Let them take me out of my father’s house—if they can.” He patted the gun inside his shirt, and smiled. “They’ll never string me up to some roadside tree for the crackers to laugh at. Not me!”

“Hurry, chile,” Cora opened the door and the sunset streamed in like a river of blood. “Hurry, chile.”

Bert went out across the wide pillared porch and down the road. He saw Talbot and the storekeeper coming, so he turned off through the trees. And then, because he wanted to live, he began to run. The whole sky was a blaze of color as he ran. Then it began to get dark, and the glow went away.

In the house, Cora started to talk to the dead man on the floor, just as though he were not dead. She pushed and pulled at the body, trying to get him to get up himself. Then she heard the footsteps of Talbot and the storekeeper on the porch. She rose and stood as if petrified in the middle of the floor. A knock, and two men were peering through the screen door into the dusk-dark room. Then Talbot opened the door.

“Hello, Cora,” he said. “What’s the matter with you, why didn’t you let us in? Where’s that damn fool boy o’ your’n goin’, comin’ out the front way liked he owned the place? What’s the matter with you, woman? Can’t you talk? Where’s Colonel Norwood?”

“Let’s have some light in here,” said the storekeeper, turning a button beside the door.

“Great God!” Talbot cried. “Jim, look at this!” The Colonel’s body lay huddled on the floor, old and purple-white, at Cora’s feet.

“Why, he’s blue in the face,” the storekeeper said bending over the body. “Oh! Get that nigger we saw walking out the door! That nigger bastard of Cora’s. Get that nigger!…Why, the Colonel’s dead!”

Talbot rushed toward the door. “That nigger,” he cried. “He must be running toward the swamps now…. We’ll get him. Telephone town, Jim, there in the library. Telephone the sheriff. Telephone the Beale family down by the swamp. Get men, white men, after that nigger.”