“Shorely,” Buck said, turning toward me. “Y’see it’s this way, Nick. That twelve hundred and eighty would be countin’ niggers—them Yankee lawmakers force us to count ‘em—and niggers ain’t got no souls. Right, Ken?”

“Kee-rect!” Ken said.

“Well, now, I don’t know about that,” I said. “I wouldn’t come out flat and say you fellas was wrong, but I sure don’t reckon I can agree with you neither. I mean, well, just how come you say that colored folks don’t have souls?”

“Because they don’t, that’s why.”

“But why don’t they?” I said.

“Tell him, Buck. Make old Nick here see the light,” Ken said.

“Why, shorely,” Buck said. “Y’see, it’s this way, Nick. Niggers ain’t got no souls because they ain’t really people.”

“They ain’t?” I said.

“Why, o’ course not. Most everybody knows that.”

“But if they ain’t people, what are they?”

“Niggers, just niggers, that’s all. That’s why folks refer to ‘em as niggers instead of people.”

Buck and Ken nodded at me, as if to say there wasn’t anything more to be said on this subject. I took another pull at the bottle and passed it around.

“Well, looky here, now,” I said. “How about this? My mama died almost as soon as I was born, so I was put to suck with a colored mammy. Wouldn’t be alive today except for her sucklin’ me. Now, if that don’t prove—”

“No, it don’t,” Ken broke in. “That don’t prove a thing. After all, you could have sucked titty from a cow, but you can’t say that cows is people.”

“Well, maybe not,” I said. “But that ain’t the only point of similarity. I’ve had certain relations with colored gals that I sure wouldn’t have with a cow, and—”

“But you could,” Ken said. “You could. We got a fella over in the jail right now for pleasurin’ a pig.”

“Well, I’ll be dogged,” I said, because I’d heard of things like that but I never had known of no actual cases. “What kind of charges you makin’ against him?”

Buck said maybe they could charge him with rape. Ken gave him a kind of blank look and said no, they might not be able to make that kind of charge stick.

“After all, he might claim he had the pig’s consent, and then where would we be?”

“Aw,” said Buck. “Aw, now, Ken.”

Ken said, “What you mean, aw, now. You tryin’ to tell me that animals can’t understand what you’re sayin’ to ‘em? Why, god-dang it, I got me this little ol’ beagle-terrier, and I can say, ‘Boy, you want to go catch some rats?’ and he’ll leap all over me, barkin’ and whinin’ and licking my face. Meaning, natcherly, that he does want to go after rats. Or I can say, ‘Boy, you want me to take a stick to you?’ an’ he’ll slink off in a corner with his tail between his legs. Meanin’ he don’t want me to take a stick to him. An’—”