“Because I hated the son-of-a-bitch! It’s not the same with Uncle John, a poor nigger man who was just trying to do the best he could!”

“Maybe Tom was doing the best he could, too. I wonder if we did any better.”

“But—but, Nick! You, why you know what the bastard was like.”

I said, yeah, I knew, but I’d never heard of anyone killing Tom’s wife, and Tom sleeping before and after with the party that did it. Then, I laughed, cutting her off before she could butt in. “But this is different all right, honey,” I said. “This you know about before it happens. It ain’t something you learn about afterwards, so you can say, well, what can I do about it, and it ain’t really my doin’.”

“Nick—” She touched my arm, sort of frightened. “I’m sorry I lost my head tonight, honey. I guess I can’t blame you for trying to hurt me.”

“It ain’t really that,” I said. “I reckon I’m just kind of tired of doing things that everybody knows I’m doing, things they really want and expect me to do, and having to take all the blame for it.”

She understood; she said she did, anyway. She put her arms around me and held me for a little while, and we talked a couple of minutes about what would have to be done. Then I left because I had a pretty full night’s work ahead of me.

I had Uncle John drive up in the back country, about three miles behind the farm. We unloaded Tom’s body there, in the edge of some trees, and Uncle John and I took such shelter as we could a few feet away.

He sat down at the base of a tree, his legs being too wobbly to hold him up any longer. I hunkered down a few feet away from him, and broke open the barrel of the shotgun. It looked fairly clean, clean enough to be safe, anyways. I blew through it a couple of times to make sure, and then I loaded it with the shells I’d taken from Tom’s pockets.

Uncle John watched me, all the begging and praying in the world in his eyes. I relatched the barrel, and sighted along it, and he began to cry again. I frowned at him, feeling pretty fretted.

“Now, what you want to carry on like that for?” I said. “You knew what I was goin’ to have to do right along.”

“No, s-suh, I believe you, Mistah Nick. You different f’m other white folks. I believe every word you say.”

“Well, now, I think you’re lyin’, Uncle John,” I said, “an’ I’m sorry to hear you. Because it’s right in the Bible that lyin’s a sin.”

“It’s a sin to kill folks, too, Mistah Nick. Worse sin than lyin’. Y-You—you—”

“I’ll tell you somethin’ Uncle John,” I said. “I’ll tell you something, and I hope it’ll be a comfort to you. Each man kills the thing he loves.”