Les Blancs (28 page)

MARIA
Hiram, Macon is on his way. Everything is going to be all right.

HIRAM
Saw him that time … old horseman … riding out the swamps … He was smiling at me.

MARIA
(
Taking over from the servant in an effort to make him comfortable
) Just lie still. Don’t talk. Macon will be here in a little while and everything will be all right.

EVERETT
(
Aside, to the servant
) When did it happen?

SERVANT
Jes a little while ago, suh. They found him stretched out yonder in the fields. Eben and Jed carried him up here and me and Missus got him on the bed fust thing. I think he’s powaful sick this time, suh.

HIRAM
Fifty dollars and four slaves … Planted the first seed myself …

MARIA
looks at her husband intently in his pain and then rises with a new air of determination and signals for her son to follow her out of the room. He obeys—a little quizzically
.

MARIA
(
To the servant as they go out
) We’ll be right here, Harry.

SERVANT
Yes, ma’am.

MARIA
(
In the hall, in half tones and with a more precise spirit than her son has ever seen before
) Do you propose to wait any longer now, son?

EVERETT
(
Confused
) For what—?

MARIA
To become master here.

EVERETT
Oh, Mother …

MARIA
Everett, your father is perfectly capable of killing himself. We must become perfectly capable of stopping him from doing it.

EVERETT
You heard him last week—“Some men make their destiny”—Well—

MARIA
(
Sharply
) I am not interested in your bitterness at this moment, Everett. You must take over the running of the plantation—no, listen to me—and you must make him believe you have done no such thing. Every night, if necessary, you must sit with pencil and pad and let him tell you everything he wishes. And then—well, do as you please. You will be master then. But he will think that he is still, which is terrible important.

(
With that, she turns to the door
)

EVERETT
Y
OU
would deceive him like that?

MARIA
(
Only half-turning to reply
) Under the circumstances, Everett, I consider that to be the question of a weak boy, when I have
clearly asked you to be a very strong man. (
Looking at him
) Which is the only kind I have ever been able to truly love.

(
She turns and goes and the camera lingers with Everett’s face
)

ZEB
That ain’t corn. That’s sticks!

(
ELIZABETH
wipes her hands and comes to inspect the corn. She picks up a piece or two and drops them sadly back into the basket
)

ZEB
Ain’t nobody going to buy that! Can’t hardly get a decent price when it’s good. Who’s going to buy that?

E
LIZABETH
Well, take it in anyhow. We have to try at least, Zeb.

Two small children stand in a corner watching them, looking as if they might welcome the corn at the moment, no matter what its condition
.

ZEB
Well then—you try!

He strides across the floor and gets a jug down from the shelf and uncorks it and drinks deeply from it
.

E
LIZABETH
We ain’t got no choice, Zeb.

ZEB
I said all right, you try! (
More quietly
) How’s Timmy?

E
LIZABETH
(
Looking into the crib in a corner of the room
) He ain’t been cryin’ at least.

The man walks over to his baby’s crib and then turns away and takes another drink from the jug, only to discover that it is now empty. He
looks at it and suddenly smashes it on the floor. An old man has appeared at the door which
ZEB
has left open
.

PREACHER
H’dy do.

He surprises both of them a little
.

ELIZABETH
Oh, hello, Preacher, come on in.

PREACHER
Thought I’d pay my respects to the Dudleys and mebbe find out why they ain’t made it to meetin’ in the last month of Sundays. Reckon I could stand a cup of lemonade too, if you got it handy, ’Lizabeth.

He signals the two older children without interrupting his remarks and gives them each a candy
.

ZEB
strides out of the cabin and makes splashing sounds from a basin outside the door
. E
LIZABETH
puts a glass of lemonade before the Preacher
.

E
LIZABETH
Got the croup all week.

Her husband comes back in, stripped to the waist, water dripping from his head. She pours lemonade for him also
.

PREACHER
N
OW
, that’s better. Nothin’ to bring temper down off a man like a little coolin’ water.

ZEB
I’m clearin’, Preacher.

PREACHER
Clearin’ where, son?

ZEB
Don’t know. The West, mebbe.

PREACHER
Oh, the West?

ZEB
(
Defensively
) Well, a lotta folks been pullin’ out goin’ West lately.

PREACHER
Lookin’ for the Frontier again? I kin remember when this was the Frontier.

ZEB
(
Quickly
) That was a long time ago.

PREACHER
A long time. Before the big plantations started gobblin’ up the land and floodin’ the country with slaves.

ZEB
I heard me some good things ’bout the West. That if a man got a little get up in him, he still got a chance. Hear there’s plenty of land still. Good land.

PREACHER
Seems to be three things the South sends out more than anything else. A steady stream of cotton, runaway slaves and poor white folks. I guess the last two is pretty much lookin’ for the same thing and they both runnin’ from the first.

ZEB
Not me—! No sir! I ain’t runnin’ from cotton! I’m lookin’ for some place where I kin plant me some, that’s what. I know ’bout plantin’ and I know how to drive slaves!

PREACHER
And you figger you kin get to be somebody, eh? Like the Sweets, mebbe?

ZEB
If I ever got my chance, I make that Sweet plantation look like a shanty! … Why you laughin’ like that?

PREACHER
Allus been a laughin’ man, allus loved a good joke.

ZEB
Well, I ain’t told none.

PREACHER
Yep, it’s a hard life.

ZEB
It’s a hard life if you ain’t got slaves.

PREACHER
That what you think, Zeb?

ZEB
That’s what I know.

PREACHER
Your Pa managed to be a pretty good farmer without slaves, Zeb.

ZEB
My Pa was a fool.

PREACHER
Sure hate to hear good men called fools. He was honest and he worked hard. Didn’t call anybody Master and caused none to call him Master. He was a farmer and a good one.

ZEB
And he died eatin’ dirt.

There is a sound of reining-up outside the cabin
.
ELIZABETH
goes to look out
.

ELIZABETH
Why it’s Everett Sweet, Zeb!

ZEB
Who—

He rises from the table with a quizzical expression and goes to the door and looks out to where
EVERETT
is sitting astride his horse
.

EVERETT
(
Abruptly
) I’m looking for a good overseer, Zeb Dudley.

ZEB
(
Feeling his way
) Well, what you come here for?

EVERETT
I heard you had some experience driving slaves.

PREACHER
(
Coming and standing behind
ZEB
in the doorway, while
ELIZABETH
looks on with interest in the background
) Well, you musta heard wrong. This boy ain’t cut from what makes overseers. He’s a farmer.

ZEB
(
Scanning
EVERETT
with his eyes, interested
) I helped out once on the Robley place. I can handle blacks if I have to. But how come you interested? You Pa don’t ’low no overseer on his place.

EVERETT
My father is ill in bed. I’m master at our place now and I intend to grow cotton there—a
lot
of cotton, and I want and need an overseer.

PREACHER
(
To
ZEB
) Tell him you don’t know nobody ’round here for that kind of work, Zeb.

ZEB
(
Shrugging the
PREACHER
’s
hand off his shoulder
) Leave me be, Preacher. (
To
EVERETT
) H
OW
much you figger to pay?

EVERETT
I’ll go as high as fifteen hundred if your work is good. And if you up my yield at the end of the year, I’ll give you a bonus.

ZEB
Your word on that, sir?

EVERETT
You heard. But I want cotton.

ZEB
(
Vigorously
) For two thousand dollars—I’ll get them slaves of yourn to grow cotton ’tween the rows!

EVERETT
You’re on. Be at our place early tomorrow.

ZEB
You got yourself an overseer!

EVERETT
touches his hat to them and rides off
.
ZEB
gives a yell and wheels and picks up his wife and whirls her around happily. She too is very happy. The
PREACHER
watches their celebration and sits down in his defeat
.

PREACHER
(
Looking at him sadly
) So that’s what it’s come to ’round here. Man either have to go into slavery some kind of way or pull out the South, eh?

ZEB
A
W
, come on, Preacher—

PREACHER
Y
OU
think a man’s hands was made to drive slaves?

ZEB
If they have to, Preacher, if they have to … Or mebbe you think they was made to sit idle while he watches his babies turn the color of death?

PREACHER
Zeb, I seen your daddy the day he come ridin’ into this here country. Perched up on his pony with a sack of flour and some seed. And he done all right with them two hands of his. He dug in the earth with ’em and he made things grow with ’em. (
He takes
ZEB
’s
hands
) Your hands is the same kind, boy.

ZEB
Leave me be, Preacher.

PREACHER
They wasn’t meant to crack no whip on no plantation. That ain’t fit thing for a man to have to do, Zeb. (
Pointing after
EVERETT
) Them people hate our kind. Ain’t I heard ’em laughin’ and talkin’ ’mongst themselves when they see some poor cracker walkin’ down the road—about how the ne-gras was clearly put here to serve their betters but how God must of run clear out of ideas when He got to the poor white! Me and you is farmers, Zeb. Cotton and slavery has almost ruined our land. ’N’ some of us got to try and hold out ’ginst it. Not go runnin’ off to do their biddin’ every time they need one of us. Them fields and swamps
and pastures yonder was give to us by Him what giveth all gifts—to do right by. And we can’t just give it all up to folks what hates the very sight of us—

ZEB
(
Frightened inside by the sense of the speech
) You talk for yourself, Preacher! You go on bein’ and thinkin’ what you want, but don’t be ’cludin’ me in on it. ’Cause I ain’t
never
found nothin’ fine and noble ’bout bein’ no dirt-eater. I don’t aim to end up no redneck cracker the rest of my life, out there scrapin’ on that near-gravel trying to get a little corn to grow. Allus watchin’ somebody else’s plantation gettin’ closer and closer to my land! (
A cry of anguish and a vow: his only claim, his only hope for something better, the one thing he can cling to in this life:
)
I’m a white man, Preacher!
And I’m goin’ to drive slaves for Everett Sweet and he’s goin’ to pay me for it and this time next year, Zeb Dudley aims to own himself some slaves and be a man—you hear!

PREACHER
Yes … I hear. And I reckon I understand. And all I kin say is—God have mercy on all of us …