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An Official Position
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be afraid to strike, they knew him, they all knew him, and whoever
struck the first blow would be lucky if he escaped a knife in his
own guts; he had only another thirty yards to go, and once in the
open, able to see, he could make a fight for it. A few yards more
and then he would run for his life. Suddenly something happened
that made him start out of his skin, and he stopped dead. A light
was flashed and in that heavy darkness the sudden glare was terri-
fying. It was an electric torch. Instinctively he sprang to a tree and
stood with his back to it. He could not see who held the light. He
was blinded by it. He did not speak. He held his knife low, he knew
that when they struck it was in the belly, and if someone flung
himself at him he was prepared to strike back. He was going to sell
his life dearly. For half a minute perhaps the light shone on his face,
but it seemed to him an eternity. He thought now that he discerned
dimly the faces of men. Then a word broke the horrible silence.
'Throw.'
At the same instant a knife came flying through the air and struck
him on the breastbone. He threw up his hands and as he did so
someone sprang at him and with a great sweep of the knife ripped
up his belly. The light was switched off. Louis Remire sank to the
ground with a groan, a terrible groan of pain. Five, six men gath-
ered out of the gloom and stood over him. With his fall the knife
that had stuck in his breastbone was dislodged. It lay on the
ground. A quick flash of the torch showed where it was. One of the
men took it and with a single, swift motion cut Remire's throat
from ear to ear.
'Au nom du peuple franqais justice est faite
he said.
They vanished into the darkness and in the coconut grove was
the immense silence of death.
S H E R W O O D A N D E R S O N • 1 8 7 6 - 1 9 4 1
I Want to Know Why
We got up at four in the morning, that first day in the east. On the
evening before we had climbed off a freight train at the edge of
town, and with the true instinct of Kentucky boys had found our
way across town and to the race track and stables at once. Then we
knew we were all right. Hanley Turner right away found a nigger
we knew. It was Bildad Johnson who in the winter works at Ed
Becker's livery barn in our home town, Beckersville. Bildad is a
good cook as almost all our niggers are and of course he, like every-
one in our part of Kentucky who is anyone at all, likes the horses.
In the spring Bildad begins to scratch around. A nigger from our
country can flatter and wheedle anyone into letting him do most
anything he wants. Bildad wheedles the stable men and the trainers
from the horse farms in our country around Lexington. The train-
ers come into town in the evening to stand around and talk and
maybe get into a poker game. Bildad gets in with them. He is al-
ways doing little favors and telling about things to eat, chicken
browned in a pan, and how is the best way to cook sweet potatoes
and corn bread. It makes your mouth water to hear him.
When the racing season comes on and the horses go to the races
and there is all the talk on the streets in the evenings about the new
colts, and everyone says when they are going over to Lexington or
to the spring meeting at Churchill Downs or to Latonia, and the
horsemen that have been down to New Orleans or maybe at the
winter meeting at Havana in Cuba come home to spend a week
before they start out again, at such a time when everything talked
about in Beckersville is just horses and nothing else and the outfits
start out and horse racing is in every breath of air you breathe,
Bildad shows up with a job as cook for some outfit. Often when I
think about it, his always going all season to the races and working
in the livery barn in the winter where horses are and where men
like to come and talk about horses, I wish I was a nigger. It's a
foolish thing to say, but that's the way I am about being around
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