was just the scent of niggers. Who is now to know? But something drew Tam Dewar’s eye away from the massa’s corpse to glimpse into the gloom under the bed. And there he saw two wide eyes—one staring back on him and one not.
He had the back of Nimrod’s neck grasped within his hand before Nimrod had even realised he had been discovered. ‘Out,’ Dewar cried, as he wrenched Nimrod roughly from the hide-hole.
Caroline Mortimer, seeing this negro pulled from under the bed like a wriggling whelk from out a shell, at first inhaled so startled a breath that she sounded to be gasping her last. But then, with more art than any player upon a stage, she amended her mood to cry, ‘Ah, it was he who shot him. I saw him. I saw him.’ And here her story was made.
July, still lying unseen beneath the bed, watched as the overseer struggled with Nimrod, who squirmed and writhed within his grasp. Suddenly, in an effort to still him, Dewar punched Nimrod hard within the face with the resonance of a mallet striking wood. Nimrod’s eyes rolled like a drunkard’s, as a slobber of saliva and blood spewed from his mouth. Then he wilted limp as a doll. And July listened as the missus firmed her story.
‘I saw him he . . . he . . . walked up to John who was sitting . . .’ July saw the missus right the chair, seat herself upon it, and bounce her slippered feet, excited as she carried on, ‘He crept up behind my brother and he shot him, here.’ The missus patted the back of her head several times, until the overseer said, ‘No. You’ll need to get your story straight.’ And the missus replied, ‘It is not a story, Mr Dewar, it is the truth.’
‘The truth, madam,’ the overseer began, ‘is that he shot himself. I know it and so do you.’
‘I will not have you speak to me in this way . . .’ the missus said as the overseer, not heeding her words, carried on.
‘But you can have a culprit. You can save your skin and your plantation, but only if you tell the story as I say it.’
July heard the missus gasp as the overseer insisted, ‘Now, listen here, woman. Your brother was shot from the front. This nigger shot your brother from the front. Any man who has ever held a pistol will see that in the wound.’
And she heard her missus say quietly, ‘Of course, from the front. I meant from the front.’
‘In the mouth. The nigger shot him in the mouth.’
‘Yes, in the mouth, Mr Dewar.’
And July heard the overseer say, ‘And you shot the culprit as he tried to escape.’
‘Me!’
‘Yes, you. With your silly, wee, pearly handled pistol. You, you shot him! I was nay here until after you killed this nigger.’
And the missus gasped, ‘Killed!’
July was sure that soon Nimrod would press his feet firmly to the floor to stand proud in front of these white people. He would look them both within the eye while declaring—with a cough, cough—that he had heard enough of this fanciful tale, before firmly informing them that he was not a nigger to be used with as they pleased. No. He was free man. Nimrod Freeman. Or Mr Freeman to them.
But instead, Nimrod stood shamefully silent upon the spot, trembling, shaky-shaky, as a cock-eyed buffoon. When the overseer arming his pistol shouted, ‘Run for the door, nigger,’ Nimrod let out a weeping howl and clasped himself, craven, to the overseer’s knees. Struggling to kick off this clinging negro, the overseer, with swelling temper, hit Nimrod hard about the head with the butt of his pistol. Nimrod collapsed to the floor, gashed and bloody. The overseer then placed his pistol at the back of Nimrod’s neck. But before he squeezed his finger to trip the hammer and fire the ball, he said to the missus, ‘Remember, you shot this nigger as he was making his escape.’
It was with cold panic that the missus pleaded, ‘But, but, but don’t kill him.’
‘Why not?’ asked the overseer.
And, looking about herself as if the answer floated somewhere around this island if only she could see it, the missus replied, ‘He hasn’t finished my garden yet.’
The overseer, at first staring upon the missus as if there might be some wisdom lying hidden within her statement, soon gave a scornful laugh as his eyes rolled to the heavens. He then aimed his