“Keep your seat,” the sheriff said. “Me and Jason will go out on the porch.”
“You get your hat and coat,” Jason said. “They’ve already got a twelve hour start.” The sheriff led the way back to the porch. A man and a woman passing spoke to him. He responded with a hearty florid gesture. Bells were still ringing, from the direction of the section known as Nigger Hollow. “Get your hat, Sheriff,” Jason said. The sheriff drew up two chairs.
“Have a seat and tell me what the trouble is.”
“I told you over the phone,” Jason said, standing. “I did that to save time. Am I going to have to go to law to compel you to do your sworn duty?”
“You sit down and tell me about it,” the sheriff said. “I’ll take care of you all right.”
“Care, hell,” Jason said. “Is this what you call taking care of me?”
“You’re the one that’s holding us up,” the sheriff said. “You sit down and tell me about it.”
Jason told him, his sense of injury and impotence feeding upon its own sound, so that after a time he forgot his haste in the violent cumulation of his self justification and his outrage. The sheriff watched him steadily with his cold shiny eyes.
“But you dont know they done it,” he said. “You just think so.”
“Dont know?” Jason said. “When I spent two damn days chasing her through alleys, trying to keep her away from him, after I told her what I’d do to her if I ever caught her with him, and you say I dont know that that little b—”