TRU.L BY FIRE
25
hind him. Some distance back of him, up the road the Super–
intendent shouted, "Come back here, nigger."
It did not occur to Dubie to turn back, even to turn his
head. He went on, walking in the dignified way in which he
had begun. But when the men's long legs brought them nearer
behind him and he heard the voices closer his feet took longer
steps.
Mister Anderson called out,
"If
you don't stop I'll shoot."
Dubie did not turn his head, but his feet of which he was not
thinking began to pick themselves up faster until they moved
very swiftly. He did not say to himself, "I must hurry, I must
get away fast." His feet answered some excitement in him
which was begun by the sound of the shout behind and they took
him down the road fast until he was panting for breath.
He heard the first shot which went over his head and clipped
the limb of a tree that spread above the road. The second shot
he did not hear because before the sound of it, which carried
something-of-a-second slower than the bullet, reached him, the
bullet had gone into Dubie's head and he lay in the dirt without
hearing anything.
The red handkerchief tied around his possessions, fallen
from under his arm, sat upright in the center of the road.
