As he sat watching that ludicrous procession of squalling blacks, his own horse suddenly snorted and bolted down the road at its wildest speed. Gaitskill looked back to ascertain the cause of the animal’s fright.
Lo, Diada was in full pursuit of the flying posse, trotting with the speed of a galloping horse, her tongue hanging out like a hot dog’s, Mrs. Gaitskill’s kimono trailing behind her like a torn battle-flag, her long, ugly-bladed knife clutched in her powerful hand. One word came from her throat with the explosive sound of a pistol-shot:
“Whoo-ash!”
There was no stopping his horse, so Gaitskill rode the four miles back to Tickfall in something like eight minutes. When he swung out of the swamp road into the town he looked back again.
Diada was half a mile behind him, trotting tirelessly, covering about ten feet of ground with each tremendous stride. Her farewell admonition came to him across the distance.
Softened by the intervening space, it seemed to contain a plaintive note of appeal; yet this impression was but momentary, for Gaitskill found too close a kinship between this outlandish expression and the snarl of the wolf, the hiss of the snake, and the scream of the jungle beast bent on blood and death.
IX
“DESE HERE IS TURR’BLE TIMES”
Fifty-five terrified negroes galloped wildly into Tickfall, distributed themselves in the various negro settlements of the village, and told fifty-five separate and distinct tales of horror about the fiasco at the hog-camp.
One half truth ran through all the narratives, holding them together as vari-colored beads are held upon a string:
“Marse Tom Gaitskill bragged his brags at de cotton-shed dat he wus gwine walk right up an’ put his hand on dat wild woman. But he never done it a-tall—naw, suh.”