Convicts Page #2

I still ain't never been.

Where do you come from?

I come from down round Louisiana.

How'd you get up here?

I got into a fight with a man.

Cut him.

Anyway, they sentenced me to Retrieve

Prison Plantation on the Coast.

That's the worst place

I ever been in my life.

I heard that you could hire off to

work on plantations around here...

you know, to work out your fine.

So I asked them if I

could work out my fine.

And they sent me here.

Well, I hope Mr. Soll pays you.

How much is your fine?

About $500.

They pay me $7 a month or they pay

the State for me to pay off my fine.

- How long you been here?

- About a year.

How long are you gonna have to work

at $7 a month to pay off your fine?

- I don't know. They didn't tell me.

- Didn't you figure it out?

Figure it out?

How am I supposed to figure it out?

- Just figure it out.

- I don't know how.

- Didn't you go to school?

- No.

I ain't never been to no school.

Never?

No.

I'm doing some figuring in my head.

Comes to almost six

years to pay off $500.

- It's gonna be more than that now.

- What do you mean?

I done killed me a man now.

What was his name?

Jesse.

Jesse what?

Jesse Wilkes.

Got a brother here, too.

Brother say that he gonna kill me

if the white sheriff don't kill me.

Are you scared of him?

- No.

- What's his name?

Name is Sherman.

Sherman Edwards.

How can they be brothers if

one's Edwards and one's Wilkes?

They got the same mama, but

they got a different daddy.

- He got a white man for a Daddy.

- Who does?

Sherman Edwards.

See, now that's why he's so

mean. It's the white blood in him.

See, now he kill you,

too, if he had the chance.

Being as he is. He

don't like white people.

I asked him, I say...

"How come you don't like white people

when you're half white yourself?"

But he didn't answer that.

He just cussed me.

You give me that knife, I

just might cut my own throat.

Save somebody else the trouble.

Can you give me that knife?

No.

- Give me another chew of tobacco?

- Sure.

Keep it.

If I gave you this knife...

would you really try

and kill yourself?

Give it to me and see.

I couldn't kill myself.

Well, you ain't waiting in

chains for no white sheriff.

I couldn't do that.

I'm afraid to die.

You're not afraid of dying?

No.

Where you going?

Just going over there. To say

a prayer over Jesse's grave.

- Dib, take the sheriff's horse.

- Yes, sir.

The convict's over

yonder by the tree.

Leroy, do you know the Lord's Prayer?

- No.

- I've forgotten the last part of it.

- Ben, do you know the Lord's Prayer?

- Yes, I do.

What comes after "forgive

us our trespasses"?

No, I can't say it that way.

Got to start from the beginning.

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