Chapter XI: Tick Flies the Yellow Flag

Early the next morning, Colonel Tom Gaitskill heard from Hitch Diamond, who worked about his place, that Tick Hush had been held up, robbed, and shot to death.

At the bank, where Vinegar Atts worked, Gaitskill heard that a woman named Button Hook had shot Tick Hush, and that Skeeter had nursed him all night.

From Dr. Moseley Gaitskill learned that Tick had not been shot or robbed, but had been beaten over the head with some blunt instrument, and his face had been badly cut with some sharp tool.

All of which was interesting enough to induce Gaitskill to make a personal investigation.

He found Tick Hush lying upon a pallet in the rear of the Hen-Scratch saloon, and from him and Skeeter Butts he heard the whole story.

Being familiar with the details of numberless negro courtships, this lengthy narrative lacked the spice of novelty, and Gaitskill was weary long before it was finished.

At last he looked at his watch and rose to his feet.

“Well, Tick,” he smiled, “I think if I were in your predicament I would go out to the pest-house on my farm and run up the yellow flag.”

Then Gaitskill went back to the bank.

The two negroes sat in perfect silence for a long time. Finally Tick asked:

“Skeeter, whut did Marse Tom mean by dem words?”

“Gawd knows,” Skeeter mumbled.

Skeeter smoked four cigarettes in rapid succession. Then the meaning of Gaitskill’s remark shot through him like an electric current.

Given Gaitskill’s two, he multiplied and made forty-four.

He grabbed his hat and ran up the street at full speed.

He stopped first at the home of Ginny Babe Chew, where he held an excited conversation with Dazzle Zenor, the actress. That young woman laughed and applauded, and promptly left the house after Skeeter’s rapid departure.

After that, he ran to the livery stable and held an excited conversation with the negro owner of that establishment.

The liveryman was not at all disposed to do what Skeeter wanted, but Skeeter had learned certain conjuring tricks to attain his ends, and he now performed these tricks with the influential names of Colonel Tom Gaitskill, Sheriff John Flournoy, and Dr. Moseley.

With these big names thundering in his ears, the liveryman consented.

“Keep dis quiet, Lon!” Skeeter warned. “It’s de white folks’ awders. Don’t speak a word!”

Two hours later, a long, black carriage, known to the negroes of Tickfall as the “pest-wagon,” drawn by two solemn mules and driven by Skeeter Butts, stopped at the rear door of the Hen-Scratch saloon.

Skeeter dismounted from the driver’s seat and opened the door in the rear of the ambulance. Hitch Diamond, Figger Bush, and the Reverend Vinegar Atts climbed out. They pulled a stretcher into view, and Skeeter laid hold upon it.

They tramped into the Hen-Scratch saloon like a quartette of pall-bearers, and walked to the pallet where Dazzle Zenor, the actress, now acting the part of a Red Cross nurse, had just completed a major operation upon the face and hands of Tick Hush. Tick was lifted upon the stretcher, carried to the ambulance and placed inside.

Skeeter tied a piece of yellow cloth a yard wide and two yards long to the door knob of the ambulance, and climbed back to the driver’s seat.

The four stretcher bearers walked solemnly beside the pest-wagon.

Every negro inhabitant of Dirty-Six crowded the sidewalks and watched this dreadful wagon go by. All the older ones recalled that fearful epidemic of yellow fever years before when this wagon had rolled along the streets at midnight, and a driver with muffled mouth, breathing through a cloth saturated with disinfectants, called aloud in sepulchral tones:

“Bring out your dead!”

For the first time in thirty years, the pest-wagon was on the streets of Tickfall again. It was no longer a shiny, black vehicle, but was rusty, dusty, weather-beaten, and time-worn, more than ever suggestive of diseases and pestilence and sudden death.

As the stretcher bearers marched, they sang. The superb baritone of the Reverend Vinegar Atts rolled like an organ:

“Somebody buried in de graveyard,
Somebody buried in de sea;
Gwine to git up in de mawnin’
Shoutin’ de jubilee.
If you git dare befo’ I do,
Run an’ tell de Lawd I’m comin’, too.
Oh!
Somebody dyin’ on de mountain,
Somebody dyin’ in de bed,
Somebody gwine to rise like a fountain,
Gwine to rise from de dead!
Oh!
If you git dar befo’ I do,
Run an’ tell de Lawd I’m comin’, too!”

“Git back, niggers!” Hitch Diamond bellowed to the crowd when he saw they were disposed to follow. “Keep away! I got awders from de white folks!”

In front of the home of Vakey Vapp the ambulance came to a stop.

“Come out here, Vakey!” Skeeter called.

Vakey stepped out into the middle of her yard with plenty of fresh, untainted air around her.

“You tole me las’ night dat you wanted to deliver to Tick Hush a dyin’ message!” Skeeter exclaimed as he opened the door of the ambulance. “Come up close so you kin speak to him!”

Vakey took a half-step forward and stopped.

Skeeter spread wide the doors of the ambulance and exclaimed dramatically:

“Stick out yo’ head, Ticky, an’ git yo’ dyin’ word!”

Ticky stuck out his head.

Dazzle Zenor had done her work well.

The actress had exhausted all her paints and all her mental resources in helping Tick in his theatrical make-up for the part he had to play.

The result was simply horrifying!

Tick’s ears were both a bright green in color, his nose was yellow, his lips were purple, his forehead was a bright red, and his cheeks were as white as milk, while under his chin the natural brown of his skin was striped with orange!

Tick held up both hands with a pitiful gesture, and each finger was a different color!

Vakey Vapp emitted a squall which put her in a class by herself as a maker of strange, loud noises.

“Pore ole Ticky is got some kind of ketchin’ disease, Vakey,” Skeeter exclaimed. “Us is takin’ him out to de pest-house.”

“Whut ails him?” Vakey wailed.

“Doc Moseley specify dat Tick is got scrambaloodums, an’ it’s powerful ketchin’. Is you touched Ticky any time recent?”

“O Lawd yes!” Vakey screamed. “I rush-housed him powerful bad at de Shoofly chu’ch de yuther night!”

“I’s mighty sorry to hear you speak dem words, Vakey,” Skeeter said with a tearful tremolo in his voice. “You’ll kotch de scrambaloodums, too. We’ll come back an’ take you to de pest-house next!”

Skeeter shut the ambulance door and ostentatiously draped the yellow flag over the knob.

“You fergot to deliver yo’ dyin’ message, Vakey,” Skeeter reminded her.

“’Tain’t nothin’,” Vakey howled. “O my lawdymussy!”

“All right,” Skeeter said. “You kin speak yo’ dyin’ words when we takes you out to de pest-house whar Tick is gwine!”

Vakey gave another loud squall and started across the fields toward the woods, going at full speed, and covering a long distance in a very brief time.

“She’ll be mighty fur away pretty soon--ef she keeps up dat gait,” the Reverend Vinegar Atts chuckled. “Dat’s jes’ de way de niggers runned from de pest-house thirty years ago!”

Skeeter clucked to his mules and started off at a brisk trot, leaving the three other stretcher bearers in the middle of the road, looking at the cloud of dust the team raised.

“Come on, niggers,” Vinegar Atts chuckled as he turned back toward the town. “We done runned Vakey off now--less git aroun’ among de niggers an’ succulate de repote dat Skeeter an’ Tick is gittin’ ready to git up a show!”

“Dat’s right!” Figger Bush cackled. “We’ll tell ’em dis ain’t no real disease, but Tick an’ Skeeter is rehearsin’!”

“’Tain’t really needful to do dat,” Hitch Diamond rumbled. “Excusin’ Vakey, all of ’em knows it ’tain’t nothin’ but a joke nohow. Niggers didn’t sing no religium tunes aroun’ dis pest-wagon thuty year ago when de yeller fever kotch us.”