"What do you mean you don't have a suit? You been working my place closeto five years now and you saying you don't have a suit of your own? ChristAlmighty, boy! Why you wouldn't have a pot to piss in if it weren't for me, nowwould you? Christ Almighty! You can't go to a funeral less you're wearing agood Sunday suit. You take this twenty dollars now and you go and buy yourselfone. Don't take all day now. And don't go thinking this here's a gift, cause itaint. I'm taking it out of your wages. Now go on. Get moving."

So he had pocketed the twenty dollars, his features as calm and natural asunsifted earth in spite of the unexpected urgency of Mr. Dobbs' voice. It isonly a suit for a funeral, after all, and for a man he never knew. He almostlaughs at the thought. Then he crosses the old railroad tracks and turns downDancy Street, past the red brick and the white awnings of the U.S. Post Office,past the unpainted clapboard austerity of Waldroop's Feed Mill, some men inshort-sleeved shirts loading their wagons with cornmeal and flour and oats andlard, and when he nears the blackgreen porch of Laughlin's General Store, hestops. A couple of men in brown or beige hats are squatting down near the edgeof the porch, a couple more are sitting on a hardwood bench set up against thewall, another is standing in the doorway, half-in, half-out, the screen doorresting against his shoulder. The men seem content to pass the morning talking,older men they are, though not older than Mr. Dobbs, some chewing on dry stalksof grass, some not. They are talking about the murder of one Thomas ChristianCavanaugh, whose funeral is the reason Blue Henry needs a suit.

"Who do you s'pose done it?" says one with big red ears and bald and his scalppatchy with sunburn. His name is Jake.

"Could've been anyone in this here town," says a second voice. "That's the wayI see it. Why most anyone in this here town would of been proud to pull thattrigger."

"Well it don't matter to me who done the shooting or why he done it," says theone in the doorway. "Done is done. That's what I always say."

The other men mumble in stubborn agreement, their pebbly-colored eyes narrowingfiercely, their collective pride hurt, it seems, because they had been left outof the shooting. Then a few words of inveterate speculation from one of the menon the bench, not the one with the big red ears, this one is packing the bowl ofa pipe with tobacco as he talks, the smell of stale smoke imbedded in his skin,an emptied pack of Granger Rough Cut in his shirt pocket.

"Well you'd have to say the fellow who done it had a pretty sharp eye whateverthe reason. I've been down to where they pulled him out of the ditch and therewasn't any cover for had to been two hundred yards back on either side of theroad. I figure whoever pulled the trigger he had to been waiting up in one ofthem live oaks on the Dobbs place. Had to had eyes like a goddamn panthertoo."

"Aint no one alive coulda done the kinda shooting you talking about, Earl,"says Jake.

"Someone did it," says the second voice. The others nodding in unison, as ifthe unpretentious and somewhat vacantly expressed opinion that someone had donesomething was unequivocal proof of the doing. Then Earl continues.

"I figure how he had to been waiting up in them trees most of the day, andmaybe he was getting stiff from sitting so long, and then again maybe hewasn't, but when he heard the steady hum of that black I-talian two-seatercoming up the road, and when he saw how it was Mr. Thomas Christian Cavanaughsitting sweet and pretty all by hisself, a goddamn clay pigeon sitting there,why he took up his Winchester, the kind with a silver breech, and whoever itwas he just opened up and fired."

And with that the five men on the porch sink into a profound, if not astonishedsilence and contemplate the improbable death of Mr. Thomas Christian Cavanaugh.Blue Henry almost laughs at the mixture of awe and confusion spreading acrosstheir faces, but he too wonders who in the world could have shot at and killedsomeone from so a great distance, and at night too. Then he wonders how thefive men could know all about the gun which had killed the unfortunate Mr.Cavanaugh and at the same time not know whose it was, how many Winchesters werethere had a silver breech, and he is about to ask them outright when a blackModel T truck with some pinewood side panels pulls up and the gravel crunchingunder the tires, but the driver he doesn't exactly get out, he cracks open theblack door and stands up in the wedge of space between the door and the cab,him standing there on the greased side-step in a grease-stained fedora andwaving at the men on the porch and his voice squawking away, say what you boysdoing sitting there like lumps, hadn't you heard, there was some question aboutwhether Mr. Cavanaugh was really dead or not, Farley Atkins said he saw himlast night, he was coming home with his wife from her brother's house and thenext thing he knew that blasted I-talian two-seater came blowing the dust offhis front fender and there was Cavanaugh laughing like the devil to beat all,his wife didn't see it, she was asleep, but Farley swears by it, they allgathering down at Cooper's Funeral Parlor right now, they want to see the bodybut the Sheriff he aint letting them in, I don't know what's going to happen,but everybody's got a shotgun or a Winchester or something, I guess maybe theygonna see Cavanaugh in the ground one way or another. And with that the fellowin the truck slammed shut the door and his wheels spinning and the dust kickingup and off he went.

Cooper's Funeral Parlor was a one-story, brick building shaped like an el, andthe bricks were painted a shiny, slick white. Out back there were dead azaleasup under the windows, and a hearse parked in the alley, and in the front therewas a small, four-column porch and a scattering of white stone flower pots uparound each column, though the pots were empty now except for the dust of a fewunwatered chrysanthemums. There was also a narrow walk made from brick thatwasn't painted white, the walk running from the steps to the street, the brickcrumbling in places from the heat.

Half-a-dozen cars were parked along the curb and the Model T truck and a couplemore cars had gone over onto the grass. A dozen rough-and-readies in workshirts and felt hats stood in front of the porch, their shirts stained withsweat and liquor and tobacco juice, the stains all up and down their backs andhalf-crescent moons under their arms, and them glaring at the white of thefuneral parlor and the sun glinting off their shotguns. In the shade of thefuneral parlor porch stood Sheriff D. W. Griggs, a skinny old bag of a manabout sixty with a few strands of greasy white hair combed from one ear to theother and a few age spots or warts which had broken out on his neck, but withhim in the shade and the others in the glare of the sun, it was impossible tosee if he had a gun or not.