Part of the set included a two-story barracks with barred windows, constructed in the distance, and two upended cast-iron sweatboxes set in concrete. Alafair had left the house before I had and was sitting behind a camera with a clipboard on her knee. Desmond had interrupted a scene and was telling an actor to start over again. The actor was young and handsome and did not look like a convict who would have been on the Red Hat gang at Angola Farm many decades ago.
“You’re putting me to sleep, Zeb,” Desmond said. “This is a hara-kiri moment. When you get in the hack’s face, you know you’re headed for the sweatbox. We’re talking about hundred-and-thirty-degree heat, a shit bucket between your ankles, a hole the diameter of a cigar to breathe through, your butt and knees frying against hot metal. But you hate the captain so much you’ll accept all that pain in order to keep your self-respect. So far you’re not showing either me or the audience the brave man you’re supposed to be.”
“I’ll try to do better,” the actor said.
“?‘Try’ is the wrong word,” Des said, his pale blue eyes widening.
“Yes, sir,” the actor said.
Desmond stepped behind the camera. “Start,” he said.
The captain sat astride a horse that must have been seventeen hands. He wore a long-sleeve crimson shirt and a Stetson and shades. Unlike the other personnel, he was not armed. A quirt was stuck in his boot. Farther down the levee, three women were picking buttercups and placing them in a straw basket. The captain’s shadow fell across the young actor named Zeb.
“Was you eyeballing them ladies?” the captain asked.
“No, sir,” Zeb said.
“I think you was. One of them is the warden’s wife, son.”
“I ain’t eyeballed no free people, boss,” Zeb said.
“Calling me a liar?”
Zeb shook his head.
“I didn’t hear you,” the captain said.
“No, sir, I ain’t said that.”
“Captain LeBlanc says you was talking during bell count.”
“Wasn’t me, Cap.”
“You’ve seen me make a Christian out of a nigger. I can do it to you, too.”
“Wasn’t eyeballing. Wasn’t talking at morning count. Wasn’t doing nothing but my fucking time, boss man.”
“Cut,” Desmond said.
Zeb waited expectantly.
“I could get more vitality out of an electrified corpse,” Desmond said. He walked to the captain’s horse. “Give me your quirt.”
The actor playing the captain slipped the quirt from his boot and handed it to Desmond. The handle was knurled; a leather tassel hung from the tip. Desmond stuck the quirt in Zeb’s hand. “Hit me.”
“Pardon?” Zeb replied, half smiling.
“Hit me! In the face! Hard!”
“I cain’t do that.”
Desmond clenched Zeb’s fingers into the handle of the quirt. “You think this is funny?”
“No, sir.”
Desmond released Zeb’s hand and popped him in the face. “Now hit me with the quirt.”
“No.”