But the habit of illegal killing grows
when it gets started.
"It's grown on you. You're fixing to lynch your
first white man now. If you do, you'll lynch an-
other easier. You'll lynch one for murder and the
next for stealing hogs and the next because he's
unpopular and the next because he happens to
dun you for a debt. And in five years life will be
as cheap in Watson County as it is in a New York
slum where they feed immigrants to the factories.
You'll all be toting guns and grudges and trying to
lynch each other.
"The place to stop the thing is where it starts.
You can't have it both ways--you've got to stand
pat on the law, or else see the law spit on right
and left, in the end, and NOBODY safe. It's
either law or--"
"But," says Grimes, "there's a higher law than
that on the statute books. There's--"
"There's a lot of flub-dub," says the colonel,
"about higher laws and unwritten laws. But we've
got high enough law written if we live up to it.
There's--"
"Colonel Tom Buckner," says Buck Hightower,
"what kind of law was it when you shot Ed Howard
fifteen years ago? What--"
"You're out of order," says the chairman,
"Colonel Buckner has the floor. And I'll remind
you, Buck Hightower, that, on the occasion you drag
in, Colonel Buckner didn't do any talking about
higher laws or unwritten laws.
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