The Reivers

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

It was Ned. What he had with him was a horse.

Chapter 6

We were all in the kitchen. "Good Godalmighty," Boon said. "You swapped Boss's automobile for a horse?" He had to say it twice even. Because Ned was still looking at Minnie's tooth. I mean, he was waiting for it again. Maybe Miss Reba had said something to her or maybe Minnie had spoken herself. What I do remember is the rich instantaneous glint of gold out of the middle of whatever Minnie said, in the electric light of the kitchen, as if the tooth itself had gained a new luster, lambence from the softer light of the lamp in the outside darkness, like the horse's eyes had—this, and its effect on Ned.

It had stopped him cold for that moment, instant, like basilisk. So had it stopped me when I first saw it, so I knew what Ned was experiencing. Only his was more so. Because I realised this dimly too, even at only eleven: that I was too far asunder, not merely in race but in age, to feel what Ned felt; I could only be awed, astonished and pleased by it; I could not, like Ned, participate in that tooth. Here, in the ancient battle of the sexes, was a foe-man worthy of his steel; in the ancient mystic solidarity of race, here was a high priestess worth dying for—if such was your capacity for devotion: which, it was soon obvious, was not what Ned intended (anyway hoped) to do with Minnie. So Boon had to repeat before Ned heard—or anyway noticed—him,

"You know good as me," Ned said, "that Boss dont want no automobile. He bought that thing because he had to, because Colonel Sartoris made him. He had to buy that automobile to put Colonel Sartoris back in his place he had done upstarted from. What Bass likes is a. horse—and I dont mean none of these high-named harness plugs you and Mr Maury has in that livery stable: but a horse. And I got him one. The minute he sees this horse, he's gonter and Mr Maury has in that livery stable: but a horse. And could get a-faolt of it before somebody else done it—" It was like a dream, a nightmare; you know it is, and if you can only touch something hard, real, actual, unaltered, you can wake yourself; Boon and I had the same idea, instantaneous: I moved quicker only because there was less of me to put in motion. Ned stopped us; he read two minds: "No need to go look," he said. "He done already come and got it." Boon, frozen in midstride, glared at me, the two of us mutual in one horrified unbelief while I fumbled in my pocket. But the switch key was there. "Sho," Ned said, "be never needed that thing. He was a expert. He claimed he knowed how to reach his hand in behind the lock and turn it on from the back. He done it, too. I didn't believe it neither, until I seen it. It never give him no trouble a-tall. He even throwed in the halter with the horse—"

We—Boon and I—were not running, but fast enough, Miss Reba and Miss Corrie too, to the front door. The automobile was gone. That was when I realised that Miss Reba and Miss Corrie were there too, and that they had said nothing whatever themselves—no surprise, shock; watching and listening, not missing any part of it but not saying anything at all, as if they belonged to a different and separate society, kind, from Boon and me and Ned and Grandfather's automobile and the horse (whoever it belonged to) and had no concern with us and our doings but entertainment; and I remembered how that was exactly the way Mother would watch me and my brothers and whatever neighborhood boys were involved, not missing anything, quite constant and quite dependable, even warmly so, bright and kind but insulate until the moment, the need arrived to abolish the bone and (when necessary) stanch the consequent blood.

We went back to the kitchen, where we had left Ned and Minnie. We could already hear Ned: "—money you talking about, Good-looking, I got it or I can get it. Lemme get this horse put up and fed and me and you gonter step out and let that tooth do its shining amongst something good enough to match it, like a dish of catfish or maybe hog meat if it likes hog meat better—"

"All right," Boon said. "Go get that horse. Where does the man live?"

"Which man?" Ned said. "What you want with him?"

"To get Boss's automobile back. Ill decide then whether to send you to jail here or take you back to Jefferson and let Boss have the fun."

"Whyn't you stop talking a minute and listen to me?" Ned said. "In course I knows where the man lives: didn't I just trade a horse from him this evening? Let him alone. We dont want him yet. We wont need him until after the race. Because we aint just got the horse: he throwed in the horse race too. A man at Possum got a horse waiting right this minute to run against him as soon as we get there. In case you ladies dont know where Possum's at, it's where the railroad comes up from Jefferson and crosses the Memphis one where you changes cars unlessen you comes by automobile like we done—"

"All right," Boon said. "A man at Possum—"

"Oh," Miss Reba said. "Parsham."

"That's right," Ned said. "Where they has the bird-dog trials. It aint no piece. —got a horse done already challenged this un to a three-heat race, fifty dollars a heat, winner take all. But that aint nothing: just a hundred and fifty dollars. What we gonter do is win back that automobile."

"How?" Boon said. "How the hell are you going to use tiie horse to win the automobile back from the man that has already give you the horse for it?"

"Because the man dont believe the horse can run. Why you think he swapped me as cheap as a automobile? Why didn't he just keep the horse and win him a automobile of his own, if he wanted one, and have both of them—a horse and a automobile too?"

"Ill bite," Boon said. "Why?"

"I just told you. This horse done already been beat twice by that Possum horse because never nobody knowed how to make him run. So naturally the man will believe that if the horse wouldn't run them other two times, he ain't gonter run this time neither. So all we got to do is, bet him the horse against Boss's automobile. Which he will be glad to bet because naturally he wouldn't mind owning the horse back too, long as he's already got the automobile, especially when it aint no more risk than just having to wait at the finish line until the horse finally comes up to where he can catch him and tie him behind the automobile and come on back to Memphis—"

This was the first time Miss Reba spoke. She said, "Jesus."

"—because he dont believe I can make that horse run neither. But unlessen I done got rusty on my trading and made a mistake I dont know about, he dont disbelieve it enough not to be at Possum day after tomorrow to find out. And if you cant scrap up enough extra boot amongst these ladies here to make him good interested in betting that automobile against it, you better hadn't never laid eyes on Boss Priest in your born life. It would have tooken a braver man than me to just took his automobile back to him. But maybe this horse will save you. Because the minute I laid my eyes on that horse, it put me in mind of—"

"Hee hee hee," Boon said, in that harsh and savage parody. "You give away Boss's automobile for a horse that cant run, and now you're fixing to give the horse back providing I can scrape up enough boot to interest him—"

"Let me finish," Ned said. Boon stopped. "You gonter let me finish?" Ned said.

"Finish then," Boon said. "And make it—"

"—put me in mind of a mule I use to own," Ned said. Now they both stopped, looking at each other; we all watched them. After a moment Ned said, gently, almost dreamily: "These ladies wasn't acquainted with that mule. Naturally, being young ladies like they is, not to mention so fur away as Yoknapatawpha County. It's too bad Boss or Mr Maury aint here now to tell them about him."

I could have done that. Because the mule was one of our family legends. It was back when Father and Ned were young men, before Grandfather moved in from McCaslin to become a Jefferson banker. One day, during Cousin McCaslin's (Cousin Zack's father's) absence, Ned bred the mare of his matched standard-bred carriage team to the farm jack. When the consequent uproar exhausted itself and the mule colt was foaled. Cousin McCaslin made Ned buy it from him at ten cents a week subtracted from Ned's wages. It took Ned three years, by which time the mule had consistently beaten every mule matched against him for fifteen or twenty miles around, and was now being challenged by mules from forty and fifty, and beating them.

You were born too late to be acquainted with mules and so comprehend the startling, the even shocking, import of this statement. A mule which will gallop for a half-mile in the single direction elected by its rider even one time becomes a neighborhood legend; one that will do it consistently time after time is an incredible phenomenon. Because, unlike a horse, a mule is far too intelligent to break its heart for glory running around the rim of a mile-long saucer. In fact, I rate mules second only to rats in intelligence, the mule followed in order by cats, dogs, and horses last—assuming of course that you accept my definition of intelligence: which is the ability to cope with environment: which means to accept environment yet still retain at least something of personal liberty.

The rat of course I rate first. He lives in your house without helping you to buy it or build it or repair it or keep the taxes paid; he eats what you eat without helping you raise it or buy it or even haul it into the house; you cannot get rid of him; were he not a cannibal, he would long since have inherited the earth. The cat is third, with some of the same qualities but a weaker, punier creature; he neither toils nor spins, he is a parasite on you but he does not love you; he would die, cease to exist, vanish from the earth (I mean, in his so-called domestic form) but so far he has not had to. (There is the fable, Chinese I think, literary I am sure: of a period on earth when the dominant creatures were cats: who after ages of trying to cope with the anguishes of mortality—famine, plague, war, injustice, folly, greed—in a word, civilised government— convened a congress of the wisest cat philosophers to see if anything could be done: who after long deliberation agreed that the dilemma, the problems themselves were insoluble and the only practical solution was to give it up, relinquish, abdicate, by selecting from among the lesser creatures a species, race optimistic enough to believe that the mortal predicament could be solved and ignorant enough never to learn better. Which is why the cat lives with you, is completely dependent on you for food and shelter but lifts no paw for you and loves you not; in a word, why your cat looks at you the way it does.)

The dog I rate fourth. He is courageous, faithful, monogamous in his devotion; he is your parasite too: his failure (as compared to the cat) is that he will work for you—I mean, willingly, gladly, ape any trick, no matter how silly, just to please you, for a pat on the head; as sound and first-rate a parasite as any, his failure is that he is a sycophant, believing that he has to show gratitude also; he will debase and violate his own dignity for your amusement; he fawns in return for a kick, he will give his life for you in battle and grieve himself to starvation over your bones. The horse I rate last. A creature capable of but one idea at a time, his strongest quality is timidity and fear. He can be tricked and cajoled by a child into breaking his limbs or his heart too in running too far too fast or jumping things too wide or hard or high; he will eat himself to death if not guarded like a baby; if he had only one gram of the intelligence of the most backward rat, he would be the rider.

The mule I rate second. But second only because you can make him work for you. But that too only within his own rigid self-set regulations. He will not permit himself to eat too much. He will draw a wagon or a plow, but he will not run a race. He will not try to jump anything he does not indubitably know beforehand he can jump; he will not enter any place unless he knows of his own knowledge what is on the other side; he will work for you patiently for ten years for the chance to kick you once. In a word, free of the obligations of ancestry and the responsibilities of posterity, he has conquered not only life but death too and hence is immortal; were he to vanish from the earth today, the same chanceful biological combination which produced him yesterday would produce him a thousand years hence, unaltered, unchanged, incorrigible still within the limitations which he himself had proved and tested; still free, still coping. Which is why Ned's mule was unique, a phenomenon. Put a dozen mules on a track and when the word Go is given, a dozen different directions will be taken, like a scattering of disturbed bugs on the surface of a pond; the one of the twelve whose direction happens to coincide with the track, will inevitably win.

But not Ned's mule. Father said it ran like a horse, but without the horse's frantic frenzy, the starts and falterings and the frightened heartbreaking bursts of speed. It ran a race like a job: it sprang into what it had already calculated would be the exact necessary speed at Ned's touch (or voice or whatever his signal was) and that speed never altered until it crossed the finish line and Ned stopped it. And nobody, not even Father—who was Ned's, well, not groom exactly but rather his second and betting agent— knew just what Ned did to it. Naturally the legend of that grew and mounted (doing no harm to their stable either) also. I mean, of just what magic Ned had found or invented to make the mule run completely unlike any known mule. But they—we—never learned what it was, nor did anybody else ever ride as its jockey, even after Ned began to put on years and weight, until the mule died, unbeaten at twenty-two years of age; its grave (any number of Edmondses have certainly shown it to you) is out there at McCaslin now.

That's what Ned meant and Boon knew it, and Ned knew he knew it. They stared at each other. "This aint that mule," Boon said. "This is a horse."

"This horse got the same kind of sense that mule had," Ned said. "He aint got as much of it but it's the same kind." They stared at each other. Then Boon said,

"Let's go look at him." Minnie lighted a lamp. With Boon carrying it, we all went out to the back porch and into the yard, Minnie and Miss Corrie and Miss Reba too. The moon was just getting up now and we could see a little. The horse was tied beneath a locust tree in the corner. Its eyes glowed, then flashed away; it snorted and we could hear one nervous foot.

"You ladies kindly stand back a minute, please," Ned said. "He aint used to much society yet." We stopped, Boon holding the lamp high; the eyes glowed coldly and nervously again as Ned walked toward it, talking to it until he could touch its shoulder, stroking it, still talking to it until he had the halter in his hand. "Now, dont run that lamp at him," he told Boon. "Just walk up and hold the light where the ladies can see a horse if they wants to. And when I says horse, I means horse. Not them plugs they calls horses back yonder in Jefferson."

"Stop talking and bring him out where we can see him," Boon said.

"You're looking at him now," Ned said. "Hold the lamp up." Nevertheless he brought the horse out and moved him a little. Oh yes, I remember him: a 'three-year-old three-quarters-bred (at least, maybe more: I wasn't expert enough to tell) chestnut gelding, not large, not even sixteen hands, but with the long neck for balance and the laid-back shoulders for speed and the big hocks for drive (and, according to Ned, Ned McCaslin for heart and will). So that even at only eleven, I believe I was thinking exactly what Boon proved a moment later that he was. He looked at the horse. Then he looked at Ned. But when he spoke his voice was no more than a murmur:

"This horse is—"

"Wait," Miss Corrie said. That's right. I hadn't even noticed Otis. That was something else about him: when you noticed him, it was just a second before it would have been too late. But that was still not what was wrong about him.

"God, yes," Miss Reba said. I tell you, women are wonderful. "Get out of here," she told Otis.

"Go in the house, Otis," Miss Corrie said.

"You bet," Otis said. "Come on, Lucius."

"No," Miss Corrie said. "Just you. Go on now. You can go up to your room now."

"It's early yet," Otis said. "I aint sleepy neither."

"I aint going to tell you twice," Miss Reba said. Boon waited until Otis was in the house. We all did, Boon holding the lamp high so its light fell mostly on his and Ned's faces, speaking again in that heatless monotone, he and Ned both:

"This horse is stolen," Boon murmured.

"What would you call that automobile?" Ned murmured.

Yes, wonderful; Miss Reba's tone was no more than Boon's and Ned's: only brisker: "You got to get it out of town."

"That's just exactly the idea I brought him here with," Ned said. "Soon as I eats my supper, me and him gonter start for Possum."

"Have you got any idea how far it is to Possum, let alone in what direction?" Boon said.

"Does it matter?" Ned said. "When Boss left town without taking that automobile with him right in his hand, did your mind worry you about how far Memphis was?"

Miss Reba moved. "Come in the house," she said. "Can anybody see him here?" she said to Ned.

"Nome," Ned said. "I got that much sense. I done already seen to that." He tied the horse to the tree again and we followed Miss Reba up the back steps.

"The kitchen," she said. "It's getting time for company to start coming in." In the kitchen she said to Minnie: "Sit in my room where you can answer the door. Did you give me the keys back or have you— All right. Dont give no credit to anybody unless you know them; make the change before you even pull the cork if you can. See who's in the house now too. If anybody asks for Miss Corrie, just say her friend from Chicago's in town."

"In case any of them dont believe you, tell them to come around the alley and knock on the back door," Boon said.

"For Christ's sake," Miss Reba said. "Haven't you got troubles enough already to keep you busy? If you dont want Corrie having company, why the hell dont you buy her outright instead of just renting her once every six months?"

"All right, all right," Boon said.

"And see where everybody in the house is, too," Miss Reba told Minnie.

"I'll see about him, myself," Miss Corrie said. "Make him stay there," Miss Reba said. "He's already played all the hell with horses I'm going to put up with in one day." Miss Corrie went out. Miss Reba went herself and closed the door and stood looking at Ned. "You mean, you were going to walk to Parsham and lead that horse?"

"That's right," Ned said. "Do you know how far it is to Parsham?"

"Do it matter?" Ned said again. "I dont need to know how far it is to Possum. All I needs is Possum. That's why I changed my mind about leading him: it might be far. At first I thought, being as you're in the connection business—"

"What the hell do you mean?" Miss Reba said. "I run a house. Anybody that's too polite to call it that, I dont want in my front door or back door neither."

"I mean, one of your ladies' connections," Ned said. "That might have a saddle horse or even a plow horse or even a mule I could ride whilst Lucius rides the colt, and go to Possum that way. But we aint only got to run a solid mile the day after tomorrow, we got to do it three times and at least two of them gonter have to be before the next horse can. So I'm gonter walk him to Possum."

"All right," Miss Reba said. "You and the horse are in Parsham. AH you need now is a iorse race,"

"Any man with a horse can find a horse race anywhere," Ned said. "All he needs is for both of them to be able to stand up long enough to start."

"Can you make this one stand up that long?" 'That's right," Ned said.

"Can you make him run while he's standing up?"

"That's right," Ned said. "How do you know you can?"

"I made that mule run," Ned said.

"What mule?" Miss Reba said. Miss Corrie came in, shutting the door behind her. "Shut it good," Miss Reba said. She said to Ned: "All right. Tell me about that race." Now Ned looked at her, for a full quarter of a minute; the spoiled immune privileged-retainer impudence of his relations with Boon and the avuncular bossiness of those with me, were completely gone.

"You sounds like you want to talk sense for a while," he said.

"Try me," Miss Reba said.

"All right," Ned said. "A man, another rich white man, I dont call his name but I can find him; aint but one horse like that in twenty miles of Possum, let alone ten—owns a blood horse too that has already run twice against this horse last whiter and beat him twice. That Possum horse beat this horse just enough bad the first time, for the other rich white man that owned that horse to bet twice as much the second time. And got beat just enough more bad that second time, that when this horse turns up in Possum day after tomorrow, wanting to run him another race, that Possum rich white man wont be just willing to run his horse again, he'll likely be proud and ashamed both to take the money."

"All right," Miss Reba said. "Go on."

"That's all," Ned said. "I can make this horse run. Only dont nobody but me know it yet. So just in case you ladies would like to make up a little jackpot, me and Lucius and Mr Hogganbeck can take that along with us too."

"That includes the one that's got that automobile now too?" Miss Reba said. "I mean, among the ones that dont know you can make it run?"

"That's right," Ned said.

"Then why didn't he save everybody trouble and send you and the horse both to Parsham, since he believes all he's got to do to have the horse and the automobile both, is to run that race?" Now there was no sound; they just looked at each other. "Come on," Miss Reba said. "You got to say something. What's your name?"

"Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi," Ned said.

"Well?" Miss Reba said.

"Maybe he couldn't afford it," Ned said.

"Hell," Boon said. "Neither have we—"

"Shut up," Miss Reba said to Boon. She said to Ned: "I thought you said he was rich."

"I'm talking about the one I swapped with," Ned said.

"Did he buy the horse from the rich one?"

"He had the horse," Ned said.

"Did he give you a paper of any kind when you swapped?"

"I got the horse," Ned said.

"You cant read," Miss Reba said. "Can you?"

"I got the horse," Ned said. Miss Reba stared at him.

"You've got the horse. You've got him to Parsham. You say you got a system that will make him run. Will the same system get that automobile to Parsham too?"

"Use your sense," Ned said. "You got plenty of it. You done already seen more and seen it quicker than anybody else here. Just look a little harder and see that them folks I swapped that horse from—"

"Them?" Miss Reba said. "You said a man." But Ned hadn't even stopped:

"—is in exactly the same fix we is: they got to go back home sometime too sooner or later."

"Whether his name is Ned William McCaslin or Boon Hogganbeck or whether it's them folks I swapped the horse from, to go back home with just the horse or just the automobile aint going to be enough: he's got to have both of them. Is that it?" Miss Reba said.

"Not near enough," Ned said. "Aint that what I been trying to tell you for two hours now?" Miss Reba stared at Ned. She breathed quietly, once.

"So now you're going to walk him to Parsham, with every cop in west Tennessee snuffing every road out of Memphis for horse—"

"Reba!" Miss Corrie said.

"—by daylight tomorrow morning."

"That's right," Ned said. "It's long past too late for nobody to get caught now. But you doing all right. You doing fine. You tell me." She was looking at him; she breathed twice this time; she didn't even move her eyes when she spoke to Miss Corrie:

"That brakeman—"

"What brakeman?" Miss Corrie said.

"You know the one I mean. That his mother's uncle or cousin or something—"

"He's not a brakeman," Miss Corrie said. "He's a flagman. On the Memphis Special, to New York. He wears a uniform too, just like the conductor—"

"All right," Miss Reba said. "Flagman." Now she was talking to Boon: "One of Corrie's . . ." She looked at Ned a moment. "Connections. Maybe I like that word of yours, after all. —His mother's uncle or something is vice president or something of the railroad that goes through Parsham—"

"His uncle is division superintendent," Miss Corrie said.

"Division superintendent," Miss Reba said. "That is, between the times when he's out at the driving park here or in any of the other towns his trains go through where he can watch horse races while his nephew is working his way up from the bottom with the silver spoon already in his mouth as long as he dont bite down on it hard enough to draw too much notice. See what I mean?"

"The baggage car," Boon said.

"Right," Miss Reba said. "Then they'll be in Parshain and already out of sight by daylight tomorrow."

"Even with the baggage car, it will still cost money," Boon said. "Then to stay hid until the race, and then we got to put up a hundred and fifty for the race itself and all I got is fifteen or twenty dollars." He rose. "Go get that horse," he told Ned. "Where did you say the man you gave that automobile lives?"

"Sit down," Miss Reba said. "Jesus, the trouble you're already in when you get back to Jefferson, and you still got time to count pennies." She looked at Ned. "What did you say your name was?"

Ned told her again. "You wants to know about that mule. Ask Boon Hogganbeck about him."

"Dont you ever make him call you mister?" she said to Boon.

"I always does," Ned said. "Mister Boon Hogganbeck. Ask him about that mule."

She turned to Miss Corrie. "Is Sam in town tonight?"

"Yes," Miss Corrie said. "Can you get hold of him now?"

"Yes," Miss Corrie said.

Miss Reba turned to Boon. "You get out of here. Take a walk for a couple of hours. Or go over to Birdie Watts's if you want. Only, for Christ's sake dont get drunk. What the hell do you think Corrie eats and pays her rent with while you're down there in that Missippi swamp stealing automobiles and kidnapping children? air?"

"I aint going nowhere," Boon said. "God damn it," he said to Ned, "go get that horse."

"I dont need to entertain him," Miss Corrie said. "I can use the telephone." It was not smug nor coy: it was just serene. She was much too big a girl, there was much too much of her, for smugness or coyness. But she was exactly right for serenity.

"You sure?" Miss Reba said. "Yes," Miss Corrie said. "Then get at it," Miss Reba said.

"Come here," Boon said. Miss Corrie stopped. "Come here, I said," Boon said. She approached then, just outside Boon's reach; I noticed suddenly that she wasn't looking at Boon at all: she was looking at me. Which was perhaps why Boon, still sitting, was able to reach suddenly and catch her arm before she could evade him, drawing her toward him, she struggling belatedly, as a girl that big would have to, still watching me.

"Turn loose," she said. "I've got to telephone."

"Sure, sure," Boon said, "plenty of time for that," drawing her on; until, with that counterfeit composure, that desperate willing to look at once forceful and harmless, with which you toss the apple in your hand (or any other piece of momentary distraction) toward the bull you suddenly find is also on your side of the fence, she leaned briskly down and kissed him, pecked him quickly on the top of the head, already drawing back. But again too late, his hand dropping and already gripping one cheek of her bottom, in sight of us all, she straining back and looking at me again with something dark and beseeching in her eyes—shame, grief, I dont know what—while the blood rushed slowly into her big girl's face that was not really plain at all except at first. But only a moment; she was still going to be a lady. She even struggled like a lady. But she was simply too big, too strong for even anyone as big and strong as Boon to hold with just one hand, with no more grip than that; she was free.

"Aint you ashamed of yourself," she said.

"Cant you save that long enough for her to make one telephone call even?" Miss Reba said to Boon. "If you're going to run fevers over her purity, why the hell dont you set her up in a place of her own where she can keep pure and still eat?" Then to Miss Corrie: "Go on and telephone. It's already nine oclock."

Already late for all we had to do. The place had begun to wake up—"jumping," as you say nowadays. But decorously: no uproar either musical or simply convivial; Mr Binford's ghost still reigned, still adumbrated his callipy-gian grottoes since only two of the ladies actually knew he was gone and the customers had not missed him yet; we had heard the bell and Minnie's voice faintly at the front door and the footsteps of the descending nymphs themselves had penetrated from the stairs; and even as Miss Corrie stood with the knob in her hand, the chink of glasses interspersed in orderly frequence the bass rumble of the entertained and the shriller pipes of their entertainers beyond the door she opened and went through and then closed again. Then Minnie came back too; it seems that the unoccupied ladies would take turn-about as receptionists during the emergency.

You see how indeed the child is father to the man, and mother to the woman also. Back there in Jefferson I had thought that the reason corruption, Non-virtue, had met so puny a foeman in me as to be not even worthy of the name, was because of my tenderness and youth's concomitant innocence. But that victory at least required the three hours between the moment I learned of Grandfather sep's death and that one when the train began to r and I realised that Boon would be in unchallenged rx. sion of the key to Grandfather's automobile for at four days. While here were Miss Reba and Miss Co. foemen you would say already toughened, even if wisened by constant daily experience to any wile or ass—., Non-virtue (or Virtue) might invent against them, already! sacked and pillaged: who thirty minutes before didn't even' know that Ned existed, let alone the horse. Not to mentioj the complete stranger whom Miss Corrie had just left the room tranquilly confident to conquer with no other weapon than the telephone.

She had been gone nearly two minutes now. Minnie had taken the lamp and gone back to the back porch; I noticed that Ned was not in the room either. "Minnie," Miss Reba said toward the back door, "was any of that chicken—"

"Yessum," Minnie said. "I already fixed him a plate. He setting down to it now." Ned said something. We couldn't hear it. But we could hear Minnie: "If all you got to depend on for appetite is me, you gonter starve twice between here and morning." We couldn't hear Ned. Now Miss Corrie had been gone almost four minutes. Boon stood up, quick.

"God damn it—" he said.

"Are you even jealous of a telephone?" Miss Reba said. "What the hell can he do to her through that damn gutta-percha earpiece?" But we could hear Minnie: a quick sharp flat sound, then her feet. She came in. She was breathing a little quick, but not much. "What's wrong?" Miss Reba said.

"Aint nothing wrong," Minnie said. "He like most of them. He got plenty of appetite but he cant seem to locate where it is."

"Give him a bottle of beer. Unless you're afraid to go back out there."

"I aint afraid," Minnie said. "He just nature-minded. Maybe a little extra. I'm used to it. A heap of them are that way: so nature-minded dont nobody get no rest until they goes to sleep."

"I bet you are," Boon said. "It's that tooth. That's the hell of women: you wont let well enough alone."

"What do you mean?" Miss Reba said.

"You know damn well what I mean," Boon said. "You dont never quit. You aint never satisfied. You dont never have no mercy on a damn man. Look at her: aint satisfied until she has saved and scraped to put a gold tooth, a gold tooth in the middle of her face just to drive crazy a poor ignorant country nigger—"

"—or spending five minutes talking into a wooden box just to dttve ctazy aaotriet poor ignorant covintry bastard that aint done nothing in the world but steal an automobile and now a horse. I never knew anybody that needed to get married as bad as you do."

"He sure do," Minnie said from the door. "That would cure him. I tried it twice and I sho learned my lesson—" Miss Corrie came in.

"All right," she said: serene, no more plain than a big porcelain lamp with the wick burning inside is plain. "He's coming too. He's going to help us. He—"

"Not me," Boon said. "The son of a bitch aint going to help me."

"Then beat it," Miss Reba said. "Get out of here. How you going to do it? walk back to Missippi or ride the horse? Go on. Sit down. You might as well while we wait for him. Tell us," she said to Miss Corrie.

You see? "He's not a brakeman! He's a flagman! He wears a uniform just the same as the conductor's. He's going to help us." All the world loves a lover, quoth (I think) the Swan: who saw deeper than any into the human heart. What pity he had no acquaintance with horses, to have added, All the world apparently loves a stolen race horse also. Miss Corrie told us; and Otis was in the room now though I hadn't seen him come in, with something still wrong about him though not noticing him until it was almost too late still wasn't it:

"We'll have to buy at least one ticket to Possum to have—"

"It's Parsham," Miss Reba said.

"All right," Miss Corrie said. "—something to check him as baggage on, like you do a trunk; Sam will bring the ticket and the baggage check with him. But it will be all right; an empty boxcar will be on a side track—Sam will know where—and all we have to do is get the horse in it and Sam said wall him up in one corner with planks so he cant slip down; Sam will have some planks and nails ready too; he said this was the best he could do at short notice because he didn't dare tell his uncle any more than he had to or his uncle would want to come too. So Sam says the only risk will be getting the horse from here to where the boxcar is waiting. He says it wont do for . . ." She stopped, looking at Ned.

"Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi," Ned said.

hours between the moment I learned of Grandfather Les-sep's death and that one when the train began to move and I realised that Boon would be in unchallenged possession of the key to Grandfather's automobile for at least four days. While here were Miss Reba and Miss Corrie: foemen you would say already toughened, even if not wisened by constant daily experience to any wile or assault Non-virtue (or Virtue) might invent against them, already sacked and pillaged: who thirty minutes before didn't even know that Ned existed, let alone the horse. Not to mention the complete stranger whom Miss Corrie had just left the room tranquilly confident to conquer with no other weapon than the telephone.

She had been gone nearly two minutes now. Minnie had taken the lamp and gone back to the back porch; I noticed that Ned was not in the room either. "Minnie," Miss Reba said toward the back door, "was any of that chicken—"

"Yessum," Minnie said. "I already fixed him a plate. He setting down to it now." Ned said something. We couldn't hear it. But we could hear Minnie: "If all you got to depend on for appetite is me, you gonter starve twice between here and morning." We couldn't hear Ned. Now Miss Corrie had been gone almost four minutes. Boon stood up, quick.

"God damn it—" he said.

"Are you even jealous of a telephone?" Miss Reba said. "What the hell can he do to her through that damn gutta-percha earpiece?" But we could hear Minnie: a quick sharp flat sound, then her feet. She came in. She was breathing a little quick, but not much. "What's wrong?" Miss Reba said.

"Aint nothing wrong," Minnie said. "He like most of them. He got plenty of appetite but he cant seem to locate where it is."

"Give him a bottle of beer. Unless you're afraid to go back out there."

"I aint afraid," Minnie said. "He just nature-minded. Maybe a little extra. I'm used to it. A heap of them are that way: so nature-minded dont nobody get no rest until they goes to sleep."

"I bet you are," Boon said. "It's that tooth. That's the hell of women: you wont let well enough alone."

"What do you mean?" Miss Reba said. "You know damn well what I mean," Boon said. "You dont never quit. You aint never satisfied. You dont never have no mercy on a damn man. Look at her: aint satisfied until she has saved and scraped to put a gold tooth, a gold tooth in the middle of her face just to drive crazy a poor ignorant country nigger—"

"—or spending five minutes talking into a wooden box just to drive crazy another poor ignorant country bastard that aint done nothing in the world but steal an automobile and now a horse. I never knew anybody that needed to get married as bad as you do."

"He sure do," Minnie said from the door. "That would cure him. I tried it twice and I sho learned my lesson—" Miss Corrie came in.

"All right," she said: serene, no more plain than a big porcelain lamp with the wick burning inside is plain. "He's coming too. He's going to help us. He—"

"Not me," Boon said. "The son of a bitch aint going to help me."

"Then beat it," Miss Reba said. "Get out of here. How you going to do it? walk back to Missippi or ride the horse? Go on. Sit down. You might as well while we wait for him. Tell us," she said to Miss Corrie.

You see? "He's not a brakeman! He's a flagman! He wears a uniform just the same as the conductor's. He's going to help us." All the world loves a lover, quoth (I think) the Swan: who saw deeper than any into the human heart. What pity he had no acquaintance with horses, to have added, All the world apparently loves a stolen race horse also. Miss Corrie told us; and Otis was in the room now though I hadn't seen him come in, with something still wrong about him though not noticing him until it was almost too late still wasn't it:

"We'll have to buy at least one ticket to Possum to have—"

"It's Parsham," Miss Reba said.

"All right," Miss Corrie said. "—something to check him as baggage on, like you do a trunk; Sam will bring the ticket and the baggage check with him. But it will be all right; an empty boxcar will be on a side track—Sam will know where—and all we have to do is get the horse in it and Sam said wall him up in one corner with planks so he cant slip down; Sam will have some planks and nails ready too; he said this was the best he could do at short notice because he didn't dare tell his uncle any more than he had to or his uncle would want to come too. So Sam says the only risk will be getting the horse from here to where the boxcar is waiting. He says it wont do for... "

She stopped, looking at Ned,

"Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi," Ned said.

". . . Ned to be walking along even a back street this late at night leading a horse; the first policeman they pass will stop him. So he—Sam—is bringing a blanket and he's going to wear his uniform and him and Boon and me will lead the horse to the depot and nobody will notice anything. Oh yes; and the passenger train will—"

"Jesus," Miss Reba said. "A whore, a pullman conductor and a Missippi swamp rat the size of a water tank leading a race horse through Memphis at midnight Sunday night, and nobody will notice it?"

"You stop!" Miss Corrie said.

"Stop what?" Miss Reba said.

"You know. Talking like that in front of—"

"Oh," Miss Reba said. "If he just dropped up here from Missippi with Boon on a friendly visit you might say, we might of could protected his ears. But using this place as headquarters while they steal automobiles and horses, he's got to take his chances like anybody else. What were you saying about the train?"

"Yes. The passenger train that leaves for Washington at four A.M. will pick the boxcar up and well all be in Possum before daylight."

"Parsham, God damn it," Miss Reba said. "We?"

"Aint you coming too?" Miss Corrie said.

Chapter 7

That's what we did. Though first Sam had to see the horse. He came in the back way, through the kitchen, carrying the horse blanket. He was in his uniform. He was almost as big as Boon.

So we—all of us again—stood once more in the back yard, Ned holding the lamp this time, to shine its light not on the horse but on Sam's brass-buttoned coat and vest and the flat cap with the gold lettering across the front. In fact, I had expected trouble with Ned over Sam and the horse, but I was wrong. "Who, me?" Ned said. "What for? We couldn't be no better off with a policeman himself leading the horse to Possum." On the contrary, the trouble we were going to have about Sam would be with Boon. Sam looked at the horse.

"That's a good horse," Sam said. "He looks like a damn good horse to me."

"Sure," Boon said. "He aint got no whistle nor bell neither on him. He aint even got a headlight. I'm surprised you can see him a-tall."

"What do you mean by that?" Sam said. "I dont mean nothing," Boon said. "Just what I said. You're an iron-horse man. Maybe you better go on to the depot without waiting for us."

"You has—" Miss Reba said. Then she started over: "Cant you see, the man's just trying to help you? going out of his way so that the minute you get back home, the first live animal you'll see wont be the sheriff? He's the one to be inviting you to get to hell back where you came from and take your goddamn horse along with you. Apologise."

"All right," Boon said. "Forget it."

"You call that an apology?" Miss Reba said. "What do you want?" Boon said. "Me to bend over and invite him to—"

"You hush! Right this minute!" Miss Corrie said.

"And you dont help none neither," Boon said. "You already got me and Miss Reba both to where we'll have to try to forget the whole English language before we can even pass the time of day."

"That's no lie," Miss Reba said. "That one you brought here from Arkansas was bad enough, with one hand in the icebox after beer and the other one reaching for whatever was little and not nailed down whenever anybody wasn't looking. And now Boon Hogganbeck's got to bring another one that's got me scared to even open my mouth."

"He didn't!" Miss Corrie said. "Otis dont take anything without asking first! Do you, Otis?"

"That's right," Miss Reba said. "Ask him. He certainly ought to know."

"Ladies, ladies, ladies," Sam said. "Does this horse want to go to Parsham tonight, or dont he?"

So we started. But at first Miss Corrie was still looking at Otis and me. "They ought to be in bed," she said.

"Sure," Miss Reba said. "Over in Arkansas or back down there in Missippi or even further than that, if I had my way. But it's too late now. You cant send one to bed without the other, and that one of Boon's owns part of the horse." Only at the last, Miss Reba couldn't go either. She and Minnie couldn't be spared. The place was jumping indeed now, but still discreetly, with Sabbath decorum: Saturday night's fading tide rip in one last spumy upfling against the arduous humdrum of day-by-day for mere bread and shetler.

So Ned and Boon put the blanket on the horse. Then from the sidewalk we—Ned and Otis and me—watched Boon and Sam in polyandrous . . . maybe not amity but at least armistice, Miss Corrie between them, leading the horse down the middle of the street from arc light to arc light through the Sunday evening quiet of Second and Third streets, toward the Union depot. It was after ten now; there were few lights, these only in the other boarding houses (I was experienced now; I was a sophisticate —not a connoisseur of course but at least cognizant; I recognised a place similar to Miss Reba's when I saw one). The saloons though were all dark. That is, I didn't know a saloon just by passing it; there were still a few degrees yet veiled to me; it was Ned who told us—Otis and me—they were saloons, and that they were closed. I had expected them to be neither one: neither closed nor open; remember, I had been in Memphis (or in Catalpa Street) less than six hours, without my mother or father either to instruct me; I was doing pretty well. "They calls it the blue law," Ned said. "What's a blue law?" I said.

"I dont know neither," Ned said. "Lessen it means they blewed in all the money Saturday night and aint none of them got enough left now to make it worth burning the coal oil."

"That's just the saloons," Otis said. "It dont hurt nobody that way. What they dont sell Sunday night they can just save it and sell it to somebody, maybe the same folks, Monday. But pugnuckling's different. You can sell it tonight and turn right around again and sell the same pug-nuckling again tomorrow. You aint lost nothing. Likely if they tried to put that blue law onto pugnuckling, the police would come in and stop them."

"What's pugnuckling?" I said.

"You knows a heap, dont you?" Ned said to Otis. "No wonder Arkansaw cant hold you. If the rest of the folks there knows as much as you do at your age, time they's twenty-one even Texas wont be big enough."

"------1," Otis said.

"What's pugnuckling?" I said.

"Try can you put your mind on knuckling up some feed for that horse," Ned said to me, still louder. "To try to keep him quiet long enough to get him to Possum, let alone into that train in the first place. That there railroad-owning conductor, flinging boxcars around without even taking his hand out of his pocket, is somebody reminded him of that? Maybe even a bucket of soap and water too, so your aunt"—he was talking to Otis now—"can take you around behind something and wash your mouth out."

"------1," Otis said.

"Or maybe even the nearest handy stick," Ned said.

"------1," Otis said. And sure enough, we met a policeman. I mean, Otis saw the policeman even before the policeman saw the horse. "Twenty-three skiddoo," Otis said. The policeman knew Miss Corrie. Then apparently he knew Sam too.

"Where you taking him?" he said. "Did you steal him?"

"Borrowed him," Sam said. They didn't stop. "We rode him to prayer meeting tonight and now we're taking him back home." We went on. Otis said Twenty-three skiddoo again.

"I never seen that before," he said. "Every policeman I ever seen before speaking to anybody, they give him something. Like Minnie and Miss Reba already having a bottle of beer waiting for him before he could even get his foot inside, even if Miss Reba cussed him before he come and cussed him again after he left. And ever since I got here last summer and found out about it, every day I go up to Court Square where that I-talian wop has got that fruit and peanut stand and, sho enough, here the policeman comes and without even noticing it, takes a apple or a handful of peanuts." He was almost trotting to keep up with us; he was that much smaller than me. I mean, he didn't seem so much smaller until you saw him trotting to keep up. There was something wrong about him. When it's you, you say to yourself Next year I'm going to be bigger than I am now simply because being bigger is not only natural, it's inevitable; it doesn't even matter that you cant imagine to yourself how or what you will look like then. And the same with other children; they cant help it either. But Otis looked like two or three years ago he had already reached where you wont be until next year, and since then he had been going backward. He was still talking. "So what I thought back then was that the only thing to be was a policeman. But I never taken long to get over that. It's too limited."

"Limited to what?" Ned said.

"To beer and apples and peanuts," Otis said. "Who's going to waste his time on beer and apples and peanuts?" He said Twenty-three skiddoo three times now. "This town is where the jack's at."

"Jacks?" Ned said. "In course they has jacks here. Dont Memphis need mules the same as anybody else?"

"Jack," Otis said. "Spondulicks. Cash. When I think about all that time I wasted in Arkansas before anybody ever told me about Memphis. That tooth. How much do you reckon that tooth by itself is worth? if she just walked into the bank and taken it out and laid it on the counter and said, Gimme change for it?"

"Yes," Ned said. "I mind a boy like you back there in Jefferson used to keep his mind on money all the time too. You know where he's at now?"

"Here in Memphis, if he's got any sense," Otis said. "He never got that far," Ned said. "The most he could get was into the state penitentiary at Parchman. And at the rate you sounds like going, that's where youll wind up too."

"But not tomorrow," Otis said. "Maybe not the next day neither. Twenty-three skiddoo, where even a durn policeman cant even pass by without a bottle of beer or a apple or a handful of peanuts put right in his hand before he can even ask for it. Them eighty-five cents them folks give me last night for pumping the pee a noler that that son of a bitch taken away from me this evening. That I might a even pumped that pee a noler free for nothing if I hadn't found out by pure accident that they was aiming to pay me for it; if I had just happened to step out the door a minute, I might a missed it. And if I hadn't even been there, they would still a give it to somebody, anybody that just happened to pass by. See what I mean? Sometime just thinking about it, I feel like just giving up, just quitting."

"Quitting what?" Ned said. "Quitting for what?"

"Just quitting," Otis said. "When I think of all them years I spent over there on a durn farm in Arkansas with Memphis right here across the river and I never even knowed it. How if I had just knowed when I was four or five years old, what I had to wait until just last year to find out about, sometimes I just want to give up and quit. But I reckon I wont. I reckon maybe I can make it up. How much you folks figger on making out of that horse?"

"Never you mind about that horse," Ned said. "And the making up you needs to do is to make back up that street to wherever it is you gonter sleep tonight, and go to bed." He even paused, half turning. "Do you know the way back?"

"There aint nothing there," Otis said. "I already tried it. They watch too close. It aint like over in Arkansas, when Aunt Corrie was still at Aunt Fittie's and I had that peep-hole. If you swapped that automobile for him, you must be figgering on at least two hundred—" This time Ned turned completely around. Otis sprang, leaped away, cursing Ned, calling him nigger—something Father and Grandfather must have been teaching me before I could remember because I dont know when it began, I just knew it was so: that no gentleman ever referred to anyone by his race or religion.

"Go on," I said. "They're leaving us." They were: almost two blocks ahead now and already turning a corner; we ran, trotted, Ned too, to catch up and barely did so: the depot was in front of us and Sam was talking to another man, in greasy overalls, with a lantern—a switchman, a railroad man anyway.

"See what I mean?" Ned said. "Can you imagine police sending out a man with a lantern to show us the way?" And you see what I mean too: all the world (I mean about a stolen race horse); who serves Virtue works alone, unaided, in a chilly vacuum of reserved judgment; where, pledge yourself to Non-virtue and the whole countryside boils with volunteers to help you. It seems that Sam was trying to persuade Miss Corrie to wait in the depot with Otis and me while they located the boxcar and loaded the horse into it, even voluntarily suggesting that Boon attend us with the protection of his size and age and sex: proving that Sam's half anyway of the polyandrous stalemate was amicable and trusting. But Miss Corrie would have no part of it, speaking for all of us. So we turned aside, following the lantern, through a gate into a maze of loading platforms and tracks; now Ned himself had to come forward and take the halter and quiet the horse to where we could move again in the aura now of the horse's hot ammoniac reek (you never smelled a frightened horse, did you?) and the steady murmur of Ned's voice talking to it, both of them—murmur and smell—thickened, dense, concentrated now between the loom of lightless baggage cars and passenger coaches among the green-and-ruby gleams of switch points; on until we were clear of the passenger yard and were now following a cinder path beside a spur track leading to a big dark warehouse with a loading platform in front of it. And there was the boxcar too, with a good twenty-five feet of moonlit (that's right. We were in moonlight now. Free of the street- and depot-lights, we—I —could see it now) vacancy between it and the nearest point of the platform—a good big jump for even a jumping horse, let alone a three-year-old flat racer that (according to Ned) had a little trouble running anyway. Sam cursed quietly the entire depot establishment: switchmen, yard crews, ticket sellers and all.

"I'll go get the goat," the man with the lantern said. "We dont need no goat," Ned said. "No matter how far he can jump. What we needs is to either move that flat-form or that boxcar."

"He means the switch engine," Sam told Ned. "No," he told the man with the lantern. "I expected this. For a switching crew to miss just twenty-five feet is practically zero. That's why I told you to bring the key to the section house. Get the crowbars. Maybe Mr Boon wont mind helping you."

"Why dont you go yourself?" Boon said. "It's your railroad. I'm a stranger here."

"Why dont you take these boys on back home to bed, if you're all that timid around strangers?" Miss Corrie said.

"Why dont you take them back home yourself?" Boon said. "Your old buddy-boy there has already told you once you aint got no business here."

"I'll go with him to get the crowbars," Miss Corrie told Sam. "Will you keep your eye on the boys?"

"All right, all right," Boon said. "Let's do something, for Christ's sake. That train will be along in four or five hours while we're still debating who's first at the lick dog. Where's that tool shed, Jack?" So he and the man with the lantern went on; we had only moonlight now. The horse hardly smelled at all now and I could see it nuzzling at Ned's coat like a pet. And Sam was thinking what I had been thinking ever since I saw the platform.

"There's a ramp around at the back," he said. "Did he ever walk a ramp before? Why dont you take him on now and let him look at it. When we get the car placed, we can all help you carry him up if we have to—"

"Dont you waste your time worrying about us," Ned said. "You just get that boxcar to where we wont have to jump no ten-foot gash into it. This horse wants to get out of Memphis as bad as you does." Only I was afraid Sam would say, Dont you want this boy to go with you? Because I wanted to see that boxcar moved. I didn't believe it. So we waited. It wasn't long; Boon and the man with the lantern came back with two crowbars that looked at least eight feet long and I watched (Miss Corrie and Otis too) while they did it. The man set his lantern down and climbed the ladder onto the roof and released the brake wheel and Sam and Boon jammed the ends of the bars between the back wheels and the rails, pinching and nudging in short strokes like pumping and I still didn't believe it: the car looming black and square and high in the moon, solid and rectangular as a black wall inside the narrow silver frame of the moonlight, one high puny figure wrenching at the brake wheel on top and two more puny figures crouching, creeping, nudging the silver-lanced iron bars behind the back wheels; so huge and so immobile that at first it looked, not like the car was moving forward, but rather Boon and Sam in terrific pantomimic obeisance were pinching infinitesimally rearward past the car's fixed and foundationed mass, the moon-mazed panoramic earth: so delicately balanced now in the massive midst of Motion that Sam and Boon dropped the bars and Boon alone pressed the car gently on with his hands as though it were a child's perambulator, up alongside the platform and into position and Sam said,

"All right," and the man on top set the brake wheel again. So all we had to do now was get the horse into it. Which was like saying, Here we are in Alaska; all we have to do now is find the gold mine. We went around to the back of the warehouse. There was a cleated ramp. But the platform had been built at the right height for the drays to load and unload from it, and the ramp was little more than a track for hand trucks and wheelbarrows, stout enough but only about five feet wide, rail-less. Ned was standing there talking to the horse. "He done seen it," he said. "He know we want him to walk up it but he aint decided yet do he want to. I wish now Mr Boxcar Man had went a little further and borried a whup too."

"You got one," Boon said. He meant me—one of my tricks, graces. I made it with my tongue, against the sounding board of my mouth, throat, gorge—a sound quite sharp and loud, as sharp and loud when done right as the crack of a whip; Mother finally forbade me to do it anywhere inside our yard, let alone in the house. Then it made Grandmother jump once and use a swear word. But just once. That was almost a year ago so I might have forgotten how by this time.

"That's right," Ned said. "So we has." He said to me: "Get you a long switch. They ought to be one in that hedge bush yonder." There was: a privet bush; all this was probably somebody's lawn or garden before progress, industry, commerce, railroads came. I cut the switch and came back. Ned led the horse up, facing the ramp. "Now you big folks, Mr Boon and Mr Boxcar, come up one on either side like you was the gateposts." They did so, Ned halfway up the ramp now, with the lead rope, facing the horse and talking to it. "There you is," he said. "Right straight up this here chicken walk to glory and Possum, Tennessee, by sunup tomorrow." He came back down, already turning the horse, moving fairly rapidly, speaking to me now: "He done seen the switch. Fall right in behind him. Dont touch him or pop till I tell you to." I did that, the three of us—Ned, the horse, then me—moving directly away from the ramp for perhaps twenty yards, when without stopping Ned turned and wheeled the horse, I still following, until it faced the rise of the ramp between Boon and Sam twenty yards away. When it saw the ramp, it checked. "Pop," Ned said. I made the sound, a good one; the horse sprang a little, Ned already moving on, a little faster now, back toward the ramp. "When I tells you to pop this time, touch him with the switch. Dont bit: just tap him at the root of his tail a second after you pops." He had already passed between Boon and Sam and was on the ramp. The horse was now trying to decide which to do: refuse, or run out (with the additional confusion of having to decide which of Boon and Sam would run over the easiest) or simply bolt over and through us all. You could almost see it happening: which was maybe what Ned was counting on: an intelligence panicky and timorous and capable of only one idea at a time, in which the intrusion of a second one reduces all to chaos. "Pop," Ned said. This time I tapped the horse too, as Ned had told me. It surged, leaped, its forefeet halfway up the ramp, the near hind foot (Boon's side) striking the edge of the ramp and sliding off until Boon, before Ned could speak, grasped the leg in both hands and set it back on the ramp, leaning his weight against the flank, the horse motionless now, trembling, all four feet on the ramp now. "Now," Ned said, "lay your switch right across his hocks so he'll know he got something behind him to not let him fall."

"To not let him back off the ramp, you mean," Sam said. "We need one of the crowbars. Go get it, Charley."

"That's right," Ned said. "We gonter need that crowbar in a minute. But all we needs right now is that switch. You's too little;" he told me. "Let Mr Boon and Mr Boxcar have it. Loop it behind his hocks like britching." They did so, one at each end of the Umber switch. "Now, walk him right on up. When I say pop this time, pop loud, so he will think the lick gonter be loud too." But I didn't need to pop at all again. Ned said to the horse: "Come on, son. Let's go to Possum," and the horse moved, Boon and Sam moving with it, the switch like a loop of string pressing it on, its forefeet on the solid platform now, then one final scuffling scrabbling surge, the platform resounding once as if it had leaped onto a wooden bridge.

"It's going to take more than this switch or that boy popping his tongue either, to get him into that car," Sam said.

"What gonter get him into that boxcar is that crowbar," Ned said. "Aint it come yet?" It was here now. "Prize that-ere chicken walk loose," Ned said.

"Wait," Sam said. "What for?"

"So he can walk on it into that boxcar," Ned said. "He's used to it now. He's done already found out aint nothing at the other end gonter hurt or skeer him."

"He aint smelled the inside of an empty boxcar yet though," Sam said. "That's what I'm thinking about." But Ned's idea did make sense. Besides, we had gone much too far now to boggle even if Ned had commanded us to throw down both walls of the warehouse so the horse wouldn't have to turn corners. So Boon and the railroad man prized the ramp away from the platform.

"God damn it," Sam said. "Do it quiet, cant you?"

"Aint you right here with us?" Ned said. "Sholy you can get a little more benefit outen them brass buttons than just walking around in them." Though it took all of us, including Miss Corrie, to lift the ramp onto the platform and carry it across and lay it like a bridge from the platform into the black yawn of the open car door. Then Ned led the horse up and at once I understood what Sam had meant. The horse had not only never smelled an empty boxcar before, but unlike mere humans it could see inside too; I remember thinking Now that we've torn up the ramp, we cant even get it down off the platform again before daylight catches us. But nothing like that happened. I mean, nothing happened. I mean, I dont know what happened; none of us did. Ned led the horse, its hooves ringing loud and hollow on the planks, up to the end of the ramp which now was a bridge, Ned standing on the bridge just inside the door, talking to the horse, pulling lightly on the halter until the horse put one foot forward onto the bridge and I dont know what I was thinking; a moment ago I had believed that not in all Memphis were there enough people to get that horse into that black orifice, then the next instant I was expecting that same surge and leap which would have taken the horse inside the boxcar as it had up the ramp; when the horse lifted the foot and drew it back to the platform, it and Ned facing each other like a tableau. I heard Ned breathe once. "You folks just step back to the wall," he said. We did so. I didn't know then what he did. I just saw him, one hand holding the lead rope, the other stroking, touching the horse's muzzle. Then he stepped back into the car and vanished; the lead rope tightened but only his voice came out: "Come on, son. I got it."

"I'll be God damned," Sam said. Because that was all. The loose bridge clattered a little, the cavernous blackness inside the car boomed to the hooves, but no more. We carried the lantern in; the horse's eyes glowed coldly and vanished where Ned stood with it in the corner.

"Where's them planks and nails you talked about?" he asked Sam. "Bring that chicken walk on in; that's already one whole wall."

"Hell," Sam said. "Hold on now."

"Folks coming in here tomorrow morning already missing a whole boxcar," Ned said, "aint gonter have time to be little-minded over a homemade ladder outen somebody's henhouse." So all of us again except Ned—including Miss Corrie—carried the ravished ramp into the car and set it up and held it in place while Boon and Sam and the railroad man (Sam had the planks and nails ready too) built a stall around the horse in the corner of the car; before Ned could even complain, Sam had a bucket for water and a box for grain and even a bundle of hay too; we all stood back now in the aura of the horse's contented munching. "He just the same as in Possum right this minute," Ned said.

"What you folks better wish is that he has already crossed that finish line first day after tomorrow," Sam said. "What time is it?" Then he told us himself: "Just past midnight. Time for a little sleep before the train leaves at four." He was talking to Boon now. "You and Ned will want to stay here with your horse of course; that's why I brought all that extra hay. So you bed down here and I'll take Corrie and the boys on back home and we'll all meet here at—"

"You says," Boon said, not harshly so much as with a kind of cold grimness. "You do the meeting here at four oclock. If you dont oversleep, maybe we'll see you." He was already turning. "Come on, Corrie."

"You're going go leave your boss's automobile—I mean your boss's horse—I mean this horse, whoever it really belongs to—here with nobody to watch it but this colored boy?" Sam said.

"Naw," Boon said. "That horse belongs to the railroad now. I got a baggage check to prove it. Maybe you just borrowed that railroad suit to impress women and little boys in but as long as you're in it you better use it to impress that baggage check or the railroad might not like it."

"Boon!" Miss Corrie said. "I'm not going home with anybody! Come on, Lucius, you and Otis."

"It's all right," Sam said. "We keep on forgetting how Boon has to slave for five or six months in that cotton patch or whatever it is, to make one night on Catalpa Street. You all go on. I'll see you at the train."

"Cant you even say much obliged?" Miss Corrie said to Boon.

"Sure," Boon said. "Who do I owe one to? the horse?"

"Try one on Ned," Sam said. He said to Ned: "You want me to stay here with you?"

"We'll be all right," Ned said. "Maybe if you go too it might get quiet enough around here to where somebody can get some sleep. I just wish now I had thought in time *➠»

"I did," Sam said. "Where's that other bucket, Charley?" The railroad man—switchman, whatever he was— had it too; it was in the same corner of the car with the planks and nails and tools and the feed; it contained a thick crude ham sandwich and a quart bottle of water and a pint bottle of whiskey. "There you are," Sam said. "Breakfast too."

"I see it," Ned said. "What's your name, Whitefolks?"

"Sam Caldwell," Sam said.

"Sam Caldwell," Ned said. "It strikes me that Sam Caldwell is a better name for this kind of horse business than twice some others a man could mention around here. A little more, and I could be wishing me and you was frequent enough to be permanent. Kindly much obliged."

"You're kindly welcome," Sam said. So we said good night to Sam and Ned and Charley (all of us except Boon and Otis, that is) and went back to Miss Reba's. The streets were empty and quiet now; Memphis was using the frazzled worn-out end of the week to get at least a little sleep and rest to face Monday morning witlh; we walked quietly too from vacant light to light between the dark windows and the walls: but one faint single light dimly visible in what my new infallible roue's instinct recognised immediately as a competitor of Miss Reba; a single light similar in wanness behind Miss Reba's curtains because even here throe must by this time have spent itself; even Minnie herself gone to bed or home or wherever she retired to at her and Miss Reba's trade's evensong. Because Miss Reba herself unlocked the front door to us, smelling strongly of gin and, in her hard handsome competent way, even beginning to look like it. She had changed her dress too. This one didn't have hardly any top to it at all, and in those days ladies—women—didn't really paint their faces, so that was the first time I ever saw that too. And she had on still more diamonds, as big and yellowish as the first two. No: five. But Minnie hadn't gone to bed either. She was standing in the door to Miss Reba's room, looking just about worn out.

"All fixed?" Miss Reba said, locking the door behind us. "Yes," Miss Corrie said. "Why dont you go to bed? Minnie, make her go to bed."

"You could a asked me that a hour back from now," Minnie said. "I just wish wouldn't nobody still be asking it two hours ahead from now. But you wasn't here that other time two years ago."

"Come on to bed," Miss Corrie said. "When we get back from Possum Wednesday—"

"God damn it, Parsham," Miss Reba said. "All right," Miss Corrie said. "—Wednesday, Minnie will have found out where he is and we can go and get him."

"Sure," Miss Reba said. "And bury him right there in the same ditch this time, pick and shovel and all, if I had any sense. You want a drink?" she said to Boon. "Minnie's a damn Christian scientist or republican or something and wont take one."

"Somebody around here has got to not take one," Minnie said. "It dont need no republican for that. All it needs is just to be wore out and want to go to bed."

"That's what we all need," Miss Corrie said. "That train leaves at four, and it's already after one. Come on, now."

"Go to bed then," Miss Reba said. "Who the hell's stopping you?" So we went upstairs. Then Otis and I went upstairs again; he knew the way: an attic, with nothing in it but some trunks and boxes and a mattress made up into a bed on the floor. Otis had a nightshirt but (the nightshirt still had the creases in it where Miss Corrie I suppose had bought it off the shelf in the store) he went to bed just like I had to: took off his pants and shoes and turned off the light and lay down too. There was one little window and now we could see the moon and then I could even see inside the room because of the moonlight; there was something wrong with him; I was tired and coming up the stairs I had thought I would be asleep almost before I finished lying down. But I could feel him lying there beside me, not just wide awake, but rather like something that never slept in its life and didn't even know it never had.

And suddenly there was something wrong with me too. It was like I didn't know what it was yet: only that there was something wrong and in a minute now I would know what and I would hate it; and suddenly I didn't want to be there at all, I didn't want to be in Memphis or ever to have heard of Memphis: I wanted to be at home. Otis said Twenty-three skiddoo again.

"The jack that's here," he said. "You can even smell it. It aint fair that it's just women can make money pugnuck-ling while all a man can do is just try to snatch onto a little of it while it's passing by—" There was that word again, that I had asked twice what it meant. But not any more, not again: lying there tense and rigid with the moon-shaped window lying across mine and Otis's legs, trying not to hear him but having to: "—one of the rooms is right under here; on a busy night like Sad-dy was you can hear them right up through the floor. But there aint no chance here. Even if I could get a auger and bore a peephole through it, that nigger and Miss Reba wouldn't let me bring nobody up here to make no money off of and even if I did they would probably take the money away from me like that son of a bitch done that pee a noler money today. But it was different back home at Aunt Fit-tie's, when Bee—" He stopped. He lay perfectly still. He said Twenty-three skiddoo again.

"Bee?" I said. But it was too late. No, it wasn't too late. Because I already knew now.

"How old are you?" he said.

"Eleven," I said.

"You got a year on me then," he said. "Too bad you aint going to be here after tonight. If you just stayed around here next week, we might figger that peephole out some way."

"What for?" I said. You see, I had to ask it. Because what I wanted was to be back home. I wanted my mother. Because you should be prepared for experience, knowledge, knowing: not bludgeoned unaware in the dark as by a highwayman or footpad. I was just eleven, remember. There are things, circumstances, conditions in the world which should not be there but are, and you cant escape them and indeed, you would not escape them even if you had the choice, since they too are a part of Motion, of participating in life, being alive. But they should arrive with grace, decency. I was having to learn too much too fast, unassisted; I had nowhere to put it, no receptacle, pigeonhole prepared yet to accept it without pain and lacerations. He was lying face up, as I was. He hadn't moved, not even his eyes. But I could feel him watching me.

"You dont know much, do you?" he said. "Where did you say you was from?"

"Missippi," I said.

"------t," he said. "No wonder you dont know nothing."

"All right," I said. "Bee is Miss Corrie."

"Here I am, throwing money away like it wasn't nothing," he said. "But maybe me and you both can make something out of it. Sure. Her name is Everbe Corinthia, named for Grandmaw. And what a hell of a name that is to have to work under. Bad enough even over there around Kiblett, where some of them already knowed it and was used to it and the others was usually in too much of a hurry to give a hoot whether she called herself nothing or not. But here in Memphis, in a house like this that they tell me every girl in Memphis is trying to get into it as soon as a room is vacant. So it never made much difference over there around Kiblett after her maw died and Aunt Fittie taken her to raise and started her out soon as she got big enough. Then when she found out how much more money there was in Memphis and come over here, never nobody knowed about the Everbe and so she could call herself Corrie. So whenever I'm over here visiting her, like last summer and now, since I know about the Everbe, she gives me five cents a day not to tell nobody. You see? Instead of telling you like I slipped up and done, if I had just went to her instead and said, At five cents a day I can try not to forget, but ten cents a day would make it twice as hard to. But never mind; I can tell her tomorrow that you know it too, and maybe we both can—"

"Who was Aunt Fittie?" I said.

"I dont know," he said. "Folks just called her Aunt Fit-tie. She might have been kin to some of us, but I dont know. Lived by herself in a house on the edge of town until she taken Bee in after Bee's maw died and soon as Bee got big enough, which never taken long because Bee was already a big girl even before she got to be ten or eleven or twelve or whenever it was and got started—"

"Started at what?" I said. You see? I had to. I had gone too far to stop now, like in Jefferson yesterday—or was it yesterday? last year: another time: another life: another Lucius Priest. "What is pugnuckling?"

He told me, with some of contempt but mostly a sort of incredulous, almost awed, almost respectful amazement. "That's where I had the peephole—a knothole in the back wall with a tin slide over it that never nobody but me knowed how to work, while Aunt Fittie was out in front collecting the money and watching out. Folks your size would have to stand on a box and I would charge a nickel until Aunt Fittie found out I was letting grown men watch for a dime that otherwise might have went inside for fifty cents, and started hollering like a wildcat—"

Standing now, I was hitting him, so much to his surprise (mine too) that I had had to stoop and take hold of him and jerk him up within reach. I knew nothing about boxing and not too much about fighting. But I knew exactly what I wanted to do: not just hurt him but destroy him; I remember a second perhaps during which I regretted (from what ancient playing-fields-of-Eton avatar) that he was not nearer my size. But not longer than a second; I was hitting, clawing, kicking not at one wizened ten-year-old boy, but at Otis and the procuress both: the demon child who debased her privacy and the witch who debauched her innocence—one flesh to bruise and burst, one set of nerves to wrench and anguish; more: not just those two, but all who had participated in her debasement: not only the two panders, but the insensitive blackguard children and the brutal and shameless men who paid their pennies to watch her defenseless and undefended and unavenged degradation. He had plunged sprawling across the mattress, on his hands and knees now, scrabbling at his discarded trousers; I didn't know why (nor care), not even when his hand came out and up. Only then did I see the blade of the pocketknife in his fist, nor did I care about that either; that made us in a way the same size; that was my carte blanche. I took the knife away from him. I dont know how; I never felt the blade at all; when I flung the knife away and hit him again, the blood I saw on his face I thought was his.

Then Boon was holding me clear of the floor, struggling and crying now. He was barefoot, wearing only his pants. Miss Corrie was there too, in a kimono, with her hair down; it reached further than her waist. Otis was scrunched back against the wall, not crying but cursing like he had cursed at Ned. "What the damned hell," Boon said.

"His hand," Miss Corrie said. She paused long enough to look back at Otis. "Go to my room," she said. "Go on." He went out. Boon put me down. "Let me see it," she said. That was the first I knew where the blood came from —a neat cut across the cushions of all four fingers; I must have grasped the blade just as Otis tried to snatch it away.

It was still bleeding. That is, it bled again when Miss Cor-rie opened my hand.

"What the hell were you fighting about?" Boon said.

"Nothing," I said. I drew my hand back.

"Keep it closed till I get back," Miss Corrie said. She went out and came back with a basia of water and a towel and a bottle of something and what looked like a scrap of a man's shirt. She washed the blood off and uncorked the bottle. "It's going to sting," she said. It did. She tore a strip from the shirt and bound my hand.

"He still wont tell what they were fighting about," Boon said. "At least I hope he started it: not half your size even if he is a year older. No wonder he pulled a knife—"

"He aint even as old," I said. "He's ten."

"He told me he was twelve," Boon said. Then I found out what was wrong about Otis.

"Twelve?" Miss Corrie said. "He'll be fifteen years old next Monday." She was looking at me. "Do you want—"

"Just keep him out of here," I said. "I'm tired. I want to go to sleep."

"Don't worry about Otis," she said. "He's going back home this morning. There's a train that leaves at nine oclock. I'm going to send Minnie to the depot with him and tell her to watch him get on it and stand where she can see his face through the window until the train moves."

"Sure," Boon said. "And he can have my grip to carry the refinement and culture back in. Bringing him over here to spend a week in a Memphis—"

"You hush," Miss Corrie said.

"—house hunting refinement and culture. Maybe he found it; he might a hunted for years through Arkansas cat-cribs and still not found nobody near enough his size to draw that pocketknife on—"

"Stop it! Stop it!" Miss Corrie said. "Sure sure," Boon said. "But after all, Lucius has got to know the name of where he's at in order to brag about where he's been." Then they turned the light out and were gone. Or so I thought. It was Boon this time, turning the light on again. "Maybe you better tell me what it was," he said.

"Nothing," I said. He looked down at me, huge, naked to the waist, his hand on the light to turn it out again.

"Eleven years old," he said, "and already knife-cut in a whorehouse brawl." He looked at me. "I wish I had knowed you thirty years ago. With you to learn me when I was eleven years old, maybe by this time I'd a had some sense too. Good night."

"Good night," I said. He turned off the light. Then I had been asleep, it was Miss Corrie this time, kneeling beside the mattress; I could see the shape of her face and the moon through her hair. She was the one crying this time—a big girl, too big to know how to cry daintily: only quietly.

"I made him tell me," she said. "You fought because of me. I've had people—drunks—fighting over me, but you're the first one ever fought for me. I aint used to it, you see. That's why I dont know what to do about it. Except one thing. I can do that. I want to make you a promise. Back there in Arkansas it was my fault. But it wont be my fault any more." You see? You have to learn too fast; you have to leap in the dark and hope that Something—It —They—will place your foot right. So maybe there are after all other things besides just Poverty and Non-virtue who look after their own.

"It wasn't your fault then," I said.

"Yes it was. You can choose. You can decide. You can say No. You can find a job and work. But it wont be my fault any more. That's the promise I want to make you. For me to keep like you kept that one you told Mr Bin-ford about before supper tonight. You'll have to take it. Will you take it?"

"All right," I said.

"But you'll have to say you'll take it. You'll have to say it out loud."

"Yes," I said. "I'll take it."

"Now try to get back to sleep," she said. "I've brought a chair and I'm going to sit here where I'll be ready to wake you in time to go to the depot."

"You go back to bed too," I said.

"I aint sleepy," she said. "I'll just sit here. You go on back to sleep." And this time, Boon again. The moon-shaped square of window had shifted, so I had slept this time, his voice trying at least for whisper or anyway monotone, looming still naked from the waist up over the kitchen chair where Everbe (I mean Miss Corrie) sat, his hand grasping the backward-straining of her arm:

"Come on now. We aint got but a hour left."

"Let me go." She whispered too. "It's too late now. Let me go, Boon." Then his rasping murmur, still trying for, calling itself whisper:

"What the hell do you think I came all the way for, waited all this long for, all this working and saving up and waiting for—" Then the shape of the mooned window had moved still more and I could hear a rooster 'somewhere and my cut hand was partly tinder me and hurting, which was maybe what waked me. So I couldn't tell if this was the same time or he had gone and then come back: only the voices, still trying for whisper and if a rooster was crowing, it was time to get up. And oh yes, she was crying again.

"I wont! I wont! Let me alone!"

"All right, all right. But tonight is just tonight; tomorrow night, when we're settled down in Possum—"

"No! Not tomorrow either! I cantl I cant! Let me alone! Please, Boon. Please!"

Chapter 8

We—Everbe and Boon 'and I—were at the depot in plenty of time—or so we thought. The first person we saw was Ned, waiting for us in front of it. He had on a clean white shirt—either a new one, or he had managed somehow to get the other one washed. But almost at once things began to go too fast for anyone to learn yet that the new shirt was one of Sam's. Ned didn't even give Boon time to open his mouth. "Calm yourself," he said. "Mr Sam is keeping Lightning whilst I finishes the outside arrangements. The boxcar has done already been picked up and switched onto the train waiting behind the depot right now for you all to get on. When Mr Sam Caldwell runs a railroad, it's run, mon. We done already named him too—Forkid Lightning." Then he saw my bandage. He almost pounced. "What you done to it?"

"I cut it," I said. "It's all right."

"How bad?" he said.

"Yes," Everbe said. "It's cut across all four fingers. He ought not to move it even." Nor did Ned waste any more time there either. He looked quickly about us. "Where's that other one?" he said. "That other what?" Boon said.

"Whistle-britches," Ned said. "That money-mouthed runt boy that was with us last night. I may need two hands on that horse. Who do you think is gonter ride that race? me and you that's even twice as heavy as me? Lucius was going to, but being as we already got that other one, we dont need to risk it. He's even less weight than Lucius and even if he aint got as much sense as Lucius, he's at least old enough in meanness to ride a horse race, and wrapped up enough in money to want to win it, and likely too much of a coward to turn loose and fall off. Which is all we needs. Where is he?"

"Gone back to Arkansas," Boon said. "How old do you think he is?"

"What he looks like," Ned said. "About fifteen, aint he? Gone to Arkansaw? Then somebody better go get him quick."

"Yes," Everbe said. "I'll bring him. There wont be time to go back and get him now. So I'll stay and bring him on the next train this afternoon."

"Now you talking." Ned said. "That's Mr Sam's train. Just turn Whistle-britches over to Mr Sam; he'll handle him."

"Sure," Boon said to Everbe. "That'll give you a whole hour free to practise that No on Sam. Maybe he's a better man than me and wont take it." But she just looked at him.

"Then why dont you wait and bring Otis on and well meet you in Parsham tonight," I said. Now Boon looked at me.

"Well well," he said. "What's that Mr Binford said last night? If here aint still another fresh hog in this wallow. Except that this one's still just a shoat yet. That is, I thought it was."

"Please, Boon," Everbe said. Like that: "Please, Boon."

"Take him too and the both of you get to hell back to that slaughterhouse that maybe you ought not to left in the first place," Boon said. She didn't say anything this time. She just stood there, looking down a little: a big girl that stillness suited too. Then she turned, already walking.

"Maybe I will," I said. "Right on back home. Ned's got somebody else to ride the horse and you dont seem to know what to do with none of the folks trying to help us."

He looked, glared at me: a second maybe. "All right," he said. He strode past me until he overtook her. "I said, all right," he said. "Is it all right?"

"All right," she said.

"I'll meet the first train today. If you aint on it, I'll keep on meeting them. All right?"

"All right," she said. She went on.

"I bet aint none of you thought to bring my grip," Ned said.

"What?" Boon said.

"Where is it?" I said.

"Right there in the kitchen where I set it," Ned said. "That gold-tooth high-brown seen it."

"Miss Corrie'll bring it tonight," I said. "Come on." We went into the depot. Boon bought our tickets and we went out to where the train was waiting, with people already getting on it. Up ahead we could see the boxcar. Sam and the conductor and two other men were standing by the open door; one of them must have been the engineer. You see? not just one casual off-duty flagman, but a functioning train crew.

"You going to run him today?" the conductor said.

"Tomorrow," Boon said.

"Well, we got to get him there first," the conductor said, looking at his watch. "Who's going to ride with him?"

"Me," Ned said. "Soon as I can find a box or something to climb up on."

"Gimme your foot," Sam said. Ned cocked his knee and Sam threw him up into the car. "See you in Parsham tomorrow," he said.

"I thought you went all the way to Washington," Boon said.

"Who, me?" Sam said. "That's just the train. I'm going to double back from Chattanooga tonight on Two-O-Nine. Ill be back in Parsham at seven oclock tomorrow morning. I'd go with you now and pick up Two-O-Eight in Parsham tonight, only I got to get some sleep. Besides, you wont need me anyhow. You can depend on Ned until then."

So did Boon and I. I mean, need sleep. We got some, until the conductor waked us and we stood on the cinders at Parsham in the first light and watched the engine (there was a cattle-loading chute here) spot the boxcar, properly this time, and take its train again and go on, clicking car by car across the other tracks which went south to Jefferson. Then the three of us dismantled the stall and Ned led the horse out; and of course, naturally, materialised from nowhere, a pleasant-looking Negro youth of about nineteen, standing at the bottom of the chute, said, "Howdy, Mr McCaslin."

"That you, son?" Ned said. "Whichaway?" So we left Boon for that time; his was the Motion role now, the doing: to find a place for all of us to live, not just him and me, but Otis and Everbe when they came tonight: to locate a man whose name Ned didn't even know, whom nobody but Ned said owned a horse, and then persuade him to run it, race it—one figment of Ned's imagination to race another figment—in a hypothetical race which was in the future and therefore didn't exist, against a horse it had already beaten twice: (this likewise according only to Ned, or Figment Three), as a result of which Ned intended to recover Grandfather's automobile; all this Boon must do while still keeping clear of being challenged about who really did own the horse. We—Ned and the youth and me —were walking now, already out of town, which didn't take long in those days—a hamlet, two or three stores where the two railroads crossed, the depot and loading chute and freight shed and a platform for cotton bales. Though some of it has not changed: the big rambling mul-tigalleried multistoried steamboatgothic hotel where the overalled aficionados and the professionals who trained the fine bird dogs and the northern millionaires who owned them (one night in the lounge in 1933, his Ohio business with everybody else's under the Damocles sword of the federally closed banks, I myself heard Horace Lytle refuse five thousand dollars for Mary Montrose) gathered for two weeks each February; Paul Rainey also, who liked our country enough—or anyway our bear and deer and panther enough—to use some of the Wall Street money to own enough Mississippi land for him and his friends to hunt them in: a hound man primarily, who took his pack of bear hounds to Africa to see what they would do on lion or vice versa.

"This white boy's going to sleep walking," the youth said. "Aint you got no saddle?" But I wasn't going to sleep yet. I had to find out, to ask:

"I didn't even know you knew anybody here, let alone getting word ahead to them."

Ned walked on as if I had not even spoken. After a while he said over his shoulder: "So you wants to know how, do you?" He walked on. He said: "Me and that boy's grandpappy are Masons."

"Why are you whispering?" I said. "Boss is a Mason too but I never heard him whisper about it."

"I didn't know I was," Ned said. "But suppose I was. What do you want to belong to a lodge for, unless it's so secret cant hardly nobody else get in it? And how are you gonter keep it secret unless you treat it like one?"

"But how did you get word to him?" I said. "Let me tell you something," Ned said. "If you ever need to get something done, not just done but done quick and quiet and so you can depend on it and not no blabbing and gabbling around about it neither, you hunt around until you finds somebody like Mr. Sam Caldwell, and turn it over to him. You member that. Folks around Jefferson could use some of him. They could use a heap of Sam Caldwells."

Then we were there. The sun was well up now. It was a dog-trot house, paintless but quite sound and quite neat among locust and chinaberry trees, in a swept yard inside a fence which had all its palings too and a hinged gate that worked, with chickens in the dust and a cow and a pair of mules in the stable lot behind it, and two pretty good hounds which had already recognised the youth with us, and an old man at the top of the gallery steps above them—an old man very dark in a white shirt and galluses and a planter's hat, with perfectly white moustaches and an imperial, coming down the steps now and across the yard to look at the horse. Because he knew, remembered the horse, and so one at least of Ned's figment's vanished. "You all buy him?" he said. "We got him," Ned said. "Long enough to run him?"

"Once, anyway," Ned said. He said to me: "Make your manners to Uncle Possum Hood." I did so.

"Rest yourself," Uncle Parsham said. "You all about ready for breakfast, aint you?" I could already smell it— the ham.

"All I want is to go to sleep," I said. "He's been up all night," Ned said. "Both of us. Only he had to spend his in a house full of women hollering why and how much whilst all I had was just a quiet empty boxcar with a horse." But I was still going to help stable and feed Lightning. They wouldn't let me. "You go with Ly-curgus and get some sleep," Ned said. "I'm gonter need you soon, before it gets too hot. We got to find out about this horse, and the sooner we starts, the sooner it will be." I followed Lycurgus. It was a lean-to room, a bed with a bright perfectly clean harlequin-patched quilt; it seemed to me I was asleep before I even lay down, and that Ned was shaking me before I had ever slept. He had a clean heavy wool sock and a piece of string. I was hungry now. "You can eat your breakfast afterwards," Ned said. "You can learn a horse better on a empty stomach. Here—" holding the sock open. "Whistle-britches aint showed up yet. It might be better if he dont a-tall. He the sort that no matter how bad you think you need him, you find out afterward you was better off. Hold out your hand." He meant the bandaged one. He slipped the sock over it, bandage and all, and tied it around my wrist with the string. "You can still use your thumb, but this'll keep you from forgetting and trying to open your hand and bust them cuts again."

Uncle Parsham and Lycurgus were waiting with the horse. He was bridled now, under an old, used, but perfectly cared-for McClellan saddle. Ned looked at it. "We might run him bareback, unless they makes us. But leave it on. We can try him both ways and let him learn us which he likes best."

It was a small pasture beside the creek, flat and smooth, with good footing. Ned shortened the leathers, to suit not me so much as him, and threw me up. "You know what to do: the same as with them colts out at McCaslin. Let him worry about which hand he's on; likely all anybody ever tried to learn him is just to run as fast as the bit will let him, whichever way somebody points his head. Which is all we wants too. You dont need no switch yet. Besides, we dont want to learn a switch: we wants to learn him. Go on."

I moved him out, into the pasture, into a trot. He was nothing on the bit; a cobweb would have checked him. I said so. "I bet," Ned said. "I bet he got a heap more whip calluses on his behind than bit chafes in his jaw. Go on. Move him." but he wouldn't. I kicked, pounded my heels, but he just trotted, a little faster in the back stretch (I was riding a circular course like the one we had beaten out in Cousin Zack's paddock) until I realised suddenly that he was simply hurrying back to Ned. But still behind the bit; he had never once come into the bridle, his whole head bent around and tucked but with no weight whatever on the hand, as if the bit were a pork rind and he a Mohammedan (or a fish spine and he a Mississippi candidate for constable whose Baptist opposition had accused him of seeking the Catholic vote, or one of Mrs Roosevelt's autographed letters and a secretary of the Citizens Council, or Senator Goldwater's cigar butt and the youngest pledge to the A.D.A.), on until he reached Ned, and with a jerk I felt clean up to my shoulder, snatched his head free and began to nuzzle at Ned's shirt. "U-huh," Ned said. He had one hand behind him; I could see a peeled switch in it now. "Head him back." He said to the horse: "You got to learn, son, not to run back to me until I sends for you." Then to me: "He aint gonter stop this time. But you make like he is: just one stride ahead of where, if you was him, you would think about turning to come to me, reach back with your hand and whop him hard as you can. Now set tight," and stepped back and cut the horse quick and hard across the buttocks.

It leapt, sprang into full run: the motion (not our speed nor even our progress: just the horse's motion) seemed terrific: graceless of course, but still terrific. Because it was simple reflex from fright, and fright does not become horses. They are built wrong for it, being merely mass and symmetry, while fright demands fluidity and grace and bi-zarreness and the capacity to enchant and enthrall and even appall and aghast, like an impala or a giraffe or a snake; even as the fright faded I could feel, sense the motion become simply obedience, no more than an obedient hand gallop, on around the back turn and stretch and into what would be the home stretch, when I did as Ned ordered: one stride before the point at which he had turned to Ned before, I reached back and hit him as hard as I could with the flat of my sound hand; and again the leap, the spring, but only into willingness, obedience, alarm: not anger nor even eagerness. "That'll do," Ned said. "Bring him in." We came up and stopped. He was sweating a little, but that was all. "How do he feel?" Ned said.

I tried to tell him. "The front half of him dont want to run."

"He reached out all right when I touched him," Ned said.

I tried again. "I dont mean his front end. His legs feel all right. His head just dont want to go anywhere." - "U-huh," Ned said. He said to Uncle Parsham: "You seen one of them races. What happened?"

"I saw both of them," Uncle Parsham said. "Nothing happened. He was running good until all of a sudden he must have looked up and seen there wasn't nothing in front of him but empty track."

"U-huh," Ned said. "Jump down." I got down. He stripped off the saddle. "Hand me your foot."

"How do you know that horse has been ridden bareback before?" Uncle Parsham said.

"I dont," Ned said. "We gonter find out."

"This boy aint got but one hand," Uncle Parsham said. "Here, Lycurgus------"

But Ned already had my foot. "This boy learnt holding on riding Zack Edmonds's colts back in Missippi. I watched him at least one time when I didn't know what he was holding on with lessen it was his teeth." He threw me up. The horse did nothing: it squatted, flinched a moment, trembling a little; that was all. "U-huh," Ned said. "Let's go eat your breakfast. Whistle-britches will be here to work him this evening, then maybe Lightning will start having some fun outen this too."

Lycurgus's mother, Uncle Parsham's daughter, was cooking dinner now; the kitchen smelled of the boiling vegetables. But she had kept my breakfast warm—fried sidemeat, grits, hot biscuits and buttermilk or sweet milk or coffee; she untied my riding-glove from my hand so I could eat, a little surprised that I had never tasted coffee since Lycurgus had been having it on Sunday morning since he was two years old. And I thought I was just hungry until I went to sleep right there in the plate until Lycurgus half dragged, half carried me to his bed in the lean-to. And, as Ned said, Mr Sam Caldwell was some Sam Caldwell; Everbe and Otis got down from the caboose of a freight train which stopped that long at Par-sham a few minutes before noon. It was a through freight, not intended to stop until it reached Florence, Alabama, or some place like that. I dont know how much extra coal it took to pump up the air brakes to stop it dead still at Parsham and then fire the boiler enough to regain speed and make up the lost time. Some Sam Caldwell. Twenty-three skiddoo, as Otis said.

So when the loud unfamiliar voice waked me and Lycurgus's mother tied the riding-sock back on from where she had put it away when I went to sleep in my plate, and I went outside, there they all were: a surrey tied outside the gate and Uncle Parsham standing again at the top of his front steps, still wearing his hat, and Ned sitting on the next-to-bottom step and Lycurgus standing in the angle between steps and gallery as if the three of them were barricading the house; and in the yard facing them Everbe (yes, she brought it. I mean, Ned's grip) and Otis and Boon and the one who was doing the loud talking—a man almost as big as Boon and almost as ugly, with a red face and a badge and a bolstered pistol stuck in his hind pocket, standing between Boon and Everbe, who'was still trying to pull away from the hand which was holding her arm.

"Yep," he was saying, "I know old Possum Hood. And more than that, old Possum Hood knows me, dont you, boy?"

"We all knows you here, Mr Butch," Uncle Parsham said with no inflection whatever.

"If any dont, it's just a oversight and soon corrected," Butch said. "If your womenfolks are too busy dusting and sweeping to invite us in the house, tell them to bring some chairs out here so this young lady can set down. You, boy," he told Lycurgus, "hand down two of them chairs on the gallery there where me and you"—he was talking at Everbe now—"can set in the cool and get acquainted while Sugar Boy"—he meant Boon. I dont know how I knew it—"takes these boys down to look at that horse. Huh?" Still holding Everbe's elbow, he would tilt her gently away from him until she was almost off balance; then, a little faster though still not a real jerk, pull her back again, she still trying to get loose; now she used her other hand, pushing at his wrist. And now I was watching Boon. "You sure I aint seen you somewhere? at Birdie Watts's maybe? Where you been hiding, anyway? a good-looking gal like you?" Now Ned got up, not fast.

"Morning, Mr Boon," he said. "You and Mr Shurf want Lucius to bring the horse out?" Butch stopped tilting Everbe. He still held her though.

"Who's he?" he said. "As a general rule, we dont take to strange niggers around here. We don't object though, providing they notify themselves and then keep their mouths shut."

"Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi," Ned said. "You got too much name," Butch said. "You want something quick and simple to answer to around here until you can raise a white mush-tash and goat whisker like old Possum there, and earn it. We dont care where you come from neither; all you'll need here is just somewhere to go back to. But you'll likely do all right; at least you got sense enough to recognise Law when you see it."

"Yes sir," Ned said. "I'm acquainted with Law. We got it back in Jefferson too." He said to Boon: "You want the horse?"

"No," Everbe said, she had managed to free her arm; she moved quickly away; she could have done it sooner by just saying Boon: which was what Butch—deputy, whatever he was—wanted her to do, and we all knew that too. She moved, quickly for a big girl, on until she had me between her and Butch, holding my arm now; I could feel her hand trembling a little as she gripped me. "Come on, Lucius. Show us the way." She said, her voice tense: a murmur, almost passionate: "How's your hand? Does it hurt?"

"It's all right," I said.

"You sure? You'd tell me? Does wearing that sock on it help?"

"It's all right." I said. "I'd tell you." We went back to the stable that way, Everbe almost dragging me to keep me between her and Butch. But it was no good; he simply walked me off; I could smell him now—sweat and whiskey —and now I saw the top of the pint bottle in his other hind pocket; he (Butch) holding her elbow again and suddenly I was afraid, because I knew I didn't—and I wasn't sure Boon did—know Everbe that well yet. No: not afraid, that wasn't the word; not afraid, because we— Boon alone—would have taken the pistol away from him and then whipped him, but afraid for Everbe and Uncle Parsham and Uncle Parsham's home and family when it happened. But I was more than afraid. I was ashamed that such a reason for fearing for Uncle Parsham, who had to live here, existed; hating (not Uncle Parsham doing the hating, but me doing it) it all, hating all of us for being the poor frail victims of being alive, having to be alive— hating Everbe for being the vulnerable helpless lodestar victim; and Boon for being the vulnerable and helpless victimised; and Uncle Parsham and Lycurgus for being where they had to, couldn't help but watch white people behaving exactly as white people bragged that only Negroes behaved—just as I had hated Otis for telling me about Everbe in Arkansas and hated Everbe for being that helpless lodestar for human debasement which he had told me about and hated myself for listening, having to hear about it, learn about it, know about it; hating that such not only was, but must be, had to be if living was to continue and mankind be a part of it.

And suddenly I was anguished with homesickness, wrenched and wrung and agonised with it: to be home, not just to retrace but to retract, obliterate: made Ned take the horse back to wherever and whoever and however he had got it and get Grandfather's automobile and take it back to Jefferson, in reverse if necessary, travelling backward to unwind, ravel back into No-being, Never-being, that whole course of dirt roads, mudholes, the man and the color-blind mules, Miss Ballenbaugh and Alice and Ephum, so that, as far as I was concerned, they had never been; when sudden and quiet and plain inside me something said Why dont you? Because I could; I needed only say to Boon, "We're going home," and Ned would have returned the horse and my own abject confession would have the automobile located and recovered by the police at the price of merely my shame. Because I couldn't now. It was too late. Maybe yesterday, while I was still a child, but not now. I knew too much, had seen too much. I was a child no longer now; innocence and childhood were forever lost, forever gone from me. And Everbe was loose again. I had missed seeing how she did it this time: only that she was free, facing him; she said something inaudible, quick; anyway he was not even touching her now, just looking down at her, grinning.

"Sure, sure." he said. "Thrash around a little; maybe I like that too; makes it look a little better to old Sugar Boy too. All right, boy," he said to Ned. "Let's see that horse."

"You stay here," Ned told me. "Me and Lycurgus will get him." So I stood, next to Everbe at the fence; she was holding my arm again, her hand still shaking a little. Ned and Lycurgus led the horse out. Ned was already looking toward us; he said quickly: "Where's that other one?"

"Dont tell me you got two of them," Butch said. But I knew what Ned meant. So did Everbe. She turned quickly. "Otis!" she said. But he was nowhere in sight. "Run," Ned told Lycurgus. "If he aint got into the house yet, maybe you can cut him off. Tell him his aunt wants him. And you stay right with him." Lycurgus didn't even wait to say Yes sir: he just gave the lead rope to Ned and departed running. The rest of us stood along the fence —Everbe trying for immobility since that was all she had to find effiacement in, but too big for it like the doe is too big for the plum thicket which is all she has available for safety; Boon furious and seething, restraining himself who never before had restrained himself from anything. Not from fear; I tell you, he was not afraid of that gun and badge: he could and would have taken them both away from Butch and, in a kind of glory, tossed the pistol on the ground halfway between them and then given Butch the first step toward it; and only half from the loyalty which would shield me—and my family (his family)— from the result of such a battle, no matter who won it. Because the other half was chivalry: to shield a woman, even a whore, from one of the predators who debase police badges by using them as immunity to prey on her helpless kind. And a little further along, dissociated though present. Uncle Parsham, the patrician (he bore in his Christian name the patronymic of the very land we stood on), the aristocrat of us all and judge of us all.

"Hell," Butch said. "He cant win races standing still in a halter. Go on. Trot him across the lot."

"We just sent for his jockey," Ned said. "Then you can see him work." Then he said, "Unlessen you in a hurry to get back to yourn."

"My what?" Butch said.

"Your law work," Ned said. "Back in Possum or wherever it is."

"After coming all the way out here to see a race horse?" Butch said. "All I see so far is a plug standing half asleep in a lot."

"I'm sho glad you told me that," Ned said. "I thought maybe you wasn't interested." He turned to Boon. "So maybe what you and Miss Corrie better do is go on back to town now and be ready to meet the others when the train comes. You can send the surrey back for Mr Butch and Lucius and that other boy after we breezes Lightning."

"Ha ha ha," Butch said, without mirth, without anything. "How's that for a idea? Huh, Sugar Boy? You and Sweet Thing bobbasheely on back to the hotel now, and me and Uncle Remus and Lord Fauntleroy will mosey along any time up to midnight, providing of course we are through here." He moved easily along the fence to where Boon stood, watching Boon though addressing Ned: "I cant let Sugar Boy leave without me. I got to stay right with him, or he might get everybody in trouble. They got a law now, about taking good-looking gals across state lines for what they call immortal purposes. Sugar Boy's a stranger here; he dont know exactly where that state line's at, and his foot might slip across it while his mind's on something else— something that aint a foot. At least we dont call it a foot around here. Huh, Sugar Boy?" He slapped Boon on the back, still grinning, watching Boon—one of those slaps which jovial men give one another, but harder, a little too hard but not quite too hard. Boon didn't move, his hands on the top rail of the gate. They were too sunburned or maybe too ingrained with dirt to turn white. But I could see the muscles. "Yes sir," Butch said, watching Boon, grinning, "all friends together for a while yet anyhow. Come one, come all, or come none—for a while longer anyhow. At least until something happens that might put a man not watching what he was doing out of circulation— say a stranger that wouldn't be missed nohow. Huh, Sugar Boy?" and slapped Boon again on the back, still harder this time, watching him, grinning. And Everbe saw Boon's hand this time too; she said, quick, not loud:

"Boon." Like that: "Boon." So had Uncle Parsham. "Here come the other boy," he said. Otis was just coming around the corner of the house, Lycurgus looming almost twice as tall right behind him. Even knowing what was wrong about him didn't help Otis much. But Ned was the one who was looking at him hard. He came up gently; Strolling, in fact. "Somebody want me?" he said.

"It was me," Ned said. "But I aint seed you in daylight before and maybe my mind gonter change." He said to Lycurgus: "Get the tack." So we—they—tacked up and Lycurgus and Ned led the way back along the lane to the creek pasture, we following, even Butch giving his attention to the matter in hand now; unless, as the angler does, he was deliberately giving Everbe a little rest to build up her strength to rush and thrash once more against the hook of that tin star on his sweaty shirt. When we reached the pasture, Ned and Otis were already facing each other about eight feet apart; behind them, Lycurgus stood with the horse. Ned looked strained and tired. As far as I knew, he had had no sleep at all unless he actually had slept for an hour or so on the hay in the boxcar. But that's all he was: not exhausted by sleeplessness, just annoyed by it. Otis was picking his nose, still gently. "A know-boy," Ned was saying. "As knowing a boy as I ever seed. I just hopes that when you're twice your age, you will still know half as much."

"Much obliged," Otis said.

"Can you ride a horse?" Ned said.

"I been living on a Arkansas farm for a right smart number of years," Otis said.

"Can you ride a horse?" Ned said. "Nemmine where you used to live or still does."

"Now, that depends, as the fellow says," Otis said. "I figgered I was going back home this morning. That I would a long been in Kiblett, Arkansas, right this minute. But since my plans got changed without nobody asking me, I aint decided quite yet just what I'm going to do next. How much you paying to get that horse rode?"

"Otis!" Everbe said.

"We aint come to that yet," Ned said, as gentle as Otis. 'The first thing is to get them three heats run and to be in front when at least two of them is finished. Then we'll git around to how much."

"Heh heh heh," Otis said, not laughing either. "That is, there aint going to be nothing to pay nobody with until you win it—that's you. And you cant even run at it without somebody setting on the horse—that's me. Is that right?"

"Otis!" Everbe said.

"That's right," Ned said. "We all of us working on shares so we'll have something to divide afterward. Your share will have to wait too, like ourn."

"Yeah," Otis said. "I seen that kind of share dividing in the Arkansas cotton business. The trouble is, the share of the fellow that does the sharing is always a little different from the share of the fellow that done the dividing. The fellow that done the sharing is still waiting for his share because he aint yet located where it's at. So from now on, I'll just take the cash-in-advance share and let you folks keep all the dividing."

"How much do that come to?" Ned said.

"You cant be interested, because you aint even run the first heat yet, let alone won it. But I dont mind telling you, in confidence, you might say. It'll be ten dollars."

"Otis!" Everbe said. She moved now; she cried, "Aint you ashamed?"

"Hold up, Miss," Ned said. "I'll handle it." He looked tired, but that was all. Without haste he drew a folded flour sack from his hip pocket and unfolded it and took out his worn snap purse and opened it. "Hold out your hand," he told Lycurgus, who did so while Ned counted slowly onto the palm six frayed dollar bills and then about a cupful of coins of various denominations. "It's gonter be fifteen cents short, but Mr Hogganbeck will make it up."

"Make it up to what?" Otis said. "To what you said. Ten dollars," Ned said. "You cant seem to hear neither," Otis said. "What I said was twenty dollars." Now Boon moved. "God damn it," he said.

"Just hold up," Ned told him. His hand didn't even stop, now returning the coins one by one from Lycurgus's hand, and then the frayed bills, back into the purse, and closed it and folded it back into the flour sack and put the sack back into his pocket. "So you aint gonter ride the horse," he said to Otis.

"I aint seen my price—" Otis said.

"Mr Boon Hogganbeck there is fixing to hand it to you right now," Ned said. "Whyn't you just come right out like a man and say you aint gonter ride that horse? It dont matter why you aint." They looked at each other. "Come on. Say it out."

"Naw," Otis said. "I aint going to ride it." He said something else, foul, which was his nature; vicious, which was his nature; completely unnecessary, which was his nature too. Yes, even finally knowing what it was didn't help with him. By this time Everbe had him. She snatched him, hard. And this time he snarled. He cursed her. "Watch out. I aint near done talking yet—if I'm a mind."

"Say the word," Butch said. "I'll beat the hell out of him just on principle; I wont even bother with pleasure. How the hell did Sugar Boy ever let him get this far without at least one whelp on him?"

"No!" Everbe said to Butch. She still held Otis by the arm. "You're going back home on the next train!"

"Now you're tooting," Otis said. "I'd a been there right now except for you." She released him. "Go on back to the surrey," she said. "You cant risk it," Boon said rapidly to her. "You'll have to go with him." He said: "All right. You all go back to town. You can send for me and Lucius about sundown."

And I knew what that meant, what decision he had wrestled with and licked. But Butch fooled us; the confident angler was letting his fish have the backing too. "Sure," he said. "Send back for us." Everbe and Otis went on. "Now that that's settled, who is going to ride the horse?"

"This boy here," Ned said. "He a one-handed horse."

"Heh heh heh," Butch said; he was laughing this time. "I seen this horse run here last winter. If one hand can even wake him up, it will take more hands than a spider or a daddy longlegs to get him out in front of that horse of Colonel Linscomfo's."

"Maybe you right," Ned said. "That's what we gonter find out now. Son," he said to Lycurgus, "hand me my coat." I had not even noticed the coat yet, but now Lycurgus had it; also the peeled switch. Ned took both and put the coat on. He said to Boon and Butch: "Yawl stand over yonder under them trees with Uncle Possum where you'll be in the shade and wont distract his mind. Hand me your foot," he told me. We did so. I mean, Ned threw me up and Boon and Butch and Lycurgus went back to the tree where Uncle Parsham was already standing. Even though we had made only three trips around the pasture this morning, we had a vestigial path which Lightning would remember whether I could see it or not. Ned led him out to what had been our old starting point this morning. He spoke, quiet and succinct. He was not Uncle Remus now. But then, he never was when it was just me and members of his own race around:

"That track tomorrow aint but a half a mile, so you gonter go around it twice. Make like this is it, so when he sees that real track tomorrow, he'll already know beforehand what to expect and to do. You understand?"

"Yes," I said. "Ride him around it twice—" He handed me the switch. "Get him going quick and hard. Cut him once with this before he even knows it. Then dont touch him again with it until I tells you to. Keep him going as fast as you can with your heels and talking to him but dont bother him: just set there. Keep your mind on it that you're going around twice, and try to think his mind onto that too, like you done with them colts out at McCaslin. You cant do it, but you got the switch this time. But dont touch him with it until I tells you to." He turned his back; he was doing something now inside the shelter of his coat—something infinitesimal with his hidden hands; suddenly I smelled something, faint yet sharp; I realise now that I should have recognised it at once but I didn't have time then. He turned back; as when he had coaxed the horse into the boxcar this morning, his hand touched, caressed Lightning's muzzle for maybe a second, then he stepped back, Lightning already trying to follow him had I not reined him back. "Go!" Ned said. "Cut him!"

I did. He leapt, sprang, out of simple fright: nothing else; it took a half-stride to get his head back and another stride before he realised we wanted to follow the track, path again, at full gallop now, on just enough outside rein to hold him on the course; I already heeling him as hard as I could even before the fright began to fade. Only, there we were again, just like this morning: going good, obedient enough, plenty of power, but once more with that sense that his head didn't really want to go anywhere; until we entered the back stretch and he saw Ned again on the opposite side of the ring. It was the explosion again; he had taken the bit away from me; he had already left the path and was cutting straight across to Ned before I got balance enough to reach my good hand down and take the rein short and haul, wrench him angling back into the track, going hard now; I had to hold him on the outside to make the back turn and into the stretch where he could see Ned again and once more reached for the bit to go straight to him; I was using the cut hand too now to hold him onto the track; it seemed forever until Ned spoke. "Cut him," he said. "Then throw the switch away."

I did so and flung the switch backward; the leap again but I had him now since it only took one rein, the outside one, to keep him on the course, going good now, around the first turn and I was ready for him this time when he would see Ned, on through the back stretch still going, into and around the last turn, still going, Ned standing now about twenty yards beyond where our finish line would be, speaking just exactly loud enough for Lightning to hear him and just exactly as he had spoken to him in the boxcar door last night—and I didn't need the switch now; I wouldn't have had time to use it if I had had it and I thought until then that I had ridden at least one horse that I called hot anyway: a half-bred colt of Cousin Zack's with Morgan on the bottom: but nothing like this, this burst, surge, as if until now we had been dragging a rope with a chunk of wood at the end of it behind us and Ned's voice had cut the rope: "Come on, son. I got it."

So we were standing there, Lightning's muzzle buried to the nostrils in Ned's hand, though all I could smell now was horse-reek and all I could see was the handful of grass which Lightning was eating; Ned himself saying "Hee hee hee" so gentle and quiet that I whispered too:

"What?" I said. "What?" But Boon didn't whisper, coming up.

"I'll be God damned. What the hell did you tell him?"

"Nothing," Ned said. "Just if he want his supper, to come on and get it." And not Butch either: bold, confident, unconvinceable, without scruple or pity.

"Well, well," he said. He didn't draw Lightning's head up out of Ned's hand: he jerked it up, then rammed the bit home when Lightning started back.

"Lemme do it," Ned said quickly. "What you want to find out?"

"Any time I need help handling horses around here, I'll holler," Butch said. "And not for you. I'll save you to holler for down in Missippi." He lifted Lightning's lip and looked at his gums, then at his eyes. "Dont you know it's against the law to dope a horse for a race? Maybe you folks down there in them swamps aint heard about it, but it's so."

"We got horse doctors in Missippi though," Ned said. "Send for one of them to come and see if he been doped."

"Sure, sure," Butch said. "Only, why did you give it to him a day ahead of the race? to see if it would work?"

"That's right," Ned said. "If I give him nothing. Which I aint. Which if you knows horses, you already knows."

"Sure, sure," Butch said again. "I don't interfere with no man's business secrets—providing they work. Is this horse going to run like that again tomorrow? I dont mean once: I mean three times."

"He dont need to do it but twice," Ned said. "All right," Butch said. "Twice. Is he?"

"Ask Mr Hogganbeck there if he hadn't better do it twice," Ned said.

"I aint asking Mr Sugar Boy," Butch said. "I'm asking you,

"I can make him do it twice," Ned said. "Fair enough," Butch said. "In fact, if all you got is three more doses, I wouldn't even risk but twice. Then if he misses the second one, you can use the last one to get back to Missippi on."

"I done thought of that too," Ned said. "Walk him back to the barn," he said to me. "Cool him out. Then we'll bath him."

Butch watched that too, some of it. We went back to the barn and untacked and Lycurgus brought a bucket and a rag and Lycurgus washed him down and dried him with crokersacks before stalling and feeding him—or had started to. Because Butch said, "Here, boy, run to the house and set the water bucket and some sugar on the front gallery. Me and Mr Sugar Boy are going to have a toddy." Though Lycurgus didn't move until Uncle Par-sham said, "Go." He went then, Boon and Butch following. Uncle Parsham stood at the door of the stable, watching them (Butch, that is)—a lean dramatic old man all black-and-white: black pants, white shirt, black face and hat behind the white hair and moustache and imperial. "Law," he said. He said it calmly, with cold and detached contempt.

"A man that never had nothing in it nohow, one of them little badges goes to his head so fast it makes yourn swim too," Ned said. "Except it aint the badge so much as that pistol, that likely all the time he was a little boy, he wanted to tote, only he knowed all the time that soon as he got big enough to own one, the law wouldn't let him tote it. Now with that badge too, he dont run no risk of being throwed in jail and having it took away from him; he can still be a little boy in spite of he had to grow up. The risk is, that pistol gonter stay on that little boy mind just so long before some day it gonter shoot at something alive before he even knowed he aimed to." Then Lycurgus came back.

"They waiting for you," he told me. "The surrey."

"It's back from town already?" I said. "It never went to town," Lycurgus said. "It never left. She been setting in it out there with that-ere boy all the time, waiting for you all. She say to come on."

"Wait," Ned said. I stopped; I still had the riding-sock on and I thought he meant that. But he was looking at me. "You gonter start running into folks now."

"What folks?" I said.

"That word has done got around to. About this race."

"How got around?" I said.

"How do word ever get around?" he said. "It dont need no messenger; all it needs is two horses that can run to be inside the same ten miles of each other. How you reckon that Law got here? maybe smelled that white girl four or five miles away like a dog? I know; maybe I hoped like Boon Hogganbeck still believes: that we could get these two horses together here all nice and private and run that race, win or lose, and me and you and him could either go back home or go any other place we wants providing it's longer away than Boss Priest's arm. But not now. You gonter start meeting them from now on. And tomorrow they gonter be thicker still."

"You mean we can run the race?"

"We go to now. Maybe we been had to ever since me and Boon realised that Boss had done took his hand off of that automobile for as long as twenty-four hours. But now we sho got to run it."

"What do you want me to do?" I said.

"Nothing. I'm just telling you so you wont be surprised in advance. All we got to do is get them two horses on the same track and pointed the same way and you just set there on Lightning and do like I tell you. Go on, now, before they start hollering for you."

Chapter 9

Ned was right. I mean, about word already being around. There was nothing wrong with my hand when Everbe took the riding-sock off. I mean, it felt like anybody's hand would that had been cut across the inside of the fingers yesterday. I dont believe it had bled any more even when I used it against Lightning's pulling this afternoon. But not Everbe. So we stopped at the doctor's first, about a mile this side of town. Butch knew him, knew where but I dont know how Everbe persuaded him to take us there— nagged him or threatened or promised or maybe just did it like a big girl trout so busy fussing around a child trout that she quit behaving like there was any such thing in existence as a barbed hook with a line fastened to it and so the fisherman had to do something even if only getting rid of the child trout. Or maybe it was not Everbe but rather the empty flask, since the next drink would have to be at the hotel in Parsham. Because as I came around the house, Lycurgus's mother was standing at the edge of the gallery holding a sugar bowl and a water bucket with a gourd dipper and Butch and Boon were just draining the two tumblers and Lycurgus was just picking up the empty flask where Butch had flung it into a rosebush.

So Butch took us to the doctor's—a little once-white house in a little yard filled with the kind of rank-growing rank-smelling dusty flowers that bloom in the late summer and fall, a fat iron-gray woman in pince-nez like a retired schoolteacher who even fifteen years later still hated eight-year-old children, who came to the door and looked at us once (Ned was right) and said back into the house, "It's them race-horse folks," and turned and vanished toward the back, Butch moving right on in before she could turn, jovial, already welcome—or somebody damn well better see that he was (the badge again, you see; wearing it or simply being known to possess one, to enter any house in any other manner would be not a mere individual betrayal but a caste betrayal and debasement)—saying,

"Howdy, Doc; got a patient for you," to an iron-gray man too if the tobacco juice were bleached out of his unshaven whiskers, in a white shirt like Ned's but not as clean, and a black coat too with a long streak of day before yesterday's egg on it, who looked and smelled like something also, except it wasn't just alcohol, or anyway all alcohol. "Me and Brother Hogganbeck will wait in the parlor," Butch said. "Dont bother; I know where the bottle's at. Dont worry about Doc," he said to Boon. "He dont hardly ever touch whiskey unless he just has to. The law allows him one shot of ether as a part of the cure for every patient that can show blood or a broken bone. If it's just a little old cut or broke finger or ripped hide like this, Doc divides the treatment with the patient: he drinks all the ether and lets the patient have all the cure. Haw haw haw. This way."

So Butch and Boon went that way, and Everbe and I (you have doubtless noticed that nobody had missed Otis yet. We got out of the surrey; it appeared to be Butch's; anyway he was driving it; there had been some delay at Uncle Parsham's while Butch tried to persuade, then cajole, then force Everbe to get in the front seat with him, which she foiled by getting into the back seat and holding me by one arm and holding Otis in the surrey with her other hand, until Boon got in front with Butch—and first Butch, then the rest of us were somehow inside the doctor's hall but nobody remembered Otis at that moment) followed the doctor into another room containing a horsehair sofa with a dirty pillow and a wadded quilt on it, and a roll-top desk cluttered with medicine bottles and more of them on the mantel beneath which the ashes of last winter's final fire had not yet been disturbed, and a washstand with a bowl and pitcher and a chamber pot that somebody hadn't emptied yet either in one corner and a shotgun in the other; and if Mother had been there his fingernails would have touched no scratch belonging to her, let alone four cut fingers, and evidently Everbe agreed with her; she —Everbe—said, "I'll unwrap it," and did so. I said the hand was all right. The doctor looked at it through his steel-rimmed spectacles.

"What did you put on it?" he said. Everbe told him. I know what it is now. The doctor looked at her. "How'd you happen to have that handy?" he said. Then he lifted the spectacles by one corner and looked at her again and said, "Oh." Then he said, "Well, well," and lowered the spectacles again and—yes he did: it was a sigh—said, "I aint been to Memphis in thirty-five years," and stood there a minute and—I tell you, it was a sigh—said, "Yes. Thirty-five years," and said, "If I was you I wouldn't do anything to it. Just bandage it again." Yes, exactly like Mother: he got the bandage out but she put it on. "You the boy going to ride that horse tomorrow?" he said. "Yes," Everbe said.

"Beat that Linscomb horse this time, durn him."

"We'll try," Everbe said. "How much do we owe you?" '"Nothing," he said. "You already cured it. Just beat that durn Linscomb horse tomorrow."

"I want to pay you something for looking at it," Everbe said. "For telling us it's all right."

"No," he said. He looked at her: the old man's eyes behind the spectacles magnified yet unfocusable, as irreparable as eggs, until you would think they couldn't possibly grasp and hold anything as recent as me and Everbe. "Yes," Everbe said. "What is it?"

"Maybe if you had a extra handkerchief or something . . ." He said: "Yes, thirty-five years. I had one once, when I was a young man, thirty, thirty-five years ago. Then I got married, and it . . ." He said, "Yes. Thirty-five years."

"Oh," Everbe said. She turned her back to us and bent over; her skirts rustled; it was not long; they rustled again and she turned back. "Here," she said. It was a garter. "Beat that durn horse!" he said. "Beat him! You can do it!" Now we heard the voices—voice, that is, Butch's— loud in the little hall before we got there:

"What do you know? Sugar Boy wont take a drink no more. All boys together, give and take, never snatch without whistling first, and now he insults me." He stood grinning at Boon, triumphant, daring. Boon looked really dangerous now. Like Ned (all of us) he was worn out for sleep too. But all the load Ned had to carry was the horse; Everbe and Butch's badge were not his burden. "Huh, boy?" Butch said; now he was going to slap Boon on the back again with that jovial force which was just a little too hard but not quite.

"Dont do it again," Boon said. Butch stopped. He didn't retract the motion: he just stopped it, grinning at Boon.

"My name's Mister Lovemaiden," he said. "But call me Butch."

After a while Boon said, "Lovemaiden."

"Butch," Butch said.

After a while Boon said, "Butch."

"That's a boy," Butch said. He said to Everbe: "Doc fix you up all right? Maybe I ought to warned you about Doc. They claim when he was a young squirt fifty-sixty years ago, he would a had one snatch at your drawers before he even tipped his hat."

"Come on," Boon said. "You paid him?"

"Yes," Everbe said. We went outside. And that was when somebody said, Where is Otis? No, it was Everbe of course; she just looked once and said, "Otis!" quite loud, strong, not to say urgent, not to say alarmed and desperate.

"Dont tell me he's scared of horses even tied to a gatepost," Butch said.

"Come on," Boon said. "He's just gone on ahead; he 'aint got nowhere else to go. We'll pick him up."

"But why?" Everbe said. "Why didn't he—"

"How do I know?" Boon said. "Maybe he's right." He meant Butch. Then he meant Otis: "For all he's as knowing a little son of a bitch as ever come out of Arkansas or Missippi either for that matter, he's still a arrant coward. Come on." So we got in the surrey and went on to town. Except that I was on Everbe's side about Otis; when you couldn't see him was a good time to be already wondering where he was and why. I never saw anybody lose public confidence as fast as he could; he would have had a hard time now finding anybody in this surrey to take him to another zoo or anywhere else. And it wasn't going to be much longer before he couldn't have found anybody in Parsham either.

Only we didn't overtake him. He wasn't on the road all the way to the hotel. And Ned was wrong. I mean about the increasing swarm of horse-race devotees we would be running into from now on. Maybe I had expected to mid the entire hotel veranda lined with them, waiting for us and watching us arrive. If so, I was wrong; there was nobody there at all. In the winter of course, during the quail season and especially during the two weeks of the National Trials, it would be different. But in those days, unlike London, Parsham had no summer season; people went elsewhere: to water or mountains: Raleigh, near Memphis, or luka not far away in Mississippi, or to the Ozarks or Cumberlands. (Nor, for that matter, does it have one now, nor indeed does any place else, either winter or summer season; there are no seasons at all any more, with interiors artificially contrived at sixty degrees in summer and ninety degrees in winter, so that mossbacked recidivists like me must go outside in summer to escape cold and in winter to escape heat; including the automobiles also which once were mere economic necessities but are now social ones, the moment already here when, if all the human race ever stops moving at the same instant, the surface of the earth will seize, solidify: there are too many of us; humanity will destroy itself not by fission but by another beginning with f which is a verb-active also as well as a conditional state; I wont see it but you may: a law compelled and enforced by dire and frantic social—not Economic: social—desperation permitting a woman but one child as she is now permitted but one husband.)

But in winter of course (as now), it was different, with the quail season and the Grand National Trials, with the rich money of oil and wheat barons from Wall Street and Chicago and Saskatchewan, and the fine dogs with pedigrees more jealous than princes, and the fine breeding and training kennels only minutes away now by automobile —Red Banks and Michigan City and La Grange and Ger-mantown, and the names—Colonel Linscomb, whose horse (we assumed) we were going to race against tomorrow, and Horace Lytle and George Peyton as magical among bird-dog people as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb among baseball aficionados, and Mr Jim Avant from Hickory Flat and Mr Paul Rainey just a few miles down Colonel Sartoris's railroad toward Jefferson—hound men both, who (I suppose) among these mere pedigreed pointers and setters, called themselves slumming; the vast rambling hotel booming then, staffed and elegant, the very air itself suave and murmurous with money, littered with colored ribbons and cluttered with silver cups.

But there was nobody there now, the quiet street empty with May dust (it was after six now; Parsham would be at home eating—or preparing to eat—supper), vacant even of Otis, though he could be, probably was, inside. And what was even more surprising, to me anyway, vacant also of Butch. He simply drove us up to the door and put us out and drove away, pausing only long enough to give Ev-erbe one hard jeering leer and Boon one hard leering jeer, if anything a little harder than Everbe's, saying, "Dont worry, boy, I'll be back. If you got any business still hanging, better get it unhung before I get back or something might get tore," and drove away. So apparently he also had somewhere he had to be occasionally: a home; I was still ignorant and innocent (not as much as I was twenty-four hours ago, but still tainted) but I was on Boon's side, my loyalty was to him, not to mention to Everbe, and I had assimilated enough (whether I had digested all of it yet or not) since yesterday, to know exactly what I meant when I hoped that maybe he had a wife in it—some innocent ravished out of a convent whose friendless avengeless betrayal would add another charge to the final accounting of his natural ruthless baseness; or better: an ambidextrous harridan who could cope with him by at least recording into his face each one of his countermarital victories. Because probably half the pleasure he got out of fornication was having it known who the victim was. But I wronged him. He was a bachelor.

But Otis was not inside either: only the single temporary clerk in the half-shrouded lobby and the single temporary waiter flapping his napkin in the door of the completely shrouded dining room save for a single table set out for such anonymous passers-by as we were—so far were, that is. But Otis had not been seen. "I aint wondering so much where he's at," Boon said, "as I am about what the hell he has done this time that we aint found out about yet."

"Nothing!" Everbe said. "He's just a child!"

"Sure," Boon said. "Just a little armed child. When he gets big enough to steal—"

"Stop!" Everbe said. "I wont—"

"All right, all right," Boon said. "Find, then. Find enough money to buy a knife with a six-inch blade in place of that two-inch pocketknife, anybody that turns his back on him had sho enough better be wearing one of them old-time iron union suits like you see in museums. I got to talk to you," he told her. "Supper'll be soon, and then we got to meet the train. And that tin-badge stallion will be neighing and prancing back here any time now." He took her arm. "Come on."

That was when I had to begin to listen to Boon. I mean, I had to. Everbe compelled it. She wouldn't even go with him unless I came too. We—they—went to the ladies' parlor; there wasn't much time now; we would have to eat supper and then go to the depot to meet Miss Reba. In those days females didn't run in and out of gentlemen's rooms in hotels as, I am told, they do now, even wearing, I am told, what the advertisements call the shorts or scan-ties capable of giving women the freedom they need in their fight for freedom; in fact, I had never seen a woman alone in a hotel before (Mother would not have been here without Father) and I remember how I wondered how Everbe without a wedding ring even could have got in. They—the hotels—had what were known as ladies' parlors, like this one where we now were—a smaller though still more elegant room, most of it likewise shrouded in holland bags. But I was still on Boon's side; I didn't pass the doorway but stopped outside, where Everbe could know where I was, within call, even if she couldn't actually see me. So I heard. Oh yes, listened. I would have listened anyway; I had gone too far by now in sophistication and the facts of life to stop now, just as I had gone too far in stealing automobiles and race horses to quit now. So I could hear them: Everbe; and almost at once she was crying again:

"No! I wont! Let me alone!" Then Boon:

"But why? You said you loved me. Was that just lying too?" Then Everbe:

"I do love you. That's why. Let me alone! Turn me loose! Lucius! Lucius!" Then Boon:

"Shut up. Stop now." Then nothing for a minute. I didn't look, peep, I just listened. No: just heard: "If I thought you were just two-timing me with that God damned tin-badged—" Then Everbe:

"No! No! I'm not!" Then something I couldn't hear, until Boon said:

"What? Quit? What do you mean, quit?" Then Everbe:

"Yes! I've quit! Not any more. Never!" Then Boon:

"How're you going to live? What will you eat? Where you going to sleep?" And Everbe:

"I'm going to get a job. I can work."

"What can you do? You aint got no more education than me. What can you do to make a living?"

"I can wash dishes. I can wash and iron. I can learn to cook. I can do something, I can even hoe and pick cotton. Let me go, Boon. Please. Please. I've got to. Cant you see I've got to?" Then her feet running, even on the thick carpet; she was gone. So Boon caught me this time. His face was pretty bad now. Ned was lucky; all he had to frazzle over was just a horse race.

"Look at me," Boon said. "Look at me good. What's wrong with me? What the hell's wrong with me? It used to be that I ..." His face looked like it was going to burst. He started again: "And why me? Why the hell me? Why the hell has she got to pick out me to reform on? God damn it, she's a whore, cant she understand that? She's in the paid business of belonging to me exclusive the minute she sets her foot where I'm at like I'm in the paid business of belonging to Boss and Mr Maury exclusive the minute I set my foot where they're at. But now she's done quit. For private reasons. She cant no more. She aint got no more private rights to quit without my say-so too than I got to quit without Boss's and Mr Maury's say-so too—" He stopped, furious and baffled, raging and helpless; and more: terrified. It was the Negro waiter, flapping his napkin in this doorway now. Boon made a tremendous effort; Ned with nothing but a horse race to win didn't even know what trouble was. "Go tell her to come on to supper. We got to meet that train. Her room is Number Five."

But she wouldn't come out. So Boon and I ate alone. His face still didn't look much better. He ate like you put meat into a grinder: not like he either wanted it or didn't want it, but it was just time to eat. After a while I said, "Maybe he started walking back to Arkansas. He said two or three times this afternoon that that's where he would have been by now if folks hadn't kept on interfering with him."

"Sure," Boon said. "Maybe he just went on ahead to locate that dish-washing job for her. Or maybe he reformed too and they're both going right straight to heaven without stopping off at Arkansas or nowhere else, and he just went ahead to find out how to pass Memphis without nobody seeing them." Then it was time to go. I had been watching the edge of her dress beyond the dining-room door for about two minutes, but now the waiter himself came.

"Two-O-Eight, sir," he said. "Just blowed for One Mile Crossing." So we went across to the depot, not far, the three of us walking together, mutual overnight hotel guests. I mean we—they—were not fighting now; we— they—could even have talked, conversed, equable and inconsequential. Everbe would have, only Boon would need to speak first. Not far: merely to cross the tracks to reach the platform, the train already in sight now, the two of them (Boon and Everbe) shackled yet estranged, alien yet indissoluble, confounded yet untwainable by no more than what Boon thought was a whim: who (Boon) for all his years was barely older than me and didn't even know that women no more have whims than they have doubts or illusions or prostate troubles; the train, the engine passing us in hissing thunder, sparks flying from the brake shoes; it was the long one, the big one, the cannonball, the Special: the baggage cars, the half Jim Crow smoker, then the day coaches and the endless pullmans, the dining car at the end, slowing; it was Sam Caldwell's train and if Everbe and Otis had travelled to Parsham in the caboose of a scheduled through freight, Miss Reba would be in a drawing room, if indeed she was not in the president's private car; the train stopping at last though still no vestibule opened, no white-jacketed porter nor conductor, though certainly Sam would have been watching for us; until Boon said, "Hell. The smoker," and began to run. Then we all saw them, far ahead: Sam Caldwell in his uniform on the cinders helping Miss Reba down, someone—another woman—following her, and not from the smoking car at all but from the Jim Crow half of it where Negroes travelled; the train—it was the Special for Washington and New York, the cannonball wafting the rich women in diamonds and the men with dollar cigars in suave and insulate transmigration across the earth—already moving again so that Sam had only time to wave back at us from the step, diminishing eastward behind the short staccato puffs and the long whistle blasts and at last the red diminishing twin lamps, and the two women standing among the grips and bags on the vacant cinders, Miss Reba bold and handsome and chic and Minnie beside her looking like death.

"We've had trouble," Miss Reba said. "Where's the hotel?" We went there. Now, in the lighted lobby, we could see Minnie. Her face was not like death. Death is peaceful. What Minnie's fixed close-lipped brooding face boded was not peaceful and it wasn't boded at her either.

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"Yes, Mrs Binford," the clerk said. "We have special quarters for servants, with their own dining room—"

"Keep them," Miss Reba said. "I said a cot in my room. I want her with me. We'll wait in the parlor while you make it up. Where is it?" But she had already located the ladies' parlor, we following. "Where is he?" she said.

"Where is who?" Everbe said.

"You know who," Miss Reba said. And suddenly I knew who, and that in another moment I would know why. But I didn't have time. Miss Reba sat down. "Sit down," she told Minnie. But Minnie didn't move. "All right," Miss Reba said. "Tell them." Minnie smiled at us. It was ghastly: a frantic predatory rictus, an anguished ravening gash out of which the beautiful and matchless teeth arched outward to the black orifice where the gold one had been; I knew now why Otis had fled Parsham even though he had had to do it on foot; oh yes, at that moment fifty-six years ago I was one with you now in your shocked and horrified unbelief, until Minnie and Miss Reba told us.

"It was him!" Minnie said. "I know it was him! He taken it while I was asleep!"

"Hell fire," Boon said. "Somebody stole a tooth out of your mouth and you didn't even know it?"

"God damn it, listen," Miss Reba said. "Minnie had that tooth made that way, so she could put it in and take it out—worked extra and scrimped and saved for—how many years was it, Minnie? three, wasn't it?—until she had enough money to have her own tooth took out and that God damned gold one put in. Oh sure, I tried my best to talk her out of it—ruin that set of natural teeth that anybody else would give a thousand dollars apiece, and anything else she had too; not to mention all the extra it cost her to have it made so she could take it out when she ate—"

"Took it out when she ate?" Boon said. "What the hell is she saving her teeth for?"

"I wanted that tooth a long time," Minnie said, "and I worked and saved to get it, extra work. I aint going to have it all messed up with no spit-mixed something to eat."

"So she would take it out when she ate." Miss Reba said, "and put it right there in front of her plate where she could see it, not only watch it but enjoy it too while she was eating. But that wasn't the way he got it; she says she

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Crossing." So we went across to the depot, not far, the three of us walking together, mutual overnight hotel guests. I mean we—they—were not fighting now; we— they—could even have talked, conversed, equable and inconsequential. Everbe would have, only Boon would need to speak first. Not far: merely to cross the tracks to reach the platform, the train already in sight now, the two of them (Boon and Everbe) shackled yet estranged, alien yet indissoluble, confounded yet untwainable by no more than what Boon thought was a whim: who (Boon) for all his years was barely older than me and didn't even know that women no more have whims than they have doubts or illusions or prostate troubles; the train, the engine passing us in hissing thunder, sparks flying from the brake shoes; it was the long one, the big one, the cannonball, the Special: the baggage cars, the half Jim Crow smoker, then the day coaches and the endless pullmans, the dining car at the end, slowing; it was Sam Caldwell's train and if Everbe and Otis had travelled to Parsham in the caboose of a scheduled through freight, Miss Reba would be in a drawing room, if indeed she was not in the president's private car; the train stopping at last though still no vestibule opened, no white-jacketed porter nor conductor, though certainly Sam would have been watching for us; until Boon said, "Hell. The smoker," and began to run. Then we all saw them, far ahead: Sam Caldwell in his uniform on the cinders helping Miss Reba down, someone—another woman—following her, and not from the smoking car at all but from the Jim Crow half of it where Negroes travelled; the train—it was the Special for Washington and New York, the oannonball wafting the rich women in diamonds and the men with dollar cigars in suave and insulate transmigration across the earth—already moving again so that Sam had only tune to wave back at us from the step, diminishing eastward behind the short staccato puffs and the long whistle blasts and at last the red diminishing twin lamps, and the two women standing among the grips and bags on the vacant cinders, Miss Reba bold and handsome and chic and Minnie beside her looking like death.

"We've had trouble," Miss Reba said. "Where's the hotel?" We went there. Now, in the lighted lobby, we could see Minnie. Her face was not like death. Death is peaceful. What Minnie's fixed close-lipped brooding face boded was not peaceful and it wasn't boded at her either. The clerk came. "I'm Mrs Binford," Miss Reba said. "You got my wire about a cot in my room for my maid?"

"Yes, Mrs Binford," the clerk said. "We have special quarters for servants, with their own dining room—"

"Keep them," Miss Reba said. "I said a cot in my room. I want her with me. We'll wait in the parlor while you make it up. Where is it?" But she had already located the ladies' parlor, we following. "Where is he?" she said.

"Where is who?" Everbe said.

"You know who," Miss Reba said. And suddenly I knew who, and that in another moment I would know why. But I didn't have time. Miss Reba sat down. "Sit down," she told Minnie. But Minnie didn't move. "All right," Miss Reba said. "Tell them." Minnie smiled at us. It was ghastly: a frantic predatory rictus, an anguished ravening gash out of which the beautiful and matchless teeth arched outward to the black orifice where the gold one had been; I knew now why Otis had fled Parsham even though he had had to do it on foot; oh yes, at that moment fifty-six years ago I was one with you now in your shocked and horrified unbelief, until Minnie and Miss Reba told us.

"It was him!" Minnie said. "I know it was him! He taken it while I was asleep!"

"Hell fire," Boon said. "Somebody stole a tooth out of your mouth and you didn't even know it?"

"God damn it, listen," Miss Reba said. "Minnie had that tooth made that way, so she could put it in and take it out—worked extra and scrimped and saved for—how many years was it, Minnie? three, wasn't it?—until she had enough money to have her own tooth took out and that God damned gold one put in. Oh sure, I tried my best to talk her out of it—ruin that set of natural teeth that anybody else would give a thousand dollars apiece, and anything else she had too; not to mention all the extra it cost her to have it made so she could take it out when she ate—"

"Took it out when she ate?" Boon said. "What the hell is she saving her teeth for?"

"I wanted that tooth a long time," Minnie said, "and I worked and saved to get it, extra work. I aint going to have it all messed up with no spit-mixed something to eat."

"So she would take it out when she ate." Miss Reba said, "and put it right there in front of her plate where she could see it, not only watch it but enjoy it too while she was eating. But that wasn't the way he got it; she says she put it back in when she finished breakfast, and I believe her; she aint never forgot it before because she was proud of it, it was valuable, it had cost her too much; no more than you would put that God damned horse down somewhere that's probably cost you a damned sight more than a gold tooth, and forget it—"

"I know I never," Minnie said. "I put it back as soon as I ate. I remember. Only I was plumb wore out and tired—"

"That's right," Miss Reba said. She was talking to Ev-erbe now: "I reckon I was going good when you all come in last night. It was daybreak before I come to my senses enough to quit, and the sun was up when I finally persuaded Minnie to take a good slug of gin and see the front door was bolted and go on back to bed, and I went up myself and woke Jackie and told her to keep the place shut, I didn't care if every horny bastard south of St Louis come knocking, not to let nobody in before six oclock this evening. So Minnie went back and laid down on her cot in the storeroom off the back gallery and I thought at first maybe she forgot to lock that door—"

"Course I locks it," Minnie said. "That's where the beer's at. I been keeping that door locked ever since that boy got here because I remembered him from last summer when he come to visit."

"So there she was," Miss Reba said, "wore out and dead asleep on that cot with the door locked and never knowed nothing until—"

"I woke up," Minnie said. "I was still so tired and wore out that I slept too hard, like you do; I just laid there and I knowed something felt a little funny in my mouth. But I »just thought maybe it was a scrap of something had done got caught in it no matter how careful I was, until I got up and went to the looking glass and looked—"

"I wonder they never heard her in Chattanooga, let alone just in Parsham," Miss Reba said. "And the door still locked—"

"It was him!" Minnie said, cried. "I know it was! He been worrying me at least once every day how much it cost and why didn't I sell it and how much could I get for it and where would I go to sell it at—"

"Sure," Miss Reba said. "That's why he squalled like a wildcat this morning when you told him he wasn't going back home but would have to come on to Parsham with you," she told Everbe. "So when he heard the train whistle, he run, huh? Where do you figger he is? Because I'm going to have Minnie's tooth back."

"We dont know," Everbe said. "He just disappeared out of the surrey about half past five oclock. We thought he would have to be here, because he aint got anywhere else to go. But we haven't found him yet."

"Maybe you aint looked right," Miss Reba said. "He (aint the kind you can whistle out. You got to smoke him out like a rat or a snake." The clerk came back. "All right now?" Miss Reba said.

"Yes, Mrs Bin-ford," the clerk said. Miss Reba got up.

"I'll get Minnie settled down and stay with her until she goes to sleep. Then I'd like some supper," she told the clerk. "It dont matter what it is."

"It's a little late," the clerk said. "The dining room—"

"And it's going to be still later after a while," Miss Reba said. "It dont matter what it is. Come on, Minnie." She and Minnie went out. Then the clerk was gone too. We stood there; none of us had sat down; she—Everbe— just stood there: a big girl that stillness looked well on; grief too, as long as it was still, like this. Or maybe not grief so much as shame.

"He never had no chance back there," she said. "That's why I thought ... To get away even for just a week last summer. And then this year, especially after you all came too and as soon as I saw Lucius I knew that that was the way I had been wanting him to be all the time, only I didn't know neither how to tell him, learn him. And so I thought maybe just being around Lucius, even for just two or three days—"

"Sure," Boon said. "Refinement." Now he went to her, awkward. He didn't offer to put his arms around her again. He didn't even touch her, really. He just patted her back; it looked almost as hard, his hand did, as insensitive and heavy, as when Butch had slapped his this afternoon. But it wasn't at all. "It's all right," he said. "It aint nothing, see. You were doing the best you knowed. You done good. Come on, now." It was the waiter again.

"Your coachman's in the kitchen, sir," he said. "He says it's important."

"My coachman?" Boon said. "I ain't got a coachman."

"It's Ned," I said, already moving. Then Everbe was too, ahead of Boon. We followed the waiter back to the kitchen. Ned was standing quite close to the cook, a tremendous Negro woman who was drying dishes at the sink. He was saying,

"If it's money worrying your mind, Good-looking, I'm the man what—" and saw us and read Boon's mind like a flash: "Ease your worry. He's out at Possum's. What's he done this time?"

"What?" Boon said.

"It's Otis," I said. "Ned found him."

"I didn't," Ned said. "I hadn't never lost him. Uncle Possum's hounds did. Put him up a gum sapling behind the henhouse about a hour ago, until Lycurgus went and got him. He wouldn't come in with me. In fact, he acted like he didn't aim to go nowhere right away. What's he done this time?" We told him. "So she's here too," he said. He said quietly: "Hee hee hee." He said: "Then, he wont be there when I get back."

"What do you mean?" Boon said.

"Would you still be there, if you was him?" Ned said. "He knows that by this time that gal's done woke up and found that tooth missing. He must a been knowing that Miss Reba long enough by now to know she aint gonter stop until she gets her hand on him and turns him upside down and shake until that tooth falls out of wherever he's got it. I told him myself where I was going on that mule, and anybody there can tell him what time that train got in and how long it will take somebody to get back out there. Would you still be there if you had that tooth?"

"All right," Boon said. "What's he going to do with it?"

"If it was anybody else but him," Ned said, "I'd say he had three chances with it: sell it or hide it or give it away. But since it's him, he aint got but two: sell it or hide it, and if it's got to just stay hid somewhere, it might just as well be back in that gal's mouth as fur as he's concerned. So the best place to sell a gold tooth quick would be back in Memphis. Only Memphis is too fur to walk, and to get on the train (which would cost money, which he likely is got-providing he is desperate enough to spend some of hisn) he would have to come back to Possum, where somebody might see him. So the next best quick place to sell that gold tooth will be at that race track tomorrow. If it was you or me, we might likely bet that tooth on one of them horses tomorrow. But he aint no betting man. Betting's too slow for him, not to mention uncertain. But that race track will be a good place to start looking for him. It's too bad I didn't know about that tooth whilst I had my hand on him tonight. Maybe I could a reasoned it out of him. Then, if he belonged to me, Mr Sam Caldwell gonter be through here on that west-bound train at six-fawty tomorrow morning and I'd a had him at the depot and turned him over to Mr Sam and told Mr Sam not to lift his hand offen him until the door shut on the first train leaving for Arkansas tomorrow."

"Can you find him tomorrow?" Everbe said. "I've got to find him. He's just a child. I'll pay for the tooth, I'll buy Minnie another one. But I've got to find him. He'll say he hasn't got it, he never saw it, but I've got—"

"Sho," Ned said. "That's what I'd say too if it was me. I'll try. Ill be in early tomorrow morning to get Lucius, but the best chance gonter be at that track tomorrow just before the race." He said to me: "Folks is already kind of dropping by Possum's lot like they wasn't noticing themselves doing it, likely trying to find out who it is this time that still believes that horse can run a race. So likely we gonter have a nice crowd tomorrow. It's late now, so you go get some sleep whilst I takes that mule of Possum's back home to bed too. Where's your sock? You aint lost it?"

"It's in my pocket," I said.

"Be sho you dont," he said. "The mate to it is the left-footed one 'and a left-footed sock is unlucky unlessen you wears both of them." He turned, but no further than the fat cook; he said to her now: "Unlessen my mind changes to staying in town tonight. What time you setting breakfast, Good-looking?"

"The soonest time after your jaws is too far away to chomp it," the cook said.

"Good night, all," Ned said. Then he was gone. We went back to the dining room, where the waiter, in his short sleeves now and without his collar and tie, brought Miss Reba a plate of the pork chops and grits and biscuits and blackberry jam we had had for supper, neither hot nor cold now but lukewarm, in deshabille like the waiter, you might say.

"Did you get her to sleep?" Everbe said. "Yes," Miss Reba said. "That little son of a—" and cut it off and said, "Excuse me. I thought I had seen everything in my business, but I never thought I'd have a tooth stolen in one of my houses. I hate little bastards. They're like little snakes. You can handle a big snake because you been already warned to watch out. But a little one has already bit you behind before you even knew it had teeth. Where's my coffee?" The waiter brought it and went away. And then even Ifrat big shrouded dining room was crowdedj it was like every time Boon and Butch got inside the same four walls everything compounded, multiplied, leaving not really room for anything else. He—Butch— had been back to the doctor's, or maybe in the tin badge business you knew, everybody who didn't dare refuse you a free drink. And it was getting late, and I was tired, but here he was again; and suddenly I knew that up to now he hadn't really been anything and that we were only just starting with Mm now, standing in the door, bulging, bright-eyed, confident, breezy and a little redder, the badge itself seeming to bulge at us as with a life of its own on his sweaty shirt, he—Butch—wearing it not as the official authorisation of his unique dedication, but as a boy scout wears his merit badge: as both the unique and hard-won reward and emblem of a specialisation and the pre-absolution for any other activities covered or embraced by its mystic range; at that moment Everbe rose quickly across the table and almost scuttled around it and into the chair next Miss Reba, whom Butch was looking at, bulging at now. And that was when I rated Boon down a notch and left Everbe first for trouble. All Boon had was Butch; she had Boon and Butch both.

"Well well," Butch said, "is all Catalpa Street moving east to Possum?" So that at first I thought he might be a friend or at least a business acquaintance of Miss Reba's. But if he was, he didn't remember her name. But then even at eleven I was learning that there are people like Butch who dont remember anybody except in the terms of their immediate need of them, and what he needed now (or anyway could use) was another woman, he didn't care who provided she was more or less young and pleasing. No: he didn't really need one: he just happened to find one already in the path, like one lion on Ms way to fight another lion over an antelope that he never had any doubts about licking (I mean licking the lion, not the antelope) would still be a fool not to try throwing in, just for luck you might say, another antelope if he happened to find - one straying in the path. Except that Miss Reba turned out not to be an antelope. What Butch found was another lion. He said: "This is what I call Sugar Boy using Ms head; what's the use of him and me being all racked up over one hunk of meat when here's 'another exactly like it in all important details except maybe a little difference in the pelt."

"Who's that?" Miss Reba said to Everbe. "Friend of yours?"

"No," Everbe said; she was actually crouching: a big girl, too big to crouch. "Please—"

"She's telling you," Boon said. "She aint got no friends no more. She dont want none. She's quit, gone out of business. Soon as we finish losing this horse race, she's going away somewhere and get a job washing dishes. Ask her."

Miss Reba was looking at Everbe. "Please," Everbe said.

"What do you want?" Miss Reba asked Butch.

"Nothing," Butch said. "Nothing a-tall. Me and Sugar Boy was kind of bollixed up at one another for a while. But now you showed up, everything is hunky-dory. Twenty-three skiddoo," He came and took hold of Everbe's arm. "Come on. The surrey's outside. Let's give them a little room."

"Call the manager," Miss Reba said, quite loud, to me. I didn't even have to move; likely, if I had been looking, I could have seen the edge of Mm too beyond the door. He came in. "Is this man the law here?" Miss Reba said.

"Why, we all know Butch around here, Mrs Binford," the clerk said. "He's got as many friends in Parsham as anybody I know. Of course he's from up at Hardwick; properly speaking, we dont have a law officer right here in Parsham; we ain't quite that big yet." Butch's rich and bulging warmth had embraced, invited the clerk almost before he could enter the door, as though he—the clerk— had fallen headlong into it and vanished like a mouse into a lump of still-soft ambergris. But now Butch's eyes were quite cold, hard.

"Maybe that's what's wrong around here," he told the clerk. "Maybe that's why you dont have no progress and advancement: what you need is a little more law."

"Aw, Butch," the clerk said.

"You mean, anybody that wants to can walk in off the street and drag whichever one of your women guests he likes the looks of best, off to the nearest bed like you were running a cat-house?" Miss Reba said.

"Drag who where?" Butch said. "Drag with what? a two-dollar bill?" Miss Reba rose.

"Come on," she said to Everbe. "There's a train back to Memphis tonight. I know the owner of this dump. I think I'll go see him tomorrow—"

"Aw, Butch," the clerk said. "Wait, Mrs Binford—"

"You go back out front, Virgil," Butch told the clerk. "It aint only four months to November; some millionaire with two registered bird dogs might walk in any minute, and there wont be nobody out there to show him where to sign Ms name at. Go on. We're all friends here." The clerk went. "Now that that's all out of the way," Butch said, reaching for Everbe's arm again.

"Then you'll do," Miss Reba said to Butch. "Let's me and you go out front, or anywhere else that's private, too. I got a word for you."

"About what?" Butch said. She didn't answer, already walking toward the door. "Private, you say?" Butch said. "Why, sure; any time I cant accommodate a good-looking gal private, I'll give Sugar Boy full lief to step in." They went out. And now, from the lobby, we couldn't see them beyond the door of the ladies' parlor, for almost a minute in fact, maybe even a little more, before Miss Reba came back out, still walking steadily, hard and handsome and composed; then Butch a second later, saying, "Is that so, huh? We'll just see about that," Miss Reba coming steadily on to where we waited, watching Butch go on across the lobby without even looking at us. "All right?" Everbe said.

"Yes," Miss Reba said. "And that goes for you too," she told Boon. She looked at me. "Jesus," she said. "What the hell did you do to him?" Boon said. "Nothing," she said over her shoulder, because she was looking at me. "—thought I had see all the cat-house problems possible. Until I had one with children in it. You brought one in"—she was talking to Everbe now—"that run the landlord off and robbed all the loose teeth and fourteen dollars' worth of beer; and if that wasn't enough, Boon Hogganbeck brings one that's driving my damned girls into poverty and respectability. I'm going to bed and you—"

"Come on," Boon said. "What did you tell him?"

"What's that town of yours?" Miss Reba said. "Jefferson," Boon said.

"You big-town folks from places like Jefferson and Memphis, with your big-city ideas, you don't know much about Jjaw. You got to come to little places, like this. I know, because I was raised in one. He's the constable. He could spend a week in Jefferson or Memphis, and you wouldn't even see him. But, here among the folks that elected him (the majority of twelve or thirteen that voted for him, and the minority of nine or ten or eleven that didn't and are already sorry for it or damned soon will be) he dont give a damn about the sheriff of the county nor the governor of the state nor the president of the United States all three rolled into one. Because he's a Baptist. I mean, he's a Baptist first, and then he's the Law. When he can be a Baptist and the Law both at the same time, he will. But any time the law comes conflicting up where nobody invited it, the law knows what it can do and where to do it. They tell how that old Pharaoh was pretty good at kinging, and another old one back in the Bible times named Caesar, that did the best he knew how. They should have visited down here and watched a Arkansas or Missippi or Tennessee constable once."

"But how do you know who he is?" Everbe said. "How do you even know there's one here?"

"There's one everywhere," Miss Reba said. "Didn't I just tell you I grew up in a place like this—as long as I could stand it? I dont need to know who he is. All I needed was to let that bastard know I knew there was one here too. I'm going—"

"But what did you tell him?" Boon said. "Come on. I may want to remember it."

"Nothing, I told you," Miss Reba said. "If I hadn't learned by now how to handle these damned stud horses with his badge in one hand and his fly in the other, I'd been in the poorhouse years ago. I told him if I saw his mug around here again tonight, I would send that sheep-faced clerk to wake the constable up and tell him a deputy sheriff from Hardwick has just registered a couple of Memphis whores at the Parsham Hotel. I'm going to bed, and you better too. Come on, Corrie. I put your outraged virtue on record with that clerk and now you got to back it up, at least where he can see you." They went on. Then Boon was gone too; possibly he had followed Butch to the front door just to make sure the surrey was gone. Then suddenly Everbe swooped down at me, that big: a big girl, muttering rapidly:

"You didn't bring anything at all, did you? I mean, clothes. You been wearing the same ones ever since you left home."

"What's wrong with them?" I said.

"I'm going to wash them," she said. "Your underthings and stockings, your blouse. And the sock you ride with too. Come on and take them off."

"But I ain't got any more," I said.

"That's all right. You can go to bed. I'll have these all ready again when you get up. Come on." So she stood outside the door while I undressed and shoved my blouse and underwear and stockings and the riding-sock through the crack in the door to her and she said Good night and I closed the door and got into bed; and still there was something unfinished, that we hadn't done, attended to yet: the secret pre-race conference; the close, grim, fierce murmurous plotting of tomorrow's strategy. Until I realised that, strictly speaking, we had no strategy; we had nothing to plan for nor even with: a horse whose very ownership was dubious and even (unless Ned himself really knew) unknown, of whose past we knew only that he had consistently run just exactly fast enough to finish second to the other horse in the race; to be raced tomorrow, exactly where I anyway didn't know, against a horse none of us had ever seen and whose very existence ('as far as we were concerned) had to be taken on trust. Until I realised that, of all human occupations, the racing of horses, and all concerned or involved in it, were the most certainly in God's hands. Then Boon came in; I was already in bed, already half asleep.

"What've you done with your clothes?" he said. "Everbe's washing them," I said. He had taken off his pants and shoes and was already reaching to turn out the light. He stopped, dead still.

"Who did you say?" I was awake now but it was already too late. I lay there with my eyes closed, not moving. "What name did you say?"

"Miss Corrie is," I said.

"You said something else." I could feel him looking at me. "You called her Everbe." I could feel him looking at me. "Is that her name?" I could feel him looking at me. "So she told you her real name." Then he said, quite gently: "God damn," and I saw through my eyelids the room go dark, then the bed creaked as he lay down on it, as beds always do since there is so much of him, as I have heard them ever since I can remember when I would sleep with him: once or twice at home when Father would be away and he would stay in the house so Mother wouldn't be afraid, and at Miss Ballenbaugh's two nights ago, and in Memphis last night, until I remembered that I hadn't slept with him in Memphis: it was Otis. "Good night," he said. "Good night," I said.

Chapter 10

Then it was morning, it was tomorrow: THE day on which I would ride my first actual horse race (and by winning it, set Boon and Ned—me too of course, but then I was safe, immune; I was not only just a child, I was kin to them—free to go home again, not with honor perhaps, not even unscathed, but at least they could go back) toward which all the finagling and dodging and manipulating and scrabbling around (what other crimes subsequent to—dl right, consequent to—the simple and really spontaneous and in a way innocent stealing of Grandfather's automobile, I didn't even know) had been leading up to; now it was here. "So she told you what her real name is," Boon said. Because you see, it was too late now; I had been half asleep last night and off my guard.

"Yes," I said; whereupon I realised that that was completely false: she hadn't told me; she didn't even know I knew it, that I had been calling her Everbe ever since Sunday night. But it was too late now. "But you've got to promise," I said. "Not promise her: promise me. Never to say it out loud until she tells it first."

"I promise," he said. "I ain't never lied to you yet. I mean, lied bad. I mean ... I aint... All right," he said. "I done promised." Then he said again, like last night, gentle and almost amazed: "God damn." And my clothes —blouse, stockings and underwear and the riding-sock— were neatly folded, laundered and ironed, on a chair just outside our door. Boon handed them in to me. "With all them clean clothes, you got to bathe again," he said.

"You just made me bathe Saturday," I said.

"We was on the road Saturday night," he said. "We never even got to Memphis until Sunday."

"All right. Sunday," I said.

"This is Tuesday," he said. 'Two days."

"Just one day," I said. "Two nights, but just one day."

"You been travelling since," Boon said. "You got two sets of dirt now."

"It's almost seven oclock," I said. "We're already late for breakfast."

"You can bathe first," he said.

"I got to get dressed so I can thank Everbe for washing my clothes."

"Bathe first," Boon said.

"I'll get my bandage wet."

"Hold your hand on your neck," Boon said. "You aint going to wash that nohow."

"Why dont you bathe then?" I said.

"We aint talking about me. We're talking about you." So I went to the bathroom and bathed and put my clothes back on and went to the dining room. And Ned was right. Last night there had been just the one table, the end of it cleared and set up for us. Now there were seven or eight people, all men (but not aliens, foreigners, mind you; in fact they were strangers only to us who didn't live in Par-sham. None of them had got down from pullmans in silk underclothes and smoking Upmann cigars; we had not opened the cosmopolitan Parsham winter sporting season here in the middle of May. Some were in overalls, all but one were tieless: people like us except that they lived here, with the same passions and hopes and dialect, enjoying— Butch too—our inalienable constitutional right of free will and private enterprise which has made our country what it is, by holding a private horse race between two local horses; if anyone, committee or individual, from no further away than the next county, had come to interfere or alter or stop it or even participate beyond betting on the horse of his choice, all of us, partisans of either horse, would have risen as one man and repulsed him). And besides the waiter, I saw the back of a maid in uniform just going through the swing door to the pantry or kitchen, and there were two men (one of them had the necktie) at our table talking to Boon and Miss Reba. But Everbe wasn't there, and for an instant, second, I had a horrified vision of Butch finally waylaying and capturing her by force, ambushing her in the corridor perhaps while she was carrying the chair to mine and Boon's door with my laundered clothes on it. But only for a second, and too fantastical; if she had washed for me last night, she had probably, doubtless been up quite late washing for herself and maybe Miss Reba too, and was still asleep. So I went on to the table, where one of the men said,

"This the boy going to ride him? Looks more like you got him taped up for a fist fight?"

"Yes," Boon said, shoving the dish of ham toward me as-I sat down; Miss Reba passed the eggs and grits across.

"He cut himself eating peas last night."

"Haw haw," the man said. "Anyway, he'll be carrying less weight this time."

"Sure," Boon said. "Unless he eats the knives and forks and spoons while we aint watching him and maybe takes along one of the fire dogs for a snack."

"Haw haw," the man said. "From the way he run here last winter, he's going to need a good deal more than just less weight. But then, that's the secret, huh?"

"Sure," Boon said; he was eating again now. "Even if we never had no secret, we would have to act like we did."

"Haw haw," the man said again; they got up. "Well, good luck, anyway. That might be as good for that horse as less weight." The maid came, bringing me a glass of milk and carrying a plate of hot biscuits. It was Minnie, in a fresh apron and cap where Miss Reba had either loaned or hired her to the hotel to help out, with her ravished and unforgiving face, but calm and quiet now; evidently she had rested, even slept some even if she hadn't forgiven anybody yet. The two strangers went away.

"You see?" Miss Reba said to nobody. "All we need is the right horse and a million dollars to bet."

"You heard Ned Sunday night," Boon said. "You were the one that believed him. I mean, decided to believe him. I was different. After that God damned automobile vanished and all we had was the horse, I had to believe him."

"All right," Miss Reba said. "Keep your shirt on."

"And you can stop worrying too," Boon said to me. "She just went to die depot in case them dogs caught him again last night and Ned brought him in to the train. Or so she said—"

"Did Ned find him?" I said.

"Naw," Boon said. "Ned's in the kitchen now. You can ask him—or so she said. Yes. S<> maybe you had better worry some, after all. Miss Reba got shut of that tin badge for you, but that other one—what's his name: Caldwell— was on that train this morning."

"What are you talking about now?" Miss Reba said.

"Nothing," Boon said. "I ain't got nothing to talk about now. I've quit. Lucius is the one that's got tin badge and pullman cap rivals now." But I was already getting up because I knew now where she was.

"Is that all the breakfast you want?" Miss Reba said.

"Let him alone," Boon said. "He's in love." I crossed the lobby. Maybe Ned was right, and all it took for a horse race was two horses with the time' to run a race, within ten miles of each other, and the air itself spread the news of it. Though not as far as the ladies' parlor yet. So maybe what I meant by crying looking well on Everbe was that she was big enough to cry as much as she seemed to have to do, and still have room for that many tears to dry off without streaking. She was sitting by herself in the ladies' parlor and crying again, the third time—no: four, counting two Sunday night. Until you wondered why. I mean, nobody made her come with us and she could have 'gone back to Memphis on any train that passed. Yet here she was, so she must be where she wanted to be. Yet this was the second time she had cried since we reached Par-sham. I mean, anybody with as many extra tears as she had, still didn't have enough to waste that many on Otis. So I said,

"He's all right. Ned will find him today. Much obliged for washing my clothes. Where's Mr Sam? I thought he was going to be on that train."

"He had to take the train on to Memphis and take his uniform off," she said. "He cant go to a horse race in it. He'll be back on the noon freight. I can't find my handkerchief."

I found it for her. "Maybe you ought to wash your face," I said. "When Ned finds him, he will get the tooth back."

"It aint the tooth," she said. "I'm going to buy Minnie another tooth. It's that ... He never had no chance. He . . . Did you promise your mother you wouldn't never take things too?"

"You dont have to promise anybody that," I said. "You dont take things."

"But you would have promised, if she had asked you?"

"She wouldn't ask me," I said. "You dont take things."

"Yes," she said. She said: "I aint going to stay in Memphis. I talked to Sam at the depot this morning and he says that's a good idea too. He can find me a job in Chattanooga or somewhere. But you'll still be in Jefferson, so maybe I could write you a post card where I'm at and then if you took a notion—"

"Yes," I said. "I'll write to you. Come on. They're still eating breakfast."

"There's something about me you dont know. You couldn't even guess it."

"I know it," I said. "It's Everbe Corinthia. I been calling you that two or three days now. That's right. It was Otis. But I wont tell anybody. But I dont see why."

"Why? A old-timey countrified name like that? Can you imagine anybody in Reba's saying, Send up Everbe Corinthia? They would be ashamed. They would die laughing. So I thought of changing it to Yvonne or Billie or Ken. But Reba said Corrie would do."

"Shucks," I said.

"You mean, it's all right? You say it." I said it. She listened. Then she kept on listening, exactly as you wait for an echo. "Yes," she said. "That's what it can be now."

"Then come on and eat breakfast," I said. "Ned's waiting for me and I got to go." But Boon came in first.

"There are too many people out there," he said. "Maybe I shouldn't a told that damn fellow you were going to ride him today." He looked at me. "Maybe I shouldn't a never let you leave Jefferson." There was a small door behind a curtain at the back of the room. "Come on," he said. It was another corridor. Then we were in the kitchen. The vast cook was at the sink again. Ned was sitting at a table finishing his breakfast, but mainly saying,

"When I sugars up a woman, it aint just empty talk. They can buy something with it too—" and stopped and rose at once; he said to me: "You ready? Time you and me was getting back to the country. They's too many folks around here. If they all had money and would bet it, and the horse they bet on. would just be the wrong horse, and we just had the money to cover it and knowed the right horse to cover it with, we wouldn't just take no automobile back to Jefferson tonight: we'd take all Possum too, to maybe sugar back Boss Priest's nature. He aint never owned a town before, and he might like it."

"Wait," Boon said. "Aint we got to make some plans?"

"The onliest one that needs any plan is Lightning," Ned said. "And the only plan he needs is to plan to get out in front and stay there until somebody tells him to stop. But I know what you mean. We gonter run on Colonel Lin-scomb's track. The first heat is at two oclock. That's four miles from here. Me and Lightning and Lucius gonter show up there about two minutes beforehand. You better get out there earlier. You better leave here soon as Mr Sam gets off that freight train. Because that's yourn and his plan: to get to that track in time to bet the money, and to have some money to bet when you get there."

"Wait," Boon said. "What about that automobile? What the hell good will money do us if we go back home without—"

"Stop fretting about that automobile," Ned said. "Aint I told you them boys got to go back home not much longer than tonight too?"

"What boys?" Boon said.

"Yes sir," Ned said. "The trouble with Christmas is the first of January; that's what's wrong with it." Minnie came in with a tray of dirty dishes—the brown calm tragic hungry and inconsolable mask. "Come on," Ned told her, "gimme that smile again so I'll have the right measure to fit that tooth when I brings it back tonight." _ "Dont do it, girl," the fat cook said. "Maybe that Mis-sippi sugar will spend where it come from, but it wont buy nothing up here in Tennessee. Not in this kitchen, nohow."

"But wait," Boon said.

"You wait for Mr Sam," Ned said. "He can tell you. In fact, whilst me and Lucius are winning this race, maybe you and Mr Sam can locate around amongst the folks for Whistle-britches and that tooth." He had Uncle Parsham's buggy this time, with one of the nv'es. And he was right: the little hamlet had changed ovcrni ht. It was not that there were so many people in sight, any more than yesterday. It was the air itself—an exhilaration, almost; for the first time I really realised that I was going to ride in a horse race before many more hours, and I could taste my spit sudden and sharp around my tongue.

"I thought you said last night that Otis would be gone when you got back from town," I said.

"He was," Ned said. "But not far. He aint got nowhere to go neither. The hounds give mouth twice during the night back toward the barn; them hounds taken the same quick mislike to him that human folks does. Likely soon as I left this morning, he come up for his breakfast."

"But suppose he sells the tooth before we can catch him."

"I done fixed that," Ned said. "He aint gonter sell it. He aint gonter find nobody to buy it. If he aint come up for breakfast, Lycurgus gonter take the hounds and tree him again, and tell him that when I come back from Parsham last night, I said a man in Memphis offered that gal twenty-eight dollars for that tooth, cash. He'll believe that. If it had been a hundred dollars or even fifty, he wouldn't believe it. But hell believe a extra number like twenty-eight dollars, mainly because he'll think it aint enough: that that Memphis man was beating Minnie down. And when he tries to sell it at that race track this evening, wont nobody give him even that much, so wont be nothing left for him to do but wait until he can get back to Memphis with it So you get your mind off that tooth and put it on this horse race. On them last two heats, I mean. We gonter lose the first one, so you dont need to worry about that—"

"What?" I said. "Why?"

"Why not?" Ned said. "All we needs to win is two of them."

"But why lose the first one? Why dont we win that one, get that much ahead as soon as we can—" He drove on, maybe a half a minute.

"The trouble with this race, it's got too many different things mixed up in it."

"Too many what?" I said.

"Too many of everything," he said. "Too many folks. But mainly, too many heats. If it was just one heat, one run, off in the bushes somewhere and not nobody around but me and you and Lightning and that other horse and whoever gonter ride him, we would be all right. Because

we found out yestiddy we can make Lightning run one time. Only, now he got to run three of them."

"But you made that mule run every time," I said.

"This horse aint that mule," Ned said. "Aint no horse ever foaled was that mule. Or any other mule. And this horse we got to depend on now aint even got as much sense as some horses. So you can see what your fix is. We knows I can make him run once, and we hopes I can make him run twice. But that's all. We just hopes. So we cant risk that one time we knows I can make him run, until we got to have it. So the most we got at the best, is two times. And since we got to lose one of them, no matter what, we gonter lose the one we can maybe learn something from to use next time. And that's gonter be the first one."

"Have you told Boon that? so he wont—"

"Let him lose on the first heat, providing he dont put up all the money them ladies scraps up for him to bet. Which, from what I seen of that Miss Reba, he aint gonter do. That will make the odds that much better for them next two. Besides, we can tell him all he needs to know when the time comes. So you just—"

"I didn't mean that," I said. "I meant Boss's—"

"Didn't I tell you I was tending to that?" he said. "Now you quit worrying. I dont mean quit thinking about the race, because you cant do that. But quit worrying about winning it. Just think about what Lightning taught you yesterday about riding him. That's all you got to do. I'll tend to all the rest of it. You got your sock, aint you?"

"Yes," I said. Only we were not going back to Uncle Parsham's; we were not even going in that direction now.

"We got our own private stable for this race," Ned said. "A spring branch in a hollow that belongs to one of Possum's church members, where we can be right there not half a quarter from the track without nobody knowing to bother us until we wants them. Lycurgus and Uncle Possum went on with Lightning right after breakfast."

"The track," I said. Of course, there would have to be a track. I had never thought of that. If I thought at all, I reckon I simply assumed that somebody would ride or lead the other horse up, and we should run the race right there in Uncle Parsham's pasture.

"That's right," Ned said. "A regular track, just like a big one except it's just a half a mile and aint got no grandstands and beer-and-whiskey counters like anybody that wants to run horse racing right ought to have. It's right there in Colonel Linscomb's pasture, that owns the other >horse. Me and Lycurgus went and looked at it last night. I mean the track, not the horse. I aint seen the horse yet. But we gonter have a chance to look at him today, leastways, one end of him. Only what we want is to plan for that horse to spend the last half of two of these heats looking at that end of Lightning. So I need to talk to the boy that's gonter ride him. A colored boy; Lycurgus knows him. I want to talk to him in a way that he wont find out until afterward that I talked to him."

"Yes," I said. "How?"

"Let's get there first," Ned said. We went on; it was new country to me, of course. Obviously we were now crossing Colonel Linscomb's plantation, or anyway somebody's— big neat fields of sprouting cotton and corn, and pastures with good fences and tenant cabins and cotton houses at the turnrow ends; and now I could see the bams and stables and sure enough, there was the neat white oval of the small track; we—Ned—turning now, following a faint road, on into a grove; and there it was, isolate and secure, even secret if we wished: a grove of beeches about a spring, Lightning standing with Lycurgus at his head, groomed and polished and even glowing faintly in the dappled light, the other mule tied in the background and Uncle Parsham, dramatic in black and white, even regal, prince and martinet in the dignity of solvent and workless age, sitting on the saddle which Lycurgus had propped against a tree into a sort of chair for him, all waiting for us. And then in the next instant I knew what was wrong; they were all waiting for me. And that was the real moment -when—Lightning and me standing in (not to mention breathing it) the same air not a thousand feet from the race track and not much more than a tenth of that in minutes from the race itself—when I actually realized not only how Lightning's and my fate were now one, but that the two of us together carried that of the rest of us too, certainly Boon's and Ned's, since on us.depended under what conditions they could go back home, or indeed if they could go back home—a mystical condition which a boy of only eleven should not really be called to shoulder. Which is perhaps why I noticed nothing, or anyway missed what I did see: only that Lycurgus handed Lightning's lead rope to Uncle Parsham and came and took our bridle and Ned said, "You get that message to him all right?" and Lycurgus said Yes sir, and Ned said to me, "Whyn't you go and take Lightning offen Uncle Possum so he wont have to get up?" and I did so, leaving Ned and Lycurgus standing quite close together at the buggy; and that not long before Ned came on to us, leaving Lycurgus to take the mule out of the buggy and loop the lines and traces up and tie the mule beside its mate and come on to us, where Ned was now squatting beside Uncle Parsham. He said: "Tell again about them two races last winter. You said nothing happened. What kind of nothing?"