The Reivers (23 page)

"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—"