The Reivers (30 page)

"Vagrancy," Uncle Parsham said.

"That's what I said," Ned said. "You call it whatever you want. I calls it jail."

"I dont believe it," I said. "She quit."

"Then we sho better say much obliged that she started again," Ned said. "Else me and you and Lightning—"

"She's quit," I said. "She promised me."

"Aint we got Lightning back?" Ned said. "Aint all we got to do now is just run him? Didn't Mr Sam say he will be back today and will know what to do, and then me and you and Boon will be just the same as already back home?

I sat there. It was still early. I mean, even now it was still only eight oclock. It was going to be hot today, the first hot day, precursor of summer. You see, just to keep on saying
I dont believe it
served only for the moment; as soon as the words, the noise, died, there it still was—anguish, rage, outrage, grief, whatever it was—unchanged. "I have to go to town right away," I said to Uncle Parsham. "If I can use one of the mules, I'll send you the money as soon as I get home." He rose at once.

"Come on," he said.

"Hold on," Ned said. "It's too late now, Mr Poleymus sent for a automobile. They've already left before now."

"He can cut them off," Uncle Parsham said. "It aint a half a mile from here to the road they'll be on."

"I got to get some sleep," Ned said.

"I know it," Uncle Parsham said. "I'm going with him. I told him last night I would."

"I'm not going home yet," I said. "I'm just going to town for a minute. Then I'll come back here."

"All right," Ned said. "At least lemme finish my coffee." We didn't wait for him. One of the mules was gone, probably to the field with Lycurgus. But the other was there. Ned came out before we had the gear on. Uncle Parsham showed us the short cut to the Hardwick road, but I didn't care. I mean, it didn't matter to me now where I met him. If I hadn't been just about worn out with race horses and women and deputy sheriffs and everybody else that wasn't back home where they belonged, I might have preferred to hold my interview with Boon in some quick private place for both our sakes. But it didn't matter now; it could be in the middle of the big road or in the middle of the Square either, as far as I was concerned; there could be a whole automobile full of them. But we didn't meet the automobile; obviously I was being protected; to have had to do it in public would have been intolerable, gratuitously intolerable for one who had served Non-virtue this faithfully for four days and asked so little in return. I mean, not to have to see any more of them than I had to. Which was granted; the still-empty automobile had barely reached the hotel itself when we got there: a seven-passenger Stanley Steamer: enough room even for the baggage of two—no, three: Minnie too—women on a two-day trip from Memphis to Parsham, which they would all be upstairs packing now, so even horse stealing took care of its own. Ned cramped the wheel for me to get down. "You still dont want to tell me what you come for?" he said.

"No," I said. None of the long row of chairs on the gallery were occupied, Caesar could have held his triumph there and had all the isolation Boon's and Butch's new status required; the lobby was empty, and Mr Poleymus could have used that. But it was a man, mon; they were in the ladies' parlor—Mr Poleymus, the driver of the car (another deputy; anyway, in a badge), Butch and Boon

l!

fresh and marked from battle. Though only Boon for me, who read my face (he had known it long enough) or maybe it was his own heart or anyway conscience; he said quickly:

"Look out, now, Lucius; look out!" already flinging up one arm as he rose quickly, already stepping back, retreating, I walking at him, up to him, not tall enough by more than half and nothing to stand on either (that ludicrous anticlimax of shame), having to reach, to jump even, stretch the best I could to strike at his face; oh yes, I was crying, bawling again; I couldn't even see him now: just hitting as high as I could, having to jump at him to do so, against his Alp-hard Alp-tall crags and cliffs, Mr Poleymus saying behind me:

"Hit him again. He struck a woman, I dont care who she is," and (or somebody) holding me until I wrenched, jerked free, turning, blind, for the door or where I thought I remembered it, the hand guiding me now.

"Wait," Boon said. "Dont you want to see her?" You see, I was tired and my feet hurt. I was about worn out, and I needed sleep too. But more: I was dirty. I wanted fresh clothes. She had washed for me Monday night but I didn't want just rewashed clothes: I wanted a change of clothes that had had time to rest for a while, like at home, smelling of rest and quiet drawers and starch and bluing; but mainly my feet; I wanted fresh stockings and my other shoes.

"I dont want to see nobody!" I said. "I want to go home!"

"All right," Boon said. "Here—anybody—will somebody put him on that train this morning? I got money— can get it—"

"Shut up," I said. "I aint going nowhere now." I went on, still blind; or that is, the hand carried me. "Wait," Boon Said. "Wait, Lucius."

"Shut up," I said. The hand curved me around; there was a wall now.

"Wipe your face," Mr Poleymus said. He held out a bandanna handkerchief but I didn't take it; my bandage would sop it up all right. Anyway, the riding-sock did. It was used to being cried into. Who knew? if it stayed with me long enough, it might even win a horse race. I could see now; we were in the lobby. I started to turn but he held me. "Hold up a minute," he said. "If you still dont want to see anybody." It was Miss Reba and Everbe coming down the stairs carrying then- grips but Minnie wasn't with them. The car-driving deputy was waiting. He took the grips and then went on; they didn't look toward us, Miss Reba with her head mad and hard and high; if the deputy hadn't moved quick she would have tromped right over him, grips and all. They went out. "I'll buy you a ticket home," Mr Poleymus said. "Get on that train." I didn't say Shut up to him. "You've run out of folks sure enough now, I'll stay with you and tell the conductor—"

"I'm going to wait for Ned," I said. "I cant go without him. If you hadn't ruined everything yesterday, we'd all been gone by now."

"Who's Ned?" he said. I told him. "You mean you're going to run that horse today anyhow? you and Ned by yourself?" I told him. "Where's Ned now?" I told him. "Come on," he said. "We can go out the side door." Ned was standing at the mule's head. The back of the automobile was towards us. And Minnie still wasn't with them. Maybe she went back to Memphis yesterday with Sam and Otis; maybe now that she had Otis again she wasn't going to lift her hand off of him until it had that tooth in it. That's what I would have done, anyway.

"So Mr Poleymus finally caught you too, did he?" Ned said. "What's the matter? aint he got no handcuffs your size?"

"Shut up," I said.

"When you going to get him back home, son?" Mr Poleymus said to Ned.

"I hope tonight," Ned said; he wasn't being Uncle Remus or smart or cute or anything now. "Soon as I get rid of this horse race and can do something about it."

"Have you got enough money?"

"Yes sir," Ned said. "Much oblige. We'll be all right after this race." He cramped the wheel and we got in. Mr Poleymus stood with his hand on the top stanchion. He said:

"So you really are going to race that Linscomb horse this afternoon."

"We gonter beat that Linscomb horse this afternoon," Ned said.

"You hope so," Mr Poleymus said.

"I know so," Ned said.

"How much do you know so?" Mr Poleymus said.

"I wish I had a hundred dollars for my own to bet on it," Ned said. They looked at each other; it was a good while. Then Mr Poleymus turned loosed the stanchion and took from his pocket a worn snap purse that when I saw it I thought I was seeing double because it was exactly like Ned's, scuffed and worn and even longer than the riding-sock, that you didn't even know who was paying who for what, and unsnapped it and took out two one-dollar bills and snapped the purse shut and handed the bills to Ned.

"Bet this for me," he said. "If you're right you can keep half of it." Ned took the money.

"I'll bet it for you," he said. "But much oblige. By sundown tonight I can lend you half or three or four times this much." We drove on then—I mean, Ned drove on— turning: we didn't pass the automobile at all. "Been crying again," he said. "A race-horse jockey and still aint growed out of crying."

"Shut up," I said. But he was turning the buggy again, on across the tracks and on along what would have been the other side of the Square if Parsham ever got big enough to have a Square, and stopped; we were in front of a store.

"Hold him," Ned said and got out and went in the store, not long, and came back with a paper sack and got in and took the lines, back toward home—>I mean Uncle Parsham's—now and with his free hand took from the big bag a small one; it was peppermint drops. "Here," he said. "I got some bananas too and soon as we get Lightning back to that private spring-branch paddock we uses, we can set down and eat um and then maybe I can get some sleep before I forget how to. And meanwhiles, stop fretting about that gal, now you done said your say to Boon Hogganbeck. Hitting a woman dont hurt her because a woman dont shove back at a lick like a man do; she just gives to it and then wken your back is turned, reaches for the flatiron or the butcher knife. That's why hitting them dont break nothing; all it does is just black her eye or cut her mouf a little. And that aint nothing to a woman. Because why? Because what better sign than a black eye or a cut mouf can a woman want from a man that he got her on his mind?"

So once more, in the clutch of our respective starting grooms, McWillie and I sat our skittering and jockeying mounts behind that wire. (That's right, skittering and jockeying, Lightning too; at least he had learned—anyway remembered from yesterday—that he was supposed to be at least up with Acheron when the running started, even if he hadn't discovered yet that he was supposed—hoped—to be in front when it stopped.)

This time Ned's final instructions were simple, explicit, and succinct: "Just remember, I knows I can make him run once, and I believes I can make him run twice. Only, we wants to save that once I
knows,
until we knows we needs it. So here's what I want you to do for this first heat: Just before them judges and such hollers Go! you say to yourself
My name is Ned William McCaslin
and then do it."

"Do what?" I said.

"I dont know yet neither," he said. "But Akrum is a horse, and with a horse anything can happen. And with a nigger boy on him, it's twice as likely to. You just got to watch and be ready, so that when it do happen, you done already said
My name is Ned William McCaslin
and then do it and do it quick. And dont worry. If it dont work and dont nothing happen, I'M be waiting right there at the finish, where I come in. Because we knows I can make him run once."

Then the voice hollered Go! and our grooms sprang for their lives and we were off (as I said, we had drawn this time and McWillie had the pole). Or McWillie was off, that is. Because I dont remember: whether I had planned it or just did it by instinct, so that when McWillie broke, I was already braced and Lightning's first spring rammed him into the bridle all the way up to my shoulders, bad hand and all. Acheron already in full run and three lengths ahead when I let Lightning go, but still kept the three-length gap, both of us 'going now but three horses apart, when I saw McWillie do what you call nowadays a double-take: a single quick glance aside, using only his eyeballs, expecting to see me of course more or less at his knee, then seeming to drive on at full speed for another stride or so before his vision told his intelligence that Lightning and I were not there. Then he turned, jerked his whole head around to look back and I remember still the whites of his eyes and 'his open mouth; I could see him sawing frantically at Acheron to slow him; I sincerely believe I even heard him yell back at me: "Goddammit, white boy, if you gonter race, race!" the gap between us closing fast now because he now had Acheron wrenched back and crossways until he was now at right angles to the course, more or less filling the track sideways from rail to rail it looked like and facing the outside rail and for that moment, instant, second, motionless; I am convinced that McWUlie's now frantic mind actually toyed with the idea of turning and running back until he could turn again with Lightning in front. Nor no premeditation, nothing: I just said in my mind
My name is Ned William McCaslin
and cut Lightning as hard as I could with the switch, pulling his head over so that when he sprang for the gap between Acheron's stern and the inside rail, we would scrape Acheron; I remember I thought
My leg will be crushed
and I sat there, the switch poised again, in complete detachment, waiting in nothing but curiosity for the blow, shock, crack, spurt of blood and bones or whatever it would be. But we had just exactly room enough or speed enough or maybe it was luck enough: not my leg but Lightning's hip which scraped across Acheron's buttocks: at which second I cut again with the switch as hard as I could. Nor any judge or steward, dog trainer, market hunter or murderer, nor purist or stickler of the most finicking and irreproachable, to affirm it was not my own mount I struck; in fact, we were so inextricable at that second that, of the four of us, only Acheron actually knew who had been hit.

Then on. I mean, Lightning and me. I didn't—couldn't —look back yet, so I had to wait to learn what happened. They said that Acheron didn't try to jump the rail at all: he just reared and fell through it in a kind of whirling dust of white planks, but still on his feet, frantic now, running more or less straight out into the pasture, spectators scattering before him, until McWillie wrenched him around; and they said that this time McWillie actually set him quartering at the fence (it was too late now to go back to the gap in it he had already made; we—Lightning—were too far ahead by this time) as though he were a hunter. But he refused it, running instead at full speed along the rail, but still on the outside of it, the spectators hollering and leaping like frogs from in front of him as he cleared his new path or precedent. That was when I began to hear him again. He—they: McWillie and Acheron—was closing fast now, though with the outside rail between us: Lightning with the whole track to himself now and going with that same fine strong rhythm and reach and power to which it had simply not occurred yet that there was any horry about it; in the back stretch now and Acheron, who had already run at least one extra fifty yards and would have to run another one before he finished, already abreast of us beyond the rail; around the far turn of the first lap now and now I could actually see Me Willie's desperate mind grappling frantically with the rapidly diminishing choice of whether to swing Acheron wide enough to bring him back through his self-made gap and onto the track again and have him refuse its jumbled wreckage, or play safe and stay where they were in the new track which they had already cleared of obstacles.