The Reivers (32 page)

"That's riding him, boy! That's bringing him in!" but we not stopping, Ned leading Lightning on, saying,

"Let us through, Whitefolks; let us through, White-folks," until they gave back enough to let us go on, but still moving along with us, like the wave, until we reached the gate to the infield where the judges were waiting, and Ned said again: "Look out, now"; and now I dont remember: only the stopped horse with Ned at the bit like a tableau, and me looking past Lightning's ears at Grandfather leaning a little on his cane (the gold-headed one) and two other people whom I had known somewhere a long time ago just behind him.

"Boss," I said.

"What did you do to your hand?" he said.

"Yes sir," I said. "Boss."

"You're busy now," he said. "So am I." It was quite kind, quite cold. No: it wasn't anything. "We'll wait until we get home," he said. Then he was gone. Now the two people were Sam and Minnie looking up at me with her calm grim inconsolable face for it seemed to me a long time while Ned was still pawing at my leg.

"Where's that tobacco sack I give you to keep yes-tiddy?" he said. "You sholy aint lost it?"

"Oh yes," I said, reaching it from my pocket.

Chapter 13

"Show them," Miss Reba told Minnie. They were in our —I mean Boon's—no, I mean Grandfather's—automobile: Everbe and Miss Reba and Minnie and Sam and Colonel Linscomb's chauffeur; he was McWillie's father; Colonel Linscomb had an automobile too. They—the chauffeur and Sam and Minnie—had gone up to Hard-wick to get Miss Reba and Everbe and Boon and bring them all back to Parsham, where Miss Reba and Minnie and Sam could take the train for Memphis. Except that Boon didn't come back with them. He was in jail again, the third time now, and they had stopped at Colonel Linscomb's to tell Grandfather. Miss Reba told it, sitting in the car, with Grandfather and Colonel Linscomb and me standing around it because she wouldn't come in; she told about Boon and Butch.

"It was bad enough in the automobile going up there. But at least we had that deputy, let alone that little old constable you folks got that dont look like much but I'd say people dont fool around with him much either. When we got to Hardwick, they at least had sense enough to lock them in separate cells. The trouble was, they never had no way to lock up Corrie's new friend's mouth—" and stopped; and I didn't want to have to look at Everbe either: a big girl, too big for little things to have to happen to like the black eye or the cut mouth, whichever one she would have, unless maybe she wouldn't, couldn't, be content with less than both; sitting there, having to, without anywhere to go or room to do it even, with the slow painful blood staining up the cheek I could see from here. "I'm sorry, kid; forget it," Miss Reba said. "Where was I?"

"You were telling what Boon did this time," Grandfather said.

"Oh yes," Miss Reba said. "—locked them up in separate cells across the corridor and they were taking Corrie and me—sure; they treated us fine: just like ladies—down to the jailor's wife's room where we were going to stay, when what's-his-name—Butch—pipes up and says, 'Well, there's one thing about it: me and Sugar Boy lost some blood and skin and a couple of shirts too, but at least we got these excuse my French," Miss Reba said, " 'Memphis whores off the street.' So Boon started in right away to tear that steel door down but they had remembered to already lock it, so you would think that would have calmed him: you know: having to sit there and look at it for a while. Anyhow, we thought so. Then when Sam came with the right papers or whatever they were—and much obliged to you," she told Grandfather. "I dont know how much you had to put up, but if you'll send the bill to me when I get home, I'll attend to it. Boon knows the address and knows me."

"Thank you," Grandfather said. "If there's any charge. I'll let you know. What happened to Boon? You haven't told me yet."

"Oh yes. They unlocked What's-his-name first; that was the mistake, because they hadn't even got the key back out of Boon's lock before he was out of the cell and on—"

"Butch," I said.

"Butch," Miss Reba said. "—one good lick anyhow, knocked him down and was right on top of him before anybody woke up. So they never even let Boon stop; all the out he got was that trip across the corridor and back, into the cell and locked up again before they even had time to take the key out of the lock. But at least you got to admire him for it." But she stopped.

"For what?" I said.

"What did you say?" she said.

"What he did that we're going to admire him for. You didn't tell us that. What did he do?"

"You think that still trying to tear that—"

"Butch," I said.

"—Butch's head off before they even let him out of jail, aint nothing?" Miss Reba said.

"He had to do that," I said.

"I'll be damned," Miss Reba said. "Let's get started; we got to catch that train. You wont forget to send that bill," she told Grandfather.

"Get out and come in," Colonel Linscomb said. "Supper's about ready. You can catch the midnight train."

"No much obliged," Miss Reba said. "No matter how long your wife stays at Monteagle, she'll come back home some day and you'll have to explain it."

"Nonsense," Colonel Linscomb said. "I'm boss in my house."

"I hope you'll keep on being," Miss Reba said. "Oh yes," she said to Minnie. "Show them." She—Minnie— didn't smile at us: she smiled at me. It was beautiful: the even, matched and matchless unblemished porcelain march, curving outward to embrace, almost with passion, the restored gold tooth which looked bigger than any three of the natural merely white ones possibly could. Then she closed her lips again, serene, composed, once more immune, once more invulnerable to that extent which our frail webs of bone and flesh and coincidence ever hold or claim on Invulnerability. "Well," Miss Reba said. Mc-Willie's father cranked the engine and got back in; the automobile moved on. Grandfather and Colonel Linscomb turned and went back toward the house and I had begun to move too when the automobile horn tooted, not loud, once, and I turned back. It had stopped and Sam was standing beside it, beckoning to me.

"Come here," he said. "Miss Reba wants to see you a minute." He watched me while I came up. "Why didn't you and Ned tell me that horse was really going to run?" he said.

"I thought you knew," I said. "I thought that was why we came here."

"Sure, sure," he said. "Ned told me. You told me. Everybody told me. Only, why didnt somebody make me believe it? Oh sure, I never broke a leg. But if I'd just had Miss Reba's nerve, maybe I could have got that boxcar covered too. Here," he said. It was a tight roll of money, bills. "This is Ned's. Tell him the next time he finds a horse that wont run, not to wait to come and get me: just telegraph me." Miss Reba was leaning out, hard and handsome. Everbe was on the other side of her, not moving but still too big not to notice. Miss Reba said:

"I didn't expect to wind up in jail here too. But then, maybe I didn't expect not to, neither. Anyway, Sam bet for me too. I put up fifty for Mr Binford and five for Minnie. Sam got three for two. I—I mean we—want to split fifty-fifty with you. I aint got that much cash now, what with this unexpected side trip I took this morning—"

"I dont want it," I said.

"I thought you'd say that," she said. "So I had Sam put up another five for you. You got seven-fifty coming. Here." She held out her hand.

"I dont want it," I said. "

"What did I tell you?" Sam said.

"Is it because it was gambling?" she said. "Did you promise that too?" I hadn't. Maybe Mother hadn't thought about gambling yet. But I wouldn't have needed to have promised anybody anyway. Only, I didn't know how to tell her when I didn't know why myself: only that I wasn't doing it for money: that money would have been the last thing of all; that once we were in it, I had to go on, finish it, Ned and me both even if everybody else had quit; it was as though only by making Lightning run and run first could we justify (not escape consequences: simply justify) any of it. Not to hope to make the beginning of it any less wrong—I mean, what Boon and I had deliberately, of our own free will, to do back there in Jefferson four days ago; but at least not to shirk, dodge—at least to finish— what we ourselves had started. But I didn't know how to say it. So I said,

"Nome. I dont want it."

"Go on," Sam said. "Take it so we can go. We got to catch that train. Give it to Ned, or maybe to that old boy who took care of you last night. They'll know what to do with it." So I took the money; I had two rolls of it now, the big one and this little one. And still Everbe hadn't moved, motionless, her hands in her lap, big, too big for little things to happen to. "At least pat her on the head," Sam said. "Ned never taught you to kick dogs too, did he?"

"He wont though," Miss Reba said. "Watch him. Jesus, you man. And here's another one that aint but eleven years old. What the hell does one more matter? aint she been proving ever since Sunday she's quit? If you'd been sawing logs as long as she has, what the hell does one more log matter when you've already cancelled the lease and even took down the sign?" So I went around the car to the other side. Still she didn't move, too big for little things to happen to, too much of her to have to be the recipient of things petty and picayune, like bird splashes on a billboard or a bass drum; just sitting there, too big to shrink even, shamed (because Ned was right), her mouth puffed a little but mostly the black eye; with her, even a simole shiner was not content but must look bigger, more noticeable, more unhidable, than on anyone else.

"It's all right," I said.

"I thought I had to," she said. "I didn't know no other way."

"You see?" Miss Reba said. "How easy it is? That's all you need to tell us; we'll believe you. There aint the lousiest puniest bastard one of you, providing he's less than seventy years old. that cant make any woman believe there wasn't no other way."

"You did have to," I said. "We got Lightning back in time to run the race. It dont matter now any more. You better go on or you'll miss that train."

"Sure," Miss Reba said. "Besides, she's got supper to cook too. You aint heard that yet; that's the surprise. She aint going back to Memphis. She aint just reformed from the temptation business: she's reformed from temptation too, providing what they claim, is right: that there aint no temptation in a place like Parsham except a man's own natural hopes and appetites. She's got a job in Parsham washing and cooking and lifting his wife in and out of bed and washing her off, for that constable. So she's even reformed from having to divide half she makes and half she has with the first tin badge that passes, because all she'll have to do now is shove a coffeepot or a greasy skillet in the way. Come on," she told Sam. "Even you cant make that train wait from here."

Then they were gone. I turned and went back toward the house. It was big, with columns and porticoes and formal gardens and stables (with Lightning in one of them) and carriage houses and what used to be slave quarters— the (still is) old Parsham place, what remains of the plantation of the man, family, which gave its name to the town and the countryside and to some of the people too, like Uncle Parsham Hood. The sun was gone now, and soon the day would follow. And then, for the first time, I realised that it was all over, finished—all the four days of scuffling and scrabbling and dodging and lying and anxiety; all over except the paying-for. Grandfather and Colonel Lins-comb and Mr van Tosch would be somewhere in the house now, drinking presupper toddies; it might be half an hour yet before the supper bell rang, so I turned aside and went through the rose garden and on to the back. And, sure enough, there was Ned sitting on the back steps.

"Here," I said, holding out the big roll of money. "Sam said this is yours." He took it. "Aint you going to count it?" I said.

"I reckon he counted it," Ned said. I took the little one from my pocket. Ned looked at it. "Did he give you that too?"

"Miss Reba did. She bet for me."

"It's gambling money," Ned said. "You're too young to have anything to do with gambling money. Aint nobody ever old enough to have gambling money, but you sho aint." And I couldn't tell him either. Then I realised that I had expected him, Ned anyway, to already know without having to be told. And in the very next breath he did know. "Because we never done it for money," he said.

"You aint going to keep yours either?"

"Yes," he said. "It's too late for me. But it aint too late for you. I'm gonter give you a chance, even if it aint nothing but taking a chance away from you."

"Sam said I could give it to Uncle Parsham. But he wouldn't take gambling money either, would he?"

"Is that what you want to do with it?"

"Yes," I said.

"All right," he said. He took the little roll too and took out his snap purse and put both the rolls into it and now it was almost dark but I could certainly hear the supper bell here.

"How did you get the tooth back?" I said.

"It wasn't me," he said. "Lycurgus done it. That first morning, when I come back to the hotel to get you. It wasn't no trouble. The hounds had already treed him once, and Lycurgus said he thought at first he would just use them, put him up that gum sapling again and not call off the hounds until Whistle-britches wropped the tooth up in his cap or something, and dropped it. But Lycurgus said he was still a little rankled up over the upstarty notions Whistle-britches had about horses, mainly about Lightning. So, since Lightning was gonter have to run a race that afternoon and would need his rest, Lycurgus said he decided to use one of the mules. He said how Whistle-britches drawed a little old bitty pocketknife on him, but Lycurgus is gonter take good care of it until he can give it back to some of them." He stopped. He still looked bad. He still hadn't had any sleep. But maybe it is a relief to finally meet doom and have it set a definite moment to start worrying at.

"Well?" I said. "What?"

"I just told you. The mule done it."

"How?" I said.

"Lycurgus put Whistle-britches on the mule without no bridle or saddle and tied his feet underneath and told him any time he decided to wrop that tooth up in his cap and drop it off, he would stop the mule. And Ly-curgus give the mule a light cut, and about halfway round the first circle of the lot Whistle-britches dropped the cap, only there wasn't nothing in it that time. So Lycurgus handed the cap back up to him and give the mule another cut and Lycurgus said he had disremembered that this was the mule that jumped fences until it had already jumped that four-foot bobwire and Lycurgus said it looked like it was fixing to take Whistle-britches right on back to Possum. But it never went far until it turned around and come back and jumped back into the lot again so next time Whistle-britches dropped the cap the tooth was in it. Only he might as well kept it, for all the good it done me. She went back to Memphis too, huh?"