Tishomingo Blues Part 23

"Ask him to come out here," Arlen said, "so I can speak to him. Or I can step inside the tent."

"I tole you," Hector said, "he sleeping."

Arlen nodded at the table. "Those pistols loaded?"

"Yes, they are," Hector said.

"You know you're not suppose to put loads in your guns?"

"Yes, we know it," Hector said, "the same as you know it." Arlen said, "What're we getting to here?"

Hector turned his head to Tonto. "f.u.c.king High Noon High Noon, man." Arlen said, "I didn't hear you."

"I tole him," Hector said, "you want to pull your guns, but you don't have the nerve." The one with the tobacco stains in his beard said, "What'd he say?" But the one, Arlen, was louder, telling them, "You think that's what we come here for? To shoot you? Jesus Christ."

"Our Lord and Savior," Hector said. "No, I don't think to shoot us. Maybe scare us so we go home."

"We gonna see you tomorrow," Arlen said, "when we do Brice's, and run you off with rifle b.u.t.ts and bayonets."

Hector said, "And swords?"

"You want to sword-fight?" Arlen said. "I got a sword. s.h.i.t, we'll do 'er any way you want, Pancho."

Hector turned to Tonto again. "You hear this guy?"

Tonto only shrugged.

But then the one with the stained beard said, "Where's the n.i.g.g.e.r at?" Tonto looked at him and said, "He left. He went to f.u.c.k your wife." Hector could see the guy with the beard was about to go crazy, but Arlen stopped him, took the hand reaching for the pistol and twisted it behind him the way cops know how to do it, and that was the end of the visit. Arlen said one word to them before they marched off with the one still on the edge of being crazy. He said, "Tomorrow."

Hector looked at Tonto. "Tomorrow okay with you?"

22.

A FEW MINUTES PAST SIX the next morning, Sunday, the big day, Anne left Robert's suite to go down the hall sleepy-eyed to get in her own bed. the next morning, Sunday, the big day, Anne left Robert's suite to go down the hall sleepy-eyed to get in her own bed.

The one- Oh, s.h.i.t Oh, s.h.i.t-Jerry was in.

Jerry snoring away, the sound, that drone, coming from the bedroom. It stopped Anne in her slides as she entered the suite and got her thinking, Quick, where were you?

But first she'd have to know what time Jerry got back. Now she was saying things to herself like, Are you out of your mind? You actually believed he'd sleep in a f.u.c.king tent? She should never have listened to Robert with that baby, it's cool, nothing to worry about. "You don't want him walking in on us, we do it in my bed." Anne saying, "But if he comes back and I'm not in my bed-" Robert saying, "Come on, baby, have us a quickie and call it a night." Except that Robert was a slowpoke making love, kept slow-poking till they both fell asleep for almost six hours.

Fooling around could have its hair-raising moments, especially cheating on a gangster, and she'd tell herself it wasn't worth it. But then Robert would give her the look and she'd give him the look and they'd be back fooling around again. She slipped into the king-size bed next to Jerry to lie there waiting for him to wake up.

The phone rang at eight, the phone on Jerry's side of the bed.

Anne reached across him, stretching, for a moment her face close to his, lifted the receiver before it rang again and laid it back in its cradle. Slipping back across Jerry she came to his face, his eyes, inches away, open, looking at her. She kissed him on the mouth, a peck, and rolled back onto her pillow.

"Who was that?"

"I've no idea."

"Why'd you hang up?"

"It's too early to talk."

She waited, hoping that f.u.c.king phone would not ring.

"Where were you?"

Here we go.

"Where was was I? When?" I? When?"

"All f.u.c.kin night."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I come back, you're not here."

"What time was it?"

"What's the difference-you weren't f.u.c.kin here."

"Jerry. What time time was it?" was it?"

"Twelve, twelve-thirty."

Anne said, "Yeah ...?" taking her time, and said, "I was out on the balcony," adding a note of surprise to her voice. "I fell asleep on the lounge. You didn't see me? Yeah, I came in and looked at the clock. It was one-thirty, you were asleep . . ." She said, "I knew you weren't gonna spend the night in that tent."

"You were out on the balcony."

"Yeah, I can't believe you didn't see me."

There was a silence, Jerry lying there with nothing more to say. But now she was home free and couldn't let it go.

"Where did you think I was?"

Walter Kirkbride had started to get dressed with every intention of slipping out of the tent early, un.o.bserved, before the women in camp were out there cooking breakfast. And he would have, if he hadn't looked over at little Traci turning onto her side on the cot, the little sweetie pulling the blanket with her to show him her bare white b.u.mmy. It lured Walter out of his longjohns to express his love. And then had to rest.

While he was getting dressed the second time little Traci lit into him in a pouty way, moaning about being mostly all alone yesterday, and having to wear that dumb hoopskirt.

"I walk around here, everybody looks at me."

"Well, sure they do, you're cute as a bug. Aren't you my little Barbie?" He'd call her that in the trailer and she'd call him Ken, only in her countrified way it would come out sounding like "Kin."

"Those fat women'd ask me who're my people. Where was I from. Do I want to help them make johnnycake. What was I suppose to say? I told 'em I had to go to the bathroom. But you try to get in one of those little s.h.i.thouses with a hoopskirt on. You have to lift it up in front real high and go in sideways. But then you're in there the skirt takes up all the room. What I did was get up on the seat and squat over it to pee."

Walter was pulling his boots, straining, trying to hurry. That, and hearing her talking about peeing, gave him the urge.

"I went in that store where they have all the little statues of famous generals and stuff? I have all kinds of ashtrays with Confederate flags on 'em, so I bought a plate I thought might be used as one, had Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson on it, and the flag, of course. I use to have a G-string with a Confederate flag on it guys liked a lot when I was dancing go-go. They'd salute it. I was only fourteen but already had my t.i.ts." Walter stood at the back of the tent relieving himself, feeling calmer as the flow hit the sand, not making a sound.

"Sweetie, you get dressed, put on your bluejeans. We may leave here in a hurry."

"You mean it?"

"I think today's gonna be different than any reenactment I've ever been to." He would approach it carefully, alert, keeping on the front of his mind what the colored fella Robert had said. Where Where you want to be when Arlen goes down? you want to be when Arlen goes down? Seeing it more as a warning than a decision he had to make. Robert telling him to stay out of it and he wouldn't get hurt. Keep to one side and maybe this Robert would come see him after about doing business. It seemed all he had to do was stay alert and not get too near to Arlen. Seeing it more as a warning than a decision he had to make. Robert telling him to stay out of it and he wouldn't get hurt. Keep to one side and maybe this Robert would come see him after about doing business. It seemed all he had to do was stay alert and not get too near to Arlen.

"After," Traci said, "can we get something to eat?"

"Anything you want."

"You know who Arlen sent with my supper I would never've eaten anyway? All that pork fat?

Even if he hadn't spilt it on the ground? Newton Hoon, the stinkiest man I ever met in my life. He'd try to come in my trailer? I said, 'You filled a tub with wash powder and soaked in it all day I still wouldn't let you in.' "

Walter, getting into his wool coat, said, "That's my girl."

"I couldn't buy anything for supper, I didn't have no money with me and you didn't give me none. I was lucky I stopped to talk to this lady down a ways smoking a cigarette? She'd snuck in some Stouffer's frozen dinners, only defrosted, the Chicken and Vegetables Pasta Bake, threw 'em in a pot and pretended she was cooking. It was good, too. She talked funny. She said she'd been stuck in a hard life, but believed her redeemer was about to cometh."

"A religious woman," Walter said, strapping on his sword. He picked up his hat and a voice came from outside the tent.

"Walter, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, you coming?"

He opened the tent flap a few inches to see Arlen's dirty look, one that seemed imprinted on the man's features.

"What's wrong?"

"I was thinking," Arlen said, "it was time we set our minds on what we're doing here. Except you're with your wh.o.r.e, Eugene and Fish are fighting over a dead dog, and all Newton wants to do is lynch the n.i.g.g.e.r."

It was in Walter's mind that he might not have to listen to this man, this lout, ever again after today. And to make it come true he should help Robert any way he could. Arlen said, "The h.e.l.l're you looking at?"

It brought Walter back. He turned his head to Traci on the cot. "See you later, Barbie honey." She lifted her head from the pillow. "Okay, Kin." Walter stepped outside. Arlen said, "You got a new one in there?"

Anne got up from the room-service table to answer the door. Jerry didn't move, looking at the Sunday paper, the Memphis Commercial Appeal Memphis Commercial Appeal, as he ate his breakfast. Robert was in uniform. Coming in he said, "That was me called." Anne opened the door all the way and now he saw Jerry at the table. "And you two were sound asleep, huh? I'm sorry I woke you up."

Jerry said, "How was it?" dipping his spoon into a soup bowl of soft-boiled eggs. Robert estimating there were three eggs in the bowl, runny, maybe four when Jerry started eating. That took up part of a moment in Robert's mind, the rest of it was thinking, How was what? And realized Jerry meant sleeping in a tent. "We missed you, Jer. Yeah, that camping out's fun. We built a fire, sat around it and told ghost stories."

Anne said, "Did you sing camp songs?"

She stood with her orange juice now by the open doors to the balcony.

"We didn't know any. Tonto did sixty days in one of those tent jails that's like a camp, in Texas? But he said they didn't sing any songs."

Jerry said, "What time's this thing today, the battle?"

"Two o'clock. You muster at the Union camp no later than one-thirty."

"Or what," Jerry said, "they don't let you play? How we gonna work it?" Hector had phoned this morning, so Robert was able to say, "Hector talked to Arlen. He says they'll go fists, knives, anything . . . rocks. Hector says even swords. There four of them counting Arlen, not counting Mr. Kirkbride. We might want to use him, and this other one, Bob Hoon, runs the meth lab. I drove out and spoke to him a few days ago, gave him some what-ifs, told him he ought to stay loose. So it's their four against us four, us being me and you, Hector and Tonto."

"And the two spades," Jerry said.

"You mean," Robert said, "Groove and Cedric? I told you where they gonna be."

"Yeah, I forgot," Jerry said, getting up from the table with the paper. "That's what I have you for, the details."

Robert watched him go into the bedroom and heard the bathroom door close. Now he saw Anne drilling him with her look and knew he was about to get yelled at through clenched teeth.

"I told you he'd come back. I walk in the room what am I supposed to tell him?"

"Baby, I'm sorry. He was awake?"

"He was asleep."

"Then you had time to make something up."

"How do I know when he got back? I had to find that out first." Robert moved toward her now saying, "Baby, what'd you tell him? It must've been good." He would have to take her in his arms now while her husband was in there taking a dump, give her some comfort, ready to, but then saw the ladder out there past her against the sky, and saw a figure standing on the top perch.

Now Anne turned to follow his gaze and said, "Is that Dennis?"

"It's Billy Darwin," Robert said. "He climbed up there once before. And climbed down," Robert's voice drifting with a thoughtful sound to it. "The cool hotel manager gonna find out if he's all the way cool. See Carla down there? By the tank with Charlie Hoke in his uniform. But the man is not doing it for them or anybody watching. I see Billy Darwin up there for his own knowledge of himself. He wants to know can he do it from the height of cool, eighty feet up. He's gonna do it, too. See him on the edge? The man's gonna do it." Robert watched Billy Darwin raise his arms, look down at the tank and then straight out at the sky, watched him jump into s.p.a.ce and drop sixty miles an hour in two seconds to smack the water with a sound Robert could hear.

Robert said, "Uh-oh."

His eyes holding on the tank, waiting for Billy Darwin to surface, as Anne told him she would never, ever, let him talk her into that kind of situation again, taking a chance that could get them killed, for Christ sake, for what? She said, "Hey, I'm talking to you. Where're you going?" raising her voice to Robert crossing the room and going out the door.

Two figures stood on the slope not far from the barn, a Yankee and a Confederate with a sword, Dennis halfway across the field before he recognized them, Robert and Charlie, and trudged up the slope with his rifle.

Charlie said, "We saw you coming-"

Robert got right to it, telling Dennis, "Billy Darwin went off the ladder. He might've injured himself."

"Bad?"

"Did something to his back. Carla went in and fished him out."

"With her clothes on," Charlie said. "He manages to take a few steps at a time, but stooped over. The Emergency people came, he didn't want to go with 'em. They strapped him down and took him anyway. Said they thought he ought to be x-rayed."

Dennis was shaking his head now. "Carla said he wanted to do it. He jumped?"

"Looked good, too," Robert said, "till he's almost to the tank and you see his legs go out in front of him like he's sitting down. Made a way bigger splash than any of yours. I believe his timing was off a speck, but he was cool to try it. Have to give him that." Dennis said to Robert, "You're not gonna try it, are you?"

"Why would you ask me that?"