Tishomingo Blues

"You mean it?"

"I think today's go

"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 di

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

" Walter, goddamn 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 whore, Eugene and Fish are fighting over a dead dog, and all Newton wants to do is lynch the nigger."

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 hell'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?"

A

Robert was in uniform. Coming in he said, "That was me called." A

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, ru

A

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 go

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 go

"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 A

"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 A

"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 go

Robert watched Billy Darwin raise his arms, look down at the tank and then straight out at the sky, watched him jump into space 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 A

Two figures stood on the slope not far from the barn, a Yankee and a Confederate with a sword, De

Charlie said, "We saw you coming-"

Robert got right to it, telling De

"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."

De

"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."

De

"Why would you ask me that?"

"Don't, okay?"

"No, man, I can admire it without feeling the need to do it. Listen, I told Jerry to look for you at the Federal camp. Where you going now?"

"Get my corporal stripes cut off," De

"What you do," Robert said, "stay close as you can to Hector and Tonto, you'll be okay. I told them to get up close to the woods on the north side, straight out there, and I'll give 'em the sign when to duck in."