The Book of Lost Friends(90)
“The boy is to be remanded to the State Lunatic Asylum in Austin,” the sheriff says, and the deputy opens the jailhouse door then kicks me into the street and throws our goods after me.
Gus is there waiting and helps gather up the poke. “We best git gone, before their minds go to reconsiderin’ on your release,” he says.
I tell him about leaving Missy, but he don’t want no part of that.
“Look here, Hannibal. It was all I could do to get you out. You start trouble, they’ll put you in again, and there won’t be no help for that.”
I stumble along, letting Gus pull me down the street. “Act right,” he says. “What’s got into you? You’ll have us both in the stew. Mr. J. B. French and his foreman, Penberthy, they don’t stand for no guff.”
I follow along, try to reason out what to do next. The town streets, horses and wagons, colored folks and white folks, cowboys and dogs, stores and houses go past my eyes all in a mix, so I don’t see any one thing. Then there’s the alley by the courthouse and Battercake Flats. I stop and look down toward the bluff, remember sitting right there, Missy and Juneau Jane and me, eating lunch from our poke.
“This way.” Gus nudges my shoulder. “Just down a bit in the wagon yard. They done packed up the one freighter, and the last of the crew is to ride up top of the load. We’ll join with the wagons from Weatherford and then leave southward from there. We ain’t got time to dally.”
“I’ll come on,” I say, and push the pokes into Gus’s hands before he can say no. “I’ll come on, but there’s something I got to do first.”
I turn and run, through the streets and the alleys, past yapping dogs and spooked horses at hitch rings. I know I shouldn’t, but I go back to the place where all the trouble started. Where Old Florida and the shoeshine boy work their business, near the bathhouse. I ask them of Juneau Jane, and they say they ain’t seen her, and so I hurry round the back. There, I stop and watch the workers come and go, hauling the water in and out in buckets.
A wide, round-faced colored woman comes out to take clothes off a alley line. She laughs and teases with some of the others. I move her way, thinking to ask her of Juneau Jane.
I don’t even get near there before a man steps out on the gallery above. He tips his head back and blows smoke into the air from a cigar. It curls under the brim of his hat and slips away as he comes to the rail to tap ashes over. When he does, I see the melted scars along his face and the patch over his eye. Takes everything I have to turn around slow, not run, just walk. I squeeze my fists and hold my arms stiff and don’t look back, nor left, nor right. I feel the Lieutenant watching me.
No, he ain’t. No he ain’t, I tell myself.
Don’t look.
I round the corner and break into a blind run.
It’s then I see that the side alley ain’t empty. There’s a man loading boxes on a pushcart. He’s tall and lean and strong built, dusky like the shadows that cover us both. I know the sight of him even in the half light. You don’t forget a man who’s come close to killing you, twice over. Who would do it now, if he got the chance.
I try to stop and turn back, but the wash water runs down the alley in a little stream. I slip in the mud and go down.
Moses is on me before I can get to my feet.
CHAPTER 22
BENNY SILVA—AUGUSTINE, LOUISIANA, 1987
It’s Thursday again, and I know, without even the first glimpse through the trees, that Nathan’s truck will be parked in my driveway. My mind sprints ahead of the Bug, which is now sporting a new bumper, thanks to Cal Frazer, the local mechanic, and nephew of Miss Caroline, one of our New Century ladies. He loves old cars like the Bug, because they were made to be repaired and kept in use, not discarded in the trash heap after the digital clocks and automatic seatbelts die.
A city police car pulls out of its hiding place behind a billboard and trails me, and for once I don’t break into a nervous sweat about whether I’ll get stopped over the bumper issue. Even so, a mildly eerie feeling lingers as we traverse each curve together. It’s like a movie scene in which the local law and small-town powerbrokers are indistinguishable from one another. They all have the same goal. To stop anyone new from upsetting the status quo.
As much as I’d like to keep the Underground project quiet until it’s closer to fruition, it’s hard when dozens of kids, a group of senior ladies, and a smattering of volunteers like Sarge are running around town scrounging for everything from courthouse records, old newspaper articles, family pictures and documents to poster board and costume materials. We’ve hit the first week of October, which puts the Halloween date for our pageant less than thirty days away.
I stop at the end of my driveway, just to see who’s in the police cruiser, since it’s way out here beyond the city limits. The driver is Redd Fontaine, of course. As the mayor’s brother, and a cousin to Will and Manford Gossett, he claims everything as his jurisdiction. He drifts by in no particular hurry, looking past me toward my house.
I can’t help wondering if he’s scoping out Nathan’s truck. The Bug and I hold our position, seeking to block the view until the police car passes by, then we roll on in. My pulse steadies at the sight of khaki shorts and a camo green chambray shirt peeking through the oleander where the garden saint hides. I know the outfit, even before I see Nathan on the porch swing. As far as I can tell, he has about five daily uniforms, all of them casual, comfortable, and in tune with south Louisiana’s hot, humid weather. His style is a cross between mountain guy and beach bum. He does not do dress-up.