The Last Ballad(91)

“Beal,” Hampton said.

Beal looked around as if trying to decide whether anyone else had heard his name, whether anyone else had seen the three men in the parking lot together. He looked back at Hampton.

“What the hell?” Hampton said.

“Stop it!” Beal said. His voice was a hoarse whisper.

Hampton froze in midstride. He stared at Beal.

“Goddammit, Haywood,” Beal said, “stop screaming my name.”

Hampton was unsure of what to do next. His duffel bag slipped from his shoulder and landed in the gravel. He did not move to pick it up. Beal looked down at the bag where it had fallen, then he looked at Hampton. He rolled his eyes.

“Well, come on,” he said. He motioned for Hampton to move quickly. “Come on, come on,” he said again. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”

Hampton picked up his duffel, slung the strap over his shoulder, and started toward the car. The man opened the driver’s-side door and climbed inside. As Hampton approached, Beal unfastened the compartment that housed the Model A’s rumble seat. He reached out his hand toward Hampton. At first, Hampton thought Beal had done it in greeting, but then he realized Beal was reaching for his luggage. Hampton handed the duffel to Beal. Beal tossed it into the darkness at the bottom of the rumble seat.

“Climb in,” Beal said. “All the way in. We need to get out of here.”



Although the gravel parking lot had been dark, the rumble seat’s interior was what Hampton expected to find at the bottom of the grave. It was hot, nearly stifling. He could smell the automobile’s exhaust, its burned oil, hear its creaking and rocking as they careened down the road.

Hampton drifted into sleep. Something in his mind screamed at him to stay awake. He panicked at the thought that he could run out of air or succumb to the car’s fumes. The panic was fleeting, and soon the blackness into which he stared dematerialized. He settled into a dream in which he was still sitting on the No. 33 train as it barreled south toward Charlotte.

He did not know how long he’d been sleeping when he felt the car slow and roll to a halt. Beal’s muffled voice, and then the stranger’s, came from inside. A door opened and closed, and then another. He heard footsteps in the gravel, then the sound of water.

He arched his back until it touched the lid of the rumble seat. He pushed against it. It didn’t move. He pushed again, harder this time. Again. He felt the car rock on its axles. Another push and he heard a click as the latch released itself. Hampton unfolded his body from the compartment. The first thing he noticed was the intense smell of the air: manure, hay, a fire burning somewhere far off in the warm night. The car sat parked along a dirt road on the edge of a pasture. Nearby, a cluster of milk cows grazed silently on the other side of a low fence, their tails swishing in the shadows. Hampton turned, looked behind him, saw Beal and the other man urinating on the side of the road with their backs to him.

Hampton climbed out of the rumble seat and walked to the edge of the road and unzipped his fly. He stood there, wetting the dark ground at his feet. He stared at the cows. A few of them raised their heads and considered him; then they looked back down at the earth and continued tearing at the grass.

When he finished he turned and saw that Beal and the man now leaned against the driver’s side of the car. Both men stared at him. Beal had his arms folded over his chest, his ankles crossed before him. The other man lit a cigarette.

“This is a bad idea,” Beal said.

“What’s a bad idea?” Hampton asked. “Stopping out here? Taking a piss on the side of the road? Or are you talking about squeezing me into a rumble seat? Shit, Beal, I could’ve suffocated.”

“No,” Beal said. “I’m not talking about that.” He spread his arms, and turned his body as if to take in the entire scene around him. “I’m talking about this,” he said. “All of it, especially you. You coming down here was a bad idea. It changes everything.”

“Yeah, well maybe you need my help.”

“I don’t,” Beal said.

“The party thinks you do,” Hampton said.

“This is the South, Haywood,” Beal said. “This isn’t New York City. You don’t know the South, not like I do.”

But the darkened field that surrounded them made Hampton disagree with Beal, as did the humid air and the smells of animals and turned earth. The terror that had lived in his heart since that Mississippi night back in 1906 burst free and he threw himself at Beal, crossing the ground between them in just a few strides. He threw a right hook and caught Beal on the jaw. Hampton staggered with his own momentum and struggled to regain his footing in the damp grass. Beal covered his face and crumpled against the side of the automobile; then he sprung at Hampton, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him to the ground. They rolled through the grass. Hampton heard Beal cussing, heard himself screaming, “Don’t tell me what I know, you son of a bitch! Don’t tell me what I know!” They stopped rolling. Hampton found himself on top of Beal, straddling his body. Beal covered his face, and just as Hampton raised his fist to strike him, he heard a gunshot. The cows flushed at the noise, galloped into the darkness, and disappeared. Hampton turned, his fist still clenched and held above his head. The stranger pointed a small revolver at him. The man cocked the hammer.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said.