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“Well, suh, we just thinking with the crop coming you might be needin’ some mo’ help round the gin,” said one of the boys.
“That’s the trouble with you niggers, is when you set in to tryin’ to think,” said Leander Purneau. He spoke in a friendly, jokey voice, which put me, and the boy, off guard. But then he popped him a solid punch on the side of his face and sent the boy down onto his knees.
The other boys skittered away like bugs from a kicked-over log. Suddenly I really was back in the past, and the boy on the ground was in serious trouble, like poor George Pearson had been.
There was one difference now—I was not a timid little boy. I was a grown man. As I wiped my wet hands on my shirt, I considered what I was about to do.
If I caused a commotion, made a scene, called attention to myself, I might endanger my mission even before it started.
But if I did nothing?
Fortunately, the boy on the ground rolled over and jumped up. He sprinted off down the platform, holding his jaw, but at least he was getting away.
And at that very moment, I felt something cold and hard jammed against the side of my neck.
It felt an awful lot like the barrel of a gun.
A deep voice behind me: “Just put your hands in the air. Nice and slow, high, that’s the way to do it.”
Chapter 29
“NOW, I WANT you to turn around real slow, partner. Don’t make any fast moves.”
I did exactly as I was told. Real slow.
And found myself looking straight into the face of Jacob Gill. Jacob and I had been inseparable from as far back as I could remember, until the day I left Eudora for college.
“You son of a bitch!” I shouted at him.
Jacob was laughing so hard he actually held his stomach and doubled over. His laughter made him do a little jig of delight.
“You nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack,” I said. “You’re a jackass.”
“I know,” Jacob said, howling some more.
Then we hugged, seizing each other by the shoulders, stepping back to get a good look.
“How’d you even know it was me?” I asked.
“We don’t have too many yellow-haired fellows ten feet tall hanging around,” said Jacob. Then he added, “I saw you decide not to mix it up with Jocko and Leander. That was smart thinking on your part.”
“I guess so,” I said. I remembered the time Jacob left me in the swamp to watch what happened to George Pearson. I wished I could tell him why I’d held back this time.
“Hey, it’s near dinnertime,” Jacob said and lightly punched my shoulder. “Let’s go get some catfish.”
“That sounds good. Where we going?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve turned into such a big-city boy you forgot Friday is catfish day at the Slide Inn?”
Chapter 30
I PUSHED THE BICYCLE between us down Myrtle Street, toward the town square. Jacob stopped twice along the way to take a nip of whiskey from a pint he kept in his worn leather toolbox, and I said hello to a couple more people I recognized, or who remembered me.
The Slide Inn was alive with the hum of conversation, the smell of frying fish, the smoke from the cigars of the old fellows who always occupied the front table, solving the world’s problems on a daily basis.
“Why aren’t you staying at your daddy’s?” Jacob asked as soon as we sat down at a corner table.
“You know my father,” I said. “It seemed like Maybelle’s was the smart place to be. My father and I just don’t get along.”
