The Reivers

'Then beat it,' Miss Reba said. 'Get out of here. How you going to do it? walk back to Missippi or ride the horse? Go on. Sit down. You might as well while we wait for him. Tell us,' she said to Miss Corrie.

You see? 'He's not a brakeman! He's a flagman! He wears a uniform just the same as the conductor's. He's going to help us.' All the world loves a lover, quoth (I think) the Swan: who saw deeper than any into the human heart. What pity he had no acquaintance with horses, to have added, All the world apparently loves a stolen race horse also. Miss Corrie told us; and Otis was in the room now though I hadn't seen him come in, with something still wrong about him though not noticing him until it was almost too late still wasn't it:

'We'll have to buy at least one ticket to Possum to have—'

'It's Parsham,' Miss Reba said.

'All right,' Miss Corrie said. '—something to check him as baggage on, like you do a trunk; Sam will bring the ticket and the baggage check with him. But it will be all right; an empty boxcar will be on a side track—Sam will know where—and all we have to do is get the horse in it and Sam said wall him up in one corner with planks so he cant slip down; Sam will have some planks and nails ready too; he said this was the best he could do at short notice because he didn't dare tell his uncle any more than he had to or his uncle would want to come too. So Sam says the only risk will be getting the horse from here to where the boxcar is waiting. He says it wont do for . . .' She stopped, looking at Ned.

'Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi,' Ned said.

hours between the moment I learned of Grandfather Les-sep's death and that one when the train began to move and I realised that Boon would be in unchallenged possession of the key to Grandfather's automobile for at least four days. While here were Miss Reba and Miss Corrie: foemen you would say already toughened, even if not wisened by constant daily experience to any wile or assault Non-virtue (or Virtue) might invent against them, already sacked and pillaged: who thirty minutes before didn't even know that Ned existed, let alone the horse. Not to mention the complete stranger whom Miss Corrie had just left the room tranquilly confident to conquer with no other weapon than the telephone.

She had been gone nearly two minutes now. Minnie had taken the lamp and gone back to the back porch; I noticed that Ned was not in the room either. 'Minnie,' Miss Reba said toward the back door, 'was any of that chicken—'

'Yessum,' Minnie said. 'I already fixed him a plate. He setting down to it now.' Ned said something. We couldn't hear it. But we could hear Minnie: 'If all you got to depend on for appetite is me, you gonter starve twice between here and morning.' We couldn't hear Ned. Now Miss Corrie had been gone almost four minutes. Boon stood up, quick.

'God damn it—' he said.

'Are you even jealous of a telephone?' Miss Reba said. 'What the hell can he do to her through that damn gutta-percha earpiece?' But we could hear Minnie: a quick sharp flat sound, then her feet. She came in. She was breathing a little quick, but not much. 'What's wrong?' Miss Reba said.

'Aint nothing wrong,' Minnie said. 'He like most of them. He got plenty of appetite but he cant seem to locate where it is.'

'Give him a bottle of beer. Unless you're afraid to go back out there.'

'I aint afraid,' Minnie said. 'He just nature-minded. Maybe a little extra. I'm used to it. A heap of them are that way: so nature-minded dont nobody get no rest until they goes to sleep.'

'I bet you are,' Boon said. 'It's that tooth. That's the hell of women: you wont let well enough alone.'

'What do you mean?' Miss Reba said. 'You know damn well what I mean,' Boon said. 'You dont never quit. You aint never satisfied. You dont never have no mercy on a damn man. Look at her: aint satisfied until she has saved and scraped to put a gold tooth, a gold tooth in the middle of her face just to drive crazy a poor ignorant country nigger—'

'—or spending five minutes talking into a wooden box just to drive crazy another poor ignorant country bastard that aint done nothing in the world but steal an automobile and now a horse. I never knew anybody that needed to get married as bad as you do.'

'He sure do,' Minnie said from the door. 'That would cure him. I tried it twice and I sho learned my lesson—' Miss Corrie came in.

'All right,' she said: serene, no more plain than a big porcelain lamp with the wick burning inside is plain. 'He's coming too. He's going to help us. He—'

'Not me,' Boon said. 'The son of a bitch aint going to help me.'

'Then beat it,' Miss Reba said. 'Get out of here. How you going to do it? walk back to Missippi or ride the horse? Go on. Sit down. You might as well while we wait for him. Tell us,' she said to Miss Corrie.

You see? 'He's not a brakeman! He's a flagman! He wears a uniform just the same as the conductor's. He's going to help us.' All the world loves a lover, quoth (I think) the Swan: who saw deeper than any into the human heart. What pity he had no acquaintance with horses, to have added, All the world apparently loves a stolen race horse also. Miss Corrie told us; and Otis was in the room now though I hadn't seen him come in, with something still wrong about him though not noticing him until it was almost too late still wasn't it:

'We'll have to buy at least one ticket to Possum to have—'

'It's Parsham,' Miss Reba said.

'All right,' Miss Corrie said. '—something to check him as baggage on, like you do a trunk; Sam will bring the ticket and the baggage check with him. But it will be all right; an empty boxcar will be on a side track—Sam will know where—and all we have to do is get the horse in it and Sam said wall him up in one corner with planks so he cant slip down; Sam will have some planks and nails ready too; he said this was the best he could do at short notice because he didn't dare tell his uncle any more than he had to or his uncle would want to come too. So Sam says the only risk will be getting the horse from here to where the boxcar is waiting. He says it wont do for... '

She stopped, looking at Ned,

'Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi,' Ned said.