'. . . Ned to be walking along even a back street this late at night leading a horse; the first policeman they pass will stop him. So he—Sam—is bringing a blanket and he's going to wear his uniform and him and Boon and me will lead the horse to the depot and nobody will notice anything. Oh yes; and the passenger train will—'
'Jesus,' Miss Reba said. 'A whore, a pullman conductor and a Missippi swamp rat the size of a water tank leading a race horse through Memphis at midnight Sunday night, and nobody will notice it?'
'You stop!' Miss Corrie said.
'Stop what?' Miss Reba said.
'You know. Talking like that in front of—'
'Oh,' Miss Reba said. 'If he just dropped up here from Missippi with Boon on a friendly visit you might say, we might of could protected his ears. But using this place as headquarters while they steal automobiles and horses, he's got to take his chances like anybody else. What were you saying about the train?'
'Yes. The passenger train that leaves for Washington at four A.M. will pick the boxcar up and well all be in Possum before daylight.'
'Parsham, God damn it,' Miss Reba said. 'We?'
'Aint you coming too?' Miss Corrie said.
Chapter 7
That's what we did. Though first Sam had to see the horse. He came in the back way, through the kitchen, carrying the horse blanket. He was in his uniform. He was almost as big as Boon.
So we—all of us again—stood once more in the back yard, Ned holding the lamp this time, to shine its light not on the horse but on Sam's brass-buttoned coat and vest and the flat cap with the gold lettering across the front. In fact, I had expected trouble with Ned over Sam and the horse, but I was wrong. 'Who, me?' Ned said. 'What for? We couldn't be no better off with a policeman himself leading the horse to Possum.' On the contrary, the trouble we were going to have about Sam would be with Boon. Sam looked at the horse.
'That's a good horse,' Sam said. 'He looks like a damn good horse to me.'
'Sure,' Boon said. 'He aint got no whistle nor bell neither on him. He aint even got a headlight. I'm surprised you can see him a-tall.'
'What do you mean by that?' Sam said. 'I dont mean nothing,' Boon said. 'Just what I said. You're an iron-horse man. Maybe you better go on to the depot without waiting for us.'
'You has—' Miss Reba said. Then she started over: 'Cant you see, the man's just trying to help you? going out of his way so that the minute you get back home, the first live animal you'll see wont be the sheriff? He's the one to be inviting you to get to hell back where you came from and take your goddamn horse along with you. Apologise.'
'All right,' Boon said. 'Forget it.'
'You call that an apology?' Miss Reba said. 'What do you want?' Boon said. 'Me to bend over and invite him to —'
'You hush! Right this minute!' Miss Corrie said.
'And you dont help none neither,' Boon said. 'You already got me and Miss Reba both to where we'll have to try to forget the whole English language before we can even pass the time of day.'
'That's no lie,' Miss Reba said. 'That one you brought here from Arkansas was bad enough, with one hand in the icebox after beer and the other one reaching for whatever was little and not nailed down whenever anybody wasn't looking. And now Boon Hogganbeck's got to bring another one that's got me scared to even open my mouth.'
'He didn't!' Miss Corrie said. 'Otis dont take anything without asking first! Do you, Otis?'
'That's right,' Miss Reba said. 'Ask him. He certainly ought to know.'
'Ladies, ladies, ladies,' Sam said. 'Does this horse want to go to Parsham tonight, or dont he?'
So we started. But at first Miss Corrie was still looking at Otis and me. 'They ought to be in bed,' she said.
'Sure,' Miss Reba said. 'Over in Arkansas or back down there in Missippi or even further than that, if I had my way. But it's too late now. You cant send one to bed without the other, and that one of Boon's owns part of the horse.' Only at the last, Miss Reba couldn't go either. She and Minnie couldn't be spared. The place was jumping indeed now, but still discreetly, with Sabbath decorum: Saturday night's fading tide rip in one last spumy upfling against the arduous humdrum of day-by-day for mere bread and shetler.
So Ned and Boon put the blanket on the horse. Then from the sidewalk we—Ned and Otis and me—watched Boon and Sam in polyandrous . . . maybe not amity but at least armistice, Miss Corrie between them, leading the horse down the middle of the street from arc light to arc light through the Sunday evening quiet of Second and Third streets, toward the Union depot. It was after ten now; there were few lights, these only in the other boarding houses (I was experienced now; I was a sophisticate —not a connoisseur of course but at least cognizant; I recognised a place similar to Miss Reba's when I saw one). The saloons though were all dark. That is, I didn't know a saloon just by passing it; there were still a few degrees yet veiled to me; it was Ned who told us—Otis and me— they were saloons, and that they were closed. I had expected them to be neither one: neither closed nor open; remember, I had been in Memphis (or in Catalpa Street) less than six hours, without my mother or father either to instruct me; I was doing pretty well. 'They calls it the blue law,' Ned said. 'What's a blue law?' I said.
'I dont know neither,' Ned said. 'Lessen it means they blewed in all the money Saturday night and aint none of them got enough left now to make it worth burning the coal oil.'
'That's just the saloons,' Otis said. 'It dont hurt nobody that way. What they dont sell Sunday night they can just save it and sell it to somebody, maybe the same folks, Monday. But pugnuckling's different. You can sell it tonight and turn right around again and sell the same pug-nuckling again tomorrow. You aint lost nothing. Likely if they tried to put that blue law onto pugnuckling, the police would come in and stop them.'
