him: once or twice at home when Father would be away and he would stay in the house so Mother wouldn't be afraid, and at Miss Ballenbaugh's two nights ago, and in Memphis last night, until I remembered that I hadn't slept with him in Memphis: it was Otis. 'Good night,' he said. 'Good night,' I said.
Chapter 10
Then it was morning, it was tomorrow: THE day on which I would ride my first actual horse race (and by winning it, set Boon and Ned—me too of course, but then I was safe, immune; I was not only just a child, I was kin to them—free to go home again, not with honor perhaps, not even unscathed, but at least they could go back) toward which all the finagling and dodging and manipulating and scrabbling around (what other crimes subsequent to—dl right, consequent to—the simple and really spontaneous and in a way innocent stealing of Grandfather's automobile, I didn't even know) had been leading up to; now it was here. 'So she told you what her real name is,' Boon said. Because you see, it was too late now; I had been half asleep last night and off my guard.
'Yes,' I said; whereupon I realised that that was completely false: she hadn't told me; she didn't even know I knew it, that I had been calling her Everbe ever since Sunday night. But it was too late now. 'But you've got to promise,' I said. 'Not promise her: promise me. Never to say it out loud until she tells it first.'
'I promise,' he said. 'I ain't never lied to you yet. I mean, lied bad. I mean ... I aint... All right,' he said. 'I done promised.' Then he said again, like last night, gentle and almost amazed: 'God damn.' And my clothes —blouse, stockings and underwear and the riding-sock— were neatly folded, laundered and ironed, on a chair just outside our door. Boon handed them in to me. 'With all them clean clothes, you got to bathe again,' he said.
'You just made me bathe Saturday,' I said.
'We was on the road Saturday night,' he said. 'We never even got to Memphis until Sunday.'
'All right. Sunday,' I said.
'This is Tuesday,' he said. 'Two days.'
'Just one day,' I said. 'Two nights, but just one day.'
'You been travelling since,' Boon said. 'You got two sets of dirt now.'
'It's almost seven oclock,' I said. 'We're already late for breakfast.'
'You can bathe first,' he said.
'I got to get dressed so I can thank Everbe for washing my clothes.'
'Bathe first,' Boon said.
'I'll get my bandage wet.'
'Hold your hand on your neck,' Boon said. 'You aint going to wash that nohow.'
'Why dont you bathe then?' I said.
'We aint talking about me. We're talking about you.' So I went to the bathroom and bathed and put my clothes back on and went to the dining room. And Ned was right. Last night there had been just the one table, the end of it cleared and set up for us. Now there were seven or eight people, all men (but not aliens, foreigners, mind you; in fact they were strangers only to us who didn't live in Par-sham. None of them had got down from pullmans in silk underclothes and smoking Upmann cigars; we had not opened the cosmopolitan Parsham winter sporting season here in the middle of May. Some were in overalls, all but one were tieless: people like us except that they lived here, with the same passions and hopes and dialect, enjoying— Butch too—our inalienable constitutional right of free will and private enterprise which has made our country what it is, by holding a private horse race between two local horses; if anyone, committee or individual, from no further away than the next county, had come to interfere or alter or stop it or even participate beyond betting on the horse of his choice, all of us, partisans of either horse, would have risen as one man and repulsed him). And besides the waiter, I saw the back of a maid in uniform just going through the swing door to the pantry or kitchen, and there were two men (one of them had the necktie) at our table talking to Boon and Miss Reba. But Everbe wasn't there, and for an instant, second, I had a horrified vision of Butch finally waylaying and capturing her by force, ambushing her in the corridor perhaps while she was carrying the chair to mine and Boon's door with my laundered clothes on it. But only for a second, and too fantastical; if she had washed for me last night, she had probably, doubtless been up quite late washing for herself and maybe Miss Reba too, and was still asleep. So I went on to the table, where one of the men said,
'This the boy going to ride him? Looks more like you got him taped up for a fist fight?'
'Yes,' Boon said, shoving the dish of ham toward me as-I sat down; Miss Reba passed the eggs and grits across.
'He cut himself eating peas last night.'
'Haw haw,' the man said. 'Anyway, he'll be carrying less weight this time.'
'Sure,' Boon said. 'Unless he eats the knives and forks and spoons while we aint watching him and maybe takes along one of the fire dogs for a snack.'
'Haw haw,' the man said. 'From the way he run here last winter, he's going to need a good deal more than just less weight. But then, that's the secret, huh?'
'Sure,' Boon said; he was eating again now. 'Even if we never had no secret, we would have to act like we did.'
'Haw haw,' the man said again; they got up. 'Well, good luck, anyway. That might be as good for that horse as less weight.' The maid came, bringing me a glass of milk and carrying a plate of hot biscuits. It was Minnie, in a fresh apron and cap where Miss Reba had either loaned or hired her to the hotel to help out, with her ravished and unforgiving face, but calm and quiet now; evidently she had rested, even slept some even if she hadn't forgiven anybody yet. The two strangers went away.
'You see?' Miss Reba said to nobody. 'All we need is the right horse and a million dollars to bet.'
'You heard Ned Sunday night,' Boon said. 'You were the one that believed him. I mean, decided to believe him. I was different. After that God damned automobile vanished and all we had was the horse, I had to believe him.'
