She fell into pain, then numbness. Then she heard a voice and thought it might be Earl's.
'Earl, honey?'
'No, Junie, it's me, Mary, from next door. Honey lamb, you fainted.'
Mary Blanton was kneeling beside her, fanning her with a copy of Redbook.
'Oh, my goodness,' said Junie.
'I don't know anything about being pregnant, Junie, but I can't think weeding in ninety-five-degree weather is recommended.'
Junie shook the confusion out of her eyes. Now she felt really icky.
'I don't know what happened,' she said.
'Come on, honey, let me get you inside and into some shade. You can't lie out here and roast.'
With Mary's help, Junie hobbled inside, where she lay down on her bed.
In the little kitchenette, Mary turned on all the fans, then threw ice into a glass and appeared with a large iced tea.
'Here you go, you sip on that till you get your strength back.'
Junie sipped the tea and its coolness hit her solidly.
'Are you okay?' Mary asked.
'Yes, I'm fine now. Thank you so much, Mary.'
Mary was the bluntest woman Junie had ever met, and she'd worked in war factories for years while her husband, Phil, was in the Navy. Now he was working in a radio shop by day and going to electronics school at night on the GI Bill.
'Well, I don't know about any husband like yours who'd leave a girl all alone as much as you are. A girl as pretty as you and as pregnant as you ought to be getting special attention, not all by herself in a tin hut, pining away.'
'Earl's got a job he has to do. He always does his job. That's the kind of a man he is.'
'If you say so, Junie. I never heard of such a thing. It's not how we'd do it up North.'
Mary just didn't understand, not being from around here.
'I know he was a hero, but that only goes so far. A man ought to be home when his young wife is going to have a baby.'
Junie nodded. Then she started to cry.
Mary held her, muttering, 'There, there, sweetie, you just cry it all out, don't you worry.'
Finally Junie looked up.
'I am so scared,' she said.
'About your Earl?'
'Yes. But also about the baby. I can feel it. There's something wrong. I could lose them both.'
Chapter 44
Earl and D. A. were not demonstrative men. But the confidence they now felt, armed with the Reverend Jubilee Lincoln's signed affidavit and his considerable courage, came through anyway, in the way they walked, in the way they talked, in the way they were. The men realized that something had happened, some breakthrough had been made, and the game was very nearly over, victory in sight. That filled everyone with hope and joy, and even the loss of the heavy automatic weapons and the bulletproof vests and six men seemed not to faze anyone; a general air of lightness and frivolity ensued as they broke down the camp at the Red River Army Depot, loaded up and headed out for the new quarters on the Pettyview chicken ranch.
It helped that the phrase 'chicken ranch' was a well-known synonym for whorehouse.
'Hey, we're going to a chicken ranch. Whoo-eee!'
'Bear, would your mama 'low such a thing?'
'Hell, buhba, I was a champeen chicken rassler afore you'se even a glint in your daddy's eye!'
'Boy, the best part of you ran down your mama's leg. Tell you what, you need any help, y'all come to me and I'll show you the ropes.'
'Yeah, you guys all talk big, lemme tell you when you get a dose your old dicks gonna swell up like a tire on a hot day. Shoot, saw a feller in Memphis so purple and swoll-up he couldn't get his zipper zipped. Had to walk around with it hanging out. But it was so purple, nobody thought it was a dick; they thought it was some kind of tube or something.'
The joshing continued, and someone said to Earl, who was supervising benevolently, 'Say, Mr. Earl, we are running low on.45 hardball.'
Earl examined the ammunition cache. There was but one case of the.45 hardball left, that is, 1,000 rounds.
'Shit,' said Earl. 'Well, I doubt we'll need it anyhow.'
'Yes sir.'
'Lookie here,' said Earl, figuring out a scrounger's angle. 'I see we got plenty ball tracer we used in the training.'
It was true. Four cases of the Cartridge Caliber.45 Tracer M26 remained.
'Look, load up two cases of the tracer in my trunk. Maybe I can work a trade with another agency or something, and lay off the tracer in exchange for some more hardball. Who knows? If we have to, we can always go to tracer, but I don't want to do it inside.'
'Yes sir.'
'On the 'Canal, I saw ball tracer from an idiot's tommy gun light up a goddamn cane field. It was full of Japs, but if the wind blowed wrong, I know a Marine squad would have been fried up real good.'
'Bet you chewed him out, eh, Earl?'
'Hell, boys, couldn't chew him out. That idiot was me!'
They all laughed. It was the first time in anyone's memory that Earl had referred to the war or made fun of himself, a double whammy in the cult of Earl that he had spontaneously created.
D. A! came out of his little makeshift office with a briefcase full of papers, and said, 'Y'all ready?'
It seemed they were.
There was a last-minute discussion of routes and timing, for it would be better if everyone arrived later, and after dark, and D. A. told them to keep their lights off as they traveled down the last half mile of dirt road before they reached the farm and not to make the turnoff if there were other cars on the highway.
Each car had an assignment: one would stop for ice, another for groceries and snacks, another for Coca- Colas.
But finally, there was nothing left to do.
'Okay, boys. We'll see you tomorrow,' sang D. A., and the little convoy was off.
'Look, that's fine, but something else has come up.'
The meeting was at an out-of-the-way ice cream parlor in West Hot Springs, well off the byways of the gambling town. Becker wore his usual suit and had his usual pipe; but this time, besides assorted clerks and functionaries, he had two blunt-faced State Policemen in not so plain clothes as bodyguards.
'Sir,' said D. A. patiently, as if explaining to a child, 'I'm telling you we can end this thing. We can end it just like we planned. We all agreed very early on that the Central Book was the key. Now we've got a plan that?'
'I heard the plan the first time, Parker. I'm sure it's a fine plan.'
'We can do it fast. Our boys are very well trained,' said Earl. 'They're probably the finest-trained police unit in the country today. We can do it and nobody gets hurt, and it's over. You win. You're the hero. You're the next?'
'Earl,' said D. A. sharply.
'Yes sir,' sad Earl, shutting up.
'The raids still make me uneasy,' said Becker. 'Too many things can go wrong, too many people can get killed. The community doesn't like the raids. All the killing?it makes people nervous.'
'Sir, if you're fighting rats, some rats are bound to die,' said D. A.
