'I suppose.'
'Then let's get some illumination and finish this thing and get the hell out of here.'
Sally took the flare pistol from Jack's pouch, and, being practically minded, solved its intricacies quick enough.
'See, honey, you?' Charlie began to explain, but she raised the pistol and fired, the soft pop detonating a few hundred feet up, and ever so slowly, dangling from its parachute, a white flare floated down, drifting and swinging pendulum-style, so that the shadows it created danced eerily across the terrain.
'Come on, people,' said Earl. the gunmen moved easily through the buildings. They could sense eyes from the locked buildings hard-pressing against them, but they were looking for men with guns, not men with eyes.
Charlie, whose senses were still keenest, saw something move and blasted a Blue Whistler at it. So salty were these boys that exactly what a young Marine platoon would have done, these fellows did not, which is open up with a panicked fusillade.
'I think you just kilt a rain barrel, Charlie.'
'Was a moving target, goddammit.'
'Charlie'd shoot anything that moved.'
'Don't kill me, Charlie, for I am moving.' 'Keep it down,' said Earl.
Where was Bigboy?
Had he missed him? Had he lit out? Had he fled at the first sign of gunfire? And what about Section Boss, with his Thompson submachine gun he loved so well? On the other hand, maybe it wasn't Section Boss's cup of tea to stand and fight, even with a powerful weapon. With that gun and some luck, he could have done some damage and rallied his own men, but those that weren't dead appeared to be scattered off in the trees by this time, or crawling naked in that direction.
Sally fired another flare, and it began its gentle drift to earth.
But no guards emerged to fight or surrender.
'I think it's clear. Them boys didn't want to fight a bit,' said Elmer.
'Okay, let's get these damned things opened and get these boys out of here. Then we got to blow the levee, and we're finished.' earl kicked in the door of the Ape House.
Lanterns had been lit. He stepped into a cone of yellow light just inside the door, and it all came flooding back: the stench of men living close in terrible quarters, with buckets for latrines, the bunks and cots everywhere, old-sweat-soaked clothes hung out to dry, mildew, woe somehow baked into the ancient wood of the place, the iron gratings on the windows, the smell of old leather from old work boots much cured with blood and perspiration, the sense of density, hopelessness, despair. It was the last place on earth any man would go in a right mind.
But this time he wasn't wearing chains, and he wasn't planned as meat for the strong. He was himself again: Marine-proud and armed, a strong man who was in command.
His presence was greeted with silence.
Then a bell-clear voice called, 'You is a ghost. You be dead.'
'Well, then somebody forgot to tell me, because here I am.'
'What is this? What you doing?'
'This is deliverance. Y'all, I come back to burn this goddamn place, and in the bargain you git your freedom. It's eighteen sixty-five, boys, only I ain't got no forty acres and a mule for you. Only a dark road into town, and off you go to whatever happens next, good or bad.
Meanwhile, we'll blow the levee, and come two hours, this place is under twenty foot of dark water. Now you go on, git!'
'Is you from Our Lord Jesus?'
'I doubt an angel would have the notches on his gun I lay claim to. I am a gunman. I am a gunfighter. Now go on, git, before old Bogart changes his goddamn mind because he is sick and tired of yapping.'
They seemed not to be happy, not really. It wasn't like a liberation, for perhaps the word 'free' had no meaning, and perhaps as well the shock of a Bogart back in the flesh stretched their minds and made no sense.
But someone had to ask.
'You ride in on the pale horse?'
'Son, I am that pale horse. And I am done come back as I swore to old man Fish I would. Now, goddammit, get out of here, get your asses going!'
They filed by, carrying nothing, for there was nothing to carry. One by one they filed past, and Earl recognized most, Tangle Eye and Jefferson and Corner Man and James and Willis and Samuel and George P. and George M. and Vonzell and Jacob and on and on; and last of all, somehow, that contingent of sick and injured, whatever would become of them. Earl almost had pity, for what lay ahead would be hardest on them.
They jabbered to themselves, or they moved slowly with fused spines, or they seemed dazed. Some would not make it, but that was the way things happened; he had to paint his violence with a broad brush, knowing that in the particulars it would be occasionally cruel.
'Go on,' he said, 'into town. There'll be rafts of some sort there, I have been told. Whether the State of Mississippi comes looking for you or not, I can't say. I will say all the records with your names on them have been burned to nothing. That, and I can give you a couple days head start and hope you don't kill no folks nor rob none neither.
Go on, git. You Grandpa, you go on, this is for you, too.'
That was the eldest, and Sally came to him, spoke soft words, and got him mobile. She commandeered two fellows to march with him on the way down that dark road.
Earl watched as the men of the Ape House joined up with the human torrent that had been released from the other barracks and headed off toward the town of Thebes, leaving the penal farm behind forever, not that much of it remained unburned. For as they left, one by one, the barracks went aflame, bursting with cowboy firebombs that lit them from within. The orange glow roared flickery and hot up the sky, burying the stars in illumination, and lighting the parade as the boys went out.
But Earl knew his building was not empty.
With a lantern he walked on back, until at last he found him.
Moon, once so magnificent a warrior, the king of Thebes, had been whipped so hard his lacerations had scarred up. He was a ragged man, with no part of him untouched by the cat's tail. His face a mask of tatters, like a doll ripped up by feral dogs or cats, it now showed not manhood and aggression but fear. He was weeping.
'You come to kill Moon, Bogart? G'wan, kill me. Shoot Moon dead. He ain't good for nothing no more. The whip man done took his soul.'
'Moon, you git out of here. You git your soul back in the world. It sure ain't in here. Whip man will win, you stay here. Killing you don't matter a damn to me. Go on, so I can burn this place once and for all.'
'You ain't come back to kill me?'
'No, sir. I come to set you free, and only regret them boys I was too slow to help, like old Fish. You go on now. Git out of here. I'm going to pop this here thing, and when she goes, this whole building goes down.'
He held the firebomb.
Moon eyed him balefully, as if it made no sense. And by his lights it didn't, but in time he saw where his future lay, and he drew his immense self up and walked out the door.
Without giving it a look, Earl pulled the cord, felt the fuse light properly, and tossed the thing into the back corner of the Ape House.
It was fiercely alight by the time he left, where his fellows had gathered.
'Audie, you know what's doing. You blow that levee. You other boys, you gather up Jack?maybe some of them black fellows can help you with the stretcher, and head to town. Gather up Mr. Ed. You got to be upriver by ten hundred hours tomorrow, ten in the morning for civilian types, ' that's when our Navy friends come looking for us and they won't have enough time to hang around. Sally, you make sure these old goats don't wander off or lose interest.'
'I will run them hard, Earl.'
'You go on, now.'
'Earl, where you going?'
'I have a piece of business yet to take care of. You go. It don't concern you.'
