'Dat be mine,' came a voice.
He rose again, this time to laughter. Three more times he tried and each time a voice warned him off, until it became clear that none of the bunks were for him.
So he walked to the wall, and slid down it, and commenced to sit, staring at nothing, unmoving, willing himself so quiet and still it seemed he approached animal death.
But he was not ignored.
He heard the talking, the laughing, the joy of their voices. They were happy. This was damned interesting to them. They'd never seen a goddamn thing like this, a white boy among them. Put here without protection or explanation.
He waited. He knew they would come sooner or later, and he knew there would be more than one.
Finally, two young men rose from the card table, and sauntered over.
They stood over him, but he did not look up at them.
'Hey,' one finally said, 'you. White boy.'
Earl at last looked up. They were splendid young men, muscular and lean with an athlete's grace and light dancing in their eyes. They wore the striped prison pants, but just undershirts, and their complex arrays of muscles gleamed off shoulders and arms.
'Dat's my spot,' said one. 'You can't be there.'
Earl got up, moved a few feet, then sat down again.
'Hey, now he gots my place. Damn! He don't git nothing.'
'Must be dumb. Hey, boy, you dumb? You be in Marcus's spot.'
Earl didn't say a thing. He just sat there, giving no signal of response, as if he were made of stone.
They walked over again.
'See, boy, you done be in Marcus's spot. So you gots to move. You understand.'
Earl stood up.
He looked them square in the eyes.
'Moved twice now. Figure I'll stay here a spell, fellows, if it's okay with you. If it ain't, well then, it ain't.' He smiled a little dry smile.
'Hey,' said the one, 'who you think you be talkin' to? Huh? You think this here be funny? You think you come in an' take a man's spot and it be funny? So you smile a bit? Huh, white boy?'
Earl just looked into nothingness.
'See,' said Marcus, 'we gots to make you understand how it be in here.
It be different. You ain't no boss, you see that?'
Earl looked at nothing.
'I don't think this here fellow done be too smart,' said the one. 'He don't seem to be listening wif both ears.'
'He don't look so smart to me. Hey, you got cigarettes?' Earl said nothing.
'You. I'm talking to you. You got cigarettes?' 'Not for you,' said Earl.
'See, here's what it is. What it is, you be paying us cigarettes.
Every day. You git us a pack of cigs, and then we be your friends.
Then we look after you, you got it? See, that's the way it is in here, okay. So you be handin' over some cigarettes.' 'I said,' Earl repeated mildly, 'I don't have no cigarettes.' 'Whoa,' said Marcus. 'Then we got us a problem. You know, a situation. He can't pay, what we goin' do?'
A hand flicked out, and snapped Earl hard in the shoulders. He could feel the strength in the sting.
'That git his attention,' said Marcus.
Two hands flashed out with good speed and propelled Earl hard against the wall, rattling his teeth. The two young black men stepped in close to him. Their eyes had drained of any mischief and were now dull and swollen, the pupils dilated large as saucers in anticipation of what was coming next. They were fixing to beat him hard, Earl knew.
'What you staring at?' one asked.
'Don't think the man like us,' said the other.
'You got some problem, boy? Huh, you don't understand what we sayin'?'
'Boy, I think I'm going to have to teach you some manners, yes suh, so you know how it be in this here place. What you think about?'
'All right!'
It was a rumbling voice. A figure stepped from the shadows. He was an immense man, jet black, with huge biceps that loomed immensely on his large frame. He had almost no neck at all, and his eyes burned furiously. Earl could see a crescent scar running down one side of his face, like a quarter moon, and knew instinctively that this was Moon himself.
'Don't y'all be hassling this here poor boy,' said Moon, smiling. His immense strength had the effect of pushing them back and away.
He turned to Earl.
'If he be in here, he be our brother. He be one of us, yes sir. I can tell a good man when I sees one, and I know this here be one of ours, yessir. Son, what's your name?'
'Jack,' said Earl.
'Jack? Jack, well, y'all meet Jack, our new brother, new to our world, and welcome to it. Jack, I am called Moon. Brother, I offer you my hand?'
He stretched out a big hand, as if pushed forward by the smile that lit his face in welcome.
Earl hit him in the throat. He hit him so hard even a man of his size was stunned, and gave up a pace, and then Earl drove the same fist hard into the center of the body, and heard the gasp as in reflex the air was pushed from Moon's lungs, and then he turned.
Earl lunged and before Marcus could get his fists up he hit him a three-punch combination, two to the head with a shot to the solar plexus between, which set the young man to his butt, retching.
That left the third who moved in on boxer's feet, bobbing behind his fists as if he knew what he was doing. He didn't. Earl fired a punch through his guard that broke his nose, slipped a weak comeback punch, drove inside for a body tattoo of five or six speed jabs, and when he dropped his hands to cover up there, Earl teed off on the side of the head.
In ten seconds, everybody was down. In that same ten seconds, everybody else was up, staring, some tensed for action but unsure, some falling back to avoid the riot, some protecting their poker winnings, but most waiting for the first man to make a move so they'd know what to do.
'Y'all listen now,' Earl addressed them. 'This here big fella, he wasn't no friend of mine. I know how these places work, so don't you be trying no shit like that on me. Y'all ain't my friends, not a one of you. You move softly behind me, and I will be on you hard. You move fast around me, you be behind me, I know you fixin' to kill me, that simple. So I get you first and fastest. You think you can take me in a group? Tell you what, you're probably right. But I will kill one man in the group before I go. Maybe it'll be you. Anything you pay me I will pay back with interest. That is the goddamn rule I live by, so don't you be getting' bold on me. If you mess with me, I will hurt you so bad you'll be beggin' for Bigboy to save you.'
Then he walked to the nearest bunk, flipped somebody's effects off the mattress.
'This here's my bunk. Nobody conics near it without making noise. I sleep real light, so don't think you can git me while I'm out. I won't never be out, not so's you know it. You want to git through this, you leave me be. You want to die young in this shithole, you come against me. I will finish you and not think twice about it.'
So even Connie could help.
Connie Longacre was forty-four and Sam's secret confederate in the adventure of his life. She was married to Polk County's richest man, Ranee Longacre, whom she'd wed in 1930 when he was a glamorous naval aviator in Pensacola, headed for the fleet, and looked so dashing in his white uniform, so heroic. But Ranee, as it turned out (this was Connie's bitterest lesson) wasn't particularly heroic; he was always the lesser of the men he was around except for the natural lubrication of the immense ranch and beef cattle empire he had inherited and which would produce more income than anyone could spend into perpetuity. For example, he didn't have a particularly distinguished war, serving on an admiral's staff far from the battle zone, where most of the county men had come back with medals if they came back at all, Sam with a Bronze Star and Earl, of course, with the Medal of Honor. The
