'It would.'
'Well, we traveled back roads, and after Montgomery I have not been out of the vehicle. Fair enough?'
'Yes, sir. Since you are paying, you are always welcome.'
'Earl, I've come about the plan.'
'Yes, sir?'
'Earl, I have to say this. I think there's a mistake.'
'Since you're paying all the bills, Mr. Trugood, then if you think I there's a mistake, I'll listen hard to it and try and get it fixed.'
'Excellent.'
'I've been butting against it myself. I'm trying to see it fresh.
Maybe, you've seen something I ain't yet.'
'It's not the plan, not really. It's the bigger picture.'
Earl squinted. What was this bird up to?
'Sir?'
'You're a Marine. You make your attack, you move on. That's it, right?'
It was so true Earl simply nodded.
'Yes. Well, what about them?' said Davis Trugood.
'Them?'
'The Negroes. When you're done, you'll have two-hundred-odd convicts and thirty-five odd townspeople stuck upriver miles from civilization.
You've drowned the prison under twenty feet of black water. What happens to those folks, Earl?' Earl thought it over a bit. Finally, he said, 'You have a point. But in the war if we'd thought of that stuff, then we'd never have made the first invasion. We'd still be in our boats off Guadalcanal.'
'Of course. I understand that. That is how you think. That is fine.
I accept that. Only it cannot stand as is.'
'What are you saying?'
'I will do that part.'
Earl squinted.
'I don't think that's so good an idea, Mr. Trugood. You yourself said you're best behind a desk. Now suddenly you want to be up there where there's lead flying all over the place and things can get messy. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and I guarantee you that'll happen.
Some of these boys may catch one, and I may even catch one. I don't want you catching one. You didn't sign up for that kind of work.'
'Believe me, sergeant, I am no hero. I will do nothing heroic. I have no intention of going in harm's way. I'll retreat happily to my desk and wait for a call from you telling me all's well. But I must get a craft up there, something big enough to take all who want to escape away in the morning.'
'If you take a craft up there, you will tip off the boys at Thebes exactly what we've got cooking in our little pot. So there would be no point in going. So why go at all? You can't have it two ways. You go in hard and trust what comes will be better, or you don't go in. That I know.'
'Seemingly immutable, isn't it?'
'It is.' 'So I thought it out. I thought it out, and I came up with something. You've heard of the Trojan Horse?'
It touched something in Earl from long ago. Couldn't quite get it straight, but sure enough he had it filed away for future usage back there among the point of impact of a.30–06 with a quarter value wind drift and the proper way to regulate the rate of fire on the gas pipe under a Browning Automatic Rifle barrel.
'Some old thing. Some big wooden horse, raiders was inside. The boys in the city, they thought it was a gift. Now me, I'd have burned it right there on the plain. That's how a sergeant thinks. But them boys brought it in, and that night the raiders slipped out and started slitting throats.'
'That's it exactly.'
'I don't think you're going to have a horse built, though.'
'No, sir. Not at all.'
'What will you build then?'
'I've worked this out neatly. It'll be a barge full of prefabricated housing materials. To build a church. A minister is starting up a flock for the lost Negroes of the swamp. Now the boys won't like that, but they won't quite know what to do. What they don't know is that anyone will see that the beams and the steeples and the roofing triangles can be quickly assembled into rafts. That way, there's an escape.'
Earl considered. He didn't like it. But then, he wasn't paying for it, so in a sense it didn't matter what he didn't like.
'You sound so set I can't see much point in trying to talk you out of it. I have to tell you, in the morning, my boys ain't going to be hanging around to help folks put rafts together out of church parts.
Our plan stays the same. We hit hard and burn the place and shoot any and all armed men. We free the prisoners, we blow the levee, and we're out of here at first light. My men ain't the kind to be helping old ladies get aboard rafts. You understand that?'
'Totally. It is time the Negro race learned to fend for itself. Surely Someone among them will grasp the possibility. I'll simply have the barge towed upriver, moored, and the boatman will leave. I'm simply providing an opportunity. It helps me sleep the night.'
'Then if it don't have nothing to do with my people, you will do what you have to do.'
'Good, Earl. You understand that.'
'I do.'
'So I will be off. I have to get to Pascagoula, set all this up. That is all.'
Earl didn't like it a bit. Any little thing out of the norm would send the Thebes boys out scurrying. All they had to do was put more men on night patrol, erect the smallest little fortifications, set up flare patterns or wire, and the whole thing got shaky. 'You go ahead then.'
'Earl, I have to say one thing. I'm very proud of what we're doing.
It's the right thing. I'm so glad you found men who would fight for this cause.'
'Sir, you put that out of your mind. These boys ain't fighting for no cause at all. Most of ' don't care much for the Negroes, if they thought about it a bit, which I doubt they done. They're doing it because it's their nature. They're gunmen. Some have been in it, some haven't, but they've all got to go to the dark valley one time or one more time and see what kind of fellows they are. That's all they care about. They ain't no Holy Rollers. They're bitter, tough old birds, and if you make ' into something they ain't, you will be powerfully disappointed.'
'I expect all righteous armies are like that.'
'Wouldn't know about that, sir. To me, armies are just men doing what they think is right and proper, for whatever reason.'
'So be it.'
He shook Earl's hand, and walked off. Earl went back to the porch and watched him go away. Finally, it was time.
He opened up the telegram from Sam, held it in his hand for a second before unfolding it.
Hope you're with me, Mr. Sam. Lord, I hope you're with me. It said:
UP 73. STOP. CORRECT FOR WIND 15 RIGHT. STOP. FIRE FOR EFFECT. STOP.
SAM.
Earl smiled. For whatever reason, Sam had come around. That meant but one thing: blow them off the face of the earth. Dark of the moon, Earl thought, I will do just that.
FINALLY'Moon.
Of course, Moon.
Who but Moon?
Moon was given up by Charles who was given up by Noah who was given up by Vonzell who was given up by Roosevelt who was given up by Titus who was given up by Raymond who was given up by George Washington
