a job agin' desperadoes, so clearly you ain't nothing but turkey poop.'
'Grandpap, don't you talk like that!' scolded pretty little Sally.
'You'd be mighty embarrassed to face your maker if words like that were the last to cross your lips before you passed. You'd have a powerful lot of explaining to do.'
'You listen to that purt' gal,' said Charlie, who had a carnal streak in him as well and was known to place himself so that he could get a good, uninterrupted look at the young woman. '
'Cause you don't want to check out with no blasphemy on your tongue.'
'And as for you, Charlie Hatchison,' said Sally, 'why, you can say any damn thing you care to, for no amount of amening and dear Lording and holding back on the blasphemy is going to keep you from frying up all bubbly crisp in Hell like a chicken leg, and that's a fact!'
Everybody laughed, for Charlie was pure unrepentent sinner man.
Everybody laughed, that is, except for Jack O'Brian, busy reading some flashy new book like Plutarch's dialogues or Marcus Aurelius's commentaries, who merely huffed majestically from across the room, as if his dignity had been ruffled by all the snippy spatting, and he felt so annoyed he had petitioned to make his feeling known.
Finally, the last of them showed, late and a little bedraggled.
Audie Ryan climbed out of his MG sports car with a busted lip, a black eye and patches of scab on his knuckles. His fancy cowboy duds were all messed up.
'Audie, where you been, boy?' asked Charlie Hatchison. 'You look like you got the worst part of it.'
'Don't know why boys in bars always decide I need to be taken down a notch or two. I just wanted a damned beer. But twice, once in New Mexico, once in Tennessee, I had a bully wanted to smack me around some.
Boys, don't ever get your picture on the cover of Life magazine.
All kinds of mischief can spring from it!'
So, somehow, Charlie knew Audie, from some killers' Valhalla in the San Fernando Valley or possibly in north Texas. But the others crowded 'round to shake hands with the famous young man, and he seemed to fit in right away, among men he'd not have to explain a thing to.
He opened up the trunk of the car, pulled out his small leather suitcase and a machine gun.
'Wow! Audie, what the hell is that gun? You are loaded for bear.'
'I traded a long-barreled Luger for this from some tank sergeant in France after the war,' said the Texan. 'Figured it might come in handy, and looks like I may be right.'
'What the hell is it, Audie?'
'I think it's what they call a Strumgeivher. Model of nineteen forty four. They call it an attack rifle.' 'Them Germans,' Charlie said. 'They had a goddamn name for everything.'
Audie pulled the thing out. It was ugly like no gun any of them had ever seen, stamped from black metal, its furniture of plastic, its magazine a curved thing like a banana, extending from the well beyond the trigger guard. The whole gizmo had a pungent whiff of some alien future to it.
'Looks like a goddamned ray gun,' Elmer said. 'What's it shoot, atoms?'
'No, sir,' said Audie. 'Some kind of short little bullet.' 'It shoots a 7.92 short,' said Charlie. 'If they'd have had them early enough, we'd be holding this conversation in German.'
'It's a lot handier than a carbine or my old Thompson,' said Audie.
'And it's pretty accurate, and it's got more punch. It's like a combination of a carbine and a tommy.' 'Goddamned no ' little bullets,' said Elmer.
'The bullets aren't particularly small, Mr. Kaye,' said Jack O'Brian.
'Those are.324s. But the case is quite short, so it never develops rifle velocity. You could say it combines the best parts of a carbine and a Thompson, or you could say it combines the worst parts: too heavy, not enough punch. And I hope you have a lot of ammo for it, young man.'
'Well, some.'
'Little damn bullets,' said Elmer.
'Yeah, Elmer, but when he hits you with it, it's like a hose. You get three in one second, six in two. That'll do the damned job,' argued Charlie, contrary as always.
'If Mr. Jack O'Brian has his way, that's what we'd all end up carrying.
Little goddamn guns with little goddamn bullets. I'll stick with my44s, thanks very much, if it's all the same.'
'Mr. Kaye, you are a cantankerous, obstinate, obdurate sonofabitch.'
'Can someone please translate that into English?' said Elmer grumpily.
'My Latin's a little rusty.'
'I think I got the ' part just right.'
But before the two oldsters could square off, Audie defused the situation by piping up with, 'Is that Ed Mcgriffin?' He had spied the old man sleeping softly on the porch through all this blabbing.
'Yeah, but don't wake him!'
'Howdy there,' Audie sang to young Sally.
'Well, howdy yourself,' she replied.
'Oh, I think it's lovey-dovey at first sight!' said Elmer. 'I think we got us a thang goin' on here.'
Earl watched the two young people with an interest that surprised him.
He hadn't thought that out, and he didn't want some romance gumming up the works here. Shit. It annoyed him, he didn't know why.
But Audie said quickly, 'No, sir, I am just payin' my proper respects is all. Ma'am, pleased to meet you. My name is Audie Ryan.'
'I saw you in a cowboy picture,' she said.
'I hate them pictures,' Audie said. 'You have to wear girly makeup, and most of the men are kind of flower- sniffing, if you know what I mean. It ain't no work for a Texan.'
'Pays good though, don't it, Audie?'
'Hell, I just use the money for booze, more guns and a fancy car or two.
Ain't nothing big about it.' 'I thought the picture was pretty good,' she said. 'Cowboy and all.
Lots of cowboys.'
'Well, girlie,' said Charlie, 'if that's your taste, you are definitely hanging out at the right medicine lodge. This here is the last corral, and we are, by God, the last cowboys. And we are riding out to our last big gun affray. After us, it's all gone.'
'Yee haw,' said Elmer. 'That is the goddamned truth.'
'I'd drink to that!'
Even Bill Jennings, silent as the sphinx, let a smile crease the lower portion of the battered Hoplite shield he carried around as a face.
'Well, while you all are drinking and telling each other how big and brave you are, and welcoming this here fellow, I'm out there trying to find some new way to fancy up franks and beans. So you just go on, you heroes!'
Sally stormed out, and the old men, and the new young one, hastened after, to avoid her wrath.
A s he said he would, Davis Trugood drove straight through the night and arrived the next day in Pascagoula. The old city lay balmy in the soft breezes off the bay, and Davis stopped just outside of town, rented a room in a tourist home, took a nice shower, put on a new suit of white linen, a fresh spruce white shirt and a nice yellow tie.
Meanwhile, his driver buffed up his shoes to a fine shine.
At 3:00 p. m.' they drove into Pascagoula, but he wasn't looking for a place to have a church prefabricated under crash conditions, as he had told Earl. In fact, had Earl and Sam seen what happened next, it would have boggled their minds no end at all. For with no hesitation whatsoever, Mr. Trugood's driver headed them downtown and swiftly found the town hall on Pascagoula Street, where a crowd had gathered and some sort of festivity was soon to commence. The driver guided the large black car to the curbside, where indeed a red carpet lay, its destination the stairway into that ancient, distinguished building.
Davis Trugood stepped out.
Flashbulbs popped.
