“We got boys frisking the rattler, don’t worry.”
“But we got it from Anderson…”
This is it. This is it. This is it.
“… that the guy was colored.” One of the newcomers came closer and brought out a flashlight of his own. “What’s that in your pocket, bud?”
Stanton Carlisle tried to speak but his mouth was gritty.
“Keep your hands up. Wait a minute. This isn’t a weapon. It’s a Bible.”
His lungs loosened; he could draw half a breath. “Brother, you hold in your hand the most powerful weapon in the world-”
“Drop it!” Big Hand shouted. “Maybe it’s a pineapple made to look like a Bible.”
The other voice was cool. “It’s just a Bible.” He turned to the white hobo. “We’re looking for a colored lad. We know he boarded this train. If you can give us information which might lead to his arrest, you would be serving the forces of justice. And there might be something in it for you.”
Justice.
He opened his eyes wide, staring straight ahead in the light-beam. “Brother, I met a colored brother-in-God when I was waiting to nail this job. I tried to bring him to Jesus, but he wouldn’t listen to the Word. I gave him my last tract-”
“Come on, parson, where did he go? Was he riding here in the car with you?”
“Brother, this colored brother-in-God nailed her somewhere up at the head-end. I was hoping we could ride together so I could tell him about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins. I’ve rode from coast-to- coast a dozen times, bringing men to Christ. I’ve brought only a couple thousand so far…”
“Okay, parson, give Jesus a rest. We’re looking for a god-damned nigger Red. You saw him grab her up front? Come on, guys, let’s spread out. He’s here someplace…”
The man with big hands stayed with Stanton while the others swarmed over the freight, swung between the cars and moved off into the darkness. The Rev. Carlisle had slipped into a low mutter which the yard dick made out to be a sermon, addressed either to an invisible congregation or to the air. The goddamned Holy Joe had thrown them off; now the coon had a chance of getting clear.
At last the freight whistled, couplings started and clanked, and it groaned off. Beyond it the passenger train, sleek and dark, waited while flashlights sprayed into the blinds, the side boxes of the diner, and along the tops.
Then it too began to move. As the club car slid past, Stan glimpsed through long windows a waiter in a white coat. He was uncapping a bottle while an arm in a tweed coat held a glass of ice.
A drink. Good Christ, a drink. Could I put the bite on this bull? Better not try it, no time to build it.
The railroad detective spat between his teeth. “Look here, parson, I’m going to give you a break. I ought to send you over. But you’d probably have the whole damn jail yelling hymns. Come on, crumb, take the breeze.”
The big hands turned Stan around and pushed; he stumbled over tracks and up an embankment. In the distance the light of a farmhouse glowed. A drink. Oh, Jesus-
The passenger flyer picked up speed. In the club car a wrist shot from a tweed sleeve, revealing a wrist watch. Ten minutes’ delay! Confound it, the only way to travel was by plane.
Under the club car, squeezed into a forest of steel springs, axles, brake rods and wheels, a man lay hidden. As the rattler gained speed, Frederick Douglass Scott, son of a Baptist minister, grandson of a slave, shifted his position to get a better purchase as he rolled on toward the North and the fort with its double fence of charged wire.
Shoulders braced against the truck frame, feet against the opposite side, he balanced his body on an inch- thick brake rod which bent under him. Inches below, the roadbed raced by, switches clawing up at him as the car pounded past them. The truck hammered and bucked. A stream of glowing coals, thrown down by the engine, blew over him and he fought them with his free hand, beating at the smoldering denim, while the train thundered on; north, north, north.
A specter was haunting Grindle. It was a specter in overalls.
CARD XX
THE PITCHMAN rounded a corner, looking both ways down the main street for the cop, and then slid into the darkened vestibule of the bank building. If the rain held off he might get a break at that. The movie theater was about to let out; fellows would be coming out with their girls.
As the first of the crowd drifted past him he drew a handful of gaudy envelopes from a large pocket inside his coat and fanned them in his left hand so that the brightly printed zodiac circle and the symbols stood out, a different color for each sign.
He ran his free hand once over his hair and took a breath. His voice was hoarse; he couldn’t get it much above a whisper. “My friends if you’ll just step this way for a single moment you may find that you have taken a step which will add to your health happiness and prosperity for the rest of your lives…”
One couple stopped and he spoke directly to them. “I wonder if the young lady would mind telling me her birth date it costs you nothing folks because the first astrological chart this evening will be given away absolutely free of charge…”
The young fellow said, “Come on.” They walked on past. The goddamned townies.
Need a drink. Jesus, I’ve got to pitch. I got to unload five of them.
“Here you are folks everybody wants to know what the future holds in store come in a little closer folks and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do I’m going to give each and every one of you a personal reading get your astronomical forecast which shows your lucky numbers, days of the month and tells you how to determine the right person for you to marry whether you’ve got anybody in mind or not…”
They moved by him, some staring, some laughing, none stopping.
Hideous. Their faces suddenly became distorted, like caricatures of human faces. They seemed to be pushed out of shape. Some of them looked like animals, some like embryo chicks when you break an egg that is half incubated. Their heads bobbed on necks like stalks and he waited for their eyes to drop out and bounce on the sidewalk.
The pitchman started to laugh. It was a chuckle, bubbling up inside of him at first, and then it split open and he laughed, screaming and stamping his foot.
A crowd began to knot around him. He stopped laughing and forced out the words. “Here you are folks while they last.” The laugh was fighting inside of him, tearing at his throat. “A complete astrological reading giving your birthstones, lucky numbers.” The laugh was hammering to get out. It was like a dog tied to the leg of a workbench, fighting to get free of a rope. Here it came. “Whah, whah, whah, whah! Hooooooooooooo!”
He beat the handful of horoscopes against his thigh, leaning his other hand against the stone lintel of the vestibule. The crowd was giggling at him or with him, some wondering when he was going to stop suddenly and try to sell them something.
One woman said, “Isn’t it disgusting! And right in the doorway of the bank! It’s indecent.”
The pitchman heard her and this time he sat down limply on the marble steps, letting the horoscopes scatter around him, holding his belly as he laughed.
Something hit the crowd at its edge and mashed it forward and to each side. Then the blue legs moved in.
“I told you to beat it out of town.”
The face of the cop seemed a mile above him, as if it were looking over the rim of a well.
