Tishomingo Blues

She said, 'Anyway, I'm guessing what you do, meet all these girls that fall in love with you,' staring at him again, slipping back into her soft mood; but then seemed to straighten in the camp chair as she said, 'You're a croupier, at one of the casinos. No, you're a professional gambler, a card counter.'

Dennis shook his head. It sounded good though. He caught a glimpse of himself at a poker table, very cool.

'You're not a business executive.'

'Why not?'

'Your hair.'

'I could be in the music business.'

'Yeah, you could. Are you?'

'No.'

'Then why'd you mention it?'

'I'm trying to help. You like blues?'

'Yeah, I guess. You're some kind of musician?' Dennis shook his head. 'How about Drug Enforcement, something like that, a federal agent?'

Looking at him she half-closed her eyes in the lantern glow. 'Yeah, you could be working undercover. But you wouldn't give me a joint, would you?'

'What if I was a dealer?'

She studied him again, their faces only a couple of feet apart. 'I suppose. But you look too, like, clean and healthy.' She narrowed her eyes now, suspicious. 'You ever been to Parchman?'

He shook his head. 'That where your husband was?'

'Two years.'

It came to Dennis all at once. He said, 'Your husband was a sheriff's deputy before that and now he works for Mr. Kirkbride…'

She said, 'Oh, my Lord.'

'And runs the drug business.'

She said, 'You're the diver.'

Dennis waited.

She said, 'Why don't you tell on the son of a bitch and have him put away?'

Everybody knew he was up on the ladder when Floyd was shot. She said it herself and Dennis asked if Arlen had told her. She heard it in a casino bar and when she asked her husband about it, yes, he told her. Loretta said he got drunk and told her all kinds of stupid things he did.

Dennis was in the pasture now with his rifle, heading back to his post, every now and again stumbling over ruts and clods of earth in the dark.

She wanted to know why he didn't tell. He said to her, 'I'm going to next week, unless something happens I don't have to.' She didn't know what he meant. 'Like what?' Now he was talking the way Robert did, with no intention of spelling it out. He said to Loretta, the way Robert would keep you hanging, 'Don't file yet. You may not have to.' Picked up his rifle and got out of there.

He trudged along toward the dark mass of the thicket. Finally when he was getting close he saw the figure standing in the open. Dennis thought it was another sentry and he was off course from the direction he should be heading. When he'd walked off from the post he had turned around and lined up with the round top of an oak back in the thicket. There it was, he was heading toward it. But also toward the sentry, who didn't look like he had a rifle.

No, because it was Colonel John Rau-shit-his hand on the hilt of his sword.

He said, 'Corporal, you left your post.'

Dennis said, 'Yes sir,' because, well, why not.

'You know you could be court-martialed and shot?'

'Sir,' Dennis said, going along with it, half turning to point toward the dark pasture, 'I thought I saw something out there.'

It stopped him, John Rau with nothing in his head ready to say.

'I thought it might be a Confederate raiding party,' Dennis said, 'looking to take prisoners.'

John Rau said, 'Corporal-'

But Dennis was already saying, 'Get shipped off to Andersonville to die of dysentery.'

'Corporal?'

'Yes sir.'

'You've been gone over an hour.'

'Colonel, you want to know the truth?'

'Tell me.'

'I'm not a reenactor. I don't feel it in me.'

'Are you quitting?'

'When this is over. I doubt I'll ever do it again.'

'But you'll be here tomorrow.'

'Yes sir, for the battle.'

'And you know Arlen Novis will be coming out of the orchard over there with his boys. I can't say they're Dixie Mafia, that name doesn't mean anything to me. I do know they're thugs, they're vicious, and as soon as they wake up in the morning they'll be drinking again. By the time they cross this field they will have worked themselves up, they'll come with that Rebel yell like they're ready to kill. During battle reenactments they get into fistfights with Union soldiers all the time. They're warned beforehand, they still do it, 'cause they become out of control. I remember both at Franklin and at Corinth last year they met our line swinging rifle butts at us. My impression at those events, I was a captain with the Ninety-fifth Ohio, acting as an infantry officer for a change. Though I prefer cavalry. I was Stuart at Yellow Tavern when I lost my horse, a beautiful mare.' John Rau paused to look for the point he was making. 'You understand, Arlen and his fellas could come tomorrow with every intention of taking you out of the picture, for good.'

Dennis was ready. He said, 'If I told you right now I saw them murder Floyd Showers, would you go over there and arrest him?'

John Rau took a moment before saying, 'He'll still be around Monday.'

Here was a chance to play Robert with him. Say something like, Oh, are you sure? Or, You sure about that? But in Dennis' head it didn't sound anything like Robert. Jesus, trying to be clever. What he said was, 'So you're giving Arlen a chance to take me out of the picture, as you say.'

John Rau shook his head. 'Don't report for tomorrow's muster.'

'I know a person,' Dennis said, 'Arlen told they killed Floyd, and wants him put away.'

John Rau said, 'I have Loretta Novis. She'll tell it if my eyewitness testifies. But if he does, I don't need her, do I?'

Dennis said, 'I'll talk to you Monday.'

John Rau said, 'You know I can have you subpoenaed and put on the stand under oath.'

Dennis said, 'Sir, I have to get back to my post.'

Thinking he was smart. But John Rau had the last word.

He said, 'You take part tomorrow, I don't want to see you wearing those chevrons, private.'

They had it worked out that Arlen would come up from one end of the tent street and Fish and Newton would approach from the other end. He'd picked Newton 'cause he was the one had sassed this Robert when he was with the girl showing some of her tit, and would have gone after him he didn't have a goddamn sword in his hand. Newton 'd worked the wad around in his mouth, messy as hell, beard all stained, and said he would settle with the nigger, don't worry.

They'd meet at General Grant's tent and see what was doing. See if they could stick a gun in the man's mouth, this Caesar German-o, and tell him to go on home. It gave Arlen a chance to stop and see his wife. If he saw any green tomatoes it'd mean she never made the goddamn pie she burned.

The first thing he said to her was, 'Jesus Christ, is that a roach on the table?'

Loretta looked over from her sling chair. 'It looks like a roach to me. Doesn't it look like one to you?'