'She's going to be buried Tuesday whether you're here tonight or not.'

'Everything that happened last night-'

'Has been taken care of,' he finished. 'Billy T. and his asshole friends are in jail. Doc says Toby and Winnie are doing just fine. And look here.' He pointed to where Cy and Jim were squished together in a cup of the Scrambler, eyes wide, mouths open in laughing howls as they were spun in mad circles. 'Those two are smart enough to grab a little fun when it's offered.'

Tucker pressed a kiss to her hair and continued to walk. 'You know why we call this Eustis Field?'

'No.' A smile ghosted around her lips. 'But I'm sure you're about to tell me.'

'Well, Cousin Eustis-actually, he'd have been an uncle, but there're so many greats in there it gets confusing- he wasn't what you'd call a tolerant man. He ran Sweetwater from 1842 until 1856, and it prospered. Not just the cotton. He had six children-legitimately-and about a dozen more on the other side of the sheets. Word was he liked to try out the female slaves when they came of age. That age being about thirteen, fourteen.'

'That's despicable. You named a field for him?'

'I'm not finished.' He paused to light half a cigarette. 'Now, Eustis, he wasn't what you'd call an admirable man. It didn't bother him at all to sell off his own children-the dark-skinned ones. His wife was a papist, a devoted one, who used to beg him to repent his sins and save his soul from a fiery hell. But Eustis just kept doing what came naturally to him.'

'Naturally?'

'To him,' Tucker said. Behind him, a bell clanged as some hotshot proved his strength and impressed his girl into rapturous squeals. 'One day a young female slave took off. She had the baby Eustis had fathered with her. Eustis didn't tolerate runaways. No indeed. He set out the men and the dogs, and rode out himself to hunt her down. He was riding across this field when he shouted out that he'd spotted her. She wouldn't have had much of a chance with him on horseback and a whip in his hand. Then his horse reared. Nobody knows why-might've been spooked by a snake or rabbit. Or maybe it was that fiery hell reaching out to grab old Eustis. But he broke his neck.' Tucker took a last drag on his cigarette, then flung it away. 'Right about there, where that Ferris wheel's standing. Seems fitting somehow, don't you think? That all these people, black and white-maybe some with a dribble or two of Eustis Longstreet's blood-should be kicking up their heels on this field where he met his Maker.'

She leaned her head against his shoulder. 'What happened to the girl, and her baby?'

'Funny thing about that. Nobody else saw them. Not that day or any day after.'

She took a deep breath of candy-scented air. 'I'd like a ride on the Ferris wheel.'

'Wouldn't mind it myself. Afterward, how'd you like me to win you one of those black velvet paintings of Elvis?'

Laughing, she hooked an arm around his waist. 'Words fail me.'

'Don't you want to play some bingo, Cousin Lulu?' Ever hopeful, Dwayne pressed a hand to his jittery stomach.

'What the hell do I want to sit around putting beans on a card for?' Lulu stomped up to the ticket booth to buy another roll. 'We only been on the Round-Up once, and missed the Scrambler altogether. That Crack the Whip's worth another go or two.' She stuffed the tickets in the pocket of her army surplus slacks. 'You're looking a might green, boy. Indigestion?'

He swallowed gamely. 'You could call it that.'

'Shouldn't have eaten all that fried dough before we took a spin. Best thing to do is bring it up, empty your stomach.' She grinned. 'A round on the Scrambler'll take care of that.'

Which was exactly what he feared. 'Cousin Lulu, why don't we take a turn down the midway, win some prizes?'

'Sucker's games.'

'Who's a sucker?' Josie strolled up, carrying a huge purple elephant. 'I shot twelve ducks, ten rabbits, four moose, and a snarling grizzly bear to win this grand prize.'

'Don't know what a grown woman's going to do with a stuffed elephant,' Lulu grumbled, but she took a shine to the rhinestone collar around the purple pachyderm's neck.

'It's a souvenir,' she said, and shoved it into Teddy Rubenstein's arms so she could light a cigarette. 'What's the matter, Dwayne? You're looking a little sickly.'

'Weak stomach,' Lulu announced, and poked a finger into Dwayne's midsection. 'Corn dogs and fried dough. Boy's got all that grease floating around inside.' She narrowed her eyes at Teddy. 'I know you. You're that Yankee doctor who makes a living cutting dead people up. Do you keep the innards in bottles?'

With a strangled sound Dwayne shambled away, one hand clamped over his mouth.

'Best thing for him,' Lulu declared.

'I guess I'd better go hold his head.' With a sigh Josie turned back to Teddy. 'Honey, why don't you take Cousin Lulu for a ride? I'll catch up.'

'It would be my pleasure.' Teddy held out his arm. 'What's your poison, Cousin Lulu?'

Pleased, she hooked her arm through his. 'I had my mind set on the Scrambler.'

'Allow me to escort you.'

'What's your given name, boy?' she asked as they wound through the crowd. 'I may as well call you by it, as you're sleeping with my kin.'

He gave a throat-clearing cough. 'It's Theodore, ma'am. My friends call me Teddy.'

'All right, Teddy. We'll take us a walk on the wild side here, and you can tell me all you know about these murders.' Graciously, she handed him the tickets to pay their way through the gate.

'That Miss Lulu.' Slurping on a Snow-Kone, Jim nodded in respect. 'She sure is something.'

Cy wiped purple juice from his mouth and watched as Lulu sat regally in the jerking, spinning car of the Scrambler. 'I seen her standing on her head in her room.'

'What she do that for?'

'Don't rightly know. Something about having the blood slosh into her brain so she don't go senile. One day I found her lying on the lawn. I thought she'd had a spell or was dead or something. She said she was pretending to be a cat for a day, and gave me hell for disturbing her nap.'

Jim grinned and crunched ice. 'My granny mostly sits in a rocker and knits.'

They started to walk, taking time to stop by some of the booths and watch balls being tossed, darts being thrown, wheels being spun. They each spent a quarter at the Duck Pond, where Jim won a rubber spider and Cy a plastic whistle.

They debated having their fortunes told by Madame Mystique, then passed her up for a look at the Amazing Voltura, who absorbed a thousand volts of electricity while miniature light bulbs fizzed and popped all over her curvaceous body.

'Pretty fakey,' Cy decided, and gave his whistle a toot.

'Yeah, I bet they use batteries or something.'

Cy scuffed his shoe in the dirt. 'Can I ask you something?'

'Sure.'

'I was wondering. Well, how did it feel, stabbing John Thomas Bonny?'

Frowning, Jim dangled his rubber spider by the string. He figured he could get at least one good squeal out of little Lucy with it. 'It didn't feel at all, I guess. I was all numb and my ears were ringing. I had Lucy hiding in the closet like Ma told me, but I figured he'd find her. And I didn't know what they were going to do to my ma, and my daddy.'

'Were they…' Cy wet his lips. 'Were they really going to string him up?'

'They had a rope, and guns.' Jim didn't say anything about the burning cross. Somehow that was the worst part of all. 'They kept saying he killed them women. But he didn't.'

'They were saying my daddy killed them, too.' Cy bent for something shiny, but it was only a piece of foil from a pack of cigarettes. 'I guess he didn't do it either.'

'Somebody did,' Jim said, and the two boys gazed silently at the flow of people. 'Might even be somebody we know.'

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