on the raft, kissing, and maybe more. I couldn’t find any way to lose the thoughts, or to get hold of them.
Wasn’t long after I laid down that the door opened, and I seen Mama’s shape in the frame, and behind and above her, I seen more heat lightning dancing across the sky. Also behind her, I saw Reverend Joy heading toward his car. Then Mama eased the door closed and moved noiselessly to the bedroom.
In spite of all that was bothering me, I eventually nodded off.
My sleep was soon spoiled by the sound of lumber splitting. I sat bolt upright, and so did everyone else in the house, cause the door had been kicked back and broken apart; there was two hat-wearing shapes in the doorway. They brought with them the smell of liquor and sweat. One of them was holding a flashlight. It was shining across the room, right on my face, and it was blinding me. Jinx moved on the floor, said something in surprise, and one of the shapes kicked her hard enough she let out her air and was knocked tumbling. She twitched just enough that I knew she wasn’t knocked out.
Mama came into the room instantly, and when she did, one of the shapes quick-stepped toward her. A hand struck out, and she went down with a scream.
“Stop it, damn it,” I said, coming off my pallet and to my feet.
“Unladylike as always,” said a familiar voice. “You best sit back down before I hit you, Sue Ellen.”
The flashlight beam that was resting on me hopped around the room. I couldn’t help but look where it went. It came to rest on Terry’s pallet, where he was sitting up.
The voice said, “There’s the sissy.”
“Where’s the damn preacher?” said the other man. I recognized that voice, too.
After a moment, both shapes moved deeper into the room. Then one of them spotted a lantern with the flashlight, and the lantern got lit. The lamp lighter was that one-eyed Constable Sy, and the other one, the kicker and hitter, was the man I had always known as Uncle Gene.
15
Well, now,” Uncle Gene said. “If it ain’t my brother’s wife, Helen, in another man’s house, along with her sassy-ass daughter, the sissy, and a runaway nigger. Where’s the preacher?”
It was easy to figure. They had been looking for us for some time now. All they had to do was ask along the river until they come to the right person, and someone who had seen us talked. With the reverend’s congregation being on the outs with him, they had most likely been swift to say something, not realizing, of course, that the men looking for us was more than bill collectors. Course, I guess it could have been something they did by meaner purpose, and if that was the case, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was the Fried Chicken with Too Much Salt Lady.
“I’m not going back,” Mama said, coming off the floor and to her feet. She had a hand pressed against her face where she had been hit.
Gene took a seat by the table. “I know that, Helen. Where’s the preacher?”
“He’s gone off,” I said. “They got rid of him at the church. Didn’t like his living arrangements. He’s gone off.”
“That right?” Sy said. He had his hand on his holstered gun, letting it rest there like a bird that had lit on a post. Right then, I believed that story about what that holster was made out of. “Gene,” he said, “go look in the back room, see if you can find a preacher. Bring him out, drawers or no drawers.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking such a thing,” Mama said.
“Now, don’t get special on me, girl,” Gene said. “You lowered your own drawers down before you took up with my brother. You done that, didn’t you? It ain’t like no one else has ever been under the bridge. Only thing I got to wonder is if you were charging a toll.”
Even in the dark I could feel embarrassment come off Mama like heat off a fire. Gene went past her on his way to the room, paused to slap her on the butt. “You know,” he said. “Always figured, you and me could have a good time, and I think we might still.”
Mama wheeled and spit in his face.
Gene wiped the spit off with his sleeve and grinned at her. “Oh, your time is coming, honey. You can bet on that.”
“Quit jawing and go look,” Constable Sy said.
Gene went on. While he was in the bedroom looking around, Constable Sy said, “All of you might as well cooperate. I’m with the law.”
“You’re out of your formal jurisdiction,” Terry said.
“You always was a smart little fruit,” Constable Sy said. “But I figure you know jurisdiction doesn’t really mean squat. It’s not like I plan on taking that money back to the bank. It’s not like I plan on running you folks in.”
Gene came back. “No one in there.”
“That surprises me,” said Constable Sy, looking at Mama.
Gene went to the icebox, took out the fruit jar with buttermilk in it, screwed off the lid, and drank deep, spilling some of it on his chest. He burped and came to the table and took a chair. He sat the milk on the table at his elbow. The lantern lit one side of his face bright as day. The other side was dark as a hole in the ground.
“So you wasn’t satisfying that preacher and he run off,” Constable Sy said, looking at Mama. He was still standing, one leg cocked forward, his hand resting on his gun butt. “You look good, but I can bet you got a lot of the shrew about you.”
“Come on over here and sit down,” Gene said, motioning at Mama. “It’s all right. Sit down. I ain’t going to let anything happen to you.”
Mama, one hand still on her jaw, went over and sat. She chose a chair far away from Gene.
Constable Sy took a chair on the opposite side, right across from her. He took the gun out of its holster and laid it on the table, kept his hand on top of it. “Like I said. You wasn’t satisfying him, so he left you here. I figure he had to, as the folks we talked to said he wasn’t living like a preacher, just talking like one, then coming back down here and snuggling up with you at night.”
“He was letting us stay out of Christian generosity,” Mama said. “That’s all there was to it.”
“Have it your way,” Gene said. “Let’s make this easy, then we’ll leave you be. We want that money.”
“Where’s Cletus?” I asked.
“Cletus, he’s got his own way of looking for you,” Gene said. “He says he’s going to hire that stinky nigger Skunk to come find you. Trying to get somebody knows Skunk that’s willing to go look for him, like there really is a Skunk. But even if there is, he don’t need to get him. We got you. He thought we wasn’t never going to find you, but he was wrong.”
“How’s Don feel about all this?” Mama asked.
“Don looked for a few days then put himself in the house and hasn’t come out, least not last I looked,” Gene said. “You broke his heart. And I think that’s a bad thing. Not that his heart is broke, but that he’d let it break over someone like you. You come to him with a baby in your belly and he took you in, and now here you are, out on the prowl.” He looked at me. “You know Don ain’t your daddy, don’t you?”
“It’s one of the great reliefs of my life,” I said. “And that business about him having the Sight, that hasn’t helped him none now, has it? It wasn’t him found us.”
“Ha,” Gene said, and seemed to think that was genuinely funny.
“And I’m not on the prowl,” Mama said. “I’ve just run away. That’s all.”
“I got a mind to see if you’re worth what Don thought you was,” Gene said. “Don said you could warm a cold night pretty good after you got liquored up.”
“Hush up,” Mama said. “There’s children in the room.”
Gene laughed and took another swig of buttermilk. “Now you got scruples. That’s funny.”
“Enough chitchat,” said Constable Sy. “Here’s how it’s going to work. You give us that bag of money, and we’ll go, and won’t nothing happen to you. You don’t, it’s fixing to be a bad night for all of you. You going to wish you was dead and done gone to hell.”
“I already wish that,” I said.
Gene studied me for a while, said, “Sassy there, and the nigger gal, could be all right to keep us busy. And
