checking for a fever. “I knew it,” she said. “I just knew it.”
Arch watched a wall of shadow at the edge of the forest, hoping to hear the clatter of gunshot and artillery that was always present. He wanted to walk in and join them, hoping that the two worlds and time could somehow be joined. But instead he just caught the riffle of the wind picking up and blowing through the pines, sounding to him of a gentle breeze against bulrushes.
HOYT SHEPHERD PARKED HIS BRAND-NEW LIGHT GREEN Cadillac Eldorado in a safe spot away from the others but well in sight of the massive barn out in the county where they held the fights. There was some worry that there would be any fights at all, on account of the killing and all those goddamn Guard troops. But leave it to good ole PC ingenuity to find a barn big enough for the ring and stretch the canvas tight and set up church pews for seats. Judging from the cars, it looked like at least two hundred folks had found the place and left the Guard in the dark. Shepherd waited for Jimmie to follow and he dog-cussed him as he passed for his slowness, and then wiped the solid-gold Cadillac insignia on the hood with a little white handkerchief. Matthews ignored him, and up at the barn paid the black boy at the door a ten-spot. As they passed, the boy asked Hoyt when he was coming back to the steak house.
And then Hoyt recognized him as Charley Frank Bass and clasped his hand and hugged him and told Jimmie that Charley Frank could make a mess of liver and gravy that would make you want to slap your mamma. He asked him about his brother and mamma and the black kid told him.
They strolled on in, and Hoyt shook more hands and patted some boys on the back and they wandered around the smooth dirt floor all lit up with spotlights someone had stolen out of the Baptist church along with the pews. And there were country men who sold shots of corn liquor for fifty cents and some boys from downtown selling bottles of beer in troughs filled with ice.
Hoyt bought a shot of corn liquor, and he and Jimmie found a place close to the ring. The seats were taken, but when they walked close the man organizing the whole thing – Frog Jones – kept two steps ahead and shooed out the men who had already sat down.
The fight was already on, in the second round, and two tough ole nigger boys from Columbus were getting after each other like there was fire in their britches. They were rawboned and muscular, one in blue shorts and the other wearing white. And they worked around the ring, stomping and dancing, like colored fighters will do, and then they’d tear into each other. The boy with the blue shorts had a two-mile reach and the sonofabitch landed a solid hook right before the bell that sent the other fighter reeling backward, his eye swollen to the size of an egg.
By the fifth – announced by a fat-tittied whore wearing nothing but black panties and high-heeled shoes and holding up the ring card – Hoyt had found someone who’d brought in some boiled peanuts and he’d sent Jimmie to go get him another bit of corn whiskey and Jimmie didn’t say a word about it, as silent as a fucking sphinx. After he left, the fighters turned on each other, people calling out: “Fight ’em, nigger. Fuck ’em or fight ’em.”
Hoyt stood up as the crowd yelled when the blue fighter backed the other boy into a corner and commenced to whipping the holy tar out of him. His head slapped back and forth, the fighter barely able to raise the gloves to protect his face, as the blows went from a jab to a cross to a jab to a cross, and then as an exclamation a final hook walloped the boy down to the ground and the crowd went wild.
About that time, he felt someone take a seat next to him and he figured it was Jimmie and reached out his hand for the jelly jar full of hooch. But when he looked down, it was Fannie Belle sitting in Jimmie’s chair, and Hoyt’s smile dropped.
Fannie wore a tight red dress with her freckled tits hanging out. Bright gold rings on her long white fingers and a diamond-encrusted cross on her neck. She said she was in her twenties, but Hoyt guessed she’d been on God’s green earth at least thirty-five years. She had an upturned nose, a slight pug to it, and wide, painted-on eyebrows. You wouldn’t look twice at her face, but you’d give her body a good inspection.
She crossed her muscular legs and placed a hand on Hoyt’s knee.
“Do you mind?”
“Thought I’d say hello.”
“You’re sittin’ in Jimmie’s spot.”
Hoyt watched the little black man in the ring, the referee, pull the fighter to the side and look at his face and shake his head but then change his mind, as the crowd began to throw bottles into the ring, striking him and the fighter in the head. The referee reeled back, holding his bloodied temple, and the fighter staggered to the center of the ring. His trunks were now pink from the blood, and both eyes had closed so tight that Hoyt didn’t know how he could see.
“Jesus H. Christ Almighty.” Hoyt turned his eyes away.
“How’s tricks, Big Daddy?”
Hoyt looked to her.
“I like that shirt. You get that in Cuba?”
“Talk English, Fannie. What the fuck do you want?”
Fannie Belle uncrossed her legs, straightening out the dress from her ample – but not fat – ass, and turned to Hoyt, moving close to his ear like a lover, and whispered: “This thing is only gonna end in one way. And you boys can sit around with your dicks in your hands or we can hit this mess straight ahead.”
“You plan on attacking the National Guard?” Hoyt said, and raised an eyebrow. “You know they have tanks?”
“I have a plan, Big Daddy.”
“Shit, it’s over. Quit tossin’ your pussy around. This was a beaut while it lasted, but you’re out of your goddamn mind if you think you can do a thing about it.”
“If Patterson’s boy takes over, he’s gunning straight for us.”
“Well, get ready, because unless there is an actual Republican contender in Dixie he has the job. If I were you, I’d think about changing my address.”
Hoyt watched the woman’s eyes narrow. Her face was a flawless mask of coated white makeup as she played with the rings on her fingers.
“Be a hell of a thing if a couple of them cocky newsmen got killed,” Fannie said. “Or a few prissy-ass RBA boys. Sometimes you got to cut the nuts off a dog that gets too bold.”
“It’s over.”
Fannie Belle smiled, her teeth big and white and capped, a dab of lipstick across them that Hoyt thought for a second was blood. She stared at Hoyt a good thirty seconds and Hoyt stared right back.
“I heard you were a hell of a lay back when you worked the B-girl trade.”
“I could’ve fucked you cross-eyed, Hoyt.”
Hoyt laughed and popped open the shell of a boiled peanut. He grunted and smiled.
Jimmie sat back down moments later and handed his friend the jar of moonshine. He dabbed off some of the moonshine that wet his new seersucker suit and then wrinkled up his nose and turned to Hoyt: “Does something smell like rotten eggs around here?”
“Yeah,” Hoyt said. “That bitch wears evil like a perfume.”
THEY CAME FOR ME THAT NIGHT. I NEVER LEARNED WHO, but around four I found Thomas pulling on my arm and telling me that Santa Claus had come early. I pushed myself up from the bed as he repeated the news, and I listened, finally hearing what he’d heard, feet shifting and moving on the roof. It was still dark, and the crickets made music with the frogs in the creek.
Joyce switched on the bedside lamp, and I was already reaching into my closet for the Winchester I’d borrowed from my father-in-law. I cracked it open, checking the breech for shells, and snapped it back together with a sharp click.
I tried to steady my breath, blood racing through me, and nearly jumped five feet when Anne turned the corner from her bedroom. She was half awake and almost screamed when she saw the gun in my hand.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. There’s some kind of animal on the roof.”
“Are you going to kill it?”
I shook my head and steered her back to Joyce and Thomas. “I’ll be right back,” I said, forcing a smile. “It’s okay. Just a raccoon.”
