'You got school today?' Quarry asked, as he studied the boy closely. ' 'Cause if you do, you're gonna miss the bus.'
'Nope. Teacher day. I thought I'd help Ma, do some field work, and then get some reading done.'
'I need to talk to your ma after I go into town.'
'What about?'
'Personal business.'
Gabriel's face fell. 'I didn't do anything wrong, did I?'
Quarry smiled. 'You think the whole world revolves around you? Naw, just business stuff. You get a chance to clean out the toolbench in the barn some, that'd be real good. Get rid of anything that's rusted up bad. And I got another stamp for you.'
Gabriel did his best to smile. 'Thank you, Mr. Sam. Got me a good collection going. I checked on one you gave me on the computer at school. On eBay.'
'What the hell is that?'
'You buy and sell stuff on there. Like a bunch of stores on the Internet.'
Quarry looked mildly interested. 'Go on.'
'Anyway, this one stamp you gave me is worth forty dollars!'
'Damn. You gonna sell it?'
Gabriel looked shocked. 'Mr. Sam, I'm not selling anything you give me.'
'Piece of advice for free, little man. That stamp collection is gonna help fund your college education. Why you think I been giving 'em to you? And the old coins too?'
Gabriel looked puzzled. 'I guess I never thought about that.'
'See, your brain's not as big as you think it is, now is it?'
'Guess not.' They ate some more and the boy said, 'You been flying up to the mine a lot.'
He grinned. 'Trying to find me some diamonds.'
'Diamonds in the mine?' Gabriel said sharply. 'Thought all those mines were in Africa.'
'Might have us some right here in Alabama.'
'I was thinking maybe I'd go with you.'
'Son, you been all over that mine with me. It's still just dirt in a big hole.'
'I mean on the plane. We always went in the truck.'
'We always went in the truck 'cause you don't like to fly. Hell, you told me every time you watch me take off you want to crawl inside the earth and never come out.'
Gabriel smiled weakly. 'I'm trying to get over that. I want to see more of this world than just Alabama, so I've got to get on planes, right?'
Quarry smiled at the boy's spot-on logic. 'That's pretty right, yeah.'
'Let me know then. I'll be getting on with the chores.'
'You do that.'
Gabriel put his dishes in the sink and scooted out of the kitchen.
As he headed to the barn, Gabriel was thinking hard. Thinking about what he'd heard Mr. Sam talk about when he was drunk in the library last night. He'd heard the name Willow or something like that, maybe like the weeping willow, he figured. And he'd heard Mr. Sam say the word 'coal,' or at least it sounded like it, which had made Gabriel think of the mine too.
He wouldn't ask Mr. Sam directly because he didn't want him to know that Gabriel had been eavesdropping, even though he'd just come down for another book to read. Mr. Sam sure had been sad about something, Gabriel told himself while he was cleaning out the toolbench in the barn. And the other day he'd watched as Mr. Sam had rolled up his sleeve to help with washing the dishes. There were burn marks on his forearm. Gabriel wondered about that too.
And he'd heard Daryl and Carlos talk about things in the gunroom at night while they'd been cleaning their rifles. But none of it made much sense. Once they'd been talking about Kurt. When Gabriel had come in the room, they'd shut up real fast and then showed him how to break down and reassemble a pistol in under fifty seconds. And why go up to the mine every day? And why had Carlos and sometimes Daryl stayed up there overnight? Was there something going on up there? Gabriel didn't think it was about diamonds.
And more than once he'd gotten out of bed in time to see Mr. Sam head down to the basement with a fat ring of keys. Gabriel had followed him all the way one time, his heart beating so hard he thought for sure Mr. Sam would hear it. He'd watched as the man had opened up a door down a long passageway that smelled foul. His ma had told him once that that was where the Quarrys used to keep their bad slaves. He hadn't believed her at first and had asked Mr. Sam about it. But Mr. Sam had confirmed his mother's statement.
'Your family had slaves, Mr. Sam?' he'd asked him once when they were walking the fields.
'Most folks 'round here did back in the old days. Atlee was a cotton plantation then. Had to have people to work it. A lot of people.'
'But so why didn't they just pay 'em? Not keep 'em as slaves just 'cause they could.'
'I guess it comes down to greed. You don't pay folks, you make more money. That and thinking one race wasn't as good as another.'
Gabriel had stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and said, 'Now that's a damn shame.'
'Too many people think they can do anything, hurt anybody, and get away with it.'
But that didn't explain why Mr. Sam went down into the stink of the basement where they used to keep the bad slaves. Strange things going on at Atlee for sure. But it was Gabriel's home; he and his ma had no other, so it really wasn't any of his business. He was just going to keep going on his way. But he was still curious. Real curious. It was just his way.
CHAPTER 45
QUARRY STOPPED the pickup truck in front of Fred's Airstream and tapped the horn. Fred came out, a store- bought cigarette dangling from one hand and a paper bag in the other. He had on an old sweat-stained straw hat, corduroy jacket, faded jeans, and boots withered by sun and rain. His white hair hung to his shoulders and looked shiny and clean.
Quarry leaned out the window. 'You remember to bring some ID with you?'
Fred climbed in the truck, took out his wallet, really two flaps of leather hooked together with rubber bands, and slipped out an ID card. 'White man's way of keeping tabs on us real Americans.'
Quarry grinned. 'I got news for you, buckaroo. Old Uncle Sam ain't just watching folks like you. He's watching all of us. Real Americans like you and the ones just renting space here like me.'
From the paper bag Fred drew out a bottle of beer.
'Damn, can't you wait until we're done before you suck that down?' said Quarry. 'I don't want to ever see what your sorry liver looks like,' he added.
'My mother lived to ninety-eight,' Fred replied as he took a long drink and put the bottle back in the bag.
'Yeah? Well I can pretty much guarantee you won't. And you've got no health insurance. Neither do I. They say the hospital has to treat everybody, but they don't say when they do. Been over the county hospital mor'n once lying on the waiting room floor with the fever and the chills and the heaves so bad I think I'm gonna die. Two days go by and then some kid in a white coat finally comes out and asks you to stick out your tongue and wants to know where it hurts while you're lying on the floor with your stomach coming out your ass. By then you've pretty much lived through it, but some damn drugs would've been nice too.'
'I never go to hospital.' Fred said this in Indian. And then he started talking fast in his native tongue.
Quarry interrupted him. 'Fred, I don't have Gabriel here, so when you start going full Muskogean on me, I'm lost, man.'
Fred repeated it all in English.
'There you go. When in America, speak the English. Just don't try to go to the damn hospital without an insurance card. I don't care what language you're talking, you're screwed.'
The truck bumped along. Fred pointed to a building in the distance. It was the little house that Quarry had
