moment when Grandfather left the bank for the day. But although the battle was still a holding action requiring— nay, demanding—constant alertness and vigilance instead of a drive capable of carrying itself with its own momentum, Boon was still confident, still on top: 'Sure. I sent Luster. The way this town is growing, we will need two hacks at them trains any day now, and I been had my eye on Luster for the second driver a good while now. Dont worry; I'm going to watch him.'
But no telephone. By six oclock, even Boon admitted that today there would be none. But it was a holding action; nothing was lost yet, and in the dark he could even shift his forces a little. The next morning about ten he— we—entered the bank as though by passing afterthought. 'Lemme have the keys,' he told Grandfather. 'All that Missippi dust and mud, let alone the Tennessee mud and dust already under it. I'll take the hose with me from the stable in case Ned has mislaid yours out of sight somewhere.'
Grandfather was looking at Boon, just looking at him with no hurry, like Boon really was the one with the wagon or hay baler offering to borrow fifteen dollars. 'I dont want the inside of the carriage house wet,' Grandfather said. But Boon matched him, as detached and even more indifferent, with even more time to spare, use.
'Sure, sure. Remember, the man said the engine ought to be run every day. Not to go nowhere: just to keep the spark plugs and magneto from rusting and costing you twenty, twenty-five dollars for a new one all the way from Memphis or somewhere, maybe all the way back to the factory. I dont blame you; all I know is what he told you; I'd just have to take his word too. But then you can afford it. You own the automobile; if you want to rust it up, it aint nobody else's business. A horse would a been different. Even if you hadn't even paid a hundred dollars for a horse you'd a had me out there at daylight lunging him on a rope just to keep his guts working.' Because Grandfather was a good banker and Boon knew it: that Grandfather not only knew when to foreclose, but when to compound and cancel too. He reached into his pocket and handed Boon the two keys—the one to the padlock and the thing that turned the automobile on. 'Come on,' Boon told me, already turning.
While we were still up the street we could already hear Grandmother hollering for Ned from the upstairs back window, though by the time we reached the gate she had quit. As we crossed the back yard to get the hose, Del- phine came out the kitchen door. 'Where is Ned?' she said. 'We been hollering for him all morning. Is he up there at the livery stable?'
'Sure,' Boon said. 'I'll tell him too. Just dont expect him neither.' Ned was there. He and two of my brothers were like a row of stairsteps trying to see through the cracks in the garage door. I reckon Alexander would have been there too except he couldn't walk yet; I dont know why Aunt Callie hadn't thought of it yet. Then Alexander was there; Mother came across the street from our house carrying him. So maybe Aunt Callic was still washing diapers. 'Morning, Miss Alison,' Boon said. 'Morning, Miss Sarah,' he said, because now Grandmother was there too, with Delphine behind her. And now there were two more ladies, neighbors, still in their boudoir caps. Because maybe Boon wasn't a banker nor even a very good trader either. But he was proving to be a pretty damned good guerrilla fighter. He went and unlocked the garage door and opened it. Ned was the first one inside.
'Well,' Boon said to him, 'you been here ever since daylight to peep at it through that crack. What do you think about it?'
'I dont think nothing about it,' Ned said. 'Boss Priest could a bought the best two-hundred-dollar horse in Yok- napatawpha County for this money.'
'There aint any two-hundred-dollar horse in Yoknapa-tawpha County,' Boon said. 'If there was, this automobile would buy ten of them. Go be hooking up that hose.'
'Go be hooking up that hose, Lucius,' Ned said to me; he didn't even look around. He went to the automobile door and opened it. It was the back seat. Front seats didn't have doors in those days; you just walked up and got in. 'Come on, Miss Sarah, you and Miss Alison,' Ned said. 'Delphine can wait with the children for the next trip.'
'You go hook up that hose like I told you,' Boon said. 'I got to get it out of here before I can do anything to it.'
'You aint gonter tote it out in your hand, is you?' Ned said. 'I reckon we can ride that far. I reckon I'm gonter have to drive it so the sooner I starts, the quicker it will be.' He said: 'Hee hee hee.' He said: 'Come on, Miss Sarah.'
'Will it be all right, Boon?' Grandmother said.
'Yessum, Miss. Sarah,' Boon said. Grandmother and Mother got in. Before Boon could close the door, Ned was already in the front seat.
'Go ahead and tend to your business, if you knows how to,' Ned said. 'I aint gonter touch nothing until I learns how, and just setting here aint gonter learn me. Go on and hook up, or whatever you does to it.'
Boon went around to the driver's side and set the switches and levers, and went to the front and jerked the crank. On the third pull, the engine roared.
t'BpA°nI' Grandmother cried.
'It's all right, Miss Sarah!' Boon hollered above the noise, running back to the guiding wheel.
'I dont care!' Grandmother said. 'Get in quick! I'm nervous!' Boon got in and quieted the engine and shifted the levers; a moment, then the automobile moved quietly and slowly backward out of the shed, into the lot, the sunshine, and stopped.
'Hee hee hee,' Ned said.
'Be careful, Boon,' Grandmother said. I could see her hand gripping the stanchion of the top.
'Yessum,' Boon said. The automobile moved again, backward, beginning to turn. Then it moved forward, still turning; Grandmother's hand still gripped the stanchion. Mother's face looked like a girl's. The car went slowly and quietly across the lot until it was facing the gate to the lane, to the outside, to the world, and stopped. And Boon didn't say anything: he just sat there behind the wheel, the engine running smooth and quiet, his head turned just enough for Grandmother to see his face. Oh yes, maybe he wasn't a negotiable-paper wizard like Grandfather, and there were folks in Jefferson that would say he wasn't much of anything else either, but for this skirmish anyway he was a skirmish fighter of consummate skill and grace. Grandmother sat for maybe a half a minute. Then she drew a long breath and expelled it.
'No,' she said. 'We must wait for Mister Priest.' Maybe it wasn't a victory, but anyway our side—Boon— had not only discovered the weak point in the enemy's (Grandfather's) front, by suppertime that night the enemy himself would discover it too.
Discover in fact that his flank had been turned. The next afternoon (Saturday) after the bank closed, and each
