Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [90]
The drizzle stopped just before daylight. As dawn began to break the railroad track met and began to run parallel with a State highway. The high tension power lines that ran in sagging arcs above the ditch, the marshy ground and their sense of the geography of the area all told them that this was the Rattlesnake Road.
Sure enough. The tracks and the road led them past the fish camp on the creek and then the railroad began to bear to the right in a long curve which took them over a wooden trestle and then across a drawbridge. Cautiously they crept past the bridgetender’s tower and went on behind the ramshackle general store which is in the very apex of the diverging highway and tracks.
It was daylight. They walked past the scattered collection of Negro shacks that formed an unincorporated community which didn’t even have a name. Over to the left, rising out of the mists and the early morning shadows they could see the lookout tower of the forest rangers. Around them they could hear cars starting off for work and voices in the cabins and shacks.
And then Luke remembered the church. It was Tuesday. No one would be coming in. They could spend the day undisturbed, sheltered from the weather and shielded from the eyes of the Free World, getting some sleep and resting until nightfall when they would again resume their escape.
Leaving the railroad embankment, they began walking through the high brown grass and weeds covered with frost and dew that wet their shoes and pant legs up to their knees. They dodged among the scattered scrub oaks and came up behind the outhouse, making sure there was no one around and that the church was really empty. They skirted the rusty pump in the backyard, careful not to make any noise by stepping on the trash, the collection of tin cans, paper and bottles. At the rear of the church and to the side, a small addition had been built, crudely constructed out of bare cement blocks, the joints rough and out of line. There was a back door to this addition. And they found the door unlocked. They went inside, looking around at the rows of chairs, the pulpit, the piano. After they investigated a side room that had a few chairs and a mirror, a pile of collection baskets, a big jar of water and some plastic glasses on top of a table, they slowly let out their breath. Dragline went over to flop down on a chair, Luke smiling and pouring himself some water from the jar.
Well, Fat Boy. So far, so good, I reckon.
Dragline sprawled out, his legs straight with the backs of his heels on the floor. Folding his arms over his belly, he let out a moan.
Damn it. Wish ah had me some beans. Grits. Corn bread. Anything ah could chew up and swallow. Ah sure did think we were gonna be in Tampa by this time. Ridin‘ in on a fast freight. In real style.
What do you mean, chew, Drag? Without no teeth, about the best you could ever do is gum.
Aw right. Chew. Gum. Tongue. Lick. Swallow in one whole piece, alive and kickin‘. Ah don’t care. Ah’m hongry. Hey. What are you doin’?
Just lookin‘ around.
Well cut it out and let’s git some rest. You shouldn’t be prowlin‘ around nobody’s church. Even if it is a nigger church. After all. Ah mean, we can rest up here and hide out a while. Nobody’d care about that. But we ain’t got no call to be snoopin’.
I’m jest lookin‘. I ain’t hurtin’ nothin‘.
Today in the church yard as Dragline was telling the story, I tamped the ashes and the tobacco of my pipe down into the bowl with my finger. Then I took a deep drag, slowly letting the smoke out between my lips. I stared at the old church, at the wall and the windows, trying to visualize what it looked like inside, trying to see what Cool Hand Luke had seen that morning as he quietly walked among the chairs and along the walls, occasionally taking a careful peek outside from around