Reivers, The - William Faulkner [57]
"Then beat it," Miss Reba said. "Get out of here. How you going to do it? walk back to Missippi or ride the horse? Go on. Sit down. You might as well while we wait for him. Tell us," she said to Miss Corrie.
You see? "He's not a brakeman! He's a flagman! He wears a uniform just the same as the conductor's. He's going to help us." All the world loves a lover, quoth (I think) the Swan: who saw deeper than any into the human heart. What pity he had no acquaintance with horses, to have added, All the world apparently loves a stolen race horse also. Miss Corrie told us; and Otis was in the room now though I hadn't seen him come in, with something still wrong about him though not noticing him until it was almost too late still wasn't it:
"We'll have to buy at least one ticket to Possum to have—"
"It's Parsham," Miss Reba said.
"All right," Miss Corrie said. "—something to check him as baggage on, like you do a trunk; Sam will bring the ticket and the baggage check with him. But it will be all right; an empty boxcar will be on a side track—Sam will know where—and all we have to do is get the horse in it and Sam said wall him up in one corner with planks so he cant slip down; Sam will have some planks and nails ready too; he said this was the best he could do at short notice because he didn't dare tell his uncle any more than he had to or his uncle would want to come too. So Sam says the only risk will be getting the horse from here to where the boxcar is waiting. He says it wont do for... "
She stopped, looking at Ned,
"Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi," Ned said.
". . . Ned to be walking along even a back street this late at night leading a horse; the first policeman they pass will stop him. So he—Sam—is bringing a blanket and he's going to wear his uniform and him and Boon and me will lead the horse to the depot and nobody will notice anything. Oh yes; and the passenger train will—"
"Jesus," Miss Reba said. "A whore, a pullman conductor and a Missippi swamp rat the size of a water tank leading a race horse through Memphis at midnight Sunday night, and nobody will notice it?"
"You stop!" Miss Corrie said.
"Stop what?" Miss Reba said.
"You know. Talking like that in front of—"
"Oh," Miss Reba said. "If he just dropped up here from Missippi with Boon on a friendly visit you might say, we might of could protected his ears. But using this place as headquarters while they steal automobiles and horses, he's got to take his chances like anybody else. What were you saying about the train?"
"Yes. The passenger train that leaves for Washington at four A.M. will pick the boxcar up and well all be in Possum before daylight."
"Parsham, God damn it," Miss Reba said. "We?"
"Aint you coming too?" Miss Corrie said.
Chapter 7
That's what we did. Though first Sam had to see the horse. He came in the back way, through the kitchen, carrying the horse blanket. He was in his uniform. He was almost as big as Boon.
So we—all of us again—stood once more in the back yard, Ned holding the lamp this time, to shine its light not on the horse but on Sam's brass-buttoned coat and vest and the flat cap with the gold lettering across the front. In fact, I had expected trouble with Ned over Sam and the horse, but I was wrong. "Who, me?" Ned said. "What for? We couldn't be no better off with a policeman himself leading the horse to Possum." On the contrary, the trouble we were going to have about Sam would be with Boon. Sam looked at the horse.
"That's a good horse," Sam said. "He looks like a damn good horse to me."
"Sure," Boon said. "He aint got no whistle nor bell neither on him. He aint even got a headlight. I'm surprised you can see him a-tall."
"What do you mean by that?" Sam said. "I dont mean nothing," Boon said. "Just what I said. You're an iron-horse man. Maybe you better go on to the depot without waiting for us."
"You has—" Miss Reba said. Then she started over: "Cant you see, the man's just trying to help you? going out of his way so that the minute you get back home, the first live animal you'll see wont be the sheriff?