Reivers, The - William Faulkner [93]
"Wait," Boon said. "Aint we got to make some plans?"
"The onliest one that needs any plan is Lightning," Ned said. "And the only plan he needs is to plan to get out in front and stay there until somebody tells him to stop. But I know what you mean. We gonter run on Colonel Lin-scomb's track. The first heat is at two oclock. That's four miles from here. Me and Lightning and Lucius gonter show up there about two minutes beforehand. You better get out there earlier. You better leave here soon as Mr Sam gets off that freight train. Because that's yourn and his plan: to get to that track in time to bet the money, and to have some money to bet when you get there."
"Wait," Boon said. "What about that automobile? What the hell good will money do us if we go back home without—"
"Stop fretting about that automobile," Ned said. "Aint I told you them boys got to go back home not much longer than tonight too?"
"What boys?" Boon said.
"Yes sir," Ned said. "The trouble with Christmas is the first of January; that's what's wrong with it." Minnie came in with a tray of dirty dishes—the brown calm tragic hungry and inconsolable mask. "Come on," Ned told her, "gimme that smile again so I'll have the right measure to fit that tooth when I brings it back tonight." _ "Dont do it, girl," the fat cook said. "Maybe that Mis-sippi sugar will spend where it come from, but it wont buy nothing up here in Tennessee. Not in this kitchen, nohow."
"But wait," Boon said.
"You wait for Mr Sam," Ned said. "He can tell you. In fact, whilst me and Lucius are winning this race, maybe you and Mr Sam can locate around amongst the folks for Whistle-britches and that tooth." He had Uncle Parsham's buggy this time, with one of the nv'es. And he was right: the little hamlet had changed ovcrni ht. It was not that there were so many people in sight, any more than yesterday. It was the air itself—an exhilaration, almost; for the first time I really realised that I was going to ride in a horse race before many more hours, and I could taste my spit sudden and sharp around my tongue.
"I thought you said last night that Otis would be gone when you got back from town," I said.
"He was," Ned said. "But not far. He aint got nowhere to go neither. The hounds give mouth twice during the night back toward the barn; them hounds taken the same quick mislike to him that human folks does. Likely soon as I left this morning, he come up for his breakfast."
"But suppose he sells the tooth before we can catch him."
"I done fixed that," Ned said. "He aint gonter sell it. He aint gonter find nobody to buy it. If he aint come up for breakfast, Lycurgus gonter take the hounds and tree him again, and tell him that when I come back from Parsham last night, I said a man in Memphis offered that gal twenty-eight dollars for that tooth, cash. He'll believe that. If it had been a hundred dollars or even fifty, he wouldn't believe it. But hell believe a extra number like twenty-eight dollars, mainly because he'll think it aint enough: that that Memphis man was beating Minnie down. And when he tries to sell it at that race track this evening, wont nobody give him even that much, so wont be nothing left for him to do but wait until he can get back to Memphis with it So you get your mind off that tooth and put it on this horse race. On them last two heats, I mean. We gonter lose the first one, so you dont need to worry about that—"
"What?" I said. "Why?"
"Why not?" Ned said. "All we needs to win is two of them."
"But why lose the first one? Why dont we win that one, get that much ahead as soon as we can—" He drove on, maybe a half a minute.
"The trouble with this race, it's got too many different things mixed up in it."
"Too many what?" I said.
"Too many of everything," he said. "Too many folks. But mainly, too many heats. If it was just one heat, one run, off in the bushes somewhere and not nobody around but me and