The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [144]
Very quietly she rapped out on the tabletop, Shave and a haircut, two bits. “That’s the code for the door at the main gate,” she said. “But to get into the powerhouse, I also had Bobo’s key-ring on my belt…his belt, which I was wearing. That key-ring is the only thing of his I’ve kept.”
Nail whistled, then whispered, “You still have Bobo’s keys?”
She nodded. “He doesn’t need them anymore. For instance,” she lowered her voice even more, “did you notice there’s a long ladder lying against one wall of the engine room?”
“Yeah, and it’s padlocked on both ends to the wall,” he said.
“The key to the padlocks,” she whispered, “is in my hand. Before I have to go, I’ll slip it into my mouth. Then, when I kiss you goodbye, I’ll put it into your mouth. Okay?”
“Viridis,” he said, “you are as good as they make ’em. I mean, you are really truly good as all gitout. But there’s just one other thing I’d have to git…”
She didn’t give him a chance to finish. “On the same shelf of the broom closet where the dynamo fuse is hidden,” she said, “is Irvin Bobo’s empty whiskey pint in a paper sack. Only it isn’t empty. I filled it with mustard oil.”
He shook his head. And then he shook it again and just left it shaking. “You didn’t leave a railroad ticket up there too, didje?” he asked, laughing.
“Shh,” she hushed him. “No, but I could tie Rosabone to a tree out by the swamp,” she said, meaning it.
“I’ll go on foot,” he said.
“Where?” she asked.
“Where? Why, home, of course.”
She shook her head. “That’s the first place they’ll look for you.”
“Where else would I go?” he asked. “Mexico?”
She whispered again. “I could hide you up in the attic of my house.” When he frowned and shook his head, she said, “I could really make a nice room up there, and you could have anything you want.”
“Anything except mountains and meadows and creeks and country,” he said. He shook his head again. “No, I thank ye kindly, but I’ll light out for the back of beyond. I don’t mean I aim to git my old bed back, in the homeplace. But there’s some hollers I know up on the mountain where aint nobody ever been, except Indians. Places where nobody could find me.”
“Could I find you?”
“Not if I didn’t draw ye a map.”
“Draw me a map.”
“When the time comes. I aint leavin tonight. First I’ve got to figger some way to git upstairs from the death hole in the middle of the night.”
“Whatch’all talkin about?” Bird said, and they looked up to see him leaning over them. Had he been listening? Had he heard anything they said? Would he snitch? Nail grew very anxious. But Bird was simply intent on announcing, “Y’all just got about five minutes left.”
“All right,” Viridis said. Bird backed away to his guard spot, and they went on talking. Viridis said, “I hope you don’t mind if I visit with Ernest after you leave.”
“Mind?” he said. “Course I don’t mind. You know he don’t have no folks to visit him from up home, where he comes from, up around Timbo. You gonna kiss him too?”
“I just want to talk about his drawings,” she said. “Has he started using his pastels yet?”
“Those colored chalks? Yeah, he’s covered a new pad with ’em. Did you bring back his old pad?”
She shook her head. “Does he need it? I had most of those framed to show to people to help save him from the chair.”
Nail said, “There’s one of them I hope you didn’t have framed. Ernest forgot it was in the pad, and he sure was mortified at the thought you seen it.”
It was her turn to blush. He was glad to see that she could. She’d caused him so many blushes. “No,” she said. “I’m not showing that to anyone. Who is the girl?”
“What girl?”
“That he drew you in bed with.”
“What makes you think it was me?”
“Nail. It looks just like you.”
“He’s shore a good artist, aint he?”
“Who’s the girl?”
“Aw, she’s jist some story I tole him. There wasn’t never nobody like that. He jist made her up. I mean, I jist made her up, and he jist drew her.”
“You’ve never been to bed with a girl?”
“Sorry, y’all’s time is up,” Bird said, and handed her a basket. “Lady, you can give ’im this now.”
Viridis had brought