“Where do you come from?” the Law said.
And I told him again. “I got to get to Memphis. My brother’s there.”
“You mean you ain’t got any folks around here?” the Law said. “Nobody but that brother? What are you doing way off down here and your brother in Memphis?”
And I told him again, “I got to get to Memphis. I ain’t got no time to waste talking about it and I ain’t got time to walk it. I got to git there today.”
“Come on here,” the Law said.
We went down another street. And there was the bus, just like when Pete got into it yestiddy morning, except there wasn’t no lights on it now and it was empty. There was a regular bus dee-po like a railroad dee-po, with a ticket counter and a feller behind it, and the Law said, “Set down over there,” and I set down on the bench, and the Law said, “I want to use your telephone,” and he talked in the telephone a minute and put it down and said to the feller behind the ticket counter, “Keep your eye on him. I’ll be back as soon as Mrs. Habersham can arrange to get herself up and dressed.” He went out. I got up and went to the ticket counter.
“I want to go to Memphis,” I said.
“You bet,” the feller said. “You set down on the bench now. Mr. Foote will be back in a minute.”
“I don’t know no Mr. Foote,” I said. “I want to ride that bus to Memphis.”
“You got some money?” he said. “It’ll cost you seventy-two cents.”
I taken out the matchbox and unwropped the shikepoke egg. “I’ll swap you this for a ticket to Memphis,” I said.
“What’s that?” he said.
“It’s a shikepoke egg,” I said. “You never seen one before. It’s worth a dollar. I’ll take seventy-two cents fer it.”
“No,” he said, “the fellers that own that bus insist on a cash basis. If I started swapping tickets for bird eggs and livestock and such, they would fire me. You go and set down on the bench now, like Mr. Foote——”
I started for the door, but he caught me, he put one hand on the ticket counter and jumped over it and caught up with me and reached his hand out to ketch my shirt. I whupped out my pocketknife and snapped it open.
“You put a hand on me and I’ll cut it off,” I said.
I tried to dodge him and run at the door, but he could move quicker than any grown man I ever see, quick as Pete almost. He cut me off and stood with his back against the door and one foot raised a little, and there wasn’t no other way to get out. “Get back on that bench and stay there,” he said.
And there wasn’t no other way out. And he stood there with his back against the door. So I went back to the bench. And then it seemed like to me that dee-po was full of folks. There was that Law again, and there was two ladies in fur coats and their faces already painted. But they still looked like they had got up in a hurry and they still never liked it, a old one and a young one, looking down at me.
“He hasn’t got a overcoat!” the old one said. “How in the world did he ever get down here by himself?”
“I ask you,” the Law said. “I couldn’t get nothing out of him except his brother is in Memphis and he wants to get back up there.”
“That’s right.” I said. “I got to git to Memphis today.”
“Of course you must,” the old one said. “Are you sure you can find your brother when you get to Memphis?”
“I reckon I can,” I said. “I ain’t got but one and I have knowed him all my life. I reckon I will know him again when I see him.”
The old one looked at me. “Somehow he doesn’t look like he lives in Memphis,” she said.
“He probably don’t,” the Law said. “You can’t tell though. He might live anywhere, overhalls or not. This day and time they get scattered overnight from he——hope to breakfast; boys and girls, too, almost before they can walk good. He might have been in Missouri or Texas either yestiddy, for all we know. But he don’t seem to have any doubt his brother is in Memphis. All I know to do is send him up there and leave him look.”
“Yes,” the old one said.
The young one set down on the bench by me and opened a hand satchel and taken out a artermatic writing pen and some papers.
“Now, honey,” the old one said, “we’re going to see that you find your brother, but we must have a case history for our files first. We want to know your name and your brother’s name and where you were born and when your parents died.”
“I don’t need no case history neither,” I said. “All I want is to get to Memphis. I got to get there today.”
“You see?” the Law said. He said it almost like he enjoyed it. “That’s what I told you.”
“You’re lucky, at that, Mrs. Habersham,” the bus feller said. “I don’t think he’s got a gun on him, but he can open that knife da—— I mean, fast enough to suit any man.”
But the old one just stood there looking at me.
“Well,” she said. “Well. I really don’t know what to do.”
“I do,” the bus feller said. “I’m going to give him a ticket out of my own pocket, as a measure of protecting the company against riot and bloodshed. And when Mr. Foote tells the city board about it, it will be a civic matter and they will not only reimburse me, they will give me a medal too. Hey, Mr. Foote?”
But never nobody paid him no mind. The old one still stood looking down at me. She said “Well,” again. Then she taken a dollar from her purse and give it to the bus feller. “I suppose he will travel on a child’s ticket, won’t he?”
“Wellum,” the bus feller said, “I just don’t know what the regulations would be. Likely I will be fired for not crating him and marking the crate Poison. But I’ll risk it.”
Then they were gone. Then the Law come back with a sandwich and give it to me.
“You’re sure you can find that brother?” he said.
“I ain’t yet convinced why not,” I said. “If I don’t see Pete first, he’ll see me. He knows me too.”
Then the Law went out for good, too, and I et the sandwich. Then more folks come in and bought tickets, and then the bus feller said it was time to go, and I got into the bus just like Pete done, and we was gone.
I seen all the towns. I seen all of them. When the bus got to going good, I found out I was jest about wore out for sleep. But there was too much I hadn’t never saw before. We run out of Jefferson and run past fields and woods, then we would run into another town and out of that un and past fields and woods again, and then into another town with stores and gins and water tanks, and we run along by the railroad for a spell and I seen the signal arm move, and then I seen the train and then some more towns, and I was jest about plumb wore out for sleep, but I couldn’t resk it. Then Memphis begun. It seemed like, to me, it went on for miles. We would pass a patch of stores and I would think that was sholy it and the bus would even stop. But it wouldn’t be Memphis yet and we would go on again past water tanks and smokestacks on top of the mills, and if they was gins and sawmills, I never knowed there was that many and I never seen any that big, and where they got enough cotton and logs to run um I don’t know.
Then I see Memphis. I knowed I was right this time. It was standing up into the air. It looked like about a dozen whole towns bigger than Jefferson was set up on one edge in a field, standing up into the air higher than ara hill in all Yoknapatawpha County. Then we was in it, with the bus stopping ever’ few feet, it seemed like to me, and cars rushing past on both sides of it and the street crowded with folks from ever’where in town that day, until I didn’t see how there could ’a’ been nobody left in Mis’sippi a-tall to even sell me a bus ticket, let alone write out no case histories. Then the bus stopped. It was another bus dee-po, a heap bigger than the one in Jefferson. And I said, “All right. Where do folks join the Army?”
“What?” the bus feller said.
And I said it again, “Where do folks join the Army?”
“Oh,” he said. Then he told me how to get there. I was afraid at first I wouldn??
?t ketch on how to do in a town big as Memphis. But I caught on all right. I never had to ask but twice more. Then I was there, and I was durn glad to git out of all them rushing cars and shoving folks and all that racket for a spell, and I thought, It won’t be long now, and I thought how if there was any kind of a crowd there that had done already joined the Army, too, Pete would likely see me before I seen him. And so I walked into the room. And Pete wasn’t there.
He wasn’t even there. There was a soldier with a big arrerhead on his sleeve, writing, and two fellers standing in front of him, and there was some more folks there, I reckon. It seems to me I remember some more folks there.
I went to the table where the soldier was writing, and I said, “Where’s Pete?” and he looked up and I said, “My brother. Pete Grier. Where is he?”
“What?” the soldier said. “Who?”
And I told him again. “He joined the Army yestiddy. He’s going to Pearl Harbor. So am I. I want to ketch him. Where you all got him?” Now they were all looking at me, but I never paid them no mind. “Come on,” I said. “Where is he?”
The soldier had quit writing. He had both hands spraddled out on the table. “Oh,” he said. “You’re going, too, hah?”
“Yes,” I said. “They got to have wood and water. I can chop it and tote it. Come on. Where’s Pete?”
The soldier stood up. “Who let you in here?” he said. “Go on. Beat it.”
“Durn that,” I said. “You tell me where Pete——”
I be dog if he couldn’t move faster than the bus feller even. He never come over the table, he come around it, he was on me almost before I knowed it, so that I jest had time to jump back and whup out my pocket-knife and snap it open and hit one lick, and he hollered and jumped back and grabbed one hand with the other and stood there cussing and hollering.
One of the other fellers grabbed me from behind, and I hit at him with the knife, but I couldn’t reach him.
Then both of the fellers had me from behind, and then another soldier come out of a door at the back. He had on a belt with a britching strop over one shoulder.
“What the hell is this?” he said.
“That little son cut me with a knife!” the first soldier hollered. When he said that I tried to get at him again, but both them fellers was holding me, two against one, and the soldier with the backing strop said, “Here, here. Put your knife up, feller. None of us are armed. A man don’t knife-fight folks that are barehanded.” I could begin to hear him then. He sounded jest like Pete talked to me. “Let him go,” he said. They let me go. “Now what’s all the trouble about?” And I told him. “I see,” he said. “And you come up to see if he was all right before he left.”
“No,” I said. “I came to——”
But he had already turned to where the first soldier was wropping a handkerchief around his hand.
“Have you got him?” he said. The first soldier went back to the table and looked at some papers.
“Here he is,” he said. “He enlisted yestiddy. He’s in a detachment leaving this morning for Little Rock.” He had a watch stropped on his arm. He looked at it. “The train leaves in about fifty minutes. If I know country boys, they’re probably all down there at the station right now.”
“Get him up here,” the one with the backing strop said. “Phone the station. Tell the porter to get him a cab. And you come with me,” he said.
It was another office behind that un, with jest a table and some chairs. We set there while the soldier smoked, and it wasn’t long; I knowed Pete’s feet soon as I heard them. Then the first soldier opened the door and Pete come in. He never had no soldier clothes on. He looked jest like he did when he got on the bus yestiddy morning, except it seemed to me like it was at least a week, so much had happened, and I had done had to do so much traveling. He come in and there he was, looking at me like he hadn’t never left home, except that here we was in Memphis, on the way to Pearl Harbor.
“What in durnation are you doing here?” he said.
And I told him, “You got to have wood and water to cook with. I can chop it and tote it for you-all.”
“No,” Pete said. “You’re going back home.”
“No, Pete,” I said. “I got to go too. I got to. It hurts my heart, Pete.”
“No,” Pete said. He looked at the soldier. “I jest don’t know what could have happened to him, lootenant,” he said. “He never drawed a knife on anybody before in his life.” He looked at me. “What did you do it for?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I jest had to. I jest had to git here. I jest had to find you.”
“Well, don’t you never do it again, you hear?” Pete said. “You put that knife in your pocket and you keep it there. If I ever again hear of you drawing it on anybody, I’m coming back from wherever I am at and whup the fire out of you. You hear me?”
“I would pure cut a throat if it would bring you back to stay,” I said. “Pete,” I said. “Pete.”
“No,” Pete said. Now his voice wasn’t hard and quick no more, it was almost quiet, and I knowed now I wouldn’t never change him. “You must go home. You must look after maw, and I am depending on you to look after my ten acres. I want you to go back home. Today. Do you hear?”
“I hear,” I said.
“Can he get back home by himself?” the soldier said.
“He come up here by himself,” Pete said.
“I can get back, I reckon,” I said. “I don’t live in but one place. I don’t reckon it’s moved.”
Pete taken a dollar out of his pocket and give it to me. “That’ll buy your bus ticket right to our mailbox,” he said. “I want you to mind the lootenant. He’ll send you to the bus. And you go back home and you take care of maw and look after my ten acres and keep that durn knife in your pocket. You hear me?”
“Yes, Pete,” I said.
“All right,” Pete said. “Now I got to go.” He put his hand on my head again. But this time he never wrung my neck. He just laid his hand on my head a minute. And then I be dog if he didn’t lean down and kiss me, and I heard his feet and then the door, and I never looked up and that was all, me setting there, rubbing the place where Pete kissed me and the soldier throwed back in his chair, looking out the window and coughing. He reached into his pocket and handed something to me without looking around. It was a piece of chewing gum.
“Much obliged,” I said. “Well, I reckon I might as well start back. I got a right fer piece to go,”
“Wait,” the soldier said. Then he telephoned again and I said again I better start back, and he said again, “Wait. Remember what Pete told you.”
So we waited, and then another lady come in, old, too, in a fur coat, too, but she smelled all right, she never had no artermatic writing pen nor no case history neither. She come in and the soldier got up, and she looked around quick until she saw me, and come and put her hand on my shoulder light and quick and easy as maw herself might ’a’ done it.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go home to dinner.”
“Nome,” I said. “I got to ketch the bus to Jefferson.”
“I know. There’s plenty of time. We’ll go home and eat dinner first.”
She had a car. And now we was right down in the middle of all them other cars. We was almost under the busses, and all them crowds of people on the street close enough to where I could have talked to them if I had knowed who they was. After a while she stopped the car. “Here we are,” she said, and I looked at it, and if all that was her house, she sho had a big family. But all of it wasn’t. We crossed a hall with trees growing in it and went into a little room without nothing in it but a nigger dressed up in a uniform a heap shinier than them soldiers had, and the nigger shut the door, and then I hollered, “Look out!” and grabbed, but it was all right; that whole little room jest went right on up and stopped and the door opened and we was in another hall, and the lady unlocked a door and we went in, and there was another soldier, a old feller, with a britching strop, too,
and a silver-colored bird on each shoulder.
“Here we are,” the lady said. “This is Colonel McKellogg. Now, what would you like for dinner?”
“I reckon I’ll jest have some ham and eggs and coffee,” I said.
She had done started to pick up the telephone. She stopped “Coffee?” she said. “When did you start drinking coffee?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I reckon it was before I could remember.”
“You’re about eight, aren’t you?” she said.
“Nome,” I said. “I’m eight and ten months. Going on eleven months.”
She telephoned then. Then we set there and I told them how Pete had jest left that morning for Pearl Harbor and I had aimed to go with him, but I would have to go back home to take care of maw and look after Pete’s ten acres, and she said how they had a little boy about my size, too, in a school in the East. Then a nigger, another one, in a short kind of shirttail coat, rolled a kind of wheelbarrer in. It had my ham and eggs and a glass of milk and a piece of pie, too, and I thought I was hungry. But when I taken the first bite I found out I couldn’t swallow it, and I got up quick.
“I got to go,” I said.
“Wait,” she said.
“I got to go,” I said.
“Just a minute,” she said. “I’ve already telephoned for the car. It won’t be but a minute now. Can’t you drink the milk even? Or maybe some of your coffee?”