Drifting South. Charles Davis
all over, the mark would get off the ground, find his hat and go about his way light in the pockets and jewelry but quick in step. He wouldn’t know he’d been lightened of his load yet.
Uncle Ray said the most important thing was, “If you have to hit a man, hit him hard. Hard enough so that his first thought is that he’d better just get to somewhere else from wherever he’s at to get his brains together before he decides to check his belongings.”
I knew that already from a couple dozen fistfights and practiced that myself whenever I had to hit somebody, but he said there was a code among professional thieves like him that you never hurt anyone too bad unless it was by accident, and you always left a little. It wasn’t just being charitable, he said, it was the proper way to do business.
A place like Shady Hollow needed people to mend up fairly easy with a dollar or two still left in their pockets, because we’d all want them to come back one day, and we needed them to come back without too many hard feelings. They’d just be more protective of their valuables next time, so all in all we were just teaching them an important lesson so they wouldn’t get robbed again so easy by nobody else, he said.
He kept going on but at some point my hands were tired from all the slashing and stitching and I couldn’t stand my empty stomach any longer, so I thanked him for the razor and whetstone, stuck both in my back pocket and the robbing lesson ended.
I took Ma’s money and headed down to Merle’s Diner, where I placed her order and counted what change was left. It wasn’t much, so I told Miss Paulene to forget the collards and instead bring me a bowl of catfish chowder.
I could have turned up the bottle of ketchup in front of me waiting on that chowder. I was wishing they’d go ahead and bring me some soda crackers to munch on when Herbert Mullins walked in, all out of breath.
Me and Herbert were good pards and had gotten in and out of all kinds of trouble for as long as I could remember. He was two years older than me, but I’d always been bigger than him. I’d always been pretty sure that I was by a far sight the smarter one between us, but Herbert would fight anybody or anything. Ma always said I was tough as a pine knot, but Herbert was a lot tougher. He loved to fistfight like some people love to gamble or fish or be lazy. Loved it. Herbert wasn’t a bully, though.
He always stood up for the runts in Shady and those who just got picked on for one peculiar reason or another, and that made him popular with those who got picked on all the time when he wasn’t around. I never saw Herbert ever pick a fight with somebody smaller than him, and that’s how we got to be friends because he loved to pick fights with boys bigger than him.
Herbert picked a fight with me for no good reason at all on the first day he showed up in Shady Hollow, except he wanted to rile me up to see if he could whup me. He knocked a pear out of my hand that I was eating and then grinned. We soon fought for two or twenty minutes until we were both so covered in mud and dust and plumb worn out, that neither one of us could swing anymore.
After that, we both stood and he tried to shake my hand wearing a big bloody smile, and he told me what his name was. I told him I’d shake his hand if he got my pear off the ground, cleaned it off and gave it back to me. And he did.
Anyway, Herbert was standing there all wild-eyed like he’d get over the smallest things, and he grabbed me by the arm out of breath. “Been looking all over for you. Come here.”
He tried to pull me off my stool, but I jerked my arm away and told him I wasn’t going anywhere until I ate my dinner. He grabbed me again but harder the second time. I saw how agitated he was and I knew if I was gonna eat in peace, I had to get up from that stool.
“You see that blue Ford parked up the street?”
I stood and nodded. You noticed cars in Shady, especially new, shiny ones. It had North Carolina plates and I wondered if it was that new pool shooter’s car. But I didn’t recollect seeing it the night before.
“A girl drove it in fifteen minutes ago. She’s the best-looking thing I’ve ever seen and I mean she’s the best-looking thing I’ve ever seen. She’s been asking around…for you.”
“For me?”
Herbert grinned.
I pulled my arm away again.
“I ain’t lying, Ben.”
“How old is she?”
“About our age, I’d reckon.”
“Where’s she now?” I asked.
“She’s checking in at the Alton House. Had three leather bags. I carried them in for her and she tipped me three dollars before ol’ Mr. Alton saw me and started running me off.”
“Three dollars? Shit.”
Herbert showed me the money and I couldn’t figure what a good-looking rich girl with three dollars to blow was doing looking for me. It had to be for a bad reason because I couldn’t come up with a good one.
“What’s she look like?”
“Just wait till you see her.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“You know that blond dancer that came through here a while back performing at Barton’s Opry Show? Me and you kept sneaking in and—”
“Yeah.”
“She looks like her, but even prettier. She sorta don’t belong here though like that dancer did, know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“When she first pulled up and asked me where the best place to stay is, I told her, and then I asked if she needed help with the bags because she looked so rich and everything. She looked scared, too.”
“What’d you do?”
“No, I was kind to her. She was just scared looking, I don’t know.”
“You sure she asked for me?”
“I’m sure. She asked me if I knew Benjamin Purdue.”
“You swear it.”
“I swear, Ben.”
“What’d you say?”
“I told her I knew you and that me and you were pals.”
“What’d she say then?”
“She wanted to know where you lived but I didn’t tell her. I didn’t know if you’d want me saying you lived overtop a saloon to a girl like her, so I just said that I’d find you and tell you to meet her at the Alton House.”
“She with anybody else?”
“I didn’t see nobody.”
“Get her name?”
“She told me, but I ain’t sure if it’s right, because she told me when she was digging in her purse handing me those bills, and I saw a lot of other bills in there, but I think she said her name is Anna or Amanda, Annie, something like that.”
I felt nervous all of a sudden when he said Amanda.
I thought as hard as I could. I’d known a few gals named Ann but only one Amanda. None of the Anns would come close to the description of this girl Herbert had just given me. Not even Anna Jean Davis. But Amanda Lynn would.
But it couldn’t be Amanda Lynn. Couldn’t be. She lived in Durham County, North Carolina, on a plantation a thousand times the size of Shady Hollow, with tended gardens and pastures, and tobacco and soybeans and field corn growing as far as you could see. It was then that I recalled the new Ford up the street had North Carolina plates.
“Amanda Lynn Jennings?” I asked.
“That’s it,” Herbert said. “Amanda Jennings.”
I drew back and couldn’t say another word as Miss Paulene brought me my fish chowder. She always gave