Elmore Leonard - Tishomingo Blues

Dennis stood at the edge of the scrub looking across the pasture, way over to the dark mass of trees, seeing flickering pinpoints of light in there. Confederate campfires. And the music coming from the barn up on the slope might be the military ball, though the squeaky fiddles sounded more like bluegrass.

He had told the First Iowa soldier he had picket duty and the man said, "Good." Imagine you're at Brice's and you can feel the Johnny Rebs close by, you can smell 'em. You see something move out there, put your rifle on it. Get your mind to believe what you're doing, else why're you here. He didn't tell the soldier he didn't want to be here. The man would ask, then why was he.

Standing here in the scrub swinging his free hand at insects buzzing around him. He took the joint from his pocket and lit it, sucked on it hard to get a good draw and blew smoke at the bugs, hoping to send them off stoned. He wondered if Civil War soldiers smoked weed, the way they did in Vietnam. He wondered if they said "this fucking war" like soldiers in war movies, more saying it in Vietnam war movies than World War Two flicks. He would have to ask Robert. Robert probably wouldn't know but would have an answer. Robert was the most in-control person he had ever met in his life. Like the way, in front of Arlen staring at him, he laid the gun on the kitchen table without looking at it. Just something that happened to be in his briefcase. The weed had his mind flashing on Robert highlights. Robert with Walter Kirkbride, wanting to be one of his colored fellas. Robert making whatever he did look easy. Robert taking his time, days, to build toward the crossroads, what it meant, before making his offer. Robert saying, "No way could you ever be indicted on a drug charge, you'd be hidden from view. Your Dive-ORama accountant ever got picked up? You'd be shocked." Robert saying, "Man, if a daredevil couldn't handle that…"

The daredevil standing in the dark holding a ten-pound replica of a Civil War rifle. Not anywhere near an edge.

He walked off with the rifle toward faint lights showing in the civilian camp.

A LANTERN HUNG FROM THE TENTwhere the pie lady, smoking a cigarette, sat in a low-slung canvas chair at the edge of the awning. She watched him walk up to her, not smiling, not saying a word.

She was wearing lipstick.

She was wearing, he believed, eyeliner. Her hair was combed from a part and fell to her shoulders in a white shirt with a few buttons undone and a long skirt; but it didn't look period either.

He held out the joint, half of it left, and watched her look at it and then look up at his eyes before she took it, pinched it between her fingers and leaned forward in the scoop of canvas to the flame on the lighter he offered. She inhaled and held it, her body straight, before she blew out a cloud and sank back in the chair and smiled.

"You made it."

"I'm on picket duty."

"You mean right now?"

"At this moment, in the scrub."

She said from down in her chair, "You left your post for a piece of Naughty Child?"

There was an answer to that and he tried hard to think of what it was while she sat waiting to hear it. Finally all he did was smile.

She didn't, she kept looking at his eyes looking at hers.

"How'd it turn out?"

"The mister came up from his camp to pick up the pie and take it back. I told him it burned and I threw it away. He wanted to know where, so he could check on me, not trusting I even made the pie. I told him go on over to the Porta-Johns, it was in the second one to the left."

"Did he check?"

"He thought about it."

"Did you make the pie?"

"I rolled out the dough, got that far."

Dennis propped his rifle against the table. He pulled a short straight camp chair over next to hers, sat down and took off his kepi, settling in with things to say to her.

"You didn't want him to have any Naughty Child."

"I suppose."

"I run into girls all the time," Dennis said, "feeling trapped in a situation they don't know how to get out of. They're young, they're divorced, they have kids and the former husbands are all behind in their child support. Some of 'em look at me, the girls, I can see 'em wondering if it might work this time."

She said, "What are you wondering, how to get out?"

"Not always." He could feel the weed and was comfortable and wanted to talk. "I've met girls-I always think of them as girls instead of young women because it's my favorite word. Girl." He smiled.

"What's your least favorite?"

"Snot. What's yours?"

"Bitch. I get called it a lot."

They could go off on that, but he wanted to make his point before he forgot what it was. "I started to say, I've met girls I feel I could marry and we'd be happy and get along."

"How do you know?"

"We can talk and like the same things. Being able to talk is important."

She said, "Tell me about it," and said, "What do you do, you meet all these girls?"

"For a living? Take a guess."

She said, "You're not a salesman," and kept staring at him. "You're not from around here, or anywhere close by. You're not in law enforcement."

"Why do you say that?"

"I mean like a sheriff's deputy. You seem intelligent."

"You don't think much of cops?"

She said, "Having known a few."

"Why'd you marry this hardcore Confederate?"

She said, "I was going through one of my stupid periods. I started writing to a convict-he was related to a friend of mine and she got me into it. Girls do that, you know, write to convicts. They come to believe theirs is really a nice guy-look at the letters he writes. The idea is to make him see his good side and be comfortable with it." She raised the joint to take a hit but then paused. "Well, mine doesn't have a good side, and by the time I found out it was too late, we were married."

"Leave," Dennis said. "Walk out."

"I'm working up my nerve to file. What I'd love to do is move to Florida. Orlando. I hear it's the place to be, a lot going on."

She was a country girl-Loretta-trying hard not to be, but stuck with who she was. Her goal, to live where there were theme parks.

She said, "Anyway, I'm guessing what you do, meet all these girls that fall in love with you," staring at him again, slipping back into her soft mood; but then seemed to straighten in the camp chair as she said, "You're a croupier, at one of the casinos. No, you're a professional gambler, a card counter."

Dennis shook his head. It sounded good though. He caught a glimpse of himself at a poker table, very cool.

"You're not a business executive."

"Why not?"

"Your hair."

"I could be in the music business."

"Yeah, you could. Are you?"

"No."

"Then why'd you mention it?"

"I'm trying to help. You like blues?"

"Yeah, I guess. You're some kind of musician?" Dennis shook his head. "How about Drug Enforcement, something like that, a federal agent?"

Looking at him she half-closed her eyes in the lantern glow. "Yeah, you could be working undercover. But you wouldn't give me a joint, would you?"

"What if I was a dealer?"

She studied him again, their faces only a couple of feet apart. "I suppose. But you look too, like, clean and healthy." She narrowed her eyes now, suspicious. "You ever been to Parchman?"

He shook his head. "That where your husband was?"

"Two years."

It came to Dennis all at once. He said, "Your husband was a sheriff's deputy before that and now he works for Mr. Kirkbride…"

She said, "Oh, my Lord."

"And runs the drug business."

She said, "You're the diver."

Dennis waited.

She said, "Why don't you tell on the son of a bitch and have him put away?"

Everybody knew he was up on the ladder when Floyd was shot. She said it herself and Dennis asked if Arlen had told her. She heard it in a casino bar and when she asked her husband about it, yes, he told her. Loretta said he got drunk and told her all kinds of stupid things he did.