Walker Percy - Love in the Ruins - The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World

Mindful of rumors, however preposterous, of a conspiracy to kidnap the entire Kaydette corps and spirit them off to the fastness of Honey Island Swamp, Colonel Ringo was careful in plotting his route to the Mississippi state line, where the little convoy was to be turned over to the Mississippi Highway Police. Ruling out the interstate as the obvious site of ambush, he selected old state highway 22. All went well until they reached the wooden bridge crossing a finger of Honey Island Swamp formed by Bootlegger Bayou. The Colonel, riding point, felt a premonition (“I learned to smell an ambush in Ecuador,” he told me). Approaching the bridge, however, he saw nothing amiss. It was not until he was halfway across and coming abreast of the draw that he saw what was wrong, saw two things simultaneously and it was hard to say which was worse: one, the cubicle of the drawbridge was occupied by a bridge-tender in an orange robe — Bantu! — two, the draw was beginning to lift. In the space of two seconds he did three things, hit the accelerator, hit the siren to warn the buses, and began to fire his turret gun (“You got to shoot by reflex, son, and I can fire that turret gun like shooting from the hip”).

He made the draw, felt the slight jolt as he dropped an inch or so, shot up the cubicle with the turret gun and, he felt sure, got the Bantu. The girls made it too, though they were badly shaken up by the two-foot drop.

“I got ever last one of those girls to Mississippi, son,” says the Colonel, taking another drink. I watch my flask worriedly. “You talk about some scared girls — did you ever see a school bus make eighty miles an hour on a winding road? But we made it.”

“But, Colonel, what happened to the others?”

The Colonel clucks and tilts his head. “That’s the only bad part.”

Once across the bridge, he didn’t have much time to look back. But he saw enough. The Bantu bridge-tender was out of commission, dead or winged, but the draw went on lifting. Rudy, on his Farhad Grotto Harley-Davidson, saw he couldn’t make the draw and tried to stop short, braking and turning. The Colonel’s last sight of him (“a sight engraved on my memory till my dying day”) was of the orange and green bike flying through the air, Rudy still astride, and plummeting into the alligator-infested waters of Bootlegger Bayou.

The moms? The second bus stopped short of the draw, Al Pulaski in his van behind them.

“You mean the Bantus have captured the mothers?” I ask.

The Colonel looks grave. “All we can do is hope.” On the plus side, the Colonel went on to say, were two factors. Al was there with his van. And the mothers themselves, besides carrying in their heavy purses the usual pistols, Mace guns, and alarms, were mostly graduates of karate and holders of the Green Belt.

“Many a Bantu will bite the dust before they take those gals,” says the Colonel darkly.

“Well, I mean, were there any Bantus attacking? Did you see any? Maybe the bus had time to turn around and get back.”

“I didn’t see any, but we must assume the worst.”

We sit drinking in companionable silence, reflecting upon the extraordinary events of the day.

Presently the Colonel leans close and gives me a poke in the ribs. “I’ll tell you the damn truth, son.”

“What’s that, Colonel?”

“I wouldn’t take on those ladies in a month of Sundays. Whoo-ee,” says the Colonel and knocks back another inch of my Early Times. He laughs.

“Ha ha, neither would I, Colonel,” I say, laughing. “I feel sure they will be all right.”

Suddenly the Colonel catches sight of something through the crack. He leaps up, staggering to the doorway.

“Stop thief!” he cries hoarsely.

“What’s wrong, Colonel?”

“They’re back, the little boogers!” he cries scarlet-faced, lunging about and picking up helmet and revolver and riding crop. “I’ll fix the burrheads!”

“Wait, Colonel! The sniper!”

But he’s already past me. Looking out the window, I catch sight of a dozen or so picaninnies and a few bigger boys running from the stables with armfuls of molasses cakes. One big boy totes a sack of feed. It’s too late to stop the Colonel. He’s after them, lumbering up a bunker. With his steel helmet and revolver, he looks like a big-assed General Patton. The culprits, catching sight of the furious red-faced Colonel thundering down on them, drop their ill-gotten goods and flee for the woods — all but one, the boy with the feed sack. The Colonel collars him, gives him a few licks with the crop and, dragging him to the shack, hurls him past me into the corner. “You watch this one. I’m going after the others.”

“Wait, Colonel—!” I grab him. “You’ve forgotten the sniper.”

“No, by God! I have my orders and I’m carrying them out.”

“Orders? What orders?”

“To guard the molasses cakes and soybean meal.”

“Yes, but, Colonel—”

He wrenches loose. “Here I come, you commonist Bantu burrheads!” cries the Colonel, charging the bunker and firing his revolver. “Alabama has your ass.” Up he goes and—“Oof!”—as quickly comes reeling back. He stumbles and sits down hard on the doorsill. At the same moment there comes a slamming concussion, a rifle shot, very loud, from the direction of the clubhouse. The youth shrinks into his corner.

Gazing down at the Colonel, I try to figure out what hit him. He looks all in one piece.

“What happened, Colonel?” I ask, pulling him out of the line of fire.

“They got me in the privates,” groans the Colonel. “What am I going to do?”

“Let me see.”

“What am I going to tell Pearline?” he asks, swaying to and fro.

“Who is Pearline?” I ask in a standard medical tone to distract him while I examine him, and from curiosity because his wife is named Georgene.

“Oh, Lordy.”

At last I succeed in stretching him out on the floor. There is a bloodstain on his cream-colored trousers. I borrow the youth’s pocketknife and cut out a codpiece.

The Colonel is a lucky man. The bullet pierced a fold of scrotum, passed between his legs and went its way. I take out a clean handkerchief.

“You’re O.K., Colonel. A scratch. Son, hand me a cold Seven-Up.”

“Yes suh, Doc.”

“Colonel, hold this bottle here and close your legs on it tight as you can. You’ll be right as rain.”

There is time now to examine the black youth, who has been very helpful, uttering sympathetic noises and an exclamation of amazement at the nature of the Colonel’s wound: “Unon unh !”

“Aren’t you Elzee Acree?”

“Yes suh!”

I recognize him now, a slender brindle-brown youth with a cast in his eye, the son of Ellilou Acree, a midwife and a worthy woman.

We make the Colonel as comfortable as possible, propping his head on his helmet He lies stretched out the length of the tiny hut, the king-size Seven-Up in place between his legs.

“Elzee, what in hell are you doing here?”

“Nothing, Doc!”

“Nothing! What do you mean, nothing?”

“I heard they needed help unloading the barn.”

“So you were unloading a few sacks to help them out?”

“That’s right Doc. I was stacking them under that tree so the truck could pick them up.”

“Never mind. Listen, Elzee. I want you to do something.” I give him five dollars. “You stay here and tend to the Colonel until the patrol picks him up.”

“I’ll be right here! Don’t you worry, Doc. But what I’m gon’ tell the patrol?”

“The patrol won’t bother you. The Colonel here will tell them you helped him, won’t you, Colonel?”

“Sho. I been knowing Elzee, he’s a good boy. Bring me a Seven-Up, Elzee.”

“Yes suh!”