“Mistuh Joe Lon?”
Joe Lon did not turn to look at him; rather he recognized his voice and kept staring at the fine sharp detail of the rearing deer’s hooves. “Everthing’s fine,” he said. “You and George done a good job gitten them shitters ready.”
“Say we done good,” said Lummy. “Howsomever, it don be whatall I come to axe you bout.”
Joe Lon looked at him for the first time.
“It be Lottie Mae.”
“What about her?”
“I want to thanks you for gittin Mistuh Buddy to letter loose.”
Joe Lon said: “It’s all right. I’as glad to do it.”
“Sompin bad wrong with Lottie Mae,” said Lummy.
“What ails her?” said Joe Lon, only half listening.
“She be hexed I thinks,” said Lummy.
“Hexed?” said Joe Lon, thinking: Just nigger talk. I spend half my goddam life listening to nigger talk and the other half of it totin whiskey to them. God knows what I did to deserve it. Believing as he did, though, in the total mystery, power, and majesty of God, Joe Lon assumed he had done something, and that he would never find out what it was.
“Mama say she been acting powerful strange since she come in las night,” said Lummy.
Joe Lon waved his hand as though brushing away flies. “Look,” he said. “You or George one got to stay at the store all day today. I want it kept open to midnight and I want it opened up right now. I ain’t gone have no time for the store today.”
“I know no Sherf ain’t gone hex no gul. Special no nigger gul. Sherf got sompin else to do cept go roun hexin on nigger guls.”
Joe Lon blinked. It was as though Lummy had not heard him. And he knew Lummy would go on like that until he took care of Lottie Mae’s hex.
“Okay. Right,” said Joe Lon. “I’m gone ask Buddy first chance I git. But you right. He ain’t hexed nobody, much less Lottie Mae. I’ll tell him that being the sheriff, he better see who done it. Is that okay?”
“He ain’t gone do that.”
“He will if I tell him to…”
Lummy gave Joe Lon his blue-gummed smile. “Don think twice. George and me is put our minds on it. Go on and don think twice.” He slipped back into the crowd and was gone.
Joe Lon walked around awhile, looking at the booths and speaking to a few people, assuring some of the visitors that, yes, the store would be open tonight, right on until midnight. He saw his old coach, Tump Walker, who was one of the great high-school coaches in the country, and who was Honorary Chairman of the rattlesnake roundup. He was scowling and dripping tobacco juice.
“I tell you, son, they crazier ever year, they are. It’s one tourist here that’s tainted. If he ain’t tainted, I never shit behind two heels. You know what he’s got?”
“Whatever it is wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Surprised me, by God. Sumbitch’s got five hundred snakes over there in cages in his trailer. Ever kind of snake you could think of’s what he’s got.”
“Why you reckon he’s got’m?”
“Beats the shit out of me,” Coach Tump said. “Just loves goddam snakes enough, I guess, to go around the countryside in a camper packed with’m.”
They stood watching each other, thinking about the tainted tourist. Finally, Coach Tump said: “Seen you daddy lately, son?”
“Yes sir. Coach, I seen’m lately. He’s fine. How you been?”
Coach Tump sent a long solid stream of tobacco juice into the dirt, shifted the cud in his mouth, hustled his balls and said: “I been real good. But what I thought to ask you was, how’s you daddy’s Tuff?”
“Trainin real hard, Coach Tump, trainin real hard.”
“By the good Lord, I alius said, they’d never beat one of you daddy’s dogs in the fourth quarter. Aye God, they come to fight.”
“Daddy’s lookin to retire Tuff. He knows he’s gone retire Tuff, and then ole Tuff’s gone be boss stud of all the pits.”
“We all know he will, son.”
Joe Lon, always diffident in the face of his old coach and teacher, said: “Listen, Coach, you go on by the store and tell Lummy to give you whatever it is you want. Tell’m to mark it down to me.”
Coach Tump said, “You alius was a good boy, son,” slapped Joe Lon on the back, sent another stream of juice on the air, and walked away in his rolling bowlegged stride.
Joe Lon was just about to go back to his truck when he saw Berenice all the way across the campground and instantly wanted to run, not sure whether toward her or away from her. He ended by casually strolling in an oblique angle toward the place where she stood with her back half turned to him. But before he was halfway there she tossed her long yellow hair and in the gesture caught sight of him. She went into that high-kneed run, her arms out and smiling, that reminded him of the way she used to run toward him after a game, when he was sweating and bruised and full of victory. He walked a little faster, very self-conscious of the fact that many people there would know who both of them were and how it had been with them before he got down with Elf and the babies and she went on to the University of Georgia, where she was still distinguishing herself with cheerleading and the football team and other achievements.
She threw her arms around his neck and squealed and everything was as it was, the familiar body pressing against him, except that now she seemed fuller, stronger, surer of herself. It was just something he sensed the moment he touched her, something richer and deeper and more complicated. Whatever it was did not make him feel good.
“Joe Lon Mackey! Are you a sight? My, you’re just as handsome as ever. My strong handsome beau, and the best football player that ever put on a helmet!”
She kissed his cheek, and he couldn’t help thinking that in the old days she would have said: The best football player that ever put on a jockstrap. But these by God weren’t the good old days and he hadn’t seen her in over a year, because her father, Dr. Sweet, had given her a trip to Paris the previous summer to study French. French! The very notion of somebody studying French threw Joe Lon into a rage.
“You looking good, Berenice. Real good. I got you letter and …”
He quit talking because he had gradually become aware of a boy about his own age who had strolled up and was now standing at Berenice’s shoulder. The boy leaned forward to look at Joe Lon. Joe Lon disliked him immediately, disliked the soft look of his face, the way his lower lip seemed to pout, and disliked the eyes that would have been beautiful had they belonged to a girl. But it wasn’t just the boy’s face or the slight, slope-chested way he stood. Joe Lon could have spat on him for the way he was dressed. He’d seen guys dressed like that before and he had never liked one of them: double-knit tangerine trousers, fuzzy bright-yellow sweater, white shoes, and a goddam matching white belt. His hair was neatly cut and looked as though he had slept with his head in a can of Crisco.
Berenice saw him watching the boy and introduced them. “Joe Lon Mackey, this is Shep Martin, from the University of Georgia.”
“Shep?” said Joe Lon. Shep was a fucking dog’s name, wasn’t it?
“Actually, it’s Shepherd,” said the boy, in a voice that sounded like a radio announcer. “Many men in my family are named Shepherd, my father, an uncle, my grandfather— like that.”
“No kidding?” said Joe Lon.
“Shep is on the debating team up at Georgia,” said Berenice Sweet.
“Oh,” said Joe Lon.
He had never been introduced to anyone on a debating team before and he wasn’t sure what to say because he wasn’t real sure what it was. Probably some fag foreign game like soccer. Anybody that’d play soccer would suck a dick, that’s what Joe Lon thought.