“I’m throwing in two tin cups,” the big woman said.
“You ought to throw in a whole set of dishes and a maid for that price,” Jane said. “Heck, you ought to throw in Calvin.”
“We don’t do that anymore,” Calvin called from the back.
“Oh, no offense meant,” Jane said.
“That’s all right, girl,” he said, coming to the counter wiping his hands on a towel. “I knew what you meant. Them sandwiches and cups is all for about eight dollars, and you know it, Magnolia.”
The big woman, Magnolia, looked at him like he’d just told someone she was actually a Presbyterian minister on holiday.
“You don’t run my business,” Magnolia said to Calvin.
“Yeah, but I’ve made enough sandwiches to know what they go for,” he said, “and they don’t go for that much for that many.”
He tossed the towel over his shoulder and went back into the kitchen.
“All right, then,” Magnolia said. “Here’s the deal, take it or leave it. Twelve fifty.”
“That the sandwiches and five tin cups?” Jane asked.
“That’s the sandwiches, four tin cups, and my best wishes,” Magnolia said.
“That sounds almost fair,” Jane said, giving Magnolia the hundred-dollar bill.
26
With our sandwiches and our change from the hundred and our four tin cups, we started back toward the hobo camp. I was carrying the bag of sandwiches, Jane was carrying the bag with Coca-Colas in it. Jane hadn’t made the drinks part of the deal, so we paid for those separate, but the price on those had been fair. Everyone knew exactly what a Coca-Cola cost.
Tony had the four cups tied together with a string, and he was carrying those.
We hadn’t gone too far when I said, “Those men from the joint. They’re following us.”
It was the one with the hat and the one that was drinking the beer. They were walking kind of fast, and were right behind us. We crossed the road and headed for where the woods grew up, and they crossed the road with us.
I heard a snick, and when I looked back, the one with the hat had a knife open. The moonlight caught on it, and in that moment, that four-inch blade looked as big to me as a machete.
“We’re going to need the rest of that money,” said the man with the knife.
The other man said, “Yeah, and we’ll take them sandwiches too.”
“Really,” Jane said, turning, looking at them. “You’re so low you’d rob three kids of their money, and even take their sandwiches?”
“You forgot to mention the cups and the Coca-Colas,” said the man with the hat.
I stepped in front of Jane. “You go on back where you come from. You might have a knife, but you still got a fight coming.”
“I’ll cut you from gut to gill,” said the man with the knife.
“Oh, you boys don’t want to do that,” said a voice.
We turned, and there was Floyd coming up from the woods, walking fast.
“This ain’t your trouble,” said the man with the hat.
“Sure it is,” said Floyd. “Couple of those sandwiches are mine.”
“Oh, well, we didn’t know that,” said the other man.
“So, if I hadn’t come up, you was going to take them from the kids, but now a grown man comes up, you got another line of talk?”
“I don’t know,” said the man with the hat and the knife. “Maybe I’m talking too soon. I got the knife.”
“Fella,” said Floyd, “you’d have been better off to have brought yourself a peppermint stick. They’re a whole sight easier to eat.”
That took the hat-wearing man by surprise.
While he was thinking it over, Floyd said, “You know, as much as I’d like to knock your heads together, I’m hungry and don’t want to take the time.” He pushed back his coat and reached around to the small of his back and pulled out a little revolver. “Just put the knife away and go on back to being drunk and stupid. My figuring is that’s what you do best.”
“Whoa,” said the man with the hat. “We ain’t looking for that kind of trouble.”
“What kind you looking for?” Floyd said. “I can come up with all kinds of trouble. What kind do you need?”
“No kind.”
“Yeah,” Floyd said, holding the gun down to his side. “You don’t want trouble, then I think you ought not to go fishing for it. You might catch something.”
The man in the hat folded up the knife and put it in his pocket. “We’ll go on back,” he said.
“That’s a sensible idea,” Floyd said. “You kids think that’s sensible?”
“I know I do,” Jane said.
Tony and I agreed.
The two men didn’t say anything else. They just turned and walked back toward the honky-tonk.
“How come you come along?” Jane said, when the men were up the road a piece.
“I didn’t want to go up and get the food myself,” Floyd said, “which is why I sent you, but I got to thinking. You kids with all that money, and this not exactly being the general store. Figured I might ought to come up and make sure things was all right, since you going was my fault.”
“Was it because you actually thought we might run off with your money?” Jane asked.
“Nope,” Floyd said. “Easy come, easy go.”
“Maybe you was worried just a little bit?” Jane said.
“All right,” Floyd said. “Just a little bit.”
27
Back in camp, we ate the sandwiches and the stew. We gave our spare cup to Boxcar Bertha, and she gave us all some pieces of peppermint that looked as if they might have been sucked on before and had lint on them.
We ate them anyway.
We sang songs and talked, and Jimbo told ghost stories about headless men, and haints that came out of brick walls when you passed and grabbed you and took you with them inside the wall and mixed up your insides and turned your feet around so that when you was put back, you had to walk backwards.
I don’t know I believe in ghosts, but I sure like stories about them. The ones Jimbo told, or maybe it was the way he told them, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like hog bristles. That night I dreamed me and Jane and Tony were walking along in the dark next to a long and very tall brick wall. We walked and then we heard something. We turned to look, and it was Bad Tiger and Timmy, stepping right out of the bricks. They grabbed us and pulled us into the wall. I woke up panting, and it took me a good while to get back to sleep. I didn’t dream about the wall or Bad Tiger and Timmy anymore, but I sure remembered the dream when I woke up.
Next morning, except for us and Floyd, everyone else stayed in camp. Bertha had a later train to catch, and I don’t know what the others had plans to do, or if they had plans at all. They didn’t strike me as folks with someplace to be at any certain time.
We packed out of there, and as we walked toward the trainyard, Jane stepped along beside Floyd. She said, “Thanks for helping us last night. That was something.”
“It wasn’t anything. They brought a knife to a gunfight.”
“Would you have used that gun?”
“I’d rather not.”
“But would you?”
“If I had to.”
“Have you used it before?” she asked.
“You might be a mite too curious. What are you, a cat?”
“I just like to know things,” she said. “I’m going to be a reporter.”
“Girls do that?”
“I don’t know about girls,” Jane said, “but women do. And if they don’t, I’m going to do it anyway.”
“I bet you will,” Floyd said.
Pretty soon we could see some cars parked along the street. Across the way, we could see train tracks and the railyard. On some of the tracks were a few boxcars, none of them hooked to engines.
All of a sudden, Floyd pulled us up behind one of the cars.