Toussaint Boudreaux
There were two trucks backed up to the loading ramp on the side of the warehouse. The side street was dark except for the glow of light that shone through the open freight doors of the building. A sign above the door said Bonham Shipping Company. A white man and a Negro were bringing out crates and loading them in the trucks. Bonham, the light tan Negro who looked like a Baptist deacon, stood on the ramp. Toussaint waited beside his truck and watched the loading. His arm was in a black sling. The driver of the other truck, a white man, sat in his cab behind the steering wheel. He wore yellow leather gloves and an army fatigue cap and smoked a cigarette without taking it out of his mouth. There were ashes on the front of his shirt.
“You been working here long?” Toussaint said.
“A while,” he answered, without looking at him, his gloved hands resting on the steering wheel.
“You got any notion where we’re going?”
“Bonham will tell you,” he said, still looking straight ahead.
“I asked you.”
“I don’t know.”
Toussaint turned away and looked up at Bonham on the ramp. He was dressed in a brown suit, with a good shoeshine, and his glass ring and rimless glasses glinted in the light from within the building. The last of the crates was loaded. One of the men closed the truck doors and locked each one with a heavy padlock. Bonham came down the ramp.
“Take highway ninety straight to Mobile,” he said. “There’s a street map of the city in your glove compartment. The place where you’re supposed to go is marked in red pencil.”
“Who’s going to pay me the other hundred dollars?” Toussaint said.
“My partner in Mobile will give it to you as soon as you get to his warehouse.”
“I’ll follow you,” Toussaint said to the other driver.
“Go on ahead,” Bonham said. “I have to talk with him about something.”
“He knows the road better than me.”
“It’s a good road all the way. You won’t have no trouble,” the other driver said.
“What about the weigh stations?”
“You’re under the load limit. The police won’t bother you,” Bonham said.
“I ain’t got any shipping papers.”
“They don’t ask for them unless you’re over the limit,” Bonham said.
“Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you,” the other driver said.
Toussaint climbed up in the cab and took the black sling off his arm so he could shift gears. He started the engine and put the truck in low and drove down the side street away from the warehouse. He turned at the intersection and headed towards the highway. He watched for the other truck in the rear-view mirror. Toussaint didn’t like the way Bonham and the other driver had sent him ahead. There was something wrong about it. Why would they send me on alone with a load of stuff that must be worth plenty, he thought. I could hide the load and drive the truck into the river and they’d never see me again.
Bonham was careful enough at first. He wouldn’t tell me where I was going until the last minute, but now he sends me on by myself. And why did he need two drivers? He could put all them crates in one truck. He didn’t need me. He hires a one-arm man out of a poolroom for no reason. It don’t fit.
Toussaint looked in the rear-view mirror again. There were two automobiles behind him. He slowed and let them pass. He turned into the main road that led to the highway. The river levee was on his left, and ahead he could see the looming black structure of the Huey Long Bridge. He accelerated to keep up with the traffic. Why don’t he come on, he thought. He’s had plenty of time. I can’t drive no slower without tying up traffic.
He entered the circle before the bridge and turned out on the highway. He drove on a mile to where the cars had thinned out, and pulled off on the gravel shoulder of the road. He opened the glove compartment, and under a street map of Mobile he found the red reflectors. He walked back down the highway and set them on the shoulder at intervals to warn the oncoming automobiles. He went back and stood by the running board and waited for the other truck.
A half hour later it came. Toussaint waved the driver down. The truck slowed and pulled off on the shoulder in front of the Negro. The driver opened the door and swung out of the cab as Toussaint walked up.
“Why did you pull me over?” he said. “You ain’t supposed to stop till you hit Mobile. You should be almost out of the state by now.”
“I got my markers out. Nobody is going to bother us.”
“You ain’t supposed to stop.”
“What have you and Bonham got on?”
“Mind your business,” the driver said.
“Why did you wait thirty minutes to follow me?”
“You ain’t paid to know anything.”
“You could have carried the whole load. He don’t need another driver.”
“He splits a shipment so he don’t take a chance on losing it all. The police ain’t going to get us both.”
“He ain’t the type man to trust a hot load with somebody he don’t know.”
“Ask him about it.”
“You’re the man I’m talking to.”
“Quit if you don’t like it.”
“I got another hundred dollars coming.”
“Earn it, then. I ain’t going to stand out here no longer.”
“What’s Bonham got planned?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I ain’t got to take that from you.”
“You work for a nigger,” Toussaint said.
The man tried to hit him, but Toussaint caught his arm in midair with his good hand and held it helpless before him.
“I’ll break your arm like a stick, white man.”
“God damn you.”
Toussaint pushed him away.
“Get in your truck,” he said. “I’m following you this time. I’m going to be on your bumper all the way to Mobile.”
The man climbed up in the cab and slammed the door. Toussaint picked up the reflectors from the roadside and got in his truck. He dropped the reflectors on the seat and followed the other truck off the shoulder onto the highway. He kept close behind so no cars could get between them.
As the road straightened out, the other truck began to widen the distance. Toussaint pressed on the accelerator to keep up. The speedometer neared fifty and the truck in front continued to gain. Toussaint pressed the gas pedal to the floor, but his speed didn’t increase. It’s got a governor on it, he thought. The gas feed is fixed so it can’t do more than fifty. He knows it too. He might have even put it on. They want to make sure I don’t stay with the other truck. He must be making seventy. He’s got a clear stretch ahead of him. I can’t catch him unless he runs into traffic.
Toussaint watched the taillights grow dimmer. The lead truck went over a rise and disappeared. The glow of the headlights reflected against the night on the other side and then disappeared too. Toussaint approached the rise and shot the truck into second gear to pull the grade. The highway before him was empty when he reached the top. He looked off to the side of the highway. There was a dirt farm road that led between two fields into a wood. He must have turned out his lights and took the side road, Toussaint thought. He couldn’t have got that far ahead of me.
Toussaint pulled into the road and hit his brights, illuminating the grove of trees. A yellow haze of dust still lingered in the air over the road. There were two lines of heavy tire marks crushed into the dry ruts. He stopped the truck and turned off the engine and cut the lights. He could faintly hear the engine of the other truck toiling along the back road through the woods. In a few minutes the truck would take another road and cross the border into Mississippi.