“He’ll come around,” Evans said.
The guard faced Avery.
“Let’s hear it again,” he said.
“I understood the rules.”
“I want to hear you say yes sir.”
“I understood what the man said.”
“That’s not enough. Let’s hear it.”
Avery stood still with the sun in his eyes. Evans looked at him from behind his dark sunglasses.
“You’ll come around,” he said. “This is only your first day. We’ll have lots of days together.”
The whistle blew and the main gate opened to let the trucks in. The trusties went to the tool shed to check out the picks and shovels. The men climbed into the trucks and the back doors were locked from the outside. The trusties threw the tools into the bed of a pickup. Gang five and gang three rode out to work together. The men sat in the darkness on two wood benches that were placed along the walls. The guards rode up front in the cab with the driver.
Toussaint took a package of Virginia Extra from his shirt and rolled a cigarette. He licked the paper, rolled it down, and pinched the ends together with his thumbnail.
“How about a smoke?” the man next to him said. “I left my tobacco in the barracks.”
Toussaint gave him the package and the cigarette papers. The man was named Jeffry. He was lean and thin-featured, and his eyes were as pale as his hair. His hands were slender and white, almost like a woman’s, and they blistered easily. He suffered from repeated attacks of dysentery, and he would trade his tobacco for an orange from the kitchen so he could suck the juice and not have to drink the camp water.
Next to him sat Billy Jo. He had sandy red hair and a fine red scar that came down from one eye to his lip. He said that he had gotten the scar in a prison riot, but two inmates who had known him before said that he had been cut in a fight over a Negro woman. Billy Jo bragged that he had been in six penitentiaries.
Brother Samuel sat between Billy Jo and Avery. He was a red-bone from around Lake Charles, a mixture of white, Negro, and Indian. His clothes didn’t fit him and his straw hat came down to his ears. He had once been a preacher, but he also practiced black magic and conjuring. A disk of wood with unreadable letters on it hung from a leather cord around his neck. He said that the disk had been given to him by the Black Man, who roamed the marsh at night when the moon was down. He carried bits of string with knots tied in them, a fang of a water moccasin, a shriveled turtle’s foot, and a ball of hair taken from a cow’s stomach. The men liked him. He took care of them when they had dysentery, and he would share his tobacco with others if asked to. He was serving a life sentence for murdering a white man.
Daddy Claxton sat on the other side of Avery. He was the oldest man in the work camp. His skin was dry and loose with age, and there were faded tattoos of nude women on his arms. He had been a professional soldier once, and he claimed to have known John Dillinger while he was stationed in Hawaii. He had been dishonorably discharged from the army for operating in the black market, and after his third conviction in Louisiana he had been sent to prison for life as a habitual criminal.
“How come they call you ‘Daddy’?” Billy Jo said.
“I don’t know. That’s what they always called me,” Daddy Claxton said.
“Did you really know John Dillinger?” Billy Jo asked.
“Sure I knowed him. John was a mean one, all right.”
“You ain’t just telling us that?”
“I knowed him. You can ask anybody. They’ll tell you.”
“I don’t believe you was ever in the army, Daddy.”
“I was a soldier. They give me some papers when I got out. I could show them to you if I had them.”
“What kind of guy was Dillinger?” Billy Jo said. “He was a mean one.”
“He’d break out of this place,” one of the men from gang three said.
“No, he wouldn’t. He’s dead,” Billy Jo said.
“Your ass, Billy Jo.”
“He was killed in front of a movie somewhere,” he said. “Your bloody ass.”
“I knowed John when they put him in the stockade,” Daddy Claxton said.
“Was he really tough like they say?” Billy Jo said.
“He was plenty mean,” Daddy said.
The truck bounced over some railroad tracks and drove down a gravel road. Rocks spun up from the tires and banged under the fenders.
“What’s today?” Jeffry said.
“Friday,” Toussaint said.
Jeffry frowned and counted on his fingers.
“When are you breaking out?” a man across from him said.
Jeffry counted and moved his thin lips silently.
“When are you guys going to leave us?” the same man said.
“Shut up,” Billy Jo said.
“Everybody in camp knows about it, you dumb bastard.”
“Keep shut.”
“You guys talked it all over the place.”
“There ain’t anybody going to tell,” Billy Jo said.
“What about him?” The man pointed to Avery.
“What are we talking about?” Billy Jo said to Avery.
“I wasn’t listening.”
“Then you’re deaf.”
“I don’t care what you do, podner.”
“The hell you don’t. You was listening,” Billy Jo said.
“He wasn’t paying you no mind,” Brother Samuel said.
“Glory to the Lord, Brother,” someone said in the darkness.
“Glory be,” Brother Samuel said.
“Amen, Brother.”
“I don’t like nobody listening to what I’m saying,” Billy Jo said.
“I bet the hacks already know about it,” the man across from them said. “They’ll bring you all back on a leash.”
“I’ll be down on Gayoso Street in Memphis greasing in some whore while you’re breaking your back on the line.”
“Jam it.”
“Why don’t you guys quit bitching at each other?”
“We only got twenty-nine days left,” Jeffry said.
“Twenty-nine days and they’re on their way to glory. Right, Brother Samuel?”
“How about a sermon, Brother?”
The truck was almost out to the line, and they wanted to forget the long day that was before them.
“I ain’t got the power to save no more,” Brother Samuel said.
“That don’t matter. Save us, anyway.”
“My powers ain’t the same no more. I tried to heal Jeffry and it didn’t do no good.”
“Why didn’t you let Brother Samuel heal you, Jeffry?”
“That ain’t funny. You guys don’t have a belly full of dysentery,” Jeffry said.
“Kneel down and pray, Jeffry. Let Brother Samuel clamp his hand on your forehead and clean out your belly.”
“It ain’t funny.”
“Let’s wade on the banks of the Jordan, but don’t drink none of the water or you’ll get the runs.”
“You guys don’t have your bellies tied up in knots,” Jeffry said.
“Repent sinners before you catch the runs for all eternity.”
“It ain’t right to make fun of the Word,” Brother Samuel said.
The truck made a sharp turn, stopped, and the back doors were unlocked and opened. The men blinked their eyes in the light. Evans and another guard stood at the tailgate. Evans looked at them from the shade of his sun glasses and cork sun helmet.
“Gang five follow me,” he said.
The men dropped out of the back one by one and walked in single file behind him. The truck was parked by an irrigation canal that was being dug into a flood basin. The canal ended abruptly where yesterday’s work had stopped. Two long banks of dusty red clay were piled on each side of the ditch. The pine trees were green and sweet smelling in the morning air. The trees stretched away over the loam down to the river. The breeze from the river blew through the woods and scattered the pine needles over the ground.