“You think there’s a spring around here somewhere?” Jeffry said.
“There ain’t no water in ten miles of here that don’t have scum or mosquito eggs in it.”
“I thought we might get some clean water.”
“They might bring us some oranges with lunch. You can drink the juice.”
“You think they will?”
“Today’s Friday. Carp and fruit for lunch,” Brother Samuel said.
“I seen some carp and garfish eating off a drowned cow once,” Daddy Claxton said.
Evans walked over to the embankment of dirt and squatted on his haunches, looking down at the men. Small clods rolled from around his boots into the ditch.
“The captain wants a new latrine dug,” he said.
“We dug the last one. It’s gang six’s turn,” Billy Jo said.
“The captain likes the way we dig latrines. We do a good job. He might even let us keep digging them from now on. Boudreaux and what’s your name, get up here.”
Toussaint and Avery climbed out of the ditch.
“You see that line of scrub over there? Dig a trench fifteen feet long and three deep.”
“We ain’t got a shovel.”
“Claxton, hand up your shovel.”
“It’s checked out to me. I got to hand it back in.”
“Let’s have it.”
Evans took the shovel by its handle and gave it to Avery.
“Give Claxton your pick.”
Avery slid it down the embankment to the old man.
They walked over to the line of brush. Avery marked out the edge of the trench with his shovel. Evans stood off in the shade of the trees to watch them.
“I’ll break the ground and you dig after me,” Toussaint said.
They went to work. Toussaint drove the pick into the cracked earth and snapped the brush roots loose. Avery dug from one end of the trench and worked in a pattern towards the other side.
“What makes Billy Jo and Jeffry think they can make it?” he said.
“Billy Jo has got a brother on the outside. He’s supposed to help them.”
“You think you could make it with somebody on the outside?”
“Not when everybody in camp knows about it,” Toussaint said. “Billy Jo says his brother is going to meet them in a car. I’m surprised he ain’t give out the license number.”
“You might have a chance with help on the outside.”
“You thinking about leaving us?”
“It passed through my mind.”
“You can get out in a year. Serve your time. A year ain’t nothing. If you break out and get caught they add five more on your sentence.’
“Do you ever think about breaking out?”
“I wouldn’t talk about it if I did,” Toussaint said. “You’re young. Wait it out.”
The trench deepened. It was almost time for lunch.
“Why were you in detention?” Avery said.
“Talking during roll call.”
“They gave you a day for that?”
“No, two days. They let me out to put somebody else in.”
“Who put you in?”
“Evans.”
“He must have it against you.”
“He don’t like nobody.”
“He looks like he enjoys his work.”
“It takes a certain type man to be a hack,” Toussaint said.
“Does he ride you like that all the time?”
“You said you were from Martinique parish.”
“Yes.”
“Talk about Martinique parish, then.”
They worked for a half hour in silence.
“What do you figure on doing when your time is up?” Toussaint said.
“I just got here. I haven’t thought about it.”
“You’ll start thinking about it soon. You won’t think about nothing else after a while.”
“I might go to New Orleans.”
“What for?”
“I’ve never been there.”
“Ain’t you got a home?”
“There’s nothing left of it now. My daddy was a cane planter. We used to own twenty acres. The last I heard some man bought it at the sheriff’s tax sale to build a subdivision.”
“I lived in New Orleans. I worked on the docks.”
“What’s the chance of getting a job?”
“Fair. What kind of work you done?”
“Oil exploration.”
“I know a man down there might help you.”
“They say New Orleans is a good town.”
“You planning on staying out of the whiskey business?” Toussaint said.
“I’ll probably stay on the drinking end of it.”
“You can’t boil out the misery with corn.”
“You can make a good dent in it, though.”
“You’re too young to have a taste for whiskey.”
“I’m not too young to be digging a latrine with you, so let’s get off my age.”
“Whiskey can eat you up.”
“I’ve seen a lot more eaten up, and whiskey didn’t do it.”
Evans blew his whistle for the lunch break. The men climbed out of the ditch and formed a line behind a pickup truck parked in the shade. Toussaint and Avery dropped their tools in the unfinished trench and got in line with the others. The tin plates and spoons were handed out. The trusties served the food from the big aluminum containers placed on the bed of the truck. The men sat in the shade and ate.
“You told me we was having oranges,” Jeffry said.
“I ain’t the warden. I can’t know what they’re going to do,” Billy Jo said.
“You said we was getting oranges.”
“Drink the tea. It helps your stomach,” Brother Samuel said.
“It’s just like the drinking water.”
“Stop bitching,” Billy Jo said.
“I seen some carp eating off a dead cow once,” Daddy Claxton said.
“Maybe you’re swallowing the same carp,” someone said.
“It wouldn’t bother me none. I eat worse. When I was a boy my pap used to bring home garfish that was caught up on land in the flood basin.”
“This tea ain’t no different from the water,” Jeffry said.
“It’s boiled. That makes it different. Drink it and shut up,” Billy Jo said.
“I’ll puke up my dinner.”
“Let Brother Samuel work on you,” a man from gang two said.
“He didn’t do me no good.”
“You wasn’t cooperating,” the man said.
“I ain’t got my powers no more,” Brother Samuel said.
“You know that ain’t true, Brother. What’s that thing around your neck?”
Brother Samuel touched the wooden disk that hung on a leather cord.
“The Black Man give it to me. These letters is written in a language that ain’t even used no more. It means I got the power to control spirits.”
“I thought you didn’t have no powers.”
“I still got my magic powers. I ain’t got my spiritual ones.”
“What’s the difference?”
“My magic ones is from the Black Man, and the others is from the Lord. I ain’t had no truck with the Black Man since he made me sin agin Jesus.”
“Look at it this way,” the inmate from gang two said. “If you use the Black Man’s powers to do the work of Jesus, then you can get back at him for making you sin.”
“I ain’t thought of it that way.”
“Ain’t it the work of the Lord to heal people? Well, that’s just what you’re doing.”
“That’s the way I figure it, too,” Daddy Claxton said.
“Use some of them things you carry around with you,” the inmate from two said. His name was Benoit. He was dark complexioned and unshaved, with close set pig-eyes, and he smelled of sweat and earth.
“I ain’t sure it’s right. I gone back to following the Word.”
“Lay down, Jeffry, and let him heal you.”
“I don’t want to be healed. I tried it once. It don’t work.”