“I’m broke,” Avery said.
“I’ll give you two-bits on your first tobacco ration.”
They made room for Avery. Billy Jo dropped two dimes and a nickel on the blanket.
“They pass out the tobacco on Monday. Bring me yours as soon as you get it,” he said.
“Let’s start playing,” Benoit said.
“Five-card draw, no ante, jacks to open.” Billy Jo dealt the cards around. The men looked at their cards in the light of the two candles melted to each end of the trunk.
“I can’t open,” the man on Billy Jo’s left said.
“Me neither.”
“Open for a nickel,” Toussaint said.
“I’m out.”
“Out.”
Two more coins thumped on the blanket.
“Give me three,” Toussaint said.
“One,” Benoit said. His pig-eyes studied his hand thoughtfully.
“Two for the dealer,” Billy Jo said.
“Your bet.”
“Ten cents,” Toussaint said.
“Bump you a dime more,” Benoit said.
“Call,” Billy Jo said.
Toussaint had opened on a pair of queens and had drawn another one.
“Call,” he said.
“What you got?” Benoit said.
“Three queens.”
“Fuck. I had two pair, ace high.”
They threw in their cards and Billy Jo took a nickel out of the pot. Toussaint scraped in his winnings. They played four more hands; Toussaint won two of them. One man had dropped out and gone to bed, leaving five in the game. The deal went around again. Toussaint won the next hand on a straight. He had a dollar and a half in coins before him. Benoit dealt the cards.
“Open for a nickel,” Avery said.
Everyone stayed.
“How many you want?”
“I’m pat,” Avery said.
“You ain’t taking no cards?”
“No.”
“Three,” Toussaint said.
The discards were scattered across the blanket. The man across from Toussaint drew one card.
“I’ll take the same,” Billy Jo said.
Benoit snapped two cards off the deck for himself. He mixed them in his hand and fanned them out slowly.
“Your bet, opener,” he said.
“My last nickel,” Avery said.
Toussaint had drawn to a pair of kings and missed. He threw in his cards.
“I’m out,” the man across from him said.
“I’ll see you,” Billy Jo said.
“Call and raise it a quarter,” Benoit said.
“That was my last nickel. I got to go in the side pot,” Avery said.
“No side pot and no drawing light,” Benoit said. “It’s a house rule.”
“I can’t cover it, then.”
“I’ll back him,” Toussaint said. He dropped three quarters in front of Avery.
Avery picked them up and threw them in the pot.
“Call and raise you fifty cents,” he said.
“You splitting with him, Toussaint?” Benoit said.
“I got no part in this.”
“How come you giving your money away?”
“I don’t like to see nobody play freeze out.”
“Call his raise or fold,” Billy Jo said.
“Give me time.”
Benoit ruffled the cards in his hands.
“Do one thing or another,” Billy Jo said.
“He’s playing on somebody else’s money.”
“You don’t care whose it is when you put it in your pocket.”
He waited, his pig-eyes studying the backs of Avery’s cards. “All right, I fold,” he said.
Avery tossed a nickel out of the pot to Billy Jo and took the rest in.
“Here’s openers,” he said. He showed a pair of aces.
“What else you got?” Benoit said.
“You didn’t pay to see.”
“I got a right to know.”
“No, you don’t,” Toussaint said.
Benoit flipped over Avery’s other cards, a pair of eights and a seven of clubs.
“You didn’t have nothing but two pair. I was holding three tens.”
“You should have paid to see those cards.”
“Listen, kid,” Benoit began.
“I don’t like that crap, neither,” Billy Jo said. “I run a straight game, and we play like the rules says. You got to put up before you see a guy’s hand.”
Benoit glared at the discards and was quiet.
“Hey, you guys, look here.” It was Jeffry. He was coming from the latrine, barefooted, his belt unhitched and hanging loose, and his trousers half buttoned. He had the piece of string in his hand.
“You’ll wake up the guys sleeping,” Billy Jo said.
“Look at the string. Them knots is gone. It’s like Brother Samuel said. There ain’t one of them left!”
“Shut up,” a voice said from one of the bunks.
“I went into the latrine and I was waiting to get rid of my supper, like I do every night, and I waited and nothing happened. My belly was all right. I didn’t have to crap at all. I was hitching up my trousers and I took out this piece of string and them knots was gone. I don’t feel sick no more. I swear to God I don’t. Wake up, Brother Samuel! You healed my belly. It’s like you said. No more runs.”
Brother Samuel stirred in his bunk. He sat up and looked at Jeffry. His face was heavy with sleep.
“You done it,” Jeffry said.
“I ain’t sure you want to be obliged.”
“This is the first time I held my food down since I come to camp.”
“I healed you through the Black Man. Sometimes the spirits come back and make it bad for you in another way.”
“I ain’t worrying about no more spirits. They can do anything they got a mind to as long as they don’t give me no more dysentery.”
“You guys shut up,” a voice said from the darkness.
“I told you there was something in that ball of hair,” Benoit said.
“You guys been in stir too long. It’s got to you,” Billy Jo said.
“Look at the string. There ain’t a knot in it.”
“Who untied them? That Belial guy?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to shake his hand, whoever he is,” Jeffry said.
“Them spirits can come back,” Brother Samuel said.
“They ain’t coming around me no more,” Jeffry said. “I swear to God I never thought nothing like this could happen.”
“Button up your pants. You’re hanging out,” Billy Jo said.
“I knowed that ball of hair jumped in my hand,” Benoit said. “I felt it, just like a frog leg jumps.”
“Spread this around camp and you’ll all go to the nut house,” Billy Jo said.
“The spirits can put a grigri on you,” Brother Samuel said.
“What the hell is a grigri?”
“It’s a spell. It makes you have bad luck.”
“I ain’t worrying about no grigri. It couldn’t be no worse than the runs.”
“I ain’t got the power to take it off. It takes a man that’s sold his soul to get rid of a grigri.”
“I ain’t worrying.”
Somewhere in the distance a train whistle blew. They could hear the rush of the engine and the rumble of the wheels. They never saw the train except the day they rode it to prison and the day they left. There was an old story that if an inmate saw the train’s headlamp shining at him out of the darkness he would be released from the camp soon. The whistle blew again and the men sat in silence. Even Jeffry did not speak. The train was closer now and the whistle shrieked once more in the quiet of the night.
“The midnight special going to glory,” Brother Samuel said. “Shine your light on me.”
Three weeks passed and the sky became like scorched brass. The air was hot and dry, and the wind blew across the land like heat from an oven. Dark thunderclouds were spread over the horizon, but the rains didn’t come. At night the heat lightning flashed in the sky, and black strips of rain clouds floated across the moon. The earth was cracked from lack of water. The grass in the fields was burnt yellow and whispered dryly in the hot wind. The men waited for the rains to drench the parched ground, and the thunder clapped and rattled over the horizon like someone beating a sheet of corrugated tin against the sky.