Then we was in it, with the bus stopping ever’ few feet, it seemed like to me, and cars rushing past on both sides of it and the street crowded with folks from ever’where in town that day, until I didn’t see how there could ‘a’ been nobody left in Mis’sippi a-tall to even sell me a bus ticket, let alone write out no case histories. Then the bus stopped. It was another bus dee-po, a heap bigger than the one in Jefferson. And I said, “All right. Where do folks join the Army?”
“What?” the bus feller said.
And I said it again, “Where do folks join the Army?”
“Oh,” he said. Then he told me how to get there. I was afraid at first I wouldn’t ketch on how to do in a town big as Memphis. But I caught on all right. I never had to ask but twice more. Then I was there, and I was durn glad to git out of all them rushing cars and shoving folks and all that racket fer a spell, and I thought, It won’t be long now, and I thought how if there was any kind of a crowd there that had done already joined the Army, too, Pete would likely see me before I seen him. And so I walked into the room. And Pete wasn’t there.
He wasn’t even there. There was a soldier with a big arrerhead on his sleeve, writing, and two fellers standing in front of him, and there was some more folks there, I reckon. It seems to me I remember some more folks there.
I went to the table where the soldier was writing, and I said, “Where’s Pete?” and he looked up and I said, “My brother. Pete Grier. Where is he?”
“What?” the soldier said. “Who?”
And I told him again. “He joined the Army yestiddy. He’s going to Pearl Harbor. So am I. I want to ketch him. Where you all got him?” Now they were all looking at me, but I never paid them no mind. “Come on,” I said. “Where is he?”
The soldier had quit writing. He had both hands spraddled out on the table. “Oh,” he said. “You’re going, too, hah?”
“Yes,” I said. “They got to have wood and water. I can chop it and tote it. Come on. Where’s Pete?”
The soldier stood up. “Who let you in here?” he said. “Go on. Beat it.”
“Durn that,” I said. “You tell me where Pete—”
I be dog if he couldn’t move faster than the bus feller even. He never come over the table, he come around it, he was on me almost before I knowed it, so that I jest had time to jump back and whup out my pocket-knife and snap it open and hit one lick, and he hollered and jumped back and grabbed one hand with the other and stood there cussing and hollering.
One of the other fellers grabbed me from behind, and I hit at him with the knife, but I couldn’t reach him.
Then both of the fellers had me from behind, and then another soldier come out of a door at the back. He had on a belt with a britching strop over one shoulder.
“What the hell is this?” he said.
“That little son cut me with a knife!” the first soldier hollered. When he said that I tried to git at him again, but both them fellers was holding me, two against one, and the soldier with the backing strop said, “Here, here. Put your knife up, feller. None of us are armed. A man don’t knife-fight folks that are barehanded.” I could begin to hear him then. He sounded jest like Pete talked to me. “Let him go,” he said. They let me go. “Now what’s all the trouble about?” And I told him. “I see,” he said. “And you come up to see if he was all right before he left.”
“No,” I said. “I came to—”
But he had already turned to where the first soldier was wropping a handkerchief around his hand.
“Have you got him?” he said. The first soldier went back to the table and looked at some papers.
“Here he is,” he said. “He enlisted yestiddy. He’s in a detachment leaving this morning for Little Rock.” He had a watch stropped on his arm. He looked at it. “The train leaves in about fifty minutes. If I know country boys, they’re probably all down there at the station right now.”
“Get him up here,” the one with the backing strop said. “Phone the station. Tell the porter to get him a cab. And you come with me,” he said.
It was another office behind that un, with jest a table and some chairs. We set there while the soldier smoked, and it wasn’t long; I knowed Pete’s feet soon as I heard them. Then the first soldier opened the door and Pete come in.
He never had no soldier clothes on. He looked jest like he did when he got on the bus yestiddy morning, except it seemed to me like it was at least a week, so much had happened, and I had done had to do so much traveling. He come in and there he was, looking at me like he hadn’t never left home, except that here we was in Memphis, on the way to Pearl Harbor.
“What in durnation are you doing here?” he said.
And I told him, “You got to have wood and water to cook with. I can chop it and tote it for you-all.”
“No,” Pete said. “You’re going back home.”
“No, Pete,” I said. “I got to go too. I got to. It hurts my heart, Pete.”
“No,” Pete said. He looked at the soldier. “I jest don’t know what could have happened to him, lootenant,” he said. “He never drawed a knife on anybody before in his life.” He looked at me. “What did you do it for?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I jest had to. I jest had to git here. I jest had to find you.”
“Well, don’t you never do it again, you hear?” Pete said. “You put that knife in your pocket and you keep it there. If I ever again hear of you drawing it on anybody, I’m coming back from wherever I am at and whup the fire out of you. You hear me?”
“I would pure cut a throat if it would bring you back to stay,” I said. “Pete,” I said. “Pete.”
“No,” Pete said. Now his voice wasn’t hard and quick no more, it was almost quiet, and I knowed now I wouldn’t never change him. “You must go home. You must look after maw, and I am depending on you to look after my ten acres. I want you to go back home. Today. Do you hear?”
“I hear,” I said.
“Can he get back home by himself?” the soldier said.
“He come up here by himself,” Pete said.
“I can get back, I reckon,” I said. “I don’t live in but one place. I don’t reckon it’s moved.”
Pete taken a dollar out of his pocket and give it to me. “That’ll buy your bus ticket right to our mailbox,” he said. “I want you to mind the lootenant. He’ll send you to the bus. And you go back home and you take care of maw and look after my ten acres and keep that durn knife in your pocket. You hear me?”
“Yes, Pete,” I said.
“All right,” Pete said. “Now I got to go.” He put his hand on my head again. But this time he never wrung my neck. He just laid his hand on my head a minute. And then I be dog if he didn’t lean down and kiss me, and I heard his feet and then the door, and I never looked up and that was all, me setting there, rubbing the place where Pete kissed me and the soldier throwed back in his chair, looking out the window and coughing. He reached into his pocket and handed something to me without looking around. It was a piece of chewing gum.
“Much obliged,” I said. “Well, I reckon I might as well start back. I got a right fer piece to go.”
“Wait,” the soldier said. Then he telephoned again and I said again I better start back, and he said again, “Wait. Remember what Pete told you.”
So we waited, and then another lady come in, old, too, in a fur coat, too, but she smelled all right, she never had no artermatic writing pen nor no case history neither. She come in and the soldier got up, and she looked around quick until she saw me, and come and put her hand on my shoulder light and quick and easy as maw herself might ‘a’ done it.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go home to dinner.”
“Nome,” I said. “I got to ketch the bus to Jefferson.”
“I know. There’s plenty of time. We’ll go home and eat dinner first.”
She had a car. And now we was right down in the middle of all them other cars. We was almost under the busses, and all them crowds of people on the street close enough to where I could have talked to them if I had knowed who they was. After a while she stopped the car. “Here we are,” she said, and I looked at it, and if all that was her
