And there wasn’t no other way out. And he stood there with his back against the door. So I went back to the bench. And then it seemed like to me that dee-po was full of folks. There was that Law again, and there was two ladies in fur coats and their faces already painted. But they still looked like they had got up in a hurry and they still never liked it, a old one and a young one, looking down at me.
“He hasn’t got a overcoat!” the old one said. “How in the world did he ever get down here by himself?”
“I ask you,” the Law said. “I couldn’t get nothing out of him except his brother is in Memphis and he wants to get back up there.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I got to git to Memphis today.”
“Of course you must,” the old one said. “Are you sure you can find your brother when you get to Memphis?”
“I reckon I can,” I said. “I ain’t got but one and I have knowed him all my life. I reckon I will know him again when I see him.”
The old one looked at me. “Somehow he doesn’t look like he lives in Memphis,” she said.
“He probably don’t,” the Law said. “You can’t tell though. He might live anywhere, overhalls or not. This day and time they get scattered overnight from he — hope to breakfast; boys and girls, too, almost before they can walk good. He might have been in Missouri or Texas either yestiddy, for all we know. But he don’t seem to have any doubt his brother is in Memphis. All I know to do is send him up there and leave him look.”
“Yes,” the old one said.
The young one set down on the bench by me and opened a hand satchel and taken out a artermatic writing pen and some papers.
“Now, honey,” the old one said, “we’re going to see that you find your brother, but we must have a case history for our files first. We want to know your name and your brother’s name and where you were born and when your parents died.”
“I don’t need no case history neither,” I said. “All I want is to get to Memphis. I got to get there today.”
“You see?” the Law said. He said it almost like he enjoyed it. “That’s what I told you.”
“You’re lucky, at that, Mrs. Habersham,” the bus feller said. “I don’t think he’s got a gun on him, but he can open that knife da — I mean, fast enough to suit any man.”
But the old one just stood there looking at me.
“Well,” she said. “Well. I really don’t know what to do.”
“I do,” the bus feller said. “I’m going to give him a ticket out of my own pocket, as a measure of protecting the company against riot and bloodshed. And when Mr. Foote tells the city board about it, it will be a civic matter and they will not only reimburse me, they will give me a medal too. Hey, Mr. Foote?”
But never nobody paid him no mind. The old one still stood looking down at me. She said “Well,” again. Then she taken a dollar from her purse and give it to the bus feller. “I suppose he will travel on a child’s ticket, won’t he?”
“Wellum,” the bus feller said, “I just don’t know what the regulations would be. Likely I will be fired for not crating him and marking the crate Poison. But I’ll risk it.”
Then they were gone. Then the Law come back with a sandwich and give it to me.
“You’re sure you can find that brother?” he said.
“I ain’t yet convinced why not,” I said. “If I don’t see Pete first, he’ll see me. He knows me too.”
Then the Law went out for good, too, and I et the sandwich. Then more folks come in and bought tickets, and then the bus feller said it was time to go, and I got into the bus just like Pete done, and we was gone.
I seen all the towns. I seen all of them. When the bus got to going good, I found out I was jest about wore out for sleep. But there was too much I hadn’t never saw before. We run out of Jefferson and run past fields and woods, then we would run into another town and out of that un and past fields and woods again, and then into another town with stores and gins and water tanks, and we run along by the railroad for a spell and I seen the signal arm move, and then I seen the train and then some more towns, and I was jest about plumb wore out for sleep, but I couldn’t resk it.
Then Memphis begun. It seemed like, to me, it went on for miles. We would pass a patch of stores and I would think that was sholy it and the bus would even stop. But it wouldn’t be Memphis yet and we would go on again past water tanks and smokestacks on top of the mills, and if they was gins and sawmills, I never knowed there was that many and I never seen any that big, and where they got enough cotton and logs to run um I don’t know.
Then I seen Memphis. I knowed I was right this time. It was standing up into the air. It looked like about a dozen whole towns bigger than Jefferson was set up on one edge in a field, standing up into the air higher than ara hill in all Yoknapatawpha County.
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.
