They agreed to that, and we rode out to get on the road south to Round Rock. The day was hotter than hell, and as we was riding through Waco Sam said, “Let's get us a cold beer while we got the chance.” So we stopped at the Ranch Saloon and had several. When we was ready to leave, Sam taken out a double-eagle and dropped it on the table. The bartender heared it and come and taken it, and Sam watched him walk away. “Well, boys, there goes the last piece of â77 gold I had,” he said. “It ain't done me the least bit of good. But let it gush. It all goes in a lifetime.”
“You going to fool around and miss that boat?” Jackson said. “Don't you worry,” Sam said. “I'll have me some more gold in a few days.”
“What boat?” I asked. I was jumpy, I guess. I feared maybe the Round Rock plan was just a trick and we was heading on down to Galveston.
“Sam's taking to the water,” Jackson said. “He's even got hisself a captain's lady waiting.”
Sam raised his glass. “Maude,” he said. “It ain't going to be long now.”
The bartender come back with his change, and he started to get up. “Wait,” I said. “Tell me about the boat.”
“It ain't nothing,” he said. “Just a little joke that Frank and me has.”
We camped that night on a high hill near Belton. Next morning Sam chose me to go into town with him to check for banks, in case we might be interested. “I got to shit first,” I said, and I walked off among some bushes some ways from camp and dropped my pantaloons and hunkered down like I was taking a shit. I pulled out my pencil and the paper I'd bought in Waco and wrote two letters, both the same, to Dad Egan in Denton and Major Jones in Austin.
SB on
way to Round Rock to rob bank. For God sake come quick
.
I signed them “J. W. Murphy,” then wondered if they would know who “SB” was. Then I thought, hell, who else would they think I'd write about? I knowed Major Jones would have the best chance to get to Round Rock, since the town is only about twenty miles from Austin, and Dad Egan probably wouldn't have no chance at all. But if Sam wasn't caught and the law decided to haul me to court, I wanted Dad to testify that I'd did my best. I stuck the stamps on the letters and folded them and put them in my pocket. Sam was mounted and ready when I come out of the bushes.
Belton wasn't much of a town, and I knowed it wouldn't take long to find out whether there was a bank or not, and I had to figure a way to get to the post office, so I said, “Sam, if this burg has a bank it's probably in the back of some store. Why don't you take one side of the street, and I'll take the other?”
He agreed, and I went into the first store I come to and asked where the post office was. The man told me it was way down at the other end of the street, on my side. I walked as fast as I could without seeming to hurry, for I seen Sam some distance ahead of me on his side. My heart was going thumpity-thump the whole way, for I knowed if Sam seen me sticking them letters in the slot, I was gone. I found the store where the post office was, way back in the back of the building. When I come in the door, I almost run to the back. An old man was standing in the post office window with a newspaper spread out in front of him. The mail slot was right under the window. I'd just dropped my letters into the slot when Sam come in. “What the hell you doing?” he asked.
“I was trying to buy this man's newspaper,” I said. The old man must've thought I was talking to him, for he said, “Eh? I won't sell it, but I'll let you borrow part of it.” “You want to hear some of the news?” I asked Sam. “No. Let's get moving.”
My belly was going flippity-flop, but I done my best to be calm, and when we was on the sidewalk I asked, “Did you find a bank?”
“Yeah, but it's a pitiful little thing. We'll wait for Round Rock.”
So we moved south to Georgetown and rested a day, then moved on to Round Rock. We come in by the San Saba road and made camp in a cedar brake not far from town. We could see the whole town from there, and Sam said, “I been through here with Joel, but it sure has growed since then. A whole new town's coming up there in the east.”
“It's the railroad,” I said. “The railroad missed the town, so they're building over there now.”
Sam laughed. “God bless the railroads. They're good to everybody, ain't they?”
Sam and Jackson went off to find the bank, and Barnes and me went to Mays and Black's store in the old part of town and bought some horse feed. Sam and Jackson got back before we did, and they was sitting on their blankets drinking a jug of whiskey when we come with the feed. Sam rushed up and shook my hand. “Damn it, Jim, you was right about coming to this place,” he said. “We can take that bank too easy to talk about.”
“Didn't I tell you?” I said.
“You did, you old son of a bitch. You got the makings of a real highwayman.”
We drunk the rest of the jug that night, and everybody was in good spirits. Next morning Barnes said he wanted to look at that bank, too, so I offered to go with him, just to show I wasn't worried about him. We rode in and got a shave, then walked over to the Williamson County Bank. It was a busy one, and they had more greenbacks in sight than a tree has leaves. Barnes cashed a bill at the window, and when we was walking to get our horses he said, “I wish we had fresh horses. We could take that bank this evening.”
“I do, too,” I said. “But if we go to stealing horses now, the law will get on us before we get mounted. The best thing to do is stay here four or five days and let our horses rest and play like we're wanting to buy cattle.”
“Yeah, that's the right idea,” he said.
Sam and Jackson had their plan already set. As soon as we dismounted, Sam stood up and said, “Well, she goes about half past three o'clock Saturday evening. And here's the way we'll do it. Seab and me will walk in first. Seab will throw down a five-dollar bill and tell the banker he wants silver for it. While he's getting his change, I'll come in and throw my pistol on the banker and tell him to get his hands up. Seab will jump over the counter, and Jim and Frank will show up at the door and get the drop on whoever comes in after us. Anybody got questions?”
“No,” Barnes said, “but I got something I want to say in front of everybody.” He come over to my side of the fire. “Boys, I want you to know I think Jim's all right. I'm glad Frank kept us from killing him. He's the man we need. But blast him, I just couldn't fix him all right before. I'm proud to say now that he's my friend.” He shook my hand.
“I'm
your
friend, too,” I said.
Mary
Matson
I sees him way up aside the hill. I can't tell nothing about him, he's so far off. Just this man and this hoss coming down the hill out of the cedars, that's all I knows. But he gets down off the hill and comes into the road, and I sees the hoss is a sorrel, the way the sun shines off him, and the man, I think he's old, he slump in the saddle so. I's walking in the road, toting a batch of laundry on my shoulder, going home, and the man, he's riding at me on that sorrel. When he gets close I sees he ain't old, he just slump that way. He's got dust all over his clothes, like he travels far. He rides on past me and smiles at me, and I smiles back. Then he turns that hoss and comes back and stops him in front of me so I got to stop, too.
“What's your name?” he says.
“Mary. Mary Matson.”
“You sure is pretty, Mary,” he says. “Where you live?”
I points to my house on the edge of the colored town, and he says, “The one with the oaks back behind?”
“Yessuh,” I says. “That's the one.” “Who lives with you?” he says.
“Nobody.”
“Ain't got no daddy or mama?”
“Nawsuh. They's dead.”
“Ain't got no man?”
“Nawsuh. None that lives with me.”
“What you carrying?”
“Laundry. That's what I does.”
All this time he leans on his saddle horn, smiling down at me, and I's smiling back at him. Pretty smile and pretty man, I's thinking. Dark. Got some Injun or colored blood in him. Easy to talk to. I don't mind.
“How old is you?” he says.
“Sixteen. Seventeen. Don't know for sure.”
“How come you live by yourself?”
“Daddy, he die.”
The hoss, he sneezes and shakes his head, but the man don't pay no mind. “I's wanting to stay here a few days,” he says. “I's looking for a place to live.”
I points my thumb over my shoulder, down the road. “White folks lives down there. They got a hotel down there.”
“Don't want to live down there,” he says. “I wants to live here.”
“Ain't no place here,” I says. “Just colored houses.”
“You got a house. Why don't I stay there? Pay you fifty cents a day and give you more when I leaves.”
“I just got one bed,” I says. He smiles real big then. “That's fine with me.”
I giggles and don't say nothing.
“Come on,” he says. “It's all right, ain't it?”
“I don't mind.”
Then he says, “Oh, I got three men with me.”
“Lord, I can't put up no
four
men!” I says.
“You can cook for four men, can't you? Biscuits and greens and things?”
“Sure, but I can't take them in the house.”
“They can sleep in the trees back behind. That's all right, ain't it?”
“I don't mind.”
“We'll come around dark, then.”
He turns the hoss, but I says, “Hey, mistuh, you got a name?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It's Samuel.”
Samuel gives me a wave and lopes that red hoss back up the road. Pretty hoss, pretty man, I's thinking.
After dark I hears them riding past the house and into the trees. In a while I hears them walking back, talking low, their spurs jangling. They knocks on the door, and I opens, and Samuel's standing there, still smiling. “Supper ready, Mary?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I says, and they comes in. One of them, a big, redheaded man, he sniffs and says, “Nigger house, all right.” The other two don't say nothing. One of them's small and dark like Samuel, but heavier. I figures he's maybe Samuel's brother. The other one's tall and skinny. He's got yellow curls all over his head, and he smiles like Samuel, but I knows he ain't nobody's brother.
They sits at the table, and I dishes up the food for them. They don't talk much while they eats. Mostly about the food, and they likes it. But I can tell Samuel's the boss, and they shows respect for the curly-headed kid, too. The other dark one just looks at his plate and don't say much at all. The big redhead moves his eyes around the room all the time and looks at the others' faces a lot. There's something about them eyes. They looks scared. Maybe they don't like looking at a nigger house.
After they eats, all of them rolls cigarettes, and they smokes and puts the ashes in their plates. They don't say nothing while they's smoking, but when they finishes, Samuel says, “Let's go outside,” and they goes.
I cleans up the dishes and puts my irons on the stove and gets to work. I been ironing for a long time when I hears the spurs and the door opens and Samuel comes in. He walks right over behind me and puts his arms around my waist and kisses me aside my neck. I don't move, and he says, “Kiss me, Mary.” So I puts down my iron and turns around and puts my arms around his neck and kisses him. Then he pulls me close and kisses me again, real hard. “Come to bed, Mary,” he says, and I don't mind. My innards is saying I wants him.
He turns back the sheet and sits down aside the bed and pulls off his boots while I's putting my laundry in the basket. He strips down naked and lays back on the bed and sighs. I's looking at him out the corner of my eye while I's working, and I sees he's whiter than I thought, and that scares me. I starts slowing down my work, but he says, “Come on, Mary,” so I takes off my head rag and lays it on the ironing board and goes to blow out the lamp. “Don't,” he says. “Not yet.” So I leaves the lamp alone and starts undressing. He watches me, and when I's naked I starts for the lamp again, but he says, “Not yet. Just stand there a minute.” So I stands there in the middle of the floor, and he looks and looks at me. “Turn around, Mary,” he says, so I turns around, and when I's turned all the way around, he smiles. “Blow it out,” he says.
I crawls into bed, and he puts his arms around me and holds me tight. His hands touches me all over, and I likes it, and I pushes myself as close against him as I can. He kisses me on the mouth and aside the neck and on the titty, and it feels good. I ain't never felt so. Then he climbs on me and has his way, and pretty soon he's got me moaning.
When we's finished, he rolls over and says, “You like that, Mary?”
“Oh, yeah, I likes that.”
“You ever did it with a white man before?”
“No. But my mama did, back in slave days. She tell me white men is mean.”
“You think that, why you doing it with me?”
“I figure you for part colored. Or Injun. You ain't all white.”
He laughs at that. “Injun, maybe, but no colored,” he says. “I's a Yankee. They don't do it with coloreds up there.”
“Where a Yankee?”
“Indiana.”
“Mistuh Lincoln's state?”
“No. Next door to it.”
“You in his army?”
“No, but my brother was. He got killed.”
“I was borned in the war, while all the white men was away. My daddy told me. He was slave. Mama, too.”
“You want to do it again?”
“Yes,” I says. And we does it again, and another time after that. By the time Samuel goes to sleep, my bed's smelling of our juices and sweat, but I don't mind. I likes the smell.
I don't go to sleep when Samuel does. I's laying on my back, looking at that ceiling, pleasuring in the sweet, lazy, wore-out feeling that Samuel give me and listening to his breathing. After while, though, he starts talking. I thinks he's talking to me, but I can't hear what he's saying, so I says, “What, Samuel?” He maybe can hear me, because he talks again, like he's talking to me, but I can tell now he's still asleep. The only word I understands is “hoss.” So I just turns over and goes to sleep myself.