Part 2 (1/2)
”Yes, sir,” replied Lucille. ”And he just stinks of that old creosote. I don't let him come near me! You want to see one of them, Sheriff?”
”I want to see 'em both.”
”You want me to give 'em a message?”
”I want to sit on your front porch and wait for 'em to come home is what I want. What's your name?”
”Lucille.”
”Lucille,” said the sheriff, ”you got some iced tea? I sure am hot.”
CHAPTER 45.
Dollie Faye
Malcolm Strickland and Travis Gann were arrested that evening by Charley Key, charged with armed robbery, and thrown into the five-cell lockup in the Perdido town hall. Queenie and James appeared there about ten minutes after the doors had been slammed shut on the two men.
Malcolm sat sullenly on a bench against the outside wall, shading his eyes from the harsh glare of the single electric bulb dangling from the ceiling. ”Don't say it, Ma.”
”Say what?” demanded Queenie. ”That you're no good? That you've finally done it this time? Well, I will say it. You're no good, Malcolm Strickland. You certainly have done it this time. And you, Travis Gann,” she turned to the smirking man sprawled in another corner of the cell, ”you put my boy up to this.”
”Lord, Miz Strickland,” drawled Travis, his creo-39 sote stench filling the cell, ”I couldn't have talked Malcolm into doing anything he didn't want to do.”
”Mama, Uncle James, are you gone get me out, or are you just gone stand there and preach?”
Queenie wouldn't reply.
”We're gone get you out,” said James softly.
”Good,” said Malcolm. Both men rose.
”Not you, Mr. Gann,” said James Caskey.
”Aw, hey...” he protested. ”I don't have no rich relatives to pay my bail.”
”Then you'll just have to stay in here and rot,” said Queenie. ”Malcolm, are you gone promise me before you get out of here?”
”Promise you what, Mama?” asked Malcolm apprehensively.
”That you are never gone have anything more to do with this man in your entire life?”
Travis Gann grinned.
”Sure. Mama, you know how much we got?” Malcolm said ruefully, glancing at Travis. ”We got twenty-three dollars.”
James shook his head. ”It's costing me a hundred to get you out of here.”
Charley Key appeared with the keys of the cell in his hand.
”Mama,” said Malcolm in a low voice, reaching for his mother through the bars, ”am I gone go to jail?”
”Where do you belong?” she returned tartly. ”You belong in jail for putting James and me through this shame.”
”Evening, James,” said the sheriff. ”Evening, Miz Strickland. You got a lousy excuse for a son here.”
”I was just telling him that, Sheriff,” said Queenie. ”But he's not as bad as his friend there.”
”Your mama's got a tongue,” remarked Travis Gann, as Malcolm was being let out of the cell. ”Miz Strickland, you ought to watch that tongue of yours.
40.Someday somebody might come up to you and tear it out of your head and wrap it around your neck and choke you to death with it. And who'd get you out of jail then, Malcolm?”
”Watch out, Travis,” murmured the sheriff. ”Don't go threatening people now. Somebody might start to take you serious, and lift your chin with a rifle barrel. Lift it right through the top of your d.a.m.ned head.”
Queenie pulled Malcolm a few feet along the corridor out of Travis Gann's sight-but not out of range of his laughter. ”Let's go,” she said to James.
James was in front of another cell, chatting with two former mill employees; they had been hired by James thirty years before. They were in jail for brawling. ”Hey,” he was saying, ”you two are too old to be fighting over a woman. And you're too poor to be fighting over money. What was it?”
”Plain old hard times,” replied the one.
”Nothing else to do,” returned the other.
Outside, James paid both men's bail.
Out on the Bay Minette road, in the house in back of Crawford's store, Dollie Faye Crawford had taken to her bed. She was surrounded by neighbors and relatives who had flocked to her in the time of her distress. It was universally judged that she had almost had a stroke. Her blood pressure, as a result of the terrifying incident, was dangerously high. Her husband Dial rocked peaceably in a corner of the room out of everyone's way.
The store was shut, but friends and relatives bearing gifts of food and consolation out of Bibles marked with sc.r.a.ps of paper knocked on the side door of the house. They were admitted by a faded little girl who had been given a pocketful of cookies from one of the jars on the counter of the store in payment for the task. At around eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, 41.the day after the robbery, everyone had gone off to church, and Dollie Faye and Dial were left alone. There was a timid knock at the door, and the little girl opened it.
”Who is it?” called Dollie Faye weakly. ”Who's not going to church this morning?”
Into the room walked two visitors the likes of which Dollie Faye and Dial Crawford weren't accustomed to-town people, moneyed people; people whose clothes were new, store-bought, and neither dusty nor faded.
”Yes, ma'am, yes, sir, what can I do for you?” said Dollie Faye, attempting to rise from the bed.
”Don't you dare get out of that bed, Miz Crawford!” cried Queenie.
”Miz Crawford,” said James, ”you probably don't know us from Adam and his little sister, but Queenie and I have come to apologize and make amends.”
”For what?” said Dollie Faye, still trying to get out of bed. Queenie went around and put a stop to that.
”It was my boy,” said Queenie in a low doleful voice, ”who pointed a gun at your head yesterday!”
Dollie Faye fell back against the pillow in surprise.
”Your boy!”
”Yes, ma'am,” said James.