Read The Reivers for Free Online

oclock, even Boon admitted that today there would be none. But it was a holding action; nothing was lost yet, and in the dark he could even shift his forces a little. The next morning about ten he— we—entered the bank as though by passing afterthought. "Lemme have the keys," he told Grandfather. "All that Missippi dust and mud, let alone the Tennessee mud and dust already under it. I'll take the hose with me from the stable in case Ned has mislaid yours out of sight somewhere."
    Grandfather was looking at Boon, just looking at him with no hurry, like Boon really was the one with the wagon or hay baler offering to borrow fifteen dollars. "I dont want the inside of the carriage house wet," Grandfather said. But Boon matched him, as detached and even more indifferent, with even more time to spare, use.
    "Sure, sure. Remember, the man said the engine ought to be run every day. Not to go nowhere: just to keep the spark plugs and magneto from rusting and costing you twenty, twenty-five dollars for a new one all the way from Memphis or somewhere, maybe all the way back to the factory. I dont blame you; all I know is what he told you; I'd just have to take his word too. But then you can afford it. You own the automobile; if you want to rust it up, it aint nobody else's business. A horse would a been different. Even if you hadn't even paid a hundred dollars for a horse you'd a had me out there at daylight lunging him on a rope just to keep his guts working." Because Grandfather was a good banker and Boon knew it: that Grandfather not only knew when to foreclose, but when to compound and cancel too. He reached into his pocket and handed Boon the two keys—the one to the padlock and the thing that turned the automobile on. "Come on," Boon told me, already turning.
    While we were still up the street we could already hear Grandmother hollering for Ned from the upstairs back window, though by the time we reached the gate she had quit. As we crossed the back yard to get the hose, Del-phine came out the kitchen door. "Where is Ned?" she said. "We been hollering for him all morning. Is he up there at the livery stable?"
    "Sure," Boon said. "I'll tell him too. Just dont expect him neither." Ned was there. He and two of my brothers were like a row of stairsteps trying to see through the cracks in the garage door. I reckon Alexander would have been there too except he couldn't walk yet; I dont know why Aunt Callie hadn't thought of it yet. Then Alexander was there; Mother came across the street from our house carrying him. So maybe Aunt Callic was still washing diapers. "Morning, Miss Alison," Boon said. "Morning, Miss Sarah," he said, because now Grandmother was there too, with Delphine behind her. And now there were two more ladies, neighbors, still in their boudoir caps. Because maybe Boon wasn't a banker nor even a very good trader either. But he was proving to be a pretty damned good guerrilla fighter. He went and unlocked the garage door and opened it. Ned was the first one inside.
    "Well," Boon said to him, "you been here ever since daylight to peep at it through that crack. What do you think about it?"
    "I dont think nothing about it," Ned said. "Boss Priest could a bought the best two-hundred-dollar horse in Yok-napatawpha County for this money."
    "There aint any two-hundred-dollar horse in Yoknapa-tawpha County," Boon said. "If there was, this automobile would buy ten of them. Go be hooking up that hose."
    "Go be hooking up that hose, Lucius," Ned said to me; he didn't even look around. He went to the automobile door and opened it. It was the back seat. Front seats didn't have doors in those days; you just walked up and got in. "Come on, Miss Sarah, you and Miss Alison," Ned said. "Delphine can wait with the children for the next trip."
    "You go hook up that hose like I told you," Boon said. "I got to get it out of here before I can do anything to it."
    "You aint gonter tote it out in your hand, is you?" Ned said. "I reckon we can