“What if I told you I was the best bank robber in America?” Charley asked.
“What if I told you I was Clara Bow?” Whizbang responded, grinning.
“You got more tongue than you got sense,” Charley said. “Stop waggin’ it, and let’s hit the road.”
“Nope, I like my tent just fine,” she said. “Go on up to Colorado and rob a few banks. Buy a nice Studebaker and come back through. If you showed up in a slick car, I might hook up with you permanent.”
“Last time I bought a Studebaker it didn’t work out,” Charley admitted. “This time, I think I’ll try a Buick.”
3
Charley had been in Pueblo, Colorado, long enough to walk three blocks, when a cop pulled up beside him in an old police car that wheezed like a sick bull.
“Where you think you’re goin’, bud?” the cop asked.
“I just got here,” Charley said. “I was on my way to find a hotel.”
“Get in,” the cop said. “You won’t need a hotel. You can stay in jail.”
Charley left Seminole with nearly two weeks’ wages in his pocket, some of which he had used in Albuquerque to clothe himself properly. He had bought a suit, two shirts, and a necktie, and was wearing the suit, one of the shirts, and the necktie when the bull pulled up beside him. Of course, the suit wasn’t as nice or as expensive as the one he’d had made in St. Louis right after the Kroger job, but he did think it made him look respectable.
The Pueblo cop evidently didn’t agree.
“Say, is it a crime to walk down the street in this town?” Charley asked. “That’s all I’m doin’—walkin’ down the street.”
“I didn’t say you done a crime,” the cop said in a dry tone. “I just told you to get in.”
“What if I don’t want to ride in no police car?” Charley said.
“Get in, son,” the cop said. “Consider it an invite.
“The jail and the hotel ain’t far apart,” he added. “If we decide you’re an honest citizen, you can stroll right over and take a room.”
“Is it the haircut?” Charley asked, as they were pulling up to the jail.
“What haircut? What about haircuts?” the cop asked. “What’s a haircut got to do with anything?”
“It’s a prison haircut,” Charley announced.
“Son, I ain’t interested in your hair,” the policeman said. “We don’t allow no loiterin’ in this town—there’s an ordinance against it. That’s why I brought you in.”
“What the hell’s loiterin’?” Charley asked. “I never heard of it. I was just walkin’ down the street, lookin’ for a hotel and hopin’ for a job. Does that amount to loiterin’?”
“You talk too much,” the cop said.
Charley left his necktie on for the mug shot. He didn’t smile for the jailhouse photographer, though. He didn’t want anybody to think he enjoyed being arrested for loitering.
“How are folks supposed to find work if they ain’t even allowed to walk down the street?” he asked the sheriff when the sheriff came in.
“No little criminal from Missouri oughta expect to find work in Colorado,” the sheriff said. “We’ll let you go in the morning. I want you to skedaddle out of here. We got enough crooks here without bringin’ ’em in from out of state.”
“I been workin’ honest in Oklahoma,” Charley said. “I can be just as honest in Colorado.
“I kinda like the mountains,” he added.
He did like the mountains. Just looking at the Rockies awed him. He had grown up fishing and hunting in the Cookson Hills, but the Cookson Hills were just bumps with trees on them, compared to the Rockies.
“Hike on up to Wyoming,” the sheriff said. “Wyoming’s a state that don’t mind riffraff, and they got plenty of mountains.”
“I ain’t riffraff,” Charley replied. “Does one mistake make a fella riffraff for life?”
The old patrolman who had brought Charley in had developed a liking for him—partly, it was the bold way the boy spoke up for himself.
“I doubt he’s bad, Jake,” he said to the sheriff. “I could haul him down to the cafe and see if they need a dishwasher.”
“Naw, he’s just a road boy,” the sheriff said. “I got nothin’ against him, I’d just rather he settled in Wyoming.”
“I’ll sleep in the hotel, if you don’t mind,” Charley said. “I got the money, and I earned it honest.”
Jake, the sheriff, softened a little.
“If you’d rather pay out good money than bunk for free, then help yourself,” he said. “Me, I’d take the free bunk.”
“I’ve a powerful lack of affection for jails,” Charley said.
On the way to the hotel, Charley considered how muddled life had become since he got out of prison. He didn’t remember it being so confusing before he got sent to the Jeff City pen.
The sheets on the bed in his little hotel room were dusty, but he had a good view of the peaks. He got undressed, lay down, and looked out the window. The moon came up long before Charley finally fell asleep.
It was chilly in the morning when he came downstairs. Jake was sitting in the coffee shop sipping coffee.
“There’s that boy who’d rather pay out good money than bunk free,” the sheriff said to the waitress.
Charley hiked out to the highway shivering from the chill. He held up his thumb, and the very first flivver coming down the road stopped for him. He’d made up his mind in the night to take the first ride he was offered. If the car was heading north, he’d try Wyoming. If the car was headed south, he might try Texas for a while. Big Carl had run a club in Fort Worth once; he told Charley Texans were friendly, by and large.
The flivver was being driven by a rancher bound for Amarillo, Texas, on his way to finish up a big cattle deal. The man was a drinker, and he immediately asked Charley if he wouldn’t mind driving.
“The difference between drinking on horseback and drinking in an automobile is, if you drink on a horse you just get lost, but if you drink while you’re drivin’ you get killed,” the rancher observed. He then proceeded to drink until he passed out. When Charley stopped for gasoline, it was all he could do to wake the rancher so he could pay for the gas.
They reached Amarillo the next morning, not long after sunup. The rancher was in a sorry state. He had consumed three bottles of whiskey during the drive.
“It’s ugly down here in Texas, but cattle are cheap,” he said, when Charley got out.
The wind was blowing twice as hard as it had been in Pueblo. There was so much dust that Charley’s teeth felt gritty. He was walking near the railroad track looking for a diner or someplace that had eats, when a police car pulled up beside him.
“Where you goin’, bud? Get in,” the cop said.
“I’m just looking for a place to get breakfast,” Charley said. “Is that a crime in Texas?”
“It depends on the fella that’s lookin’,” the cop replied. “There’s lots of crimes, son. If we look hard, we can probably find one for you.”
Charley got in the car. At least he was out of the wind and the grit.
“You could be a vagrant,” the cop said, looking him over. “There’s laws against vagrancy.”
“I might have to learn to fly,” Charley said, annoyed.
“What’s that?” the cop asked—he thought he hadn’t heard the boy right.
“Flyin’—it’s about the only thing there ain’t a law against,” Charley answered. “If I walk, I get arrested for vagrancy, and if I stand still, I get arrested for loiterin’. What’s that leave but flyin’? There’s more crimes than I ever heard of in this country.”
“You mean flyin’ in an airplane?” the cop asked, looking puzzled.
“Just flyin’,” Charley replied, shaking his head. “Flyin’, any way I can.”
4
“Ma, can I have some flapjacks? I know it’s late,” Charley said. He had walked off the highway an hour before, as hungry as could be. At first, the familiar kitchen felt
unfamiliar to him, it had been so long since he sat in it. But after a cup of coffee, he began to relax. The only thing new in the kitchen was a radio, which mainly seemed to crackle and make static. His ma didn’t look any older. Bradley had left for the fields long before. When Charley had walked up the dirt road to the house, he’d barely been able to keep from turning around and going back to the highway. He knew he had disgraced the family name; he didn’t even know if his mother would let him in the door. He was afraid he might turn out to be as unwelcome at home as he had been in Colorado, or Texas.
“How many can you eat, son?” Mamie asked, smiling at him. While she worked at the stove, she watched her son. To her, he still looked like a young boy—to her, he still looked soft. Sometimes the pen made a man mean, but Charley didn’t look mean. He looked like a hungry boy, eager for the taste of his mother’s flapjacks.
“Where all’d you go, Charley, after you got out?” she asked.
“Worked in the oil fields awhile. Got any sausage?” Charley said. The taste of flapjacks and syrup reminded him what a good cook his ma was.
He didn’t want to tell her about Colorado and Texas. She might not believe he had been arrested for no reason.
“This sausage is spicy, now,” Mamie warned him. “That’s the way your pa liked it.”
“Can we go to Pa’s grave?” Charley asked.
“Sure,” Mamie replied, a little surprised by the request.
“I wish me and Pa’d had a better talk the last time I seen him,” Charley said.
“Your pa was touchy—too touchy,” Mamie said. “That’s what got him shot. He lost his temper and scared that old man so bad, he shot your pa.”
“He didn’t go to jail for it, neither,” Charley said. “I went to jail, and I never hurt a soul.”
That afternoon Charley, Bradley, and Ma Floyd rode out to the little cemetery where Walter Floyd lay buried.
“Pa would have been out with his hounds tonight. It’s a good night for coon huntin’,” Bradley said.
“What happened to the hounds?” Charley asked. He’d had a sense that something was missing besides his pa, when he walked up the road to the house—what was missing was the baying of his pa’s hounds.
“I got rid of all of them but Pete,” Mamie said. “I put up with hounds my whole married life.”
Charley stood looking at his father’s grave. It had been rainy when Walter was buried; the grave had sunk several inches. The sunken, sad way the grave looked made Charley get a lump in his throat.
The day was windy, and it had turned drizzly. The wind blew wet leaves against the windshield of the flivver as they walked back to the car.
“If anything happens to me, put me next to Pa,” Charley said.
“Don’t be talking sad, son,” Mamie said. “Burying a husband’s hard, but burying my child would be too hard. I’d rather go next, the way the Lord meant it to be, than to take on a grief like that.”
“I just said if, Ma,” Charley mumbled, sorry he’d said it.
Being home made Charley think of Ruby. In the late afternoon, he took a nap and dreamed about her. For supper, his ma made a vinegar cobbler, which had always been his favorite.
After supper, they sat in the kitchen, listening to the drizzle.
“That radio has more crackle to it than a passel of hens,” Mamie said, standing up and turning it off.
Bessie had come over to see Charley. She had gotten pretty fat, but Bradley didn’t seem to mind. Charley didn’t either. Bessie was jolly, most of the time.
“So Ruby lives in Coffeyville?” Charley asked.
“Yeah, Coffeyville—that fella she married is a baker, I believe,” Bradley said.
“I met him once,” Bessie added. “He seemed like a nice man.” Charley was quiet.
“He’s a baker, I think,” Bradley repeated.
“You said that, shut up!” Charley snapped, his temper getting the best of him. “I don’t care what the son-of-a-bitch does. I just wondered where Ruby was living.”
“She brings Dempsey down when she can,” Bessie said. “Ruby tries to keep in touch.”
“Not with me, she don’t,” Charley said. He felt bitter. What business did Ruby have coming to see his folks, if she had married a baker? What business did she have keeping in touch?
His ma seemed to pick his thoughts right out of his head.
“Ruby will always be family to us, Charley,” Mamie said. “It ain’t her fault you got sent to the pen.”
“Aw, who said it was?” Charley replied.
“She didn’t have money and couldn’t get work,” his mother told him. “She had it hard, son. Don’t you be blaming her for marrying—it was the only out she had.”
Charley didn’t answer, but he didn’t like it that his own family took Ruby’s side.
“I would have waited for her till hell froze over,” Charley said.
Bradley snorted.
“You better not be laughing at me, bud,” Charley warned. “What’s so damn funny?”
“The notion of you waitin’,” Bradley said. “Waitin’ to you means only havin’ a new gal ever’ week or so.”
Charley jumped up and was about to slug his brother, when Mamie stepped between them.
“Sit down,” she said. “There’ll be no fisticuffs in my kitchen.”
“We’ll step outside! You heard what he said, Ma,” Charley said.
“No,” Mamie said, firm. “You settle down now—and keep your mouth shut, Bradley! Your brother’s only been home one day. Looks like you two could get along for one day.”
“All I done was say the truth. Charley ain’t the waitin’ kind,” Bradley said, disgusted.
“Just ’cause I don’t get you tonight don’t mean I won’t get you one of these days, bud,” Charley said. But his mother had her eye fixed on him, and it was her kitchen. He sat back down.
“Don’t go sniffin’ around Ruby,” Mamie Floyd said.
“But I want to see Dempsey—ain’t I got a right to see my own son?” Charley asked.
“Of course you got a right. But you can see Dempsey down here,” Mamie said. “I’ll go fetch him, or Bessie can. But leave Ruby alone. She took a hard situation and made the best of it. Don’t be troublin’ her.”
“I guess I ain’t popular nowhere no more,” Charley said, hot under the collar. “At least you still like me, don’t you, Bessie?”
“I still like you, Charley,” Bessie said.
“Yeah, but she’s sweet-natured, she likes everybody,” Bradley said.
“I’ll speak for myself if you don’t mind, Brad,” Bessie said, surprising everyone.
5
“It’s none of your business, you nosey little prick,” Lulu Ash said, her eyes blazing. “You keep up with your corn shucking, and I’ll keep up with mine.”
“Good Lord, I just asked,” Charley said, subdued. “You was the one who told him to look me up in the pen.”
“That don’t give you an invitation to pry,” Lulu said.
“When’s the last time you seen him?” she asked a little later, when she’d stopped being annoyed.
“The night before he swung,” Charley told her. “He offered me a steak, but I didn’t have no appetite. I liked the man.”
“I bet he drank gin to the end,” Lulu said. “I never figured Big Carl would swing. He was a smart fellow, but he had one bad habit.”
“What was that?” Charley asked.
“Killing people,” Lulu replied.
“I heard he killed three,” Charley informed her. “That’s what my buddy Jerry said.”
“That was with his bare hands,” Lulu said. “He shot a few, and threw one stiff out a window. I’d say he killed nine or ten, not countin’ niggers.”
Lulu’s memories of Big Carl Bevo went back a long way, but she didn’t intend to share many with Charley. He had been her first pimp, for one thing; that was in Louisville. He was rough at first, but once he figured out he could trust her, he became a solid
friend. In Chicago, he had taught her how to do abortions—when he brought her a girl who needed one, it was usually Big Carl that paid the fee. They tried Philadelphia for a while, but neither one of them liked the people. He set her up in her first house in St. Louis, but then he killed two colored fellows who rubbed him the wrong way, and that ended that. They tried being lovers, but Lulu soon discovered that he preferred her as a business partner. It didn’t sit well at first, but once she accepted it, every job they tried together made money.
Lulu had no intention of going into matters of that sort with the randy kid who was sprawled across her bed, though it did please her that he had been interested enough to track her down all the way to Kansas City. She’d had to pack it out of St. Louis in a hurry because her two brick-headed sons, Wally and William, had managed to get crosswise with Sal Licavoli, the head of the St. Louis mob. And relations with Judge Bull Whaley had deteriorated. Evidently, he had developed habits Nora couldn’t tolerate, so she kicked him out, after which Bull decided Lulu had set him up in order to get her young stiff a short sentence. Bull Whaley was a vindictive man, and so was Licavoli; two powerful men on the prod in one town made life too hectic, so Lulu packed up and headed west.
Charley was mighty glad he found Ma Ash. He had no idea what he was going to do in the world, and thought she might help him with a notion or two. So far, all she had done was unbutton his trousers again, but he sure wasn’t going to kick about that. He found out Beulah was in K.C. somewhere, with her sister Rose. He meant to sidle over to Beulah’s place when opportunity offered, but so far, Ma Ash had barely given him time to catch his breath.
Lulu Ash knew exactly what the big kid on her bed was thinking. She’d just put out what she had, and the little bastard was already thinking about that yappy little whiff, Beulah Baird, who was no more than a cute floozie with nice legs. That was the way it was, with younger men—in a way, it amused her; and in a way, it didn’t.
“If I was to let it happen, you could be my downfall,” she said, to give him something else to think about. “I could get mighty sweet on a young stiff like you.”