Free Soon Be Free by Lois Ruby Page A

spirits and said things like hit me, but nobody did, and one-eyed jacks are wild, but nobody seemed the least bit wild. They didn’t say anything at all normal that James could understand, like Mighty tough mutton this noon, eh?
    Will had a nice colorful stack of chips in front ofhim, more than anybody else at the table except for one man who had flared cuffs and a lacy bib down his shirt and diamond studs for buttons. His face never moved except for a throb at his temple like a silent drumbeat. Only his eyes spoke, and the dealer always seemed to know what he was saying, though James had no idea what language he was speaking.
    Behind them, a band played “My Old Kentucky Home” and “I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair.” Children danced to “Pop Goes the Weasel.” James imagined Rebecca’s head bobbing in the crowd, her cheeks red, her dress all askew, as the band slid into “Listen to the Mockingbird.”
    Bored with the poker game, James glanced out the window of the saloon and saw several Negroes dancing on the deck to the music, which must have come through only faintly to them.
    Among the dancers, Solomon stood as still as a fence post. He misses his sweetheart, James thought. And as much as Miz Lizbet used to rile James with her stubborn amens and her disgusting cures for freckles—buttermilk and manure, indeed!—James had to admit he missed her just a little bit, too. Now he wondered what her people in Kentucky had in mind for him.

Chapter Nineteen
RONALD M C DONALD CURLS
    That night I held vigil again, waiting for Raymond and Mattie to make their big move.
    Their radio was tuned to a thirties big-band station. Ordinarily this corny music would have been jumbled with Jay Leno streaming out from under my parents’ door, but Mom and Dad were at the Cervettis’ with other history faculty couples for a wild evening of Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit.
    This is pitiful , I thought. I’m spending Saturday night alone with a jelly jar pressed to the wall. Get a life. Then I reminded myself that at least I’d be doing the limbo next Saturday night on my nondate with my nonboyfriend, so I jumped off the bed and opened the folding shutters of my closet to see what might qualify as an actual party dress. Scraping hangers across the rack, I eliminated one ugly, wrong-color, too-short, too-tight specimen after another. But I made a useful discovery: I could hear Mattie and Raymond much more clearly from in the closet.
    â€œRaymond, I told you to keep the book in the Bubble Wrap. The dye flakes are all over my clothes.”
    â€œThink, Mattie. When have you ever seen me open that book?”
    â€œThen who was in our stuff?”
    â€œThe teenage bombshell with the Ronald McDonald curls.”
    I cringed. Was there time to get a haircut before next Saturday? I missed a few words, then caught Raymond: “I had a feeling the brat wasn’t just doing the maid service number when I came back this morning. Mark my words, Mattie, if I catch that redhead messing with my stuff again, I’ll break every bone in her scrawny body.”
    I heard a sluicing sound—Raymond imitating my bones snapping, one by one. My stomach flip-flopped, and I pulled myself in tighter, into a safe package. My ear was still pressed to the wall.
    â€œYou think she saw everything?” I heard a lot of rustling of papers and imagined Mattie inspecting the contents of the manila envelope. “I can’t tell.”
    â€œIt’s not like you could pick up DNA tracings, Mattie.”
    â€œYou’re getting hostile, Raymond.”
    â€œWe’ve gotta find it tonight. It’s in the wall of one of the closets, that’s what that moron Ernie’s best guess is. Send a boy to do a man’s job.”
    â€œThank you, Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
    Raymond apparently decided to ignore her comment. “We know for a fact it’s not the hall closet. I