I put on my raincoat and hat and walked across the field to the treeline and the collapsed corn crib where Ruthie Jean and Moleen had begun their affair, where they had been spied on by the overseer whom Luke Fontenot would later kill, where they had reenacted that old Southern black-white confession of need and dependence that, in its peculiar way, was a recognition of the simple biological fact of our brotherhood.
And for that reason only, I told myself, I stuck the flowers by their stems in what was left of the crib's doorway, then began walking back toward my truck just as the first raindrops clicked against the brim of my hat.
But I knew better. All our stories began here-mine, Moleen's, the Fontenot family's, even Sonny's. Born to the griff, pool halls, and small-time prize rings, he somehow stepped across an unseen line and became someone whom even he didn't recognize. The scars on his body became le
sions on our consciences, his jailhouse re bop a paean for Woody Guthrie and Joe Hill.
If I learned anything from my association with Moleen and Ruthie Jean and Sonny Boy, it's the fact that we seldom know each other and can only guess at the lives that wait to be lived in every human being.
And if you should ever doubt the proximity of the past, I thought to myself, you only had to look over your shoulder at the rain slanting on the fields, like now, the smoke rising in wet plumes out of the stubble, the mist blowing off the lake, and you can see and hear with the clarity of a dream the columns marching four abreast out of the trees, barefoot, emaciated as scarecrows, their perforated, sun-faded colors popping above them in the wind, their officers cantering their horses in the field, everyone dressing it up now, the clatter of muskets shifting in unison to the right shoulder, yes, just a careless wink of the eye, just that quick, and you're among them, wending your way with liege lord and serf and angel, in step with the great armies of the dead.