“You’ll break down,” Evans said. “I seen bigger guys than you crack. Some of them went to the bughouse at Pineville. You ever see anybody go nuts from stir? A stir nut is something to see.”
“How deep do you want the trench?” Avery said.
“I told you before, three feet.”
“It looks deep enough now.”
“You better learn something now. You do like you’re told in the camp.”
“I thought I might give a suggestion.”
“Don’t.”
“All right.”
“This man you’re with is trouble. Buddy with him and he’ll get you time in detention,” Evans said.
“I didn’t ask to dig latrines with him.”
Evans stared at Avery as though he were evaluating him. He flipped the chewed matchstick into the trench. The butt of his revolver and the cartridges in his belt shone in the sun.
“Do your stretch easy. It’s the best way. Don’t give me no trouble.”
He left them and went to the trees.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Toussaint said.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Don’t think you ever got to take pressure off me.”
“I got tired of listening to him talk.”
“I don’t want you putting your neck out for me.”
“Why did you start that stuff with him?”
“I thought it might pick up the conversation.”
“He’s right. You’ll never make your time,” Avery said.
“You believe what he said about cracking a man down?”
“I don’t know. A few years of this. Jesus.”
“You think he can crack you?”
“I don’t ask for trouble.”
“It don’t matter if you ask for it or not. You got one to three years of it when you walked through that front gate,” Toussaint said.
“Free will.”
Toussaint looked at him. “It’s a joke the brothers used to teach us,” Avery said.
The sun went behind a cloud and the clearing fell into shadow. The breeze from the river felt suddenly cool; the sky was dark. A dust devil swirled by the trench and spun into the air. Its funnel widened, whipped by the wind, and disappeared.
The afternoon wore on, and at five o’clock the men climbed into the trucks and were taken to the barracks. The trucks rolled down the gravel roads over the railroad tracks and through the fields of green and yellow grass with the sun’s dying rays slanting over the pines. The men showered and changed into fresh denims and lined up outside the dining hall for supper. They sat at the wooden tables and benches and ate the tasteless food that still seemed to smell of the carbolic and antiseptic that was used to clean the kitchen. They went back to the barracks and lay exhausted on their bunks, listening to the sounds of the frogs and night birds in the woods. Then it was nine o’clock and the lights went out and someone struck a match to the candle and the poker game began for those who were not too tired to play.