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“Those two men in the truck think they’re getting out.”
“Jeffry and Billy Jo?” Toussaint said.
“The one with the red scar and his podner.”
“If they bust free they’ll be the first. Two years ago somebody in gang three tried it. He was climbing over the wire fence when they caught him with the shotguns. They make everybody in camp come outside and look at him hanging in the wire.”
The sun was high above the trees now, and it shone directly down in the ditch. Brother Samuel and Daddy Claxton tied their handkerchiefs around their foreheads to keep the sweat out of their eyes. Jeffry complained of the heat and his stomach, and he held both h
ands close to the iron head of the pick and scratched at the dirt and roots. Billy Jo continued to talk of the women he had slept with, although no one listened to him now. The wheelbarrow was brought up and the loose dirt was shoveled in. The men rested on their picks and cursed the sun and the dust, and once more swung into the hard sunbaked wall before them.
“Bring the goddamn water barrel down,” Billy Jo aid.
“Where the hell is the trusty? Hey Evans, send down the water barrel,” another said.
“I can’t drink no water,” Jeffry said.
“The rest of us can,” Billy Jo said. “Evans! Tell the goddamn trusty to bring us some water.”
Evans stood over them on the crest of the ditch. He frowned at Billy Jo.
“What’s your beef?” he said.
“Some goddamn water.”
“Go back to work.”
“It’s hotter than a bitch down here.”
“I’ll send the trusty. Keep swinging that pick.”
Evans walked up the line and sent the trusty back. The aluminum water barrel was beaded with drops of moisture. A tin dipper hung from the lip of the barrel. Billy Jo pulled off the lid and filled the dipper. He swallowed twice and spit the rest in the dirt.
“This tastes like Evans washed his socks in it,” he said.
“Drink it or go dry,” the trusty said.
“Fuck you, ass kisser.”
“Maybe you don’t get no water the rest of the day,” the trusty said.
“And maybe you’ll get your fucking throat slit while you’re asleep,” Billy Jo said.
The trusty put the lid back on the barrel. “That’s all your drinking water for today.”
“Let me have a drink. I’m like cotton inside,” Daddy Claxton said. The trusty pulled the lid back off and let him fill the dipper. The water rolled down Claxton’s chin and over his chest. He lowered the dipper into the barrel and drank again. Jeffry watched him drink, and rubbed the back of his hand over his lips.
“You’ll have the runs for a week,” Billy Jo said.
“His tongue won’t be blistering by one o’clock,” the trusty said.
“Screw you, punk.”
The dipper was passed around the gang. The trusty replaced it and the lid when they had finished.
“There’s a freshwater spring over in them trees,” he said. “I’m going over directly and have a drink.”
“You mean there’s clean water over yonder?” Jeffry said.
