"He's been at ev'ybody in the place an' they all turned him down.
I figgered he'd be gettin' to you soon."
"Oh," Max said. "Don' do it, boy," the giant trusty said softly. "No matter how good it looks, don' do it.
Reeves is so full of hate, he don' care who gets hurt so long as he gets out."
Max stretched out on the bunk. His eyes stared up into the dark.
The only thing that made sense in what Reeves had said was the two years. Max didn't have two years to throw away.
Why, in two years, he'd be twenty-one.
11.
"Man, this is real food," Mike said enthusiastically as he sat down beside Max, his plate piled high with fat back, chitterlings, collard greens and potatoes.
Max looked over at him wearily. Stolidly he pushed the food into his mouth.
It was better than the prison food, all right.
They didn't see as much meat in a week as they had on their plates right now.
But he wasn't hungry.
He was tired, bent-over tired from pulling at the rice all day.
He didn't think he'd ever straighten out.
Reeves and another prisoner sat down on the other side of him.
Reeves looked over his plate at him, his mouth working over the fat meat.
"Picked yourself a gal yet, boy?"
Max shook his head.
They were there all right.
Cajun girls, young and strong, with their short skirts and muscular thighs and legs.
Plenty of them, all over the fields, working side by side with the men, their hair flying and their teeth flashing and the female smell of them always in your nostrils.
It didn't seem to matter to them that the men were prisoners. Only that they were men and for once there were enough of them to go around.
"I'm too tired," Max said. He put his plate down and rubbed his ankle.
It was sore from the leg iron and walking in the water all day.
"I'm not," the prisoner next to Reeves said. "I been savin' up my hump a whole year for this week. I'm gonna git me enough to last me till nex' yeah."
"Better not pass it up, Injun," Reeves said. "There ain't nothin' in this world like Cajun girls."
"Man, that's the truth," the other prisoner said excitedly.
"You got one picked out?" Reeves asked across Max to Mike. His eyes were cold and baleful.
Mike didn't answer. He just kept eating.
Reeves's face darkened.
"I seen you out there on the field.
Walkin' up an' down with that rifle in your hands. Showin' the girls what you got in them tight pants." Mike still didn't reply. He began to wipe up the gravy in his plate with pieces of bread. Reeves's laugh was nasty. "There's always some half-wit girl lookin' for a big buck nigger with a cock as long as my arm.
An' I bet you just can't wait to stick it into some white girl. That's all you niggers think of, stickin' it in white women."
Mike stuck the last piece of bread into his mouth and swallowed it. Regretfully he looked down at the empty plate and got to his feet.
"Man, that was sho' good."
"I’m talkin' to you, nigger," Reeves said.
For the first time, Mike looked down at him.
Almost lazily he bent over Max and with one hand picked Reeves up by the throat.
He held him writhing in the air at the level of his head.
"You talkin' to me, jailbird?" Reeves quaked, his voice choking in his throat.
Mike began to shake Reeves gently. "Remember one thing, jailbird," he said.
"I'm a trusty an' you' jus' a prisoner.
You likes stayin' healthy, you better learn to shut you' mouth."
Reeves's arms flailed helplessly in the air. His face was almost purple.
Mike shook him a few more times, then casually flung him at the wall of the bunkhouse, about five feet away.
Reeves crashed against the wall and slid down it to the floor.
His eyes glared at Mike. His lips moved but no sound escaped them.
Mike smiled at him. "You' learnin', jailbird," he said.
"You' learnin'." He picked up his empty plate. "I'm goin' see if I can't scrounge me some more of these eats.