The boy had now come opposite the store; he stopped, looked up and down the street, then toward the Ridge where something seemed to arrest his attention. He took one more look and ran furiously across the street and hopped onto the porch. “Papa, a truck’s coming.” At the same time he reached out and pushed something into his father’s hand: three long, tapering, mud-colored cigars.

“Where’d you get these?”

“Miss Rickett give them to me and said they was for you and asked you to come by and see her sometime.” He paused, looked down toward the edge of town, as if expecting something to appear. “A truck’s coming.”

As the men behind him burst into laughter, Harry took the cigars and slid them into his shirt pocket. He turned to them. “She ever send you fellows any presents?” He pretended great pride.

“Papa, I seen a truck coming. It was—” And then the truck had appeared behind him, large, black, square, its back heaped high with white crystals that shifted and glistened in the late morning sun, air squeezing its wheels to a standstill and small bits of its cargo falling to the pavement with the sound of hard breakfast cereal in a bowl.

Some of the men ambled to the edge of the porch and visored the sun with their hands. Harry placed his hand on top of the boy’s head just as the driver, in denim pants, slid across the leather seat and leaned out of the already open window. “Where’s the Caliban place?”

“Up the road about a mile and a half.” Harry took a step down, reached out and rested his hands on the window sill. “Can’t miss it. Looks like three flat white boxes end to end. What you got in back? Rock salt?”

“Don’t see where it’s any of your business unless the name is Caliban.” The men laughed. The driver hesitated for a second, not realizing he had come close to calling Harry a Negro. “But you’re right. Just up the road? Three white boxes?”

“You got it. Salt, you say?”

“That’s right. Salt. He wants salt; I’m bringing him salt. Just up the road, you say? Flat?”

“What he want all that salt for? You know?”

“No, I don’t. He called for it. Ten tons. If he’s got the money, I got the salt. Just up the road?”

“That’s it.”

“Good.” The driver rolled up the window, which being broken would close only part way, slid back across the seat and started the motor. Then he was gone, barreling up the Highway, swirling dust at the road-edge on either side of him.

“That’s a damn funny thing for that nigger to be buying. Ten tons of salt.” Thomason turned to Harry. “Come on, I got something to show you.” He smiled and motioned the man into the store. The boy followed them.