The hotel lobby was packed with men eating supper. It was home-cooked food served up by stout, beaming ladies. Miles was nowhere to be seen. A clerk at the desk told me he was in Room 311, and that was where I found him. He had been sitting on the bed reading a book.

“Carrie! What on earth are you doing here?”

“I need your help, Miles. I need it real bad.”

He led me to a stuffed chair.

“Sit down here and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Hit’s Rondal Lloyd. You recall Rondal? The organizer you kicked out of Vulcan eight years ago?”

He frowned. “I’m afraid that I do. Jesus, Sis, you aren’t messed up with him again! You aren’t—” He looked me up and down. “You’ve been on the mountain. Why didn’t Ben tell me?”

“Because he thinks I’m still yet in Charleston. Miles, I’m desperate. Rondal got shot and he’s real bad off. He’s paralyzed. I got him out in a car near the depot. They’s some New York reporters looking after him. You got to help me git him out of here before somebody recognizes him. Help me git him on a train for home.”

“Oh, Lord. How do you get in these messes?”

“I aint got time for no lectures. He’s a-laying there in that hot sun.”

“I wasn’t planning on leaving until tomorrow morning. Last regular train left about an hour ago. But I could go tonight. Lytton Davidson has a private train pulling out around eight-thirty. But getting an organizer on there, I don’t know.”

“You can say he’s one of your employees. They’ll take your word for it.”

“Well, we can try.”

I threw my arms around him. His hair was neatly trimmed close to his ears and his neck smelled of cologne.

We stopped outside the ballroom downstairs.

“You had supper?”

“I aint et since this morning.”

“Plenty of food in there.”

“I wouldnt eat their food.”

“But you’ll ride on their train.”

“That’s different. Hit’s for Rondal.”

We went into a restaurant and bought sandwiches, and soup for Rondal. At the depot, the woman said, “He’s awake and asking for you.”

I introduced Miles and they shook hands all around. Then we lifted Rondal out of the automobile and laid him in the shade. I knelt beside him and felt his forehead, rummaged through my bag for a thermometer.

“The train’s over on the siding,” Miles said. “I’ll go see if we can take him on board.”

“We’d better be going,” said the woman. She took my hand and smiled. “Good luck.”

“I cant thank you enough.”

“Well,” said the man. “Happy Labor Day.”

“What?”

“Labor Day. Tomorrow’s Labor Day. Isn’t that ironic?”

Rondal’s temperature was 103. I poured water on a cloth and wiped his face.

“Dont give me no more shots,” he said.