The old man’s face gleamed, memory-bound. Eddie did not glimpse the young man who had been (Gran-pere was too old for that), but in his rheumy eyes he saw the mixture of excitement and determination and sick fear which must have filled him that day. Must have filled them all. Eddie felt himself reaching out for it the way a hungry man will reach for food, and the old man must have seen some of this on his face, for he seemed to swell and gain vigor. Certainly this wasn’t a reaction the old man had ever gotten from his grandson; Tian did not lack for bravery, say thankya, but he was a sodbuster for all that. This man, however, this Eddie of New York…he might live a short life and die with his face in the dirt, but he was no sodbuster, by ’Riza.

“Go on,” Eddie said.

“Aye. So Ah will. Some of those comin toward us split off on River Rud, toward the little rice-manors that’re there—you c’d see the dust—and a few more split off on Peaberry Road. Ah ’member Pokey Slidell turned to me, had this kind of sick smile on his face, and he stuck out his hand (the one didn’t have his bah in it), and he said…”

Seven

What Pokey Slidell says under a burning autumn sky with the sound of the season’s last crickets rising from the high white grass on either side of them is “It’s been good to know ya, Jamie Jaffords, say true.” He’s got a smile on his face like none Jamie has ever seen before, but being only nineteen and living way out here on what some call the Rim and others call the Crescent, there’s plenty he’s never seen before. Or will ever see, way it looks now. It’s a sick smile, but there’s no cowardice in it. Jamie guesses he’s wearing one just like it. Here they are under the sun of their fathers, and the darkness will soon have them. They’ve come to their dying hour.

Nonetheless, his grip is strong when he seizes Pokey’s hand. “You ain’t done knowin me yet, Pokey,” he says.

“Hope you’re right.”

The dust-cloud moils toward them. In a minute, maybe less, they will be able to see the riders throwing it. And, more important, the riders throwing it will be able to see them.

Eamon Doolin says, “You know, I believe we ort to get in that ditch”— he points to the right side of the road— “an’ snay down small-small. Then, soon’s they go by, we can jump out and have at em.”