Sweet Everlasting

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us over and got out and wrote Pete a ticket, all sort of matter of fact. Told us to have a good day and went on back towards his roadblock. It surprised me that Pete didn't argue with him, just took the ticket and put it in his pocket and drove on off, all real calm. About two miles down the road Pete said, "Let's see what she can do," and he put his foot to the floor, and the old car roared and jumped and threw us back in the seat, and we come to a curve and Pete almost lost it, the right back wheel hitting the dirt, but Pete keeping his foot to the floor and everything going by in a blur, and then just like that, quick as he started it, he slowed down. And he was laughing. But it wasn't funny to me. I said, "Just let me tell you one thing right now, and Fm real serious about this, and I wish you'd listen to me: that right there is not the way I want to die." Pete laughed harder, and he threw his head back, like he'd forgot he couldn't do that, and it hurt him and he grabbed his neck and nearly went off the road then too. He drove on and hit a highway he recognized and before long we reached home, just in time for the TV news. !3 William and Ezra got them a partner out of Ricksville. He come down to Yellow Shoals and picked them up in his wagon and carried them to Ricksville or somewhere else so they could break into houses or stores, and then they split the money they got out of it. 104 They'd come into Ricksville and leave the mule and wagon in the woods south of town, where the swamp started and there wasn't many folks around, and they'd walk on into town. They'd walk in one at a time, putting about five minutes between them, so as not to draw attention. They got to be pretty good at figuring out whether somebody was home or not. They tried to stay away from any place that had a dog. They sat out in the woods behind houses and watched what went on, and they learned that some folks will make it easy for you by going off somewhere and leaving a door standing wide open. Ezra and William had got smart since they fell in with this other boy, and he was a boy too, just like them —no older than sixteen. They didn't take no chances now, at least if they could help it. After they'd hit Ricksville a good many times, they figured it was too risky to keep on, and they started lookingfor another place to work. The problem was, they didn't have nowhere else to go. If they'd had them a car, it would have been different. They could have gone over to Simpson or Crow Valley, but it was too long a ride for a mule and wagon. So that was when they hatched their big plan: they'd find a way to rob Mr. Stillwell. If they could get into his place, there was no telling what they'd come away with. They figured they'd be able to go on to Atlanta right away, and maybe even on up North. And it made a lot of sense too, Mr. Stillwell being the richest man in the county, and them living right there close to him, so they could watch his house and try to see was there a regular time when folks would be there and when they wouldn't. They watched to see if somebody stayed there when they went to prayer meeting on Wednesday night or to church on Sunday morning. They noticed that Mrs. Stillwell had a club meeting she went to every Friday 105 night—some missionary society—and that sometimes she'd take the baby along with her, and then if Mr. Stillwell went off down to Hodges Store, like he did almost everynight, there wouldn't be nobodybut Alice and her sister in the house, and they went places too. One of the boys would go down to Hodges Store and sit outside beside the screen door drinking a Co-Cola and...