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rose into barren hillsides clustered with tents and hole dwellings. The prime real estate, no doubt. They wouldn’t find anything there.
    After a half hour of wandering around they began to think they wouldn’t find any place at all. Every inch of ground was occupied with men.
    They finally found a bare space toward the east wall.
    “What now, though?” Barclay said. “We ain’t got no blanket or nothing.”
    “When they told us we were leavin’ Libby, I left my old blanket there,” Charlie said regretfully. “I thought we were bein’ paroled. Didn’t know we were comin’ here till I got on the train.”
    “What’re you two doing?” croaked a voice from somewhere around their ankles.
    They looked down and saw an emaciated naked figure with a dirty blond beard stained with blood staring up at them with bug eyes. He had crawled out of a burrow in the ground nearby like some kind of hollow-eyed mole. His skin was so crowded with angry red mosquito bites, he looked like he had the measles.
    “We’re just settling in,” Charlie answered.
    “Who is?”
    “Me and him,” Charlie said, pointing to Barclay.
    “My ass you are. I won’t tolerate no nigger suckin’ up the same air as me. Niggers landed me in this predicament. I’ll be damned if I die in sight of one now. Y’all bed down here, I’m gonna crawl out and cut your damn throats while you’re sleepin’.”
    Charlie moved forward as if to kick the miserable creature, but Barclay held him back with his elbow.
    “Leave it, Charlie. He’s right. Man ought to die as he chooses.”
    The man stared at them, then shimmied strangely backward into the mouth of his hole.
    “Y’all get the fuck outta here,” he warned in parting, then disappeared in the dark depths of the burrow.
    “Come on; he can keep this air,” Charlie announced loudly. “It stinks anyhow.”
    “It stinks everywhere,” said a boy’s voice.
    They turned and saw a ragged, rangy kid of about fifteen in the remnants of a drummer boy’s uniform that he had outgrown, his arms extending far beyond the cuffs, the seams popping in a few places. He had a mop of black hair and keen blue eyes, with a dirty red cap placed jauntily on his head.
    “Y’all lookin’ for a shebang?”
    “A what?” Charlie asked.
    “A shebang, you know, shelter.”
    “What’s it look like?” Charlie said.
    “I know where there’s one, just vacated. Got a roof even.”
    “Oh, yeah? Just who’re you, a goddamned speculator?”
    “I’m Ranse Popwell. Folks call me Red Cap. Y’all got money? Greenbacks?”
    Charlie looked at Barclay, who shrugged.
    “What’s it to you?”
    “How much you got?” Red Cap asked.
    “How much’ll it cost?” Charlie countered.
    “Most of what you got, probably.”
    “So show us.”
    “Show me the color of your coin first.”
    Charlie frowned but got down on one knee and took off his left shoe.
    The boy craned his neck curiously, but Charlie turned and knocked a few dollars into his palm. He peeled out one wrinkled greenback and put the rest away, then stuck the shoe back on his foot, turned, and flashed the money at the kid.
    “All right, come on.”
    He turned and went off through the rows of shelters.
    “I got money, Charlie,” Barclay said. “Some, anyhow.”
    “Good, ’cause I’m nearly tapped. Come on.” He looked around, bug-eyed, nervous. “But keep your eyes peeled; make sure we don’t get jumped.”
    They followed the kid north through the maze of ramshackle dwellings and bony men languishing out in the open, crossed one of the streets, and came to a row of dugouts covered with frame roofs of dirty canvas.
    The boy turned and held out his hand.
    “Five dollars,” he said.
    “Five?” Charlie squawked. “I got two. Including what I already gave you.”
    “It’s five,” Red Cap said. He looked appraisingly at Barclay. “How about you?”
    “I can cover that,” Barclay said, and leaned on Charlie’s shoulder to slip off his left