Tell Them Katy Did Read Online Free PDF

thought , it infected already . For sure he wouldn’ be jumpin’ no trains. Mos’ likely he end up under one. Or he jes lay there an’ die where they leave him. Wasn’ no worse than what’d happen to him if they catched him, though. Nothin’ she could do ’bout that—’bout any of it. She like him well enough, always had. He be her first, and they say you always sweet on your first. Not sweet enough she wantin’ to get herself kilt, though.
    He closed his eyes, breathin’ heavy. She thought maybe he pass out, till he say, his eyes still closed, “You ever hear tell of the Midnight Special?”
    “Tha’s a song, isn’ it? By that Lead Belly.”
    His laugh turned into a cough that left his lips lookin’ like he been eatin’ berries. “Huddie Ledbetter,” he said, smilin’ around his pain. “He the king of the twelve string guitar. Shit, that boy could play a guitar an’ tha’s no lie. An’ sing, he sing like the angels, didn’ he?”
    He hummed a snatch of off-pitch melody, ended up with, “Haah.” She thought that was a groan, but he did it again, and say, “Used to grunt like that ’tween verses, ole Lead Belly, say it the sound the men make on the chain gang as they bringin’ the hammer down.”
    “S’at so?” She figure his mind was wanderin’. He looked feverish, and he be feelin’ hot when they carry him up. She brought him a tin cup of rusty water from the bucket and held his head while he drunk it down. She hoped he didn’ die ’fore she got him out of the house. They burn the house down, they find out she shelterin’ him here, and her with it.
    “It’s a train,” he say out of nowhere.
    “What you talkin’ ’bout, wha’s a train?”
    “The Midnight Special. It a train be takin’ the prisoners from New Awlins out to Angola prison in the middle of the night. At midnight. So’s nobody can see ’em, I guess.” He silent for a minute. “There’s a hell hole for you, Angola prison. I’s there. Lead Belly too, jes not the same time as me, I mean. Worst place on earth. You get solitary, they put you in a metal shed out in the sun, like to bake you to death. Going to Angola same as goin’ to hell, is what they say. Them as been there.”
    “Didn’ s’pose it no country club.”
    He was quiet for a spell again, and she was fixin’ to leave him, when he say, “They’s a thing men tell at Angola. They say you see the Midnight Special, you see its headlight shinin’ on you in your cell at night, it mean you gonna be free by the morning.”
    “Huh. Well, I don’ know nothin’ ’bout that, but I am tellin’ you, for sure you gonna be free of this whorehouse by mornin’, an’ tha’s the Lord’s truth. You git yousef some sleep now. I send the boys up when it be time. Not for a spell, though, too many people ’round.” She hesitated at the door. “You be wantin’ some food? Or a whiskey? I send Sukie up with a bottle, an’ you want one. You allus fancied your whiskey, seems like.”
    “Nah, that’s okay. ’Bout whiskeyed out. I gonna sleep, is all. Wouldn’t mind me a cigarette, though.”
    She found a pack in his pocket, lit one for him, put it ’tween his lips. He puffed greedily. She waited, and when he began to snore, she took the cigarette out of his mouth and stepped it out on the floor, and went back downstairs.
    * * *
    She was sittin’ down in the parlor next to some pecker-headed redneck, jigglin’ her titties for him and pretendin’ he was Diamond Jim Brady; Booger man playin’ some fine stride piano over by the bar, place jumpin’ now, when she spot Sukie hangin’ back in the doorway. Sukie saw her look and give her head a jerk.
    “Where you goin’?” pecker-head asked when she stand up. “I got somepin down here hot to handle, I was thinkin’ we’d mosey on upstairs for a spell.”
    “You sit right there and keep that ole thing of yours hot for Miss Marilou,” she say, “an’ I’ll be back ’fore you even knows I’s