“Sho do, black man.”  Pack became soberer.  “Dat’s one o’ de great benefits o’ bein’ dec’rated.  Dey ain’t a son uv a gun on de river whut kin win lil Joe; dey all tried it.”

A moment’s reflection told Peter how simple and natural it was for Pack to prize his military medal as a good-luck piece to be used as a last resort in crap games.  He watched Tump stroke the face of his medal with his fingers.

“My mother wrote me; about your getting it, Tump.  I was glad to hear it.”

The brown man nodded, and stared down at the bit of gold on his barrel-like chest.

“Yas-suh, dat ’uz guv to me fuh bravery.  You know whut a skeery lil nigger I wuz roun’ Hooker’s Ben’; well, de sahgeant tuk me an’ he drill ever’ bit o’ dat right out ‘n me.  He gimme a baynit an’ learned me to stob dummies wid it over at Camp Oglethorpe, ontil he felt lak I had de heart to stob anything; ‘n’ ’en he sont me acrost.  I had to git a new pair breeches ever’ three weeks, I growed so fas’.”  Here he broke out into his big loose laugh again, and renewed the alcoholic scent around Peter.

“And you made good?”

“Sho did, black man, an’, ‘fo’ Gawd, I ’serve a medal ef any man ever did.  Dey gimme dish-heah fuh stobbin fo’ white men wid a baynit.  ‘Fo’ Gawd, nigger, I never felt so quare in all my born days as when I wuz a-jobbin’ de livers o’ dem white men lak de sahgeant tol’ me to.”  Tump shook his head, bewildered, and after a moment added, “Yas-suh, I never wuz mo’ surprised in all my life dan when I got dis medal fuh stobbin’ fo’ white men.”

Peter Siner looked through the Jim Crow window at the vast rotation of the Kentucky landscape on which his forebears had toiled; presently he added soberly: 

“You were fighting for your country, Tump.  It was war then; you were fighting for your country.”

* * * * *

At Jackson, Tennessee, the two negroes were forced to spend the night between trains.  Tump Pack piloted Peter Siner to a negro cafe where they could eat, and later they searched out a negro lodging-house on Gate Street where they could sleep.  It was a grimy, smelly place, with its own odor spiked by a phosphate-reducing plant two blocks distant.  The paper on the wall of the room Peter slept in looked scrofulous.  There was no window, and Peter’s four-years regime of open windows and fresh-air sleep was broken.  He arranged his clothing for the night so it would come in contact with nothing in the room but a chair back.  He felt dull next morning, and could not bring himself either to shave or bathe in the place, but got out and hunted up a negro barber-shop furnished with one greasy red-plush barber-chair.

A few hours later the two negroes journeyed on down to Perryville, Tennessee, a village on the Tennessee River where they took a gasolene launch up to Hooker’s Bend.  The launch was about fifty feet long and had two cabins, a colored cabin in front of, and a white cabin behind, the engine-room.