Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye Read Free Page A

happened?’
    ‘Take it easy.’
    ‘I got to make it, I got to …’ he whispered tensely.
    ‘I saw it,’ I whispered.
    ‘You did?’
    ‘Relax…’
    ‘It had me worried….’
    Your worries are not over by a long shot, I was thinking.…

Chapter Two
    T HE PART OF THE field where we were working was halfway between the irrigation ditch and the eucalypti thicket we were to head for when we had heard the signal. We were picking the cantaloupes, stacking them in little pyramids for the contractor’s trucks to collect later, working towards the thicket. Byers had tied his horse to a small oak tree near by and was standing in the shade, a corn-cob pipe in his mouth, watching his squad like a padrone. The only difference was that Byers had the Winchester cradled across his stomach.
    Toko and I were working close together, a little apart from the others, which included Budlong. This was delightful. This was a happy augury. Now I would not have to worry about my marksmanship. Now I had him at almost pointblank range.
    ‘It’s getting late, ain’t it?’ Toko said to me.
    ‘We’ve got plenty of time,’ I said. I was not nervous any more. I had all the confidence in the world. I had the feel of this thing now.
    ‘Seems pretty late to me’
    ‘Sun fools you this time of the year,’ I said. ‘Climbs fast. It’s only seven.…’
    I picked another armful of melons and stacked them, and took another look at the sun. You would think that at seven o’clock in the morning the sun would hardly be above the horizon, but here it was well up in the sky. When I got back to Toko, I said, ‘Well, here I go. And for God’s sake, relax. You hear?’
    ‘I’m relaxed,’ he said.
    ‘Stay that way,’ I said. ‘Falling out!’ I yelled at Byers.
    ‘Falling out, second squad!’ Byers yelled, warning the guard of the next squad that he would be absent for a few minutes. He came over to me and stopped. ‘You?’ he asked.
    ‘Feels like I got the runners again,’ I said.
    ‘He oughtn’t to be working,’ Toko said. ‘He’s sick.’
    Byers smiled at him lewdly. ‘If he could only cook, heh?’
    ‘He’s got the runners,’ Toko said.
    ‘Something I ate, no doubt,’ I said.
    ‘All right, go ahead.’ Byers said, gesturing with the Winchester.
    I started across the patch to the chemical privy, careful not to step on any of the vines, knowing that Byers was watching me, a pace behind.
    ‘I’m sorry about this, Imperator,’ I said over my shoulder.
    ‘You know what I think?’ he said. ‘I don’t think you got the runners. I don’t think that’s your trouble. I think you’re constipated, be damned if I don’t.’
    He kicked me hard in the rump, almost knocking me down.
    ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that, Majesty,’ I said.
    ‘That’s the trouble. Sure,’ he said. ‘You’re constipated. You need loosening up.’
    He kicked me again. I fell against the wagon.
    ‘Now, you make it snappy,’ he said.
    ‘Yes, sir, Mister Byers,’ I said, going inside the wagon, behind the canvas flap.
    I quickly slipped my pants down and sat on the hole looking through the crack at Byers. He was standing at the side of the wagon, fifteen or twenty feet away, and I knew that it was now or never. I got up off the seat and buttoned my pants and dropped to the floor, crawling to the opening, to the canvas flap. I looked out. Everything was just as it should be. I crawled out on the ground and lay motionless, face down and inert, the side of my face pressed flat against the earth, smelling the richness of the loam and the dampness of the dew that had now retreated from the sun to the sheltered side of the furrow, child-bound again for a moment, remembering the smell of earth and dew from a lifetime ago, but remembering in scraps and not the whole, remembering from the outside inward instead of from the inside outward… I started crawling up the furrow to the irrigation ditch, having no sense of motion at all. The only way I could