you weren't in here tonight, were you?
go out through the back.
'course i was young and full of beans then--
i didn't understand the spot i was putting roderick in.
oh--i think he came in one more time with hollis and--naw, your daddy wasn't with them. made their monthly pickup. roderick wasn't in so i just kept my mouth good and shut and handed over that envelope.
could of been. that was white people's business.
what about it?
buddy was more a part of the big picture--county political machine, chamber of commerce, zoning board if i kept those people happy, he was pretty much on my side. whenever somebody thought--they start up another bar for the black folks, they'd be--how should i put this? they'd be officially discouraged.
i don't recall a prisoner ever died in your father's custody. i don't recall a man in this town--black, white, mexican--who'd hesitate a minute before they'd call on buddy deeds to solve a problem. more than that i wouldn't like to say.
carolyn--knock that off for a minute.
hobby of mine. got some artifacts, couple pieces one of your men out at the base made. free admission.
that's where he fell.
it's a bar. people come together, drink, fall in love, fall out of love, air their grudges out--
if i thought it would help i'd put up a sign telling them not to. right under the one about the employees washing their hands.
this here's carolyn. honey, this is my son, delmore.
so.
this is an official visit, then--
your boys out there cooped up together, need somewhere they can let the steam out. if they're black, there's not but one place in this town they feel welcome. been that way since before you were born.
well, you're the man out there now, aren't you? it's your call.
i been hearing rumors about this new commander coming for a couple weeks now. boys say they heard he's a real hard case. spit-and-polish man. full- bird colonel name of payne, they say-- bet you never figured you end up back here.
right.
over the years, this is the one place that's always been there. i loan a little money out, settle some arguments. got a cot in the back- people get afraid to go home they can spend the night. there's not enough of us to run anything in this town- the white people are mostly out on the lake now and the mexicans hire each other. there's the holiness church and there's big o's place.
a lot of 'em choose both. there's not like a borderline between the good people and the bad people--you're not either on one side or the other--
i gonna meet that family of yours?
because i'm your father.
yeah--that's him. got two, three thousand people under him out there, you count the civilians.
that's john horse.
spanish in florida called him juan caballo. john horse.
both.
he was part of the seminole nation, got pushed down into the everglades in pioneer days. african people who run off from the slaveholders hooked up with them, married up, had children. when the spanish give up florida, the u.s.army come down to move all them indian peoples off to oklahoma--
they teaching that now? good. only a couple of 'em held out--this man, john horse, and his friend wild cat, and a fella name of osceola. army put all of them in prison and osceola died, but them other two escaped and put together a fighting band and held out another ten, fifteen years. beat zach taylor and a thousand troops at lake okeechobee.
they got tired of fighting, went to the indian territories for a while. but the slave-raiders were on 'em even there, and one night they packed up and nearly the whole band rode down to mexico. crossed at eagle pass.
men worked for santa anna down there, waited out the civil war. the land wasn't much to feed people on, so in 1870 they come north and put up at fort duncan and the men joined up what was called the seminole negro indian scouts. best trackers either side of the border. bandits, rustlers, texas rednecks, kiowa, comanche--
same as they done in mexico.
they were in the army. like your father.
i got a pretty good guess.
you didn't go telling your father you were here?
he's a pretty tough old man, huh?
pda?
well--
didn't have a father?
when you're his age you'll still be pissed off about him.
these are our people. there were paynes in florida, oklahoma, piedras negras--couple of 'em won the whatsit-- congressional medal of honor--
by blood you are. but blood only means what you let it.
well, he's living proof of that, son. living proof.
i'm not open. we were just talking.
yeah. how about that? people start digging holes in this county, there's no telling what'll come up.
i was here.
i'd been running a game on the side after hours craps, draw poker on the weekends. roderick didn't know about it. more important, charley wade didn't know about it, 'cause i didn't want to cut him in. i suppose i'd been drinking some, and i was pretty full of myself in those days--but hell, i just didn't expect the man so early--
sheriff charley had some real big friends in politics then, and if the truth come out it wasn't going to go easy on hollis. i don't know why i trusted buddy with it--don't know why he trusted me. the first time i ever talked with him was right there, and then with a dead white man leakin' blood on the floor between us. he could charm the scales off a rattler, buddy deeds.
time went on, people liked the story that we told better than anything the truth might have been.