"Hey, there! You with the suitcase!"

Joel whirled round to find a bandy-legged, little one-armed man glowering at him from the doorway of a barbershop; he seemed too sickly to be the owner of such a hard, deep voice. "Come here, kid," he commanded, jerking a thumb at his aproned chest.

When Joel reached him, the man held out his hand and in the open palm shone a nickel. "See this?" he said. Joel nodded dumbly. "O. K.," said the man, "now look up the road yonder. See that little gal with the red hair?"

Joel saw whom he meant all right. It was a girl with fiery dutchboy hair. She was about his height, and wore a pair of brown shorts and a yellow polo shirt. She was prancing back and forth in front of the tall, curious old house, thumbing her nose at the barber and twisting her face into evil shapes. "Listen," said the barber, "you go collar that nasty youngun for me and this nickel's yours for keeps. Oh-oh! Watch out, here she comes again…"

Whooping like a wildwest Indian, the redhead whipped down the road, a yelling throng of young admirers racing in her wake. She chunked a great fistful of rocks when she came opposite the spot where Joel was standing. The rocks landed with a maddening clatter on the barbershop's tin roof, and the one-armed man, his face an apoplectic color, hollered: "I'll getcha, Idabel! I'll getcha sure as shooting; you just wait!" A flourish of female laughter floated through the screen door behind him, and a waspish-voiced woman shrilled: "Sugar, you quit actin' the fool, and hie yourself in here outa that heat. " Then, apparently addressing a third party: "I declare but what he ain't no better'n that Idabel; ain't neither one got the sense God gave 'em. Oh shoot, I says to Miz Potter (she was in for a shampoo a week ago today and I'd give a pretty penny to know how she gets that mop so filthy dirty), well, I says: 'Mis Potter, you teach that Idabel at the school, I says, 'now how come she's so confounded mean? I says: 'It do seem to me a mystery, and her with that sweet sister-speakin' of Florabel-and them two twins, and noways alike. Wellsir, Miz Potter answers me: 'Oh, Miz Caulfield, that Idabel sure do give me a peck of trouble and it's my opinion she oughta be in the penitentiary. Uh huh, that's just what she said. Well, it wasn't no revelation to me cause I always knew she was a freak, no ma'am, never saw that Idabel Thompkins in a dress yet. Sugar, you come on in here outa that heat…"

The man made a yoke with his fingers and spit fatly through it. He gave Joel a nasty look, and snapped, "Are you standing there wanting my money for doing nothing whatsoever, is that it, eh?"

"Sugar, you hear me?"

"Hush your mouth, woman," and the screen door whined shut.

Joel shook his head and went on his way. The redheaded girl and her loud gang were gone from sight, and the white afternoon was ripening towards the quiet time of day when the summer sky spills soft color over the drawn land. He smiled with chilly insolence at the interested stares of passersby, and when he reached the establishment known as R. V. Lacey's Princely Place, he stopped to read a list that was chalked on a tiny, battered blackboard which stood outside the entrance: Miss Roberta V. Lacey Invites You to Come in and Try Our Tasty Fried Catfish and Chicken-Yummy Dixie Ice Cream-Good Delicious Barbecue-Sweet Drinks & Cold Beer.

"Sweet drinks," he said half-aloud, and it seemed as if frosty Coca-Cola was washing down his dry throat. "Cold beer." Yes, a cold beer. He felt the lumpy outline of the change purse in his pocket, then pushed the swinging screen door open and stepped inside.

In the box-shaped room that was R. V. Lacey's Princely Place there were about a dozen people standing around, mostly overalled boys with rawboned, sun-browned faces, and a few young girls. A hubbub of talk faded to nothing when Joel entered and self-consciously sat himself down at a wooden counter which ran the length of the room.

"Why, hello, little one," boomed a muscular woman who immediately strode forward and propped her elbows on the counter before him. She had long ape-like arms that were covered with dark fuzz, and there was a wart on her chin, and decorating this wart was a single antenna-like hair. A peach silk blouse sagged under the weight of her enormous breasts; a zany light sparkled in the red-rimmed eyes she focused on him. "Welcome to Miss Roberta's." Two of her dirty-nailed fingers reached out to give his cheek a painful pinch. "Say now, what can Miss Roberta do for this cute-lookin fella?"

Joel was overwhelmed. "A cold beer," he blurted, deafly ignoring the titter of giggles and guffaws that sounded in the background.

"Can't serve no beer to minors, babylove, even if you are a mighty cute-lookin fella. Now what you want is a nice NEHI grapepop," said the woman, lumbering away.

The giggles swelled to honest laughter, and Joel's ears turned a humiliated pink. He wondered if the woman was a lunatic. And his eyes scanned the sour-smelling room as if it were a madhouse. There were calendar portraits of toothy bathing beauties on the walls, and a framed certificate which said: This is to certify that Roberta Velma Lacey won Grand Prize in Lying at the annual Double Branches Dog Days Frolic. Hanging from the low ceiling were several poisonous streamers of strategically arranged flypaper, and a couple of naked lightbulbs that were ornamented with shredded ribbons of green-and-red crepe paper. A water pitcher filled with branches of towering pink dogwood sat on the counter.

"Here y'are," said the woman, plunking down a dripping wet bottle of purple sodapop. "I declare, little one, you sure are hot and dusty-lookin." She gave his head a merry pat. "Know somethin, you must be the boy Sam Radclif brung to town, say?"

Joel admitted this with a nod. He took a swallow of the drink, and it was lukewarm. "I want… that is, do you know how far it is from here to Skully's Landing?" he said, realizing every ear in the place was turned to him.

"Ummm," the woman tinkered with her wart, and walled her eyes up into her head till they all but disappeared. "Hey, Romeo, how far you spec it is out to The Skulls," she said, and grinned crazily. "I call it The Skulls on accounta…" but she did not finish, for at that moment the Negro boy of whom she's asked the information, answered: "Two miles, more like three, maybe, ma'am."

"Three miles," she parroted. "But if I was you, babylove, I wouldn't go traipsin over there."

"Me neither," whined a yellow-haired girl.

"Is there anyway I could get a ride out?"

Somebody said, "Ain't Jesus Fever in town?"

Yeah, I saw Jesus-Jesus, he parked round by the Livery-What? Y'all mean old Jesus Fever? Christamighty, I thought he was way gone and buried! — Nah, man. He's past a hundred but alive as you are.-Sure, I seen Jesus-Yeah, Jesus is here…

The woman grabbed a flyswatter and slammed it down with savage force. "Shut up that gab. I can't hear a thing this boy says."

Joel felt a little surge of pride, tinged with fright, at being the center of such a commotion. The woman fixed her zany eyes on a point somewhere above his head, and said: "What business you got with The Skulls, babylove?"

Now this again! He sketched the story briefly, omitting all except the simplest events, even to excluding a mention of the letters. He was trying to locate his father, that was the long and short of it. Could she help him?

Well, she didn't know. She stood silent for some time, toying with her wart and staring off into space. "Hey, Romeo," she said finally, "you say Jesus Fever's in town?"

"Yes'm." The boy she called Romeo was colored, and wore a puffy, stained chefs cap. He was stacking dishes in a sink behind the counter.

"Come here, Romeo," she said, beckoning, "I got something to discuss." Romeo joined her promptly in a rear corner. She began whispering excitedly, glancing over her shoulder now and then at Joel, who could not hear what they were saying. It was quiet in the room, everyone was looking at him. He took out the bullet thefted from Sam Radclif and rolled it nervously in his hands.