Huval checks the Purdy. "Two shells, one recently fired."

"Where else did you shoot him?" asks the sheriff, moving the game table back and stepping past Mrs. Cheney to get a good look at Coach.

"Hi, Cooter," says Mrs. Cheney, giving him a pat as he passes.

"Did that man shoot you?" he asks Coach.

Coach pooches his lips in and out and says, "Hoo hoo hoo."

"This sucker has brain damage," muses the sheriff. "Thanks to you, Hugh."

Across the table, Mr. Brunette begins to stamp with one foot.

"What in the hell did you do to him, Hugh Bob?"

"I had to shoot him," says the uncle, beginning to hop again. "He was coming at me and he would have gotten away."

"What-in-the-hell-" begins the sheriff, turning first to me, then, thinking better of it, beseeches Van Dorn, who is still sitting, rocking to and fro, on the top step.

"Sheriff Sharp," I say, rising, "I can explain everything. But right now I really think it would be a good idea if you would arrest all these people, examine the evidence, both these photographs and Dr. Lipscomb's medical evidence of abuse before any more children are harmed, in which case I hold you responsible. In fact, I insist on it."

The sheriff slowly rounds on me, stepping clear of the table- Mrs. Cheney gives him another pat as he passes-plants feet apart, hand on hips. "You demand of me." He cups an ear. "Doctor, did I hear you say that you demand of me?"

"I didn't say demand." Now he does look straight at me, all the Western cantering-posse geniality suddenly sloughed-we're back to his old, flat-eyed, bulged-vein sheriff's anger. He hates my guts! We're back in the sixties, where we've always been, he the true Southerner, I the fake Southern liberal-the worst kind. He could be right.

"Let me just remind you, Doctor, of two little facts, one of which you may be aware of, the other you are evidently not."

"All right." Nothing is more menacing than an old-style, soft-voiced Southern sheriff.

"You're the felon here, Doctor, not them, you heah me? You're the one I arrested and convicted two years ago of selling drugs. You the one went to jail, not them. Two." He holds two not fat but big and long fingers in my face. "I have a telex in my office as of last night from the ATFA people to pick you up on the parole violation. You heah me, Doctor?" The cold rage of lawmen is never not present and never less than astounding. I've never seen even enraged paranoiacs get as angry as policemen. Slowly he folds his fingers, making a fist with a Masonic ring as big as a brass knuckle. He could easily hit me. Slowly the fist descends until his thumb hooks on to his Texas belt. "So I tell you what let's me and you do, Doctor. Let's you and me go on out to my car and go up the road a piece to Angola. Then we'll see about your old friend Hugh Bob here and take care these other good people-if I can find out what you done to them."

"Sheriff, I ask you for the last time and in your own best interests to arrest these people and hold them at least for investigation. Otherwise I fear I know what is going to happen. As for the warrant to pick me up, I've already been to Angola and am presently out on a pass. If you like, please call Warden Elmo Jenkins in the federal detention unit."

"If I like-You fear-You mocking me?" Smiling, he comes close. He hates everything I do. He hates my seriousness more than sass, the hatefulness translating into a kind of familiarity. He comes up close as a lover, actually touching me with his stomach, like an enraged coach bumping an umpire-but more erotically. "If I like-I'll tell you what I like, Doctor. I'd like it if you would get going right through that door." He reaches for the door.

"Whoa!" says the uncle, not attempting to block the sheriff at the door but craning past him. "Look ahere, Cooter," says the uncle, hopping from one foot to the other. "Let me tell you-"

The sheriff, aware of a commotion behind him, slowly turns, holding out a staying hand to me.

Mrs. Cheney has meanwhile risen from the couch and, approaching the sheriff, turned her back, lifted her skirt, and now in one quick practiced motion, or rather, several in rapid succession, lifted her skirt, snapped down her panties-teddies? they're long, lavender, and loose-fitting-and presents to Sheriff Sharp, mooning him in the saucy way sorority girls do in certain film comedies, hands on knees, head cocked friskily around.

She backs into him.

"What?" says Sheriff Sharp, rearing a bit. "Hey!"

Mrs. Cheney reaches behind her and with a sure instinct and sense of direction takes hold of him. Then, finding him clothed, she seizes his hands in hers and places them on her hips, under hers, to assist her movements.

"What?" repeats the sheriff, looking right and left as if to call people to witness, but then thinks better of it, and in a lower voice, speaking to the top of Mrs. Cheney's head, "Jesus, Lurine," and in an even lower voice utters (I think): "Later, girl."

There is a growling above.

Coach and Mr. Brunette are still in their "bachelor" postures of submission-Coach, head bowed, studying his palms, contenting himself with a single stomp of his running shoe; Mr. Brunette, one elbow crooked over his head, laying it over to allow Mrs. Brunette to groom him.

"Would you look at that woman," whispers the uncle to Vergil, the uncle at first rapt, then hopping and poking an elbow into Vergil's side.

But Vergil, arms crossed, eyes monitored, permits himself no more than a single, unsurprised shrug. There is no telling what white people- The two deputies, trapped between amazement and stoicism, both advance and retreat, stretch forth hands to help, pull them back. They cannot bring themselves to look at each other.

Mr. Brunette is exploring Mrs. Brunette's thigh with an un-lewd finger, simply poking up the fabric of her skirt along her stocking as a child might look under a curtain in hide-and-seek, Mrs. Brunette simply allowing it through a lack of attention. The skirt reaches her waist and Mr. Brunette takes an interest in what is indeed a complex business-not panty hose, as one might expect, but stockings suspended by garters from a girdle of scalloped black lace at her waist-garter belt?-this rigging of straps and lace overlaying a bikini, that is to say, a single transparent tape and a small snug triangle of black lace.

Both Coach and Mr. Brunette have grown more excited but seem at a loss, like the two deputies.

Mrs. Cheney presents to the sheriff again.

From above comes the sound of hollow pounding, like kettledrums. The growling deepens to a roar ending in a sharp barklike sound, aaargh. Everyone looks up, even Mrs. Cheney. Van Dorn is lunging back and forth behind the balcony rail as if he were caged, then comes swinging down the staircase until, halfway down and with both hands on one rail, he vaults clean over and, projecting himself in an arc more flattened than not, clears Mrs. Cheney and lands squarely on Sheriff Sharp's back, bearing him to the floor, where he falls to biting the sheriff's head, thumping, shrieking, roaring all the while.

There are other screams, mostly from the women but also from the sheriff.

The two deputies leap to the sheriff's assistance, but succeed in little more than pulling and tugging at Van Dorn. Van Dorn is biting Sheriff Sharp's head and neck.

"Vergil, Uncle, come here!" I motion to them above the din.

One of the deputies, the older flattop, giving up, stands back, unholsters his revolver. He bumps into the uncle directly behind him. Vergil is on one side of him, I on the other. The deputy looks up at Vergil, then over to me.

"Put the gun up."

He puts the gun up.

"You want me to grab him, Doc?" says Vergil, nodding at Van Dorn, who is still atop the sheriff, biting and scratching but not doing him serious harm, I think.

"Okay, do this." I pull Vergil and the uncle close so they can hear over the din. "Vergil, you stay here to see that nobody gets hurt. Don't let Van Dorn put his arms around the sheriff and squeeze him. You're the only one strong enough to handle him. Uncle, you go get a dozen Snickers-shoot the machine if you have to. I have to get the women out of sight. Mrs. Cheney! Teddies up!"

Van Dorn has knocked off the sheriff's hat and is biting the top of his head.

Mrs. Cheney, who in fact has shrunk away from the fight, elbows looped over her head, arms flailing, is only too glad to have something to do, pulls her teddies up. I take her by the hand and Mrs. Brunette, who is no problem, who in fact is as docile as can be, her dress falling in place over her complex undergarments as she stands, take them both into the bathroom, reassuring them with nods and pats, close the door behind them. "Stay, ladies!"

Coach and Mr. Brunette are still excited, forgetting their submissive bachelor status. Coach is stamping with both feet, pooching his lips and making, I think, his hoo hoo sound, all the while looking around for Mrs. Cheney.

Mr. Brunette, standing, nattering, exposes himself, pulls down his mostly shot-away trousers, takes hold of himself, and starts for the stairs-looking for Mrs. Brunette? to become the new patriarch?

I grab Mr. Brunette, pull him toward the pantry, holler "Snickers!" to Coach as we pass. He follows willingly, loping along, stamping both feet.

The uncle has an armful of Snickers, having broken the glass of the dispenser.

The bachelors are content for the moment to gorge on Snickers in the pantry.

The women are quiet in the bathroom.

With the women out of sight, Van Dorn subsides, leaves off biting the sheriff, and instead cuffs him about in the showy, spurious, not unfriendly fashion of professional wrestlers. It is no problem to lure him away from the sheriff altogether with the Snickers. I tuck the candy in his coat pocket as one might do with a visiting child, head him for the pantry with a pat. Van is quite himself for an instant, noodles me around the neck with an ol' boy hug. "Thanks for everything, Tom," he says in husky, unironic, camaradic voice. "Thanks for everything, Tom." But before I can answer, he's clapping with his fingers, and off he goes, stooping and knuckling along to the pantry for more Snickers.

In no time at all, with the women out of sight, the sheriff is back in control, helped up and brushed off by his deputies, and has put on his hat to cover his bleeding head.

He too thanks me, shaking hands at length, with a sincerity which seems to preempt apologies. "I sho want to tell you, Doctor," he says, keeping hold of my hand without embarrassment, "how much I apprishiate your professional input with this case. I mean, we got us some sick folks here! I may be able to handle criminal perpetrators of all kinds and some forensic cases-I've done quite a bit of reading on the subject, in fact-but when you get into real mental illness such as this"-he nods toward the deputies, who are keeping an eye on the pantry and bathroom, from which issue no longer roars and great thumps but smaller, happier sounds, squeals, clicks, and a few stomps-"I leave it to you, Doc." He gives my hand a last pump.

"Thanks, Sheriff. I'll leave them to you."

"We'll need you and Miss Lucy-all y'all, in fact-to come down and give affidavits."

"Sure thing."

We part as co-defenders of the medico-legal and criminal-justice system.

I am always amazed and not displeased by the human capacity-is it American? or is it merely Southern?-for escaping dishonor and humiliation, for turning an occasion of ill will not only into something less but into a kind of access of friendship. Both the sheriff and Van Dorn, as they pass, transmit to me by certain comradely nods, ducks of head, clucks of tongue, special unspoken radiations.

Handcuffs and restraints are not necessary. The faculty and staff of Belle Ame troop past in more or less good order, even a certain weary bonhomie all too commonplace after too-long, too-boring faculty meetings.

The uncle, Vergil, and I watch in the doorway as the squad cars leave.

"You want to know what I think of that bunch of preverts and those asshole redneck so-called lawmen-I mean, which is worse?" asks the uncle.

"No," I say.

"Why don't I make sure Lurine, Mrs. Cheney, gets home safe," says the uncle.

"No."

Vergil says nothing, gazes speculatively at the sky as if it were another day in the soybean harvest.

I look at my watch. "I have to go. Here's what I suggest. I don't think anybody feels like fooling with the pirogue. Let's go to my car, take Claude and that other boy, Ricky, over to Pantherburn. I'll drop you. Tell Lucy the situation so she can call the Welfare Department, state police-she'll know-to take over out here until the parents can come get their children. Lucy can bring Vergil back to pick up his pirogue. Let's go."

There's time enough after dropping them off to stop at the driveup window of Popeyes to pick up five drumsticks, spicy not mild, and a large chocolate frosty before heading up the Angola road.

V.

1. NO TROUBLE GETTING BACK to Angola in time. No trouble with Bob Comeaux.

I simply retrace my steps, drive up the Angola road, chewing Popeyes drumsticks, park at old Tunica Landing, take jeep trail to levee, climb under fence, and stroll along hands in pockets like a Guatemalan ex-President returning from his exercise period. Two horse patrols pass me and pay no attention.

Back before two o'clock! Stretched out on my cot as if I've been locked up all morning, when Bob Comeaux and Max Gottlieb show up. (What a pleasure to steal time, to do a thing or two while appearing to be idle, even incarcerated!) I report to Elmo Jenkins, thank him for allowing me my "exercise period." He asks no questions, thanks me again for my long-ago treatment of his auntee. Though he does not say so, I think he is really thanking me for not flying the coop. He has already heard from Sheriff Sharp, I can tell from his voice. We're all on the same side now, I, warden and sheriff. "Your visitors just walked in, Doc." What if I hadn't been there! "I'll send them up."

One look at Bob Comeaux and I know that he knows. He's still dressed in his white plantation tuxedo and he must have come straight from the wedding. But he gives me an odd, white-eyed look. Gone is his old Howard Keel assurance. For the first time he is at a loss. He doesn't even seem to notice the hundreds of blacks picking cotton on the prison plantation, stooped over their long, collapsed sacks and singing mournful spirituals. What does he know? He knows about Belle Ame. How does he know? He could have called his office or Sheriff Sharp, been beeped, used the cellular phone in his Mercedes Duck.

Max Gottlieb doesn't know. He only knows something is up. He's frowning, hot and bothered, shaking his head dolefully, even more dismayed than usual (what have you gone and done now?).

I sit at my little student desk, they side by side on my cot, Bob Comeaux holding his wide-brimmed hat between his knees, tuxedo somewhat worse for wear, shirt ruffles wilted. Max is very neat in his new Oxford-gray vested suit, which his wife, Sophie, must have bought for him, but his shoes are the same dried-up Thom McAns he's worn for twenty years. They are shoes no surgeon would be caught dead in.

"Well?" I say after a while.

Bob Comeaux jumps up and begins pacing back and forth as if it were he in prison. He explains he'd like to get back to the wedding reception. "Look, guys, let's make this short. After all, this is only a routine hearing, for the book. Let's spring our friend, the doctor here, sign the papers, vacate his parole status, and let's all go about our business. I got to get back-" He looks at his gold wafer of a watch. "Jesus! Let's get this show-So he's had a couple of violations-but what's a little kinkiness among shrinks, ha ha-right? Say, Tom-" He pulls up in front of me. "I was just wondering. Were the hell-raisin' and hijinks at P&S as dumb in your day as they were in mine?"

"Well, I remember we dropped water bombs on pedestrians."

"Hot damn! We did too!" He socks himself. "Can you believe it?" he asks Max, and instantly sobering: "Okay, guys, let's get this show on the road"-and heads for the open door.

But Max, worried as usual, likes to have everything squared away and kosher. "Yeah, right. Hold it. Let's just hold it. I never had any use for this parole foolishness, anyway. But what's this business about some incident this morning-'disturbance of the peace'?-out at Belle Ame involving Dr. Van Dorn? And some arrested? What is all that about?" Max opens his hands, first to Bob Comeaux, then to me.

Bob Comeaux waves him off, speaks quickly to both of us.

In a word, Bob simply wants shut of me. He assures Max the "incident" was not of my doing, is still willing to take me on at Fedville at consultant's salary plus Ford grant money, is willing for me to do what I'm doing, or throw in with Max in Mandeville-whatever I want to do-but mainly move, move out from here, from him. Let's go. He's at the open door. "Come on, Tom, I'm signing you out, okay?"

But Max is scratching his head, one eye screwed up, trying to make head or tail of it. "Well. He sure doesn't belong here." Sighing, he's pushing himself up from the cot. He can't quite get hold of it.

Bob Comeaux, relieved, relaxes in the doorway and, gazing out at the prison plantation, shakes his head elegiacally. "God," he says softly, "would you listen to those darkies!"

We listen.

Nobody knows the trouble I seen, Nobody knows but Jesus "Well, Tom?" He holds out hand-with-hat to me. Let's go.

I do not rise from my student desk.

Max gives me his quizzical eye. "Well?"

"There're a couple of things," I tell Max.

"What's that?" asks Bob quickly, as if, what with the singing, he couldn't hear.

"I think there're a couple of things that need to be settled before we go any further."

"Right," says Max, still feeling unsettled.

"By all means," says Bob, putting his hat on.

"Well?" says Max, giving me his curious eye.

"I think it would be a good idea to discontinue the Blue Boy pilot immediately, today."

"What's that?" asks Bob Comeaux, cupping an ear.

I repeat it.

"What do you mean?" Bob asks me. "What does he mean?" he asks Max.