The note was written in a scrawl

Chapter 4) Smuggling Maggie
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Maggie was hoping the Deacon Quartette would hurry and get there so she could go home.
She couldn't tell her mother about this.
And her father Joel Winston? If he found out, the hell fury would hit Blacktown.
River Boy was 17. He knew the issue, and was devising a plan to smuggle Maggie back into Trinity unseen.
He considered running down several fields where Carl might be running the tractor. Carl could drive her back, but that would risk Carl.

Of course River Boy could run into Trinity. It was a couple miles over the hill. But if he reported the problem, Blacktown would still suffer a beating. Violence would be needed to keep things straight. Especially since Maggie’s father was a stiff racist and all that ... not that River Boy was a Negro, but that he lived with Negroes and was known to snicker a chicken or two off local farms, and sure enough the law would happily settle that matter.

Nope. The best plan was driving Maggie to Blacktown in a car.
He explained it and said, look, you have to lay down in the back seat so nobody sees you.

It sounded exciting to Maggie, but obviously beneath her dignity, not that she had much position in the matter. She stalled and said nothing.

He ignored her, and said, after we get to Blacktown, we’ll have somebody else to drive you.
The plan was still pretty sketchy.
He would need help. And he knew exactly where to find the bunch of gambling Negroes who might sport up the deal. At the Top Hat Billiard Hall.

When the Deacon Quartette finally arrived, you could hear them howling all the way up the road. Mostly they were happy because Grandpa caught a stringer of fish.
River Boy met the car outside, motioning to Grandpa.
He whispered there's a white girl in the house. When the Quartet heard, they refused to get out of the car, refusing to even turn their heads or mutter a word. They didn't need trouble, not with the vices they carried.
The manager would have driven off except the whole bunch of them were hungry. Anyway, to keep things straight, the Quartet went around back the house while River Boy loaded Maggie in the car and drove away.

A rutty mile down the mud road was Blacktown, and another short ways over to Top Hat's outstanding establishment that attracted fine folks from all around, for the billiards, gambling and occasional girl.
Normally a place like that would be torn to splinters by prevailing morality, except Top Hat made the payments.

River Boy walked into the dim light filled with cigar and home rolled smoke, and saw Big Mak and Arkadelphia Slip playing high-stakes pool.
Now Arkadelphia Slip was a double blazing glory spinning side pocket pool shooting genius. Big Mak was a local pool player whose main business was running untaxed whiskey. The game was dollar a ball.
River Boy sat down, trying to act normal while he assessed options.
Big Mak was white and moved around both worlds. None-the-less he was a level of disrepute that Maggie could not be affiliated without difficulties.
Even so, Big Mak and his sidekick, Tony Mute, were the only white guys in attendance and therefore the obvious choice for driving Maggie back into Trinity. Besides they had a car.

Just as Big Mak was sizing up his next shot, and the room was quiet, River Boy stood up and said real loud, I have to piss.
The game stopped flat.

They all knew River Boy, and understood that something interesting was about to happen.
This peaked the sporting bunch, each wanting to know more than the other, but none willing to expose they wanted information from a white boy.

Especially interested were the two gambling men over in the corner that carried Arkadelphia’s bankroll. The large, dark-skinned one bellowed out in a deep frog voice, why you ba dis game?

River Boy stood there with one hand on his zipper as if interrupted, and said, well ... uh ...  maybe I need help.
The men muttered the shit, then somebody yelled, what doing?
He said, I got a girl.
Big Mac sloughed out, well you better eat that cracker while it’s fresh.
The men laughed.
One of the gambling men yelled back, what is it?
River Boy said, there’s a girl in the car, and she's needs to get back to Trinity without anybody seeing.
That started a howl and men began to file outside to look at the girl laying in the back seat.

The gambling man yelled, bring her 'ere and we can see. The men laughed again. Couple men came back and whispers started that Maggie Winston was laying in the car.

A scared murmur spread across the room, it was Joel Winston’s daughter.
One of the local men jumped up and started pushing River Boy toward the door.
Damn fool.

River Boy pushed back, and yelled, the trouble's ours if we don’t do this.

Dead center in the middle of negotiations, Top Hat Jinkins opened the door and stepped out. His brown alligator shoes shined spotless, gleaming against the dark floor. The room shut up. Big Mak stopped talking, which was rare even in a blizzard.
Top Hat was listening from the back room like usual. His word was final, and the men knew it.
He said, it has to be done.
He said it in a funny way that caused them to know it was going to be a joke on the white people, using white people to do it.

Top Hat was bottom silver. It was going to be done right, it would work, and everybody would help.
That’s the moment when the great conspiracy to smuggle Miss Maggie Winston back into Trinity from Blacktown became a piece of unwritten history.

Top Hat's girlfriend, his beautiful light-skinned treasure, Molly Princess and two other girls helped clear the big table in the back.
The participants gathered around, each jockeying for a word while bets were placed on the best plan.
Meanwhile, Maggie was still laying in the back seat with about 20 Negro children peering through the windows. The humiliation was unbearable, but the lesson not unlearned.

The plan evolved quickly.
Top Hat called over to Billy Johnson and Harold Cleaves, and said, you find Bethel Wilkerson. Tell her Harold cut himself real bad. When she gets outside, you tell her what.

Bethel Wilkerson worked at the Trinity pharmacy and was trusted solid as a friend of the Negroes. However the other lady at the pharmacy, Bethel Heaves was pure racist. Both had same the name and white people often mistaked one for the other, but Negroes never did.

Bethel Wilkerson would call her husband and son to bring the car. First, they would drive out to a nearby dirt road, where they supposedly find Maggie with a bad ankle. Afterward they drive to the alley-side of the pharmacy building and pick up Maggie.

Bethel Wilkerson also worked as the doctor’s nurse when there was a call. So she was trained medical, and reliable to the task. It would seem natural for her to accompany Maggie to her house, and administer the injury.

It was agreed. The pool game would be postponed for one hour, and Maggie would be smuggled from Blacktown to the pharmacy in Big Mak’s car.
Big Mak agreed. He and Tony Mute would sit in the front, with River Boy in the back, with Maggie Winston laying down with her head on River Boy’s lap.
That was a nice personal touch, and caused the table to laugh again.

Billy and Harold immediately took Top Hat's car and drove up the hill to Trinity to talk to Bethel.

Everybody agreed that Mac couldn’t drive directly from Blacktown into Trinity, since it would make notice. It was best if they drove out to the egg man and bought a dozen large browns, took another road out to the main highway, and then drove back into Trinity from that direction. You might think it would be easier for Mak’s car to meet Wilkerson car along a country road to make the Maggie exchange, except farm men were working the fields. The small rain wouldn’t stop them, and there were hundreds of eyeballs along those roads.

There was a slight problem however.
Big Mak usually drove crazy and often preferred the wrong side of the road because he had it that way, so he was reminded of the seriousness, and of the wet roads.  Top Hat spoke to him directly. Mak nodded. The gamblers laid down 2 to 1 odds that Maggie would be discovered with a carload of disreputable white boys. And 1 to 12 that Big Mak would kill them all in a crash.

Big Mak slapped a $10 gold piece on the table, and they hit the road. The car started rumbling down the old farm road toward the egg man’s place with innocent high school junior, Maggie laying on River Boy’s lap while bouncing around in the back seat of another strange car, whereupon River Boy discovered the note sticking out of her dress pocket.

He pulled it out and began reading aloud.
She started grabbing for the note. River Boy then reached back into her dress pocket as if seeking more notes, but slightly compromising Maggie’s virtuous outer thigh, whereupon she grabbed his arm with both hands while yelling, what are you doing? Which caused the men in the front to turn around.
She held firm onto his arm, so he curled it into her body and held it softly against her. She continued her grip to ward off further encroachment, while he straightened the note in his other hand.

Big Mak was expecting to hear something dirty and Tony Mute was happily aggravating the situation, yelling, read it, read it.

River Boy said, Oh look at this. You were supposed to meet a man today. He leaned down and put his cheek against her head.
She gave up in despair.
It felt good having him touch her. She started to laugh, and the men turned to instant love the moment she did.

River Boy continued reading, adding, you see, you did meet a man. Just like the note said.
His remark rather struck Maggie. Yes she did meet a man. But it was not the right one. She said, we met by accident.
River Boy put his cheek against her head again and let her rest while the car splashed through the puddles and the open windows spread laughter across the farm fields.
It was a great day to be alive. That’s how River Boy made people feel. And why Blacktown liked his adventures.

Big Mak won his $10 bet. Maggie made it home, and the attention paid her ankle distracted any inquiry about her discovery. She told herself she would never talk to River Boy again. Ever.

The borrowed car made its way back to Grandpa's where they barely saved him a half fish.
The church was extra lively that night with people happy and dancing with the Deacon Quartette. Good old Bangin' Gypsy showed up and wrote a lyric about the day's adventure.
River Boy went for a long walk to check Maggie’s house. No extra cars that night.
It meant that Maggie didn’t tell.
It also meant that she liked him. But he knew that anyway.

Maggie, whose romantic note turned into a sourball, went to church the next day, and to school the following. All returned to normal, except for crutches that stole the attention.
She felt alive and spent the entire Monday in school looking for, yet trying to forget River Boy, who was not in attendance. He usually missed Monday ... or just as likely any other day.

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