ATDTDA (13) lotta livin' / yup toy & the ice machine / race issues?

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

p360 "They had lived down in horse barns, army 'A' tents with the old
bloodstains onto them, city hotels with canopy beds, 
woke up in back rooms of deadfalls where the bars had
toothmarks end to end."

bloodstains onto them (some people
still use this intensifier in 21st century America
...and lots of the other colorful expressions herein found...)

deadfall - isn't that a tree that fell down?  The context
suggests it's a roadhouse?  where people pass out and their
teeth hit the bar?  or beavers chew on it?

anyway, since by the end of the paragraph, Jesse's still
a baby - figure under 2 for sure - they sure cram a lot of
changes and moves into at most 2 yrs 9 mos.

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yup toy and the ice machine, yup she's trouble,
but I suppose a Dylan reference "girl by the Whirlpool
lookin' for a new fool" is just an interpolation...

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Wood, unfairly, singles out "Negroes could be observed
at every hand, rollicking in the street" as offensive...
even a little bit of context dispels that idea, doesn't it?

(as to the Negroes in New York selling white powder,
that does puzzle me, since at that time wouldn't anybody
be buying any kind of powder at a pharmacy?  although
snake oil salespeople did take their sales pitch
to the streets)

to wit: African-Americans weren't very visible
in Colorado or Utah, late 19th or early 20th, were they?
So therefore their presence would be notable
to someone coming from there to New Orleans...
and doesn't Reef refuse to rise to Ruperta's racist
baiting, in fact finding nothing wrong with their invitations
to her to join their "rollicking"?