She would tell me what I owed to my children and to Anse and to God. I gave Anse the children. I did not ask for them. I did not even ask him for what he could have given me: not-Anse. That was my duty to him, to not ask that, and that duty I fulfilled. I would be I; I would let him be the shape and echo of his word. That was more than he asked, because he could not have asked for that and been Anse, using himself so with a word.
And then he died. He did not know he was dead. I would lie by him in the dark, hearing the dark land talking of God’s love and His beauty and His sin; hearing the dark voicelessness in which the words are the deeds, and the other words that are not deeds, that are just the gaps in people’s lacks, coming down like the cries of the geese out of the wild darkness in the old terrible nights, fumbling at the deeds like orphans to whom are pointed out in a crowd two faces and told, That is your father, your mother.
I believed that I had found it. I believed that the reason was the duty to the alive, to the terrible blood, the red bitter flood boiling through the land. I would think of sin as I would think of the clothes we both wore in the world’s face, of the circumspection necessary because he was he and I was I; the sin the more utter and terrible since he was the instrument ordained by God who created the sin, to sanctify that sin He had created. While I waited for him in the woods, waiting for him before he saw me, I would think of him as dressed in sin. I would think of him as thinking of me as dressed also in sin, he the more beautiful since the garment which he had exchanged for sin was sanctified. I would think of the sin as garments which we would remove in order to shape and coerce the terrible blood to the forlorn echo of the dead word high in the air. Then I would lay with Anse again—I did not lie to him: I just refused, just as I refused my breast to Cash and Darl after their time was up—hearing the dark land talking the voiceless speech.
I hid nothing. I tried to deceive no one. I would not have cared. I merely took the precautions that he thought necessary for his sake, not for my safety, but just as I wore clothes in the world’s face. And I would think then when Cora talked to me, of how the high dead words in time seemed to lose even the significance of their dead sound.
Then it was over. Over in the sense that he was gone and I knew that, see him again though I would, I would never again see him coming swift and secret to me in the woods dressed in sin like a gallant garment already blowing aside with the speed of his secret coming.
But for me it was not over. I mean, over in the sense of beginning and ending, because to me there was no beginning nor ending to anything then. I even held Anse refraining still, not that I was holding him recessional, but as though nothing else had ever been. My children were of me alone, of the wild blood boiling along the earth, of me and of all that lived; of none and of all. Then I found that I had Jewel. When I waked to remember to discover it, he was two months gone.
My father said that the reason for living is getting ready to stay dead. I knew at last what he meant and that he could not have known what he meant himself, because a man cannot know anything about cleaning up the house afterward. And so I have cleaned my house. With Jewel—I lay by the lamp, holding up my own head, watching him cap and suture it before he breathed—the wild blood boiled away and the sound of it ceased. Then there was only the milk, warm and calm, and I lying calm in the slow silence, getting ready to clean my house.
I gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel. Then I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of. And now he has three children that are his and not mine. And then I could get ready to die.
One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
WHITFIELD
When they told me she was dying, all that night I wrestled with Satan, and I emerged victorious. I woke to the enormity of my sin; I saw the true light at last, and I fell on my knees and confessed to God and asked His guidance and received it. “Rise,” He said; “repair to that home in which you have put a living lie, among those people with whom you have outraged My Word; confess your sin aloud. It is for them, for that deceived husband, to forgive you: not I.” So I went. I heard that Tull’s bridge was gone; I said “Thanks, O Lord, O Mighty Ruler of all;” for by those dangers and difficulties which I should have to surmount I saw that He had not abandoned me; that my reception again into His holy peace and love would be the sweeter for it. “Just let me not perish before I have begged the forgiveness of the man whom I betrayed,” I prayed; “let me not be too late; let not the tale of mine and her transgression come from her lips instead of mine. She had sworn then that she would never tell it, but eternity is a fearsome thing to face: have I not wrestled thigh to thigh with Satan myself? let me not have also the sin of her broken vow upon my soul. Let not the waters of Thy Mighty Wrath encompass me until I have cleansed my soul in the presence of them whom I injured.”
It was His hand that bore me safely above the flood, that fended from me the dangers of the waters. My horse was frightened, and my own heart failed me as the logs and the uprooted trees bore down upon my littleness. But not my soul: time after time I saw them averted at destruction’s final instant, and I lifted my voice above the noise of the flood: “Praise to Thee, O Mighty Lord and King. By this token shall I cleanse my soul and gain again into the fold of Thy undying love.”
I knew then that forgiveness was mine. The flood, the danger, behind, and as I rode on across the firm earth again and the scene of my Gethsemane drew closer and closer, I framed the words which I should use. I would enter the house; I would stop her before she had spoken; I would say to her husband: “Anse, I have sinned. Do with me as you will.”
It was already as though it were done. My soul felt freer, quieter than it had in years; already I seemed to dwell in abiding peace again as I rode on. To either side I saw His hand; in my heart I could hear His voice: “Courage. I am with thee.”
Then I reached Tull’s house. His youngest girl came out and called to me as I was passing. She told me that she was already dead.
I have sinned, O Lord. Thou knowest the extent of my remorse and the will of my spirit. But He is merciful; He will accept the will for the deed, Who knew that when I framed the words of my confession it was to Anse I spoke them, even though he was not there. It was He in His infinite wisdom that restrained the tale from her dying lips as she lay surrounded by those who loved and trusted her; mine the travail by water which I sustained by the strength of His hand. Praise to Thee in Thy bounteous and omnipotent love; O praise.
I entered the house of bereavement, the lowly dwelling where another erring mortal lay while her soul faced the awful and irrevocable judgment, peace to her ashes.
“God’s grace upon this house,” I said.
DARL
On the horse he rode up to Armstid’s and came back on the horse, leading Armstid’s team. We hitched up and laid Cash on top of Addie. When we laid him down he vomited again, but he got his head over the wagon bed in time.
“He taken a lick in the stomach, too,” Vernon said.
“The horse may have kicked him in the stomach too,” I said. “Did he kick you in the stomach, Cash?”
He tried to say something. Dewey Dell wiped his mouth again.
“What’s he say?” Vernon said.
“What is it, Cash?” Dewey Dell said. She leaned down. “His tools,” she said. Vernon got them and put them into the wagon. Dewey Dell lifted Cash’s head so he could see. We drove on, Dewey Dell and I sitting beside Cash to steady him and he riding on ahead on the horse. Vernon stood watching us for a while. Then he turned and went back toward the bridge. He walked gingerly, beginning to flap the wet sleeves of his shirt as though he had just got wet.
He was sitting the horse before the gate. Armstid was waiting at the gate. We stopped and he got down and we lifted Cash down and carried him into the house, where Mrs Armstid had the bed ready. W
e left her and Dewey Dell undressing him.
We followed pa out to the wagon. He went back and got into the wagon and drove on, we following on foot, into the lot. The wetting had helped, because Armstid said, “You’re welcome to the house. You can put it there.” He followed, leading the horse, and stood beside the wagon, the reins in his hand.
“I thank you,” pa said. “We’ll use in the shed yonder. I know it’s a imposition on you.”
“You’re welcome to the house,” Armstid said. He had that wooden look on his face again; that bold, surly, high-colored rigid look like his face and eyes were two colors of wood, the wrong one pale and the wrong one dark. His shirt was beginning to dry, but it still clung close upon him when he moved.
“She would appreciate it,” pa said.
We took the team out and rolled the wagon back under the shed. One side of the shed was open.
“It wont rain under,” Armstid said. “But if you’d rather.……”
Back of the barn was some rusted sheets of tin roofing. We took two of them and propped them against the open side.
“You’re welcome to the house,” Armstid said.
“I thank you,” pa said. “I’d take it right kind if you’d give them a little snack.”
“Sho,” Armstid said. “Lula’ll have supper ready soon as she gets Cash comfortable.” He had gone back to the horse and he was taking the saddle off, his damp shirt lapping flat to him when he moved.
Pa wouldn’t come in the house.
“Come in and eat,” Armstid said. “It’s nigh ready.”
“I wouldn’t crave nothing,” pa said. “I thank you.”
“You come in and dry and eat,” Armstid said. “It’ll be all right here.”
“It’s for her,” pa said. “It’s for her sake I am taking the food. I got no team, no nothing. But she will be grateful to ere a one of you.”
“Sho,” Armstid said. “You folks come in and dry.”
But after Armstid gave pa a drink, he felt better, and when we went in to see about Cash he hadn’t come in with us. When I looked back he was leading the horse into the barn he was already talking about getting another team, and by supper time he had good as bought it. He is down there in the barn, sliding fluidly past the gaudy lunging swirl, into the stall with it. He climbs onto the manger and drags the hay down and leaves the stall and seeks and finds the curry-comb. Then he returns and slips quickly past the single crashing thump and up against the horse, where it cannot overreach. He applies the curry-comb, holding himself within the horse’s striking radius with the agility of an acrobat, cursing the horse in a whisper of obscene caress. Its head flashes back, tooth-cropped; its eyes roll in the dusk like marbles on a gaudy velvet cloth as he strikes it upon the face with the back of the curry-comb.
ARMSTID
But time I give him another sup of whisky and supper was about ready, he had done already bought a team from somebody, on a credit. Picking and choosing he were by then, saying how he didn’t like this span and wouldn’t put his money in nothing so-and-so owned, not even a hen coop.
“You might try Snopes,” I said. “He’s got three-four span. Maybe one of them would suit you.”
Then he begun to mumble his mouth, looking at me like it was me that owned the only span of mules in the county and wouldn’t sell them to him, when I knew that like as not it would be my team that would ever get them out of the lot at all. Only I dont know what they would do with them, if they had a team. Littlejohn had told me that the levee through Haley bottom had done gone for two miles and that the only way to get to Jefferson would be to go around by Mottson. But that was Anse’s business.
“He’s a close man to trade with,” he says, mumbling his mouth. But when I give him another sup after supper, he cheered up some. He was aiming to go back to the barn and set up with her. Maybe he thought that if he just stayed down there ready to take out, Santa Claus would maybe bring him a span of mules. “But I reckon I can talk him around,” he says. “A man’ll always help a fellow in a tight, if he’s got ere a drop of Christian blood in him.”
“Of course you’re welcome to the use of mine,” I said, me knowing how much he believed that was the reason.
“I thank you,” he said. “She’ll want to go in ourn,” and him knowing how much I believed that was the reason.
After supper Jewel rode over to the Bend to get Peabody. I heard he was to be there today at Varner’s. Jewel come back about midnight. Peabody had gone down below Inverness somewhere, but Uncle Billy come back with him, with his satchel of horse-physic. Like he says, a man aint so different from a horse or a mule, come long come short, except a mule or a horse has got a little more sense. “What you been into now, boy?” he says, looking at Cash. “Get me a mattress and a chair and a glass of whisky,” he says.
He made Cash drink the whisky, then he run Anse out of the room. “Lucky it was the same leg he broke last summer,” Anse says, mournful, mumbling and blinking. “That’s something.”
We folded the mattress across Cash’s legs and set the chair on the mattress and me and Jewel set on the chair and the gal held the lamp and Uncle Billy taken a chew of tobacco and went to work. Cash fought pretty hard for a while, until he fainted. Then he laid still, with big balls of sweat standing on his face like they had started to roll down and then stopped to wait for him.
When he waked up, Uncle Billy had done packed up and left. He kept on trying to say something until the gal leaned down and wiped his mouth. “It’s his tools,” she said.
“I brought them in,” Darl said. “I got them.”
He tried to talk again; she leaned down. “He wants to see them,” she said. So Darl brought them in where he could see them. They shoved them under the side of the bed, where he could reach his hand and touch them when he felt better. Next morning Anse taken that horse and rode over to the Bend to see Snopes. Him and Jewel stood in the lot talking a while, then Anse got on the horse and rode off. I reckon that was the first time Jewel ever let anybody ride that horse, and until Anse come back he hung around in that swole-up way, watching the road like he was half a mind to take out after Anse and get the horse back.
Along toward nine oclock it begun to get hot. That was when I see the first buzzard. Because of the wetting, I reckon. Anyway it wasn’t until well into the day that I see them. Lucky the breeze was setting away from the house, so it wasn’t until well into the morning. But soon as I see them it was like I could smell it in the field a mile away from just watching them, and them circling and circling for everybody in the county to see what was in my barn.
I was still a good half a mile from the house when I heard that boy yelling. I thought maybe he might have fell into the well or something, so I whipped up and come into the lot on the lope.
There must have been a dozen of them setting along the ridge-pole of the barn, and that boy was chasing another one around the lot like it was a turkey and it just lifting enough to dodge him and go flopping back to the roof of the shed again where he had found it setting on the coffin. It had got hot then, right, and the breeze had dropped or changed or something, so I went and found Jewel, but Lula come out.
“You got to do something,” she said. “It’s a outrage.”
“That’s what I aim to do,” I said.
“It’s a outrage,” she said. “He should be lawed for treating her so.”
“He’s getting her into the ground the best he can,” I said. So I found Jewel and asked him if he didn’t want to take one of the mules and go over to the Bend and see about Anse. He didn’t say nothing. He just looked at me with his jaws going bone-white and them bone-white eyes of hisn, then he went and begun to call Darl.
“What you fixing to do?” I said.
He didn’t answer. Darl come out. “Come on,” Jewel said.
“What you aim to do?” Darl said.
“Going to move the wagon,” Jewel said over his shoulder.
“Dont be a fool,” I said. “I never meant nothi
ng. You couldn’t help it.” And Darl hung back too, but nothing wouldn’t suit Jewel.
“Shut your goddamn mouth,” he says.
“It’s got to be somewhere,” Darl said. “We’ll take out soon as pa gets back.”
“You wont help me?” Jewel says, them white eyes of hisn kind of blaring and his face shaking like he had a aguer.
“No,” Darl said. “I wont. Wait till pa gets back.”
So I stood in the door and watched him push and haul at that wagon. It was on a downhill, and once I thought he was fixing to beat out the back end of the shed. Then the dinner bell rung. I called him, but he didn’t look around. “Come on to dinner,” I said. “Tell that boy.” But he didn’t answer, so I went on to dinner. The gal went down to get that boy, but she come back without him. About half through dinner we heard him yelling again, running that buzzard out.
“It’s a outrage,” Lula said; “a outrage.”
“He’s doing the best he can,” I said. “A fellow dont trade with Snopes in thirty minutes. They’ll set in the shade all afternoon to dicker.”
“Do?” she says. “Do? He’s done too much, already.”
And I reckon he had. Trouble is, his quitting was just about to start our doing. He couldn’t buy no team from nobody, let alone Snopes, withouten he had something to mortgage he didn’t know would mortgage yet. And so when I went back to the field I looked at my mules and same as told them goodbye for a spell. And when I come back that evening and the sun shining all day on that shed, I wasn’t so sho I would regret it.
He come riding up just as I went out to the porch, where they all was. He looked kind of funny: kind of more hangdog than common, and kind of proud too. Like he had done something he thought was cute but wasn’t so sho now how other folks would take it.