Yes.
I wisht it'd let up rainin, Holme said. Don't you?
Yes, the man said. What did ye do with the horse?
What horse?
The rider's horse.
I didn't do nothin with him. He like to of killed me. Commenced tearin up and down like somethin crazy till he run plumb off in the river.
More horse than you could handle was it?
I couldn't even see it.
Or maybe you was afraid to take it. That makes sense.
I don't need no horse, Holme said.
No. Get ye some more meat there.
I still got some, Holme said.
The man turned his head. Harmon had come up with a load of wet limbs and now he dumped them on the ground and knelt in the loamy river soil and began to arrange them before the fire to dry. The man waited. Then he said: Set down. Harmon squatted on his haunches and folded his arms about his shinbones.
Well, the man said, turning to Holme. You've set there and dried and warmed and et but you've not said your name. A feller didn't know he'd think you wanted it kept for a secret.
I don't care to tell it, Holme said. Folks don't commonly ast, where I come from.
We ain't in them places, the man said.
Holme, Holme said.
Holme, the man repeated. The word seemed to feel bad in his mouth. He jerked his head vaguely toward the one with the rifle. That'n ain't got a name, he said. He wanted me to give him one but I wouldn't do it. He don't need nary. You ever see a man with no name afore?
No.
No, the man said. Not likely.
Holme looked at the one with the rifle.
Everthing don't need a name, does it? the man said.
I don't know. I don't reckon.
I guess you'd like to know mine, wouldn't ye?
I don't care, Holme said.
I said I guess you'd like to know mine wouldn't ye?
Yes, Holme said.
The man's teeth appeared and went away again as if he had smiled. Yes, he said. I expect they's lots would like to know that.
Holme wiped his mouth on his naked arm and tried to swallow and then went on chewing. It was very quiet. He listened but he could hear no sound anywhere in the woods or along the river. Not of owl or nightbird or distant hounds.
Some things is best not named, the man said. Harmon here--he gestured toward the squatting figure--that's his right name. I like for him to set and listen even if he cain't understand much.
Holme nodded.
I like for him to have the opportunity.
Yes.
Harmon did not appear to be listening. He was gazing into the fire like a lean and dirty cat.
He might know somethin and him and me neither one know about it, the man said. Asides I like for him to set there and listen and maybe mend the fire.
Harmon moved. He did not stop looking at the fire but he leaned and groped with one hand until he had hold of some wood and he poked a few pieces into the wasting flames. Holme could see the third one squatting on the far side with the rifle upright between his knees and his face resting against the side of the barrel.
I like to keep the fire up, the man said. They might be somebody else comin.
Holme swallowed the leached and tasteless wad of meat, his eyeballs tilting like a toad's with the effort. I would doubt they was, he said.
The bearded one didn't seem to hear. He stretched his feet forth and crossed them and recrossed them. Holme reached toward the pan before he thought and checked too late. He lifted a sour black chunk of meat and bit into it.
Now these here old boots of mine, the man said, is plumb wore out.
Holme looked at the boots. They were cracked and weatherblackened and one was cleft from tongue to toe like a hoof. He looked at Harmon and he looked at the fire, chewing.
Ain't they? the man said.
I reckon, Holme said. He rearranged the shirt and felt of it.
Get ye some more meat there, the man said.
Thank ye, Holme said. I've a plenty.
Did that ferryman not have nary better shirt than that?
What?
I said did that ferryman not have no better a shirt on him than that? I never noticed his shirt.
The man watched him. After a minute he turned to Harmon. He says he never noticed his shirt, he said.
Harmon squeezed his shins and giggled and nodded his head up and down.
The man had stretched out before the fire and was propped up on one elbow. He said: I wonder where a feller might find him a pair of bullhide boots like them you got.
Holme's mouth was dust dry and the piece of meat seemed to have grown bigger in it. I don't know, he said.
Don't know?
He turned the shirt again. He was very white and naked sitting there. They was give to me, he said.
They look a mite turned up at the toes, the man said. Did they not know your size?
They was bought for somebody else. He died and I got em give to me is how come they a little big. They all right.
The man shifted slightly and raised one of his own broken boots and looked at it and lowered it again. Holme could see part of one naked foot within the rent leather.
I reckon a dead man's boots is better than near no boots a-tall, the man said.
He felt cold all over. Harmon raised his head and looked at him and even the one with the rifle that had appeared to be sleeping had now opened his eyes without moving at all and was regarding him with malign imbecility.
You say you was just goin crost the river? the man said.
Holme's voice came out quavering and alien. He heard it with alarm. I was huntin my sister, he said. She run off and I been huntin her. I think she might of run off with this here tinker. Little old scrawnylookin kind of a feller. Herself she's just young. I been huntin her since early in the spring and I cain't have no luck about findin her. She ain't got nobody but me to see about her. They ain't no tellin what all kind of mess she's got into. She was sick anyways. She never was a real stout person.
The man was listening closely but what he said next: I wouldn't name him because if you cain't name somethin you cain't claim it. You cain't talk about it even. You cain't say what it is. I got Harmon to look after him if they do fight. I keep studyin him. He's close, but I keep at it.
Holme stared at him. The man had sat up again and had his legs crossed before him.
He's the one set the skiff adrift this mornin, he said. Even if it just drifted off he still done it. I knowed they's a reason. We waited all day and half the night. I kept up a good fire. You seen it didn't ye?
Yes, Holme said.
How come ye to run your sister off? the man said.
I never.
How come her to run off?
I don't know. She just run off.
You don't know much, do ye?
Holme looked past him and past Harmon to the one with the rifle. He appeared to be sleeping but he wasn't sleeping. He looked at the man again. I ain't bothered you, he said.
I ain't in a position to be bothered.
Holme didn't answer.
That ain't the way it is, the man said.
Holme leaned slightly forward and held his elbows. He could feel the meat weighty and truculent in the pit of his stomach.
Is it? the man said.
No.
Get ye another piece of meat yander.
I've got about all I can hold.
You know, I would think them there big boots would chafe on a feller's heels, the man said.
They all right, Holme said.
I don't believe they are, the man said.
Are what?
All right. I don't believe they are.
Well, it don't make no difference.
When I believe somethin it makes a difference.
Holme watched the fire. In his unfocused vision the coals beaded up in pins of light and drifted like hot spores. Blood had come up in his ears and they were warm and half deaf wi
th it. I don't care, he said.
You will care mister. I think maybe you are somebody else. Because you don't seem to understand me very much. Now get them boots off.
Harmon looked up and smiled. Holme looked at the man. The fire had died some and he could see him better, sitting beyond it and the scene compressed into a kind of depthlessness so that the black woods beyond them hung across his eyes oppressively and the man seemed to be seated in the fire itself, cradling the flames to his body as if there were something there beyond all warming. He reached and slid the boots from his feet, one, the other, and stood them before him.
Harmon, the man said.
Harmon rose and came for the boots and took them to the man. The man seized them and examined them, bending closer to the fire, turning them in his hands like some barbaric cobbler inspecting the work of another world. He pulled off his own boots and put on these new ones and stood in them and took three steps up and two back and turned. Harmon had gathered up the old boots and was putting them on. The one with the rifle watched happily.
All right, the bearded one said.
Holme squatted with his naked feet beneath him.
Fix his, the man said.
Harmon carried the boots he had discarded to the one with the rifle and stood them before him. The one with the rifle looked at them and looked up at Harmon. Harmon took the rifle from him and kicked at the empty boots.
Do em for him, the man said.
Harmon knelt and pulled off the nameless one's boots and pushed the other boots at him. Then he rose with these boots and turned. The man gestured.
Holme watched, squatting shoeless and half naked. Harmon came toward him smiling, the rifle in one hand and the last pair of boots in the other. He dropped them alongside Holme and stood looking down at him. Holme looked at the bearded one.
Them's for you, the man said.
Holme looked at them. They were mismatched, cracked, shapeless, burntlooking and crudely mended everywhere with bits of wire and string. He looked at the nameless one who sat likewise barefoot with a pair of boots before him. Relieved of the rifle his hands lay on the ground on either side of him and he was watching Holme. Holme looked away.
I said them ones there is yourn, the man said.
Holme looked at the boots again, then took one up slowly and pulled it onto his foot. A sour reek welled out of the top.
You don't have much to say, do ye? the man said.
No.
I guess you think maybe you and me should of traded.
I don't care, Holme said.
I believe in takin care of my own, the man said. That's the way I think.
Ever man thinks his own way, Holme said.
Leave him alone Harmon.
Harmon stepped away from him. Sometime it had stopped raining. Holme hadn't noticed. He had not felt the rain on his naked back, the small rain that died in the fire soundlessly.
You may see the time you wish you had worse, the man said.
Holme made a small helpless gesture with one hand.
Where was you headin sure enough?
Nowheres, Holme said.
Nowheres.
No.
You may get there yet, the man said. He came along the edge of the fire and stopped, looking down at Holme. Holme could see only his legs and those of Harmon a little further beyond. The fire had burned low and there was but a single cleft and yellow serpent tongue of flame standing among the coals. A third pair of boots came up and Holme looked at them. They stood slightly toed in and on the wrong feet.
That ain't all, is it? the man said.
I ain't got nothin else, Holme said.
The man spat past him into the fire. Somethin else, he said. Have you got a sister sure enough?
I done told ye.
Run off with some tinker.
Yes.
She ain't here to tell it her way. Is she?
No.
And where do you reckon they've got to by now?
I don't know.
Just further on down the road. Don't you reckon?
Yes. I reckon. I ain't studied it.
Ain't studied it.
No.
He seemed to be speaking to the fire. When he lifted his head he could see the three of them standing there watching him, ragged, filthy, threatful.
Yes, the man said. You've studied it.
Holme didn't answer. He turned his face to the fire again.
Harmon, the man said. Leave him be.
Holme didn't look up. He heard their steps receding out of the firelight among the wet leaves toward the river where the ferry was tied. He had the shirt clutched in both hands and was staring in mute prayer at the wand of flame that trembled before him so precariously and he did not move at all. Then he heard steps coming back. He lifted his head. Harmon came smiling out of the dark like an apparition. He did not have the rifle. He did not have anything in his hands. He slouched toward Holme and bent over him. Holme recoiled. Harmon didn't seem to notice. He took up the pan and tilted the remaining meat into the fire and clicked the pan against a rock and stepped back and turned and was gone. Holme could see one of the chunks in the bright coals. It lay there soundless as stone and apparently impervious to flame. He did not move. He listened for their voices but he could hear nothing. After a very long time he could hear the river again and even though the fire had died he did not move. Later still he heard a mockingbird. Or perhaps some other bird.
THE MUD in the road had cured up into ironhard rails and fissures which carts and wagons had cloven in the wet weather past and the tinker's cart bobbled drunkenly among them with the tinker shackled between the shafts and leaning into the harness he had devised for himself. He was looking at nothing other than the road beneath him and when the girl spoke to him he started in his traces like one wrenched from a trance and halted and looked about. She was seated by the roadside on a stone and she wore some lateblooming wildflower in her pale hair.
Howdy little mam, he said. How you?
Tolerable, she said. You the tinker used to go over in Johnson County some?
They Lord honey I ain't been over there in six or eight months. Are you from over thataway?
Yes, she said. You ain't got nary cocoa have ye.
No, he said, I ain't. I don't get enough call for it to mess with totin it. I got coffee.
And you stocks them books.
What books?
Them pitcher books for the men. Them books.
The tinker's eyes shifted warily. Who are you? he said.
I'm the mother of that chap you got.
I ain't got no chap, the tinker said.
I want him back, she said.
You don't see him do ye?
What have ye done with him.
I ain't got him.
She had not moved from the rock. She smoothed the ragged dress down over her knees and looked up again. I want him, she said.
The tinker was now standing more easily between the cart shafts, watching her with interest and with something else in his little goat's face. How you know I got him? he said.
You got him off my brother, she said. I got to get him back.
How old a chap is it? This'n you claim to of lost.
He ain't but about eight months.
Eight months. And how long you been missin him?
All that time.
The tinker spat lazily over his forearm where it hung by a thumb in the bib of his jumper and drew down one eye cunningly. That sure is a long time, he said. I would hate to be in ary such fix as that.
I hate it myself, she said.
All that nurse fee.
That what?
Nurse fee addin up all the time. Most likely comes to a right smart.
I never thought about that, she said.
No, the tinker said. I allowed maybe you'd not.
I ain't got no money.
No money.
No.
Well. Course even did I know the whereabouts of it t
hey wouldn't be no way tellin it was yourn. Just your word is all.
I wouldn't want it if it wasn't mine.
Well now I don't know. Some women is a fool about a youngern. Do anything to get one.
I just want what's mine.
Maybe you the kind of gal fool enough about a youngern to do anything to get one.
No, she said. He's mine sure enough.
Well, said the tinker. Wouldn't do nothin much to get one eh?
This'n I would, she said. I want him back.
Well now, said the tinker.
I'll work out that fee or just whatever, she said.
The tinker watched her, his thumbs still hooked in his jumper. Well now, he said. You right sure about that?
Yes, she said. I got to have him back.
The tinker shrugged his patched jacket higher onto his shoulders and gripped the cart shafts. Well, he said, if you ain't got nothin else to do just come along with me.
He started off and she fell in behind and padded after him, shoeless and tattered, watching the cart lurch and weave and the tinware hung from the travis poles swing in mounting discord like a demented symphony. They went down the road the way she had come.
They went past houses and along fenced fields where late corn stripped of fodder stood naked and grotesque out of the dead scrub weeds and the intermittent bright shapes of pumpkins. The cart went along on its cam-shaped wheels like a crippled dog. The tinker did not speak. Yellow leaves were falling in a field and lay already deep in the stony troughs a last crude harrowing had left. She walked looking down at her feet and her lips were moving slightly. The sound of the tinker's cart faded to the drowsy clangor of belled cattle before she looked again and saw him far down the road. She hurried to catch up, holding her dress tight in one fist between her breasts and the cloth already dark with milk.
For the rest of the day she followed behind the cart as if tethered to it. The tinker did not speak nor did he look back and he seemed to have no need of rest. They went through the late afternoon curiously processional and grave among the banded shadows, the tinker stooped in the rotted leather with his cap far back on his head and eyes to the ground and her caught up in the wake of the cart and its lonely tolling tinware like some creature rapt and besorced by witches' music, demon piping.
Come evening the tinker left the road and turned up a weedy wagon path, giving her a brief look backward and motioning with his head. They climbed up through a field, the cart badly tilted and the tinker near horizontal in the harness. When they came to the top of the hill the track turned and they went on in blue dusk through a high meadow out of which sprang small fowl to wheel away with indignant cries over the sedge. At the end of this meadow was a cabin.
They pulled up in the dooryard and the tinker unbuckled himself from out of his traps and set the cart down. She came along slowly and looked in through the halfopened door. Weeds grew at the threshold and from inside came a musty smell.