No, it ain't. It ain't a crime. I hope you've not got a family. It's a sacred thing, a family. A sacred obligation. Afore God. The squire had been looking away and now he turned to Holme again. It ain't no crime to be poor, he said. That's right. But shiftlessness is a sin, I would judge. Wouldn't you?
I reckon, he said.
Yes. The bible reckons. What I got I earned. They's not a man in this county will tell ye different. I've never knowed nothin but hard work. I've been many a time in the field at daybreak waitin for the sun to come up to commence work and I was there when it went down again. Daybreak to backbreak for a Godgiven dollar. They ain't a man in this county will dispute it.
Holme was looking down, one hand crossed over the back of the other the way men stand in church. There was a commotion of hens from beyond the barn, a hog's squeal, ceasing again into the tranquillity of birdcalls and cicadas.
All right, Holme, the squire said. I ain't goin to ast you no more of your business. He had out a small leather purse now which he unsnapped and lightened by the weight of a half-dollar. Here, he said. And your supper. Supper's at six-thirty. In the kitchen. You can wash up now if you've a mind to.
He took the coin, holding it in his hand as if he had no place to put it. All right, he said.
After he had washed he sat in the shade of the toolshed and pared idly at the sole of his shoe with the knife he carried. He watched the negro cross from the barn to the house. In a few minutes he came from the kitchen door and returned across the yard again, a small figure scuttling from shadow to shadow with laborious ill-grace, carrying in one hand the squire's boots and disappearing into the barn.
The squire was an early riser and it was not yet good light when he went to the barn. You Holme, he called up the chaffdusted ladder and into the dark hatchway of the loft. No one answered. The negro was coming through the far end of the barn carrying a bucket.
Where's he at, the squire said. Is he gone?
The negro nodded his head.
He sure is a early bird. When did he skedaddle?
The negro slid the bucket up onto his wrist and made a motion with his hands.
Well, the squire said. He looked about him uncertainly, like a man who has forgotten something. Then he said: Where's them boots?
The negro had started toward the corncrib and now he stopped and looked around, his face already shining with grease or sweat, whatever it was, like wet obsidian. He did not even motion with his hands. They stood looking at each other for just a minute and then the squire said Goddamn. I will be purely goddamned. That ingrate son of a bitch. You never should of left ... Hitch up for me while I get the shotgun. Turning and wheeling out of the barn, the negro following him with that same poverty of motion and taking up harness gear from where it hung on the wall as he went. In a few minutes the squire was back with the shotgun and a white hat jammed onto his head, leaping up into the wagon and sitting there in furious immobility and then leaping down again to fumble with the harness while the negro led the horse forth from the stall, not telling him to hurry or anything so useless and finally waiting in a throb of violent constraint while the negro backed the horse between the wagon shafts and while he hitched it and until he stepped back and then raising up the reins and slapping them across the horse's rump, lifting two ribbons of rank dust out of its hide and starting and then as suddenly drawing up again and leaning down: Town? You think he might of gone back through ... No. All right, I'll--the mute negro laboring in the air with his dark and boney fingers and the squire: The what? The brush-hook? What else? Damn. Goddamn.--and exploding out of the lot with the horse rearing under the reins and the wagon skewing about and then down the drive onto the road at a mad clatter and gone.
The negro returned to the barn and took up the pail from where he had left it, going past the stalls to the corncrib where he seated himself on a milking stool and began to shell corn, his hard hand twisting the kernels loose and them sifting bright and hard down into the pail, ringing like coins.
The squire at midmorning was following a log road, urging the horse on and the horse already faded to a walk, when they came out of the brush behind him. He turned when he heard them and he turned back. They were coming along the road. One of them said something and then one of them said Harmon and then one of them was alongside seizing the horse's reins. The squire stood in the wagon. Here, he said. What do you think you're doing. Here now, by God--reaching and taking up the shotgun where it stood leaning against the seat.
THEY CAME across the field attended by a constant circus of grasshoppers catapulting from the sedge and entered the wood deployed in the same ragged phalanx while before them passed solitary over no visible road a horse and a wagon surmounted by a harriedlooking man in a white hat. They altered their course and came upon a log road down which the wagon receded in two thin tracks and upon a burst lizard who dragged his small blue bowels through the dirt, breaking into a trot, a run, the first of them reaching the horse and seizing the reins and turning up to the driver a mindless smile, clutching the horse's withers and clinging there like some small and vicious anthroparian and the driver rising in remonstration from the wagon box so that when the next one came up behind him sideways in a sort of dance and swung the brush-hook it missed his neck and took him in the small of the back severing his spine and when he fell he fell unhinged sideways and without a cry.
SHE DID NOT know that he had taken the gun. She did not know that the money was gone and she had never known how much there was of it. She went about the house gathering her things, laying out her dress on the bed and examining it before she stripped out of the shift and put it on. She pirouetted slowly in the center of the room like a doll unwinding for just a moment and then took off the dress and scrubbed herself with a rag and cold water as best she could and with a piece of broken comb raked her dead yellow hair. She set out her shoes and dusted them and put them on, and the dress. Of the shift she made a package in which lay rolled her small and derelict possessions and thus equipped she took a final look about to see what had been forgotten. There was nothing. She tucked the package beneath her arm and set forth, shortgaited and stiffly, humming softly to herself and so into the sunshine that washed fitfully with the spring wind over the glade, turning her face up to the sky and bestowing upon it a smile all bland and burdenless as a child's.
She crossed the river bridge, walking carefully on the illfitted planks, looking down at the water. She nudged pebbles through the cracks and watched them diminish with slow turnings into sudden printed rings upon the river that sucked away like smoke. She went on, resting from time to time quietly by the side of the road and patting the sweat from her brow with the parcel she carried. When she came at last into sight of the crossroads she could see someone coming far down the road and misshapen with heat. She looked about her and then entered the pine woods to her left and climbed a small rise which commanded the road. It was very warm. She sat fanning herself and the gnats that shimmered before her eyes. It was an old woman who came along laden with empty mealsacks and conversing earnestly with herself. Later two boys passed laughing and punching each other. The watcher on the hill fanned and sighed. I wisht he'd come on, she said.
When he did come he looked like a man who has a long way to go. He had the supplies in a sack over his shoulder and he went by slowly with his eyes to the ground. She crouched low while he passed and when he was gone she rose and dusted off her dress and took up her bundle and returned to the road again, walking out his tracks to the crossroads and the store.
The storekeeper was a dark lean German of middle years whose wry humor merely puzzled the occupants of the five hundred square miles of sparse and bitter land he commissaried. He watched her at the screen door until she got it open and entered, diffident, almost disdainful, as if sore put upon to take her trade to such a place.
How do, he said.
When she looked at him he saw that she must have been ill, her eyes huge and sunken in her pallid face and the dr
ess slack and folded upon her. She nodded gravely. I wonder could I get a drink of water from ye, she said.
Yes mam. He came from behind the counter, noticing now the bundle of cloth she carried so darkened with sweat and her way with it as if she would keep it from sight. He crossed the dark oiled floor to the box and drew up the waterjar, loosed the tin screwcap for her and handed it across. She took it in both hands and thanked him and tilted a long drink down her thin throat.
Get all ye want, he said. Just set it back when you're done.
Thank ye, she said, holding the jar before her and getting her breath before she drank again.
Been a little warmer ain't it? Today.
She arrested the jar at her mouth and lowered it and said Lord ain't it been, then raised the jar and drank some more. When she was done she replaced the cap and put the jar back in the cooling box.
Was they anything else for ye?
I thank ye, she said, I believe that's all. What do I owe ye?
That's all right, he said.
Well I thank ye.
Yes. Have ye got far to go?
Where to?
There was a moment of silence. The storekeeper tugged at one ear. Well, he said, I don't know. I allowed you was travelin.
I hope not to have to a whole lot, she said. I'm a-huntin that tinker is what it is.
Tinker?
That'n come thew here about two weeks ago they said never had no cocoa.
The storekeeper waited for her to continue. She was looking up at him curiously. She said: Have you not seen him?
He shook his head slowly. No, he said.
It wasn't but about two weeks ago.
No, he said. I've not seen him.
Had just the littlest chap with him.
Tinkers don't stop here, the storekeeper said, and I don't welcome em to. They has most likely been one thew here lately. I don't know. They come and go. But they ain't lookin for me and I sure ain't lookin for them.
Well, I thank ye.
And I ain't got no cocoa neither.
I know it, she said. My brother trades here.
Brother?
Yessir. I expect you know him.
I expect I do if he trades here. What's his name?
He's in here this afternoon. Culla Holme.
Why he just left here. Quiet feller? Come in here this afternoon with that old shotgun and sold it to Buddy Sizemore?
He done that? she said.
Well, the storekeeper said, maybe I ought not to of told that.
I'd hate for you to know what all else he done, she said.
The storekeeper started to smile and then he stopped smiling. She hitched the bundle up beneath her arm and cast about her with her sunken eyes. I thank ye for the water, she said.
Yes, he said. You welcome.
Well. I best get on.
Come back, he said.
At the door she stopped again, turned, trapped in fans of dusty light, a small black figure burning. Listen, she said.
Yes.
I'd take it as a favor if you'd not tell him I been in here.
Your brother.
Yessir. Him or that tinker either one.
She stood for a while on the porch, the shadows long upon the road and the birds growing quiet. She looked to her left and to her right, the sandy pike coming out of the forest and flaring at the store and going on again. She crossed the road and turned to face the store for a moment and then she started up the road to the left. She walked very slowly. Before she had gone two miles she was walking in darkness. A cool wind came out of the forest. From time to time she stopped and listened but there was nothing to hear. She heard her steps small and faint in the silence. When she saw the light through the trees before her she stopped again, warily, her hands to her labored heart.
She was met at the door of this small house by a man holding aloft a lantern beyond which and gathered in its fringe of wan light she could see the faces of several women of different ages, including an ancient crone who was without a nose.
Yes, the man said. What is it?
The old woman's black eyes closed and opened again slowly on either side of such long bat's nostrils.
Are ye lost?
She clutched up her bundle. Lost, she said. Yes, I'm lost. I wondered could I just rest a spell.
The man watched her, one hand raised with the lantern, the other fondling a button at his chest.
Yes. Tell her yes.
Thank ye, she said.
The man turned to the woman who had spoken. Hush, he said. He turned again to the traveler. Where do ye come from now?
Just down the road a piece. I just wondered could I maybe rest a little spell.
Just a piece down the road? Must be a considerable piece for me not to know ye. You live twards town?
I don't know, she said.
Ha, the man said, don't know where ye live?
I mean I don't know where town's at.
The man's eyes grew narrow. Who's out there with you? he said.
They ain't nobody but me. I'm just by myself.
Who's out there? he called, looking past her and addressing the untenanted night out of which she had come.
She turned and looked with him.
Come up, whoever's out there.
These faces watched but no one appeared. The man turned to her. You sure they ain't nobody with ye?
No, she said. I just come by myself.
All right. Which way did ye come?
I live down twards the Chicken River.
Say ye do? And where is it you're headed on such a dark night.
I'm a-huntin this here tinker.
Tinker? What'd he steal?
Well. Somethin belonged to me.
And what was that?
It was just somethin.
Well come in anyway.
Thank ye, she said.
The women parted before them and they advanced upon and set back the darkness inside as far as a large trestle table where the man turned and put down the lamp. Now, he said. This here is my family. They's a boy here somewheres. Where's he at, old woman?
He had better be bringin me in some wood.
He's a-bringin in wood. Now, what was your name young woman?
Rinthy Holme.
All right. This here's the family. Dinner be ready here in just a few minutes. Ain't that right?
The woman nodded.
And you welcome.
Thank ye, she said. She turned to the woman but she had already gone from the room. The grandmother and two girls or women of some age stood watching her.
Get ye a chair, the man said.
They watched her sit, holding the bundle up before her, the lamp just at her elbow belabored by a moth whose dark shape cast upon her face appeared captive within the delicate skull, the thin and roselit bone, like something kept in a china mask. Lord, she said, I've not sat hardly today.
They had been eating for several minutes before the boy joined them. He studied her with cadaverous eyes and began to load his plate. She reached another piece of the store bread from its wrapper. She said: I bet I ain't eat two pones of lightbread in my life. I was raised hard.
The woman regarded her above a poised and dripping forkful of fatmeat. We eat what we've a mind to here, she said. We ain't never had nothin but we don't care to get just whatever to eat if we got the money. Do we, Luther?
That's right, he said. I ain't never belittled my family nothin to eat they wanted. They get that baloney down at the store all the time. They can get them salmons if they've a mind to.
She nodded, holding the bread in one hand and applying the butter more slowly. They ate on in silence, jaws working all down the table with great sobriety, all sitting upright and formal saving the toothless old woman who bent nearsightedly into her plate with smacking gums, a sparse tuft of long white chin hairs wagging and drifting above the food.
When the man had finished he pushed back his plate and sat looking about at the oth
ers until they began to eat faster, finishing and looking up one by one until all were done but the grandmother. When she finished she set back her plate with one thumb and stared fixedly at the spot where it had been. The man reached and turned down the lamp until the flame showed but crosswise in the wickslot, a dull bronze heat quaking deep in the glass toward which their faces seemed to lean disembodied in a perimeter of smoking icons. The old woman's leathered lids had closed and she rocked slightly with the ebb of her dreams. Well, said the man, that's done with, and pushing back his chair he rose from the table. The women began to clear the dishes away, again saving the old woman who opened one eye and looked about and closed it again softly and secretive.
We goin to get a early start of the mornin, the man said.
If you can get that boy prised loose from the bed we might get out of here by midmornin, the woman said. She was wiping off the table. Wake up, mamma, fore ye fall out of the chair again.
That boy'll be up. Won't ye, Bud? Where's he at?
If the waterbucket or woodbox is either one empty he'll be beyond earshout for sure. Here honey, give me them and set down and rest.
She held the plates stacked against her breast. It's all right, she said. I don't care to help.
Well mind the step yander.
All right. I got to get on directly anyhow.
You ain't goin nowheres tonight.
Well, she said.
Just mind the step yander.
When they had done in the kitchen she followed the woman down the passageway at the rear of the house, the woman holding the lamp before them and so out into the cool night air and across the boardfloored dogtrot, the door falling to behind them and the woman opening the next one and entering, her close behind, a whippoorwill calling from nearby for just as long as they passed through the open and hushing instantly with the door's closing. She stopped alongside the woman, looking about at the room in which they stood, the two beds that met headfirst in the far corner, one brass and cheaply ornate and the other plain oak, the washstand between them with a porcelained tin basin and a pitcher. The woman set the lamp upon a narrow shelf nailed to the wall.
You want to warsh they's soap yander. They's a pitcher of water at the well if it needs primed.
I thank ye, she said, holding the rolled clothes to her breast yet.