It's when I ring it, that's when it is.
I didn't know, she said.
Him, not you. Where's he at?
He went to water.
Did he? She clapped the mold absently. Funny the way a man's day gets shorter and a woman's longer. And you're here for dinner are ye?
If it ain't no trouble.
Trouble? No trouble. Since I got a maid and a cook now it ain't. Come in.
She went past and into the kitchen.
Get ye a chair. I'm just cleanin up this mess.
I'd be proud to help.
Just set. I'll be done directly.
All right.
Not there. It's broke.
All right.
She watched while the older woman ladled the last of the butter from the bottom of the churn into the mold and pressed it out.
That's a sight of butter.
The woman was clearing away the things. She glanced at the hives of butter aligned on a board down the table. It ain't near what I do in the winter, she said. They's two different stores carries my butter.
The other folded her hands over the stained bundle of rags in her lap. I reckon that would keep a body busy with churnin.
It'd keep one busy just milkin. She ran the wooden blade of her ladle down the dasher.
Is it just you and your man here?
It is. We raised five. All dead.
She had been going to nod interest or approval but now her jaw fell and her hands knotted in her lap. In the silence of the kitchen only the dull sound of wood on buttered wood.
You'd think a man's hand would fit a cow's tit wouldn't ye? the woman said.
She looked down at her feet and placed them very carefully together. I don't know, she said.
You ain't married?
No mam.
Well. You ever get married I expect you'll find out they don't.
Yes mam. Can I not help ye with nothin sure enough?
Near done now. Don't need no help. You just set.
All right.
Four girls.
She sat, hands folded. The woman dampened cheesecloth to lay over the butter.
Oldest'n been near your age I reckon.
I'm nineteen, she said.
Yes. Oldest'n be just about your age. He ain't comin is he?
She raised her head slightly and looked out the one small window. No mam. Not that I can see.
All right.
It's faired off to be a right nice day ain't it?
Yes. I don't even know whether you'd say raised or not when they wasn't but just young. The boy was near a growed man when he died.
Yes mam. I'm sorry you've had such troubles.
Mm-hmm. Sorry. Don't need sorry. Not in this house. Sorry laid the hearth here. Sorry ways and sorry people and heavensent grief and heartache to make you pine for your death.
She was watching her toes.
For nineteen year.
Yes mam.
I believe that's him now, she said. Called or not. You can look and see if that ain't him now if you will.
It's him, she said.
All right. We'll eat directly he gets washed. If he's washin.
When the man entered the house he nodded to her and went on through the door to the next room without speaking to the woman. She could hear him puttering about at some task. The woman raised aloft a stove-eye in black and steaming consecration and poked the fire. A gout of pale smoke ascended and flattened itself against the ceiling. It was very quiet in the kitchen. Flies droned back and forth. When the man came in again he skirted the table and sat at the far end and folded his hands before him on the oilcloth.
Hidy, she said.
Howdy. I expect you could use a bite to eat by now.
I ast could I help but she said she'd ruther to do it her own self.
She does everthing by herself.
The woman opened the oven door and slid forth a tray of cornbread.
That's finelookin butter ain't it? That she's made.
I cain't eat it, the man said.
Her joined hands went to her lips for a moment and returned to her lap again.
Cain't eat it. Makes me sicker'n a dog.
I guess they's some things everbody cain't ... I guess everbody has got somethin he cain't eat.
What's yourn?
What?
I said what's yourn? That you cain't eat. It ain't turnips I don't reckon.
She was watching her hands, yellow skin tautening over the knuckles. I don't know, she said.
No.
A body gets hungry I reckon will eat pret-near anything.
I've heard that. I'm proud I ain't never gone hungry.
It's best not to have to. I reckon.
It's best not to have to do lots of things. Like hunt somebody you never heard of ... Was that not it?
Never seen, she said.
Never seen then. And I reckon sleep wherever dark fell on ye. Or worse.
The woman lifted her head to toss back the hair from her face. Leave her alone, she said. She ain't botherin you.
Just get it on the table, woman. You don't need to be concerned about nothin else.
Don't you pay him no mind. He's meanhearted and sorry and they ain't nothin to be done for him.
That's all right, she said. We was just talkin.
The man's speckled hands had drawn up clenched like two great dying spiders on either side of the empty white plate that sat before him. You flaptongued old bat, don't call me sorry. I'll show you what sorry is if you want.
The woman flung her head above the stove again. O yes, she said. That's nice for company now ain't it?
Goddamn you and some company both, the man said, rising. Don't come on with that fancy shit to me about some company. If you looked to your own a little better and companied less ...
What? she said, turning. What? You've got the nerve to thow my family up to me?
Your family? Why damn you and your family to everlasting shit. You know what I'm talkin about ...
She had risen from the table with her parcel beneath one arm and moved to the nearest wall, watching this tableau with widening eyes. The spoon made a vicious slicing sound, crossing the room in a wheel of sprayed stew. The man scooped up one of the bricks of butter and let fly with it. It hung in a yellow blob on the warmer door for a moment before it dropped with a hiss to the top of the stove.
You leave my butter alone, the woman said. Don't you lay a hand on that butter.
She eased her way along the wall to the door and got the handle under her fingers, turned it, backing carefully out as it opened. She saw the man smile. The last thing she saw before she turned and ran was the board of butter aloft, the woman screaming. As she crossed the yard the breakage mounted crash on crash into a final crescendo of shattered glass and then silence in which she could hear stricken sobs. She did not look back. When she reached the road she slowed to a fast walk and soon she was limping along with one hand to her side and bent against the stitch of pain there. When she had put two bends in the road between her and the house she stopped to rest in the grass at the roadside until the pain was gone. She was very hungry. She wanted to wait for the chance of a wagon coming but after she had waited a long time and no wagon came she went on again.
She passed the last of the cleared land and the road went down into a deep and marshy wood. Cattails and arrowheads grew in the ditches and in the stands of pollenstained water where sunning turtles tilted from stones and logs at her approach. She went this way for miles. It was late afternoon before she came to any house at all and it a slattern shack all but hidden among the trees.
And she could not have said to what sex belonged the stooped and hooded anthropoid that came muttering down the fence toward her. In one hand a hoe handled crudely with a sapling stave, an aged face and erupting from beneath some kind of hat lank hair all hung with clots like a sheep's scut, stumbling along in huge brogans and overalls. She stopped at the sight of this apparition. The roa
d went in deep woods and constant damp and the house was grown with a rich velour of moss and lichen and brooded in a palpable miasma of rot. Chickens had so scratched the soil from the yard that knobs and knees of treeroots stood everywhere in grotesque configuration up out of the earth like some gathering of the mad laid suddenly bare in all their writhen attitudes of pain. She waited. It was an old woman spoke to her: I've not been a-hoein. This here is just to kill snakes with.
She nodded.
I don't ast nobody's sayso for what all I do but I'd not have ye to think I'd been a-hoein.
Yes, she said.
I don't hold with breakin the sabbath and don't care to associate with them that does.
It ain't sunday, she said.
It's what?
It ain't sunday today, she said.
The old woman peered at her strangely. I don't believe you been saved have ye? she said.
I don't know.
Ah, the old woman said, one of them. She tamped down a small piece of earth with the flat of the hoe.
You live here, I reckon.
The old woman looked up. I have lived here nigh on to forty-seven year. Since I was married.
It's a nice cool place here, she said.
O yes. This is a shady spot here. I don't allow no wood cut near the house.
She could see that the porch of the house was ricked end to end with cords of stovewood and the one window which faced them held back in webbed and dusty tiers more wood yet. Is it just you and the mister at home now? she said.
Earl died, she said.
Oh.
I just despise a snake don't you?
Yes mam.
I'm like my granny that way. She always said what she despised worst in the world was snakes hounds and sorry women.
Yes mam.
I won't have a hound on the place.
No mam.
The old woman drew up the wings of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and sneezed forth a spray of mucous and wiped her fingers on the overalls she wore.
Earl's daddy used to keep half a holler full of old beat-up hounds. He had to keep Earl's too. I won't have one on the place. Wantin to lay out half the night runnin in the woods with a bunch of dogs like somethin crazy. Ain't a bit of use in the world somebody puttin up with such as that. I run his daddy off too. Told him he'd run with hounds so hard and long he'd took on the look of one let alone the smell. And him a squire. They wasn't no common people but I declare if they didn't have some common habits among em. He's a squire ye know. Course that never kept his daughter from runnin off with a no-account that sent her back big in the belly and thin in the shanks and nary word from him ever from that day to this. Or doomsday if ye wanted to wait. How far are ye goin?
Just up the road. I'm travelin.
Where to?
Well. I mean I'm not goin to just one place in particular.
The old woman cocked her elf's face and peered at her with eyes gone near colorless with years. The thin and ropy hands with which she clutched the handle of the hoe opened and closed. Maybe you're goin to several places in particular then, she said.
No mam. Not no special places. I'm a-huntin somebody.
Who's that?
Just somebody. This feller.
The old woman's eyes went to her belly and back again.
She straightened herself and tucked the bundle of clothes beneath one arm.
Feller, the old woman said. Where's he got to?
I wisht I knowed.
The old woman nodded. It's a goodly sizeable world to set out huntin somebody in.
That's God's truth.
I hope ye luck anyways.
I thank ye.
The old woman nodded again and tapped the ground with her hoe.
Well I guess I'd best be gettin on.
Needn't to be in no hurry. Come up to the house.
Well.
I got fresh cornbread from yesterday evenin and a pot of greens and fatmeat if you're hungry a-tall. Give ye a glass of cool buttermilk anyway.
Well. If you don't care.
Shoo. Come along.
She followed the old woman up a trench of a path toward the house, the old woman poking at the knobby-roots reared out of the red earth as if testing for hostile life. When they entered the house it was into nigh total dark, past ricks of wood stacked to the low ceiling and little more than a cat's passage between them, down another corridor walled in by the sawn dowel ends of sticks and split logs until they came to the kitchen, likewise crammed with wood in every available space.
Get ye a chair, the woman said.
Thank ye.
She was at the stove, turning fire up out of the dead gray ashes. Are ye not married? she said.
No mam.
She added wood. She lifted the lid from a pot crusted with blackened orts and tilted it for inspection. Her voice hollow and chambered: Where's your youngern.
What?
I said where's your youngern.
I've not got nary.
The babe, the babe, the old woman crooned.
They ain't nary'n.
Hah, said the old woman. Bagged for the river trade I'd judge. Yon sow there might make ye a travelin mate that's downed her hoggets save one.
She sat very straight in the chair. Cradled among stovewood against the wall was a sleeping hog she had not seen. The old woman turned, a small bent androgyne gesturing with a black spoon, waiting.
That's a lie what you said, the girl whispered hoarsely. I never. He was took from me. A chap. I'm a-huntin him.
Your hand to God, the old woman said.
She raised her hand slightly from the table. Yes, she said.
Aye. Where's he at now?
This here tinker has got him.
Tinker.
Yes mam. He come to the house while I was confinin. We'd been there four months or more and they'd not been nary tinker a-tall come round.
Ah. And stoled him away. I always heard they was bad about it.
She stirred uneasily in her chair. No mam, she said. My brother give it to him. Or sold it one. He tried to let on like it died but I caught him in that lie and he owned up what he done.
Your brother?
Yes mam.
And where's he at?
I don't know.
You've not lawed him?
No mam.
You ort to've.
Well. He's family.
The old woman shook her head. When was it all? she said.
Just March or April. I forgot. She looked up. The old woman was looking past her, weighing the spoon in her hand.
I think most likely it was in March.
And you was a-nursin him.
No mam. I never had the chancet. I never even seen him.
The old woman looked down at her. You goin to have to find him or let him be. One or t'other.
Yes mam.
And you best grease them paps.
Yes mam, she said.
Aye, said the old woman. I got some I'll give ye. She opened the firebox door and poked and spat among the flames and clanged it shut again. The sow reared half up and regarded them with narrow pink eyes and a look of hostile cunning. The old woman looked to her pot and then brought down a pitcher of buttermilk from her cupboard and a glass. I believe everbody loves a good drink of buttermilk, she said. Don't you?
Yes mam, she said. She was watching a woodrat that had come from a pile of kindling along the wall and now paused to scratch with one tiny hindfoot.
Yander goes a old rat, she said.
I don't have no rats in my house, the old woman said simply.
The rat looked at them and went on across the woodpile and from sight.
I cain't abide varmints of no description.
She nodded. I'm like you, she said.
I'll have us some supper here directly.
Thank ye, she said, the glass of milk in her hand, wearing a clown's mouth of it. It had darkened in the room and fire showed thin and pink
in the joints of the stove's iron carriage.
They's a tinker comes thew here be it ever so little often, the old woman said. Got a jenny to pull his traps and smokes stogies. Does that favor him?
I don't know. I ain't never seen him.
The old woman paused midway unscrewing a tin of snuff. She did not look up. After a minute she undid the tin and took a pinch of the tobacco between her fingers and placed it in her lower lip. Do ye dip? she said.
No mam. I've not took it up.
She nodded and put the lid back and replaced the tin in her shirt pocket. If you ain't never seen him, she said, how do you expect to know him when ye do.
Well, she said, I don't believe he had no jenny.
Most don't.
He sells them books.
What books.
Them nasty books.
Most do. I thought you said he come to the house.
He did come to it but he never come in it.
Did you want some more buttermilk?
No thank ye mam. I've a plenty.
It's a poor lot wanderin about thataway, said the old woman.
They ain't no help for it.
And if ye find him what?
I'll just tell him. I'll tell him I want my chap. She was gesturing strangely in the air with one hand. The old woman watched her. Milk ran from the dark cloth she wore, the hand subsided into her lap again like a falling bird. I'd of wanted to see it anyways, she said. Even if it had of died.
The old woman nodded and wiped the corners of her mouth each in turn with the pursed web of her thumb. Aye, she said. Reach them plates down from behind ye now.
Yes mam.
Did you come thew Well's Station?
Yes mam. This mornin. I seen two fellers hung in a tree.
That was yesterday.
No mam. It was this mornin.
I reckon they still there then. They was supposed to of killed old man Salter over there.
It sinkened me in my heart to see it.
Yes. Here. I'll get the lamp directly.
Ain't you scared by yourself?
Some. Sometimes. Ain't you?
Yes mam. I always was scared. Even when they wasn't nobody bein murdered nowheres.
HE CAME DOWN out of the kept land and into a sunless wood where the road curved dark and cool, overlaid with immense ferns, trees hung with gray moss like hag's hair, and in this green and weeping fastness birdcalls he had not heard before. He could see no tracks in the packed sand he trod and he left none. Sometime in the afternoon he came upon a cabin and upon the veranda an old bearded man seated with a cane tilted across one knee. Two hounds watched him with bleeding eyes, muzzles flat to the scoured and grassless soil in the yard. He slowed his steps and raised one hand. The old man did not move for a minute and then his hand came slowly from his lap palmoutward no higher than his chest and returned without pausing.