“Sit down,” MacCallum said. He drew up a chair, and Bayard drew another up opposite across the table. “Deacon sure ought to know good whisky. He’s drunk enough of it to float his counters right out the front door.” He filled his glass and pushed the bottle across to Bayard, and they drank again, quietly.
“You look bad, son,” MacCallum said suddenly, and Bayard raised his head and found the other examining him with his keen, steady eyes. “Overtrained,” he added. Bayard made an abrupt gesture of negation and raised his glass, but he could still feel the other watching him steadily. “Well, you haven’t forgot how to drink good whisky, anyhow. . . . Why don’t you come out and take a hunt with us? Got an old red we been saving for you. Been running him off and on for two years, now, with the young dogs. Ain’t put old General on him yet, because the old feller’ll nose him out, and we wanted to save him for you boys. John would have enjoyed that fox. You remember that night Johnny cut across down to Samson’s bridge ahead of the dogs, and when we got there, here come him and the fox floating down the river on that drift log, the fox on one end and Johnny on the other, singing that fool song as loud as he could yell? John would have enjoyed this fox. He outsmarts them young dogs every time. But old General’ll get him.”
Bayard sat turning his glass in his hand. He reached a packet of cigarettes from his jacket and shook a few of them on to the table at his hand and flipped the packet across to the other. MacCallum drank his toddy steadily and refilled his glass. Bayard lit a cigarette and emptied his glass and reached for the bottle.
“You look like hell, boy,” MacCallum repeated.
“Dry, I reckon,” Bayard answered in a voice as level as the other’s. He made himself another toddy, his cigarette smoking on the table edge. He raised the glass, but instead of drinking. he held it for a moment beneath his nose while the muscles at the base of his nostrils tautened whitely, then he swung the glass from him and with a steady hand he emptied it on the floor. The other watched him quietly while he poured his glass half full of raw liquor and sloshed a little water into it and tilted it down his throat. “I’ve been good too damn long,” he said aloud, and he fell to talking of the war. Not of combat, but rather of a life peopled by young men like fallen angels, and of a meteoric violence like that of fallen angels, beyond heaven or hell and partaking of both: doomed immortality and immortal doom.
MacCallum sat and listened quietly, drinking his whisky steadily and slowly and without appreciable effect, as though it were milk he drank, and Bayard talked on and presently found himself without surprise eating food. The bottle was now less than half full. The negro Houston had brought the food in and had his drink, taking it neat and without batting an eye. “Ef I had a cow dat give dat, de calf wouldn’t git no milk a-tall,” he said, “and I wouldn’t never churn. Thanky, Mr. MacCallum, suh.”
Then he was out, and Bayard’s voice went on, filling the cubbyhole of a room, surmounting the odor of cheap food too quickly cooked and of sharp, spilt whisky with ghosts of a thing high-pitched as a hysteria, like a glare of fallen meteors on the dark retina of the world. Again a light tap at the door, and the proprietor’s egg-shaped head and his hot, diffident eyes.
“You gentlemen got everything you want?” he asked, rubbing his hands on his thighs.
“Come and get it,” MacCallum said, jerking his head toward the bottle, and the other made himself a toddy in his stale glass and drank it, while Bayard finished his tale of himself and an Australian major and two ladies in the Leicester lounge one evening (the Leicester lounge being out of bounds, and the Anzac lost two teeth and his girl, and Bayard himself got a black eye), watching the narrator with round, melting astonishment.
“Great Savior,” he said, “them av’aytors was sure some hell-raisers, wasn’t they? Well, I reckon they’re wanting me up front aagin. You got to keep on the jump to make a living, these days.” And he scuttled out again.
“I’ve been good too goddam long,” Bayard repeated harshly, watching MacCallum fill the two glasses. “That’s the only thing Johnny was ever good for. Kept me from getting in a rut. Bloody rut, with a couple of old women nagging at me and nothing to do except scare niggers.”
He drank his whisky and set the glass down, still clutching it. “Damn ham-handed Hun,” he said. “He never could fly, anyway. I kept trying to keep him from going up there on that goddam popgun,” and he cursed his dead brother savagely. Then he raised his glass again, but halted it halfway to his mouth. “Where in hell did my drink go?”
MacCallum emptied the bottle into Bayard’s glass, and he drank again and banged the thick tumbler on the table and rose and lurched back against the wall. His chair crashed over backward, and he braced himself, staring at the other. “I kept on trying to keep him from going up there, with that Camel. But he gave me a burst. Right across my nose.”
MacCallum rose also. “Come on here,” he said quietly, and he offered to take Bayard’s arm, but Bayard evaded him and they passed through the kitchen and traversed the long tunnel of the store. Bayard walked steadily enough, and the proprietor bobbed his head at them across the counter.
“Call again, gentlemen,” he said, “call again.”
“All right, Deacon,” MacCallum answered. Bayard strode on. As they passed the soda fountain a young lawyer standing beside a stranger addressed him.
“Captain Sartoris, shake hands with Mr. Gratton here. Gratton was up on the British front last spring.” The stranger turned and extended his hand, but Bayard stared at him bleakly and strode so steadily on that the other involuntarily gave back in order not to be over-borne.
“Why, God damn his soul,” he said to Bayard’s back. The lawyer grasped his arm.
“He’s drunk,” he whispered quickly, “he’s drunk.”
“I don’t give a damn,” the other exclaimed loudly. “Because he was a goddam shave-tail he thinks—”
“Shhhhh, shhhhhh.” the lawyer hissed. The proprietor came to the corner of his candy case and peered out with hot, round alarm.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” he exclaimed. The stranger made another violent movement, and Bayard stopped.
“Wait a minute while I bash his face in,” he told MacCallum, turning. The stranger thrust the lawyer aside and stepped forward.
“You never saw the day—” he began. MacCallum took Bayard’s arm firmly and easily.
“Come on here, boy.”
“I’ll bash his bloody face in,” Bayard stated, looking bleakly at the angry stranger. The lawyer grasped his companion’s arm again.
“Get away,” the stranger said, flinging him off. “Just let him try it. Come on, you limey—”
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” the proprietor wailed.
“Come on here, boy,” MacCallum said. “I’ve got to look at a horse.”
“A horse?” Bayard repeated. He turned obediently. Then he stopped and looked back. “Can’t bash your face in now,” he told the stranger. “Sorry. Got to look at a horse. Call for you later at the hotel.” But the stranger’s back was turned, and behind it the lawyer grimaced and waggled his hand at MacCallum.
“Get him away, MacCallum, for God’s sake.”
“Bash his face in later,” Bayard repeated. “Can’t bash yours, though, Eustace,” he told the lawyer. “Taught us in ground-school never seduce a fool nor hit a cripple.”
“Come on, here,” MacCallum repeated, leading him on. At the door Bayard must stop again to light a cigarette; then they went on. It was three o’clock and again they walked among school children in released surges. Bayard strode steadily enough, and a little belligerently, and soon MacCallum turned into a side street and they went on, passing negro stores, and between a busy grist mill and a silent cotton gin they turned into a lane filled with tethered horses and mules. From the end of the lane an anvil clanged. They passed the ruby glow of it and a patient horse standing on three legs in the blacksmith’s
doorway and the squatting overalled men along the shady wall and came then to a high-barred gate backing a long, dun-colored brick tunnel smelling of ammonia. A few men sat on the top of the gate; others leaned their crossed arms upon it. From the paddock itself came voices, then through the slatted gate gleamed a haughty, motionless shape of burnished flame.
The stallion stood against the yawning cavern of the livery stable door like a motionless bronze flame, and along its burnished coat ran at intervals little tremors of paler flame, little tongues of nervousness and pride. But its eye was quiet and arrogant, and occasionally and with a kingly air, its gaze swept along the group at the gate with a fine disdain, without seeing them as individuals at all, and again little tongues of paler flame rippled flicking along its coat. About its head was a rope hackamore; it was tethered to a door post, and in the background a white man moved about at a respectful distance with a proprietorial air, beside him a negro hostler with a towsack tied about his waist with a string. MacCallum and Bayard halted at the gate, and the white man circled the stallion’s haughty immobility and crossed to them. The negro hostler came forth also, with a soft, dirty cloth and chanting in a mellow singsong. The stallion permitted him to approach and suffered him to erase with his rag the licking nervous little flames that ran in renewed ripples under its skin.
“Ain’t he a picture, now?” the white man demanded of MacCallum, leaning his elbow on the gate. A cheap nickel watch was attached to his suspender loop by a length of rawhide lace leather worn black and soft with age, and his shaven beard was heaviest from the corners of his mouth to his chin: he looked always as though he were chewing tobacco with his mouth open. He was a horse-trader by profession, and he was constantly engaged in litigation with the railroad company over the violent demise of his stock by its agency. “Look at that nigger, now,” he added. “He’ll let Tobe handle him like a baby. I wouldn’t git within ten foot of him, myself. Dam’f I know how Tobe does it. Must be some kin between a nigger and a animal, I always claim.”
“I reckon he’s afraid you’ll be crossing the railroad with him some day about the time Thirty-nine is due,” MacCallum said drily.
“Yes, I reckon I have the hardest luck of any feller in the county,” the other agreed. “But they got to settle this time: I got ’em dead to rights, this time.”
“Yes,” MacCallum said, “the railroad company ought to furnish that stock of yourn with time tables.” The other onlookers guffawed.
“Ah, the company’s got plenty of money,” the trader rejoined. Then he said: “You talk like I might have druv them mules in front of that train. Lemme tell you how it come about—”
“I reckon you won’t never drive him in front of no train.” MacCallum jerked his head toward the stallion. The negro burnished its shimmering coat, crooning to it in a monotonous singsong. The trader laughed.
“I reckon not,” he admitted, “not less’n Tobe goes too. Just look at him now. I wouldn’t no more walk up to that animal than I’d fly.”
“I’m going to ride that horse,” Bayard said suddenly.
“What hoss?” the trader demanded, and the other onlookers watched Bayard climb the gate and vault over into the lot.
“You let that hoss alone, young feller,” the trader said. But Bayard paid him no heed. He went on; the stallion swept its regal regard upon him and away.
“You let that hoss alone,” the trader shouted, “or I’ll have the law on you.”
“Let him be,” MacCallum said.
“And let him damage a fifteen-hundred-dollar stallion? That hoss’ll kill him. You, Sartoris!”
From his hip pocket MacCallum drew a wad of bills enclosed by a rubber band. “Let him be,” he repeated. “That’s what he wants.”
The trader glanced at the roll of money with quick calculation. “I take you gentlemen to witness—” he began loudly; then he ceased, and they watched tensely as Bayard approached the stallion. The beast swept its haughty, glowing eye upon him again and lifted its head without alarm and snorted. The negro glanced over his shoulder and crouched against the animal, and his crooning chant rose to a swifter beat. “Go back, white folks,” he said.
The beast snorted again and swept its head up, snapping the rope like a gossamer thread, and the negro grasped at the flying rope-end. “Git away, white folks,” he cried. “Git away, quick.”
But the stallion eluded his hand. It cropped its teeth in a vicious arc and the negro leaped sprawling as the animal soared like a bronze explosion. Bayard had dodged beneath the sabring hooves, and as the horse swirled in a myriad flickering like fire, the spectators saw that the man had contrived to take a turn with the rope-end about its jaws; then they saw the animal rear again, dragging the man from the ground and whipping his body like a rag upon its flashing arc. Then it stopped, trembling, as Bayard closed its nostrils with the twisted rope, and suddenly he was upon its back while it stood with lowered head and rolling eyes, rippling its coat into quivering tongues before exploding again.
The beast burst like bronze unfolding wings; the onlookers tumbled away from the gate and hurled themselves to safety as the gate splintered to matchwood beneath its soaring volcanic thunder. Bayard crouched on its shoulders and dragged its mad head around and they swept down the lane, spreading pandemonium among the horses and mules tethered and patient about the blacksmith shop and among the wagons there. Where the lane debouched into the street a group of negroes scattered before them, and without a break in its stride the stallion soared over a small negro child clutching a stick of striped candy directly in its path. A wagon drawn by mules was just turning into the lane: these reared madly before the wild, slack-jawed face of the white man in the wagon, and again Bayard sawed his thunderbolt around and headed it away from the square. Down the lane behind him the spectators ran shouting through the dust, the trader among them, and Rafe MacCallum still clutching his roll of money.
The stallion moved beneath him like a tremendous mad music, uncontrolled, splendidly uncontrollable. The rope served only to curb its direction, not its speed, and among shouts from the pavement on either hand he swung the animal into another street. This was a quieter street; soon they would be in the country, where the stallion could exhaust its rage without the added hazards of motors and pedestrians. Voices faded behind him in his own thunder: “Runaway! Runaway!” But the street was deserted save for a small automobile going in the same direction, and further along beneath the green tunnel, bright small spots of color scuttled out of the street. Children. “Hope they stay there,” he said to himself. His eyes were streaming a little; beneath him the surging lift and fall; in his nostrils a sharpness of rage and energy and violated pride like smoke from the animal’s body, and he swept past the motor car, remarking in a flashing second a woman’s face and a mouth partly open and two eyes round with tranquil astonishment. But the face flashed away without registering on his mind and he saw the children huddled on one side of the street, and on the opposite side a negro playing a hose on the sidewalk and beside him a second negro with a pitchfork.
Someone screamed from a veranda, and the huddle of children broke, shrieking. A small figure in a white shirt and diminutive pale blue pants darted into the street and Bayard leaned downward and wrapped the rope about his hand and swerved the beast toward the opposite sidewalk where the two negroes stood, gape-mouthed. The small figure came on, flashed safely behind; then a narrow band of rushing green, a tree trunk like a wheel spoke in reverse, and the stallion struck clashing fire from wet concrete. It slid, clashed, fighting for balance, lunged and crashed down, and for Bayard a red shock, then blackness.
The horse scrambled up and whirled and poised and struck viciously at, the prone man with its hooves, but the negro with the pitchfork drove it away and it trotted stiffly and with tossing head up the street and passed the halted motorcar. At the end of the street it stood trembling and snorting and permitted the negro hostler to touch it.
Rafe MacCallum still clutched his roll of bills.
6
They gathered him up and brought him to town in a commandeered motorcar and roused Dr. Peabody from slumber, and Dr. Peabody profanely bandaged Bayard’s head and gave him a drink from the bottle which resided in the cluttered wastebasket, and threatened to telephone Miss Jenny if he didn’t go straight home. Rafe MacCallum promised to see that he did so, and the owner of the impressed automobile offered to drive him out. It was a Ford body with, in place of a tonneau, a miniature one-room cabin of sheet iron, no larger than a dog kennel, in each painted window of which a painted housewife simpered across a painted sewing machine; in it an actual sewing machine neatly fitted, borne thus about the countryside by the agent. The agent’s name was V. K. Suratt and he now sat, with his shrewd, plausible face, behind the wheel. Bayard with his humming head sat beside him, and to the fender clung a youth with brown forearms and a slanted extremely new straw hat, who let his limber body absorb the jolts with negligent ease as they rattled sedately out of town on the valley road.
The drink Dr. Peabody had given him, instead of quieting his jangled nerves, rolled sluggishly and hotly in his stomach and served only to nauseate him a little, and against his closed eyelids red antic shapes coiled in throbbing and tedious cycles. He watched them dully and without astonishment as they emerged from blackness and swirled sluggishly and consumed themselves and reappeared, each time a little fainter as his mind cleared. And yet, somewhere blended with them and at the same time apart and beyond them with a tranquil aloofness and steadfast among their senseless convolutions, was a face. It seemed to have some relation to the instant itself as it culminated in crashing blackness; at the same time it seemed, for all its aloofness, to be a part of the whirling ensuing chaos; a part of it, yet bringing into the red vortex a sort of constant coolness like that of a faint, shady breeze. So it remained, aloof, not quite distinct, while the coiling shapes faded into a dull unease of physical pain from the jolting of the car, leaving about him like an echo that cool serenity and something else—a sense of shrinking, yet fascinated distaste of which he or something he had done was the object.