But the house was dark, and presently he slid to the ground and with the desperate courage of his despair he stole across the lawn and stopped beneath a window. There was a light somewhere toward the front of the house, but no sound, no movement, and he stood for a time listening, darting his eyes this way and that, covert and ceaseless as a cornered animal.
The screen responded easily to his knife blade and he raised it and listened again. Then with a single scrambling motion he was in the room, crouching, with his thudding heart. Still no sound, and the whole house gave off that unmistakable emanation of temporary desertion. He drew out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth.
The light was in the next room, and he went on. The stairs rose from the end of this room and he scuttled silently across it and mounted swiftly into darkness again and groped through the darkness until he touched a wall, then a door. The knob turned under his fingers.
It was the right room; he knew that at once: her presence was all about him, and for a time his heart thudded and thudded in his throat and fury and lust and despair shook him like a rag. But he pulled himself together; he must get out quickly, and he groped his way across to the bed and lay face down upon it, his head buried in the pillows, writhing and making smothered, animal-like moanings. But he must get out, and he rose and groped across the room again. What little light there was was behind him now, and instead of finding the door he blundered into a chest of drawers, and stood there a moment. Then with sudden decision he opened a drawer and fumbled in it. It was filled with a faintly scented fragility of garments, but he could not distinguish one from another.
He found a match in his pocket and struck it beneath the shelter of his palm, and by its light he chose one of the soft garments, discovering as the match died a packet of letters in one corner of the drawer. He recognized them at once and he threw the dead match to the floor and removed the letter he had just written from his pocket and put it in the drawer and put the other letters in his pocket, and he stood for a time with the garment crushed against his face; remained so for some time, until a sound caused him to jerk his head up. A car was coming up the drive, and as he turned and sprang to the window, its lights swept beneath him and fell full upon the open garage, and he crouched at the window in utter panic. Then he turned and sped to the door and stopped again crouching, panting and snarling in indecision.
He turned and ran back to the window. The garage was dark, and two dark figures were coming toward the house and he crouched within the window .until they had passed from sight. Then, still clutching the garment, he climbed out the window and swung from the sill for a moment, closed his eyes and dropped
There was a crash of glass and he sprawled in a dusty litter, with other lesser crashes. He had fallen into a shallow, glassed flower pit and he scrambled out someway and tried to get to his feet and fell again, while nausea swirled in him. It was his knee, and he lay sick and with snarling teeth while his trouser leg sopped slowly and damply, clutching the garment he had stolen and scaring at the dark sky with wide, mad eyes. He heard voices in lite house, and a light came on in the window above him and he dragged himself erect again, restraining his vomit, and at a scrambling hobble he crossed the lawn and plunged into the shadow of the cedars beside the garage, where he lay staring at the house where a man leaned in a window, peering out and moaning a little while his blood ran between his clasped fingers. He drove himself onward again and dragged his bleeding leg over the wall and dropped into the lane and cast the pole down. A hundred yards further he stopped and drew his torn trousers aside and tried to bandage the long gash in his leg. But the handkerchief stained over almost at once, and still his blood ran and ran down his leg and into his shoe.
Once in the back room of the bank, he rolled his trouser leg up and removed the handkerchief and bathed the gash with cold water. It still bled, though not so much, and he removed his shirt and bound it as tightly as he could He still felt an inclination toward nausea, and he drank long of the tepid water from the lavatory tap. Immediately it warmed salinely inside him and he dung to the lavatory, sweating, trying not to vomit, until the spell passed. His leg felt numb and dead.
He entered the grilled cage. His left heel showed yet a bloody print on the floor, but no blood ran from beneath the bandage, The vault door opened soundlessly; without striking a match he found the key to the cash box and opened it He took only banknotes, which he stowed away in his inner coat pocket drat he took all he could find. Then he closed the vault and locked it returned to the lavatory and wetted a towel and removed his heel prints from the linoleum floor. He passed out the rear door, threw the latch so it would lock behind him. The dock on the courthouse rang midnight
In an alley between two negro stores he found the negro whom he had met at noon, with a battered Ford car. He gave the negro a bill and the negro cranked the car and came and stared curiously at his torn trousers and the glint of white cloth beneath. “Whut happened, boss? Y’aint hurt, is you?”
“Run into some wire,” he answered shortly, and drove on. As he crossed the square he saw the night watchman, Buck, standing beneath the light before the post office, and cursed him with silent and bitter derision. He drove on and passed from view, and presently the sound of his going had died away.
He drove through Frenchman’s Bend at two o’clock, without stopping. The village was dark; Varner’s store, the blacksmith shop (now a garage too, with a gasoline pump), Mrs. Littlejohn’s huge, unpainted boarding house—all the remembered scenes of his boyhood—were without life; he went on. He drove now along a rutted wagon road, between swampy jungle, at a snail’s pace. After a half hour the road mounted a small knoll wooded with scrub oak and indiscriminate saplings, and faded into a barren, sun-baked surface in the middle of which squatted a low, broken-backed log house. His lights swept across its gaping front, and a huge gaunt hound descended from the porch and bellowed at him. He stopped and switched the lights off.
His leg was stiff and dead, and when he descended he was forced to cling to the car for a time, moving it back and forth until it would bear his weight. The hound stood ten feet away and thundered at him in a sober conscientious fury until he spoke to it, whereupon it ceased its clamor but stood yet in an attitude of watchful belligerence. He limped toward it, and it recognized him and together they crossed the barren plot in the soundless dust and mounted the veranda. “Turpin,” he called in a guarded voice.
The dog had followed him onto the porch, and it flopped noisily and scratched itself . The house consisted of two wings joined by an open hall; through the hall he could see sky, and another warped roof tree on the slope behind the house. His leg tingled and throbbed as with pins of fire. I got that ‘ere bandage too tight, he thought. “Turpin.”
A movement from the wing at his left, and into the lesser obscurity of the hall a shape emerged and stood in vague relief against the sky, in a knee-length night-shirt and a shotgun. “Who’s thar?” the shape demanded
“Byron Snopes.”
The man leaned the gun against the wall and came onto the porch, and they shook hands limply. “What you doin’ this time of night? Thought you was in town.”
“On a trip for the bank,” Snopes explained. “Just drove in, and I got to git right on. Might be gone some time, and I wanted to see Minnie Sue.”
The other tabbed the wild shock of his head, then he scratched his leg. “She’s a-sleepin’. Caint you wait till daylight?”
“I got to git on,” he repeated. “Got to be pretty nigh Alabama by daybreak.”
The man brooded heavily, rubbing his flank, “Well,” he said finally, “ef you caint wait till
mawnin’.” He padded back into the house and vanished. The hound flopped again at Snopes’ feet and sniffed noisily. From the river bottom a mile away an owl hooted with its mournful rising inflection. Snopes thrust his hand into his coat and touched the wadded delicate garment. In his breast pocket the money bulked against his arm.
Another figure stepped
soundlessly into .the hall, against the lighter sky; a smaller figure and even more shapeless, that stood for a moment, then came out to him. He put his arms around her, feeling her free body beneath the rough garment she had hastily donned. “Byron?” she said, “What is it, Byron?” He was trying to kiss her, and she suffered him readily, but withdrew her face immediately, peering at him. He drew her away from the door.
“Come on,” he whispered. His voice was shaking and hoarse, and his body was trembling also. He led her to the steps and tried to draw her on, but she held back a little, peering at him.
“Let’s set on the steps,” she said. “What’s the matter, Byron? You got a chill?”
“I’m all right. Let’s get away where we can talk.”
She let him draw her forward and down the steps, but as they moved further and further away from the house she began to resist, with curiosity and growing alarm. “Byron,” she said again and stopped. His hands were trembling upon her, moving about her body, and his voice was shaking so that she could not understand him.
“You ain’t got on nothing under here but your nightgown, have you?” he whispered.
“What?” He drew her a little further, but she stopped firmly and he could not move her; she was as strong as he. “You tell me what it is, now,” she commanded. “You ain’t ready fer our marryin’ yet, are you?”
But he made no answer. He was trembling more than ever, pawing at her. They struggled, and at last he succeeded in dragging her to the ground and he sprawled beside her, pawing at her clothing; whereupon she struggled in earnest, and soon she held him helpless while he sprawled with his face against her throat, babbling a name not hers. When he was still she turned and thrust him away, and rose to her feet
“You come back tomorrer, when you git over this,” she said, and she ran silently toward the house, and was gone.
He sat where she had left him for a long time, with his half-insane face between his knees and madness and helpless rage and thwarted desire coiling within him. The owl hooted again from the black river bottom; its cry faded mournfully across the land, beneath the chill stars, and the hound came silently through the dust and sniffed at him, and went away. After a time he rose and limped to the car and started the engine.
FOUR
1
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in October, Narcissa and Bayard had driven off soon after dinner, and Miss Jenny and did Bayard were sitting on the sunny end of the veranda when, preceded by Simon, the deputation came solemnly around the corner of the House from the rear. It consisted of six negroes in a catholic variety of Sunday raiment and it was headed by a huge, neckless negro in a Prince Albert coat and a hind-part-before collar, with an orotund air and a wild, compelling eye.
“Yere dey is, Cunnel,” Simon said, and without pausing he mounted the steps and faced the deputation, leaving no doubt in the beholder’s eye as to which side he was aligned with. The deputation halted and milled a little, solemnly decorous.
“What’s this?” Miss Jenny demanded. “That you, Uncle Bird?”
“Yessum, Miss Jenny.” One of the deputation uncovered his grizzled wool and bowed. “How you gittin’ on?” The others shuffled their feet, and one by one they removed their hats. The leader clasped his across his chest like a congressional candidate being photographed.
“Here, Simon,” old Bayard said. “What’s this? What did you bring these niggers around here for?”
“Dey come fer dey money,” Simon explained.
“What?”
“Money?” Miss Jenny repeated with interest “What money, Simon?”
“Dey come fer de money you promised ‘um,” Simon shouted.
“I told you I wasn’t going to pay that money,” old Bayard said. “Did Simon tell you I was going to pay it?” he demanded of the committee.
“What money?” Miss Jenny repeated. “What are you talking about, Simon?” The leader of the deputation was shaping his mouth to words, but Simon forestalled him.
“Why, Cunnel, you tole me yo’self to tell dem niggers you wuz gwine pay’um.”
“I didn’t do any such thing,” old Bayard answered violently. “I told you that if they wanted to put you in jail, to go ahead and do it. That’s what I told you.”
“Why, Cunnel, you said it jes’ ez plain. I kin prove it by Miss Jenny you tole me—”
“Not by me,” Miss Jenny denied. “This is the first I heard about it. Whose money is it, Simon?”
Simon gave her a pained, reproachful look. “He tole me to tell ‘um he wuz gwine pay it.”
“I’m damned if I did,” old Bayard stormed. “I told you I wouldn’t pay a damn cent of it. And I told you that if you let ‘em worry me about it, I’d skin you alive, sir.”
“I ain’t gwine let ‘um worry you,” Simon answered soothingly. “You jes’ give ‘um dey money, en me en you kin fix it up later.”
“I’ll be eternally damned if I will; if I let a lazy nigger that ain’t worth his keep—”
“But somebody got to pay ‘um,” Simon pointed out patiently. “Ain’t dat right, Miss Jenny?”
“That’s right,” Miss Jenny agreed. “But it’s not me.”
“Yessuh, dey ain’t no argument dat somebody got to pay ‘um. Ef somebody don’t pay ‘em dey’ll put me in jail And den whut’ll y’all do, widout nobody to keep dem hosses fed en clean, and to clean de house en wait on de table? Co’se I don’t mine gwine to jail, even ef dem stone flo’s ain’t gwine do my mis’ry no good.” And he drew a long and affecting picture, of high and grail-like principles, and patient abnegation. Old Bayard slammed his feet to the floor.
“How much is it?”
The leader swelled impressively in his Prince Albert. “Brudder Mo’,” he said, “will you read out de total emoluments owed to de pupposed Secon’ Baptis’ church by de late Deacon Strother in his capacity ez treasurer of de church boa’d?”
Brother Moore in the rear of the group genuflected himself, Thai ready hands pushed him into the foreground—a small ebon negro in sombre, over-large black—where the parson majestically made room for him. He laid his hat on the earth at his feet and from the right-hand pocket of his coat he produced in the following order, a red bandana handkerchief; a shoe horn; a plug of chewing tobacco, and holding these in his hand he delved yet further, with an expression of mildly conscientious alarm. Then he replaced the objects, and from his left-hand pocket he produced a pocket knife; a stick on which was wound a length of dingy string; a short piece of leather strap attached to a rusty buckle, and lastly a greasy, dog-eared notebook. He crammed the other things back into the pocket, dropping the leather strap, which he stooped and recovered, then he and the parson held a brief whispered conversation. He opened the notebook and fumbled the pages over, fumbled at them until the parson leaned over his shoulder and found the proper page and laid his finger upon it.
“How much is it, reverend?” old Bayard asked.
“Brudder Mo’ will now read out de amount,” the parson said. Brother Moore stared at the page and mumbled something in a weak, indistinguishable voice.
“What?” old Bayard demanded.
“Make ‘im talk up,” Simon said. “Can’t nobody tell whut he sayin’.”
“Louder,” the parson rumbled, with just a trace of impatience.
“Sixty-sevum dollars en fawty cents,” Brother Moore articulated at last. Old Bayard sat and swore for a time, then rose and tramped into the house, still swearing. Simon sighed and relaxed. The deputation milled again, politely, and Brother Moore faded briskly into the rear rank of it The parson, however, still retained his former attitude of fateful and solemn profundity.
“What became of that money, Simon?” Miss Jenny asked curiously. “You had it, didn’t you?”
“Dat’s whut dey claims,” Simon answered.
“What did you do with it?”
“Hit’s all right,” Simon assured her. “I jes’ put it out, sort of.”
“I bet you did,” she agreed
drily. “I bet it never even got cool while you had it. Who did you put it out to?”
“Oh, me and Cunnel done fix dat up” he said, “long time ago.” Old Bayard tramped in the hall again, and emerged flapping a check in his hand.
“Here,” he commanded, and the parson approached the railing and took it and folded it away in his coat pocket. Old Bayard glared at Simon. “And the next time you steal money and come to me to pay it back, I’m going to have you arrested and prosecute you myself, you hear? Get those niggers out of here.”
The deputation stirred again, with a concerted movement, but the parson halted than with a commanding hand. He turned and faced Simon. “Deacon Strother,” he said, “ez awdained minister of de late Fust Baptis’ church, en recalled minister of the pupposed Secon’ Baptis’ church, en chairman of dis committee, I hereby reinfests you wid yo. fawmer capacity of deacon in de said pupposed Secon’ Baptis’ church. Amen. Cunnel Sartoris en ma’am, good day.” Then he turned and herded his committee from sight.
“Thank de Lawd, we got rid of dat,” Simon said, and he came and lowered himself to the top step, groaning pleasurably.
“And you remember what I said,” old Bayard warned him. “One more time, now—”
But Simon was peering in the direction the church committee had taken. “Dar now,” he said. “Whut you reckon dey wants now?” For the deputation had returned and it now peered diffidently around the corner.
“Well,” old Bayard said violently “What is it now?”
They were trying to thrust Brother Moore forward again, but he would not be thrust. At last the parson spoke.