“Jack Renfro, you can finish this by yourself!” yelled Curly. “I’m going back to Banner right now.”
“You’re tied!” Jack shouted. “You and the Buick’s hitched to one rope and hitched good! One!”
“Do you reckon we’ve got a chance?” Mrs. Moody asked her husband.
“I should say what chance we have depends on Jack,” he said, eyes never leaving him.
“I can vouch for that!” Miss Beulah agreed. “Don’t count on either one of those two machines. As for the truck Jack’s so in love with, it’s got parts from everything that’s ever passed through Banner and lost a particle. It’s an example of a grab-bag to me. And more’n likely it’ll fly to pieces the first chance it gets, if you want my unvarnished opinion.”
“Two!” yelled Jack.
“I ain’t playing!” roared Curly.
“Curly, Aycock, there ain’t no time left for anybody to act bashful,” Jack said. “If you want any glory, you can’t quit now!”
“You want to change places?” cried Curly.
“Two and a half!” yelled Jack.
“I dread this,” said Miss Beulah, taking off Mr. Renfro’s hat and emptying some rain out of the saucer of the brim, never taking her eyes from on top.
Jack opened his mouth again.
The Buick’s rear door shot open then and Aycock came tumbling out into Jack’s spreading arms. Both boys fell, Jack rose, picked up Aycock and stood him up stiff with his hair dry and on end. Then Aycock danced sideways into the plum bushes and while they waited on him they could all hear through the sound of the rain what he was doing.
“Three!” Jack was calling urgently. “Three! And watch out down in the road!”
The rope had already stretched out straight—the Buick had already moved forward. A loud report cracked out from underneath it and something went spinning.
“Yonder went Uncle Nathan’s sign!” hollered Jack, as the truck backfired, crawled forward, then was jerked to a halt. The Buick, on solid ground, was running the other way. Jack raced to catch it. But even before he got there its wheels rolled to a stop. Then they began to roll the other way. The Buick was moving with the roaring, recovering truck. It was coming on the rope, slowly away from the edge, swaying, like a lady coming out of church—one of its tires was not flat.
“Well,” said Jack, watching the car, “she just plain run out of gas. Ain’t that your opinion, Aycock?”
“I seen we needed some,” Aycock said.
“In a minute she’ll be coming down behind you, Curly!” Jack hollered. A whip of barbed wire flew up from under the truck and Curly yelped like a woman scared by a mouse, and braked the truck with a sharp turn of the wheels. The engine choked and died. The Buick, just at the crown of Banner Top, presented with a slack in the rope, rolled back to where it had come from, and on past it. It proceeded on its original forward way over Banner Top, disappearing with the moderate speed of an elevator going down. The truck rose up like a tin monkey on a string, until both its back wheels entered the tree hole and stayed there.
“Well, this isn’t what I came to see!” said Miss Ora Stovall. “What about you?”
An upward avalanche pounded its way to Banner Top from the road. With Jack holding both arms wide to keep them safe behind him, Gloria, Miss Beulah, the Judge, and Mrs. Moody all crowded together in the clouds of exhaust and cedar fumes, to look down.
The automobile was hanging by the rope and the tree beside it was hanging by its own last roots, like two things waiting for the third.
“Oscar, I feel like I can draw my first breath,” said Mrs. Moody. “It’s happened.”
“Not what you wanted?” he broke out.
“No, but now it’s not still ahead of us.”
“Some of it is,” he said.
The Buick had descended as far as the drop of the rope allowed: its nose hung within five or six feet of the ledge below. Its wheels turned innocently in free air. The rope held, held, until holding was hardly believable any longer, until it seemed tenuous as a sound—a long, last, feathered note from Miss Beulah singing “Blessed Assurance,” holding even after the rest of the choir and the congregation had given up.
“From here, I would call things a tie,” said Miss Lexie. She still stood in position at the mailbox.
“That’s right. As long as they’re hanging on tight to each other, both of ’em’s as safe as you are, Aunt Lexie,” Jack said.
The rain curtains were torn aside and a face red as the hidden sun looked out of the truck.
“I see you, you old infidel!” Miss Beulah screamed. “That’s all I needed! How do you like what you’ve done to us now?”
“Tuck back in there, Curly!” cried Jack.
“But the truck’s coming out of the hole!” hollered Curly.
“Not this way!” Jack warned him. “Start driving. Drive the other way, Curly, drive as hard as you can!”
The truck engine gave out a piercing, froglike chirping.
“The throttle!” yelled Jack. “The Buick’s gaining on you, Curly! The Buick’s pulling too much weight!”
“I’m coming out of the hole!” Curly warned. “In spite of all, I’m coming out! Like a old jaw tooth!”
“I just wish you’d gobbled a bigger breakfast before you come!” Jack yelled.
“She’s coming!” shouted Curly. “Think I won’t jump? You can catch me too!”
Jack whirled, grabbed the rope and pulled leaning back toward the truck, pulled till he sat down pulling, and was hauled to his knees and forward down onto his stomach and dragged, by the inch, till he hung head-first over the drop, yelling, “Gloria! Take ahold of me! Just anywhere you can find!”
Gloria slid behind him into the bucket-like seat that sweethearts had worn over the years into the jumping-off place, and clamped her arms around his bulging legs. His feet locked together behind her. Judge Moody, breathing heavily over her head, wrapped his hands around the rope and pulled with Jack and the truck. Mrs. Moody, planting her feet apart, got his suspenders in her fists and sawed on him, while Miss Beulah dug her hands into Mrs. Moody’s girth, rammed herself back against one leg, and hauled on her, setting up a steady rhythm.
“The way to do it is make a human chain,” Miss Lexie instructed them from her place at the mailbox.
“I’m driving hard, Jack! But I ain’t getting anywhere!” called Curly.
“Just hold things like they are so they don’t get any worse!” yelled Jack.
“How far is that thing now from touching the ledge?” asked Judge Moody.
Jack screwed around his head. “In my judgment, about as far as me to you, sir.” He slid for an instant. Gloria’s arms locked his feet to her breast. “Closer!”
Down there the ledge was spread with rose briars in ten-foot rays and dotted with chewed plum bushes. In the scoop of the gully below it, the little sprung-up cedars pointed up darkly out of the clay, like the hairs in Brother Bethune’s ears.
“Are we reaching clear back to my truck, Mama?” Jack called.
“How long do you think I am?” she yelled. “But we got two more in the road and one more idler on top! March here behind me, Aycock Comfort. Squat. Sit on my foot. Brace that leg of mine, Foolish!”
“Then if the rope comes in two, all the line’ll fall back on top of me,” he said, not coming.
“Pore you. And what about Jack, when he flies the other way?” Miss Beulah flung at him scornfully.
“If Miss Ora would volunteer to set her two hundred pounds’ worth down on the bumper of my truck, and kind of tread backwards with her feet, that wouldn’t hurt anything,” gasped Jack. “But even if she could hear me, I can’t ask her—it’s so little of a compliment.”
“Get up here, Ora Stovall!” yelled Miss Beulah.
“I’m going to put you in the paper and that’s all! When it rains, I’m a regular little kitty,” Miss Ora called at once from the top of the bank opposite, where she had climbed to see better, out from under her big um
brella black as a buzzard’s wing.
“Oh, I can’t think Providence has delivered us this far in order to desert us now! Surely help will come,” Mrs. Moody said faintly over the creaking of her corset as Miss Beulah hauled on her. “But please don’t in the meantime cut my wind.”
“The ones I’d call for first are already with us, this time,” Jack gasped. “There ain’t any better than who’s right here pulling, Mrs. Judge!”
“I don’t trust that infidel Stovall to stick to the wheel a minute, Jack,” said Miss Beulah. “You know what he’s thinking of? His own hide!”
“I wish everybody would be less loudly critical for a minute and let me think,” Judge Moody said.
“Let him think!” hollered Jack.
“Better hurry,” said Miss Lexie. “World isn’t going to stand still and wait on you.”
“Lexie, for the second time, come catch on to my waist!” Miss Beulah said in a loud voice.
“I’ve got to save my strength for battles later on,” said Miss Lexie. “Mr. Hugg is a ton.”
“I’m driving but I ain’t getting anywhere!” called Curly. “Sinking, that’s all.”
“That’s a fellow!” called Jack.
“When it falls, will it fall on that little shelf down there?” asked Mrs. Moody fearfully.
“If it don’t skip,” Jack called. “Uncle Nathan’s sign skipped right over it, though. Yonder it lays, too far down to even read. I’m glad Uncle Nathan got back on his road before he learned what become of that one.”
“But what’s at the bottom?” Mrs. Moody cried.
“The Bywy River,” said Jack. “Low as it is now, you could walk the sandbar from right under here clear to Banner bridge without getting wet.”
She gave a little cry.
“Jack,” said Judge Moody, “I think if we could very gently lower the car the rest of the way to that ledge, it would have a better chance. While we still have time. And strength.”
“That’s giving in, Oscar,” protested Mrs. Moody.
“The other thing against it is the rope won’t stretch like I will,” gasped Jack.
“Jack, what are you going to do?” Gloria pleaded.
“I’m going to hang here pulling as long as you can hold my feet, Possum,” he gasped.
A racket was heard in the road.
“Ha, ha, Homer Champion,” came Miss Ora Stovall’s voice in greeting as the wheels skidded to a stop. “Take a look at Brother!”
“Where?” came Uncle Homer’s voice. “Hey, what’s going on here?”
“Want to be part of the human chain?” yelled Jack.
“That sounded like Jack Renfro!” exclaimed Uncle Homer. “Where’s he? Was he speaking to me?”
“He’s hanging over the living edge!” yelled Miss Beulah.
“Sister Beulah!” shouted Uncle Homer. “Here, what’s the big idea?”
“Just seeing how long we can keep us all in one piece, I reckon!” Jack said in short breaths. “Glad to have you if you want to add on!”
“Every dog has his day, huh?” laughed Miss Ora Stovall. “Look at Brother right on top.”
“On top? Is Stovall in charge of that truck?” Uncle Homer hollered.
“Curly!” Jack yelled, but already the truck shuddered as its door opened and Curly hopped out in boots into the naked air, and heavy-shouldered as if doubled over in knots of laughter, he cut a short caper, his face beaming from side to side, and then he was back inside again.
“I saw what you did, you old rangatang!” yelled Miss Beulah. “Not content with all you caused already, you try to make an end of us too!”
“Never mind, Mama. When Curly hit that door open, this one answered,” called Jack. “So we’re still matched.”
The Buick’s back seat had been jolted forward and had turned loose all the tools, with a wheel of never-used towline that rolled and wobbled on the ledge, printing its track, then lay down under their eyes.
“Everything in its own good time, Possum,” said Jack in short breaths. “There’s everything I stood in need of yesterday.”
“Look where you’ve succeeded in raising my rival to!” Uncle Homer cried. “Don’t you know what’ll happen? Hold him there long enough in the public eye, and they’ll vote for him!”
“My boy’s keeping one end of this man-foolishness from running off with the other, with his bare hands, and you just think about Tuesday!” said Miss Beulah. “We got no time to waste listening to pretty speeches, get on up here before I throw something at you!”
“Don’t fret, Uncle Homer. If Curly had his way this minute, he’d be away from here and down on solid ground where you are,” called Jack.
“The heck I would,” said Curly. He sounded the truck’s horn; it hummed like a distant swarm of bees.
“The heck he would,” said Uncle Homer. “Sitting pretty where you got him planted! And if you want the public to decree Stovall is the man better fitted for worthy office than your own in-law, you keep him where he is, from now right on up till when the polls open. The only thing he lacks now is cowbells.”
With effort, Jack managed to work the rope a fraction, and faintly the Buick’s cowbells rang from below.
“If you want the rest of the story, Uncle Homer, at the other end of this rope we got a Buick out of gas,” he called.
“It’ll be a landslide!” howled Uncle Homer. “I don’t see why you don’t charge to see it!”
“Champion, do you really reckon this exhibition is going to gain Stovall votes?” Miss Lexie demanded to know. “I wonder could you once be right about anything?”
“I know people. I know people,” bawled Uncle Homer, as if his heart would break.
“So I suppose you’ll stand there wishing the rope would snap!” Miss Beulah yelled. “Till it does! Politics! I wouldn’t have son of mine enter politics if it was the last door open to him on earth!”
“Uncle Homer, the ladies are growing a little frail,” Jack panted out. “Don’t you want to lend your strength to keep Curly where we got him?”
“I’m all that’s lacking, am I?” Uncle Homer shouted. “You ought to go back to Parchman, Jack! Next time, stay through the primary and the run-off too!” The van skidded away and down out of hearing, and Curly Stovall let out a rocking laugh from the truck.
“There it came! My guitar,” Aycock said, peering over the brink. He took a hop into the air and landed on the ledge with both feet.
“You come off and left it behind when you jumped? I hope you find it still in tune!” Jack called.
The car’s headlights just cleared the rusty top of Aycock’s head as he loped underneath and picked up the guitar from the mud. “Well, I reckon I better get on home and speak to Mama,” he said, as he hauled himself up by protruding tree roots onto the top. Nursing his guitar, he gave a small wave of his free hand as if he were closing a little purse, and started away. “I’ll see is she still mad at me.”
“Don’t you care to see the end?” Jack called.
“I just as soon hear you tell it,” said Aycock. “All I’m truly wondering about this minute is how cold will my grits get before I make it home. Cold till the butter won’t melt?”
“Trifling! And always will be. Parchman was too good for you, Aycock Comfort! Go home and tell your mother I said so!” cried Miss Beulah.
“All you needed was to get married, Aycock,” Jack said. “Ought to brought you a wife home ahead of time, like I did, and had her gripping your feet now.”
“Not yet awhile,” Aycock said politely. He stopped at Miss Beulah’s position and stood with his head on one side and his wetting hair lying on his neck like the feathers of a Rhode Island Red. “Mis’ Renfro, I feel like Mr. Renfro kind of aimed to blow me up.”
“I’ve got just enough patience left to ask you one question,” she yelled. “How did Mr. Renfro get himself up here last night?”
“He creeped,” said Aycock. “Then he creeped down again. If he’d told me ahead what he’s going to do
, he’d had me out in his lap. Come the bang, I thought I’d wait to see what else was coming, before I set foot outside. His dynamite ain’t the freshest in all the world.”
“Dynamite?” Curly Stovall’s head came out through the rain curtains.
Judge Moody suddenly broke out: “We’re all holding on here now by the skin of our teeth! Can’t conversation ever cease? Can’t anybody offer just a single idea? What’re we going to do about this?”
“You could cut that rope,” suggested Aycock. “Save time.” He tiptoed away across the mud puddles.
“We have now been holding on for eleven and a half minutes,” said the Judge.
“Judge Moody, I kind of believe your watch has stopped,” Jack gasped. “Can you still hear it running?”
“Please, you let me try to think,” said Judge Moody.
“What’s the matter, Gloria?” called Jack. “When you gave that sigh, it travelled right on through my toes and down me to the top of my head.”
“I don’t see our future, Jack,” she gasped.
“Keep looking, sweetheart.”
“If we can’t do any better than we’re doing now, what will Lady May think of us when we’re old and gray?”
“Just hang onto my heels, honey,” he cried out.
“We’re still where we were yesterday. In the balance,” Gloria said.
“Don’t give up, baby,” said Jack as her chin came to rest between the heels of his muddy shoes, with their wet soles splitting apart, their tops worn down to sandbar pink, their strings sodden and metal-heavy with mud and weed, his wedding shoes. “Just put your mind on what me and you will be doing this same day next year. That’s what I told myself last year in the old pen.”
“Jack, only you would still think it was all going to be all right!”
“I still believe I can handle trouble just taking it as it comes,” he gasped.
“It takes thinking! We’ve got to think!” Judge Moody broke out.
“Jack, now the blood is all running to your head!” Gloria cried.
“Just so he don’t fall and land on it,” Miss Beulah cried from the end of the line. “Precious head!”