So we didn’t git to town until that afternoon. We went straight to Pat Stamper’s camp in Hoke’s pasture where I had done already passed it twice on the mule, with Beasley’s horse laying into the collar sho enough now and its eyes looking nigh as wild as Pap’s looked a hour later when we come outen McCaslin’s back door with the separator, and foaming a little at the mouth where Pap had rubbed the rest of the saltpeter into its gums and with a couple of as pretty tarred bob-wire cuts on its chest as you could want and another one on its flank where Pap had worked the fish hook under its hide where he could tech it by drooping the rein now and then; yes, sir, turning into Hoke’s pasture on two wheels and Pap sawing back on the reins and Pat Stamper’s nigger running up and grabbing the bridle to keep Beasley’s horse from running right into the tent where Pat slept and Pat hisself coming outen the tent with that ’ere cream-colored Stetson cocked over one eye and them eyes the color of a new plow point and jest about as warm. “That’s a pretty lively looking horse you got there,” Pat says.
“Hell fire, yes!” Pap says. “It durn nigh killed me and this boy both before I could git it into that ere gate yonder. That’s why I got to git shut of it. I expect you to beat me, but I got to trade. So come on and beat me quick and give me something I won’t be skeered to walk up to.”
And I still believe that Pap was right, that it was the right system. It had been five years since Pat had seen the horse, or anyway since he had unloaded it on Herman Short, so me and Pap figured that the chance of Pat’s recognizing it would be about the same as for a burglar to recognize a dollar watch that happened to snag onto his clothes in passing five years ago. And it was the right system, to rush up and say we jest had to trade instead of jest drifting up and hanging around for Pat to persuade us. And Pap wasn’t trying to beat Pat bad. All he wanted was to vindicate that ere eight cash dollars. That was it: the eight cash dollars’ worth of the pride of Yoknapatawpha County horse trading, and Pap the self-appointed champion and knight doing it not for profit but for honor. And I be dog if I still don’t believe it worked, that Pap did fool Pat, and that it was because of what Pat aimed to swap to Pap and not because Pat recognized Beasley’s horse, that he refused to trade anyway except team for team. Or I don’t know. Maybe Pap was so busy fooling Pat that Pat never had to fool Pap, like a man that has jest got to do something, who no matter how hard he tries he jest half does it, while a man that don’t care whether he does it or not, does it twice as good with jest half the work. So there we was: the nigger holding the two mules that Pat wanted to swap for our team, and Pat chewing his tobacco slow and gentle and steady and watching Pap with them plow point eyes, and Pap standing there with that look on his face that was desperate not because he was skeered yet but because he was having to think fast, realizing now that he had done got in deeper than he aimed to and that he would either have to shet his eyes and bust on through, or back out and quit. Because right here was where Pat Stamper showed how come he was Pat Stamper. If he had jest started in to show Pap what a bargain he would be getting in them two mules, I reckon Pap would have backed out. But Pat didn’t. He fooled Pap exactly like one first-class burglar would purely and simply refuse to tell another first-class burglar where the safe was at.
“But I don’t want to swap for a whole team,” Pap said. “I already got a good mule. It’s the horse I don’t want. Trade me a mule for the horse.”
“No,” Pat said. “I don’t want no wild horse neither. Not that I won’t trade for anything that can walk, provided I can trade my way. But I ain’t going to trade for that horse alone because I don’t want it no more than you do. What I am trading for is that mule. And besides, this here team of mine is matched. I aim to get about three times for the pair of them what I would get trading either of them single.”
“But you will still have a team to trade with,” Pap says.
“No,” Pat said. “I aim to get more from you for them than if the team was broken. If it’s a single mule you want, you better try somebody else.”
So Pap looked at the mules again. That was it. They looked all right. They looked jest exactly all right. They didn’t look too good and they didn’t look too bad. Neither of them looked quite as good as our mule, but the two of them looked jest a leetle mite better than Beasley’s horse and one mule of anybody’s. That was it. If they had looked like a bargain, I reckon even I, a twelve-year-old boy, would have had sense enough to tell Pap to come on and let’s git outen there. But Lord, I reckon we was doomed from the very second when Jody Varner told about that eight dollars. I reckon Pat Stamper knowed we was doomed the very second he looked up and seen the nigger holding Beasley’s horse outen the tent. I reckon he knowed right then that he wouldn’t have to try to trade, that all he would need to do would be jest to say No long enough. So that’s what he done, leaning against our wagon bed with his thumbs hooked into the top of his pants, chewing his tobacco and watching Pap going through the motion of examining them mules again. Because even I knowed that Pap had done already traded, that he had done walked out into what he thought was a spring branch and then found it was quicksand, and now he knowed he couldn’t even stop long enough to turn back. “All right,” he said. “I’ll take them.”
So the nigger taken Beasley’s horse and the mule outen the wagon and put our new team in, and me and Pap went on to town. And before God, them mules still looked all right. I be dog if I didn’t think that maybe Pap had walked into that Stamper quicksand and then got out again. Or maybe it was jest getting outen Stamper’s reach with the harness left. Because when we got back into the road and outen sight of Stamper’s camp, Pap’s face begun to look like it would when he would set on the lot fence at home and tell the fellows how he was a fool about a horse but not a durn fool. It wasn’t easy yet; it was jest watchful, setting there and feeling out our new team. We was right at town now and so he wouldn’t have much time to feel them out, but we would have a good chance to on the road home. “By Godfrey,” Pap said, “if they can walk home a-tall, I have got that ere eight dollars back, durn him.”
Because that nigger of Pat Stamper’s was a artist. Because I swear to Godfrey them mules looked all right. They jest looked like two ordinary not extry good mules you might see in a hundred wagons on the road. I noticed how they had a kind of jerky way of starting off, first one jerking into the collar and then jerking back and then the other jerking into the collar and then jerking back, and even after we was in the road and the wagon rolling good, one of them taken a spell of some sort and snatched hisself crossways in the traces like he aimed to go back, but then Stamper had jest told us that they was a matched team; he never had said they had worked together as a matched team, and they was a well matched team in the sense that neither one of them seemed to have any idea as to jest when the other one aimed to start moving or what direction it was going to take. But Pap got them straightened out and we went on; we was jest starting up that ere big hill into town, when they popped into a sweat jest like Beasley Kemp’s horse done back yonder on the other side of Varner’s store. But that was all right; it was hot enough; that was when I first taken notice that that rain was going to come up before dark; I mind how I was jest thinking how it was going to ketch us before we got home when this here sweat taken them mules. And that was all right; I didn’t blame them for sweating; the trouble was, it was a different kind of sweat from the kind Beasley’s horse had given us to expect. I mind how I was looking at a big hot-looking bright cloud over to the southwest when all of a sudden I realized that the wagon had done stopped going forward up the hill and was starting down it backward and then I looked in time to see both them mules this time crossways in the traces and kind of glaring at one another across the tongue and Pap trying to straighten them out and his eyes looking a right smart like the mules’ eyes, and then all of a sudden they straightened out and I mind how I thought it was a good thing they happened to have their backs toward the wagon when they did, because I reckon they moved at the same time fo
r the first time in their lives, for the first time since Pap owned them at least; and, gentlemen, here we come swurging up that hill and into town like a roach down a rathole, with the wagon on two wheels and Pap sawing back on the lines and hollering, “Hell fire, hell fire,” and folks scattering, and Pap jest managed to swing them into the alley behind McCaslin’s store and stopped them by locking our nigh front wheel with another wagon’s and the other mules (they was hitched) holp to put the brakes on. So it was a good crowd by then, helping us to git untangled, and Pap led our team on to Uncle Ike’s back door and tied them up close to the door handle and me and him went in to get the separator, with the folks still coming up and saying, “It’s that team of Stamper’s” and Pap kind of breathing hard and looking a right smart less easy in the face than when we had left Stamper’s camp even, besides most all-fired watchful, saying, “Come on here. Let’s git that durn separator of your mammy’s loaded and git outen here.” So we give Uncle Ike the rag with Mammy’s money in it and me and Pap taken up the separator and started back out to the wagon, to where we had left it. It was still there. I mind how I could see the bed of it where Pap had drawed it up to the door, and I could see the folks from the waist up standing in the alley, and then I realized that it was about twice as many folks looking at our team as it had been when we left. I reckon Pap never noticed it because he was too busy hurrying that ’ere separator along. So I jest stepped aside a little to have a look at what the folks was looking at and then I realized that I could see the front of our wagon and the place where me and Pap had left the mules, but that I couldn’t see no mules. So I don’t recollect whether I dropped my side of the separator or if Pap dropped hisn or if we still carried it when we come to where we could see out the door and see the mules. They were still there. They were just laying down. Pap had snubbed them right up to the handle of Uncle Ike’s back door, with the same rein run through both bits, and now they looked jest exactly like two fellows that had done hung themselves in one of these here suicide packs, with their heads snubbed up together and their tongues hanging out and their necks stretched about four foot and their legs folded back under them like shot rabbits until Pap jumped down and cut the harness. Yes, sir. A artist. He had give them to the exact inch jest enough of whatever it was, to get them into town and off the square before it played out.
And this here is what I meant when I said it was desperation. I can see Pap now, backed off into that corner behind Uncle Ike’s plows and cultivators and such, with his face white and his voice shaking and his hand shaking so he couldn’t hardly hand me the six bits. “Go to Doc Peabody’s store,” he says, “and git me a pint of whiskey and git it quick.”
Yes, sir. Desperate. It wasn’t even quicksand now. It was a whirlpool, and Pap with jest one jump left. He drunk that pint of whiskey in two drinks and set the empty bottle careful in the corner of Uncle Ike’s warehouse, and we went back to the wagon. The mules was still up all right, and we loaded the separator in and Pap eased them away careful, with the folks all watching and telling one another it was a Pat Stamper team and Pap setting there with his face red now instead of white and them clouds were heavy and the sun was even gone now but I don’t think Pap ever noticed it. And we hadn’t eaten too, and I don’t think Pap noticed that neither. And I be dog if it didn’t seem like Pat Stamper hadn’t moved too, standing there at the gate to his stock pen, with that Stetson cocked and his thumbs still hooked into the top of his pants, and Pap setting on the wagon trying to keep his hands from shaking and the team stopped now with their heads down and their legs spraddled and breathing like starting up a sawmill on a Monday morning. “I come to trade back for my team,” Pap said.
“What’s the matter?” Stamper says. “Don’t tell me these are too lively for you, too. They don’t look it.”
“All right,” Pap said. “All right. I jest want my team back. I’ll give you four dollars to trade back. That’s all I got. And I got to have them. Make your four dollars, and give me my team.”
“I ain’t got your team,” Stamper says. “I didn’t want that horse either. I told you that. So I got shet of it right away.”
Pap set there for a while. It was all clouded over now, and cooler; you could even smell the rain. “All right,” Pap said. “But you still got the mule. All right. I’ll take it.”
“For what?” Stamper says. “You want to swap that team for your mule?” Sho. Pap wasn’t trading. He was desperate, setting there like he couldn’t even see, with Stamper leaning easy against the gate and looking at him for a minute. “No,” he says. “I don’t want them mules. Yours is the best. I wouldn’t trade that way, even.” He spit, easy and careful, before he looked at Pap again. “Besides, I done included your mule into another team, with another horse. You want to look at it?”
“All right,” Pap said. “How much?”
“Don’t you even want to see it first?” Stamper says.
“All right,” Pap said. So the nigger led out the horse, a little dark brown horse; I remember how even with it clouded up to rain and no sun, how the horse shined; a horse a little bigger than the one we traded Stamper, and hog fat. Yes, sir. That’s jest exactly how it was fat: not like a horse is fat but like a hog: fat right up to its ears and looking tight as a drum; it was so fat it couldn’t hardly walk, putting its feet down like they didn’t have no weight nor feeling in them. “It’s too fat to last,” Pap said. “It won’t even git me home.”
“That’s what I think myself,” Stamper said. “That’s why I am willing to git shet of it.”
“All right,” Pap said. “But I got to try it.”
“Try it?” Stamper said. Pap didn’t answer. He jest got down from the wagon careful and went to the horse. It had a hackamore on and Pap taken the rein outen the nigger’s hand and started to git on the horse. “Wait,” Stamper says. “What you fixing to do?”
“Going to try it,” Pap said. “I done traded a horse with you once today.” Stamper looked at Pap again for a minute. Then he spit again and kind of stepped back.
“All right,” he said. “Help him up, Jim.” So the nigger holp Pap onto the horse, only the nigger never had time to jump back because as soon as Pap’s weight come onto the horse’s back it was like Pap had a live wire in his britches. It throwed Pap hard and Pap got up without no change on his face a-tall and went back to the horse and taken the hackamore again and the nigger holp him up again, with Stamper standing there with his hands hooked into his pants tops, watching. And the horse slammed Pap off again and Pap got up again with his face jest the same and went back and taken the hackamore from the nigger again when Stamper stopped him. That was exactly how Pap did it, like he wanted the horse to throw him and hard, not to try to hurt hisself, but like the ability of his bones and meat to feel that ’ere hard ground was all he had left to pay for a horse with life enough in it to git us home. “Here, here,” Stamper says. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“All right,” Pap says. “How much?”
“Come on into the tent and have a drink,” Stamper says.
So I waited in the wagon. It was beginning to blow a little now, and we hadn’t brought no coats with us. But there was some croker sacks in the wagon that Mammy made us bring to wrap her separator in and so I was wrapping the separator up in them when the nigger led out a horse and buggy and then Pap and Stamper come outen the tent and Pap come to the wagon. He never looked at me. He jest reached in and taken the separator outen the sacks and put it into the buggy and then him and Stamper got in and druv away. They went back toward town and then they went out of sight and I seen the nigger watching me. “You fixing to git wet fo you git home,” he said.
“I reckon so,” I said.
“You want to eat a snack of dinner until they git back?” the nigger said.
“I ain’t hungry,” I said. So he went on into the tent and I waited in the wagon. Yes, sir, it was most sholy going to rain; I mind how I thought that anyway now we could use the croker sacks to try to
keep dry in. Then Pap and Stamper come back and Pap never looked at me neither. He went into the tent and I could see him drinking outen a bottle and then putting the bottle back into his shirt. I reckon Stamper give him that bottle. Pap never said so, but I reckon Stamper did. So then the nigger put our mule and the new horse in the wagon and Pap come outen the tent and got in. Stamper and the nigger both holp him now.
“Don’t you reckon you better let the boy drive?” Stamper says.
“I’ll drive,” Pap said. “By Godfrey, maybe I can’t swap a horse with you, but I can still drive it.”
“Sho now,” Stamper said. “That horse will surprise you.”
III
It did. Yes, sir. It surprised us, jest like Stamper said. It happened jest before dark. The rain, the storm, come up before we had gone a mile and we rode in it for two hours before we found a old barn to shelter under, setting hunched under them croker sacks (I mind how I thought how in a way I almost wished Mammy knew we never had the separator because she had wanted it for so long that maybe she would rather for Uncle Ike to own it and it safe and dry, than for her to own it five miles from home in a wagon in the rain) and watching our new horse that was so fat it even put its feet down like they never had no feeling nor weight, that ever now and then, even in the rain, would take a kind of flinching jerk like when Pap’s weight came down onto its back at Stamper’s camp. But we didn’t catch on then, because I was driving now, sho enough, because Pap was laying flat in the wagon bed with the rain popping him in the face and him not even knowing it, and me setting on the seat and watching our new horse change from a black horse into a bay. Because I was jest twelve and me and Pap had always done our horse trading along that country road that run past our lot. So I jest druv into the first shelter I come to and shaken Pap awake. The rain had cooled him off some, but even without that he would have sobered quick. “What?” he says. “What is it?”