“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ll holler first next time—provided you’ll holler a little quicker when you touch him next time too.” But it was all right; we jest had to be a little easy getting up. “Now which-a-way?” I said. Because we couldn’t hear nothing now, after wasting all this time. And this was new country, sho enough. It had been cut over and growed up in thickets we couldn’t ’a’ seen over even standing up on Dan.
But Mister Ernest never even answered. He jest turned Dan along the bank of the bayou where it was a little more open and we could move faster again, soon as Dan and us got used to that homemade cinch strop and got a little confidence in it. Which jest happened to be east, or so I thought then, because I never paid no particular attention to east then because the sun—I don’t know where the morning had went, but it was gone, the morning and the frost, too—was up high now.
And then we heard him. No, that’s wrong; what we heard was shots. And that was when we realized how fur we had come, because the only camp we knowed about in that direction was the Hollyknowe camp, and Hollyknowe was exactly twenty-eight miles from Van Dorn, where me and Mister Ernest lived—just the shots, no dogs nor nothing. If old Eagle was still behind him and the buck was still alive, he was too wore out now to even say, “Here he comes.”
“Don’t touch him!” I hollered. But Mister Ernest remembered that cinch strop, too, and he jest let Dan off the snaffle. And Dan heard them shots, too, picking his way through the thickets, hopping the vines and logs when he could and going under them when he couldn’t. And sho enough, it was jest like before—two or three men squatting and creeping among the bushes, looking for blood that Eagle had done already told them wasn’t there. But we never stopped this time, jest trotting on by. Then Mister Ernest swung Dan until we was going due north.
“Wait!” I hollered. “Not this way.”
But Mister Ernest jest turned his face back over his shoulder. It looked tired, too, and there was a smear of mud on it where that ’ere grapevine had snatched him off the horse.
“Don’t you know where he’s heading?” he said. “He’s done done his part, give everybody a fair open shot at him, and now he’s going home, back to that brake in our bayou. He ought to make it exactly at dark.”
And that’s what he was doing. We went on. It didn’t matter to hurry now. There wasn’t no sound nowhere; it was that time in the early afternoon in November when don’t nothing move or cry, not even birds, the peckerwoods and yellowhammers and jays, and it seemed to me like I could see all three of us—me and Mister Ernest and Dan—and Eagle, and the other dogs, and that big old buck, moving through the quiet woods in the same direction, headed for the same place, not running now but walking, that had all run the fine race the best we knowed how, and all three of us now turned like on a agreement to walk back home, not together in a bunch because we didn’t want to worry or tempt one another, because what we had all three spent this morning doing was no play-acting jest for fun, but was serious, and all three of us was still what we was—that old buck that had to run, not because he was skeered, but because running was what he done the best and was proudest at; and Eagle and the dogs that chased him, not because they hated or feared him, but because that was the thing they done the best and was proudest at; and me and Mister Ernest and Dan, that run him not because we wanted his meat, which would be too tough to eat anyhow, or his head to hang on a wall, but because now we could go back and work hard for eleven months making a crop, so we would have the right to come back here next November—all three of us going back home now, peaceful and separate, until next year, next time.
Then we seen him for the first time. We was out of the cut-over now; we could even ’a’ cantered, except that all three of us was long past that. So we was walking, too, when we come on the dogs—the puppies and one of the old ones—played out, laying in a little wet swag, panting, jest looking up at us when we passed. Then we come to a long open glade, and we seen the three other old dogs and about a hundred yards ahead of them Eagle, all walking, not making no sound; and then suddenly, at the fur end of the glade, the buck hisself getting up from where he had been resting for the dogs to come up, getting up without no hurry, big, big as a mule, tall as a mule, and turned, and the white underside of his tail for a second or two more before the thicket taken him.
It might ’a’ been a signal, a good-by, a farewell. Still walking, we passed the other three old dogs in the middle of the glade, laying down, too; and still that hundred yards ahead of them, Eagle, too, not laying down, because he was still on his feet, but his legs was spraddled and his head was down; maybe jest waiting until we was out of sight of his shame, his eyes saying plain as talk when we passed, “I’m sorry, boys, but this here is all.”
Mister Ernest stopped Dan. “Jump down and look at his feet,” he said.
“Nothing wrong with his feet,” I said. “It’s his wind has done give out.”
“Jump down and look at his feet,” Mister Ernest said.
So I done it, and while I was stooping over Eagle I could hear the pump gun go, “Snick-cluck. Snick-cluck. Snick-cluck” three times, except that I never thought nothing then. Maybe he was jest running the shells through to be sho it would work when we seen him again or maybe to make sho they was all buckshot. Then I got up again, and we went on, still walking; a little west of north now, because when we seen his white flag that second or two before the thicket hid it, it was on a beeline for that notch in the bayou. And it was evening, too, now. The wind had done dropped and there was a edge to the air and the sun jest touched the tops of the trees. And he was taking the easiest way, too, now, going straight as he could. When we seen his foot in the soft places he was running for a while at first after his rest. But soon he was walking, too, like he knowed, too, where Eagle and the dogs was.
And then we seen him again. It was the last time—a thicket, with the sun coming through a hole onto it like a searchlight. He crashed jest once; then he was standing there broadside to us, not twenty yards away, big as a statue and red as gold in the sun, and the sun sparking on the tips of his horns—they was twelve of them—so that he looked like he had twelve lighted candles branched around his head, standing there looking at us while Mister Ernest raised the gun and aimed at his neck, and the gun went, “Click. Snick-cluck. Click. Snick-cluck. Click. Snick-cluck” three times, and Mister Ernest still holding the gun aimed while the buck turned and give one long bound, the white underside of his tail like a blaze of fire, too, until the thicket and the shadows put it out; and Mister Ernest laid the gun slow and gentle back across the saddle in front of him, saying quiet and peaceful, and not much louder than jest breathing, “God dawg. God dawg.”
Then he jogged me with his elbow and we got down, easy and careful because of that ere cinch strop, and he reached into his vest and taken out one of the cigars. It was busted where I had fell on it, I reckon, when we hit the ground. He throwed it away and taken out the other one. It was busted, too, so he bit off a hunk of it to chew and throwed the rest away. And now the sun was gone even from the tops of the trees and there wasn’t nothing left but a big red glare in the west.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I ain’t going to tell them you forgot to load your gun. For that matter, they don’t need to know we ever seed him.”
“Much oblige,” Mister Ernest said. There wasn’t going to be no moon tonight neither, so he taken the compass off the whang leather loop in his buttonhole and handed me the gun and set the compass on a stump and stepped back and looked at it. “Jest about the way we’re headed now,” he said, and taken the gun from me and opened it and put one shell in the britch and taken up the compass, and I taken Dan’s reins and we started, with him in front with the compass in his hand.
And after a while it was full dark; Mister Ernest would have to strike a match ever now and then to read the compass, until the stars come out good and we could pick out one to follow, because I said, “How fur do you reckon it is?” and he said, “A little more
than one box of matches.” So we used a star when we could, only we couldn’t see it all the time because the woods was too dense and we would git a little off until he would have to spend another match. And now it was good and late, and he stopped and said, “Get on the horse.”
“I ain’t tired,” I said.
“Get on the horse,” he said. “We don’t want to spoil him.”
Because he had been a good feller ever since I had knowed him, which was even before that day two years ago when maw went off with the Vicksburg roadhouse feller and the next day pap didn’t come home neither, and on the third one Mister Ernest rid Dan up to the door of the cabin on the river he let us live in, so pap could work his piece of land and run his fish line, too, and said, “Put that gun down and come on here and climb up behind.”
So I got in the saddle even if I couldn’t reach the stirrups, and Mister Ernest taken the reins and I must ’a’ went to sleep, because the next thing I knowed a buttonhole of my lumberjack was tied to the saddle horn with that ere whang cord off the compass, and it was good and late now and we wasn’t fur, because Dan was already smelling water, the river. Or maybe it was the feed lot itself he smelled, because we struck the fire road not a quarter below it, and soon I could see the river, too, with the white mist laying on it soft and still as cotton. Then the lot, home; and up yonder in the dark, not no piece akchully, close enough to hear us unsaddling and shucking corn prob’ly, and sholy close enough to hear Mister Ernest blowing his horn at the dark camp for Simon to come in the boat and git us, that old buck in his brake in the bayou; home, too, resting, too, after the hard run, waking hisself now and then, dreaming of dogs behind him or maybe it was the racket we was making would wake him.
Then Mister Ernest stood on the bank blowing until Simon’s lantern went bobbing down into the mist; then we clumb down to the landing and Mister Ernest blowed again now and then to guide Simon, until we seen the lantern in the mist, and then Simon and the boat; only it looked like ever time I set down and got still, I went back to sleep, because Mister Ernest was shaking me again to git out and climb the bank into the dark camp, until I felt a bed against my knees and tumbled into it.
Then it was morning, tomorrow; it was all over now until next November, next year, and we could come back. Uncle Ike and Willy and Walter and Roth and the rest of them had come in yestiddy, soon as Eagle taken the buck out of hearing and they knowed that deer was gone, to pack up and be ready to leave this morning for Yoknapatawpha, where they lived, until it would be November again and they could come back again.
So, as soon as we et breakfast, Simon run them back up the river in the big boat to where they left their cars and pickups, and now it wasn’t nobody but jest me and Mister Ernest setting on the bench against the kitchen wall in the sun; Mister Ernest smoking a cigar—a whole one this time that Dan hadn’t had no chance to jump him through a grapevine and bust. He hadn’t washed his face neither where that vine had throwed him into the mud. But that was all right, too; his face usually did have a smudge of mud or tractor grease or beard stubble on it, because he wasn’t jest a planter; he was a farmer, he worked as hard as ara one of his hands and tenants—which is why I knowed from the very first that we would git along, that I wouldn’t have no trouble with him and he wouldn’t have no trouble with me, from that very first day when I woke up and maw had done gone off with that Vicksburg road-house feller without even waiting to cook breakfast, and the next morning pap was gone, too, and it was almost night the next day when I heard a horse coming up and I taken the gun that I had already throwed a shell into the britch when pap never come home last night, and stood in the door while Mister Ernest rid up and said, “Come on. Your paw ain’t coming back neither.”
“You mean he give me to you?” I said.
“Who cares?” he said. “Come on. I brought a lock for the door. We’ll send the pickup back tomorrow for whatever you want.”
So I come home with him and it was all right, it was jest fine—his wife had died about three years ago—without no women to worry us or take off in the middle of the night with a durn Vicksburg roadhouse jake without even waiting to cook breakfast. And we would go home this afternoon, too, but not jest yet; we always stayed one more day after the others left because Uncle Ike always left what grub they hadn’t et, and the rest of the homemade corn whisky he drunk and that town whisky of Roth Edmondziz he called Scotch that smelled like it come out of a old bucket of roof paint; setting in the sun for one more day before we went back home to git ready to put in next year’s crop of cotton and oats and beans and hay; and across the river yonder, behind the wall of trees where the big woods started, that old buck laying up today in the sun, too—resting today, too, without nobody to bother him until next November.
So at least one of us was glad it would be eleven months and two weeks before he would have to run that fur that fast again. So he was glad of the very same thing we was sorry of, and so all of a sudden I thought about how maybe planting and working and then harvesting oats and cotton and beans and hay wasn’t jest something me and Mister Ernest done three hundred and fifty-one days to fill in the time until we could come back hunting again, but it was something we had to do, and do honest and good during the three hundred and fifty-one days, to have the right to come back into the big woods and hunt for the other fourteen; and the fourteen days that old buck run in front of dogs wasn’t jest something to fill his time until the three hundred and fifty-one when he didn’t have to, but the running and the risking in front of guns and dogs was something he had to do for fourteen days to have the right not to be bothered for the other three hundred and fifty-one. And so the hunting and the farming wasn’t two different things at all—they was jest the other side of each other.
“Yes,” I said. “All we got to do now is put in that next year’s crop. Then November won’t be no time away.”
“You ain’t going to put in the crop next year,” Mister Ernest said. “You’re going to school.”
So at first I didn’t even believe I had heard him. “What?” I said. “Me? Go to school?”
“Yes,” Mister Ernest said. “You must make something out of yourself.”
“I am,” I said. “I’m doing it now. I’m going to be a hunter and a farmer like you.”
“No,” Mister Ernest said. “That ain’t enough any more. Time was when all a man had to do was just farm eleven and a half months, and hunt the other half. But not now. Now just to belong to the farming business and the hunting business ain’t enough. You got to belong to the business of mankind.”
“Mankind?” I said.
“Yes,” Mister Ernest said. “So you’re going to school. Because you got to know why. You can belong to the farming and hunting business and you can learn the difference between what’s right and what’s wrong, and do right. And that used to be enough—just to do right. But not now. You got to know why it’s right and why it’s wrong, and be able to tell the folks that never had no chance to learn it; teach them how to do what’s right, not just because they know it’s right, but because they know now why it’s right because you just showed them, told them, taught them why. So you’re going to school.”
“It’s because you been listening to that durn Will Legate and Walter Ewell!” I said.
“No,” Mister Ernest said.
“Yes!” I said. “No wonder you missed that buck yestiddy, taking ideas from the very fellers that let him git away, after me and you had run Dan and the dogs durn nigh clean to death! Because you never even missed him! You never forgot to load that gun! You had done already unloaded it a purpose! I heard you!”
“All right, all right,” Mister Ernest said. “Which would you rather have? His bloody head and hide on the kitchen floor yonder and half his meat in a pickup truck on the way to Yoknapatawpha County, or him with his head and hide and meat still together over yonder in that brake, waiting for next November for us to run him again?”
“And git him, too,” I said. “We won’t
even fool with no Willy Legate and Walter Ewell next time.”
“Maybe,” Mister Ernest said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Maybe,” Mister Ernest said. “The best word in our language, the best of all. That’s what mankind keeps going on: Maybe. The best days of his life ain’t the ones when he said ‘Yes’ beforehand: they’re the ones when all he knew to say was ‘Maybe.’ He can’t say ‘Yes’ until afterward because he not only don’t know it until then, he don’t want to know ‘Yes’ until then.… Step in the kitchen and make me a toddy. Then we’ll see about dinner.”
“All right,” I said. I got up. “You want some of Uncle Ike’s corn or that town whisky of Roth Edmondziz?”
“Can’t you say Mister Roth or Mister Edmonds?” Mister Ernest said.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Well, which do you want? Uncle Ike’s corn or that ere stuff of Roth Edmondziz?”
Hog Pawn
Old man Otis Meadowfill was so mean as to be solvent even on his modest competence. He had just enough income without working to support himself and his gray drudge of a wife and their one child, with not one dollar over for anyone to try to borrow or sell him anything for. As a result, he could give his full time to gaining and holding unchallenged top honors for unpleasantness in our town.
The child was a quiet, modest girl whom we had still considered plain and mousy, for the simple reason that that’s what the daughter of that household would have had to be, even after we had looked at her twice. This was when we learned that she had graduated valedictorian of her high school class, with the highest grades, plus a five-hundred-dollar scholarship, ever made in the school.
Only she didn’t take the scholarship. It was the annual gift of one of our bankers as a memorial to his only son who had died as an army pilot in one of the first Pacific battles. When Essie Meadowfill won it, she went to the donor herself (this was the shy mouse who apparently could barely face us enough to say good morning on the street) and told him she did not need the scholarship since she had already found a job with the telephone company, but she wanted to borrow the five hundred dollars, or any part of it, to be paid back from her salary as soon as she went to work; and explained why. We (their neighbors anyway) knew that there was no bathroom in the small frame house on the edge of town. But it was only now that we learned that only in the most rudimentary sense did they bathe at all in it: how once a week, on Saturday night, winter and summer, the mother heated water on the stove and filled a zinc tub in the middle of the floor, in which single filling of water all three of them bathed in turn: first the father, then the child, and last of all the mother.