"But that ain't------ We didn't------" Granny said.
"She wants the house back, too," the sergeant said. "We ain't got any houses, grandma," he said. "You'll just have to make out with trunks and niggers and mules. You wouldn't have room for it on the wagon, anyway." We sat there while they loaded the ten trunks into the wagon. It just did hold them all. They got another set of trees and harness, and hitched four mules to it. "One of you darkies that can handle two span come here," the lieutenant said. One of the niggers came and got on the seat with Granny; none of us had ever seen him before. Behind us they were leading the mules out of the pen.
"You want to let some of the women ride?" the lieutenant said.
"Yes," Granny whispered.
"Come on," the lieutenant said. "Just one to a mule, now." Then he handed me the paper. "Here you are. There's a ford about twenty miles up the river; you can cross there. You better get on away from here before any more of these niggers decide to go with you."
We rode until daylight, with the ten chests in the wagon and the mules and our army of niggers behind. Granny had not moved, sitting there beside the strange nigger with Mrs. Compson's hat on and the parasol in her hand. But she was not asleep, because when it got light enough to see, she said, "Stop the wagon." The
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wagon stopped. She turned and looked at me. "Let me see that paper," she said.
We opened the paper and looked at it, at the neat writing:
Field Headquarters,
------th Army Corps,
Department of Tennessee, August 14, 1863
To all Brigade, Regimental and Other Commanders: You will see that bearer is repossessed in full of the following property, to wit: Ten (10) chests tied with hemp rope and containing silver. One hundred ten (110) mules captured loose near Philadelphia in Mississippi. One hundred ten (110) Negroes of both sexes belonging to and having strayed from the same locality.
You will further see that bearer is supplied with necessary food and forage to expedite his passage to his destination.
By order of the General Commanding.
We looked at one another hi the gray light. "I reckon ,you gonter take vim back now," Ringo said. • Granny looked at me. "We can get food and fodder too," I said.
"Yes," Granny said. "I tried to tell them better. You and Ringo heard me. It's the hand of God."
We stopped and slept until noon. That afternoon we came to the ford. We had already started down the bluff when we saw the troop of cavalry camped there. It was too late to stop.
"They done found hit out and headed us off," Ringo said. It was too late; already an officer and two men were riding toward us.
"I will tell them the truth," Granny said. "We have done nothing." She sat there, drawn back a little again, with her hand already raised and holding the paper out in the other when they rode up. The officer was a heavy-built man with a red face; he looked at us and took the paper and read it and began to swear. He sat there on his horse swearing while we watched him.
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"How many do you lack?" he said.
"How many do I what?" Granny said.
"Mules!" the officer shouted. "Mules! Mules! Do I look like I had any chests of silver or niggers tied with hemp rope?"
"Do we------" Granny said, with her hand to her
chest, looking at him; I reckon it was Ringo that knew first what he meant.
"We like fifty," Ringo said.
"Fifty, hey?" the officer said. He cursed again; he turned to one of the men behind him and cursed him now. "Count 'em!" he said. "Do you think I'm going to take their word for it?"
The man counted the mules; we didn't move; I don't think we even breathed hardly. "Sixty-three," the man said.
The officer looked at us. "Sixty-three from a hundred and ten leaves forty-seven," he said. He cursed. "Get forty-seven mules! Hurry!" He looked at us again. "Think you can beat me out of three mules, hey?"
"Forty-seven will do," Ringo said. "Only I reckon maybe we better eat something, like the paper mention."
We crossed the ford. We didn't stop; we went on as soon as they brought up the other mules, and some more of the women got on them. We went on. It was after sundown then, but we didn't stop.
"Hah!" Ringo said. "Whose hand was that?"
We went on until midnight before we stopped. This time it was Ringo that Granny was looking at. "Ringo," she said.
"I never said nothing the paper never said," Ringo said. "Hit was the one that said it; hit wasn't me. All I done was to told him how much the hundred and ten liked; I never said we liked that many. 'Sides, hit ain't no use in praying about hit now; ain't no telling what we gonter run into 'fore we gits home. The main thing now is, whut we gonter do with all these niggers."
"Yes," Granny said. We cooked and ate the food the cavalry officer gave us; then Granny told all the niggers that lived in Alabama to come forward. It was about half of them. "I suppose you all want to cross some more rivers and run after the Yankee Army, don't you?"
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Granny said. They stood there, moving their feet in the dust. "What? Don't any of you want to?" They just stood there. "Then who are you going to mind from now on?" After a while, one of them said, "You, missy." "All right," Granny said. "Now listen to me. Go home. And if I ever hear of any of you straggling off like this again, I'll see to it. Now line up and come up here one at a time while we divide the food."
It took a long time until the last one was gone; when we started again, we had almost enough mules for everybody to ride, but not quite, and Ringo drove now. He didn't ask; he just got in and took the reins, with Granny on the seat by him; it was just once that she told him not to go so fast. So I rode in the back then, on one of the chests, and that afternoon I was asleep; it was the wagon stopping that woke me. We had just come down a hill onto a flat, and then I saw them beyond a field, about a dozen of them, cavalry hi blue coats. They hadn't seen us yet, trotting along, while Granny and Ringo watched them.
"They ain't hardly worth fooling with," Ringo said. "Still, they's horses."
"We've already got a hundred and ten," Granny said. "That's all the paper calls for."
"All right," Ringo said. "You wanter go on?" Granny didn't answer, sitting there drawn back a little, with her hand at her breast again. "Well, what you wanter do?" Ringo said. "You got to 'cide quick, or they be gone." He looked at her; she didn't move. Ringo leaned out of the wagon. "Hey!" he hollered. They looked back quick and saw us and whirled about. "Granny say come here!" Ringo hollered.
"You, Ringo," Granny whispered. "All right," Ringo said. "You want me to tell um to never mind?" She didn't answer; she was looking past Ringo at the two Yankees who were riding toward us across the field, with that kind of drawnback look on her face and her hand holding the front of her dress. It was a lieutenant and a sergeant; the lieutenant didn't look much older than Ringo and me. He saw Granny and took off his hat. And then all of a sudden she took her hand away from her chest; it had the paper hi it; she held
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it out to the lieutenant without saying a word. The lieutenant opened it, the sergeant looking over his shoulder. Then the sergeant looked at us.
"This says mules, not horses," he said.
"Just the first hundred was mules," Ringo said. "The extra twelve is horses."
"Damn it!" the lieutenant said. He sounded like a girl swearing. "I told Captain Bowen not to mount us with captured stock!"
"You mean you're going to give them the horses?" the sergeant said.
"What else can I do?" the lieutenant said. He looked like he was fixing to cry. "It's the general's own signature!"
So then we had enough stock for all of them to ride except about fifteen or twenty. We went on. The soldiers stood under a tree by the road, with their saddles and bridles on the ground beside them—all but the lieutenant. When we started again, he ran along by the wagon; he looked l
ike he was going to cry, trotting along by the wagon with his hat hi his hand, looking at Granny.
"You'll meet some troops somewhere," he said. "I know you will. Will you tell them where we are and to send us something—mounts or wagons—anything we can ride in? You won't forget?"
"They's some of yawl about twenty or thirty miles back that claim to have three extry mules," Ringo said. "But when we sees any more of um, we'll tell um about yawl."
We went on. We came in sight of a town, but we went around it; Ringo didn't even want to stop and send the lieutenant's message in, but Granny made him stop and we sent the message in by one of the niggers.
"That's one more mouth to feed we got shed of," Ringo said.
We went on. We went fast now, changing the mules every few miles; a woman told us we were in Mississippi again, and then, hi the afternoon, we came over the hill, and there our chimneys were, standing up into the sunlight, and the cabin behind them and Louvinia bending over a washtub and the clothes on the line, flapping bright and peaceful.
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"Stop the wagon," Granny said.
We stopped—the wagon, the hundred and twenty-two mules and horses, and the niggers we never had had time to count.
Granny got out slow and turned to Ringo. "Get out," she said; then she looked at me. "You too," she said. "Because you said nothing at all." We got out of the wagon. She looked at us. "We have lied," she said.
"Hit was the paper that lied; hit wasn't us," Ringo said.
"The paper said a hundred and ten. We have a hundred and twenty-two," Granny said. "Kneel down."
"But they stole them 'fore we did," Ringo said.
"But we lied," Granny said. "Kneel down." She knelt first. Then we all three knelt by the road while she prayed. The washing blew soft and peaceful and bright on the clothesline. And then Louvinia saw us; she was already running across the pasture while Granny was praying.
RIPOSTE
TERTIO
Ab Snopes left for Memphis with the nine mules, Ringo and Joby and I worked on a new fence. Then Ringo went off on his mule and there was just Joby and me. Once Granny came down and looked at the new section of rails; the pen would be almost two acres larger now. That was the second day after Ringo left. That night, while Granny and I were sitting before the fire, Ab Snopes came back. He said that he had got only four hundred and fifty dollars for the nine mules. That is, he took some money out of his pocket and gave it to Granny, and she counted it and said: "That's only fifty dollars apiece." "All right," Ab said. "If you can do any better, you are welcome to take the next batch in yourself. I done already admitted I can't hold a candle to you when it comes to getting mules; maybe I can't even compete with you when it comes to selling them." He chewed something—tobacco when he could get it, willow bark when he couldn't—all the time, and he never wore a collar, and nobody ever admitted they ever saw him in a uniform, though when Father was away, he would talk a lot now and then about when he was in Father's troop and about what he and Father used to do. But when I asked Father about it once, Father said, "Who? Ab
95
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Snopes?" and then laughed. But it was Father that told
Ab to kind of look out for Granny while he was away;
only he told me and Ringo to look out for Ab, too, that
Ab was all right in his way, but he was like a mule:
While you had him in the traces, you better watch him.
But Ab and Granny got along all right, though each
time Ab took a batch of mules to Memphis and came
back with the money, it would be like this: "Yes,
ma'am," Ab said. "It's easy to talk about hit, setting
here without no risk. But I'm the one that has to dodge
them durn critters nigh a hundred miles into Memphis,
with Forrest and Smith fighting on ever side of me and
me never knowing when I wull run into a Confed'rit or
Yankee patrol and have ever last one of them confiscated
off of me right down to the durn halters. And then I got
to take them into the very heart of the Yankee Army
in Memphis and try to sell them to a e-quipment officer
that's liable at any minute to recognise them as the same
mules he bought from me not two weeks ago. Yes. Hit's
easy enough for them to talk that sets here getting rich
and takes no risk."
"I suppose you consider getting them back for you to sell taking no risk," Granny said.
"The risk of running out of them printed letterheads, she," Ab said. "If you ain't satisfied with making just five or six hundred dollars at a time, why don't you requisition for more mules at a time? Why don't you write out a letter and have General Smith turn over his commissary train to you, with about four wagonloads of new shoes in hit? Or, better than that, pick out the day when the pay officer is coming around and draw for the whole pay wagon; then we wouldn't even have to bother about finding somebody to buy hit."
The money was in new bills. Granny folded them carefully and put them into the can, but she didn't put the can back inside her dress right away (and she never put it back under the loose board beneath her bed while Ab was about the place). She sat there looking at the fire, with the can in her hands and the string which suspended it looping down from around her neck. She didn't look any thinner or any older. She didn't look sick either.
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She just looked like somebody that has quit sleeping at night.
"We have more mules," she said, "if you would just sell them. There are more than a hundred of them that
you refuse------"
"Refuse is right," Ab said; he began to holler now: "Yes, sir! I reckon I ain't got much sense, or I wouldn't be doing this a-tall. But I got better sense than to take them mules to a Yankee officer and tell him that them hip patches where you and that durn nigger burned out
the U. S. brand are trace galls. By Godfrey, I------"
"That will do," Granny said. "Have you had some supper?"
"I------" Ab said. Then he quit hollering. He chewed
again. "Yessum," he said. "I done et."
"Then you had better go home and get some rest," Granny said. "There is a new relief regiment at Motts-town. Ringo went down two days ago to see about it. So we may need that new fence soon."
Ab stopped chewing. "Is, huh?" he said. "Out of Memphis, likely. Likely got them nine mules in it we just got shet of."
Granny looked at him. "So you sold them further back than three days ago, then," Granny said. Ab started to say something, but Granny didn't give him time. "You go on home and rest up," she said. "Ringo will probably be back tomorrow, and then you'll have a chance to see if they are the same mules. I may even have a chance to find out what they say they paid you for them."
Ab stood in the door and looked at Granny. "You're a good un," he said. "Yessum. You got my respect. John Sartoris, himself, can't tech you. He hells all over the country day and night with a hundred armed men, and it's all he can do to keep them in crowbait to ride on. And you set here in this cabin, without nothing but a handful of durn printed letterheads, and you got to build a bigger pen to hold the stock you ain't got no market yet to sell. How many head of mules have you sold back to the Yankees?"
"A hundred and five," Granny said. "A hundred and five," Ab said. "For how much active cash money, in round numbers?" Only he didn't wait
T"
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for her to answer; he told her himself: "For six thousand and seven hun-dred and twen-ty-two dollars and six-ty-five cents, lessen the dollar and thirty-five cents I spent for whisky that tune the snake bit one of the mules." It sounded round when he said it, like big sawn-oak wheels running in wet sand. "You started out a year ago with two. You got forty-odd hi the pen and twice tha
t many out on receipt. And I reckon you have sold about fifty-odd more back to the Yankees a hundred and five times, for a grand total of six thousand, seven hundred and twenty-two dollars and sixty-five cents, and in a day or so you are aiming to requisition a few of them back again, I understand."
He looked at me. "Boy," he said, "when you grow up and start out for yourself, don't you waste your time learning to be a lawyer or nothing. You just save your money and buy you a handful of printed letterheads—it don't matter much what's on them, I reckon—and you hand them to your grandmaw here and just ask her to give you the job of counting the money when hit comes in."
He looked at Granny again. "When Kernel Sartoris left here, he told me to look out for you against General 1 Grant and them. What I wonder is, if somebody hadn't better tell Abe Lincoln to look out for General Grant against Miz Rosa Millard. I bid you one and all good night."
He went out. Granny looked at the fire, the tin can in her hand. But it didn't have any six thousand dollars in it. It didn't have a thousand dollars hi it. Ab Snopes knew that, only I don't suppose that it was possible for him to believe it. Then she got up; she looked at me, quiet. She didn't look sick; that wasn't it. "I reckon it's bedtime," she said. She went beyond the quilt; it came back and hung straight down from the rafter, and I heard the loose board when she put the can away under the floor, and then I heard the sound the bed made when she would hold to the post to kneel down. It would make another sound when she got up, but when it made that sound, I was already undressed and hi my pallet. The quilts were cold, but when the sound came
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I had been there long enough for them to begin to get warm.
Ab Snopes came and helped me and Joby with the new fence the next day, so we finished it early in the afternoon and I went back to the cabin. I was almost there when I saw Ringo on the mule turning hi at the gates. Granny had seen him, too, because when I went inside the quilt, she was kneeling in the corner, taking the window shade from under the loose floor board. While she was unrolling the shade on the bed we heard Ringo getting off the mule, hollering at it while he hitched it to Louvinia's clothesline.
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