VARDAMAN
WHEN I WENT to find where they stay at night, I saw something. They said, “Where is Darl? Where did Darl go?”
They carried her back under the apple tree.
The barn was still red, but it wasn’t a barn now. It was sunk down, and the red went swirling up. The barn went swirling up in little red pieces, against the sky and the stars so that the stars moved backward.
And then Cash was still awake. He turned his head from side to side, with sweat on his face.
“Do you want some more water on it, Cash?” Dewey Dell said.
Cash’s leg and foot turned black. We held the lamp and looked at Cash’s foot and leg where it was black.
“Your foot looks like a nigger’s foot, Cash,” I said.
“I reckon we’ll have to bust it off,” pa said.
“What in the tarnation you put it on there for?” Mr. Gillespie said.
“I thought it would steady it some,” pa said. “I just aimed to help him.”
They got the flat iron and the hammer. Dewey Dell held the lamp. They had to hit it hard. And then Cash went to sleep.
“He’s asleep now,” I said. “It can’t hurt him while he’s asleep.”
It just cracked. It wouldn’t come off.
“It’ll take the hide, too,” Mr. Gillespie said. “Why in the tarnation you put it on there? Didn’t none of you think to grease his leg first?”
“I just aimed to help him,” pa said. “It was Darl put it on.”
“Where is Darl?” they said.
“Didn’t none of you have more sense than that?” Mr. Gillespie said. “I’d ‘a’ thought he would, anyway.”
Jewel was lying on his face. His back was red. Dewey Dell put the medicine on it. The medicine was made out of butter and soot, to draw out the fire. Then his back was black.
“Does it hurt, Jewel?” I said. “Your back looks like a nigger’s, Jewel,” I said. Cash’s foot and leg looked like a nigger’s. Then they broke it off. Cash’s leg bled.
“You go on back and lay down,” Dewey Dell said. “You ought to be asleep.”
“Where is Darl?” they said.
He is out there under the apple tree with her, lying on her. He is there so the cat won’t come back. I said, “Are you going to keep the cat away, Darl?”
The moonlight dappled on him too. On her it was still, but on Darl it dappled up and down.
“You needn’t to cry,” I said. “Jewel got her out. You needn’t to cry, Darl.”
The barn is still red. It used to be redder than this. Then it went swirling, making the stars run backward without falling. It hurt my heart like the train did.
When I went to find where they stay at night, I saw something that Dewey Dell says I mustn’t never tell nobody.
DARL
WE HAVE BEEN passing the signs for some time now: the drug-stores, the clothing stores, the patent medicine and the garages and cafés, and the mile-boards diminishing, becoming more starkly re-accruent: 3 mi. 2 mi. From the crest of a hill, as we get into the wagon again, we can see the smoke low and flat, seemingly unmoving in the unwinded afternoon.
“Is that it, Darl?” Vardaman says. “Is that Jefferson?” He too has lost flesh; like ours, his face has an expression strained, dreamy, and gaunt.
“Yes,” I say. He lifts his head and looks at the sky. High against it they hang in narrowing circles, like the smoke, with an outward semblance of form and purpose, but with no inference of motion, progress or retrograde. We mount the wagon again where Cash lies on the box, the jagged shards of cement cracked about his leg. The shabby mules droop rattling and clanking down the hill.
“We’ll have to take him to the doctor,” pa says. “I reckon it ain’t no way around it.” The back of Jewel’s shirt, where it touches him, stains slow and black with grease. Life was created in the valleys. It blew up on to the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That’s why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down.
Dewey Dell sits on the seat, the newspaper package on her lap. When we reach the foot of the hill where the road flattens between close walls of trees, she begins to look about quietly from one side of the road to the other. At last she says,
“I got to stop.”
Pa looks at her, his shabby profile that of anticipant and disgruntled annoyance. He does not check the team. “What for?”
“I got to go to the bushes,” Dewey Dell says.
Pa does not check the team. “Can’t you wait till we get to town? It ain’t over a mile now.”
“Stop,” Dewey Dell says. “I got to go to the bushes.”
Pa stops in the middle of the road and we watch Dewey Dell descend, carrying the package. She does not look back.
“Why not leave your cakes here?” I say. “We’ll watch them.”
She descends steadily, not looking at us.
“How would she know where to go to if she waited till we get to town?” Vardaman says. “Where would you go to do it in town, Dewey Dell?”
She lifts the package down and turns and disappears among the trees and undergrowth.
“Don’t be no longer than you can help,” pa says. “We ain’t got no time to waste.” She does not answer. After a while we cannot hear her even. “We ought to done like Armstid and Gillespie said and sent word to town and had it dug and ready,” he said.
“Why didn’t you?” I say. “You could have telephoned.”
“What for?” Jewel says. “Who the hell can’t dig a hole in the ground?”
A car comes over the hill. It begins to sound the horn, slowing. It runs along the roadside in low gear, the outside wheels in the ditch, and passes us and goes on. Vardaman watches it until it is out of sight.
“How far is it now, Darl?” he says.
“Not far,” I say.
“We ought to done it,” pa says. “I just never wanted to be beholden to none except her flesh and blood.”
“Who the hell can’t dig a damn hole in the ground?” Jewel says.
“It ain’t respectful, talking that way about her grave,” pa says. “You all don’t know what it is. You never pure loved her, none of you.” Jewel does not answer. He sits a little stiffly erect, his body arched away from his shirt. His high-coloured jaw juts.
Dewey Dell returns. We watch her emerge from the bushes, carrying the package, and climb into the wagon. She now wears her Sunday dress, her beads, her shoes and stockings.
“I thought I told you to leave them clothes to home,” pa says. She does not answer, does not look at us. She sits the package in the wagon and gets in. The wagon moves on.
“How many more hills now, Darl?” Vardaman says.
“Just one,” I say. “The next one goes right up into town.”
This hill is red sand, bordered on either hand by negro cabins; against the sky ahead the massed telephone lines run, and the clock on the court-house lifts among the trees. In the sand the wheels whisper, as though the very earth would hush our entry. We descend as the hill commences to rise.
We follow the wagon, the whispering wheels, passing the cabins where faces come suddenly to the doors, white-eyed. We hear sudden voices, ejaculant. Jewel has been looking from side to side; now his head turns forward and I can see his ears taking on a still deeper tone of furious red. Three negroes walk beside the road ahead of us; ten feet ahead of them a white man walks. When we pass the negroes their heads turn suddenly with that expression of shock and instinctive outrage. “Great God,” one says; “what they got in that wagon?”
Jewel whirls. “Son of a bitches,” he says. As he does so he is abreast of the white man, who has paused. It is as though Jewel had gone blind for the moment, for it is the white man toward whom he whirls.
“Darl!” Cash says from the wagon. I grasp at Jewel. The white man has fallen back a pace, his face still slack-jawed; then his jaw tightens, claps to. Jewel leans above him, his jaw muscles gone white.
“What did you say?” he says.
> “Here,” I say. “He don’t mean anything, mister. Jewel,” I say. When I touch him he swings at the man. I grasp his arm; we struggle. Jewel has never looked at me. He is trying to free his arm. When I see the man again he has an open knife in his hand.
“Hold up, mister,” I say; “I’ve got him. Jewel,” I say.
“Thinks because he’s a goddam town fellow,” Jewel says, panting, wrenching at me. “Son of a bitch,” he says.
The man moves. He begins to edge around me, watching Jewel, the knife low against his flank. “Can’t no man call me that,” he says. Pa has got down, and Dewey Dell is holding Jewel, pushing at him. I release him and face the man.
“Wait,” I say. “He don’t mean nothing. He’s sick; got burned in a fire last night, and he ain’t himself.”
“Fire or no fire,” the man says, “can’t no man call me that.”
“He thought you said something to him,” I say.
“I never said nothing to him. I never see him before.”
“ ’Fore God,” pa says; “ ’fore God.”
“I know,” I say. “He never meant anything. He’ll take it back.”
“Let him take it back, then.”
“Put up your knife, and he will.”
The man looks at me. He looks at Jewel. Jewel is quiet now.
“Put up your knife,” I say.
The man shuts the knife.
“ ’Fore God,” pa says. “ ’Fore God.”
“Tell him you didn’t mean anything, Jewel,” I say.
“I thought he said something,” Jewel says. “Just because he’s — —”
“Hush,” I say. “Tell him you didn’t mean it.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Jewel says.
“He better not,” the man says. “Calling me a — —”
“Do you think he’s afraid to call you that?” I say.
The man looks at me. “I never said that,” he said.
“Don’t think it, neither,” Jewel says.
“Shut up,” I say. “Come on. Drive on, pa.”
The wagon moves. The man stands watching us. Jewel does not look back. “Jewel would ‘a’ whipped him,” Vardaman says.
We approach the crest, where the street runs, where cars go back and forth; the mules haul the wagon up and on to the crest and the street. Pa stops them. The street runs on ahead, where the square opens and the monument stands before the court-house. We mount again while the heads turn with that expression which we know; save Jewel. He does not get on, even though the wagon has started again. “Get in, Jewel,” I say. “Come on. Let’s get away from here.” But he does not get in. Instead he sets his foot on the turning hub of the rear wheel, one hand grasping the stanchion, and with the hub turning smoothly under his sole he lifts the other foot and squats there, staring straight ahead, motionless, lean, wooden-backed, as though carved squatting out of the lean wood.
CASH
IT WASN’T NOTHING else to do. It was either send him to Jackson, or have Gillespie sue us, because he knowed some way that Darl set fire to it. I don’t know how he knowed, but he did. Vardaman see him do it, but he swore he never told nobody but Dewey Dell and that she told him not to tell nobody. But Gillespie knowed it. But he would ‘a’ suspicioned it sooner or later. He could have done it that night just watching the way Darl acted.
And so pa said, “I reckon there ain’t nothing else to do,” and Jewel said,
“You want to fix him now?”
“Fix him?” pa said.
“Catch him and tie him up,” Jewel said. “Goddam it, do you want to wait until he sets fire to the goddam team and wagon?”
But there wasn’t no use in that. “There ain’t no use in that,” I said. “We can wait till she is underground.” A fellow that’s going to spend the rest of his life locked up, he ought to be let to have what pleasure he can have before he goes.
“I reckon he ought to be there,” pa says. “God knows, it’s a trial on me. Seems like it ain’t no end to bad luck when once it starts.”
Sometimes I ain’t so sho who’s got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he ain’t. Sometimes I think it ain’t none of us pure crazy and ain’t none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It’s like it ain’t so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.
Because Jewel is too hard on him. Of course it was Jewel’s horse was traded to get her that nigh to town, and in a sense it was the value of his horse Darl tried to burn up. But I thought more than once before we crossed the river and after, how it would be God’s blessing if He did take her outen our hands and get shut of her in some clean way, and it seemed to me that when Jewel worked so to get her outen the river, he was going against God in a way, and then when Darl seen that it looked like one of us would have to do something, I can almost believe he done right in a way. But I don’t reckon nothing excuses setting fire to a man’s barn and endangering his stock and destroying his property. That’s how I reckon a man is crazy. That’s how he can’t see eye to eye with other folks. And I reckon they ain’t nothing else to do with him but what the most folks says is right.
But it’s a shame, in a way. Folks seems to get away from the olden right teaching that says to drive the nails down and trim the edges well always like it was for your own use and comfort you were making it. It’s like some folks has the smooth, pretty boards to build a court-house with and others don’t have no more than rough lumber fitten to build a chicken coop. But it’s better to build a tight chicken coop than a shoddy court-house, and when they both build shoddy or build well, neither because it’s one or tother is going to make a man feel the better nor the worse.
So we went up the street, toward the square, and he said, “We better take Cash to the doctor first. We can leave him there and come back for him.” That’s it. It’s because me and him was born close together, and it nigh ten years before Jewel and Dewey Dell and Vardaman begun to come along. I feel kin to them, all right, but I don’t know. And me being the oldest, and thinking already the very thing that he done: I don’t know.
Pa was looking at me, then at him, mumbling his mouth.
“Go on,” I said. “We’ll get it done first.”
“She would want us all there,” pa says.
“Let’s take Cash to the doctor first,” Darl said. “She’ll wait. She’s already waited nine days.”
“You all don’t know,” pa says. “The somebody you was young with and you growed old in her and she growed old in you, seeing the old coming on and it was the one somebody you could hear say it don’t matter and know it was the truth outen the hard world and all a man’s grief and trials. You all don’t know.”
“We got the digging to do, too,” I said.
“Armstid and Gillespie both told you to send word ahead,” Darl said. “Don’t you want to go to Peabody’s now, Cash?”
“Go on,” I said. “It feels right easy now. It’s best to get things done in the right place.”
“If it was just dug,” pa says. “We forgot our spade, too.”
“Yes,” Darl said. “I’ll go to the hardware store. We’ll have to buy one.”
“It’ll cost money,” pa says.
“Do you begrudge her it?” Darl says.
“Go on and get a spade,” Jewel said. “Here, give me the money.”
But pa didn’t stop. “I reckon we can get a spade,” he said. “I reckon there are Christians here.” So Darl set still and we went on, with Jewel squatting on the tail-gate, watching the back of Dad’s head. He looked like one of these bulldogs, one of these dogs that don’t bark none, squatting against the rope, watching the thing he was waiting to jump at.
He set that way all the time we was in front of Mrs. Bundren’s house, hearing the music, watching the back of Darl’s head with them hard white eyes of hisn.
The music was playing in the house. It was one of them graphophones. It was natural as a music-band.
“Do you want to go to Peabody’s?” Darl said. “They can wait here and tell pa, and I’ll drive you to Peabody’s and come back for them.”
“No,” I said. It was better to get her underground, now we was this close, just waiting until pa borrowed the shovel. He drove along the street until we could hear the music.
“Maybe they got one here,” he said. He pulled up at Mrs. Bundren’s. It was like he knowed. Sometimes I think that if a working man could see work as far ahead as a lazy man can see laziness. So he stopped there like he knowed, before that little new house, where the music was. We waited there, hearing it. I believe I could have dickered Suratt down to five dollars on that one of his. It’s a comfortable thing, music is. “Maybe they got one here,” pa says.
“You want Jewel to go,” Darl says, “or do you reckon I better?”
“I reckon I better,” pa says. He got down and went up the path and around the house to the back. The music stopped, then it started again.
“He’ll get it, too,” Darl said.
“Ay,” I said. It was just like he knowed, like he could see through the walls and into the next ten minutes.
Only it was more than ten minutes. The music stopped and never commenced again for a good spell, where her and pa was talking at the back. We waited in the wagon.
“You let me take you back to Peabody’s,” Darl said.
“No,” I said. “We’ll get her underground.”
“If he ever gets back,” Jewel said. He began to cuss. He started to get down from the wagon. “I’m going,” he said.
Then we saw pa coming back. He had two spades, coming around the house. He laid them in the wagon and got in and we went on. The music never started again. Pa was looking back at the house. He kind of lifted his hand a little and I saw the shade pulled back a little at the window and her face in it.
Complete Works of William Faulkner Page 104
