DARL

WE watch him come around the corner and mount the steps. He does not look at us. “You ready?” he says.

“If you’re hitched up,” I say. I say “Wait.” He stops, looking at pa. Vernon spits, without moving. He spits with decorous and deliberate precision into the pocked dust below the porch. Pa rubs his hands slowly on his knees. He is gazing out beyond the crest of the bluff, out across the land. Jewel watches him a moment, then he goes on to the pail and drinks again.

“I mislike undecision as much as ere a man,” pa says.

“It means three dollars,” I say. The shirt across pa’s hump is faded lighter than the rest of it. There is no sweat stain on his shirt. I have never seen a sweat stain on his shirt. He was sick once from working in the sun when he was twenty-two years old, and he tells people that if he ever sweats, he will die. I suppose he believes it.

“But if she don’t last until you get back,” he says. “She will be disappointed.”

Vernon spits into the dust. But it will rain before morning.

“She’s counted on it,” pa says. “She’ll want to start right away. I know her. I promised her I’d keep the team here and ready, and she’s counting on it.”

“We’ll need that three dollars then, sure,” I say. He gazes out over the land, rubbing his hands on his knees. Since he lost his teeth his mouth collapses in slow repetition when he dips. The stubble gives his lower face that appearance that old dogs have. “You’d better make up your mind soon, so we can get there and get a load on before dark,” I say.

“Ma ain’t that sick,” Jewel says. “Shut up, Darl.”

“That’s right,” Vernon says. “She seems more like herself to-day than she has in a week. Time you and Jewel get back, she’ll be setting up.”

“You ought to know,” Jewel says. “You been here often enough looking at her. You or your folks.” Vernon looks at him. Jewel’s eyes look like pale wood in his high-blooded face. He is a head taller than any of the rest of us, always was. I told them that’s why ma always whipped him and petted him more. Because he was peakling around the house more. That’s why she named him Jewel I told them.

“Shut up, Jewel,” pa says, but as though he is not listening much. He gazes out across the land, rubbing his knees.

“You could borrow the loan of Vernon’s team and we could catch up with you,” I say. “If she didn’t wait for us.”

“Ah, shut your goddamn mouth,” Jewel says.

“She’ll want to go in ourn,” pa says. He rubs his knees. “Don’t ere a man mislike it more.”

“It’s laying there, watching Cash whittle on that damn ...” Jewel says. He says it harshly, savagely, but he does not say the word. Like a little boy in the dark to flail his courage and suddenly aghast into silence by his own noise.

“She wanted that like she wants to go in our own wagon,” pa says. “She’ll rest easier for knowing it’s a good one, and private. She was ever a private woman. You know it well.”

“Then let it be private,” Jewel says. “But how the hell can you expect it to be——” He looks at the back of pa’s head, his eyes like pale wooden eyes.

“Sho,” Vernon says, “she’ll hold on till it’s finished. She’ll hold on till everything’s ready, till her own good time. And with the roads like they are now, it won’t take you no time to get her to town.”

“It’s fixing up to rain,” pa says. “I am a luckless man. I have ever been.” He rubs his hands on his knees. “It’s that durn doctor, liable to come at any time. I couldn’t get word to him till so late. If he was to come to-morrow and tell her the time was nigh, she wouldn’t wait. I know her. Wagon or no wagon, she wouldn’t wait. Then she’d be upset, and I wouldn’t upset her for the living world. With that family burying-ground in Jefferson and them of her blood waiting for her there, she’ll be impatient. I promised my word me and the boys would get her there quick as mules could walk it, so she could rest quiet.” He rubs his hands on his knees. “No man ever misliked it more.”

“If everybody wasn’t burning hell to get her there,” Jewel says in that harsh, savage voice. “With Cash all day long right under the window, hammering and sawing at that——”

“It was her wish,” pa says. “You got no affection nor gentleness for her. You never had. We would be beholden to no man,” he says, “me and her. We have never yet been, and she will rest quieter for knowing it and that it was her own blood sawed out the boards and drove the nails. She was ever one to clean up after herself.”

“It means three dollars,” I say. “Do you want us to go, or not?” Pa rubs his knees. “We’ll be back by to-morrow sundown.”

“Well ...” pa says. He looks out over the land, awry-haired, mouthing the snuff slowly against his gums.

“Come on,” Jewel says. He goes down the steps. Vernon spits neatly into the dust.

“By sundown, now,” pa says. “I would not keep her waiting.”

Jewel glances back, then he goes on around the house. I enter the hall, hearing the voices before I reach the door. Tilting a little down the hill, as our house does, a breeze draws through the hall all the time, upslanting. A feather dropped near the front door will rise and brush along the ceiling, slanting backward, until it reaches the down-turning current at the back door: so with voices. As you enter the hall, they sound as though they were speaking out of the air about your head.