‘I took this-here away from Albert in that last fight,’ he said. ‘He had it on me but I took it away outen his hand. He was right on me with this-here when I was inside the barn with the lantern. I thought he’d gone for good and in he comes with the gun on me. But I cut off his wind. He’s up there alongside the barn now. “Are you done?” I said. I had a strangle hold on his throat. Say “I’m done,” I said, and he said it when I eased on his wind a trifle.’
They waited in the thicket until they saw Albert leave the barnlot and go toward the house. He bent low as he walked and kept in the shadows, or he crawled over the ground when he passed the bare yard near the back door. Then they went down the thicket toward Henry’s field, climbing the fence hurriedly, but Jasper hid the pistol deep in the brush before he left Wingate land. Albert had driven away the hogs and had sold them to a trader, had taken them swiftly away in a wagon. Jasper declared that he was ruined unless Mrs Wingate chose to make amends for her son’s thieving. It was said that Tarbell had spied out the hogs and had helped Albert off with them. Now Albert had come back with four of his set to drink all night in the kitchen, but he, Jasper, had given two of them the weight of his fist in the face and he had cut off Albert’s wind until he was blue when they fought inside the house and had made him say ‘Enough’ behind the corncrib. He would have the law on his side, Henry said, but at this Jasper swore an oath and said that he was his own law. He told and retold his grievance, piling up his wrath, crazed by his loss, or he walked about thumping the field with his harsh steps, or he would sit sullenly staring at the ground or lift his head to listen across the field or peer toward Wingate’s expectantly.
‘You still got the hay and your share of the corn,’ Henry said.
He muttered at the ground, recounting his losses. He cursed the corn. They sat on the hill above the quarry for a time, Jasper muttering of his fights with Albert and renewing his curse upon his loss. Then some cry of fire came through the air and other cries calling of fire replied. A light grew along the edge of the sky and a great blaze shot up from Wingate’s out-buildings and Wingate’s barn was burning, the hill standing strange and high because of the flames that topped it.
They went back into the brush where Ellen and Henry had stood before, and by this time many had gathered to fight the flames. The clatter of hoofs was constant on the road.
‘It was that-there lantern,’ Jasper said. ‘That-there lantern caused it.’
‘I see you throw down the lantern to take the gun outen his hand,’ Henry said.
‘Is that how you see it? That must ’a’ been how it was. I taken the lantern to get together my stuff. I allowed to go sometime tonight and let old Mrs Wingate send the hay money after me. I threw down the lantern to take away the gun outen his hand.’
Henry said that he would go to help but that Jasper had better stay in hiding. The fire rose to its greatest volume with the burning of the straw which had been stored in the loft, but after this blast of flame the wooden members continued to burn. Jasper sat on the ground in the heart of the thicket, sullen and dazed, staring at the flames as they sank slowly away. From her place of watching Ellen saw the people carrying water to save the other buildings, and she told Jasper who were there, the Stigalls, the Donahues, the Whelens, Tarbell, and people from further away. The strange light made menacing shapes stand out of the tree shadows and out of the ragged cornfield, long arms and stooped shoulders, bent spines and lurching knees moved through the grove, and Jasper sat on the ground mingling his oaths with his breath. He sat staring at the ground, and from time to time he would declare that he was a ruined man. ‘I burned up that-there barn,’ he whispered, ‘but it was unknowen to me. I never planned on such. I never. That-there lantern burned up the stable. But Albert, he crowded on me with the gun and I flung down the light and it was unknowen to me what went with it.’
They went away into Henry’s field again and walked off toward the high place above the quarry, their heads bowed and their steps weary.
‘You couldn’t know,’ Ellen said.
‘I burned that-there barn,’ he muttered, over and over. ‘I burned it.’ He went crookedly along the brow of the pasture. They waited at the top of the zigzag path Ellen’s cow took to descend beside the cliff, and after a while Henry came, for the fire had died away to a pink glow on the sky low in the northwest. People were saying that Jasper burned the barn in spite; this was the story that was freely told at the fire; Henry brought word of it when he came.
‘Albert says you put the lantern into the straw,’ Henry said. ‘He said you set off the straw for spite-work.’
They stood in the deep shadows at the foot of the cliff and pondered the disaster, searching it for its right and wrong.
‘They say you put the horse in the barn on purpose to burn it. You went to the pasture and fetched in the horse and fastened it in. The horse burned in the barn.’
‘Old Don burned up.’
‘He says you put up the horse on purpose to burn it, says you put up old Don. Said every time he tried to put out the blaze you fought him offen it.’ Jasper walked up and down along the base of the quarry, stumbling over the rocks. Ellen tried to push her knowing through his knowing to try to see as he had seen and to penetrate the interval when she had gone down the thicket. Whatever he had done was necessary and inevitable in her thought. The light had shone through the chinks and then it had gone. She tried to assume his chaos of anger and his confusion and to bring her more ordered knowing to it. She walked beside him as he paced along the stones or she stood beside him if he leaned against the wall, or if he sat on the ground she kept near, her shoulder touching his shoulder.
‘I see you throw down the light to take the gun,’ Henry said. ‘I says to myself, “If Albert ain’t got a gun drawed!” I see you throw away the lantern myself but I never thought about it again nor see where it go.’
‘You see it like that?’ Jasper said, again and again, ‘you could see?’
‘Yes, I see you bring the old horse in outen the pasture and then I see Albert come up with the gun drawed. Then I see you throw down the light to take a hold on Albert. That’s how I see what come to pass.’
‘Seems like I never planned on it nohow,’ Jasper whispered. ‘No matter how ’twas.’
‘How could you ever explain to the judge how-come it was you set fire to the barn?’ Henry said.
‘I never yet see the day I’d be afeared of white-trash like Albert. I already gave him a gash with my fist, drawen blood, and I had a strangle grip on his neck and cut off his wind a spell. He won’t want e’er other fight with me with fists, but he’ll sneak in behind the law. You’re right. He’ll sneak in behind the law and get me in trouble and when a man’s in jail what show has he got! The law, it’ll eat up all I saved, to pay lawyers nohow. I was a plumb fool to tie up with folks that’s in a family ruction, the old woman cheaten Albert and Albert, him a-tryen to get even. When a man’s in jail what show has he got!’
‘You might maybe ’a’ sued old Mrs Wingate to settle if it hadn’t been for the barn.’
‘I’m plumb ruined. The corn burned. If I stay I’ll get in jail, maybe Frankfort.’
‘You better go,’ Henry said. ‘Away off for a spell. You better go, boy. There’s a difference how things look if you’re in jail. People look at things different and look at what you done in a different way.’
‘Yes, I better go. I’ll go far away.’
‘Law is a good thing but how you look at it makes a difference, and which side you’re on, and how people look at what you done. Law is fine if you get on the good side of it. It’s all owen to which party gets the law on his side. But once you get it on the contrary side, why you might see a sight of worry from it.’
‘Yes, I’ll go. I better go,’ Jasper said.
He would find another place to work, far off toward the north somewhere, or toward the east. Some night he would come back for Ellen. He would take a little of the money, enough to keep him unt
il he found a place, and Ellen would take care of the rest. The wind changed and the sky began to clear, the smoke from the burning settling down into the hollows and scenting the air with a sickening heaviness. The midnight bell at St Lucy rang as they came out of the stubble field and stood by the stile under the ash tree. Then Ellen went to the house to get the money, bringing all of it and pressing it into his hand, for he might need more than he thought, she said. They stood for a little in the stubble at the edge of the field, Henry having drifted away to the house unmissed, and they looked at each other dumbly, gathering together the sum of the disaster.
‘I’ll find a place and I’ll come back,’ he said, shuffling uneasily in the dust. ‘You’ll know when I come.’
‘I’ll know, oh yes, I’ll know,’ she said.
‘You’ll know when I come.’ He walked nearer and laid his hand on the trunk of the tree, uncertainly, leaning a moment on his out-stretched hand. ‘I better go now,’ he said. ‘I’ll go.’ Then he went away across the field, his footsteps growing heavier as he stumbled into the lower ground beyond the barn and becoming a hollow thin tap as he went along the edge of the tobacco field.
The people who went along the road would stop at the toll house door to ask questions or to talk of the fire, and the peddler, when his day came, stopped to bargain slowly with Nellie, lenient in his trade. They would ask if it were true that Kent had run off, as was reported over the country, and was it true that he had been in a fight with Albert Wingate. He would never be seen again, hair nor hide, was the peddler’s prediction. Albert Wingate was of no account on his side, but Kent had been in trouble before. The bright sun shone through the clear October air, the hills brightly green, the leaves beginning to burn to yellow and red. Regina said that there were bushels of hickory nuts on the roadside trees, away beyond Stigall’s lane, and that they would go to gather their baskets full some day if Ellen was of a mind to have a share and would come too, but on the day set to go for the nuts Ellen forgot the plan and was not at the house when Regina stopped for her. Reminded, she changed her dress from the one she had been wearing in the farm and went absently with Regina. Kent had gone, Regina said, and it was unlikely that he would ever come back. He had best stay away, she thought, for, present, he would be in endless trouble with Albert or with some other of that set. He would stay away until everything blew over and people forgot and by that time he would be settled somewhere else. She herself never hoped to see him again. Did Ellen think he would come back? Ellen wanted to turn upon Regina with an angry cry and to tell her to shut up her idleness, that Jasper would come. The hard words hammered at her throat as she bent over the fallen nuts, but she was cautious, for her wish to save Jasper was greater than her anger. Martin Stigall stopped at the nut tree and helped break away the hulls, or he climbed the trees to knock down the nuts, helping fill both baskets. He talked with Regina about the fire and told how it happened that he had been one of the first to discover it. He said that Albert was a mean loafer and that he himself would hate to have any sort of traffic with him and that one could never do any business with him in any square way, but to burn a man’s barn down for spite was a right serious matter, even if Albert were the man. He did not know, he said, whether it had been spite-work or not, but Albert said it had and Mrs Wingate said the same. If Kent kept away it might all blow over in time, he thought, and Kent surely had sense enough to stay out of the country. He would never come back. In a case of this kind it was better, he said, to stay away from trouble.
Or Susie Whelen stopped on her way from church on Sunday, lingering in the toll house door. Her eyes were blue, and her wide full mouth found its smiles easily, and her step was intimate on the cabin floor, at home anywhere. Ellen went away to the back of the farm and walked on the stony hill above the quarry. She climbed the fence to Wingate’s woods and went down into the far ravine where the swine pen was broken down, and there she saw Jasper’s large footprint in the mud, his rough shoe with its broken heel printed in the wallow. He would come back. She went about her tasks with a strain pulling at her face and at her eyes, drawing inwardly. She milked the cow each night and morning or slopped the hogs or gave them their fattening corn, or dug the potatoes in the garden, speaking little, waiting. He would come back. When a week had passed the air of expectation went out of the house, and Nellie turned to sewing at a shirt for Henry, leaving Ellen’s dress half sewed. Henry went away to the barn to work in the tobacco without comment, and the fire and Jasper’s going were not talked of any more. Jasper’s probable whereabouts fell out of the talk in the kitchen before the second week had passed. The chest was no longer locked for it was empty of any treasure. Its key lay on the floor and its lid stood open, waiting, and as she passed into her room and closed the door behind her to sit for an hour or more, her waiting breath whispered, ‘He will come.’ Or one day, angered at some other mishap, Nellie said: ‘He’s gone for good. You’ll never see a sight of him again.’
‘He’s gone for good,’ she flung out from above the hissing grease of the stove. ‘Ne’er another sight of him will you see.’
‘I will see a sight of him,’ Ellen said from the door. ‘He’ll come back like he said he would.’ She had seen then that Nellie was weeping.
She went up to the pit below the quarry wall and sat for a time among the stones. He would come back, her mind continued to affirm, but a great fear stood in her body, for there was nothing to bring him back except herself. She arose from the ground and walked among the herbs of the field or she wandered to the edge of the pool, her mother’s words still hammering at her ears. There was nothing now to bring him back except herself. The water from the autumn rains lay clear and bright over the white rocks, and she found herself searching in the water, peering down into it, hole after hole, walking away and returning to look again, hoping now that he had gone far to some remote country and was moving there in life, half knowing as she searched in the pools that her fear to see some water-soaked body lying among the stones was ill devised.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The month turned warm for the Indian summer, but the leaves fell. Henry said that he looked for an early cold spell and that he would kill the hogs during the first hard freeze. He told Ellen to look for the jars and pails to hold the lard and to have all ready by the next cold weather, and to hunt among the rubbish in the shed for the missing piece of the sausage mill. Nellie worked with the sewing for the winter, mending a quilt for her bed, the dress she had begun for Ellen lying untouched in the basket behind the door. She told Ellen that the winter would be cold and they had better save the potatoes now while there were turnips in plenty, for three to feed all winter would lower the potato hill fast. No thought and no plan turned upon her going or the return of Jasper, and for this Ellen set to each task assigned her with detached and slavish diligence. She knew each night how the moon stood in the sky and how it waned from the full. The dogs at Stigall’s place howled now and then all through the night, and once Tarbell tapped at her window in the hour when the moon was setting, whispering sweet words, but she cursed him in her breath as she lay in her bed, her body denying him even while it quivered in its loneliness. In the bright light of the early morning the farms seemed to touch hands to affirm that which they had decided. The fire had ceased to be a wonder; it was talked of but little; it was finished. She went about through the bright mornings protesting, her inner ‘no’ wrought into her every task, opposing dumbly such casual phrases as ‘before Jasper Kent went off for good’, until she felt herself to be some living denial, some no set opposite the farms and all the people, Mrs Donahue, Bell, Squire Stigall, Nellie, Henry, Susie Whelen, Pius, Martin Stigall, Tarbell, Kate Bannan, the peddler, the children throwing stones into the walnut tree to knock down nuts.
The key still lay on the floor where she had dropped it and the trunk stood open, for she made nothing ready for any hour of her own, her hours hanging suspended upon the lasting no that lay under her breath like a cry. She found the pails fo
r the lard and washed them clean and set them in the sun to sweeten, and she searched long for the missing cog of the sausage mill. The Indian summer lingered, mild on the hill tops, cool at night in the hollows. One evening while she helped clear the supper away she lifted her head suddenly from her task and looked across the kitchen to Nellie who was turning from a shelf, her arm outstretched. They stood thus for a moment staring at each other, their arms stayed, and then
The Time of Man Page 25