“If a man aint got gumption enough to protect himself, it’s his own look-out,” the clerk said.
“Sholy,” Ratliff said, still in that dreamy, abstracted tone, actually speaking over his shoulder even. “And Henry Armstid, that’s all right because from what I hear of the conversation that taken place, Henry had already stopped owning that horse he thought was his before that Texas man left. And as for that broke leg, that wont put him out none because his wife can make his crop.” The clerk had ceased to rub his back against the door. He watched the back of Ratliff’s head, unwinking too, sober and intent; he glanced at Snopes who, chewing, was watching another sliver curl away from the advancing knife-blade, then he watched the back of Ratliff’s head again.
“It wont be the first time she has made their crop,” the man with the peach spray said. Ratliff glanced at him.
“You ought to know. This wont be the first time I ever saw you in their field, doing plowing Henry never got around to. How many days have you already given them this year?” The man with the peach spray removed it and spat carefully and put the spray back between his teeth.
“She can run a furrow straight as I can,” the second said.
“They’re unlucky,” the third said. “When you are unlucky, it dont matter much what you do.”
“Sholy,” Ratliff said. “I’ve heard laziness called bad luck so much that maybe it is.”
“He aint lazy,” the third said. “When their mule died three or four years ago, him and her broke their land working time about in the traces with the other mule. They aint lazy.”
“So that’s all right,” Ratliff said, gazing up the empty road again. “Likely she will begin right away to finish the plowing; that oldest gal is pretty near big enough to work with a mule, aint she? or at least to hold the plow steady while Mrs Armstid helps the mule?” He glanced again toward the man with the peach spray as though for an answer, but he was not looking at the other and he went on talking without any pause. The clerk stood with his rump and back pressed against the door-facing as if he had paused in the act of scratching, watching Ratliff quite hard now, unwinking. If Ratliff had looked at Flem Snopes, he would have seen nothing below the down-slanted peak of the cap save the steady motion of his jaws. Another sliver was curling with neat deliberation before the moving knife. “Plenty of time now because all she’s got to do after she finishes washing Mrs Littlejohn’s dishes and sweeping out the house to pay hers and Henry’s board, is to go out home and milk and cook up enough vittles to last the children until tomorrow and feed them and get the littlest ones to sleep and wait outside the door until that biggest gal gets the bar up and gets into bed herself with the axe—”
“The axe?” the man with the peach spray said.
“She takes it to bed with her. She’s just twelve, and what with this country still more or less full of them uncaught horses that never belonged to Flem Snopes, likely she feels maybe she cant swing a mere wash-board like Mrs Littlejohn can.—and then come back and wash up the supper dishes. And after that, not nothing to do until morning except to stay close enough where Henry can call her until it’s light enough to chop the wood to cook breakfast and then help Mrs Littlejohn wash the dishes and make the beds and sweep while watching the road. Because likely any time now Flem Snopes will get back from wherever he has been since the auction, which of course is to town naturally to see about his cousin that’s got into a little legal trouble, and so get that five dollars. ‘Only maybe he wont give it back to me,’ she says, and maybe that’s what Mrs Littlejohn thought too, because she never said nothing. I could hear her—”
“And where did you happen to be during all this?” the clerk said.
“Listening,” Ratliff said. He glanced back at the clerk, then he was looking away again, almost standing with his back to them, “—could hear her dumping the dishes into the pan like she was throwing them at it. ‘Do you reckon he will give it back to me?’ Mrs Armstid says. ‘That Texas man give it to him and said he would. All the folks there saw him give Mr Snopes the money and heard him say I could get it from Mr Snopes tomorrow.’ Mrs Littlejohn was washing the dishes now, washing them like a man would, like they was made out of iron. ‘No,’ she says. ‘But asking him wont do no hurt.’—‘If he wouldn’t give it back, it aint no use to ask,’ Mrs Armstid says.—‘Suit yourself,’ Mrs Littlejohn says. ‘It’s your money.’ Then I couldn’t hear nothing but the dishes for a while. ‘Do you reckon he might give it back to me?’ Mrs Armstid says. ‘That Texas man said he would. They all heard him say it.’—‘Then go and ask him for it,’ Mrs Littlejohn says. Then I couldn’t hear nothing but the dishes again. ‘He wont give it back to me,’ Mrs Armstid says.—‘All right,’ Mrs Littlejohn says. ‘Dont ask him, then.’ Then I just heard the dishes. They would have two pans, both washing. ‘You dont reckon he would, do you?’ Mrs Armstid says. Mrs Littlejohn never said nothing. It sounded like she was throwing the dishes at one another. ‘Maybe I better go and talk to Henry,’ Mrs Armstid says.—‘I would,’ Mrs Littlejohn says. And I be dog if it didn’t sound exactly like she had two plates in her hands, beating them together like these here brass bucket-lids in a band. ‘Then Henry can buy another five-dollar horse with it. Maybe he’ll buy one next time that will out and out kill him. If I just thought he would, I’d give him back that money, myself.’—‘I reckon I better talk to him first,’ Mrs Armstid says. And then it sounded just like Mrs Littlejohn taken up the dishes and pans and all and throwed the whole business at the cook-stove—” Ratliff ceased. Behind him the clerk was hissing “Psst! Psst! Flem. Flem!” Then he stopped, and all of them watched Mrs Armstid approach and mount the steps, gaunt in the shapeless gray garment, the stained tennis shoes hissing faintly on the boards. She came among them and stood, facing Snopes but not looking at anyone, her hands rolled into her apron.
“He said that day he wouldn’t sell Henry that horse,” she said in a flat toneless voice. “He said you had the money and I could get it from you.” Snopes raised his head and turned it slightly again and spat neatly past the woman, across the gallery and into the road.
“He took all the money with him when he left,” he said. Motionless, the gray garment hanging in rigid, almost formal folds like drapery in bronze, Mrs Armstid appeared to be watching something near Snopes’ feet, as though she had not heard him, or as if she had quitted her body as soon as she finished speaking and although her body, hearing, had received the words, they would have no life nor meaning until she returned. The clerk was rubbing his back steadily against the door-facing again, watching her. The little boy was watching her too with his unwinking ineffable gaze, but nobody else was. The man with the peach spray removed it and spat and put the twig back into his mouth.
“He said Henry hadn’t bought no horse,” she said. “He said I could get the money from you.”
“I reckon he forgot it,” Snopes said. “He took all the money away with him when he left.” He watched her a moment longer, then he trimmed again at the stick. The clerk rubbed his back gently against the door, watching her. After a time Mrs Armstid raised her head and looked up the road where it went on, mild with spring dust, past Mrs Littlejohn’s, beginning to rise, on past the not-yet-bloomed (that would be in June) locust grove across the way, on past the schoolhouse, the weathered roof of which, rising beyond an orchard of peach and pear trees, resembled a hive swarmed about by a cloud of pink-and-white bees, ascending, mounting toward the crest of the hill where the church stood among its sparse gleam of marble headstones in the sombre cedar grove where during the long afternoons of summer the constant mourning doves called back and forth. She moved; once more the rubber soles hissed on the gnawed boards.
“I reckon it’s about time to get dinner started,” she said.
“How’s Henry this morning, Mrs Armstid?” Ratliff said. She looked at him, pausing, the blank eyes waking for an instant.
“He’s resting, I thank you kindly,” she said. Then the eyes died again and she moved
again. Snopes rose from the chair, closing his knife with his thumb and brushing a litter of minute shavings from his lap.
“Wait a minute,” he said. Mrs Armstid paused again, half-turning, though still not looking at Snopes nor at any of them. Because she cant possibly actually believe it, Ratliff told himself. Anymore than I do. Snopes entered the store, the clerk, motionless again, his back and rump pressed against the door-facing as though waiting to start rubbing again, watched him enter, his head turning as the other passed him like the head of an owl, the little eyes blinking rapidly now. Jody Varner came up the road on his horse. He did not pass but instead turned in beside the store, toward the mulberry tree behind it where he was in the habit of hitching his horse. A wagon came up the road, creaking past. The man driving it lifted his hand; one or two of the men on the gallery lifted theirs in response. The wagon went on. Mrs Armstid looked after it. Snopes came out of the door, carrying a small striped paper bag and approached Mrs Armstid. “Here,” he said. Her hand turned just enough to receive it. “A little sweetening for the chaps,” he said. His other hand was already in his pocket, and as he turned back to the chair, he drew something from his pocket and handed it to the clerk, who took it. It was a five-cent piece. He sat down in the chair and tilted it back against the door again. He now had the knife in his hand again, already open. He turned his head slightly and spat again, neatly past the gray garment, into the road. The little boy was watching the sack in Mrs Armstid’s hand. Then she seemed to discover it also, rousing.
“You’re right kind,” she said. She rolled the sack into the apron, the little boy’s unwinking gaze fixed upon the lump her hands made beneath the cloth. She moved again. “I reckon I better get on and help with dinner,” she said. She descended the steps, though as soon as she reached the level earth and began to retreat, the gray folds of the garment once more lost all inference and intimation of locomotion, so that she seemed to progress without motion like a figure on a retreating and diminishing float; a gray and blasted tree-trunk moving, somehow intact and upright, upon an unhurried flood. The clerk in the doorway cackled suddenly, explosively, chortling. He slapped his thigh.
“By God,” he said, “you cant beat him.”
Jody Varner, entering the store from the rear, paused in midstride like a pointing bird-dog. Then, on tiptoe, in complete silence and with astonishing speed, he darted behind the counter and sped up the gloomy tunnel, at the end of which a hulking, bear-shaped figure stooped, its entire head and shoulders wedged into the glass case which contained the needles and thread and snuff and tobacco and the stale gaudy candy. He snatched the boy savagely and viciously out; the boy gave a choked cry and struggled flabbily, cramming a final handful of something into his mouth, chewing. But he ceased to struggle almost at once and became slack and inert save for his jaws. Varner dragged him around the counter as the clerk entered, seemed to bounce suddenly into the store with a sort of alert concern. “You, Saint Elmo!” he said.
“Aint I told you and told you to keep him out of here?” Varner demanded, shaking the boy. “He’s damn near eaten that candy-case clean. Stand up!” The boy hung like a half-filled sack from Varner’s hand, chewing with a kind of fatalistic desperation, the eyes shut tight in the vast flaccid colorless face, the ears moving steadily and faintly to the chewing. Save for the jaw and the ears, he appeared to have gone to sleep chewing.
“You, Saint Elmo!” the clerk said. “Stand up!” The boy assumed his own weight, though he did not open his eyes yet nor cease to chew. Varner released him. “Git on home,” the clerk said. The boy turned obediently to re-enter the store. Varner jerked him about again.
“Not that way,” he said. The boy crossed the gallery and descended the steps, the tight overalls undulant and reluctant across his flabby thighs. Before he reached the ground, his hand rose from his pocket to his mouth; again his ears moved faintly to the motion of chewing.
“He’s worse than a rat, aint he?” the clerk said.
“Rat, hell,” Varner said, breathing harshly. “He’s worse than a goat. First thing I know, he’ll graze on back and work through that lace leather and them hame-strings and lap-links and ring-bolts and eat me and you and him all three clean out the back door. And then be damned if I wouldn’t be afraid to turn my back for fear he would cross the road and start in on the gin and the blacksmith shop. Now you mind what I say. If I catch him hanging around here one more time, I’m going to set a bear-trap for him.” He went out onto the gallery, the clerk following. “Morning, gentlemen,” he said.
“Who’s that one, Jody?” Ratliff said. Save for the clerk in the background, they were the only two standing, and now, in juxtaposition, you could see the resemblance between them—a resemblance intangible, indefinite, not in figure, speech, dress, intelligence; certainly not in morals. Yet it was there, but with this bridgeless difference, this hallmark of his fate upon him: he would become an old man; Ratliff, too: but an old man who at about sixty-five would be caught and married by a creature not yet seventeen probably, who would for the rest of his life continue to take revenge upon him for her whole sex; Ratliff, never. The boy was moving without haste up the road. His hand rose again from his pocket to his mouth.
“That boy of I.O.’s,” Varner said. “By God, I’ve done everything but put out poison for him.”
“What?” Ratliff said. He glanced quickly about at the faces; for an instant there was in his own not only bewilderment but something almost like terror. “I thought—the other day you fellows told me—You said it was a woman, a young woman with a baby—Here now,” he said. “Wait.”
“This here’s another one,” Varner said. “I wish to hell he couldn’t walk. Well, Eck, I hear you caught one of your horses.”
“That’s right,” Eck said. He and the little boy had finished the crackers and cheese and he had sat for some time now, holding the empty bag.
“It was the one he give you, wasn’t it?” Varner said.
“That’s right,” Eck said.
“Give the other one to me, paw,” the little boy said.
“What happened?” Varner said.
“He broke his neck,” Eck said.
“I know,” Varner said. “But how?” Eck did not move. Watching him, they could almost see him visibly gathering and arranging words, speech. Varner, looking down at him, began to laugh steadily and harshly, sucking his teeth. “I’ll tell you what happened. Eck and that boy finally run it into that blind lane of Freeman’s, after a chase of about twenty-four hours. They figured it couldn’t possibly climb them eight-foot fences of Freeman’s so him and the boy tied their rope across the end of the lane, about three feet off the ground. And sho enough, soon as the horse come to the end of the lane and seen Freeman’s barn, it whirled just like Eck figured it would and come helling back up that lane like a scared hen-hawk. It probably never even seen the rope at all. Mrs Freeman was watching from where she had run up onto the porch. She said that when it hit that rope, it looked just like one of these here great big Christmas pinwheels. But the one you bought got clean away, didn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Eck said. “I never had time to see which way the other one went.”
“Give him to me, paw,” the little boy said.
“You wait till we catch him,” Eck said. “We’ll see about it then.”
That afternoon Ratliff sat in the halted buckboard in front of Bookwright’s gate. Bookwright stood in the road beside it. “You were wrong,” Bookwright said. “He come back.”
“He come back,” Ratliff said. “I misjudged his … nerve aint the word I want, and sholy lack of it aint. But I wasn’t wrong.”
“Nonsense,” Bookwright said. “He was gone all day yesterday. Nobody saw him going to town or coming back, but that’s bound to be where he was at. Aint no man, I dont care if his name is Snopes, going to let his own blood kin rot in jail.”
“He wont be in jail long. Court is next month, and after they send him to Parchman, he can stay out doors
again. He will even go back to farming, plowing. Of course it wont be his cotton, but then he never did make enough out of his own cotton to quite pay him for staying alive.”
“Nonsense,” Bookwright said. “I dont believe it. Flem aint going to let him go to the penitentiary.”
“Yes,” Ratliff said. “Because Flem Snopes has got to cancel all them loose-flying notes that turns up here and there every now and then. He’s going to discharge at least some of them notes for good and all.” They looked at one another—Ratliff grave and easy in the blue shirt, Bookwright sober too, blackbrowed, intent.
“I thought you said you and him burned them notes.”
“I said we burned two notes that Mink Snopes gave me. Do you think that any Snopes is going to put all of anything on one piece of paper that can be destroyed by one match? Do you think there is any Snopes that dont know that?”
“Oh,” Bookwright said. “Hah,” he said, with no mirth. “I reckon you gave Henry Armstid back his five dollars too.” Then Ratliff looked away. His face changed—something fleeting, quizzical, but not smiling, his eyes did not smile; it was gone.
“I could have,” he said. “But I didn’t. I might have if I could just been sho he would buy something this time that would sho enough kill him, like Mrs Littlejohn said. Besides, I wasn’t protecting a Snopes from Snopeses; I wasn’t even protecting a people from a Snopes. I was protecting something that wasn’t even a people, that wasn’t nothing but something that dont want nothing but to walk and feel the sun and wouldn’t know how to hurt no man even if it would and wouldn’t want to even if it could, just like I wouldn’t stand by and see you steal a meat-bone from a dog. I never made them Snopeses and I never made the folks that cant wait to bare their backsides to them. I could do more, but I wont. I wont, I tell you!”
Three Famous Short Novels: Spotted Horses Old Man The Bear (Vintage) Page 6