“All right,” Mr Snopes said, and again Uncle Gavin said What? because he had not seen I.O. at all: he was just suddenly there as though he had materialized, stepped suddenly out of the dusk itself into the light of the fire (there was a brand-new galvanised-iron coffee pot sitting in the ashes near the blaze and now Uncle Gavin said he could smell that too), to stand looking down at the back of Mrs Hait’s head, not having seen Uncle Gavin and Mr Fleet. But old Het had, already talking to Uncle Gavin while they were approaching:
“So this coffee and ham brought you even if them ten dollars couldn’t,” she said. “I’m like that, myself. I aint had no appetite in years it seems like now. A bird couldn’t live on what I eats. But just let me get a whiff of coffee and ham together, now.—Leave that milk go for a minute, honey,” she said to Mrs Hait. “Here’s your lawyer.”
Then I.O. saw them too, jerking quickly around over his shoulder his little mean harassed snarling face; and now Uncle Gavin could see inside the cowshed. It had been cleaned and raked and even swept; the floor was spread with fresh hay. A clean new kerosene stable lantern burned on a wooden box beside a pallet bed spread neatly on the straw and turned back for the night and now Uncle Gavin saw a second wooden box set out for a table beside the fire, with a new plate and knife and fork and spoon and cup and saucer and a still-sealed loaf of machine-made bread.
But Uncle Gavin said there was no alarm in I.O.’s face at the sight of Mr Flem though he said the reason for that was that he, Uncle Gavin, hadn’t realised yet that I.O. had simply reached that stage where utter hopelessness wears the mantle of temerity. “So here you are,” I.O. said. “And brung your lawyer too. I reckon you come now to get that-ere lantern and them new dishes and chair and that milk bucket and maybe the milk in too soon as she’s done, hey? That’s jest fine. It’s even downright almost honest, coming right out in the open here where it aint even full dark yet. Because of course your lawyer knows all the rest of these here recent mulery and arsonery circumstances; likely the only one here that aint up to date is old Aunt Het there, and sholy she should be learned how to recognise a circumstance that even if she was to get up and run this minute, likely she would find she never had no shirt nor britches left neither by the time she got home, since a stitch in time saves nine lives for even a cat, as the feller says. Not to mention the fact that when you dines in Rome you durn sho better watch your overcoat.
“All right then. Now, jest exactly how much of them eight thousand and five hundred dollars the railroad company paid Miz Hait here for that husband of hern and them five mules of mine, do you reckon Miz Hait actively” (Uncle Gavin said he said actively for actually too, just like Ratliff. And Uncle Gavin said they were both right) “got? Well, in that case you will be jest as wrong as everybody else was. She got half of it. The reason being that the vice president here handled it for her. Of course, without a financial expert like the vice president to handle it for her, she wouldn’t a got no more than that half nohow, if as much, so by rights she aint got nothing to complain of, not to mention the fact that jest half of even that half was rightfully hern, since jest Lonzo Hait was hern because them five mules was mine.
“All right. Now, what do you reckon become of the other half of them eight thousand and five hundred dollars? Then you’ll be jest as wrong this time as you were that other one. Because the vice president here taken them. Oh, it was done all open and legal; he explained it: if Miz Hait sued the railroad, a lone lorn widder by herself, likely she wouldn’t get more than five thousand at the most, and half of that she would have to give to me for owning the mules. And if me and her brought the suit together, with a active man on her side to compel them cold hard millionaire railroad magnits to do a lone woman justice, once I claimed any part of them mules, due to the previous bad luck mules belonging to me had been having on that-ere curve, the railroad would smell a rat right away and wouldn’t nobody get nothing. While with him, the vice president, handling it, it would be seventy-five hundred or maybe a even ten thousand, of which he would not only guarantee her a full half, he would even take out of his half the hundred dollars he would give me. All legal and open: I could keep my mouth shut and get a hundred dollars, where if I objected, the vice president hisself might accidently let out who them mules actively belonged to, and wouldn’t nobody get nothing, which would be all right with the vice president since he would be right where he started out, being as he never owned Lonzo Hait nor the five mules neither.
“A pure and simple easy choice, you see: either a feller wants a hundred dollars, or either he dont want a hundred dollars. Not to mention, as the vice president hisself pointed out, that me and Miz Hait was fellow townsmen and you might say business acquaintances and Miz Hait a woman with a woman’s natural tender gentle heart, so who would say that maybe in time it wouldn’t melt a little more to where she might want to share a little of her half of them eight thousand and five hundred dollars. Which never proved much except that the vice president might know all there was to know about railroad companies and eight thousand and five hundred dollars but he never knowed much about what Miz Hait toted around where other folks totes their hearts. Which is neither here nor there; water that’s still under a bridge dont fill no oceans, as the feller says, and I was simply outvoted two to one, or maybe eight thousand and five hundred dollars to one hundred dollars; or maybe it didn’t even take that much: jest Miz Hait’s half of them eight thousand and five hundred, against my one hundred, since the only way I could a outvoted Miz Hait would a been with four thousand and two hundred and fifty-one dollars of my own, and even then I’d a had to split that odd dollar with her.
“But never mind. I done forgot all that now; that spilt milk aint going to help no ocean neither.” Now Uncle Gavin said he turned rapidly to Mrs Hait with no break in the snarling and outraged babble: “What I come back for was to have a little talk with you. I got something that belongs to you, and I hear you got something that belongs to me. Though naturally I expected to a-just it in private.”
“Lord, honey,” old Het said. “If you talking at me. Dont you mind me. I done already had so much troubles myself that listening to other folks even kind of rests me. You gawn talk what you wants to talk; I’ll just set here and mind this ham.”
“Come on,” I.O. said to Mrs Hait. “Run them all away for a minute.”
Mrs Hait had turned now, still squatting, watching him. “What for?” she said. “I reckon she aint the first critter that ever come in this yard when it wanted and went or stayed when it liked.” Now Uncle Gavin said I.O. made a gesture, brief, fretted, and restrained.
“All right,” he said. “All right. Let’s get started then. So you taken the mule.”
“I paid you for it,” Mrs Hait said. “Het brought you the money.”
“Ten dollars,” I.O. said. “For a hundred-and-fifty-dollar mule.”
“I dont know anything about hundred-and-fifty-dollar mules,” Mrs Hait said. “All I know about mules is what the railroad pays for them. Sixty dollars a head the railroad paid that other time before that fool Hait finally lost all his senses and tied himself to that track too—”
“Hush!” I.O. said. “Hush!”
“What for?” Mrs Hait said. “What secret am I telling that you aint already blabbed to anybody within listening?”
“All right,” I.O. said. “But you just sent me ten.”
“I sent you the difference,” Mrs Hait said. “The difference between that mule and what you owed Hait.”
“What I owed Hait?” I.O. said.
“Hait said you paid him fifty dollars a trip, each time he got mules in front of the train in time, and the railroad had paid you sixty dollars a head for the mules. That last time, you never paid him because you never would pay him until afterward and this time there wasn’t no afterward. So I taken a mule instead and sent you the ten dollars difference with Het here for the witness.” Uncle Gavin said that actually stopped him. He actually hushed; he and Mrs Hait, the one standing a
nd the other still squatting, just stared at one another while again old Het turned the hissing ham in the skillet. He said they were so still that Mr Flem himself spoke twice before they even noticed him.
“You through now?” he said to I.O.
“What?” I.O. said.
“Are you through now?” Mr Flem said. And now Uncle Gavin said they all saw the canvas sack—one of the canvas sacks stamped with the name of the bank which the bank itself used to store money in the vault—in his hands.
“Yes,” I.O. said. “I’m through. At least I got one ten dollars out of the mule business you aint going to touch.” But Mr Flem wasn’t even talking to him now. He had already turned toward Mrs Hait when he drew a folded paper out of the sack.
“This is the mortgage on your house,” he said. “Whatever the insurance company pays you now will be clear money; you can build it back again. Here,” he said. “Take it.”
But Mrs Hait didn’t move. “Why?” she said.
“I bought it from the bank myself this afternoon,” Mr Flem said. “You can drop it in the fire if you want to. But I want you to put your hand on it first.” So she took the paper then, and now Uncle Gavin said they all watched Mr Flem reach into the sack again and this time draw out a roll of bills, I.O. watching too now, not even blinking.
“‘Fore God,” old Het said. “You could choke a shoat with it.”
“How many mules have you got in that lot?” Mr Flem said to I.O. Still I.O. just watched him. Then he blinked, rapid and hard.
“Seven,” he said.
“You’ve got six,” Mr Flem said. “You just finished selling one of them to Mrs Hait. The railroad says the kind of mules you deal in are worth sixty dollars a head. You claim they are worth a hundred and fifty. All right. We wont argue. Six times a hundred and fifty is—”
“Seven!” I.O. said, loud and harsh. “I aint sold Mrs Hait nor nobody else that mule. Watch.” He faced Mrs Hait. “We aint traded. We aint never traded. I defy you to produce ara man or woman that seen or heard more than you tried to hand me this here same ten-dollar bill that I’m a handing right back to you. Here,” he said, extending the crumpled bill, then jerking it at her so that it struck against her skirt and fell to the ground. She picked it up.
“You giving this back to me,” she said, “before these witnesses?”
“You durn right I am,” he said. “I jest wish we had ten times this many witnesses.” Now he was talking to Mr Flem. “So I aint sold nobody no mule. And seven times a hundred and fifty dollars is ten hundred and fifty dollars—”
“Nine hundred dollars,” Mr Flem said.
“Ten hundred and fifty,” I.O. said.
“When you bring me the mule,” Mr Flem said. “And on the main condition.”
“What main condition?” I.O. said.
“That you move back to Frenchman’s Bend and never own a business in Jefferson again as long as you live.”
“And if I dont?” I.O. said.
“I sold the hotel this evening too,” Mr Flem said. And now even I.O. just watched him while he turned toward the light of the fire and began to count bills—they were mostly fives and ones, with an occasional ten—from the roll. I.O. made one last effort.
“Ten hundred and fifty,” he said.
“When you bring me the mule,” Mr Flem said. So it was still only nine hundred dollars which I.O. took and counted for himself and folded away into his hip pocket and buttoned the pocket and turned to Mrs Hait.
“All right,” he said, “where’s Mister Vice President Snopes’s other mule?”
“Tied to a tree in the ravine ditch behind Mr Spilmer’s house,” Mrs Hait said.
“What made you stop there?” I.O. said. “Why didn’t you take it right on up to Mottstown? Then you could a really enjoyed my time and trouble getting it back.” He looked around again, snarling, sneering, indomitably intractable. “You’re right fixed up here, aint you? You and the vice president could both save money if he jest kept that mortgage which aint on nothing now noway, and you didn’t build no house atall. Well, good night, all. Soon as I get this-here missing extry mule into the lot with the vice president’s other six, I’ll do myself the honor and privilege of calling at his residence for them other hundred and fifty dollars since cash on the barrelhead is the courtesy of kings, as the feller says, not to mention the fact that beggars’ choices aint even choices when he aint even got a roof to lay his head in no more. And if Lawyer Stevens has got ara thing loose about him the vice president might a taken a notion to, he better hold onto it since as the feller says even a fool wont tread where he jest got through watching somebody else get bit. Again, good night, all.” Then he was gone. And this time Uncle Gavin said that Mr Flem had to speak to him twice before he heard him.
“What?” Uncle Gavin said.
“I said, how much do I owe you?” Mr Flem said. And Uncle Gavin said he started to say one dollar, so that Mr Flem would say One dollar? Is that all? And then Uncle Gavin could say Yes, or your knife or pencil or just anything so that when I wake up tomorrow I’ll know I didn’t dream this. But he didn’t. He just said:
“Nothing. Mrs Hait is my client.” And he said how again Mr Flem had to speak twice. “What?” Uncle Gavin said.
“You can send me your bill.”
“For what?” Uncle Gavin said.
“For being the witness,” Mr Snopes said.
“Oh,” Uncle Gavin said. And now Mr Snopes was going and Uncle Gavin said how he expected he might even have said Are you going back to town now? or maybe even Shall we walk together? or maybe at last Good-bye. But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all. He simply turned and left and was gone too. Then Mrs Hait said:
“Get the box.”
“That’s what I been aiming to do soon as you can turn loose all this business and steady this skillet,” old Het said. So Mrs Hait came and took the chair and the fork and old Het went into the shed and set the lantern on the ground and brought the box and set it at the fire. “Now, honey,” she said to Uncle Gavin, “set down and rest.”
“You take it,” Uncle Gavin said. “I’ve been sitting down all day. You haven’t.” Though old Het had already begun to sit down on the box before he declined it; she had already forgotten him, watching now the skillet containing the still hissing ham which Mrs Hait had lifted from the fire.
“Was it you mentioned something about a piece of that ham,” she said, “or was it me?” So Mrs Hait divided the ham and Uncle Gavin watched them eat, Mrs Hait in the chair with the new plate and knife and fork, and old Het on the box eating from the skillet itself since Mrs Hait had apparently purchased only one of each new article, eating the ham and sopping the bread into the greasy residue of its frying, and old Het had filled the coffee cup from the pot and produced from somewhere an empty can for her own use when I.O. came back, coming up quietly out of the darkness (it was full dark now), to stand holding his hands to the blaze as though he were cold.
“I reckon I’ll take that ten dollars,” he said.
“What ten dollars?” Mrs Hait said. And now Uncle Gavin expected him to roar, or at least snarl. But he did neither, just standing there with his hands to the blaze; and Uncle Gavin said he did look cold, small, forlorn somehow since he was so calm, so quiet.
“You aint going to give it back to me?” he said.
“Give what back to you?” Mrs Hait said. Uncle Gavin said he didn’t seem to expect an answer nor even to hear her: just standing there musing at the fire in a kind of quiet and unbelieving amazement.
“I bear the worry and the risk and the agoment for years and years, and I get sixty dollars a head for them. While you, one time, without no trouble and risk a-tall, sell Lonzo Hait and five of my mules that never even belonged to him for eighty-five hundred dollars. Of course most of that-ere eighty-five hundred was for Lonzo, which I never begrudged you. Cant nere a man living say I did, even if it did seem a little strange that you should get it all, even my sixty standard price a head
for them five mules, when he wasn’t working for you and you never even knowed where he was, let alone even owned the mules; that all you done to get half of that money was jest to be married to him. And now, after all them years of not actively begrudging you it, you taken the last mule I had, not didn’t jest beat me out of another hundred and forty dollars, but out of a entire another hundred and fifty.”
“You got your mule back, and you aint satisfied yet?” old Het said. “What does you want?”
“Justice,” I.O. said. “That’s what I want. That’s all I want: justice. For the last time,” he said. “Are you going to give me my ten dollars back?”
“What ten dollars?” Mrs Hait said. Then he turned. He stumbled over something—Uncle Gavin said it was old Het’s shopping bag—and recovered and went on. Uncle Gavin said he could see him for a moment—he could because neither Mrs Hait nor old Het was watching him any longer—as though framed between the two blackened chimneys, flinging both clenched hands up against the sky. Then he was gone; this time it was for good. That is, Uncle Gavin watched him. Mrs Hait and old Het had not even looked up.
“Honey,” old Het said to Mrs Hait, “what did you do with that mule?” Uncle Gavin said there was one slice of bread left. Mrs Hait took it and sopped the last of the gravy from her plate.
“I shot it,” she said.
“You which?” old Het said. Mrs Hait began to eat the slice of bread. “Well,” old Het said, “the mule burnt the house and you shot the mule. That’s what I calls more than justice: that’s what I calls tit for tat.” It was full dark now, and ahead of her was still the mile-and-a-half walk to the poorhouse with the heavy shopping bag. But the dark would last a long time on a winter night, and Uncle Gavin said the poorhouse too wasn’t likely to move any time soon. So he said that old Het sat back on the box with the empty skillet in her hand and sighed with peaceful and happy relaxation. “Gentlemen, hush,” she said. “Aint we had a day.”
Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion Page 66