Mosquitoes

by William Faulkner

  * * *

  Dust spun from their feet, swirling sluggish and lazy in the brooding dreadful noon. Beside them always and always those eternal bearded trees, bearded and brooding, older and stiller than eternity. The road ran on like a hypnotism: a dull and endless progression from which there was no escape.

  After a while he missed her from her position at his shoulder and he stopped and looked back. She was kneeling beside the foul ditch. He watched her stupidly, then he suddenly realized what she was about and he ran back to her, grasping her by the shoulder. “Here, you can’t do that! That stuff is poison: you can’t drink it!”

  “I can’t help it! I’ve got to have some water, I’ve got to!” She strained against his hands. “Please, David. Just one mouthful. Please, David. Please, David.”

  He got his hands under her arms, but his feet slid in the rank sloping grass and he went up to his knees in thick reluctant water. She twisted in his hands. “Please, oh, please! Just enough to wet my mouth. Look at my mouth.” She raised her face: her broad pale lips were parched, rough. “Please, David.”

  But he held her. “Put your feet in it, like mine. That’ll help some,” he said through his own dry harsh throat. “Here, let me take off your shoes.”

  She sat whimpering like a dog while he removed her slippers. Then she slid her legs into the water and moaned with partial relief. The sunlight was beginning to slant at last, slanting westward like a rushing of unheard golden wings across the sky; though the somber twilight under the trees was unchanged—somber and soundless, brooding, and filled with a vicious darting of invisible fire.

  “I must have water,” she said at last. “You’ll have to find me some water, David.”

  “Yes.” He climbed heavily out of the hot ooze, out of the mud and slime. He bent and slid his hands under her arms. “Get up. We must go on.”

  TWO O’CLOCK

  Jenny yawned, frankly, then she did something to the front of her dress, drawing it away from her to peer down into her bosom. It seemed to be all right, and she settled her dress again with a preening motion, lifting her shoulders and smoothing it over her hips. She went upstairs and presently she saw them, sitting around like always. Mrs. Maurier wasn’t there.

  She drifted over to the rail and laxed herself against it and stood there, placidly waiting until Mr. Talliaferro became aware of her presence.

  “I was watching these things in the water,” she said when he came to her like a tack to a magnet, volitionless and verbose.

  “Where?” He also stared overside.

  “That stuff there,” she answered, looking forward to the group of chairs.

  “Why, that’s just refuse from the galley,” Mr. Talliaferro said with surprise.

  “Is it? It’s kind of funny-looking. . . . There’s some more of it down here a ways.” Mr. Talliaferro followed her, intrigued and curious. She stopped and glanced back over her shoulder and beyond him: Mr. Talliaferro aped her but saw no living thing except Mark Frost on the edge of the group. The others were out of sight beyond the deckhouse. “It’s farther on,” Jenny said.

  Farther along she stopped again and again she looked forward. “Where?” Mr. Talliaferro asked.

  “Here.” Jenny stared at the lake a moment. Then she examined the deck again. Mr. Talliaferro was thoroughly puzzled now, even a trifle alarmed. “It was right here, that funny thing I saw. I guess it’s gone, though.”

  “What was it you saw?”

  “Some kind of a funny thing,” she answered with detachment. . . . “The sun is hot here.” Jenny moved away and went to where an angle of the deckhouse wall formed a shallow niche. Mr. Talliaferro followed her in amazement. Again Jenny peered around him, examining that part of the deck which was in sight and the immediate approaches to it. Then she became utterly static beside him and without moving at all she seemed to envelop him, giving him to think of himself surrounded, enclosed by the sweet cloudy fire of her thighs, as young girls can.

  Mr. Talliaferro saw her as through a blond mist. A lightness was moving down his members, a lightness so exquisite as to be almost unbearable, while above it all he listened to the dry interminable incoherence of his own voice. That unbearable lightness moved down his arms to his hands, and down his legs, reaching his feet at last, and Mr. Talliaferro fled.

  Jenny looked after him. She sighed.

  * * *

  After a while the white dusty road left the swamp behind. It ran now through a country vaguely upland: sand and pines and a crisp thick undergrowth sunburned and sibilant.

  “We’re out of it at last,” she called back to him. Her pace quickened and she called over her shoulder, “It can’t be much farther now. Come on, let’s run a while.” He shouted to her, but she trotted on, drawing away from him. He followed her splotched flashing legs at a slower pace, steadily losing distance.

  Her legs twinkled on ahead in the shimmering forgotten road. Heat wavered and shimmered above the road and the sky was a metallic intolerable bowl and the tall pines in the windless afternoon exuded a thin exhilarating odor of resin and heat, casting sparse patches of shade upon the shimmering endless ribbon of the road. Lizards scuttled in the dust before them, hissing abruptly amid the dusty brittle undergrowth beside the road. The road went on and on, endless and shimmering ahead of them. He called to her again, but she trotted on unheeding.

  Without faltering in her pace she turned and ran from the road and when he reached her she leaned against a tree, panting. “I ran too much,” she gasped through her pale open mouth. “I feel funny—all gone. Better hold me up,” she said, staring at him. “No: let me lie down.” She slumped against him. “My heart’s going too fast. Feel how it’s going.” He felt her heart leaping against his hand. “It’s too fast, isn’t it? What’ll I do now?” she asked soberly. “Do something quick, David,” she told him, staring at him, and he lowered her awkwardly and knelt beside her, supporting her head. She closed her eyes against the implacable sky, but opened them immediately and struggled to rise. “No, no: I mustn’t stay here. I want to get up again. Help me up.”

  He did so, and had to hold her on her feet. “I must go on,” she repeated. “Make me go on, David. I don’t want to die here. Make me go on, I tell you.” Her face was flushed: he could see blood pumping in her throat, and holding her so he knew sharp and utter terror. “What must I do?” she was saying. “You ought to know. Don’t you know what to do? I’m sick, I tell you. They’ve given me hydrophobia or something.”

  She closed her eyes and all her muscles relaxed at once and she slipped to the ground and he knelt again beside her in terror and despair. “Raise my head a little,” she muttered and he sat and drew her across his legs and raised her head against his breast, smoothing her damp hair from her forehead. “That’s right.” She opened her eyes. “Cheer up, David. . . . I told you once about looking at me like that.” Then she closed her eyes again.

  THREE O’CLOCK

  “If we were only afloat,” Mrs. Maurier moaned for the twelfth time. “They can’t be farther than Mandeville: I know they can’t. What will Henry say to me!”

  “Why don’t they start her up and try to get off again?” Fairchild asked. “Maybe the sand has settled or something by now,” he added vaguely.

  “The captain says they can’t, that we’ll have to wait for the tug. They sent for the tug yesterday, and it hasn’t come yet,” she added in a sort of stubborn astonishment. She rose and went to the rail and stared up the lake toward Mandeville.

  “You wouldn’t think it’d take a tug to pull us off,” Fairchild remarked. “She ain’t such a big boat, you know. Seems like any sort of a boat would pull us off. I’ve seen little launches hauling bigger boats than this around. And a river tug can haul six or eight of these steel barges, upstream, too.”

  Mrs. Maurier returned hopefully. “It really doesn’t seem necessary to have a tug to move t
his yacht, does it? You’d think that sailors could think of some way, something with ropes and things,” she added, also vaguely.

  “What would they stand on while they pulled the ropes?” Mark Frost wanted to know. “They couldn’t pull from the shore. That isn’t the way we want to go.”

  “They might row out in the tender and anchor,” the Semitic man offered as his mite.

  “Why, yes,” Mrs. Maurier agreed, brightening. “If they could just anchor the tender securely, they might . . . if there were something to pull the rope with. The men themselves. . . . Do you suppose the sailors themselves could move a boat like this by hand?”

  “I’ve seen a single river tug not much bigger than a Ford hauling a whole string of loaded steel barges up the river,” Fairchild repeated. He sat and stared from one to another of his companions and a strange light came into his eyes. “Say,” he said suddenly, “I bet that if all of us were to . . .”

  The Semitic man and Mark Frost groaned in simultaneous alarm, and Pete sitting on the outskirt of the group rose hastily and unostentatiously and headed for the companionway. He ducked into his room and stood listening.

  Yes, they were really going to try it. He could hear Fairchild’s burly voice calling for all the men, and also one or two voices raised in protest; and above all of them the voice of the old woman in an indistinguishable senseless excitement. Jesus Christ, he whispered, clutching his hat.

  People descending the stairs alarmed him and he sprang behind the open door. It was Fairchild and the fat Jew, but they passed his door and entered the room next to his, from which he heard immediately sounds of activity that culminated in a thin concussion of glass and glass.

  “My God, man”—the fat Jew’s voice—“what have you done? Do you really think we can move this boat?”

  “Naw. I just want to stir ’em up a little. Life’s getting altogether too tame on this boat: nothing’s happened at all today. I did it principally to see Talliaferro and Mark Frost sweat some.” Fairchild laughed. His laughter died into chuckles, heavily. “But I have seen a little river tug no bigger than a Ford hauling a st—”

  “Good Lord,” the other man said again. “Finish your drink. O immaculate cherubim,” he said, going on down the passage. Fairchild followed. Pete heard their feet on the stairs, then crossing the deck. He returned to the port.

  Yes, sir, they were going to try it, sure as hell. They were now embarking in the tender: he could hear them, thumping and banging around and talking; a thin shriek of momentary alarm. Women, too (Damn to hell, I bet Jenny’s with ’em, Pete whispered to himself). And somebody that didn’t want to go at all.

  Voices without; alarums and excursions, etc:

  Come on, Mark, you’ve got to go. All the men will be needed, hey, Mrs. Maurier?

  Yes, indeed; indeed, yes. All the men must help.

  Sure: all you brave strong men have got to go.

  I’m a poet, not an oarsman. I can’t—

  So is Eva: look at her, she’s going.

  Shelley could row a boat.

  Yes, and remember what happened to him, too.

  I’m going to keep you all from drowning, Jenny. That’s (Damn to hell, Pete whispered) why I’m going.

  Aw, come on, Mark; earn your board and keep.

  Oooo, hold the boat still, Dawson.

  Come on, come on. Say, where’s Pete?

  Pete!

  Pete! (Feet on the deck.)

  Pete! Oh, Pete! (At the companionway.) Pete! (Jesus Christ, Pete whispered, making no sound.)

  Never mind, Eva. We’ve got a boatload now. If anybody else comes, they’ll have to walk.

  There’s somebody missing yet. Who is it?

  Ah, we’ve got enough. Come on.

  But somebody ain’t here. I don’t guess he fell overboard while we were not looking, do you?

  Oh, come on and let’s go. Shove off, you Talliaferro (a scream).

  Look out, there: catch her! Y’all right, Jenny? Let’s go, then. Careful, now.

  Ooooooo!

  “Damn to hell, she’s with ’em,” Pete whispered again, trying to see through the port. More thumping, and presently the tender came jerkily and lethargically into sight, loaded to the gun-wales like a nigger excursion. Yes, Jenny was in it, and Mrs. Wiseman and five men, including Mr. Talliaferro, Mrs. Maurier leaned over the rail above Pete’s head, waving her handkerchief and shrieking at them as the tender drew uncertainly away, trailing a rope behind it. Almost everyone had an oar: the small boat bristled with oars beating the water vainly, so that it resembled a tarantula with palsy and no knee joints. But they finally began to get the knack of it and gradually the boat began to assume something like a definite direction. As Pete watched it there came again feet on the stairs and a voice said guardedly:

  “Ed.”

  An indistinguishable response from the captain’s room and the voice added mysteriously, “Come up on deck a minute.” Then the footsteps withdrew, accompanied.

  * * *

  The tender evinced a maddening inclination to progress in any fashion save that for which it was built. Fairchild turned his head and glanced comprehensively about his small congested island enclosed with an unrhythmic clashing of blades. The oars clashed against each other, jabbing and scuttering at the tortured water until the tender resembled an ancient stiff jointed horse in a state of mad unreasoning alarm.

  “We’ve got too many rowers,” Fairchild decided. Mark Frost drew in his oar immediately, striking the Semitic man across the knuckles with it. “No, no: not you,” Fairchild said. “Julius, you quit: you ain’t doing any good, anyhow; you’re the one that’s holding us back. Gordon, and Mark, and Talliaferro and me—”

  “I want to row,” Mrs. Wiseman said. “Let me have Julius’s oar. Ernest will have to help Jenny watch the rope.”

  “Take mine,” Mark Frost offered quickly, extending his oar and clashing it against someone else’s. The boat rocked alarmingly. Jenny squealed.

  “Look out,” Fairchild exclaimed. “Do you want to have us all in the water? Julius, pass your oar along—that’s it. Now, you folks sit still back there. Dammit, Mark, if you hit anybody else with that thing, we’ll throw you out. Shelley could swim, too, you know.”

  Mrs. Wiseman got fixed at last with her oar, and at last the tender became comparatively docile. Jenny and Mr. Talliaferro sat in the stern, paying out the line. “Now,” Fairchild glanced about at his crew and gave the command: “Let’s go.”

  “Give way, all,” Mrs. Wiseman corrected with inspiration. They dipped their oars anew. Mark Frost drew his oar in once more, clashing it against Gordon’s.

  “Let me get my handkerchief,” he said. “My hands are tender.”

  “That’s what I want, too,” Mrs. Wiseman decided. “Gimme your handkerchief, Ernest.”

  Mark Frost released his oar and it leaped quickly overboard. “Catch that paddle!” Fairchild shouted. Mrs. Wiseman and Mr. Talliaferro both reached for it and Gordon and the Semitic man trimmed the boat at the ultimate instant. It became stable presently and Jenny closed her mouth upon her soundless scream.

  The oar swam away and stopped just beyond reach, raising and falling on the faint swells. “We’ll have to row over and get it,” Mrs. Wiseman said. So they did, but just before they reached it the oar swam on again, slowly and maddeningly. The rowers clashed and churned. Mr. Talliaferro sat in a taut diffident alarm.

  “I really think,” he said, “we’d better return to the yacht. The ladies, you know.” But they didn’t heed him.

  “Now, Ernest,” Mrs. Wiseman directed sharply, “reach, out and grab it.” But it eluded them again, and Fairchild said:

  “Let’s let the damn thing go. We’ve got enough left to row with, anyway.” But at that moment the oar, rocking sedately, swung slowly around and swam docil
ely up alongside.

  “Grab it! grab it!” Mrs. Wiseman cried.

  “I really think—” Mr. Talliaferro offered again. Mark Frost grabbed it and it came meekly and unresistingly out of the water.