The girl watched him. “Is he married?”
“Who married? Marse Soshay?” The girl watched him. “How he have time to git married, wid us fighting de Yankees for fo years? Aint been home in fo years now where no ladies to marry is.” He looked at the girl, his eyewhites a little bloodshot, his skin shining in faint and steady highlights. Thawing, he seemed to have increased in size a little too. “Whut’s it ter you, if he married or no?”
They looked at each other. The Negro could hear her breathing. Then she was not looking at him at all, though she had not yet even blinked nor turned her head. “I dont reckon he’d have any time for a girl that didn’t have any shoes,” she said. She went to the wall and stooped again to the crack. The Negro watched her. The older woman entered and took another dish from the stove and departed without having looked at either of them.
V
The four men, the three men and the boy, sat about the supper table. The broken meal lay on thick plates. The knives and forks were iron. On the table the jug still sat. Weddel was now cloakless. He was shaven, his still damp hair combed back. Upon his bosom the ruffles of the shirt frothed in the lamplight, the right sleeve, empty, pinned across his breast with a thin gold pin. Under the table the frail and mended dancing slippers rested among the brogans of the two men and the bare splayed feet of the boy.
“Vatch says you are a nigra,” the father said.
Weddel was leaning a little back in his chair. “So that explains it,” he said. “I was thinking that he was just congenitally illtempered. And having to be a victor, too.”
“Are you a nigra?” the father said.
“No,” Weddel said. He was looking at the boy, his weathered and wasted face a little quizzical. Across the back of his neck his hair, long, had been cut roughly as though with a knife or perhaps a bayonet. The boy watched him in complete and rapt immobility. As if I might be an apparition he thought. A hant. Maybe I am. “No,” he said. “I am not a Negro.”
“Who are you?” the father said.
Weddel sat a little sideways in his chair, his hand lying on the table. “Do you ask guests who they are in Tennessee?” he said. Vatch was filling a tumbler from the jug. His face was lowered, his hands big and hard. His face was hard. Weddel looked at him. “I think I know how you feel,” he said. “I expect I felt that way once. But it’s hard to keep on feeling any way for four years. Even feeling at all.”
Vatch said something, sudden and harsh. He clapped the tumbler on to the table, splashing some of the liquor out. It looked like water, with a violent, dynamic odor. It seemed to possess an inherent volatility which carried a splash of it across the table and on to the foam of frayed yet immaculate linen on Weddel’s breast, striking sudden and chill through the cloth against his flesh.
“Vatch!” the father said.
Weddel did not move; his expression arrogant, quizzical, and weary, did not change. “He did not mean to do that,” he said.
“When I do,” Vatch said, “it will not look like an accident.”
Weddel was looking at Vatch. “I think I told you once,” he said. “My name is Saucier Weddel. I am a Mississippian. I live at a place named Contalmaison. My father built it and named it. He was a Choctaw chief named Francis Weddel, of whom you have probably not heard. He was the son of a Choctaw woman and a French émigré of New Orleans, a general of Napoleon’s and a knight of the Legion of Honor. His name was François Vidal. My father drove to Washington once in his carriage to remonstrate with President Jackson about the Government’s treatment of his people, sending on ahead a wagon of provender and gifts and also fresh horses for the carriage, in charge of the man, the native overseer, who was a full blood Choctaw and my father’s cousin. In the old days The Man was the hereditary title of the head of our clan; but after we became Europeanised like the white people, we lost the title to the branch which refused to become polluted, though we kept the slaves and the land. The Man now lives in a house a little larger than the cabins of the Negroes — an upper servant. It was in Washington that my father met and married my mother. He was killed in the Mexican War. My mother died two years ago, in ‘63, of a complication of pneumonia acquired while superintending the burying of some silver on a wet night when Federal troops entered the county, and of unsuitable food; though my boy refuses to believe that she is dead. He refuses to believe that the country would have permitted the North to deprive her of the imported Martinique coffee and the beaten biscuit which she had each Sunday noon and Wednesday night. He believes that the country would have risen in arms first. But then, he is only a Negro, member of an oppressed race burdened with freedom. He has a daily list of my misdoings which he is going to tell her on me when we reach home. I went to school in France, but not very hard. Until two weeks ago I was a major of Mississippi infantry in the corps of a man named Longstreet, of whom you may have heard.”
“So you were a major,” Vatch said.
“That appears to be my indictment; yes.”
“I have seen a rebel major before,” Vatch said. “Do you want me to tell you where I saw him?”
“Tell me,” Weddel said.
“He was lying by a tree. We had to stop there and lie down, and he was lying by the tree, asking for water. ‘Have you any water, friend?’ he said. ‘Yes. I have water,’ I said. ‘I have plenty of water.’ I had to crawl; I couldn’t stand up. I crawled over to him and I lifted him so that his head would be propped against the tree. I fixed his face to the front.”
“Didn’t you have a bayonet?” Weddel said. “But I forgot; you couldn’t stand up.”
“Then I crawled back. I had to crawl back a hundred yards, where—”
“Back?”
“It was too close. Who can do decent shooting that close? I had to crawl back, and then the damned musket—”
“Damn musket?” Weddel sat a little sideways in his chair, his hand on the table, his face quizzical and sardonic, contained.
“I missed, the first shot. I had his face propped up and turned, and his eyes open watching me, and then I missed. I hit him in the throat and I had to shoot again because of the damned musket.”
“Vatch,” the father said.
Vatch’s hands were on the table. His head, his face, were like his father’s, though without the father’s deliberation. His face was furious, still, unpredictable. “It was that damn musket. I had to shoot three times. Then he had three eyes, in a row across his face propped against the tree, all three of them open, like he was watching me with three eyes. I gave him another eye, to see better with. But I had to shoot twice because of the damn musket.”
“You, Vatch,” the father said. He stood now, his hands on the table, propping his gaunt body. “Dont you mind Vatch, stranger. The war is over now.”
“I dont mind him,” Weddel said. His hands went to his bosom, disappearing into the foam of linen while he watched Vatch steadily with his alert, quizzical, sardonic gaze. “I have seen too many of him for too long a time to mind one of him any more.”
“Take some whiskey,” Vatch said.
“Are you just making a point?”
“Damn the pistol,” Vatch said. “Take some whiskey.”
Weddel laid his hand again on the table. But instead of pouring, Vatch held the jug poised over the tumbler. He was looking past Weddel’s shoulder. Weddel turned. The girl was in the room, standing in the doorway with her mother just behind her. The mother said as if she were speaking to the floor under her feet: “I tried to keep her back, like you said. I tried to. But she is strong as a man; hardheaded like a man.”
“You go back,” the father said.
“Me to go back?” the mother said to the floor.
The father spoke a name; Weddel did not catch it; he did not even know that he had missed it. “You go back.”
The girl moved. She was not looking at any of them. She came to the chair on which lay Weddel’s worn and mended cloak and opened it, revealing the four ragged slashes where the sable lining ha
d been cut out as though with a knife. She was looking at the cloak when Vatch grasped her by the shoulder, but it was at Weddel that she looked. “You cut hit out and gave hit to that nigra to wrap his feet in,” she said. Then the father grasped Vatch in turn. Weddel had not stirred, his face turned over his shoulder; beside him the boy was upraised out of his chair by his arms, his young, slacked face leaned forward into the lamp. But save for the breathing of Vatch and the father there was no sound in the room.
“I am stronger than you are, still,” the father said. “I am a better man still, or as good.”
“You wont be always,” Vatch said.
The father looked back over his shoulder at the girl. “Go back,” he said. She turned and went back toward the hall, her feet silent as rubber feet. Again the father called that name which Weddel had not caught; again he did not catch it and was not aware again that he had not. She went out the door. The father looked at Weddel. Weddel’s attitude was unchanged, save that once more his hand was hidden inside his bosom. They looked at one another — the cold, Nordic face and the half Gallic half Mongol face thin and worn like a bronze casting, with eyes like those of the dead, in which only vision has ceased and not sight. “Take your horses, and go,” the father said.
VI
It was dark in the hall, and cold, with the black chill of the mountain April coming up through the floor about her bare legs and her body in the single coarse garment. “He cut the lining outen his cloak to wrap that nigra’s feet in,” she said. “He done hit for a nigra.” The door behind her opened. Against the lamplight a man loomed, then the door shut behind him. “Is it Vatch or paw?” she said. Then something struck her across the back — a leather strap. “I was afeared it would be Vatch,” she said. The blow fell again.
“Go to bed,” the father said.
“You can whip me, but you cant whip him,” she said.
The blow fell again: a thick, flat, soft sound upon her immediate flesh beneath the coarse sacking.
VII
In the deserted kitchen the Negro sat for a moment longer on the upturned block beside the stove, looking at the door. Then he rose carefully, one hand on the wall.
“Whuf!” he said. “Wish us had a spring on de Domain whut run dat. Stock would git trompled to death, sho mon.” He blinked at the door, listening, then he moved, letting himself carefully along the wall, stopping now and then to look toward-the door and listen, his air cunning, unsteady, and alert. He reached the corner and lifted the loose plank, stooping carefully, bracing himself against the wall. He lifted the jug out, whereupon he lost his balance and sprawled on his face, his face ludicrous and earnest with astonishment. He got up and sat flat on the floor, carefully, the jug between his knees, and lifted the jug and drank. He drank a long time.
“Whuf!” he said. “On de Domain we’d give disyer stuff to de hawgs. But deseyer ign’unt mountain trash—” He drank again; then with the jug poised there came into his face an expression of concern and then consternation. He set the jug down and tried to get up, sprawling above the jug, gaining his feet at last, stooped, swaying, drooling, with that expression of outraged consternation on his face. Then he fell headlong to the floor, overturning the jug.
VIII
They stooped above the Negro, talking quietly to one another — Weddel in his frothed shirt, the father and the boy.
“We’ll have to tote him,” the father said.
They lifted the Negro. With his single hand Weddel jerked the Negro’s head up, shaking him. “Jubal,” he said.
The Negro struck out, clumsily, with one arm. “Le’m be,” he muttered. “Le’m go.”
“Jubal!” Weddel said.
The Negro thrashed, sudden and violent. “You le’m be,” he said. “I ghy tell de Man. I ghy tell um.” He ceased, muttering: “Field hands. Field niggers.”
“We’ll have to tote him,” the father said.
“Yes,” Weddel said. “I’m sorry for this. I should have warned you. But I didn’t think there was another jug he could have gained access to.” He stooped, getting his single hand under the Negro’s shoulders.
“Get away,” the father said. “Me and Hule can do it.” He and the boy picked the Negro up. Weddel opened the door. They emerged into the high black cold. Below them the barn loomed. They carried the Negro down the slope. “Get them horses out, Hule,” the father said.
“Horses?” Weddel said. “He cant ride now. He cant stay on a horse.”
They looked at one another, each toward the other voice, in the cold, the icy silence.
“You wont go now?” the father said.
“I am sorry. You see I cannot depart now. I will have to stay until daylight, until he is sober. We will go then.”
“Leave him here. Leave him one horse, and you ride on. He is nothing but a nigra.”
“I am sorry. Not after four years.” His voice was quizzical, whimsical almost, yet with that quality of indomitable weariness. “I’ve worried with him this far; I reckon I will get him on home.”
“I have warned you,” the father said.
“I am obliged. We will move at daylight. If Hule will be kind enough to help me get him into the loft.”
The father had stepped back. “Put that nigra down, Hule,” he said.
“He will freeze here,” Weddel said. “I must get him into the loft.” He hauled the Negro up and propped him against the wall and stooped to hunch the Negro’s lax body onto his shoulder. The weight rose easily, though he did not understand why until the father spoke again:
“Hule. Come away from there.”
“Yes; go,” Weddel said quietly. “I can get him up the ladder.” He could hear the boy’s breathing, fast, young, swift with excitement perhaps. Weddel did not pause to speculate, nor at the faintly hysterical tone of the boy’s voice:
“I’ll help you.”
Weddel didn’t object again. He slapped the Negro awake and they set his feet on the ladder rungs, pushing him upward. Halfway up he stopped; again he thrashed out at them. “I ghy tell um. I ghy tell de Man. I ghy tell Mistis. Field hands. Field niggers.”
IX
Tthey lay side by side in the loft, beneath the cloak and the two saddle blankets. There was no hay. The Negro snored, his breath reeking and harsh, thick. Below, in its stall, the Thoroughbred stamped now and then. Weddel lay on his back, his arm across his chest, the hand clutching the stub of the other arm. Overhead, through the cracks in the roof the sky showed — the thick chill, black sky which would rain again tomorrow and on every tomorrow until they left the mountains. “If I leave the mountains,” he said quietly, motionless on his back beside the snoring Negro, staring upward. “I was concerned. I had thought that it was exhausted; that I had lost the privilege of being afraid. But I have not. And so I am happy. Quite happy.” He lay rigid on his back in the cold darkness, thinking of home. “Contalmaison. Our lives are summed up in sounds and made significant. Victory. Defeat. Peace. Home. That’s why we must do so much to invent meanings for the sounds, so damned much. Especially if you are unfortunate enough to be victorious: so damned much. It’s nice to be whipped; quiet to be whipped. To be whipped and to lie under a broken roof, thinking of home.” The Negro snored. “So damned much”; seeming to watch the words shape quietly in the darkness above his mouth. “What would happen, say, a man in the lobby of the Gayoso, in Memphis, laughing suddenly aloud. But I am quite happy—” Then he heard the sound. He lay utterly still then, his hand clutching the butt of the pistol warm beneath the stub of his right arm, hearing the quiet, almost infinitesimal sound as it mounted the ladder. But he made no move until he saw the dim orifice of the trap door blotted out. “Stop where you are,” he said.
“It’s me,” the voice said; the voice of the boy, again with that swift, breathless quality which even now Weddel did not pause to designate as excitement or even to remark at all. The boy came on his hands and knees across the dry, sibilant chaff which dusted the floor. “Go ahead and shoot,” he said. On
his hands and knees he loomed above Weddel with his panting breath. “I wish I was dead. I so wish hit. I wish we was both dead. I could wish like Vatch wishes. Why did you uns have to stop here?”
Weddel had not moved. “Why does Vatch wish I was dead?”
“Because he can still hear you uns yelling. I used to sleep with him and he wakes up at night and once paw had to keep him from choking me to death before he waked up and him sweating, hearing you uns yelling still. Without nothing but unloaded guns, yelling, Vatch said, like scarecrows across a cornpatch, running.” He was crying now, not aloud. “Damn you! Damn you to hell!”
“Yes,” Weddel said. “I have heard them, myself. But why do you wish you were dead?”
“Because she was trying to come, herself. Only she had to—”
“Who? She? Your sister?”
“ — had to go through the room to get out. Paw was awake. He said, ‘If you go out that door, dont you never come back.’ And she said, ‘I dont aim to.’ And Vatch was awake too and he said, ‘Make him marry you quick because you are going to be a widow at daylight.’ And she come back and told me. But I was awake too. She told me to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” Weddel said. The boy cried quietly, with a kind of patient and utter despair.
“I told her if you was a nigra, and if she done that — I told her that I—”
“What? If she did what? What does she want you to tell me?”
“About the window into the attic where her and me sleep. There is a foot ladder I made to come back from hunting at night for you to get in. But I told her if you was a nigra and if she done that I would—”
“Now then,” Weddel said sharply; “pull yourself together now. Dont you remember? I never even saw her but that one time when she came in the room and your father sent her out.”
“But you saw her then. And she saw you.”
“No,” Weddel said.
The boy ceased to cry. He was quite still above Weddel. “No what?”
“I wont do it. Climb up your ladder.”
Complete Works of William Faulkner Page 662