Complete Works of William Faulkner

by William Faulkner

  Flem had done already disappeared; he had went on to see his wife, I reckon, and to see if that ere baby had done gone on to the field to help Uncle Billy plow maybe. It was the Texas man that taken the horses on to Mrs. Littlejohn’s lot. He had a little trouble at first, when they come to the gate, because they hadn’t never see a fence before, and when he finally got them in and taken a pair of wire cutters and unhitched them and got them into the barn and poured some shell corn into the trough, they durn nigh tore down the barn. I reckon they thought that shell corn was bugs, maybe. So he left them in the lot and he announced that the auction would begin at sunup to-morrow.

  That night we was setting on Mrs. Littlejohn’s porch. You-all mind the moon was nigh full that night, and we could watch them spotted varmints swirling along the fence and back and forth across the lot same as minnows in a pond. And then now and then they would all kind of huddle up against the barn and rest themselves by biting and kicking one another. We would hear a squeal, and then a set of hoofs would go Bam! against the barn, like a pistol. It sounded just like a fellow with a pistol, in a nest of cattymounts, taking his time.

  II

  It wasn’t ere a man knowed yet if Flem owned them things or not. They just knowed one thing: that they wasn’t never going to know for sho if Flem did or not, or if maybe he didn’t just get on that wagon at the edge of town, for the ride or not. Even Eck Snopes didn’t know, Flem’s own cousin. But wasn’t nobody surprised at that. We knowed that Flem would skin Eck quick as he would ere a one of us.

  They was there by sunup next morning, some of them come twelve and sixteen miles, with seed-money tied up in tobacco sacks in their overalls, standing along the fence, when the Texas man come out of Mrs. Littlejohn’s after breakfast and clumb onto the gate post with that ere white pistol butt sticking outen his hind pocket. He taken a new box of gingersnaps outen his pocket and bit the end offen it like a cigar and spit out the paper, and said the auction was open. And still they was coming up in wagons and a horse- and mule-back and hitching the teams across the road and coming to the fence. Flem wasn’t nowhere in sight.

  But he couldn’t get them started. He begun to work on Eck, because Eck holp him last night to get them into the barn and feed them that shell corn. Eck got out just in time. He come outen that barn like a chip on the crest of a busted dam of water, and clumb into the wagon just in time.

  He was working on Eck when Henry Armstid come up in his wagon. Eck was saying he was skeered to bid on one of them, because he might get it, and the Texas man says, “Them ponies? Them little horses?” He clumb down offen the gate post and went toward the horses. They broke and run, and him following them, kind of chirping to them, with his hand out like he was fixing to catch a fly, until he got three or four of them cornered. Then he jumped into them, and then we couldn’t see nothing for a while because of the dust. It was a big cloud of it, and them blare-eyed, spotted things swoaring outen it twenty foot to a jump, in forty directions without counting up. Then the dust settled and there they was, that Texas man and the horse. He had its head twisted clean around like a owl’s head. Its legs was braced and it was trembling like a new bride and groaning like a saw mill, and him holding its head wrung clean around on its neck so it was snuffing sky. “Look it over,” he says, with his heels dug too and that white pistol sticking outen his pocket and his neck swole up like a spreading adder’s until you could just tell what he was saying, cussing the horse and talking to us all at once: “Look him over, the fiddle-headed son of fourteen fathers. Try him, buy him; you will get the best—” Then it was all dust again, and we couldn’t see nothing but spotted hide and mane, and that ere Texas man’s boot-heels like a couple of walnuts on two strings, and after a while that two-gallon hat come sailing out like a fat old hen crossing a fence.

  When the dust settled again, he was just getting outen the far fence corner, brushing himself off. He come and got his hat and brushed it off and come and clumb onto the gate post again. He was breathing hard. He taken the gingersnap box outen his pocket and et one, breathing hard. The hammer-head horse was still running round and round the lot like a merry-go-round at a fair. That was when Henry Armstid come shoving up to the gate in them patched overalls and one of them dangle-armed shirts of hisn. Hadn’t nobody noticed him until then. We was all watching the Texas man and the horses. Even Mrs. Littlejohn; she had done come out and built a fire under the wash-pot in her back yard, and she would stand at the fence a while and then go back into the house and come out again with a arm full of wash and stand at the fence again. Well, here come Henry shoving up, and then we see Mrs. Armstid right behind him, in that ere faded wrapper and sunbonnet and them tennis shoes. “Git on back to that wagon,” Henry says.

  “Henry,” she says.

  “Here, boys,” the Texas man says; “make room for missus to git up and see. Come on, Henry,” he says; “here’s your chance to buy that saddle-horse missus has been wanting. What about ten dollars, Henry?”

  “Henry,” Mrs. Armstid says. She put her hand on Henry’s arm. Henry knocked her hand down.

  “Git on back to that wagon, like I told you,” he says.

  Mrs. Armstid never moved. She stood behind Henry, with her hands rolled into her dress, not looking at nothing. “He hain’t no more despair than to buy one of them things,” she says. “And us not five dollars ahead of the pore house, he hain’t no more despair.” It was the truth, too. They ain’t never made more than a bare living offen that place of theirs, and them with four chaps and the very clothes they wears she earns by weaving by the firelight at night while Henry’s asleep.

  “Shut your mouth and git on back to that wagon,” Henry says. “Do you want I taken a wagon stake to you here in the big road?”

  Well, that Texas man taken one look at her. Then he begun on Eck again, like Henry wasn’t even there. But Eck was skeered. “I can git me a snapping turtle or a water moccasin for nothing. I ain’t going to buy none.”

  So the Texas man said he would give Eck a horse. “To start the auction, and because you holp me last night. If you’ll start the bidding on the next horse,” he says, “I’ll give you that fiddle-head horse.”

  I wish you could have seen them, standing there with their seed-money in their pockets, watching that Texas man give Eck Snopes a live horse, all fixed to call him a fool if he taken it or not. Finally Eck says he’ll take it. “Only I just starts the bidding,” he says. “I don’t have to buy the next one lessen I ain’t overtopped.” The Texas man said all right, and Eck bid a dollar on the next one, with Henry Armstid standing there with his mouth already open, watching Eck and the Texas man like a mad-dog or something. “A dollar,” Eck says.

  The Texas man looked at Eck. His mouth was already open too, like he had started to say something and what he was going to say had up and died on him. “A dollar?” he says. “One dollar? You mean, one dollar, Eck?”

  “Durn it,” Eck says; “two dollars, then.”

  Well, sir, I wish you could a seen that Texas man. He taken out that gingersnap box and held it up and looked into it, careful, like it might have been a diamond ring in it, or a spider. Then he throwed it away and wiped his face with a bandanna. “Well,” he says. “Well. Two dollars. Two dollars. Is your pulse all right, Eck?” he says. “Do you have ager-sweats at night, maybe?” he says. “Well,” he says, “I got to take it. But are you boys going to stand there and see Eck get two horses at a dollar a head?”

  That done it. I be dog if he wasn’t nigh as smart as Flem Snopes. He hadn’t no more than got the words outen his mouth before here was Henry Armstid, waving his hand. “Three dollars,” Henry says. Mrs. Armstid tried to hold him again. He knocked her hand off, shoving up to the gate post.

  “Mister,” Mrs. Armstid says, “we got chaps in the house and not corn to feed the stock. We got five dollars I earned my chaps a-weaving after dark, and him snoring in the bed. And he hain’t no more despair.”

  “Henry bids three dollars,” the Texa
s man says. “Raise him a dollar, Eck, and the horse is yours.”

  “Henry,” Mrs. Armstid says.

  “Raise him, Eck,” the Texas man says.

  “Four dollars,” Eck says.

  “Five dollars,” Henry says, shaking his fist. He shoved up right under the gate post. Mrs. Armstid was looking at the Texas man too.

  “Mister,” she says, “if you take that five dollars I earned my chaps a-weaving for one of them things, it’ll be a curse onto you and yourn during all the time of man.”

  But it wasn’t no stopping Henry. He had shoved up, waving his fist at the Texas man. He opened it; the money was in nickels and quarters, and one dollar bill that looked like a cow’s cud. “Five dollars,” he says. “And the man that raises it’ll have to beat my head off, or I’ll beat hisn.”

  “All right,” the Texas man says. “Five dollars is bid. But don’t you shake your hand at me.”

  III

  It taken till nigh sundown before the last one was sold. He got them hotted up once and the bidding got up to seven dollars and a quarter, but most of them went around three or four dollars, him setting on the gate post and picking the horses out one at a time by mouth-word, and Mrs. Littlejohn pumping up and down at the tub and stopping and coming to the fence for a while and going back to the tub again. She had done got done too, and the wash was hung on the line in the back yard, and we could smell supper cooking. Finally they was all sold; he swapped the last two and the wagon for a buckboard.

  We was all kind of tired, but Henry Armstid looked more like a mad-dog than ever. When he bought, Mrs. Armstid had went back to the wagon, setting in it behind them two rabbit-sized, bone-pore mules, and the wagon itself looking like it would fall all to pieces soon as the mules moved. Henry hadn’t even waited to pull it outen the road; it was still in the middle of the road and her setting in it, not looking at nothing, ever since this morning.

  Henry was right up against the gate. He went up to the Texas man. “I bought a horse and I paid cash,” Henry says. “And yet you expect me to stand around here until they are all sold before I can get my horse. I’m going to take my horse outen that lot.”

  The Texas man looked at Henry. He talked like he might have been asking for a cup of coffee at the table. “Take your horse,” he says.

  Then Henry quit looking at the Texas man. He begun to swallow, holding onto the gate. “Ain’t you going to help me?” he says.

  “It ain’t my horse,” the Texas man says.

  Henry never looked at the Texas man again, he never looked at nobody. “Who’ll help me catch my horse?” he says. Never nobody said nothing. “Bring the plowline,” Henry says. Mrs. Armstid got outen the wagon and brought the plowline. The Texas man got down offen the post. The woman made to pass him, carrying the rope.

  “Don’t you go in there, missus,” the Texas man says.

  Henry opened the gate. He didn’t look back. “Come on here,” he says.

  “Don’t you go in there, missus,” the Texas man says.

  Mrs. Armstid wasn’t looking at nobody, neither, with her hands across her middle, holding the rope. “I reckon I better,” she says. Her and Henry went into the lot. The horses broke and run. Henry and Mrs. Armstid followed.

  “Get him into the corner,” Henry says. They got Henry’s horse cornered finally, and Henry taken the rope, but Mrs. Armstid let the horse get out. They hemmed it up again, but Mrs. Armstid let it get out again, and Henry turned and hit her with the rope. “Why didn’t you head him back?” Henry says. He hit her again. “Why didn’t you?” It was about that time I looked around and see Flem Snopes standing there.

  It was the Texas man that done something. He moved fast for a big man. He caught the rope before Henry could hit the third time, and Henry whirled and made like he would jump at the Texas man. But he never jumped. The Texas man went and taken Henry’s arm and led him outen the lot. Mrs. Armstid come behind them and the Texas man taken some money outen his pocket and he give it into Mrs. Armstid’s hand. “Get him into the wagon and take him on home,” the Texas man says, like he might have been telling them he enjoyed his supper.

  Then here come Flem. “What’s that for, Buck?” Flem says.

  “Thinks he bought one of them ponies,” the Texas man says. “Get him on away, missus.”

  But Henry wouldn’t go. “Give him back that money,” he says. “I bought that horse and I aim to have him if I have to shoot him.”

  And there was Flem, standing there with his hands in his pockets, chewing, like he had just happened to be passing.

  “You take your money and I take my horse,” Henry says. “Give it back to him,” he says to Mrs. Armstid.

  “You don’t own no horse of mine,” the Texas man says. “Get him on home, missus.”

  Then Henry seen Flem. “You got something to do with these horses,” he says. “I bought one. Here’s the money for it.” He taken the bill outen Mrs. Armstid’s hand. He offered it to Flem. “I bought one. Ask him. Here. Here’s the money,” he says, giving the bill to Flem.

  When Flem taken the money, the Texas man dropped the rope he had snatched outen Henry’s hand. He had done sent Eck Snopes’s boy up to the store for another box of gingersnaps, and he taken the box outen his pocket and looked into it. It was empty and he dropped it on the ground. “Mr. Snopes will have your money for you to-morrow,” he says to Mrs. Armstid. “You can get it from him to-morrow. He don’t own no horse. You get him into the wagon and get him on home.” Mrs. Armstid went back to the wagon and got in. “Where’s that ere buckboard I bought?” the Texas man says. It was after sundown then. And then Mrs. Littlejohn come out on the porch and rung the supper bell.

  IV

  I come on in and et supper. Mrs. Littlejohn would bring in a pan of bread or something, then she would go out to the porch a minute and come back and tell us. The Texas man had hitched his team to the buckboard he had swapped them last two horses for, and him and Flem had gone, and then she told that the rest of them that never had ropes had went back to the store with I. O. Snopes to get some ropes, and wasn’t nobody at the gate but Henry Armstid, and Mrs. Armstid setting in the wagon in the road, and Eck Snopes and that boy of hisn. “I don’t care how many of them fool men gets killed by them things,” Mrs. Littlejohn says, “but I ain’t going to let Eck Snopes take that boy into that lot again.” So she went down to the gate, but she come back without the boy or Eck neither.

  “It ain’t no need to worry about that boy,” I says. “He’s charmed.” He was right behind Eck last night when Eck went to help feed them. The whole drove of them jumped clean over that boy’s head and never touched him. It was Eck that touched him. Eck snatched him into the wagon and taken a rope and frailed the tar outen him.

  So I had done et and went to my room and was undressing, long as I had a long trip to make next day; I was trying to sell a machine to Mrs. Bundren up past Whiteleaf; when Henry Armstid opened that gate and went in by hisself. They couldn’t make him wait for the balance of them to get back with their ropes. Eck Snopes said he tried to make Henry wait, but Henry wouldn’t do it. Eck said Henry walked right up to them and that when they broke, they run clean over Henry like a hay-mow breaking down. Eck said he snatched that boy of hisn out of the way just in time and that them things went through that gate like a creek flood and into the wagons and teams hitched side the road, busting wagon tongues and snapping harness like it was fishing-line, with Mrs. Armstid still setting in their wagon in the middle of it like something carved outen wood. Then they scattered, wild horses and tame mules with pieces of harness and single trees dangling offen them, both ways up and down the road.

  “There goes ourn, paw!” Eck says his boy said. “There it goes, into Mrs. Littlejohn’s house.” Eck says it run right up the steps and into the house like a boarder late for supper. I reckon so. Anyway, I was in my room, in my underclothes, with one sock on and one sock in my hand, leaning out the window when the commotion busted out, when I heard something ru
n into the melodeon in the hall; it sounded like a railroad engine. Then the door to my room come sailing in like when you throw a tin bucket top into the wind and I looked over my shoulder and see something that looked like a fourteen-foot pinwheel a-blaring its eyes at me. It had to blare them fast, because I was already done jumped out the window.

  I reckon it was anxious, too. I reckon it hadn’t never seen barbed wire or shell corn before, but I know it hadn’t never seen underclothes before, or maybe it was a sewing-machine agent it hadn’t never seen. Anyway, it swirled and turned to run back up the hall and outen the house, when it met Eck Snopes and that boy just coming in, carrying a rope. It swirled again and run down the hall and out the back door just in time to meet Mrs. Littlejohn. She had just gathered up the clothes she had washed, and she was coming onto the back porch with a armful of washing in one hand and a scrubbing-board in the other, when the horse skidded up to her, trying to stop and swirl again. It never taken Mrs. Littlejohn no time a-tall.

  “Git outen here, you son,” she says. She hit it across the face with the scrubbing-board; that ere scrubbing-board split as neat as ere a axe could have done it, and when the horse swirled to run back up the hall, she hit it again with what was left of the scrubbing-board, not on the head this time. “And stay out,” she says.

  Eck and that boy was half-way down the hall by this time. I reckon that horse looked like a pinwheel to Eck too. “Git to hell outen here, Ad!” Eck says. Only there wasn’t time. Eck dropped flat on his face, but the boy never moved. The boy was about a yard tall maybe, in overhalls just like Eck’s; that horse swoared over his head without touching a hair. I saw that, because I was just coming back up the front steps, still carrying that ere sock and still in my underclothes, when the horse come onto the porch again. It taken one look at me and swirled again and run to the end of the porch and jumped the banisters and the lot fence like a hen-hawk and lit in the lot running and went out the gate again and jumped eight or ten upside-down wagons and went on down the road. It was a full moon then. Mrs. Armstid was still setting in the wagon like she had done been carved outen wood and left there and forgot.