As I Lay Dying (21 page)

“Come on,” the one with the cement said, “we’ve lost too much time.” So they got in the wagon and went on. And when I went to supper it still seemed like I could smell it. And the next day I met the marshal and I began to sniff and said,

“Smell anything?”

“I reckon they’re in Jefferson by now,” he said.

“Or in jail. Well, thank the Lord it’s not our jail.”

“That’s a fact,” he said.

DARL

“Here’s a place,” pa says. He pulls the team up and sits looking at the house. “We could get some water over yonder.”

“All right,” I say. “You’ll have to borrow a bucket from them, Dewey Dell.”

“God knows,” pa says. “I wouldn’t be beholden, God knows.”

“If you see a good-sized can, you might bring it,” I say. Dewey Dell gets down from the wagon, carrying the package. “You had more touble than you expected, selling those
cakes in Mottson,” I say. How do our lives ravel out into the no-wind, no-sound, the weary gestures wearily recapitulant: echoes of old compulsions with no-hand on no-strings: in sunset we fall into furious attitudes, dead gestures of dolls. Cash broke his leg and now the sawdust is running out. He is bleeding to death is Cash.

“I wouldn’t be beholden,” pa says. “God knows.”

“Then make some water yourself,” I say. “We can use Cash’s hat.”

When Dewey Dell comes back the man comes with her. Then he stops and she comes on and he stands there and after a while he goes back to the house and stands on the porch, watching us.

“We better not try to lift him down,” pa says. “We can fix it here.”

“Do you want to be lifted down, Cash?” I say.

“Wont we get to Jefferson tomorrow?” he says. He is watching us, his eyes interrogatory, intent, and sad. “I can last it out.”

“It’ll be easier on you,” pa says. “It’ll keep it from rubbing together.”

“I can last it,” Cash says. “We’ll lose time stopping.”

“We done bought the cement, now,” pa says.

“I could last it,” Cash says. “It aint but one more day. It dont bother to speak of.” He looks at us, his eyes wide in his thin gray face, questioning. “It sets up so,” he says.

“We done bought it now,” pa says.

I mix the cement in the can, stirring the slow water into the pale green thick coils. I bring the can to the wagon where
Cash can see. He lies on his back, his thin profile in silhouette, ascetic and profound against the sky. “Does that look about right?” I say.

“You dont want too much water, or it wont work right,” he says.

“Is this too much?”

“Maybe if you could get a little sand,” he says. “It aint but one more day,” he says. “It dont bother me none.”

Vardaman goes back down the road to where we crossed the branch and returns with sand. He pours it slowly into the thick coiling in the can. I go to the wagon again.

“Does that look all right?”

“Yes,” Cash says. “I could have lasted. It dont bother me none.”

We loosen the splints and pour the cement over his leg slow.

“Watch out for it,” Cash says. “Dont get none on it if you can help.”

“Yes,” I say. Dewey Dell tears a piece of paper from the package and wipes the cement from the top of it as it drips from Cash’s leg.

“How does that feel?”

“It feels fine,” he says. “It’s cold. It feels fine.”

“If it’ll just help you,” pa says. “I asks your forgiveness. I never foreseen it no more than you.”

“It feels fine,” Cash says.

If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time.

We replace the splints, the cords, drawing them tight, the
cement in thick pale green slow surges among the cords, Cash watching us quietly with that profound questioning look.

“That’ll steady it,” I say.

“Ay,” Cash says. “I’m obliged.”

Then we all turn on the wagon and watch him. He is coming up the road behind us, wooden-backed, wooden-faced, moving only from his hips down. He comes up without a word, with his pale rigid eyes in his high sullen face, and gets into the wagon.

“Here’s a hill,” pa says. “I reckon you’ll have to get out and walk.”

VARDAMAN

Darl and Jewel and Dewey Dell and I are walking up the hill, behind the wagon. Jewel came back. He came up the road and got into the wagon. He was walking. Jewel hasn’t got a horse anymore. Jewel is my brother. Cash is my brother. Cash has a broken leg. We fixed Cash’s leg so it doesn’t hurt. Cash is my brother. Jewel is my brother too, but he hasn’t got a broken leg.

Now there are five of them, tall in little tall black circles.

“Where do they stay at night, Darl?” I say. “When we stop at night in the barn, where do they stay?”

The hill goes off into the sky. Then the sun comes up from behind the hill and the mules and the wagon and pa walk on the sun. You cannot watch them, walking slow on the sun. In Jefferson it is red on the track behind the glass. The track goes shining round and round. Dewey Dell says so.

Tonight I am going to see where they stay while we are in the barn.

DARL

“Jewel,” I say, “whose son are you?”

The breeze was setting up from the barn, so we put her under the apple tree, where the moonlight can dapple the apple tree upon the long slumbering flanks within which now and then she talks in little trickling bursts of secret and murmurous bubbling. I took Vardaman to listen. When we came up the cat leaped down from it and flicked away with silver claw and silver eye into the shadow.

“Your mother was a horse, but who was your father, Jewel?”

“You goddamn lying son of a bitch.”

“Dont call me that,” I say.

“You goddamn lying son of a bitch.”

“Dont you call me that, Jewel.” In the tall moonlight his eyes look like spots of white paper pasted on a high small football.

After supper Cash began to sweat a little. “It’s getting a little hot,” he said. “It was the sun shining on it all day, I reckon.”

“You want some water poured on it?” we say. “Maybe that will ease it some.”

“I’d be obliged,” Cash said. “It was the sun shining on it, I reckon. I ought to thought and kept it covered.”

“We ought to thought,” we said. “You couldn’t have suspicioned.”

“I never noticed it getting hot,” Cash said. “I ought to minded it.”

So we poured the water over it. His leg and foot below the cement looked like they had been boiled. “Does that feel better?” we said.

“I’m obliged,” Cash said. “It feels fine.”

Dewey Dell wipes his face with the hem of her dress.

“See if you can get some sleep,” we say.

“Sho,” Cash says. “I’m right obliged. It feels fine now.”

Jewel, I say, Who was your father, Jewel?

Goddamn you. Goddamn you
.

VARDAMAN

She was under the apple tree and Darl and I go across the moon and the cat jumps down and runs and we can hear her inside the wood.

“Hear?” Darl says. “Put your ear close.”

I put my ear close and I can hear her. Only I cant tell what she is saying.

“What is she saying, Darl?” I say. “Who is she talking to?”

“She’s talking to God,” Darl says. “She is calling on Him to help her.”

“What does she want Him to do?” I say.

“She wants Him to hide her away from the sight of man,” Darl says.

“Why does she want to hide her away from the sight of man, Darl?”

“So she can lay down her life,” Darl says.

“Why does she want to lay down her life, Darl?”

“Listen,” Darl says. We hear her. We hear her turn over on her side. “Listen,” Darl says.

“She’s turned over,” I say. “She’s looking at me through the wood.”

“Yes,” Darl says.

“How can she see through the wood, Darl?”

“Come,” Darl says. “We must let her be quiet. Come.”

“She cant see out there, because the holes are in the top,” I say. “How can she see, Darl?”

“Let’s go see about Cash,” Darl says.

And I saw something Dewey Dell told me not to tell nobody

Cash is sick in his leg. We fixed his leg this afternoon, but he is sick in it again, lying on the bed. We pour water on his leg and then he feels fine.

“I feel fine,” Cash says. “I’m obliged to you.”

“Try to get some sleep,” we say.

“I feel fine,” Cash says. “I’m obliged to you.”

And I saw something Dewey Dell told me not to tell nobody. It is not about pa and it is not about Cash and it is not about Jewel and it is not about Dewey Dell and it is not about me

Dewey Dell and I are going to sleep on the pallet. It is on the back porch, where we can see the barn, and the moon shines on half of the pallet and we will lie half in the white
and half in the black, with the moonlight on our legs. And then I am going to see where they stay at night while we are in the barn. We are not in the barn tonight but I can see the barn and so I am going to find where they stay at night.

We lie on the pallet, with our legs in the moon.

“Look,” I say, “my legs look black. Your legs look black, too.”

“Go to sleep,” Dewey Dell says.

Jefferson is a far piece.

“Dewey Dell.”

“What.”

“If it’s not Christmas now, how will it be there?”

It goes round and round on the shining track. Then the track goes shining round and round.

“Will what be there?”

“That train. In the window.”

“You go to sleep. You can see tomorrow if it’s there.”

Maybe Santa Claus wont know they are town boys.

“Dewey Dell.”

“You go to sleep. He aint going to let none of them town boys have it.”

It was behind the window, red on the track, the track shining round and round. It made my heart hurt. And then it was pa and Jewel and Darl and Mr. Gillespie’s boy. Mr Gillespie’s boy’s legs come down under his nightshirt. When he goes into the moon, his legs fuzz. They go on around the house toward the apple tree.

“What are they going to do, Dewey Dell?”

They went around the house toward the apple tree.

“I can smell her,” I say. “Can you smell her, too?”

“Hush,” Dewey Dell says. “The wind’s changed. Go to sleep.”