Outer Dark (6 page)

The man had the rope from the wagon and was casting about for something to tie it to. The two girls and the woman were coming down the other side. She adjusted her belongings and spoke to the man:

I sure do thank ye for the good supper and bed and the ride in and all.

You welcome, he said. We just fixin to take dinner now so don’t be in no rush.

Well I best get on and get started.

You welcome to take dinner with us, the woman said.

I thank ye but I best get on.

Well. We’ll be goin back early of the evenin if you want to ride with us.

I thank ye, she said, but I reckon I’ll be goin on.

The man was tapping a loop of the rope in one hand. The woman was holding the quilt in her arms like a child. All right, the woman said, and the man said: Do you ever pass this way again just stay with us.

   She entered the first store she came to and went straight down the cluttered aisle to the counter where a man stood waiting.

You seen that tinker? she said.

I beg your pardon?

You welcome. That tinker. He been thew here?

I don’t know, the man said. I don’t know what tinker it is you’re talkin about.

Well, she said. It’s just a old tinker. Have you seen ary tinkers a-tall come thew here.

Mam we got a better line here than any tinker carries and price is more reasonable too. Just what all was it you was interested in?

I ain’t wantin to buy nothin. I’m just a-huntin this here tinker.

Well you won’t find him in here.

You don’t know where he might of got to or nothin?

I don’t keep up with no tinkers. You might try Belkner’s. Some of them stocks there I would reckon. They shoddy enough.

Where is it at?

Cross the street and up about five doors. Big sign, hardware.

I thank ye, she said.

You welcome.

The boy caught up with her crossing the street, limping fast and looking harried. Hold up a minute, he said. Listen.

She stopped and shaded her eyes against the sun.

I slipped off, he said. Listen, you want to go to that show tonight?

What show is that?

Some show they havin. I got money.

How you aim to get back home? Your folks ain’t goin to lay over for no show.

That’s all right, he said. I can get back. I’ll tell em somethin. You want to go?

I cain’t, she said.

How come?

I just cain’t. I got some things I got to do.

You ain’t no schoolteacher are ye?

No.

Well. Do you not hold with goin to shows?

I ain’t never been to nary. I don’t reckon they’s nothin wrong with it.

He had his hands in the rear pockets of his canvas pants. In the powdered dust of the street he had created a small amphitheatre with the sole of one shoe. I don’t see why ye cain’t go, he said. You a widder didn’t I hear ye say?

Yes.

Well. You ain’t got ary beau have ye?

No, she said.

Well.

She watched him curiously. She had not taken her hand from above her eyes.

Well, I don’t see why all ye cain’t go.

I just cain’t, she said.

Won’t, he said.

No.

Looky here. He drew forth from his pocket a deep leather purse, the brass catches grown with a bilegreen crust. He coyly slid a sheaf of bills out and riffled them before her. She watched. She let her hand fall to the bundle at her breast, blinking in the sun. He worked the money. It’s a bunch of it ain’t it? he said. Bet you ain’t never …

I got to go, she said.

Here, wait up a minute.

She mounted the wooden walkway and went up the street.

Hey, he called.

She kept on. He stood in the street with his mouth working dryly and the purse in his hand with the money peeking out.

Yes, the man said. They is one stocks here. Name of Deitch. Is that the one you was a-huntin?

I never did know his name, she said.

Well what did he look like?

I ain’t able to say that neither, she said. I never knowed they was all different kinds.

The man leaned slightly over the counter and focused his eyes for a moment somewhere about her middle. She lowered her arms and looked away toward the sunbright windows at the front of the store.

What was it you wanted with him? the man said.

He’s got somethin belongs to me I got to get from him.

And what is that?

I cain’t tell ye.

You don’t know that either.

I mean I know it but I cain’t tell it.

Well I just thought maybe he could leave it here for ye.

Well, she said, it wouldn’t keep. Sides I don’t know as that is the feller. He ain’t got no little chap with him is he?

I don’t know, the man said. But I don’t see how you goin to find him and you not knowin his name nor nothin.

I reckon I’ll just have to hunt him, she said.

Well, I hope ye luck.

I thank ye.

Yes. Listen, maybe you could leave word if you wanted, write it down and I’d give it to him if it was a secret and then if it was him he’d know and could …

He don’t know me neither, she said.

He don’t.

No sir.

Well.

It’s all right. I never meant to put ye out none. And I do thank ye for your trouble.

Yes the man said. He watched her go, his jaw slightly ajar. Before she reached the door he called to her. She turned, mantled by the noon light that came crooked through the bleary panes of glass.

Yes, she said.

Do you want me to tell him that you’re huntin him? Or that they is somebody huntin him? Or that …

No, she said. I’d take it as a favor if you’d not say nothin to him a-tall.

The cowbell clanked over the door, and again, faint and dimly pastoral in the iron gloom of the shop. He shook his head in great doubt.

      When she approached they were all sitting in the wagon eating.

Howdy, the man said. Did ye get your errands run?

Yessir, she said.

Did ye find him?

No sir. He never came thisaway I don’t believe. I ast.

Well.

I was just wonderin could I maybe ride back with ye’ns this evenin.

I would say ye could.

I’d be much obliged.

The old woman had risen and was staring down at her as if beset by dogs or some worse evil. The two girls were whispering and peering from behind their hands.

Set down, mamma, the woman said.

Set her out some dinner, the man said.

Lord, she said, I just ain’t a bit hungry.

The woman had taken up the pail and now she stopped, still chewing, looking down at the young woman standing in the road.

Set her out some dinner, he said again.

While she ate she saw the boy coming across the mall toward them. When he saw her sitting on the edge of the wagon bed he stopped and then came on more slowly, limping.

Where you been? the woman said.

I’d as soon not hear, said the old crone.

I ain’t been nowheres.

You about missed dinner.

Shoot, he said.

   It was late afternoon when they set forth again, out from the town, the wheels rasping in the sand, back down the yellow road. Night fell upon them dark and starblown and the wagon grew swollen near mute with dew. On their chairs in such black immobility these travelers could have been stone figures quarried from the architecture of an older time.

HE HAD BEEN
listening to his own feet in the road for a long time now when the man spoke. The man said: What do ye say buddy.

Howdy, Holme said, stopping.

The man was leaning against a small walnut tree, his feet sprawled in the grass before him, one eye squinted in a kind of baleful good humor and a piece of dockweed sprouting from the corner of his mouth. He spared a wincing smile to this traveler. Set a spell and rest, he said, removing the weed and pointing at the ground with it.

I guess I better not.

Just for a minute and I’ll go up the road with ye.

Well.

Sure.

He came slowly through the dusty grass toward the shade and sat a little way from the man.

Hot ain’t it?

He allowed that it was. The man bore a faint reek of whiskey. He did not look at Holme but stared out at the road, smiling a little to himself.

Where ye goin? he said.

Just up the road.

That right? That’s where I’m a-goin. Just up the road. He tapped absently at his knee with the weed, smiling. Just up the road, he said again. He turned his head as if to see were anyone looking, then reached beneath his coat where it lay on the ground alongside him and brought forth a bottle blown from purple glass, holding it up in his two hands and shaking it. He looked at Holme. Care for a little drink?

Might take just a sup.

The man handed him the bottle. Get ye a good drink, he said.

Holme twisted loose the stopper and held the bottle to his nose for a moment and then drank. His eyes shifted focus and he sat very erect. He wiped his mouth and plugged the bottle and handed it back.

I thank ye, he said.

Good ain’t it?

It is.

You welcome.

He scooped the sweat from his forehead with one finger. The man sat watching the road, the weedstem twirling in his mouth and the threadthin shadow of it going long and short upon his face like a sundial’s hand beneath a sun berserk. After a moment he turned to Holme again. How will ye trade boots? he said.

Holme recoiled. He looked at the boots and he looked at the boots the man wore. I don’t believe we could work up no trade hardly, he said. I just come by these.

They look to be stout’ns, the man said. What did ye have to give for em?

I don’t know. I traded work for em.

I guess a man’d have to put in a few days to come by such boots as them, wouldn’t he?

A few.

The man smiled again. These old shoes of mine is about give out, he said.

Holme looked at him but he had fallen to watching the road again with a kind of dreamy indolence.

You live hereabouts? Holme said.

The man’s eyes swung on him. I live over at Walker’s Mill, he said. Other side of Cheatham. And I’d best be getting there. He took the weed from his mouth and spat. You ready? he said.

Holme stood. The man reached and got his coat and put the bottle in one pocket. He swung it loosely over his shoulder and rose and Holme followed him into the road where the afternoon sun fell upon them brightly. Holme watched the dust bloom from under the man’s bootsoles. The leather was dried and broken and the backseam of one was split and mended with bailing wire at the top. When he stepped the gash opened and closed rhythmically and his calf winked from the rent in time to the dull thump of the bottle against his back.

How far is it to where you’re goin? Holme said.

Three or four mile. Tain’t far.

What brings you up thisaway?

I come over to hive a swarm of bees for a man.

Holme nodded. I guess you traded it out in that there whiskey, he said.

I won that whiskey on a bet, the man said. Hivin em with no beeface and no smoker.

You get stung?

I ain’t never been stung, the man said.

I reckon you’ve worked a good bit with bees.

Some, he said. He swung the coat in a capelike arc about him and hung it over the other shoulder. Some, he said again. He pursed his lips and blew, as if wearied. How far is it to where you’re goin?

I don’t know, Holme said. Just to this here town I reckon.

The beehiver looked at him sideways and away again. Or do ye not know where it is you’re a-goin?

I don’t know, Holme said.

Why are ye goin then?

Goin where?

The beehiver didn’t answer. After a while he said: Well, say to that clump of sumac yander, pointing minutely with one finger from the hand that held his coat.

I’m lookin for my sister, Holme said.

That right? Where’s she at?

Holme watched the dry sand welt under his new boots. If I knowed, he said, I’d not have to look.

The beehiver ignored this. He was looking about him. They passed the sumacs and he said: I don’t see her.

Holme looked at him dully. After a while the man swung down his coat again and this time he brought forth the bottle. Drink? he said.

All right.

He handed the bottle across without looking. Holme took it and paused in the middle of the road with his feet spread, watching above the cone of bright glass receding from his face the slow wheel of a hawk. The man watched him. When he was done he held out the bottle and the man drank and stowed it again in his pocket and they went on.

How far you come? the man said.

Pretty good piece. I don’t know … I was over in Johnson County some.

Never been thew Cheatham though?

Not to recollect it I ain’t.

You would recollect it.

Is that right?

That is right. He kicked with his toe the flat dried shell of a wheelcrushed toad. They got the awfullest jail in the state.

I ain’t never been in jail, Holme said.

You ain’t never been in Cheatham.

Holme put his hands in the bib of his overalls.

What trade do ye follow? the man said.

I ain’t got nary.

The man nodded.

I can work, Holme said. I ain’t no slack hand.

You aim to hunt work in Cheatham?

I’d studied it.

He nodded again. They went on. They forded a small branch and the beehiver bent and scooped a palmful of water at his face and whoofed and shook his head. He ran one hand through his hair and then down the side of his breeches to dry it.

How much further is it? Holme said.

Tain’t far.

You reckon this here water is fit to drink?

It’s old swampwater, he said.

I’m kindly takin a thirst.

The beehiver smiled his little smile and slung the coat upon his shoulder again and they went on.

They entered the town in the early afternoon. A small town of clustered frame buildings that sat plumbless and unpainted in the glary heat and listed threatfully. There did not appear to be anyone about.

They ain’t much of anybody around, is they? Holme said.

Not much.

Whichaway do you go?

I go straight on thew.

They walked down the shaded side of the square and the upper windows watched them with wrinkled sun-stricken glass.

You don’t know where I might ast about work do ye? Holme said.

The beehiver nodded toward the buildings along which they passed. You might try the store. See if anybody knows. Other’n that I cain’t help ye.

All right, Holme said. Thank ye.

I don’t think you’ll thank me.

Holme had stopped but the man did not turn. Nor look, nor gesture a farewell. He diminished down the road and out of the square, swung the coat once again to his other shoulder and was gone.

Holme went on up the walkway loudly in his boots until he came to the Cheatham Mercantile. He peered through the window into the dust and gloom but he couldn’t see anyone about. When he tried the door it opened and he entered cautiously. A clerk sprang up from the counter where he had been sleeping. Howdy, Holme said.

Yessir, said the clerk.

I wonder could I get a drink of water from ye.

Yessir. Right yonder in the box.

Thank ye, Holme said. He got the waterjug and drank until he could no longer breathe. He stood panting for a moment and then drank again.

Gets thirsty on a hot day don’t it? the clerk said.

Holme nodded. He put the lid on the jar and set it back in the cooler. Where’s everbody at? he said.

Lord I don’t know. Some kind of commotion over twards the church. They left out of here like a bunch of chickens. Had to go see whatever it was.

They did?

Ever able soul of em.

Holme ran his hands along the seam of his overalls and fingered the wrapped coins in his bib. They any work hereabouts? he said.

You huntin a job?

I could use one.

Lord I wisht I could let ye have this’n. I’m about ready to thow it over.

Well I ain’t much at figures. I’m lookin more for just a workin job.

Well, I don’t know, the clerk said. You could ast. His eyes were wandering about dementedly.

When do ye reckon anybody’ll be back.

Shhh, cautioned the clerk. He took a wire flyswat from the counter and poised stealthily. Holme watched. The clerk swung and flattened a huge melonstriped fly against a crackerjar.

When do ye reckon they’ll be anybody back, Holme said.

Any time. They been over there half the mornin.

You say they at the church?

Yep. First time in a long time for more than a few in that bunch.

Where’s it at?

The church? Just right up here, the clerk pointing. Where the old’n was at fore it burnt.

Holme nodded vaguely, leaning against the drinkbox.

Where was it you said you was from?

I come up from Johnson County.

I ain’t never been down there, the clerk said.

No.

That’s supposed to be a mean place.

Well, I don’t know. Some, I reckon.

That’s what they say. I ain’t never been down there.

Holme nodded. Shadows washed across the yellow light in the storewindows, spilled through over the merchandise. Boot-treads clattered on the board porch.

Here come some now, the clerk said.

Holme went to the door and looked out. There were people milling about. Men were coming into the square on foot and aback mules and horses. Some bore arms. Behind them came a long fieldwagon drawn by two white mules and attended by small boys. Heralding this spectacle there came like the last rank bloom of battlesmoke a pall of near white dust drifting over the square.

What is it? the clerk said.

I cain’t tell, Holme said. Some kind of a big to-do.

Ast them fellers on the porch yonder.

Holme leaned from the door and several of the men looked at him. What is it? he said.

They just now bringin em in, one said.

Who?

Them, the man said.

Another one looked past him at Holme. Them bodies, he said.

A young boy turned and looked up at them. Them old dead people, he said.

Holme watched with them while the wagon rumbled down the square. He could feel the clerk’s breath cold on his sweatsoaked back.

Who is it? he said.

I don’t know, Holme said. They ain’t told.

How many was they kilt?

He never said. Several I reckon.

The wagon passed slowly before them in its wake of pale dust, the mules clean and elegant and the driver upon the box somber and erect. On the bed of the wagon behind him in a row were three wooden coffins. They were fluted and wormbored and hung with webbed clots of yellow clay. Each had been ripped open at the top and from one of them trailed in stained pennants some rags of leached and tattered and absolutely colorless satin.

Lord God, the clerk whispered.

The wagon passed. The driver raised his hands almost imperceptibly, the reins quivered along the mules’ flanks and they came to rest. The men on the porch turned to watch. Holme could see the driver stand out of the wagon above their heads and then descend and he could see the ears of one mule dip and twitch. He turned to the clerk. Them old boxes has been in the ground, he said.

I see they has.

What all do you reckon …

I believe somebody has dug em up. Punch that feller there. Hey Bill.

They spoke in hoarse whispers. The man leaned one ear toward them.

Listen, what all’s happent? said the clerk.

I don’t know. Somebody has dug up a bunch of graves at the church.

Grave thiefs, another whispered.

They Lord have mercy.

Yonder comes the high sheriff now.

Two men were coming across the square on horses, talking to each other. The crowd fanned before them and they dismounted and tied at the rail and went into a building there.

There were now several hundred people clustered about the wagon and they began to talk in a rising babble of voices. The sun stood directly over them. It seemed hung there in glaring immobility, as if perhaps arrested with surprise to see above the earth again these odds of morkin once commended there. The men along the walk had begun to file past, some standing on toe tips, to view the remains in the wagon bed.

I don’t believe I care to look, the clerk said.

Holme found himself moving down the walk with the crowd. Above the odor of sweat and manure he could smell the musty decay of the boxes. When he came abreast of the wagon he could see a waxen gray face scowling eyelessly at the bright noon. In the next box lay what appeared to have been an old man. The box was lined with cheap quilted satin, the figure within wore a white shirt and a necktie but no coat or trousers. The flesh on those old legs had drawn and withered and gone a dusty brown. Someone should have cared more than to leave an old man halfnaked in his burial box beneath these eyes and such a sun. But that was not all. Across the desiccated chest lay a black arm, and when Holme stood on his toes he could see that the old man shared his resting place with a negro sexton whose head had been cut half off and who clasped him in an embrace of lazarous depravity.