Outer Dark (10 page)

Law’s ass. You are the law …

Law takes time, the other said. Yours is a unusual case. We don’t want to jump too fast here and do the wrong thing, do we? I think maybe another day or so and we’ll be able to handle your problem. It’s kindly good advertisin for the public peace just now. Ain’t it?

Goddamn it I don’t care about no advertisin I want them sons of bitches out of my field.

The other was still smiling but his eyes weren’t smiling. He said: I believe another day or two, Bud. That’ll be all right won’t it? He didn’t even wait to see what the man would say but lifted his hand and went on in the store. Holme followed him. He didn’t look at the man’s face standing there when he passed him.

Clark had gone behind the counter and was riffling through bills and notes in a cigar box. The clerk was dusting merchandise. Holme leaned on the counter for a few minutes, the man’s huge back to him and his head nodding from time to time, muttering, shuffling the papers, scratching his chin, cursing.

Mr Clark, he said.

Yep.

He didn’t turn and Holme didn’t speak again and then he did turn, looking at him with a kind of arrogant curiosity. What is it, he said.

Well, I wanted to ast if you might have any work.

You ridin or walkin?

Walkin.

I need a man to circulate handbills but not afoot. Here. Here’s one for yourself anyway. He unrolled a thick scroll of printed bills on the counter and peeled one off. Holme took it and looked at it. The bills on the counter recoiled with a vicious slicing sound.

Goin to have the Willis Brothers and Little Aud, Clark said. Free prizes and lemonade. Like to have everbody come.

Yessir, Holme said, looking up. Was they not nothin else you needed done? A feller said maybe you could use some help. Maybe at the auction …

Clark looked at the clerk and the clerk began to dust again and then he looked at Holme. What feller, he said.

Out to the turpentine camp.

What’s your name mister.

Holme.

Holme. Where you from Holme.

Holme swallowed and answered very fast. I come from down in Johnson County. I’m just up here huntin work.

You wasn’t here Wednesday was you?

No sir. I just come in this mornin.

The man stood there looking down at him and Holme looked about the shelves and their bright labeled wares and then down at the counter.

You know how I hired my deputy, Holme?

No sir.

They was a wagonload of sons of bitches pulled up in a field to pick beans and he’s the first’n off the tailgate.

Holme smiled weakly. Clark never had smiled.

You ever been to a auction?

No sir.

He was hefting the weight of the roll of bills in one palm and contemplating Holme. That’s the wrong answer, he said. He looked toward the clerk. Where’s Leroy?

I don’t know. I ain’t paid to keep up with him.

Clark lifted an enormous watch from the pocket of his coat and looked at it. Tell you what I’ll do, Holme, he said, addressing the face of the watch.

What.

He looked up. You broke, I reckon.

Yessir.

Can you operate a pick and shovel?

I reckon.

All right. See Harold here about gettin you one from back in the back and then go up to the church and dig me two holes. Big enough to put somebody in. And not in the church lot neither. That’s all spoke for. These go up in the back where them little markers is at. You might better ast at the preacher’s house.

All right, Holme said.

That old pick’s loose in the handle to where I’d not trust it, the clerk said.

Is it the heavy trade in here all day that’s kept you from mendin it? He turned back to Holme. The county pays a dollar, he said. That’s more than I’d pay but I ain’t been ast. If you get done this evenin afore dark come by the store here and you can get paid. Otherwise I’ll see ye tomorrow. Unless you’re still standin here tomorrow waitin on him to get you that pick and shovel.

When Holme came past the churchyard with his shouldered tools there were two negroes there among the stones, one sitting and watching the other and the other naked to the waist and kneedeep in the hole he dug, the pick coming lazily down and ceasing with a small dead thump in the earth. When the seated one saw him he started to rise and then he sat again. The one working stopped and looked up, face shining with sweat, the two of them watching him come along.

Howdy, he said. You sure you diggin in the right place?

Yessir, the seated one said.

You ain’t diggin two are ye?

Yessir. I just waitin on him a minute.

Where’s the other one?

They ain’t but just us.

Holme looked at them blankly. Where’s the other hole at? he said.

The two negroes looked at each other. The one digging said: We wasn’t told to dig but one.

This’n here is Mrs Salter, the one sitting said, cocking his thumb backward at the stone against which he leaned. He supposed to go on the right cause I ast his right or my right and he say her right.

Holme unloaded the tools from his shoulder and leaned on them and looked about him and then at the negroes again. You mean you ain’t diggin but the one hole, he said.

That’s all we’s told.

It’s for somebody else I reckon. You ain’t seen the preacher have ye?

I seen him go up the road a little while back.

Holme nodded. To the rear of the church was an untended lot where he could make out some thin board headstones tilted among the weeds. I reckon yander’s the place for buryin anybody that ain’t spoke for, ain’t it?

The one had started to dig again and he stopped but neither answered.

Or ain’t it?

Yessir, the one said. I reckon.

Holme nodded to them and went on.

He worked until nightfall and then a little later. He was beginning to feel lightheaded and his empty belly had drawn up in him like a fist. He worked on for a while in the dark and then he quit. There were no lights at the preacher’s house. When he got to the store there were no lights there and there was nobody about. He did not know how late it was. He slid the pick and shovel beneath the porch and went on up the road, a solitary figure in that warm and breathing dark, shadowless and unwitnessed. He slept the night in the lee of a hayrick and he woke again before it was light. Before there was any sign or hope of light. Something had passed on the road and he lay huddled against the chill of pending dawn with his arms crossed on his chest in that attitude the living inflict upon the dead and he listened but he could hear nothing. There was something fearful about. He listened for dogs to bark down along the road but no dogs barked. He lay awake a long time and the morning came up in the east in a pale accretion of light heralded by no cock, no waking birds. He rose and went into the road, dusting the chaff from his wretched clothes and stomping his feet in the fine boots now calked with grave earth. He went along toward the town and as he topped a rise in the road two buzzards labored up out of a dead tree in a field from which hung the bodies of three men. One was dressed in a dirty white suit. Nothing moved. The buzzards swung away beyond the woods and there was no sound and no movement anywhere. There was only the gradual gathering of light to which these eyeless dead came alien and unreal like figures wandered from a dream.

He hurried on, into the empty town. It was daylight now. When he got to the store Clark’s rig was standing untethered at the corner of the porch with the mule asleep in the traces. He went up the steps and tapped at the door and waited and tapped again. He peered through the window. His silhouette lay on the floor in the bent light. All was dim and dusty with abandonment. He called. After a while he descended the steps into the road again and he stood there and looked all about him and listened for any sound at all but there was nothing. He turned and went on through the town. He was walking very fast and after a while he was running again.

SHE RESTED
for a while sitting on the slatted walkway and leaning her aching breasts forward into her hands. The air was dark with gathering rain. A woman went past laden with a feedbag in which something alive struggled mutely. When she spoke the woman gave her an empty look and went on. She rose after a while and went on herself, the dust warm and soft as talc beneath her toes. There were some men standing in front of a store on the other side of the road and they were watching her. She set her shoulders back a little. Then a man came out of a building on the left and crossed in front of her and as he did he tipped his hat, a brief gesture as if swatting idly at a fly. There was a trace of a smile at his mouthcorners.

Hey, she said.

Hey yourself.

She was watching him go on. You ain’t a doctor are ye? she called after him.

He stopped and looked back. No, he said. A lawyer. I get the winners, he gets the losers. He was standing in the middle of the road smiling a little, his hand gone to the brim of his hat again.

Well listen, she said, where’s they a doctor at?

The lawyer tucked a long forefinger into his waistcoat pocket and fished forth a watch. He snapped it open, looked at it, looked at the sun where it rode darkly as if to verify the hour in that way. He won’t be in till about one-thirty, he said. It’s ten till now. He snapped shut the watch-case and slipped it into his vest once more. Is it urgent? he said.

What?

Are you in a hurry? His office is in the same building as mine. We sort of mind shop for one another. Right over here. He pointed to a three-storey house with tall windows in the upper part and lettering on the glass.

She looked, brushing back the hair from her face.

What seems to be the trouble? Is it serious? Or were you asking for someone else?

No. It’s me.

Yes. Well. Are you sick? I could let you rest in my office until he gets in if you’d like.

She looked across the street toward the house and she looked at the lawyer. I don’t want to put ye out none, she said.

No, he said. No trouble. I’m on my way back now.

Well, she said, I would appreciate you showin me where he’s at.

Sure, he said. Come along.

She fell in behind him and they crossed the road, her shuffling along rapidly to keep up, watching the backs of his heels, the curved wheeltracks and moonshaped mule-prints, until they reached the walkway and on a little further to the building where he stepped to one side and motioned with his hand. After you, he said.

She started up the long dark stairwell, feeling under her naked feet the cold print of nailheads reared from the worn boards. At the top was a small parlor and on either side a door. She turned and looked down at him.

Here, he said. He went past her and set a key in the lock and held the door open for her to enter. Sit down, he said. She looked about, then backed up to and sat in a sort of morris chair with gouts of horsehair erupting from the splayed seams in the leather. She sat with her toes together and her hands in her lap and looked at the floor.

Well, he said. Where do you hail from?

She raised her eyes. He was sitting at his desk, his feet propped into an open drawer, his head bent forward while he held a match to a cigar.

I just come over from acrost the river, she said.

He had been puffing at the cigar and he stopped and gave her a quick look and then went on and got it lit and flipped the match toward an ashtray on the desk. You feel all right? he said.

Tolerable thank ye.

Well the doctor will be along directly.

All right, she said. Listen.

Yes.

I wanted to ast ye somethin afore I seen him.

All right. What is it?

Well, she said. I ain’t got but a dollar and I know doctors is costy and what I was wonderin was if he could do me much good for just a dollar.

The lawyer plucked the cigar slowly from his mouth and folded his hands in a coil of blue smoke. I reckon he’ll do you at least a dollar’s worth, he said. What was your trouble? If you don’t mind me asking.

Well, I’d rather just tell him if you don’t care.

Yes. Well I’m sure he’ll do something for you. He’s a good doctor. Anyway we’ll know directly.

I don’t want to ast no favors from nobody, she said.

Favors?

Yessir. I mean if it’s more’n a dollar I’d just as leave not bother him.

He lifted his feet from the drawer and leaned his elbows on the desk. If you need a doctor, he said, it’s not too easy to do without. It’s not like needing a pair of shoes or … she was looking nervously at her feet, one crossed over the top of the other … or say a new skillet or something. You just tell him what your trouble is and let him worry about how much to charge. If you don’t have but a dollar he might let you pay the rest later on. Or bring him some eggs. Or garden stuff when …

I ain’t got nary garden, she said.

Well anyway you let him worry about it.

Yessir, she said.

He leaned back again. It was very quiet in the room. The light waxed and waned and the squatting shape of the windowsash came and went on the wood floor like something breathing. Are you married? he said.

No, she said. Then she looked up and said: I mean I ain’t now. I was but I ain’t now.

You a widow then?

Yessir.

Well that’s a pity. Young woman like you. You got any babies?

One.

Yes.

The room was growing darker. A gust of damp air moved upon them and the frayed lace curtains at the window lifted.

Looks like we’re fixing to have some rain, he said.

But it had already started, the glass staining with random slashes, the hot stone ledge steaming.

We get a lot of rain here in the fall, the lawyer said. After it’s too late to do anything any good.

They sat in the gathering dark and watched the rain. After a while the lawyer put his feet down again and rose from the chair. That’s him now, he said.

She nodded. He went to the door and peered out. She could hear someone stamping and swearing their way up the stairwell.

Looks like you got a little damp there, John, the lawyer said.

The other one said something she couldn’t hear.

Well you got one waiting on you.

He looked through the door. A short heavy man with moustaches from which water dripped, peering above the rim of his fogged spectacles. How do, he said.

Hidy, she said.

Just come on in over here. He disappeared and she rose and crossed the floor before the lawyer and gave him a little curtsying nod, ragged, shoeless, deferential and half deranged, and yet moving in an almost palpable amnion of propriety. I sure thank ye, she said.

The lawyer nodded and smiled. That’s all right, he said.

When she entered the doctor’s office he had his back to the door, shaking out and hanging up his wet coat on a rack. He turned, brushing the dampness from his shoulders, his shirt plastered transparently to his skin there.

Whew, he said. Well now. What was your trouble young lady?

She looked behind her. The lawyer had closed his door. She could hear the rain outside and it was dark enough to want a lamp.

Over here, he said. Take a seat.

Thank ye, she said. She took the chair near his desk and sat, primly, tucking her feet beneath the rungs. When she looked up he was sitting at the desk mopping furiously at the lenses of his spectacles with a handkerchief.

Now, he said. What was it?

Well, it’s about my milk.

Your milk?

Yessir. Kindly.

You ain’t fevered are you?

No. It ain’t that. I mean I don’t know. It’s my own milk I meant.

Yes. He leaned back and ran one finger alongside his nose, the glasses poised in midair. You’re nursing a baby. Is that what it is?

She didn’t answer for a minute. Then she said: Well, no. She stopped again and looked up at him for help. He was looking out the window. He turned back and put the glasses on his nose.

All right, he said. First: Are we talking about cow milk or people milk?

People, she said.

Right. Yours?

Yessir.

All right. You have been nursing a baby then.

No, she said. I ain’t never nursed him. That’s what’s ailin me.

You had a baby?

Yessir.

When?

Early of the spring. March I believe it was.

That’s six months ago, the doctor said.

Yes, she said.

The doctor leaned forward and laid one arm out upon the desk and studied his hand. Well, he said, I reckon then you must of had a wetnurse. And now you want to know why you never had any milk. After six months.

No sir, she said. That ain’t it.

It’s not getting any easier, is it?

No sir. They smart a good bit.

You never had any milk.

I never needed none but I had too much all the time.

He looked at the hand as if perhaps it would tell him something and then perhaps it did because he looked up at her and he said: What happened to the baby?

It died.

Of late?

No. The day it was borned.

And you still have milk.

It ain’t that so much. I don’t mind it. It’s that they startin to bleed. My paps.

Then they were both quiet for a long time. The room was almost dark and they could hear the steady small slicing of the rain on the glass and the spat of it on the stone sill. He spoke next. Very quietly. He said: You’re lying to me.

She looked up. She didn’t seem surprised. She said: About what part?

You tell me. Either about your breasts or about the baby. No woman carries milk six months for a dead baby.

She didn’t say anything.

Do you want to show me?

What?

I said do you want to show me? Your breasts?

All right, she said. She stood and unbuttoned the shift at the neck and slid the shoulders down so that she was standing with her arms pinioned in the rotten cloth. It was all she wore.

Yes, he said. All right. I’ll give you something for that. It must be very painful.

She worked the dress back over her shoulders and turned to do the buttons. It smarts some, she said.

Have you been pumping them? Milking them?

No sir. They just run by their own selves.

Yes. You should milk them though. Where is the baby?

I don’t know. I mean I ain’t seen it since it was borned but I believe I know who’s got it if I could find him.

And when was it? That it was born.

I believe it was in March but it could of been April.

That’s not possible, he said.

Well it was March then.

Look, the doctor said, what difference does it make if it was later than that? Like maybe in July.

I wouldn’t of cared, she said.

The doctor leaned back. You couldn’t still have milk after six months.

If he was dead. That’s what you said wasn’t it? She was leaning forward in the chair watching him. That means he ain’t, don’t it? That means he ain’t dead or I’d of gone dry. Ain’t it?

Well, the doctor said. But something half wild in her look stopped him. Yes, he said. That could be what it means. Yes.

I knowed it all the time, she said. I guess I knowed it right along.

Yes, he said. Look, let me give you this salve. He swung about in his chair and rose and unlocked a cabinet behind his desk. He studied the interior for a moment and then selected a small jar and closed the cabinet door again. Now, he said, turning and holding up the jar. I want you to put this on good and heavy and keep it on all the time. If it wears off put more. And you’ll have to pump them even if it hurts. Try it a little bit first. He slid the jar across the desk to her and she took it and looked at it and sat holding it in her lap.

Come back in a couple of days and tell me how you’re doing.

I don’t know as I’ll be here, she said.

Where will you be?

I don’t know. I got to get on huntin him.

The baby?

Yessir.

When did you see it last? You said you never nursed it.

I ain’t seen it since it was borned.

Then what was the part you lied about?

Well. About it bein dead.

Yes. What did happen?

He said it was puny but afore God it weren’t puny a bit.

And what happened then?

We never had nothin nor nobody.

You’re not married are you?

No sir.

And what happened? Was the baby given away?

Yes, she said. I never meant for him to do that. I wasn’t ashamed. He said it died but I knowed that for a lie. He lied all the time.

Who did?

My brother.

The doctor leaned back in the chair and folded his hands in his lap and looked at them. After a while he said: You don’t know where the baby is?

No sir.

Below them in the street cattle were being driven lowing through the rain and the mud.

Where do you live? the doctor said. What’s your name?

Rinthy Holme.

And where do you live then.

I don’t live nowheres no more, she said. I never did much. I just go around huntin my chap. That’s about all I do any more.