We picked on down the row, the woods getting closer and closer and the secret shade, picking on into the secret shade with my sack and Life’s sack. Because I said will I or won’t I when the sack was half-full because I said if the sack is full when we get to the woods it won’t be me. I said if it don’t mean for me to do it the sack will not be full and I will turn up the next row but if the sack is full, I cannot help it. It will be that I had to do it all the time and I cannot help it. And we picked on toward the secret shade and our eyes would drown together touching on his hands and my hands and I didn’t say anything. I said “What are you doing?” and he said “I am picking into your sack.” And so it was full when we came to the end of the row and I could not help it.
And so it was because I could not help it. It was then, and then I saw Darl and he knew. He said he knew without the words like he told me that ma is going to die without words, and I knew he knew because if he had said he knew with the words I would not have believed that he had been there and saw us. But he said he did know and I said “Are you going to tell pa are you going to kill him?” without the words I said it and he said “Why?” without the words. And that’s why I can talk to him with knowing with hating because he knows.
He stands in the door, looking at her.
“What you want, Darl?” I say.
“She is going to die,” he says. And old turkey-buzzard Tull coming to watch her die but I can fool them.
“When is she going to die?” I say.
“Before we get back,” he says.
“Then why are you taking Jewel?” I say.
“I want him to help me load,” he says.
TULL
ANSE keeps on rubbing his knees. His overalls are faded; on one knee a serge patch cut out of a pair of Sunday pants, wore iron-slick. “No man mislikes it more than me,” he says.
“A fellow’s got to guess ahead now and then,” I say. “But, come long and short, it won’t be no harm done neither way.”
“She’ll want to get started right off,” he says. “It’s far enough to Jefferson at best.”
“But the roads is good now,” I say. It’s fixing to rain to-night, too. His folks buries at New Hope, too, not three miles away. But it’s just like him to marry a woman born a day’s hard ride away and have her die on him.
He looks out over the land, rubbing his knees. “No man so mislikes it,” he says.
“They’ll get back in plenty of time,” I say. “I wouldn’t worry none.”
“It means three dollars,” he says.
“Might be it won’t be no need for them to rush back, noways,” I say. “I hope it.”
“She’s a-going,” he says. “Her mind is set on it.” It’s a hard life on women, for a fact. Some women. I mind my mammy lived to be seventy and more. Worked every day, rain or shine; never a sick day since her last chap was born until one day she kind of looked around her and then she went and taken that lace-trimmed nightgown she had had forty-five years and never wore out of the chest and put it on and laid down on the bed and pulled the covers up and shut her eyes. “You all will have to look out for pa the best you can,” she said. “I’m tired.”
Anse rubs his hands on his knees. “The Lord giveth,” he says. We can hear Cash a-hammering and sawing beyond the corner.
It’s true. Never a truer breath was ever breathed. “The Lord giveth,” I say.
That boy comes up the hill. He is carrying a fish nigh long as he is. He slings it to the ground and grunts “Hah” and spits over his shoulder like a man. Durn nigh long as he is.
“What’s that?” I say. “A hog? Where’d you get it?”
“Down to the bridge,” he says. He turns it over, the under-side caked over with dust where it is wet, the eye coated over, humped under the dirt.
“Are you aiming to leave it laying there?” Anse says.
“I aim to show it to ma,” Vardaman says. He looks toward the door. We can hear the talking, coming out on the draught. Cash, too, knocking and hammering at the boards. “There’s company in there,” he says.
“Just my folks,” I say. “They’d enjoy to see it, too.”
He says nothing, watching the door. Then he looks down at the fish laying in the dust. He turns it over with his foot and prods at the eye-bump with his toe, gouging at it. Anse is looking out over the land. Vardaman looks at Anse’s face, then at the door. He turns, going toward the corner of the house, when Anse calls him without looking around.
“You clean that fish,” Anse says.
Vardaman stops. “Why can’t Dewey Dell clean it?” he says.
“You clean that fish,” Anse says.
“Aw, pa,” Vardaman says.
“You clean it,” Anse says. He don’t look around. Vardaman comes back and picks up the fish. It slides out of his hands, smearing wet dirt on to him, and flops down, dirtying itself again, gap-mouthed, goggle-eyed, hiding into the dust like it was ashamed of being dead, like it was in a hurry to get back hid again. Vardaman cusses it. He cusses it like a grown man, standing a-straddle of it. Anse don’t look around. Vardaman picks it up again. He goes on around the house, toting it in both arms like an armful of wood, it overlapping him on both ends, head and tail. Durn nigh big as he is.
Anse’s wrists dangle out of his sleeves: I never see him with a shirt on that looked like it was his in all my life. They all looked like Jewel might have give him his old ones. Not Jewel, though. He’s long-armed, even if he is spindling. Except for the lack of sweat. You could tell they ain’t been nobody else’s but Anse’s that way without no mistake. His eyes look like pieces of burnt-out cinder fixed in his face, looking out over the land.
When the shadow touches the steps he says “It’s five o’clock.”
Just as I get up Cora comes to the door and says it’s time to get on. Anse reaches for his shoes. “Now, Mr. Bundren,” Cora says, “don’t you get up now.” He puts his shoes on, stomping into them, like he does everything, like he is hoping all the time he really can’t do it and can quit trying to. When we go up the hall we can hear them clumping on the floor like they was iron shoes. He comes toward the door where she is, blinking his eyes, kind of looking ahead of hisself before he sees, like he is hoping to find her setting up, in a chair maybe or maybe sweeping, and looks into the door in that surprised way like he looks in and finds her still in bed every time and Dewey Dell still a-fanning her with the fan. He stands there, like he don’t aim to move again nor nothing else.
“Well, I reckon we better get on,” Cora says. “I got to feed the chickens.” It’s fixing to rain, too. Clouds like that don’t lie, and the cotton making every day the Lord sends. That’ll be something else for him. Cash is still trimming at the boards. “If there’s ere a thing we can do,” Cora says.
“Anse’ll let us know,” I say.
Anse don’t look at us. He looks around, blinking, in that surprised way, like he had wore hisself down being surprised and was even surprised at that. If Cash just works that careful on my barn.
“I told Anse it likely won’t be no need,” I say. “I so hope it.”
“Her mind is set on it,” he says. “I reckon she’s bound to go.”
“It comes to all of us,” Cora says. “Let the Lord comfort you.”
“About that corn,” I say. I tell him again I will help him out if he gets into a tight, with her sick and all. Like most folks around here, I done holp him so much already I can’t quit now.
“I aimed to get to it to-day,” he says. “Seems like I can’t get my mind on nothing.”
“Maybe she’ll hold out till you are laid by,” I say.
“If God wills it,” he says.
“Let Him comfort you,” Cora says.
If Cash just works that careful on my barn. He looks up when we pass. “Don’t reckon I’ll get to you this week,” he says.
“ ’Tain’t no rush,” I say. “Whenever you get around to it.”
We get into the wagon. Cora
