But distinct with miniature verisimilitude, as though it were a stage set for the diversion of him whose stubborn dream, flouting him so deviously and cunningly while the dream was impure, had shaped itself fine and clear, now that the dreamer was purged of the grossness of pride with that of flesh.
“Gent’mun equipage,” Simon mumbled. He was busy again with his hoe in the salvia bed at the top of the drive. “Ridin’ in dat thing, wid a gent’mun’s proper equipage goin’ ter rack en ruin in de barn.” He wasn’t thinking of Miss Jenny. It didn’t make much difference what women rode in, their menfolks permitting. They only showed off a gentleman’s equipage, anyhow; they were but the barometers of his establishment, the glass of his gentility: horses themselves knew it.
“Yo’ own son, yo’ own twin, grandson, ridin’ right up in yo’ face in a contraption like dat,” he continued, “and you lettin’ ’um do It. You bad ez dey is. You jes’ got ter lay down de law ter ’um, Marse John; wid all dese foreign wars en sich de young folks is growed away fum de correck behavior; dey don’t know how ter conduck deyselfs in de gent’mun way. Whut you reckon folks gwine think when dey sees yo’ own folks ridin’ in de same kine o’ rig trash rides in? You jes’ got ter resert yo’self, Marse John. Ain’t Sartorises sot de quality in dis country since befo’ de War? And now jes’ look at ’um.”
He leaned on his hoe and watched the car swing up the drive and stop before the house. Miss Jenny and young Bayard got out and mounted to the veranda. The engine was still running; a faint shimmer of exhaust drifted upon the bright forenoon, and Simon came up with his hoe and peered at the array of dials and knobs on the dash. Bayard turned in the door and spoke his name.
“Cut the switch off, Simon,” he ordered.
“Cut de which whut off?” Simon said.
“That little bright lever by the steering wheel there. Turn it down.”
“Naw, suh,” Simon answered, backing away, “I ain’t gwine tech it. I ain’t gwine have it blowin’ up in my face,”
“It won’t hurt you,” Bayard said impatiently. “Just put your hand on it and pull it down. That little bright jigger there.”
Simon peered doubtfully at the gadgets and things, but without coming any nearer; then he craned his neck further and stared over into the car. “I don’t see no thin’ but dis yere big lever stickin’ up thoo de flo’. Dat ain’t de one you mentionin’, is hit?”
Bayard said “Hell.” He descended in two strides and leaned across the door and cut the switch under Simon’s curious blinking regard. The purr of the engine ceased.
“Well, now,” Simon said, “is dat de one you wuz talkin’ erbout?” He stared at the switch for a time, then he straightened up and stared at the hood. “She’s quit b’ilin’ under dar, ain’t she? Is dat de way you stops her?” But Bayard had mounted the steps again and entered the house.
Simon lingered a while longer, examining the gleaming long thing, touching it lightly with his hand, then rubbing his hand on his thigh. He walked slowly around it and touched the tires, mumbling to himself and shaking his head. Then he returned to the salvia bed, where Bayard, emerging presently, found him.
“Want to take a ride, Simon?” he said.
Simon’s hoe ceased and he straightened up. “Who, me?”
“Sure. Come on. We’ll go up the road a piece.” Simon stood with his static hoe, rubbing his head slowly.
“Come on,” Bayard said, “we’ll just go up the road a piece. It won’t hurt you.”
“Naw, suh,” Simon agreed, “I don’t reckon hit’s gwine ter hurt me.”
He allowed himself to be drawn gradually toward the car, gazing at its various members with slow, blinking speculation, now that it was about to become an actual quantity of his life. At the door and with one foot raised to the running board, he made a final stand against the subtle powers of evil judgment. “You ain’t gwine run it th’ough de bushes like you en Isom done dat day, is you?”
Bayard reassured him, and he got in slowly, with mumbled sounds of anticipatory concern, and he sat well forward on the seat with his feet drawn under him, clutching the door with one hand and a lump of shirt on his chest with the other as the car moved down the drive. They passed through the gates and on to the road, and still he sat hunched forward on the seat. The car gained speed, and with a sudden convulsive motion he caught his hat just as it blew off his head.
“I ’speck dis is fur enough, ain’t it?” he suggested, raising his voice. He pulled his hat down on his head, but when he released it he had to clutch wildly at it again, and he removed it and clasped it beneath his arm, and again his hand fumbled at his breast and clutched something beneath his shirt. “I got to weed dat bed dis mawnin’,” he said, louder still. “Please, suh, Mist’ Bayard,” he added, and his wizened old body sat yet further forward on the seat and he cast quick, covert glances at the steadily increasing rush of the roadside growth.
Then Bayard leaned forward and Simon watched his forearm tauten, and then they shot forward on a roar of sound like blurred thunder. Earth, the unbelievable ribbon of the road, crashed beneath them and away behind into mad dust, and the roadside greenery was a tunnel rigid and streaming and unbroken.
But he said no word, made no other sound, and when Bayard glanced the cruel derision of his teeth at him presently, Simon knelt on the floor, his old disreputable hat under his arm and his hand clutching a fold of his shirt on his breast. Later Bayard glanced at him again, and Simon was watching him and the blurred irises of his eyes were no longer a melting, pupilless brown: they were red, and in the blast of wind they were unwinking and in them was that mindless phosphorescence of an animal’s. Bayard jammed the throttle down to the floor.
The wagon was moving drowsily and peacefully along the road. It was drawn by two mules and was filled with negro women asleep in chairs. Some of them wore drawers. The mules themselves didn’t wake at all, but ambled sedately on with the empty wagon and the overturned chairs, even when the car crashed into the shallow ditch and surged back on to the road again and thundered on without slowing.
The thunder ceased, but the car rushed on under its own momentum, and it began to sway from side to side as Bayard tried to drag Simon’s hands from the switch. But Simon knelt in the floor with his eyes shut tightly and the air-blast toying with the grizzled remnant of his hair, holding the switch with both hands.
“Turn it loose!” Bayard shouted.
“Dat’s de way you stops it, Lawd! Dat’s de way you stops it, Lawd!” Simon chanted, keeping the switch covered with his hands while Bayard hammered at them with his fist. And he clung to it until the car slowed and stopped. Then he fumbled the door open and climbed out. Bayard called to him, but he went on back down the road at a rapid limping shuffle.
“Simon!” Bayard called again. But Simon went on stiffly, like a man who has been deprived of the use of his legs for a long time. “Simon!” But he neither slowed nor looked back, and Bayard started the car again and drove on until he could turn it. Simon now stood in the ditch beside the road, his head bent above his hands, when Bayard overtook him and stopped.
“Come on here and get in,” he commanded.
“Naw, suh. I’ll walk.”
“Jump in, now,” Bayard ordered sharply. He opened the door, but Simon stood in the ditch with his hand thrust inside his shirt, and Bayard could see that he was shaking as with an ague. “Come on, you old fool: I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I’ll walk home,” Simon repeated stubbornly, but without heat. “You git on wid dat thing.”
“Ah, get in, Simon. I didn’t know I’d scare you that bad. I’ll drive slow. Come on.”
“You git on home,” Simon said again. “Dey’ll be worried erbout you. You kin tell ’um whar I’m at.”
Bayard watched him for a moment, but Simon was not looking at him, and presently he slammed the door and drove on. Nor did Simon look up even then, even when the car burst once more into thunder and a soundless dun crash of fading dust. After a while the wagon emerged from the dust, the mules now at a high, flop-eared trot, and jingled past him, leaving behind it upon the dusty, insect-rasped air a woman’s voice in a quavering wordless hysteria. This faded slowly down the shimmering reaches of the valley, and Simon removed from the breast of his shirt an object slung by a greasy cord about his neck.
It was small and of no particular shape and it was covered with soiled, napped fur—the first joint of the hind leg of a rabbit, caught supposedly in a graveyard in the dark of the moon, and Simon rubbed it through the sweat on his forehead and on the back of his neck; then he returned it to his bosom. His hands were still trembling, and he put his hat on and got
