But Mrs Hait didn’t move. “Why?” she said.
“I bought it from the bank myself this afternoon,” Mr Flem said. “You can drop it in the fire if you want to. But I want you to put your hand on it first.” So she took the paper then, and now Uncle Gavin said they all watched Mr Flem reach into the sack again and this time draw out a roll of bills, I.O. watching too now, not even blinking.
“Fore God,” old Het said. “You could choke a shoat with it.”
“How many mules have you got in that lot?” Mr Flem said to I.O. Still I.O. just watched him. Then he blinked, rapid and hard.
“Seven,” he said.
“You’ve got six,” Mr Flem said. “You just finished selling one of them to Mrs Hait. The railroad says the kind of mules you deal in are worth sixty dollars a head. You claim they are worth a hundred and fifty. All right. We wont argue. Six times a hundred and fifty is—”
“Seven!” I.O. said, loud and harsh. “I aint sold Mrs Hait nor nobody else that mule. Watch.” He faced Mrs Hait. “We aint traded. We aint never traded. I defy you to produce ara man or woman that seen or heard more than you tried to hand me this here same ten-dollar bill that I’m a handing right back to you. Here,” he said, extending the crumpled bill, then jerking it at her so that it struck against her skirt and fell to the ground. She picked it up.
“You giving this back to me?” she said. “Before these witnesses?”
“You durn right I am,” he said. “I jest wish we had ten times this many witnesses.” Now he was talking to Mr Flem. “So I aint sold nobody no mule. And seven times a hundred and fifty dollars is ten hundred and fifty dollars — —”
“Nine hundred dollars,” Mr Flem said.
“Ten hundred and fifty,” I.O. said.
“When you bring me the mule,” Mr Flem said. “And on the main condition.”
“What main condition?” I.O. said.
“That you move back to Frenchman’s Bend and never own a business in Jefferson again as long as you live.”
“And if I dont?” I.O. said.
“I sold the hotel this evening too,” Mr Flem said. And now even I.O. just watched him while he turned toward the light of the fire and began to count bills — they were mostly fives and ones, with an occasional ten — from the roll. I.O. made one last effort.
“Ten hundred and fifty,” he said.
“When you bring me the mule,” Mr Flem said. So it was still only nine hundred dollars which I.O. took and counted for himself and folded away into his hip pocket and buttoned the pocket and turned to Mrs Hait.
“All right,” he said, “where’s Mister Vice Presi-dent Snopes’s other mule?”
“Tied to a tree in the ravine ditch behind Mr Spilmer’s house,” Mrs Hait said.
“What made you stop there?” I.O. said. “Why didn’t you take it right on up to Mottstown? Then you could a really enjoyed my time and trouble getting it back.” He looked around again, snarling, sneering, indomitably intractable. “You’re right fixed up here, aint you? You and the vice president could both save money if he jest kept that mortgage which aint on nothing now noway, and you didn’t build no house a-tall. Well, good night, all.
Soon as I get this-here missing extry mule into the lot with the vice presi-dent’s other six, I’ll do myself the honor and privilege of calling at his residence for them other hundred and fifty dollars since cash on the barrel-head is the courtesy of kings, as the feller says, not to mention the fact that beggars’ choices aint even choices when he aint even got a roof to lay his head in no more.
And if Lawyer Stevens has got ara thing loose about him the vice presi-dent might a taken a notion to, he better hold onto it since as the feller says even a fool wont tread where he jest got through watching somebody else get bit. Again, good night all.” Then he was gone. And this time Uncle Gavin said that Mr Flem had to speak to him twice before he heard him.
“What?” Uncle Gavin said.
“I said, how much do I owe you?” Mr Flem said. And Uncle Gavin said he started to say One dollar, so that Mr Flem would say One dollar? Is that all? and then Uncle Gavin could say Yes, or your knife or pencil or just anything so that when I wake up tomorrow I’ll know I didn’t dream this. But he didn’t. He just said:
“Nothing. Mrs Hait is my client.” And he said how again Mr Flem had to speak twice. “What?” Uncle Gavin said.
“You can send me your bill.”
“For what?” Uncle Gavin said.
“For being the witness,” Mr Snopes said.
“Oh,” Uncle Gavin said. And now Mr Snopes was going and Uncle Gavin said how he expected he might even have said Are you going back to town now? or maybe even Shall we walk together? or maybe at least Goodbye. But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all. He simply turned and left and was gone too. Then Mrs Hait said:
“Get the box.”
“That’s what I been aiming to do soon as you can turn loose all this business and steady this skillet,” old Het said. So Mrs Hait came and took the chair and the fork and old Het went into the shed and set the lantern on the ground and brought the box and set it at the fire. “Now, honey,” she said to Uncle Gavin, “set down and rest.”
“You take it,” Uncle Gavin said. “I’ve been sitting down all day. You haven’t.” Though old Het had already begun to sit down on the box before he declined it; she had already forgotten him, watching now the skillet containing the still hissing ham which Mrs Hait had lifted from the fire.
“Was it you mentioned something about a piece of that ham,” she said, “or was it me?” So Mrs Hait divided the ham and Uncle Gavin watched them eat, Mrs Hait in the chair with the new plate and knife and fork, and old Het on the box eating from the skillet itself since Mrs Hait had apparently purchased only one of each new article, eating the ham and sopping the bread into the greasy residue of its frying, and old Het had filled the coffee cup from the pot and produced from somewhere an empty can for her own use when I.O. came back, coming up quietly out of the darkness (it was full dark now), to stand holding his hands to the blaze as though he were cold.
“I reckon I’ll take that ten dollars,” he said.
“What ten dollars?” Mrs Hait said. And now Uncle Gavin expected him to roar, or at least snarl. But he did neither, just standing there with his hands to the blaze; and Uncle Gavin said he did look cold, small, forlorn somehow since he was so calm, so quiet.
“You aint going to give it back to me?” he said.
“Give what back to you?” Mrs Hait said. Uncle Gavin said he didn’t seem to expect an answer nor even to hear her: just standing there musing at the fire in a kind of quiet and unbelieving amazement.
“I bear the worry and the risk and the agoment for years and years, and I get sixty dollars a head for them. While you, one time, without no trouble and risk a-tall, sell Lonzo Hait and five of my mules that never even belonged to him, for eighty-five hundred dollars. Of course most of that-ere eighty-five hundred was for Lonzo, which I never begrudged you.
Cant nere a man living say I did, even if it did seem a little strange that you should get it all, even my sixty standard price a head for them five mules, when he wasn’t working for you and you never even knowed where he was, let alone even owned the mules; that all you done to get half of that money was just to be married to him. And now, after all them years of not actively begrudging you it, you taken the last mule I had, not didn’t jest beat me out of another hundred and forty dollars, but out of a entire another hundred and fifty.”
“You got your mule back, and you aint satisfied yet?” old Het said. “What does you want?”
“Justice,” I.O. said. “That’s what I want. That’s all I want: justice. For the last time,” he said. “Are you going to give me my ten dollars back?”
“What ten dollars?” Mrs Hait said. Then he turned. He stumbled over something — Uncle Gavin said it was old Het’s shopping bag — and recovered and went on. Uncle Gavin said he could see him for a moment — he could because neither Mrs Hait nor old Het were watching him any longer — as though framed between the two blackened chimneys, flinging both clenched hands up against the sky. Then he was gone; this time it was for good. That is, Uncle Gavin watched him. Mrs Hait and old Het had not even looked up.
“Honey,” old Het said to Mrs Hait, “what did you do with that mule?” Uncle Gavin said there was one slice of bread left. Mrs Hait took it and sopped the last of the gravy from her plate.
“I shot it,” she said.
“You which?” old Het said. Mrs Hait began to eat the slice of bread. “Well,” old Het said, “the mule burnt
