The mules jerked Tull outen the wagon and drug him a spell on the bridge before the reins broke. They thought at first that he was dead, and while they was kneeling around him, picking the bridge splinters outen him, here come Eck and that boy, still carrying the rope. They was running and breathing a little hard. “Where’d he go?” Eck says.
V
I went back and got my pants and shirt and shoes on just in time to go and help get Henry Armstid outen the trash in the lot. I be dog if he didn’t look like he was dead, with his head hanging back and his teeth showing in the moonlight, and a little rim of white under his eyelids. We could still hear them horses, here and there; hadn’t none of them got more than four-five miles away yet, not knowing the country, I reckon. So we could hear them and folks yelling now and then: “Whooey. Head him!”
We toted Henry into Mrs. Littlejohn’s. She was in the hall; she hadn’t put down the armful of clothes. She taken one look at us, and she laid down the busted scrubbing-board and taken up the lamp and opened a empty door. “Bring him in here,” she says.
We toted him in and laid him on the bed. Mrs. Littlejohn set the lamp on the dresser, still carrying the clothes. “I’ll declare, you men,” she says. Our shadows was way up the wall, tiptoeing too; we could hear ourselves breathing. “Better get his wife,” Mrs. Littlejohn says. She went out, carrying the clothes.
“I reckon we had,” Quick says. “Go get her, somebody.”
“Whyn’t you go?” Winterbottom says.
“Let Ernest git her,” Durley says. “He lives neighbors with them.”
Ernest went to fetch her. I be dog if Henry didn’t look like he was dead. Mrs. Littlejohn come back, with a kettle and some towels. She went to work on Henry, and then Mrs. Armstid and Ernest come in. Mrs. Armstid come to the foot of the bed and stood there, with her hands rolled into her apron, watching what Mrs. Littlejohn was doing, I reckon.
“You men git outen the way,” Mrs. Littlejohn says. “Git outside,” she says. “See if you can’t find something else to play with that will kill some more of you.”
“Is he dead?” Winterbottom says.
“It ain’t your fault if he ain’t,” Mrs. Littlejohn says. “Go tell Will Varner to come up here. I reckon a man ain’t so different from a mule, come long come short. Except maybe a mule’s got more sense.”
We went to get Uncle Billy. It was a full moon. We could hear them, now and then, four mile away: “Whooey. Head him.” The country was full of them, one on ever wooden bridge in the land, running across it like thunder: “Whooey. There he goes. Head him.”
We hadn’t got far before Henry begun to scream. I reckon Mrs. Littlejohn’s water had brung him to; anyway, he wasn’t dead. We went on to Uncle Billy’s. The house was dark. We called to him, and after a while the window opened and Uncle Billy put his head out, peart as a peckerwood, listening.
“Are they still trying to catch them durn rabbits?” he says.
He come down, with his britches on over his night-shirt and his suspenders dangling, carrying his horse-doctoring grip. “Yes, sir,” he says, cocking his head like a woodpecker; “they’re still a-trying.”
We could hear Henry before we reached Mrs. Littlejohn’s. He was going Ah-Ah-Ah. We stopped in the yard. Uncle Billy went on in. We could hear Henry. We stood in the yard, hearing them on the bridges, this-a-way and that: “Whooey. Whooey.”
“Eck Snopes ought to caught hisn,” Ernest says.
“Looks like he ought,” Winterbottom said.
Henry was going Ah-Ah-Ah steady in the house; then he begun to scream. “Uncle Billy’s started,” Quick says. We looked into the hall. We could see the light where the door was. Then Mrs. Littlejohn come out.
“Will needs some help,” she says. “You, Ernest. You’ll do.” Ernest went into the house.
“Hear them?” Quick said. “That one was on Four Mile bridge.” We could hear them; it sounded like thunder a long way off; it didn’t last long:
“Whooey.”
We could hear Henry: “Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah.”
“They are both started now,” Winterbottom says. “Ernest too.”
That was early in the night. Which was a good thing, because it taken a long night for folks to chase them things right and for Henry to lay there and holler, being as Uncle Billy never had none of this here chloryfoam to set Henry’s leg with. So it was considerate in Flem to get them started early. And what do you reckon Flem’s com-ment was?
That’s right. Nothing. Because he wasn’t there. Hadn’t nobody see him since that Texas man left.
VI
That was Saturday night. I reckon Mrs. Armstid got home about daylight, to see about the chaps. I don’t know where they thought her and Henry was. But lucky the oldest one was a gal, about twelve, big enough to take care of the little ones. Which she did for the next two days. Mrs. Armstid would nurse Henry all night and work in the kitchen for hern and Henry’s keep, and in the afternoon she would drive home (it was about four miles) to see to the chaps. She would cook up a pot of victuals and leave it on the stove, and the gal would bar the house and keep the little ones quiet. I would hear Mrs. Littlejohn and Mrs. Armstid talking in the kitchen. “How are the chaps making out?” Mrs. Littlejohn says.
“All right,” Mrs. Armstid says.
“Don’t they git skeered at night?” Mrs. Littlejohn says.
“Ina May bars the door when I leave,” Mrs. Armstid says. “She’s got the axe in bed with her. I reckon she can make out.”
I reckon they did. And I reckon Mrs. Armstid was waiting for Flem to come back to town; hadn’t nobody seen him until this morning; to get her money the Texas man said Flem was keeping for her. Sho. I reckon she was.
Anyway, I heard Mrs. Armstid and Mrs. Littlejohn talking in the kitchen this morning while I was eating breakfast. Mrs. Littlejohn had just told Mrs. Armstid that Flem was in town. “You can ask him for that five dollars,” Mrs. Littlejohn says.
“You reckon he’ll give it to me?” Mrs. Armstid says.
Mrs. Littlejohn was washing dishes, washing them like a man, like they was made out of iron. “No,” she says. “But asking him won’t do no hurt. It might shame him. I don’t reckon it will, but it might.”
“If he wouldn’t give it back, it ain’t no use to ask,” Mrs. Armstid says.
“Suit yourself,” Mrs. Littlejohn says. “It’s your money.”
I could hear the dishes.
“Do you reckon he might give it back to me?” Mrs. Armstid says. “That Texas man said he would. He said I could get it from Mr. Snopes later.”
“Then go and ask him for it,” Mrs. Littlejohn says.
I could hear the dishes.
“He won’t give it back to me,” Mrs. Armstid says.
“All right,” Mrs. Littlejohn says. “Don’t ask him for it, then.”
I could hear the dishes; Mrs. Armstid was helping. “You don’t reckon he would, do you?” she says. Mrs. Littlejohn never said nothing. It sounded like she was throwing the dishes at one another. “Maybe I better go and talk to Henry about it,” Mrs. Armstid says.
“I would,” Mrs. Littlejohn says. I be dog if it didn’t sound like she had two plates in her hands, beating them together. “Then Henry can buy another five-dollar horse with it. Maybe he’ll buy one next time that will out and out kill him. If I thought that, I’d give you back the money, myself.”
“I reckon I better talk to him first,” Mrs. Armstid said. Then it sounded like Mrs. Littlejohn taken up all the dishes and throwed them at the cook-stove, and I come away.
That was this morning. I had been up to Bundren’s and back, and I thought that things would have kind of settled down. So after breakfast, I went up to the store. And there was Flem, setting in the store-chair and whittling, like he might not have ever moved since he come to clerk for Jody Varner. I. O. was leaning in the door, in his shirt sleeves and with his hair parted too, same as Flem was before he turned the clerking job over to I. O. It’s a funny thing about them Snopes: they all looks alike, yet there ain’t ere a two of them that claims brothers.
They’re always just cousins, like Flem and Eck and Flem and I. O. Eck was there too, squatting against the wall, him and that boy, eating cheese and crackers outen a sack; they told me that Eck hadn’t been home a-tall. And that Lon Quick hadn’t got back to town, even.
He followed his horse clean down to Samson’s Bridge, with a wagon and a camp outfit. Eck finally caught one of hisn. It run into a blind lane at Freeman’s and Eck and the boy taken and tied their rope across the end of the lane, about three foot high. The horse come to the end of the lane and whirled and run back without ever stopping. Eck says it never seen the rope a-tall. He says it looked just like one of these here Christmas pinwheels. “Didn’t it try to run again?” I says.
“No,” Eck says, eating a bite of cheese offen his knife blade. “Just kicked some.”
“Kicked some?” I says.
“It broke its neck,” Eck says.
Well, they was squatting there, about six of them, talking, talking at Flem;
