Around the torch swooped white choirs of singing wings which made to leap and sway all within range of the furious light: humped greyhounds hurtled through the halls, their silent shadow-feet trampling flowerbeds of spiders, and in the lobby lizards loomed like dinosaurs; the coral-tongued cuckoo bird, forever stilled at three o’clock, spread wings hawk-like, falcon-fierce.
They halted at the foot of the stairs. The mule was nowhere to be seen: the banging of the telltale spittoon had stopped. «John Brown. . . John Brown,» Joel’s voice enlarged the quiet: he shivered to think that in every room some sleepless something listened. Little Sunshine held his torch higher, and brought into view a balcony which overlooked the lobby: there, iron-stiff and still, stood the mule. «You hear me, suh, come down offen there!» commanded the hermit, and John Brown reared back, snorted, pawed the floor; then, as if insane with terror, he came at a gallop, and lunged, splintering the balcony’s rail. Joel primed himself for a crash which never came; when he looked again, the mule, hung to a beam by the rope-reins twisted about his neck, was swinging in mid-air, and his big lamplike eyes, lit by the torch’s blaze, were golden with death’s impossible face, the figure in the fire.
Morning collected in the room, exposing a quilt-wrapped bundle huddled in a corner: Little Sunshine, sound asleep. «Don’t wake him,» whispered Randolph who, in rising, knocked over three empty whiskey bottles. But the hermit did not stir. As they crept out through the hotel Joel closed his eyes, and let Randolph lead him, for he did not want to see the mule: a sharp intake of breath was Randolph’s only comment, and never once did he refer to the accident, nor ask a question: it was as if from the outset they’d planned to return to the Landing on foot.
The morning was like a slate clean for any future, and it was as though an end had come, as if all that had been before had turned into a bird, and flown there to the island tree: a crazy elation caught hold of Joel, he ran, he zigzagged, he sang, he was in love, he caught a little tree-toad because he loved it and because he loved it he set it free, watched it bounce, bound like the immense leaping of his heart; he hugged himself, alive and glad, and socked the air, butted like a goat, hid behind a bush, jumped out: Boo! «Look, Randolph,» he said, folding a turban of moss about his head, «look, who am I?»
But Randolph would have no part of him. His mouth was set in a queer, grim way. As if he walked the deck of a tossing ship, he lurched forward, leaning from side to side, and his eyes, raw with bloodshot, acted as a poor compass, for he seemed not to know in which direction he was going.
«I am me,» Joel whooped. «I am Joel, we are the same people.» And he looked about for a tree to climb: he would go right to the very top, and there, midway to heaven, he would spread his arms and claim the world. Running far ahead of Randolph, he shinnied up a birch, but when he reached the middle branches, he clasped the trunk of the tree, suddenly dizzy; from this altitude he looked back and saw Randolph, who was walking in a circle, his hands stretched before him as if he were playing blind man’s bluff: his carpet slippers fell off, but he did not notice; now and then he shook himself, like a wet animal. And Joel thought of the ant. Hadn’t he warned him? Hadn’t he told him it was dangerous? Or was it only corn whiskey swimming in his head? Except Randolph was being so quiet. And drunk folks were never quiet. It was peculiar. It was as though Randolph were in a trance of some kind.
And Joel realized then the truth; he saw how helpless Randolph was: more paralyzed than Mr Sansom, more childlike than Miss Wisteria, what else could he do, once outside and alone, but describe a circle, the zero of his nothingness? Joel slipped down from the tree; he had not made the top, but it did not matter, for he knew who he was, he knew that he was strong.
He puzzled out the rest of the way back to the Landing the best way he could. Randolph did not say a word. Twice he fell down, and sat there on the ground, solemn and baby-eyed, until Joel helped him up. Another time he walked straight into an old stump: after that, Joel took hold of his coat-tail and steered him. Long, like a cathedral aisle, and weighted with murky leaf-light, a path appeared, then a landmark: Toby, Killed by the Cat. Passing the moon tree, beneath which Jesus Fever was buried, no sign marking his grave, they came upon the Landing from the rear, and entered the garden.
A ridiculous scene presented itself: Zoo, crouched near the broken columns, was tugging at the slave-bell, trying, it seemed, to uproot it, and Amy, her hair disarranged and dirt streaking her face like war paint, paced back and forth, directing Zoo’s efforts. «Lift it, stupid, lift it. . . why, any child!. . . now try again.» Then she saw Randolph; her face contorted, a tick started in her cheek, and she shouted at him: «Don’t think you’re going to stop me because you’re not; you don’t own everything; it’s just as much mine as it is yours and more so if the truth were known, and I’m going to do just what I please; you leave me alone, Randolph, or I’m going to do something to you. I’ll go to the sheriff, I’ll travel around the country, I’ll make speeches. You don’t think I will, but I will, I will. . .»
Randolph did not look at her, but went on across the garden quite as if he had no idea she was there, and she ran after him, pulling at his sleeve, pleading now: «Let me have it, Randolph, please. Oh, I was so good, I did just what you told me: I said they’d gone away, I said they’d gone off on a long squirrel hunt; I wore my nice grey dress, Randolph, and made little tea-cakes, and the house was so clean, and really she liked me, Randolph, she said she did, and she told me about this store in New Orleans where I could sell my girandoles and the bell and the mirror in the hall: you aren’t listening, Randolph!» She followed him into the house.
As soon as she was gone, Zoo spit vindictively on the bell, and gave it such a kick it overturned with a mighty bong. «Ain’t nobody gonna pay cash-money for that piece-a mess. She plumb outa sense, the one done told Miss Amy any such of a thing.»
Joel tapped the bell like a tomtom. «Who was it that told her?»
«Was. . . I don’t know who.» And it was as if Zoo walked away while standing still; her voice, when she spoke again, seemed slowed down, distant: «Was some lady from New Orleans. . . had a ugly little child what wore a machine in her ear: was a little deaf child. I don’t know. They went away.»
«My cousin Louise, she’s deaf,» said Joel, thinking how he used to hide her hearing aid, of how mean he’d been to her: the times he’d made that kid cry! He wished he had a penny. But when he saw her again, why, he’d be so kind; he’d talk real loud so that she could hear every word, and he’d play those card games with her. Still, it would be fun to make her mad. Just once. But Ellen had never answered his letters. The hell with her. He didn’t care any more. His own bloodkin. And she’d made so many promises. And she’d said she loved him. But she forgot. All right, so had he, sure, you forget, o.k., who cares? And she’d said she loved him. «Zoo. . .» he said, and looked up in time to see her retreating through the arbor-vitae hedge, which shivered, and was still.
A sound, as if the bell had suddenly tolled, and the shape of loneliness, greenly iridescent, whitely indefinite, seemed to rise from the garden, and Joel, as though following a kite, bent back his head: clouds were coming over the sun: he waited for them to pass, thinking that when they had, when he looked back, some magic would have taken place: perhaps he would find himself sitting on the curb of St. Deval Street, or studying next week’s attractions outside the Nemo: why not? it was possible, for everywhere the sky is the same and it is down that things are different.
The clouds traveled slower than a clock’s hands, and, as he waited, became thunder-dark, became John Brown and horrid boys in panama hats and the Cloud Hotel and Idabel’s old hound, and when they were gone, Mr. Sansom was the sun. He looked down. No magic had happened; yet something had happened; or was about to. And he sat numb with apprehension. Before him stood a rose stalk throwing shadow like a sundial: an hour traced itself, another, the line of dark dissolved, all the garden began
