He came in with an armload of firewood and got a fire going in the hearth and sat before it and rested. Then he turned to the girl. He took off all her clothes and looked at her, inspecting her body carefully, as if he would see how she were made. He went outside and looked in through the window at her lying naked before the fire. When he came back in he unbuckled his trousers and stepped out of them and laid next to her. He pulled the blanket over them.
IN THE AFTERNOON HE WENT back for the rifle and the squirrels. He put the squirrels in his shirt and checked the breech of the rifle to see it was loaded and went on up the mountain.
When he came out through the stark winter woods above the turnaround the car was still there. The motor had stopped running. He squatted on his heels and watched. It was very quiet. He could hear the radio faintly below him. After a while he stood and spat and took a last survey of the scene and went back down the mountain.
In the morning when the black saplings stood like knives in the mist on the mountainside two boys came across the lot and entered the house where Ballard lay huddled in his blanket on the floor by the dead fire. The dead girl lay in the other room away from the heat for keeping.
They stood in the door. Ballard reared up with eyes walled and howled them out backward and half falling into the yard.
What the hell do you want? he yelled.
They stood in the yard. One had a rifle and one a homemade bow. This here’s Charles’s cousin, said the one with the rifle. You cain’t run him off. We’s told we could hunt here.
Ballard looked at the cousin. Get on and hunt then, he said.
Come on, Aaron, said the one with the rifle.
Aaron gave Ballard a grudging look and they went on across the yard.
You better stay away from here, called Ballard from the porch. He was shivering there in the cold. That’s what you all better do.
When they had gone from sight in the dry weeds one of them called back something but Ballard could not make it out. He stood in the door where they’d stood and he looked into the room to see could he repeat with his own eyes what they’d seen. Nothing was certain. She lay beneath rags. He went in and built the fire back and squatted before it cursing.
When he came in from the barn he was dragging a crude homemade ladder and he took it into the room where the girl lay and raised the end of it up through a small square hole in the ceiling and climbed up and poked his head into the attic. The shake roof lay in a crazy jigsaw against the winter sky and in the checkered gloom he could make out a few old boxes filled with dusty mason jars. He climbed up and cleared a place on the loose loft floorboards and dusted them off with some rags and went back down again.
She was too heavy for him. He paused halfway up the ladder with one hand on the top rung and the other around the dead girl’s waist where she dangled in the ripped and rudely sutured nightgown and then he descended again. He tried holding her around the neck. He got no farther. He sat on the floor with her, his breath exploding whitely in the cold of the room. Then he went out to the barn again.
He came in with some old lengths of plowline and sat before the fire and pieced them. Then he went in and fitted the rope about the waist of the pale cadaver and ascended the ladder with the other end. She rose slumpshouldered from the floor with her hair all down and began to bump slowly up the ladder. Halfway up she paused, dangling. Then she began to rise again.
HE HAD MADE THE SQUIRRELS into a kind of stew with turnips and he set what was left of it before the fire to warm. After he had eaten he took the rifle up into the attic and left it and he took the ladder out and stood it by the back of the house. Then he went out to the road and started toward town.
Few cars passed. Ballard walking in the gray roadside grass among the beercans and trash did not even look up. It had grown colder and he was almost blue when he reached Sevierville three hours later.
Ballard shopping. Before a dry goods store where in the window a crude wood manikin headless and mounted on a pole wore a blowsy red dress.
He made several passes through the notions and dry goods, his hands on the money in his pockets. A salesgirl who stood with her arms crossed hugging her shoulders leaned to him as he passed.
Can I hep ye? she said.
I ain’t looked good yet, said Ballard.
He made another sortie among the counters of lingerie, his eyes slightly wild as if in terror of the flimsy pastel garments there. When he came past the salesgirl again he put his hands in his rear pockets and tossed his head casually toward the display window. How much is that there red dress out front, he said.
She looked toward the front of the store and put her hand to her mouth for remembering. It’s five ninety-eight, she said. Then she shook her head up and down. Yes. Five ninety-eight.
I’ll take it, said Ballard.
The salesgirl unleaned herself from the counter. She and Ballard were about the same height. She said: What size did you need?
Ballard looked at her. Size, he said.
Did you know her size?
He rubbed his jaw. He’d never seen the girl standing up. He looked at the salesgirl. I don’t know what size she takes, he said.
Well how big is she?
I don’t believe she’s big as you.
Do you know how much she weighs?
She’ll weigh a hunnerd pound or better.
The girl looked at him sort of funny. She must be just small, she said.
She ain’t real big.
They’re over here, said the girl, leading the way.
They went creaking across the oiled wooden floors to a dress rack assembled out of galvanized waterpipe and the salesgirl fanned the hangers back and pulled out the red dress and held it up. This here’s a seven, she said. I’d say it would fit her unless she’s just teeninecy.
Okay, said Ballard.
She can swap it if it don’t fit.
Okay.
She folded the dress across her arm. Was there anything else? she said.
Yeah, said Ballard. She needs some other stuff too.
The girl waited.
She needs some things to go with it.
What all does she need? the girl said.
She needs some drawers, Ballard blurted out.
The girl coughed into her fist and turned and went back up the aisle, Ballard behind, his face afire.
They stood at the counter he’d been studying all along from out of his eyecorner and the girl tapped her fingers on the little glass rail, looking past him. He stood with his hands still crammed in his rear pockets and his elbows out.
They’s all these here, said the girl, taking a pencil from behind her ear and running it over the counter rail.
You got any black ones?
She rummaged through the stacks and came up with a pair of black ones with pink bows.
I’ll take em, said Ballard. And one of them there.
She looked to where he was pointing. A slip? she said.
Yeah.
She moved along the counter. Here’s a pretty red one, she said. Would go pretty with this dress.
Red? said Ballard.
She held it up.
I’ll take that, said Ballard.
What else now? she said.
I don’t know, said Ballard, casting his eye over the counter.
Does she need a bra?
No. You ain’t got them drawers in the red have ye?
WHEN BALLARD REACHED Fox’s store he was half frozen. A bluish dusk suffused the barren woods about. He went straight to the stove and stood next to the dusty gray barrel of it with his teeth chattering.