You wasn’t here Wednesday was you?
No sir. I just come in this mornin.
The man stood there looking down at him and Holme looked about the shelves and their bright labeled wares and then down at the counter.
You know how I hired my deputy, Holme?
No sir.
They was a wagonload of sons of bitches pulled up in a field to pick beans and he’s the first’n off the tailgate.
Holme smiled weakly. Clark never had smiled.
You ever been to a auction?
No sir.
He was hefting the weight of the roll of bills in one palm and contemplating Holme. That’s the wrong answer, he said. He looked toward the clerk. Where’s Leroy?
I don’t know. I ain’t paid to keep up with him.
Clark lifted an enormous watch from the pocket of his coat and looked at it. Tell you what I’ll do, Holme, he said, addressing the face of the watch.
What.
He looked up. You broke, I reckon.
Yessir.
Can you operate a pick and shovel?
I reckon.
All right. See Harold here about gettin you one from back in the back and then go up to the church and dig me two holes. Big enough to put somebody in. And not in the church lot neither. That’s all spoke for. These go up in the back where them little markers is at. You might better ast at the preacher’s house.
All right, Holme said.
That old pick’s loose in the handle to where I’d not trust it, the clerk said.
Is it the heavy trade in here all day that’s kept you from mendin it? He turned back to Holme. The county pays a dollar, he said. That’s more than I’d pay but I ain’t been ast. If you get done this evenin afore dark come by the store here and you can get paid. Otherwise I’ll see ye tomorrow. Unless you’re still standin here tomorrow waitin on him to get you that pick and shovel.
When Holme came past the churchyard with his shouldered tools there were two negroes there among the stones, one sitting and watching the other and the other naked to the waist and kneedeep in the hole he dug, the pick coming lazily down and ceasing with a small dead thump in the earth. When the seated one saw him he started to rise and then he sat again. The one working stopped and looked up, face shining with sweat, the two of them watching him come along.
Howdy, he said. You sure you diggin in the right place?
Yessir, the seated one said.
You ain’t diggin two are ye?
Yessir. I just waitin on him a minute.
Where’s the other one?
They ain’t but just us.
Holme looked at them blankly. Where’s the other hole at? he said.
The two negroes looked at each other. The one digging said: We wasn’t told to dig but one.
This’n here is Mrs Salter, the one sitting said, cocking his thumb backward at the stone against which he leaned. He supposed to go on the right cause I ast his right or my right and he say her right.
Holme unloaded the tools from his shoulder and leaned on them and looked about him and then at the negroes again. You mean you ain’t diggin but the one hole, he said.
That’s all we’s told.
It’s for somebody else I reckon. You ain’t seen the preacher have ye?
I seen him go up the road a little while back.
Holme nodded. To the rear of the church was an untended lot where he could make out some thin board headstones tilted among the weeds. I reckon yander’s the place for buryin anybody that ain’t spoke for, ain’t it?
The one had started to dig again and he stopped but neither answered.
Or ain’t it?
Yessir, the one said. I reckon.
Holme nodded to them and went on.
He worked until nightfall and then a little later. He was beginning to feel lightheaded and his empty belly had drawn up in him like a fist. He worked on for a while in the dark and then he quit. There were no lights at the preacher’s house. When he got to the store there were no lights there and there was nobody about. He did not know how late it was. He slid the pick and shovel beneath the porch and went on up the road, a solitary figure in that warm and breathing dark, shadowless and unwitnessed. He slept the night in the lee of a hayrick and he woke again before it was light. Before there was any sign or hope of light. Something had passed on the road and he lay huddled against the chill of pending dawn with his arms crossed on his chest in that attitude the living inflict upon the dead and he listened but he could hear nothing. There was something fearful about. He listened for dogs to bark down along the road but no dogs barked. He lay awake a long time and the morning came up in the east in a pale accretion of light heralded by no cock, no waking birds. He rose and went into the road, dusting the chaff from his wretched clothes and stomping his feet in the fine boots now calked with grave earth. He went along toward the town and as he topped a rise in the road two buzzards labored up out of a dead tree in a field from which hung the bodies of three men. One was dressed in a dirty white suit. Nothing moved. The buzzards swung away beyond the woods and there was no sound and no movement anywhere. There was only the gradual gathering of light to which these eyeless dead came alien and unreal like figures wandered from a dream.
He hurried on, into the empty town. It was daylight now. When he got to the store Clark’s rig was standing untethered at the corner of the porch with the mule asleep in the traces. He went up the steps and tapped at the door and waited and tapped again. He peered through the window. His silhouette lay on the floor in the bent light. All was dim and dusty with abandonment. He called. After a while he descended the steps into the road again and he stood there and looked all about him and listened for any sound at all but there was nothing. He turned and went on through the town. He was walking very fast and after a while he was running again.
SHE RESTED for a while sitting on the slatted walkway and leaning her aching breasts forward into her hands. The air was dark with gathering rain. A woman went past laden with a feedbag in which something alive struggled mutely. When she spoke the woman gave her an empty look and went on. She rose after a while and went on herself, the dust warm and soft as talc beneath her toes. There were some men standing in front of a store on the other side of the road and they were watching her. She set her shoulders back a little. Then a man came out of a building on the left and crossed in front of her and as he did he tipped his hat, a brief gesture as if swatting idly at a fly. There was a trace of a smile at his mouthcorners.
Hey, she said.
Hey yourself.
She was watching him go on. You ain’t a doctor are ye? she called after him.
He stopped and looked back. No, he said. A lawyer. I get the winners, he gets the losers. He was standing in the middle of the road smiling a little, his hand gone to the brim of his hat again.
Well listen, she said, where’s they a doctor at?
The lawyer tucked a long forefinger into his waistcoat pocket and fished forth a watch. He snapped it open, looked at it, looked at the sun where it rode darkly as if to verify the hour in that way. He won’t be in till about one-thirty, he said. It’s ten till now. He snapped shut the watch-case and slipped it into his vest once more. Is it urgent? he said.
What?
Are you in a hurry? His office is in the same building as mine. We sort of mind shop for one another. Right over here. He pointed to a three-storey house with tall windows in the upper part and lettering on the glass.
She looked, brushing back the hair from her face.
What seems to be the trouble? Is it serious? Or were you asking for someone else?
No. It’s me.
Yes. Well. Are you sick? I could let you rest in my office until he gets in if you’d like.
She looked across the street toward the house and she looked at the lawyer. I don’t want to put ye out none, she said.