All right, she said. She stood and unbuttoned the shift at the neck and slid the shoulders down so that she was standing with her arms pinioned in the rotten cloth. It was all she wore.
Yes, he said. All right. I’ll give you something for that. It must be very painful.
She worked the dress back over her shoulders and turned to do the buttons. It smarts some, she said.
Have you been pumping them? Milking them?
No sir. They just run by their own selves.
Yes. You should milk them though. Where is the baby?
I don’t know. I mean I ain’t seen it since it was borned but I believe I know who’s got it if I could find him.
And when was it? That it was born.
I believe it was in March but it could of been April.
That’s not possible, he said.
Well it was March then.
Look, the doctor said, what difference does it make if it was later than that? Like maybe in July.
I wouldn’t of cared, she said.
The doctor leaned back. You couldn’t still have milk after six months.
If he was dead. That’s what you said wasn’t it? She was leaning forward in the chair watching him. That means he ain’t, don’t it? That means he ain’t dead or I’d of gone dry. Ain’t it?
Well, the doctor said. But something half wild in her look stopped him. Yes, he said. That could be what it means. Yes.
I knowed it all the time, she said. I guess I knowed it right along.
Yes, he said. Look, let me give you this salve. He swung about in his chair and rose and unlocked a cabinet behind his desk. He studied the interior for a moment and then selected a small jar and closed the cabinet door again. Now, he said, turning and holding up the jar. I want you to put this on good and heavy and keep it on all the time. If it wears off put more. And you’ll have to pump them even if it hurts. Try it a little bit first. He slid the jar across the desk to her and she took it and looked at it and sat holding it in her lap.
Come back in a couple of days and tell me how you’re doing.
I don’t know as I’ll be here, she said.
Where will you be?
I don’t know. I got to get on huntin him.
The baby?
Yessir.
When did you see it last? You said you never nursed it.
I ain’t seen it since it was borned.
Then what was the part you lied about?
Well. About it bein dead.
Yes. What did happen?
He said it was puny but afore God it weren’t puny a bit.
And what happened then?
We never had nothin nor nobody.
You’re not married are you?
No sir.
And what happened? Was the baby given away?
Yes, she said. I never meant for him to do that. I wasn’t ashamed. He said it died but I knowed that for a lie. He lied all the time.
Who did?
My brother.
The doctor leaned back in the chair and folded his hands in his lap and looked at them. After a while he said: You don’t know where the baby is?
No sir.
Below them in the street cattle were being driven lowing through the rain and the mud.
Where do you live? the doctor said. What’s your name?
Rinthy Holme.
And where do you live then.
I don’t live nowheres no more, she said. I never did much. I just go around huntin my chap. That’s about all I do any more.
THE ROAD MADE a switchback at the top of the hill and then ran along the ridge so that following it he had a long time to watch the river below him, slow and flat, a dead clay color and wrinkling viscously in the late afternoon light. The road was good until it started down the bluff and then it was washed out again and muddy and plugged with the tracks of mired horses or men or small things that had crossed it in the night. When the road reached the river it went right on into the water and he could see that the water was up. There was a heavy timbered scaffold and a ferrycable running from it out across the river, bellying almost into the current and rising again at the far side. A voice was coming from the far side too but he could not understand what it said. After a while he saw a man come from the ferry and stand on the bank and put his hands to his mouth and then in a minute came the voice again faint with distance. It was just a voice with no words to it. He cupped his own hands to shout but he could think of nothing to shout so he let them fall again and after a while the man went back to the ferry and he couldn’t see him any more.
Holme found a dry place in the grass to sit and he watched the river. It was very high and went past with a dull hiss like poured sand. The air had turned cool and the sky looked gray and wintry. Some birds came upriver, waterbirds with long necks, and he watched them. After a while he slept.
When he woke it was growing late and he could see the ferry on the river. What woke him was a horse and when he turned to look there was a man at the landing holding the reins while the horse drank in the river. Holme rose and stretched himself. Howdy, he said.
Howdy, the man said.
You goin acrost?
No, he said. He was watching the ferry.
Holme rubbed his palms together and hunched his shoulders in the cold.
He thinks I am, the rider said.
He does?
Yes. He jerked the horse’s head up and ran his palm along its neck. You reckon that’s half way, he said.
What’s that? Holme said.
The man pointed. The ferry yander. You reckon she’s half way here?
Holme watched the ferry coming quarterwise toward them with the snarl of water breaking on the upriver side of her hull. Yes, he said. I allow he’s a bit nigher here than yander.
That’s right, the man said. Hard to tell where half way is on a river unless you’re in the middle of it. He pulled the horse’s head around and put one toe in the stirrup and mounted upward all in one motion and went back up the road in a mudsucking canter.
The ferry was the size of a small keelboat. It slowed in the slack shore currents and nosed easily into the mud. The ferryman was standing on the forward deck adjusting the ropes.
Howdy, Holme said.
You still cain’t cross. You a friend of that son of a bitch?
Him? No. I was asleep and he come up.
I’m fixin to get me one of them spyglasses anyways, the ferryman said. He came from the barge deck with a little hop and seized up nearly to his knees in the soft mud and cursed and kicked his boots about and made his way to the higher ground. Yes, he said. One of them spyglasses put a stop to that old shit. He was raking his boots in the grass to clean them. He wore a little leather vest and a strange sort of hat that appeared vaguely nautical. Holme chewed on a weed and watched him.
Little old spyglass be just the thing to fix him with, the man said.
What all does he do? Holme said.
The ferryman looked at him. Do? he said. You seen him. Just like that. He does it all the time. Been doin it for two year now. All on account of a little argument. Sends his old lady over to Morgan for him. I ort by rights to quit haulin her fat ass.
Holme nodded his head vaguely.
So anyway you still cain’t cross till I get a horse.
All right, Holme said.
People is just a dime. Horses is four bits.
All right.
I cain’t afford to make no crossin for no dime.
No. How long do ye reckon it’ll be afore a horse comes?
I couldn’t say, mister.
I ain’t seen many people usin this road.
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. It was busy yesterday evenin. I ain’t never been more’n a day or two without somebody come along.
Day or two? Holme said.
They be somebody along directly.
I sure would hate to have to wait any day or two.
They ort to be somebody along directly.