Holme’s mouth was dust dry and the piece of meat seemed to have grown bigger in it. I don’t know, he said.
Don’t know?
He turned the shirt again. He was very white and naked sitting there. They was give to me, he said.
They look a mite turned up at the toes, the man said. Did they not know your size?
They was bought for somebody else. He died and I got em give to me is how come they a little big. They all right.
The man shifted slightly and raised one of his own broken boots and looked at it and lowered it again. Holme could see part of one naked foot within the rent leather.
I reckon a dead man’s boots is better than near no boots a-tall, the man said.
He felt cold all over. Harmon raised his head and looked at him and even the one with the rifle that had appeared to be sleeping had now opened his eyes without moving at all and was regarding him with malign imbecility.
You say you was just goin crost the river? the man said.
Holme’s voice came out quavering and alien. He heard it with alarm. I was huntin my sister, he said. She run off and I been huntin her. I think she might of run off with this here tinker. Little old scrawnylookin kind of a feller. Herself she’s just young. I been huntin her since early in the spring and I cain’t have no luck about findin her. She ain’t got nobody but me to see about her. They ain’t no tellin what all kind of mess she’s got into. She was sick anyways. She never was a real stout person.
The man was listening closely but what he said next: I wouldn’t name him because if you cain’t name somethin you cain’t claim it. You cain’t talk about it even. You cain’t say what it is. I got Harmon to look after him if they do fight. I keep studyin him. He’s close, but I keep at it.
Holme stared at him. The man had sat up again and had his legs crossed before him.
He’s the one set the skiff adrift this mornin, he said. Even if it just drifted off he still done it. I knowed they’s a reason. We waited all day and half the night. I kept up a good fire. You seen it didn’t ye?
Yes, Holme said.
How come ye to run your sister off? the man said.
I never.
How come her to run off?
I don’t know. She just run off.
You don’t know much, do ye?
Holme looked past him and past Harmon to the one with the rifle. He appeared to be sleeping but he wasn’t sleeping. He looked at the man again. I ain’t bothered you, he said.
I ain’t in a position to be bothered.
Holme didn’t answer.
That ain’t the way it is, the man said.
Holme leaned slightly forward and held his elbows. He could feel the meat weighty and truculent in the pit of his stomach.
Is it? the man said.
No.
Get ye another piece of meat yander.
I’ve got about all I can hold.
You know, I would think them there big boots would chafe on a feller’s heels, the man said.
They all right, Holme said.
I don’t believe they are, the man said.
Are what?
All right. I don’t believe they are.
Well, it don’t make no difference.
When I believe somethin it makes a difference.
Holme watched the fire. In his unfocused vision the coals beaded up in pins of light and drifted like hot spores. Blood had come up in his ears and they were warm and half deaf with it. I don’t care, he said.
You will care mister. I think maybe you are somebody else. Because you don’t seem to understand me very much. Now get them boots off.
Harmon looked up and smiled. Holme looked at the man. The fire had died some and he could see him better, sitting beyond it and the scene compressed into a kind of depthlessness so that the black woods beyond them hung across his eyes oppressively and the man seemed to be seated in the fire itself, cradling the flames to his body as if there were something there beyond all warming. He reached and slid the boots from his feet, one, the other, and stood them before him.
Harmon, the man said.
Harmon rose and came for the boots and took them to the man. The man seized them and examined them, bending closer to the fire, turning them in his hands like some barbaric cobbler inspecting the work of another world. He pulled off his own boots and put on these new ones and stood in them and took three steps up and two back and turned. Harmon had gathered up the old boots and was putting them on. The one with the rifle watched happily.
All right, the bearded one said.
Holme squatted with his naked feet beneath him.
Fix his, the man said.
Harmon carried the boots he had discarded to the one with the rifle and stood them before him. The one with the rifle looked at them and looked up at Harmon. Harmon took the rifle from him and kicked at the empty boots.
Do em for him, the man said.
Harmon knelt and pulled off the nameless one’s boots and pushed the other boots at him. Then he rose with these boots and turned. The man gestured.
Holme watched, squatting shoeless and half naked. Harmon came toward him smiling, the rifle in one hand and the last pair of boots in the other. He dropped them alongside Holme and stood looking down at him. Holme looked at the bearded one.
Them’s for you, the man said.
Holme looked at them. They were mismatched, cracked, shapeless, burntlooking and crudely mended everywhere with bits of wire and string. He looked at the nameless one who sat likewise barefoot with a pair of boots before him. Relieved of the rifle his hands lay on the ground on either side of him and he was watching Holme. Holme looked away.
I said them ones there is yourn, the man said.
Holme looked at the boots again, then took one up slowly and pulled it onto his foot. A sour reek welled out of the top.
You don’t have much to say, do ye? the man said.
No.
I guess you think maybe you and me should of traded.
I don’t care, Holme said.
I believe in takin care of my own, the man said. That’s the way I think.
Ever man thinks his own way, Holme said.
Leave him alone Harmon.
Harmon stepped away from him. Sometime it had stopped raining. Holme hadn’t noticed. He had not felt the rain on his naked back, the small rain that died in the fire soundlessly.
You may see the time you wish you had worse, the man said.
Holme made a small helpless gesture with one hand.
Where was you headin sure enough?
Nowheres, Holme said.
Nowheres.
No.
You may get there yet, the man said. He came along the edge of the fire and stopped, looking down at Holme. Holme could see only his legs and those of Harmon a little further beyond. The fire had burned low and there was but a single cleft and yellow serpent tongue of flame standing among the coals. A third pair of boots came up and Holme looked at them. They stood slightly toed in and on the wrong feet.
That ain’t all, is it? the man said.
I ain’t got nothin else, Holme said.
The man spat past him into the fire. Somethin else, he said. Have you got a sister sure enough?
I done told ye.
Run off with some tinker.
Yes.
She ain’t here to tell it her way. Is she?
No.
And where do you reckon they’ve got to by now?
I don’t know.
Just further on down the road. Don’t you reckon?
Yes. I reckon. I ain’t studied it.
Ain’t studied it.
No.
He seemed to be speaking to the fire. When he lifted his head he could see the three of them standing there watching him, ragged, filthy, threatful.
Yes, the man said. You’ve studied it.
Holme didn’t answer. He turned his face to the fire again.
Harmon, the man said. Leave him be.