The tinker returned from the cart with a lantern and placed it upon the mantel and lit it. She watched him. He had a jar of whiskey beneath one arm and he knelt in the floor before the hearth like some sackclothen penitent. He was breaking small brush and sticks and soon there was a flame to which he bowed prone and blew gently upon. He sat back on his heels and coaxed the fire with his wafted cap. You ain’t took root there have ye? he said.
She moved across the empty cabin toward the door and stood there for a moment and then closed it. On the back of it hung a coat cocooned in spiderweb like some enormous prey and on the floor lay a dead bird. She toed it with her naked foot. Spooned to a shell, faintly soursmelling. A small white grub writhed in the damp spot it left. She took down the flower from her hair and held it at her breast and turned. The tinker had the jar of whiskey aloft before the lantern. He unscrewed the lid, paused a moment as if to take breath, and drank. She watched his slack throat pump and his eyes tighten. He lowered the jar again and said Whoof and clapped the lid back on as if something might escape. When he saw her watching he extended the jar in one hand. Drink? he said.
I don’t care for none, she said.
No. He turned and set the jar beside the lantern. His sparse gray hair stood about his head electrically and in all these gestures before the fire he looked like an effigy in rags hung by strings from an indifferent hand. Come over by the fire till ye warm, he said.
I ain’t cold.
The tinker was not looking at her. I expect you’re hungry, he said.
She didn’t answer for a minute. Nor did he turn his head. Yes, she said.
He left the fire and crossed the room and went out. When he came in again he had a small willow hamper over one arm and a load of wood. She had come to the fire and was standing with her back to it. He set the hamper on the floor and stacked the wood.
They used to be a table but I burnt it for firewood oncet of a cool evenin, he said.
She nodded.
Set down, he said. I got some cold supper.
He had squatted on the floor and opened the hamper. She sat carefully with her legs tucked.
Here, he said. Get ye a piece of this cornbread.
She took a chunk of the bread and bit into it. It was hard and sandy and tasteless.
Get ye some of these here beans.
She nodded, her mouth stuffed. He was dipping up beans out of a bowl with a piece of the cornbread. Get all ye want, he said.
Is it far to where he’s at? she said.
Far and far, said the tinker.
She scooped up some beans on her bread and crammed it into her mouth, flicking crumbs from her lap, her streaked and dusty feet tucked beneath her. When do we get there? she said.
The tinker looked at her. We, is it? he said.
I guess we fixin to get a early start of the mornin ain’t we?
It’s a hard thing to know what daylight will bring any day, the tinker said. Get ye some more cornbread there.
I’ve got all I need.
Ain’t much of a big eatin gal are ye?
I’m some out of the habit.
Ah, the tinker said.
You reckon we’ll get there tomorrow sometime?
Tomorrow?
Will we?
The tinker chewed steadily. Over the floor their long flung shadows swayed like dancing cranes. Little sister, he said, you ain’t the first slackbellied doe to go about in the woods with them big eyes.
I just want my chap, she said.
Do ye now?
You said I could work it out.
They’s work and they’s work, the tinker said. He rose to his knees and reached down the whiskey and set it before him.
I’ll do just whatever, she said. I ain’t got nothin else to do.
The tinker smiled and captured the beanbowl between his thin shanks and wiped up the remnants with the last of the bread. He chewed with eyes half closed and his face by the firelight hung in a mask of morbid tranquillity like the faces of the drowned.
You don’t need him, she said.
He wiped his wattled chin with his cuff and took up the jar and drank. He was watching her very steadily above the rim. He set the jar down and recapped it. I’ve gone up and down in this world a right smart, he wheezed, and I’ve seed some curious ways. But I never to this day seen a stout manchild laid out in the woods save one.
Woods? she said.
They don’t nourish out of the earth like corn.
He was give to ye. Was he not give to ye?
He was not give to nobody.
What did ye have to give for him?
Yes, the tinker said. What did I have to give for him.
I’ll make it up to ye, she said. Whatever it was.
Will ye now, said the tinker.
I’ll work it out, she said. I can work if I ain’t never had nothin.
Nor never will.
Times is hard.
Hard people makes hard times. I’ve seen the meanness of humans till I don’t know why God ain’t put out the sun and gone away.
Whatever it was you give, she said softly. I’ll give it and more.
The tinker spat bitterly into the fire. They ain’t more, he said.
You promised.
I promised, the tinker said. I promised nothin.
He’s mine, she whispered.
The tinker looked at her. She had both thumbs in her mouth. Yourn, he said. You ain’t fit to have him.
That ain’t for you to judge.
I’ve done judged.
She had leaned forward and her eyes were huge and hungered. She touched his ragged sleeve with two fingers. What did ye give? she said. I’ll make it up to ye. Whatever ye give. And that nurse fee.
The tinker jerked his arm away. He leaned his face toward her. Give, he said. I give a lifetime wanderin in a country where I was despised. Can you give that? I give forty years strapped in front of a cart like a mule till I couldn’t stand straight to be hanged. I’ve not got soul one in this world save a old halfcrazy sister that nobody never would have like they never would me. I been rocked and shot at and whipped and kicked and dogbit from one end of this state to the other and you cain’t pay that back. You ain’t got nothin to pay it with. Them accounts is in blood and they ain’t nothin in this world to pay em out with.
Let me have him, she moaned. You could let me have him.
Let you have him, the tinker sneered. I’d care for him, she said. They wouldn’t nobody like me.
Like you done?
He done it. I never.
Who? the tinker said.
My brother. He’s the one.
Yes, the tinker said. He’s the one would of laid it to early rest save my bein there. Cause I knowed. Sickness. He’s got a sickness. He … the tinker stopped. It was very quiet in the cabin. They could hear the branch murmuring. Or perhaps it was the wind. The tinker stopped and stared at her with his viper’s eyes gone wild in their black wells. It ain’t hisn, he said.
It ain’t nothin to you.
The tinker leaned and seized her wrist in his boney grip. It ain’t, he said. Is it?
Yes.
Neither of them moved. The tinker did not turn loose of her arm. That’s a lie, he said.
What do you care?
That’s a lie, he said again. You say it’s a lie.
She didn’t move.
You say it’s a lie now, the tinker said.
You don’t want him, she whispered. You wouldn’t of took him if you’d of knowed …
The tinker pulled her close. You say that’s a lie damn you.
It’s no right child, she said. You don’t want him. Her body was contorted with pain and her eyes closed.
Yes, said the tinker. You’d try it wouldn’t ye? You lyin little bitch. He flung her arm back and she crumpled up and held it in her other hand. The tinker rose and stood gaunt and trembling above her. You’ll see me dead fore ye see him again, he said.
You won’t never have no rest, she moaned. Not never.