She rose from the bed and removed her coat and stood motionless, arrowlike in her scant dress, her head bent, her hands clasped before her. She sat on the bed again. She sat with her legs close together, her head bent. She raised her head and looked about the room. Tommy could hear the voices from the dark porch. They rose again, then sank to the steady murmur.
Temple sprang to her feet. She unfastened her dress, her arms arched thin and high, her shadow anticking her movements. In a single motion she was out of it, crouching a little, match-thin in her scant undergarments. Her head emerged facing the chair against the door. She hurled the dress away, her hand reaching for the coat. She scrabbled it up and swept it about her, pawing at the sleeves. Then, the coat clutched to her breast, she whirled and looked straight into Tommy’s eyes and whirled and ran and flung herself upon the chair. “Durn them fellers,” Tommy whispered, “durn them fellers.” He could hear them on the front porch and his body began again to writhe slowly in an acute unhappiness. “Durn them fellers.”
When he looked into the room again Temple was moving toward him, holding the coat about her. She took the raincoat from the nail and put it on over her own coat and fastened it. She lifted the canteen down and returned to the bed. She laid the canteen on the bed and picked her dress up from the floor and brushed it with her hand and folded it carefully and laid it on the bed. Then she turned back the quilt, exposing the mattress. There was no linen, no pillow, and when she touched the mattress it gave forth a faint dry whisper of shucks.
She removed her slippers and set them on the bed and got in beneath the quilt. Tommy could hear the mattress crackle. She didn’t lie down at once. She sat upright, quite still, the hat tilted rakishly upon the back of her head. Then she moved the canteen, the dress and the slippers beside her head and drew the raincoat about her legs and lay down, drawing the quilt up, then she sat up and removed the hat and shook her hair out and laid the hat with the other garments and prepared to lie down again. Again she paused. She opened the raincoat and produced a compact from somewhere and, watching her motions in the tiny mirror, she spread and fluffed her hair with her fingers and powdered her face and replaced the compact and looked at the watch again and fastened the raincoat. She moved the garments one by one under the quilt and lay down and drew the quilt to her chin. The voices had got quiet for a moment and in the silence Tommy could hear a faint, steady chatter of the shucks inside the mattress where Temple lay, her hands crossed on her breast and her legs straight and close and decorous, like an effigy on an ancient tomb.
The voices were still; he had completely forgot them until he heard Goodwin say “Stop it. Stop that!” A chair crashed over; he heard Goodwin’s light thudding feet; the chair clattered along the porch as though it had been kicked aside, and crouching, his elbows out a little in squat, bear-like alertness, Tommy heard dry, light sounds like billiard balls. “Tommy,” Goodwin said.
When necessary he could move with that thick, lightning-like celerity of badgers or coons. He was around the house and on the porch in time to see Gowan slam into the wall and slump along it and plunge full length off the porch into the weeds, and Popeye in the door, his head thrust forward. “Grab him there!” Goodwin said. Tommy sprang upon Popeye in a sidling rush.
“I got—hah!” he said as Popeye slashed savagely at his face; “you would, would you? Hole up hyer.”
Popeye ceased. “Jesus Christ. You let them sit around here all night, swilling that goddam stuff; I told you. Jesus Christ.”
Goodwin and Van were a single shadow, locked and hushed and furious. “Let go!” Van shouted. “I’ll kill—” Tommy sprang to them. They jammed Van against the wall and held him motionless.
“Got him?” Goodwin said.
“Yeuh. I got him. Hole up hyer. You done whupped him.”
“By God, I’ll—”
“Now, now; whut you want to kill him fer? You caint eat him, kin you? You want Mr Popeye to start guttin us all with that ere artermatic?”
Then it was over, gone like a furious gust of black wind, leaving a peaceful vacuum in which they moved quietly about, lifting Gowan out of the weeds with low-spoken, amicable directions to one another. They carried him into the hall, where the woman stood, and to the door of the room where Temple was.
“She’s locked it,” Van said. He struck the door, high. “Open the door,” he shouted. “We’re bringing you a customer.”
“Hush,” Goodwin said. “There’s no lock on it. Push it.”
“Sure,” Van said; “I’ll push it.” He kicked it. The chair buckled and sprang into the room. Van banged the door open and they entered, carrying Gowan’s legs. Van kicked the chair across the room. Then he saw Temple standing in the corner behind the bed. His hair was broken about his face, long as a girl’s. He flung it back with a toss of his head. His chin was bloody and he deliberately spat blood onto the floor.
“Go on,” Goodwin said, carrying Gowan’s shoulders, “put him on the bed.” They swung Gowan onto the bed. His bloody head lolled over the edge. Van jerked him over and slammed him into the mattress. He groaned, lifting his hand. Van struck him across the face with his palm.
“Lie still, you—”
“Let be,” Goodwin said. He caught Van’s hand. For an instant they glared at one another.
“I said, Let be,” Goodwin said. “Get out of here.”
“Got proteck.……” Gowan muttered “.…girl. ’Ginia gem.……gemman got proteck.……”
“Get out of here, now,” Goodwin said.
The woman stood in the door beside Tommy, her back against the door frame. Beneath a cheap coat her nightdress dropped to her feet.
Van lifted Temple’s dress from the bed. “Van,” Goodwin said. “I said get out.”
“I heard you,” Van said. He shook the dress out. Then he looked at Temple in the corner, her arms crossed, her hands clutching her shoulders. Goodwin moved toward Van. He dropped the dress and went around the bed. Popeye came in the door, a cigarette in his fingers. Beside the woman Tommy drew his breath hissing through his ragged teeth.
He saw Van take hold of the raincoat upon Temple’s breast and rip it open. Then Goodwin sprang between them; he saw Van duck, whirling, and Temple fumbling at the torn raincoat. Van and Goodwin were now in the middle of the floor, swinging at one another, then he was watching Popeye walking toward Temple. With the corner of his eye he saw Van lying on the floor and Goodwin standing over him, stooped a little, watching Popeye’s back.
“Popeye,” Goodwin said. Popeye went on, the cigarette trailing back over his shoulder, his head turned a little as though he were not looking where he was going, the cigarette slanted as though his mouth were somewhere under the turn of his jaw. “Dont touch her,” Goodwin said.
Popeye stopped before Temple, his face turned a little aside. His right hand lay in his coat pocket. Beneath the raincoat on Temple’s breast Tommy could see the movement of the other hand, communicating a shadow of movement to the coat.
“Take your hand away,” Goodwin said. “Move it.”
Popeye moved his hand. He turned, his hands in his coat pockets, looking at Goodwin. He crossed the room, watching Goodwin. Then he turned his back on him and went out the door.