“Hit’s helt all right, so fur,” the other said. He mounted. Then Gowan followed, through the trap, into yellow-barred gloom where the level sun fell through the broken walls and roof. “Walk wher I do,” the man said. “You’ll tromp on a loose boa’d and find yoself downstairs befo you know hit.” He picked his way across the floor and dug an earthenware jug from a pile of rotting hay in the corner. “One place he wont look fer hit,” he said. “Skeered of sp’ilin them gal’s hands of hisn.”
They drank. “I’ve seen you out hyer befo,” the man said. “Caint call yo name, though.”
“My name’s Stevens. I’ve been buying liquor from Lee for three years. When’ll he be back? We’ve got to get on to town.”
“He’ll be hyer soon. I’ve seen you befo. Nother feller fum Jefferson out hyer three-fo nights ago. I caint call his name neither. He sho was a talker, now. Kep on tellin how he up and quit his wife. Have some mo,” he said; then he ceased and squatted slowly, the jug in his lifted hands, his head bent with listening. After a moment the voice spoke again, from the hallway beneath.
“Jack.”
The man looked at Gowan. His jaw dropped into an expression of imbecile glee. What teeth he had were stained and ragged within his soft, tawny beard.
“You, Jack, up there,” the voice said.
“Hyear him?” the man whispered, shaking with silent glee. “Callin me Jack. My name’s Tawmmy.”
“Come on,” the voice said. “I know you’re there.”
“I reckon we better,” Tommy said. “He jest lief take a shot up through the flo as not.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Gowan said, “why didn’t you—Here,” he shouted, “here we come!”
Popeye stood in the door, his forefingers in his vest. The sun had set. When they descended and appeared in the door Temple stepped from the back porch. She paused, watching them, then she came down the hill. She began to run.
“Didn’t I tell you to get on down that road?” Popeye said.
“Me an him jest stepped down hyer a minute,” Tommy said.
“Did I tell you to get on down that road, or didn’t I?”
“Yeuh,” Tommy said. “You told me.” Popeye turned without so much as a glance at Gowan. Tommy followed. His back still shook with secret glee. Temple met Popeye halfway to the house. Without ceasing to run she appeared to pause. Even her flapping coat did not overtake her, yet for an appreciable instant she faced Popeye with a grimace of taut, toothed coquetry. He did not stop; the finicking swagger of his narrow back did not falter. Temple ran again. She passed Tommy and clutched Gowan’s arm.
“Gowan, I’m scared. She said for me not to——You’ve been drinking again; you haven’t even washed the blood———She says for us to go away from here.……” Her eyes were quite black, her face small and wan in the dusk. She looked toward the house. Popeye was just turning the corner. “She has to walk all the way to a spring for water; she——They’ve got the cutest little baby in a box behind the stove. Gowan, she said for me not to be here after dark. She said to ask him. He’s got a car. She said she didn’t think he———”
“Ask who?” Gowan said. Tommy was looking back at them. Then he went on.
“That black man. She said she didn’t think he would, but he might. Come on.” They went toward the house. A path led around it to the front. The car was parked between the path and the house, in the tall weeds. Temple faced Gowan again, her hand lying upon the door of the car. “It wont take him any time, in this. I know a boy at home has one. It will run eighty. All he would have to do is just drive us to a town, because she said if we were married and I had to say we were. Just to a railroad. Maybe there’s one closer than Jefferson,” she whispered, staring at him, stroking her hand along the edge of the door.
“Oh,” Gowan said, “I’m to do the asking. Is that it? You’re all nuts. Do you think that ape will? I’d rather stay here a week than go anywhere with him.”
“She said to. She said for me not to stay here.”
“You’re crazy as a loon. Come on here.”
“You wont ask him? You wont do it?”
“No. Wait till Lee comes, I tell you. He’ll get us a car.”
They went on in the path. Popeye was leaning against a post, lighting a cigarette. Temple ran on up the broken steps. “Say,” she said, “dont you want to drive us to town?”
He turned his head, the cigarette in his mouth, the match cupped between his hands. Temple’s mouth was fixed in that cringing grimace. Popeye leaned the cigarette to the match. “No,” he said.
“Come on,” Temple said. “Be a sport. It wont take you any time in that Packard. How about it? We’ll pay you.”
Popeye inhaled. He snapped the match into the weeds. He said, in his soft, cold voice: “Make your whore lay off of me, Jack.”
Gowan moved thickly, like a clumsy, good-tempered horse goaded suddenly. “Look here, now,” he said. Popeye exhaled, the smoke jetting downward in two thin spurts. “I dont like that,” Gowan said. “Do you know who you’re talking to?” He continued that thick movement, like he could neither stop it nor complete it. “I dont like that.” Popeye turned his head and looked at Gowan. Then he quit looking at him and Temple said suddenly:
“What river did you fall in with that suit on? Do you have to shave it off at night?” Then she was moving toward the door with Gowan’s hand in the small of her back, her head reverted, her heels clattering. Popeye leaned motionless against the post, his head turned over his shoulder in profile.
“Do you want———” Gowan hissed.
“You mean old thing!” Temple cried. “You mean old thing!”
Gowan shoved her into the house. “Do you want him to slam your damn head off?” he said.
“You’re scared of him!” Temple said. “You’re scared!”
“Shut your mouth!” Gowan said. He began to shake her. Their feet scraped on the bare floor as though they were performing a clumsy dance, and clinging together they lurched into the wall. “Look out,” he said, “you’re getting all that stuff stirred up in me again.” She broke free, running. He leaned against the wall and watched her in silhouette run out the back door.
She ran into the kitchen. It was dark save for a crack of light about the fire-door of the stove. She whirled and ran out the door and saw Gowan going down the hill toward the barn. He’s going to drink some more, she thought; he’s getting drunk again. That makes three times today. Still more dusk had grown in the hall. She stood on tiptoe, listening, thinking I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten all day; thinking of the school, the lighted windows, the slow couples strolling toward the sound of the supper bell, and of her father sitting on the porch at home, his feet on the rail, watching a negro mow the lawn. She moved quietly on tiptoe. In the corner beside the door the shotgun leaned and she crowded into the corner beside it and began to cry.
Immediately she stopped and ceased breathing. Something was moving beyond the wall against which she leaned. It crossed the room with minute, blundering sounds, preceded by a dry tapping. It emerged into the hall and she screamed, feeling her lungs emptying long after all the air was expelled, and her diaphragm laboring long after her chest was empty, and watched the old man go down the hall at a wide-legged shuffling trot, the stick in one hand and the other elbow cocked at an acute angle from his middle. Running, she passed him—a dim, spraddled figure standing at the edge of the porch—and ran on into the kitchen and darted into the corner behind the stove. Crouching she drew the box out and drew it before her. Her hand touched the child’s face, then she flung her arms around the box, clutching it, staring across it at the pale door and trying to pray. But she could not think of a single designation for the heavenly father, so she began to say “My father’s a judge; my father’s a judge” over and over until Goodwin ran lightly into the room. He struck a match and held it overhead and looked down at her until the flame reached his fingers.