Light in August - William Faulkner [19]
“I reckon I ain’t paid for setting down,” he says. “So you come from Alabama.”
She tells him, in his turn, sitting on the towsack pad, heavybodied, her face quiet and tranquil, and he watching her as quietly; telling him more than she knows that she is telling, as she has been doing now to the strange faces among whom she has travelled for four weeks with the untroubled unhaste of a change of season. And Byron in his turn gets the picture of a young woman betrayed and deserted and not even aware that she has been deserted, and whose name is not yet Burch.
“No, I don’t reckon I know him,” he says at last. “There ain’t anybody but me out here this evening, anyway. The rest of them are all out yonder at that fire, more than like.” He shows her the yellow pillar of smoke standing tall and windless above the trees.
“We could see it from the wagon before we got to town,” she says. “It’s a right big fire.”
“It’s a right big old house. It’s been there a long time. Don’t nobody live in it but one lady, by herself. I reckon there are folks in this town will call it a judgment on her, even now. She is a Yankee. Her folks come down here in the Reconstruction, to stir up the niggers. Two of them got killed doing it. They say she is still mixed up with niggers. Visits them when they are sick, like they was white. Won’t have a cook because it would have to be a nigger cook. Folks say she claims that niggers are the same as white folks. That’s why folks don’t never go out there. Except one.” She is watching him, listening. Now he does not look at her, looking a little aside. “Or maybe two, from what I hear. I hope they was out there in time to help her move her furniture out. Maybe they was.”
“Maybe who was?”
“Two fellows named Joe that live out that way somewhere. Joe Christmas and Joe Brown.”
“Joe Christmas? That’s a funny name.”
“He’s a funny fellow.” Again he looks a little aside from her interested face. “His partner’s a sight, too. Brown. He used to work here too. But they done quit now, both of them. Which ain’t nobody’s loss, I reckon.”
The woman sits on the towsack pad, interested, tranquil. The two of them might be sitting in their Sunday clothes, in splint chairs on the patina-smooth earth before a country cabin on a Sabbath afternoon. “Is his partner named Joe too?”
“Yes, ma’am. Joe Brown. But I reckon that may be his right name. Because when you think of a fellow named Joe Brown, you think of a bigmouthed fellow that’s always laughing and talking loud. And so I reckon that is his right name, even if Joe Brown does seem a little kind of too quick and too easy for a natural name, somehow. But I reckon it is his, all right. Because if he drew time on his mouth, he would be owning this here mill right this minute. Folks seem to like him, though. Him and Christmas get along, anyway.”
She is watching him. Her face is still serene, but now is quite grave, her eyes quite grave and quite intent. What do him and the other one do?”
“Nothing they hadn’t ought to, I reckon. At least, they dint been caught at it yet. Brown used to work here, some; what time he had off from laughing and playing jokes on folks. But Christmas has retired. They live out yonder together, out there somewhere where that house is burning. And I have heard what they do to make a living. But that ain’t none of my business in the first place. And in the second place, most of what folks tells on other folks ain’t true to begin with. And so I reckon I ain’t no better than nobody else.”
She is watching him. She is not even blinking. “And he says his name is Brown.” It might have been a question, but she does not wait for an answer. “What kind of tales have you heard about what they do?”
“I would injure no man,” Byron says. “I reckon I ought not to talked so much. For a fact, it looks like a fellow is bound to get into mischief soon as he quits working.”
“What kind of tales?” she says. She has not moved. Her tone is quiet, but Byron is already in love, though he does not yet