Light in August - William Faulkner [61]
As they approached the kitchen they walked side by side. When the light from the window fell upon them the man stopped and turned, leaning, peering. “Fighting,” he said. “What was it about?”
The boy did not answer. His face was quite still, composed. After a while he answered. His voice was quiet, cold. “Nothing.”
They stood there. “You mean, you can’t tell or you won’t tell?” The boy did not answer. He was not looking down. He was not looking at anything. “Then, if you don’t know you are a fool. And if you won’t tell you have been a knave. Have you been to a woman?”
“No,” the boy said. The man looked at him. When he spoke his tone was musing.
“You have never lied to me. That I know of, that is.” He looked at the boy, at the still profile. “Who were you fighting with?”
“There was more than one.”
“Ah,” the man said. “You left marks on them, I trust?”
“I don’t know. I reckon so.”
“Ah,” the man said. “Go and wash. Supper is ready.”
When he went to bed that night his mind was made up to run away. He felt like an eagle: hard, sufficient, potent, remorseless, strong. But that passed, though he did not then know that, like the eagle, his own flesh as well as all space was still a cage.
McEachern did not actually miss the heifer for two days. Then he found the new suit where it was hidden in the barn; on examining it he knew that it had never been worn. He found the suit in the forenoon. But he said nothing about it. That evening he entered the barn where Joe was milking. Sitting on the low stool, his head bent against the cow’s flanks, the boy’s body was now by height at least the body of a man. But McEachern did not see that. If he saw anything at all, it was the child, the orphan of five years who had sat with the still and alert and unrecking passiveness of an animal on the seat of his buggy on that December evening twelve years ago. “I don’t see your heifer,” McEachern said. Joe didn’t answer. He bent above the bucket, above the steady hissing of milk. McEachern stood behind and above him, looking down at him. “I said, your heifer has not come up.”
“I know it,” Joe said. “I reckon she is down at the creek. I’ll look after her, being as she belongs to me.”
“Ah,” McEachern said. His voice was not raised. “The creek at night is no place for a fifty dollar cow.”
“It’ll be my loss, then,” Joe said. “It was my cow.”
“Was?” McEachern said. “Did you say was my cow?”
Joe did not look up. Between his fingers the milk hissed steadily into the pail. Behind him he heard McEachern move. But Joe did not look around until the milk no longer responded. Then he turned. McEachern was sitting on a wooden block in the door. “You had better take the milk on to the house first,” he said.
Joe stood, the pail swinging from his hand. His voice was dogged though quiet. “I’ll find her in the morning.”
“Take the milk on to the house,” McEachern said. “I will wait for you here.”
For a moment longer Joe stood there. Then he moved. He emerged and went on to the kitchen. Mrs. McEachern came in as he was setting the pail onto the table. “Supper is ready,” she said. “Has Mr. McEachern come to the house yet?”
Joe was turning away, back toward the door. “He’ll be in soon,” he said. He could feel the woman watching him. She said, in a tone tentative, anxious:
“You’ll have just time to wash.”
“We’ll be in soon.” He returned to the barn. Mrs. McEachern came to the door and looked after him. It was not yet full dark and she could see her husband standing in the barn door. She did not call. She just stood there and watched the two men meet. She could not hear what they said.
“She will be down at the creek, you say?” McEachern said.
“I said she may be. This is a goodsized pasture.”
“Ah,” McEachern said. Both their voices were quiet. “Where do you think she will be?”
“I don’t know. I ain’t no cow. I don’t know where she might