Reivers, The - William Faulkner [108]
"I dont believe it," I said.
"Yes," he said. "That's what it was. It was just bad luck, the kind of bad luck you cant count against beforehand. He likely just happened to be wherever he was just by chance when he seen her Monday and figgered right off that that badge and pistol would be all he would need, being likely used to having them be enough around here. Only this time they wasnt and so he had to look again, and sho enough, there was Lightning that we had to depend on to win that race so we could get back Boss's automobile and maybe go back home—"
"No!" I said. "No! It wasn't her! She's not even here! She went back to Memphis with Sam yesterday evening! They just didn't tell you! It was somebody else! It was another one!"
"No," Ned said. "It was her. You seen it Monday out here." Oh yes; and on the way back in the surrey that afternoon, and at the doctor's, and at the hotel that night until Miss Reba frightened him away, we—I anyway— thought for good. Because Miss Reba was only a woman too, I said:
"Why didn't somebody else help her? a man to help her —that man, that man that took you and Lightning, that told Sam and Butch both they could be whatever they wanted in Memphis or Nashville or Hardwick either, but that here in Possum he was the one—" I said, cried: "I dont believe it!"
"Yes," Ned said. "It was her that bought Lightning loose to run again today. I aint talking about me and Boon and them others; Butch never cared nothing about us, except to maybe keep Boon outen the way until this morning. All he needed was Lightning, only he had to throw in me and Boon and the rest to make Mr Poleymus believe him. Because Butch tricked him too, used him too, until whatever it was that happened this morning—whether that Butch, having done been paid off now, said it was all a mistake or it was the wrong horse, or maybe by that time Mr Poleymus his-self had added one to one and smelled a mouse and turned everybody loose and before he could turn around, Boon went and whupped that gal and then come straight back without even stopping and tried to tear that Butch's head off, pistol and all, with his bare hands, and Mr Poleymus smelled a whole rat. And Mr. Poleymus may be little, and he may be old; but he's a man, mon. They told me how last year his wife had one of them strokes and cant even move her hand now, and all the chillen are married and gone, so he has to wash her and feed her and lift her in and outen the bed day and night both, besides cooking and keeping house too unlessen some neighbor woman comes in to help. But you dont know it to look at him and watch him act. He come in there—I never seen none of it; they just told me: two or three holding Boon and another one trying to keep that Butch from whupping him with the pistol whilst they was holding him—and walked up to Butch and snatched that pistol outen his hand and reached up and ripped that badge and half his shirt off too and tele-foamed to Hardwick to send a automobile to bring them all back to jail, the women too. When it's women, they calls it fragrancy."
"Vagrancy," Uncle Parsham said.
"That's what I said," Ned said. "You call it whatever you want. I calls it jail."
"I dont believe it," I said. "She quit."
"Then we sho better say much obliged that she started again," Ned said. "Else me and you and Lightning—"
"She's quit," I said. "She promised me."
"Aint we got Lightning back?" Ned said. "Aint all we got to do now is just run him? Didn't Mr Sam say he will be back today and will know what to do, and then me and you and Boon will be just the same as already back home?
I sat there. It was still early. I mean, even now it was still only eight oclock. It was going to be hot today, the first hot day, precursor of summer. You see, just to keep on saying I dont