Reivers, The - William Faulkner [28]
So I said nothing; the fork, the last frail impotent hand reached down to save me, flew up and passed and fled, was gone, irrevocable; I said All right then. Here I come. Maybe Boon heard it, since I was still boss. Anyway, he put Jefferson behind vis; Satan would at least defend his faithful from the first one or two tomorrows; he said: "We aint really got anything to worry about but Hell Creek bottom tomorrow. Harrykin Creek aint anything."
"Who said it was?" I said. Hurricane Creek is four miles from town; you have passed over it so fast all your life you probably dont even know its name. But people who crossed it then knew it. There was a wooden bridge over the creek itself, but even in the top of summer the approaches to it were a series of mudholes.
"That's what I'm telling you," Boon said. "It aint anything. Me and Mr Wordwin got through it that day last year without even using the block and tackle; just a shovel and axe Mr Wordwin borrowed from a house about a half a mile away, that now you mention it I dont believe he took back. Likely though the fellow come and got them the next day."
He was almost right. We got through the first mudhole and even across the bridge. But the other mudhole stopped us. The automobile lurched once, twice, tilted and hiing spinning. Boon didn't waste any time, already removing his shoes (I forgot to say he had had them shined too), and rolled up his pants legs and stepped out into the mud. "Move over," he said. "Put it in low gear and start when I tell you. Come on. You know how to do it; you learned how this morning." I got under the wheel. He didn't even stop for the block and tackle. "I dont need it. It'll take too much time getting it out and putting it back and we aint got time." He didn't need it. There was a snake fence beside the road; he had already wrenched the top rail off and, himself knee-deep in mud and water, wedged the end under the back axle and said, "Now. Pour the coal to her," and lifted the automobile bodily and shot it forward lurching and heaving, by main strength up onto dry ground again, shouting at me: "Shut it off! Shut it off!" which I did, managed to, and he came and shoved me over and got in under the wheel; he didn't even stop to roll his muddy pants down.
Because the sun was almost down now; it would be nearly dark by the time we reached Ballenbaugh's, where we would spend the night; we went as fast as we dared now and soon we were passing Mr Wyott's—a family friend of ours; Father took me bird hunting there that Christmas—which was eight miles from Jefferson and still four miles from the river, with the sun just setting behind the house. We went on; there would be a moon after a while, because our oil headlights were better to show someone else you were coming rather than to light you where you were going; but suddenly Boon said, "What's that smell? Was it you?" But before I could deny it he had jerked the automobile to a stop, sat for an instant, then turned and reached back and flung back the lumped and jumbled mass of the tarpaulin which had filled the back of the car. Ned sat up from the floor. He had on the black suit and hat and the white shirt with the gold collar stud without either collar or tie, which he wore on Sunday; he even had the small battered hand grip (you would call it a brief or attache case now) which had belonged to old Lucius McCaslin before even Father was born; I dont know what else he might have carried in it at other times. All I ever saw in it was the Bible (likewise from Great-great-grandmofher McCaslin), which he couldn't read, and