Reivers, The - William Faulkner [49]
"All right," Boon said. "A man at Possum—"
"Oh," Miss Reba said. "Parsham."
"That's right," Ned said. "Where they has the bird-dog trials. It aint no piece. —got a horse done already challenged this un to a three-heat race, fifty dollars a heat, winner take all. But that aint nothing: just a hundred and fifty dollars. What we gonter do is win back that automobile."
"How?" Boon said. "How the hell are you going to use tiie horse to win the automobile back from the man that has already give you the horse for it?"
"Because the man dont believe the horse can run. Why you think he swapped me as cheap as a automobile? Why didn't he just keep the horse and win him a automobile of his own, if he wanted one, and have both of them—a horse and a automobile too?"
"Ill bite," Boon said. "Why?"
"I just told you. This horse done already been beat twice by that Possum horse because never nobody knowed how to make him run. So naturally the man will believe that if the horse wouldn't run them other two times, he ain't gonter run this time neither. So all we got to do is, bet him the horse against Boss's automobile. Which he will be glad to bet because naturally he wouldn't mind owning the horse back too, long as he's already got the automobile, especially when it aint no more risk than just having to wait at the finish line until the horse finally comes up to where he can catch him and tie him behind the automobile and come on back to Memphis—"
This was the first time Miss Reba spoke. She said, "Jesus."
"—because he dont believe I can make that horse run neither. But unlessen I done got rusty on my trading and made a mistake I dont know about, he dont disbelieve it enough not to be at Possum day after tomorrow to find out. And if you cant scrap up enough extra boot amongst these ladies here to make him good interested in betting that automobile against it, you better hadn't never laid eyes on Boss Priest in your born life. It would have tooken a braver man than me to just took his automobile back to him. But maybe this horse will save you. Because the minute I laid my eyes on that horse, it put me in mind of—"
"Hee hee hee," Boon said, in that harsh and savage parody. "You give away Boss's automobile for a horse that cant run, and now you're fixing to give the horse back providing I can scrape up enough boot to interest him—"
"Let me finish," Ned said. Boon stopped. "You gonter let me finish?" Ned said.
"Finish then," Boon said. "And make it—"
"—put me in mind of a mule I use to own," Ned said. Now they both stopped, looking at each other; we all watched them. After a moment Ned said, gently, almost dreamily: "These ladies wasn't acquainted with that mule. Naturally, being young ladies like they is, not to mention so fur away as Yoknapatawpha County. It's too bad Boss or Mr Maury aint here now to tell them about him."
I could have done that. Because the mule was one of our family legends. It was back when Father and Ned were young men, before Grandfather moved in from McCaslin to become a Jefferson banker. One day, during Cousin McCaslin's (Cousin Zack's father's) absence, Ned bred the mare of his matched standard-bred carriage team to the farm jack. When the consequent uproar exhausted itself and the mule colt was foaled. Cousin McCaslin made Ned buy it from him at ten cents a week subtracted from Ned's wages. It took Ned three years, by which time the mule had consistently beaten every mule matched against him for fifteen or twenty miles around, and was now being challenged by mules from forty and fifty, and beating them.
You were born too late to be acquainted with mules and so comprehend the startling, the even shocking, import of this statement. A mule which will gallop for a half-mile in the single direction elected by its rider even one time becomes a neighborhood legend; one that will