Reivers, The - William Faulkner [72]
So when the loud unfamiliar voice waked me and Lycurgus's mother tied the riding-sock back on from where she had put it away when I went to sleep in my plate, and I went outside, there they all were: a surrey tied outside the gate and Uncle Parsham standing again at the top of his front steps, still wearing his hat, and Ned sitting on the next-to-bottom step and Lycurgus standing in the angle between steps and gallery as if the three of them were barricading the house; and in the yard facing them Everbe (yes, she brought it. I mean, Ned's grip) and Otis and Boon and the one who was doing the loud talking—a man almost as big as Boon and almost as ugly, with a red face and a badge and a bolstered pistol stuck in his hind pocket, standing between Boon and Everbe, who'was still trying to pull away from the hand which was holding her arm.
"Yep," he was saying, "I know old Possum Hood. And more than that, old Possum Hood knows me, dont you, boy?"
"We all knows you here, Mr Butch," Uncle Parsham said with no inflection whatever.
"If any dont, it's just a oversight and soon corrected," Butch said. "If your womenfolks are too busy dusting and sweeping to invite us in the house, tell them to bring some chairs out here so this young lady can set down. You, boy," he told Lycurgus, "hand down two of them chairs on the gallery there where me and you"—he was talking at Everbe now—"can set in the cool and get acquainted while Sugar Boy"—he meant Boon. I dont know how I knew it—"takes these boys down to look at that horse. Huh?" Still holding Everbe's elbow, he would tilt her gently away from him until she was almost off balance; then, a little faster though still not a real jerk, pull her back again, she still trying to get loose; now she used her other hand, pushing at his wrist. And now I was watching Boon. "You sure I aint seen you somewhere? at Birdie Watts's maybe? Where you been hiding, anyway? a good-looking gal like you?" Now Ned got up, not fast.
"Morning, Mr Boon," he said. "You and Mr Shurf want Lucius to bring the horse out?" Butch stopped tilting Everbe. He still held her though.
"Who's he?" he said. "As a general rule, we dont take to strange niggers around here. We don't object though, providing they notify themselves and then keep their mouths shut."
"Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi," Ned said. "You got too much name," Butch said. "You want something quick and simple to answer to around here until you can raise a white mush-tash and goat whisker like old Possum there, and earn it. We dont care where you come from neither; all you'll need here is just somewhere to go back to. But you'll likely do all right; at least you got sense enough to recognise Law when you see it."
"Yes sir," Ned said. "I'm acquainted with Law. We got it back in Jefferson too." He said to Boon: "You want the horse?"
"No," Everbe said, she had managed to free her arm; she moved quickly away; she could have done it sooner by just saying Boon: which was what Butch—deputy, whatever he was—wanted her to do, and we all knew that too. She moved, quickly for a big girl, on until she had me between her and Butch, holding my arm now; I could feel her hand trembling a little as she gripped me. "Come on, Lucius. Show us the way." She said, her voice tense: a murmur, almost passionate: "How's your hand? Does it hurt?"
"It's all right," I said.
"You sure? You'd tell me? Does wearing that sock on it help?"
"It's all right." I said. "I'd tell you." We went back to the stable that way,