Outer Dark(17)

That’s fine water, the man said. Fine a water as they is in this county.

She took the cup from him and dipped it into the dark pool, raised it clear and drank. It was sweet and very cold. She passed it on to the old woman who adjusted the snuff pouched in her lip and turned the cup to drink from the back side of it. When they had all drunk the man put the cup back on the pole and they started back down the path, the old woman dabbing at her mouth with a handful of skirt.

She had fallen in last behind the two girls and she was surprised to hear footsteps behind her. When she turned the boy was coming along jauntily.

I thought you’d gone on, she said.

I was up in the woods. Hot ain’t it?

It is right warm, she said, going on now along the narrow black path and him at her elbow awkwardly.

Grammaw I reckon looks right funny to you don’t she?

I don’t know, she said.

Still I bet she does. I’m used to her.

They went on.

Know how she done it?

Done what?

Lost her beak.

No, she said. I never studied it.

You’ll swear I’m a-lyin to ye but a stovepipe done it she was puttin up. Fell and sliced her off slick as a frog’s … as a frog’s belly.

I declare, she said.

They were coming out on the road now and he hushed and there was still the mule with his muzzle in the ford, untethered full in the road, his ears dipping and folding.

I’d think that old mule’d founder, she said.

Shoot, he said. That old mule’s got more sense than a … Shoot, he’s got all kinds of sense.

At the wagon she waited while they helped the old woman aboard and then climbed up after her.

Don’t a cool drink just set ye up though, the woman said.

There was a commotion to the front of the wagon. Goddamn it to hell, the boy howled. They could see him curled in the road holding his knee in both hands but there had been no one looking to see him swing up to the high seat with one leap as the drivers did or to see him miss his handhold and crack his knee on the metal step in falling.

Lord God he’s kilt hisself, the woman said.

He needs that mouth attended to, the old woman muttered from beneath her hood.

The man got down from the wagon wearing a look of martyred patience. He bent over the boy and forcibly removed his hands from his knee. The trousers were ripped in a small tricorner going dark with blood.

He’s stove a hole in his kneecap, the man said. The boy was lying on his side grimacing in histrionic anguish, suffering the man to slide the breechleg tight up on his thigh in chance ligature and poke a dirty finger at the laceration.

Tain’t bleedin much, he said. Just let me bind him—reaching to his hip and drawing forth in garish foliation a scarlet and blue bandana.

Don’t use that, the woman said. You ain’t got nary othern now. Here. She was bending and ripped loose a long strip of muslin from the bundled quilt in the floor of the wagon.

Give it here then, the man said, reaching backward with one hand. He propped the boy’s knee in his lap, squatting in the road, took the cloth and wrapped it and tied it. The boy hobbled to his feet and inspected the job before easing the leg of his trousers down. They mounted to the box and the man chucked up the sleeping mule and they went on, the boy upright on the seat, pilloried and stoic, the man slumped and brooding, and behind them the five women prim and farcical on their housechairs.

It was near noon when they came into the town, the mule’s thinshod hoofs going suddenly loud on the banked cobbles up to the rail crossing, one clear steel ring of his shoe on the polished bar and down again and again muted and dull in the unpaved street along which stood tethered an assortment of rigs with mules or horses and alike only in their habitude of dust and age and patience, the man now guiding the mule toward them with small tugs at the rein until they veered beneath the shade of what scantleaved trees lined the mall there and came to rest.

Well, he said, we here.

She was first down, holding the bundle to her chest and extending a hand to the grandmother who rose and looked about with disapproval before taking up the amplitude of dress that hung before her, ignoring the hand, gripping the rim of the high rear wheel and coming down it backwards ladderwise and expertly, alighting in the road and brushing down her skirts again and glaring out from beneath her dark bonnet fearfully.

The man had the rope from the wagon and was casting about for something to tie it to. The two girls and the woman were coming down the other side. She adjusted her belongings and spoke to the man:

I sure do thank ye for the good supper and bed and the ride in and all.

You welcome, he said. We just fixin to take dinner now so don’t be in no rush.

Well I best get on and get started.

You welcome to take dinner with us, the woman said.