Outer Dark(39)

She looked up. She didn’t seem surprised. She said: About what part?

You tell me. Either about your breasts or about the baby. No woman carries milk six months for a dead baby.

She didn’t say anything.

Do you want to show me?

What?

I said do you want to show me? Your breasts?

All right, she said. She stood and unbuttoned the shift at the neck and slid the shoulders down so that she was standing with her arms pinioned in the rotten cloth. It was all she wore.

Yes, he said. All right. I’ll give you something for that. It must be very painful.

She worked the dress back over her shoulders and turned to do the buttons. It smarts some, she said.

Have you been pumping them? Milking them?

No sir. They just run by their own selves.

Yes. You should milk them though. Where is the baby?

I don’t know. I mean I ain’t seen it since it was borned but I believe I know who’s got it if I could find him.

And when was it? That it was born.

I believe it was in March but it could of been April.

That’s not possible, he said.

Well it was March then.

Look, the doctor said, what difference does it make if it was later than that? Like maybe in July.

I wouldn’t of cared, she said.

The doctor leaned back. You couldn’t still have milk after six months.

If he was dead. That’s what you said wasn’t it? She was leaning forward in the chair watching him. That means he ain’t, don’t it? That means he ain’t dead or I’d of gone dry. Ain’t it?

Well, the doctor said. But something half wild in her look stopped him. Yes, he said. That could be what it means. Yes.

I knowed it all the time, she said. I guess I knowed it right along.

Yes, he said. Look, let me give you this salve. He swung about in his chair and rose and unlocked a cabinet behind his desk. He studied the interior for a moment and then selected a small jar and closed the cabinet door again. Now, he said, turning and holding up the jar. I want you to put this on good and heavy and keep it on all the time. If it wears off put more. And you’ll have to pump them even if it hurts. Try it a little bit first. He slid the jar across the desk to her and she took it and looked at it and sat holding it in her lap.

Come back in a couple of days and tell me how you’re doing.

I don’t know as I’ll be here, she said.

Where will you be?

I don’t know. I got to get on huntin him.

The baby?

Yessir.

When did you see it last? You said you never nursed it.

I ain’t seen it since it was borned.

Then what was the part you lied about?

Well. About it bein dead.

Yes. What did happen?

He said it was puny but afore God it weren’t puny a bit.

And what happened then?

We never had nothin nor nobody.

You’re not married are you?

No sir.

And what happened? Was the baby given away?

Yes, she said. I never meant for him to do that. I wasn’t ashamed. He said it died but I knowed that for a lie. He lied all the time.

Who did?

My brother.

The doctor leaned back in the chair and folded his hands in his lap and looked at them. After a while he said: You don’t know where the baby is?

No sir.

Below them in the street cattle were being driven lowing through the rain and the mud.

Where do you live? the doctor said. What’s your name?

Rinthy Holme.

And where do you live then.

I don’t live nowheres no more, she said. I never did much. I just go around huntin my chap. That’s about all I do any more.





THE ROAD MADE a switchback at the top of the hill and then ran along the ridge so that following it he had a long time to watch the river below him, slow and flat, a dead clay color and wrinkling viscously in the late afternoon light. The road was good until it started down the bluff and then it was washed out again and muddy and plugged with the tracks of mired horses or men or small things that had crossed it in the night. When the road reached the river it went right on into the water and he could see that the water was up. There was a heavy timbered scaffold and a ferrycable running from it out across the river, bellying almost into the current and rising again at the far side. A voice was coming from the far side too but he could not understand what it said. After a while he saw a man come from the ferry and stand on the bank and put his hands to his mouth and then in a minute came the voice again faint with distance. It was just a voice with no words to it. He cupped his own hands to shout but he could think of nothing to shout so he let them fall again and after a while the man went back to the ferry and he couldn’t see him any more.

Holme found a dry place in the grass to sit and he watched the river. It was very high and went past with a dull hiss like poured sand. The air had turned cool and the sky looked gray and wintry. Some birds came upriver, waterbirds with long necks, and he watched them. After a while he slept.