Outer Dark(46)

Harmon, the man said.

Harmon rose and came for the boots and took them to the man. The man seized them and examined them, bending closer to the fire, turning them in his hands like some barbaric cobbler inspecting the work of another world. He pulled off his own boots and put on these new ones and stood in them and took three steps up and two back and turned. Harmon had gathered up the old boots and was putting them on. The one with the rifle watched happily.

All right, the bearded one said.

Holme squatted with his naked feet beneath him.

Fix his, the man said.

Harmon carried the boots he had discarded to the one with the rifle and stood them before him. The one with the rifle looked at them and looked up at Harmon. Harmon took the rifle from him and kicked at the empty boots.

Do em for him, the man said.

Harmon knelt and pulled off the nameless one’s boots and pushed the other boots at him. Then he rose with these boots and turned. The man gestured.

Holme watched, squatting shoeless and half naked. Harmon came toward him smiling, the rifle in one hand and the last pair of boots in the other. He dropped them alongside Holme and stood looking down at him. Holme looked at the bearded one.

Them’s for you, the man said.

Holme looked at them. They were mismatched, cracked, shapeless, burntlooking and crudely mended everywhere with bits of wire and string. He looked at the nameless one who sat likewise barefoot with a pair of boots before him. Relieved of the rifle his hands lay on the ground on either side of him and he was watching Holme. Holme looked away.

I said them ones there is yourn, the man said.

Holme looked at the boots again, then took one up slowly and pulled it onto his foot. A sour reek welled out of the top.

You don’t have much to say, do ye? the man said.

No.

I guess you think maybe you and me should of traded.

I don’t care, Holme said.

I believe in takin care of my own, the man said. That’s the way I think.

Ever man thinks his own way, Holme said.

Leave him alone Harmon.

Harmon stepped away from him. Sometime it had stopped raining. Holme hadn’t noticed. He had not felt the rain on his naked back, the small rain that died in the fire soundlessly.

You may see the time you wish you had worse, the man said.

Holme made a small helpless gesture with one hand.

Where was you headin sure enough?

Nowheres, Holme said.

Nowheres.

No.

You may get there yet, the man said. He came along the edge of the fire and stopped, looking down at Holme. Holme could see only his legs and those of Harmon a little further beyond. The fire had burned low and there was but a single cleft and yellow serpent tongue of flame standing among the coals. A third pair of boots came up and Holme looked at them. They stood slightly toed in and on the wrong feet.

That ain’t all, is it? the man said.

I ain’t got nothin else, Holme said.

The man spat past him into the fire. Somethin else, he said. Have you got a sister sure enough?

I done told ye.

Run off with some tinker.

Yes.

She ain’t here to tell it her way. Is she?

No.

And where do you reckon they’ve got to by now?

I don’t know.

Just further on down the road. Don’t you reckon?

Yes. I reckon. I ain’t studied it.

Ain’t studied it.

No.

He seemed to be speaking to the fire. When he lifted his head he could see the three of them standing there watching him, ragged, filthy, threatful.

Yes, the man said. You’ve studied it.

Holme didn’t answer. He turned his face to the fire again.

Harmon, the man said. Leave him be.

Holme didn’t look up. He heard their steps receding out of the firelight among the wet leaves toward the river where the ferry was tied. He had the shirt clutched in both hands and was staring in mute prayer at the wand of flame that trembled before him so precariously and he did not move at all. Then he heard steps coming back. He lifted his head. Harmon came smiling out of the dark like an apparition. He did not have the rifle. He did not have anything in his hands. He slouched toward Holme and bent over him. Holme recoiled. Harmon didn’t seem to notice. He took up the pan and tilted the remaining meat into the fire and clicked the pan against a rock and stepped back and turned and was gone. Holme could see one of the chunks in the bright coals. It lay there soundless as stone and apparently impervious to flame. He did not move. He listened for their voices but he could hear nothing. After a very long time he could hear the river again and even though the fire had died he did not move. Later still he heard a mockingbird. Or perhaps some other bird.





THE MUD in the road had cured up into ironhard rails and fissures which carts and wagons had cloven in the wet weather past and the tinker’s cart bobbled drunkenly among them with the tinker shackled between the shafts and leaning into the harness he had devised for himself. He was looking at nothing other than the road beneath him and when the girl spoke to him he started in his traces like one wrenched from a trance and halted and looked about. She was seated by the roadside on a stone and she wore some lateblooming wildflower in her pale hair.