Outer Dark(48)

No, he said. Come in.

She followed him uncertainly into the gloom and stood looking about her. From the naked sash of a window on the far side a dead light fell through looped and dusty skeins of cobwebbing and laid upon the plumbless floor a pale and bent mandala.

Ain’t they nobody here? she said.

No.

What all did we come for?

Come in, he said. Ain’t no need to stand there like a orphan.

She came slowly to the center of the room and stood in the fading patch of light like one seeking warmth of it or grace. A faint stale wind was coming through the window and she turned her face there and breathed deeply. The tinker traversed the room with gnomelike stealth, still bowed in his posture of drayage.

Set down, he said.

She could see no place to sit. She turned and spoke into the gloom after him: He ain’t here.

No, he said. A match flared rich sulphurous light in which the tinker’s malformed shape turned quavering, faded and expired. Not here, he said.

She went to the window and looked out. The ground fell away to a branch where willows burned lime green in the sunset. Dark little birds kept crossing the fields to the west like heralds of some coming dread. Below the branch stood the frame of an outhouse from which the planks had been stripped for firewood and there hung from the ceiling a hornetnest like a gross paper egg.

The tinker returned from the cart with a lantern and placed it upon the mantel and lit it. She watched him. He had a jar of whiskey beneath one arm and he knelt in the floor before the hearth like some sackclothen penitent. He was breaking small brush and sticks and soon there was a flame to which he bowed prone and blew gently upon. He sat back on his heels and coaxed the fire with his wafted cap. You ain’t took root there have ye? he said.

She moved across the empty cabin toward the door and stood there for a moment and then closed it. On the back of it hung a coat cocooned in spiderweb like some enormous prey and on the floor lay a dead bird. She toed it with her naked foot. Spooned to a shell, faintly soursmelling. A small white grub writhed in the damp spot it left. She took down the flower from her hair and held it at her breast and turned. The tinker had the jar of whiskey aloft before the lantern. He unscrewed the lid, paused a moment as if to take breath, and drank. She watched his slack throat pump and his eyes tighten. He lowered the jar again and said Whoof and clapped the lid back on as if something might escape. When he saw her watching he extended the jar in one hand. Drink? he said.

I don’t care for none, she said.

No. He turned and set the jar beside the lantern. His sparse gray hair stood about his head electrically and in all these gestures before the fire he looked like an effigy in rags hung by strings from an indifferent hand. Come over by the fire till ye warm, he said.

I ain’t cold.

The tinker was not looking at her. I expect you’re hungry, he said.

She didn’t answer for a minute. Nor did he turn his head. Yes, she said.

He left the fire and crossed the room and went out. When he came in again he had a small willow hamper over one arm and a load of wood. She had come to the fire and was standing with her back to it. He set the hamper on the floor and stacked the wood.

They used to be a table but I burnt it for firewood oncet of a cool evenin, he said.

She nodded.

Set down, he said. I got some cold supper.

He had squatted on the floor and opened the hamper. She sat carefully with her legs tucked.

Here, he said. Get ye a piece of this cornbread.

She took a chunk of the bread and bit into it. It was hard and sandy and tasteless.

Get ye some of these here beans.

She nodded, her mouth stuffed. He was dipping up beans out of a bowl with a piece of the cornbread. Get all ye want, he said.

Is it far to where he’s at? she said.

Far and far, said the tinker.

She scooped up some beans on her bread and crammed it into her mouth, flicking crumbs from her lap, her streaked and dusty feet tucked beneath her. When do we get there? she said.

The tinker looked at her. We, is it? he said.

I guess we fixin to get a early start of the mornin ain’t we?

It’s a hard thing to know what daylight will bring any day, the tinker said. Get ye some more cornbread there.

I’ve got all I need.

Ain’t much of a big eatin gal are ye?

I’m some out of the habit.

Ah, the tinker said.

You reckon we’ll get there tomorrow sometime?

Tomorrow?

Will we?

The tinker chewed steadily. Over the floor their long flung shadows swayed like dancing cranes. Little sister, he said, you ain’t the first slackbellied doe to go about in the woods with them big eyes.

I just want my chap, she said.

Do ye now?

You said I could work it out.

They’s work and they’s work, the tinker said. He rose to his knees and reached down the whiskey and set it before him.