Outer Dark(51)

Let’s go, the man said.

He descended the rimed planks and stood barefooted in the yard. The man came down the steps waving the barrels at him. They crossed through the frozen grass to the fence and then across the iron clods and furrows of the plowed land and into the road.

Gee, the man said.

Holme looked at him.

The man waved the barrels to the right and he tucked the boots up under his arm and turned down the road, advancing upon his lean and dancing shadow with feet that winced in the cold sand. He could hear behind him the measured tread of the armed man, and after a while his breathing, but the man spoke no word. The sun was gaining and he could feel it a little on his back and it felt good.

When they had gone a mile or better along the road they came to a wagon road that went off to the right.

Here ye go, the man said behind him.

He turned up the road. It was washed out and weed-grown and with the mounting sun water had begun again over the bare stones in the gullies. They climbed on, past high oblique faults of red sandstone, coming at last into a field where the road leveled.

Just hop on down, friend, the man said. Tain’t far now.

They came past a barn and beyond that a frame house mounted at the corners on high cairns of rock. A row of chickens regarded them from the porch.

Ho Squire, the man called out, hallooing along his raised palm. Hold up right here, he said to Holme. He advanced to the porch and rapped on the floor. Ho there, he called.

Come up, said a woman’s voice from the house.

Go on, the man said.

Holme shifted the boots to the other arm and mounted onto the porch past the chickens and went in. He could smell breakfast cooking.

On back, the man said.

He crossed the room and went through the door at the far side. The woman was coming in carrying an empty pail. She said Howdy without looking at them and went into the kitchen. They followed her. There was a man sitting at the table eating eggs and biscuits from a large platter before him and as they entered he looked up at them. He was dressed in his undershirt, a verminous-looking bag of ashgray flannel from which the sleeves were gone at the elbow as if chewed off. He turned back to his plate before speaking.

Mornin John. Been huntin?

Huntin housebreakers, the man said.

Have eh?

Yep. He poked Holme forward with the shotgun.

This him? he said, not looking up, spooning eggs sideways onto his fork and into his mouth, his chin almost resting on the table.

I caught him in daddy’s old house a-layin in the bed.

How’d he get in.

How’d you get in, the man said.

I come thew the door, Holme said.

He come thew the door.

Did eh?

He was a-layin in the bed.

The seated squire nodded, wiping up grease from the platter with a large biscuit. I don’t drink coffee or I’d offer ye some, he said, leaning back and wiping his mouth with the palm of his hand. Now, what was your name young feller?

Culla Holme.

You a indian?

No sir.

What was your first name

Just Holme is my last name. Culla. Holme.

Well, the squire said, say you broke in John’s daddy’s old house?

I never broke in, I just come in. It wasn’t locked nor nothin. I didn’t know nobody lived there. They wasn’t nothin there to let on like it.

They’s furniture, the man with the shotgun said. You was a-layin up in the bed your own self.

They was a dead cat in the othern, Holme said.

I never seen it, he said. He turned to the squire. He thowed the beddin out in the yard for it to rain on. I wasn’t goin to tell that.

If that would of done it here back in August I’d of hired him to tote everthing I got outside, the squire said.

It had a old dead cat layin in it, Holme said.

All right, hush now, the squire said. Holme. That’s it ain’t it?

Yessir.

Where do you come from Holme?

I come from down in Johnson County.

What did they run you off for down thataway.

They never run me off.

Well what are you doin up here?

I was huntin work.

In John’s daddy’s old house?

No sir. I just wanted to lay over there.

Did you have a sign out up there for hirin hands John?

John smiled cynically, the gun cradled in the crook of his arm. Not to my recollection, he said.

No, the squire said. He leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers four times on the table edge and looked up at Holme.

Well Holme, how do you plead?

Plead?

Guilty or not guilty?

I ain’t guilty.

You wasn’t in John’s daddy’s old house?

I was in there but I never broke in.

Well. Maybe we can make it just trespass then.

Holme looked at the man and the man looked back at him. The squire was tapping his fork idly against the edge of the empty plate and sucking his teeth.

I don’t figure I done nothin wrong, Holme said.

Well if you want to plead not guilty I’ll have to take you over to Harmsworth and bind ye over in custody until court day.