Outer Dark(7)

He set the bucket on the table and took up the weightless dipper and floated it on top. She was watching him.

I’d admire to have me a drink of that there fresh springwater, she said.

He brought it to her, watched her drink.

You want more? he said.

She held up the empty dipper. If they is some, she said.

They’s a bucketful if you want it.

She sat with her hands clasped between her breast and her belly while he brought the dipper to her again. Light from the window lay in a niggardly stain across the bed.

If that old winder was warshed, she said, I bet you could see out ever which way.

Funny to me you never noticed it when you was up and able.

I could get out my own self then, she said. Stead of havin to lay up and look out a winder.

He took the empty dipper from her and crossed the room.

I ain’t warshin no winders, he said.

Well.

Well what?

Nothin. I just said well.

You better just.

I thought I heard that old tinker back this mornin, she said. Messin around.

He had been looking through the cupboard and now he stopped and closed the doors and looked at her. She was staring vacantly out toward the pines. That old tinker, he said, is long gone.

She looked at him. I just wondered, she said. I heard some kind of commotion sounded like him.

Well it wasn’t.

She watched him. Where you goin? she said.

Store.

You reckon they got ary bit more of that black candy like they had?

I’ll see, he said.

All right.

Don’t take in no strangers while I’m gone.

She sighed deeply. They ain’t a soul in this world but what is a stranger to me, she said.


She was keeping tally of the days. At the end of a week she climbed from the bed and walked to the foot of it and back. The next day she couldn’t get up at all. But within the week she was walking about the cabin painfully each time he left.

One evening when he came in she was sitting in the chair, demurely and half-smiling, her figure thin and wasted under the ragged shift she wore as if great age had come upon her and her eyes huge and fever-black. He entered slowly and shut the door. Well, he said. You feelin that peart?

I’m better from what I was.

You’ve fell off considerable, ain’t ye?

Lord, she said, I’ve gained back from what I was. I was puny as … I wasn’t nothin but a shadder.

He eased himself down on the bed. When he looked at her again and the light falling slantwise across her he could see like dark tears two milkstains in the thin cotton cloth. He looked away. His hands lay palmupward on his thighs and he sat watching them as if they were somehow unaccountable.


Within the next few days she was walking about in the dooryard, taking the sun, as she said. He watched her poke along in her mincing shuffle, as if she carried an egg between her knees. Mend, woman, he said. He was sitting crosslegged in the shade of the house with the shotgun dismantled and hammering at the worn searnotch with a piece of wagon spring.

You fixin to tear up daddy’s gun, she said.

It ain’t daddy’s gun, he said, not looking up.

She watched him. You ain’t got ary shells, she said.

He held the lockplate between his knees and cocked the hammer. Now damn ye, slip if ye can, he said.

What? she said.

I was talkin to the gun.

Culla, she said.

What.

Nothin.

But two days later she stopped him as he came through the door with the chipped and yellowed pail in which he bore water, her standing almost in the doorway and arresting him with one arm. He paused to lean against the jamb and looked down at her. Well, he said, what?

Culla …

He went past her and put the bucket on the table. She had her hand to her mouth, watching him with huge eyes. He put the dipper in the pail and took a drink. He wiped his mouth and looked at her.

Culla …

What, damn it.

I just wanted to ast where it’s at.

He winced and his eyes went narrow. What do you mean? he said.

Her hands worked nervously. I just wanted to know where it was you put him …

In the ground.

Well, she said, I just thought maybe if you was to show me where at I could see it … and maybe put some flowers or somethin …

Flowers, he said. It ain’t even got a name.

She was twisting her hands again and he came from the table where he had been leaning and started past her.

Culla …

He stopped at the door and looked at her. She hadn’t even looked around.

We could give it one, she said.

It’s dead, he said. You don’t name things dead.

She turned slowly. It wouldn’t hurt nothin, she said.

Damn you, he said. The flowers if you want. I’ll show ye.

He crossed the clearing in the windy sunlight, unmindful of her hobbling behind him, stopping at the edge of the woods where the path went until she should catch up, not even turning to watch this child’s figure that struggled toward him like a crippled marionette. He pointed out the way to her. To the footlog, he said. Then you want to go right. They’s a clearin, a clump of blackhaws. You’ll see it.