Outer Dark(9)

Yes, said the clerk with dignity.

Well, I’d like a dime’s worth like a person would eat.

The clerk adjusted the shoulders of his weighty coat with a shrug and went down the counter to where a wooden box stood and from which he began to ladle crackers into a paper. Then he went on, stooping below the counter. Holme wasn’t watching. His gray eyes moved over the tiered wares with vague wonder.

The clerk returned and laid the cheese and crackers before him each wrapped in a paper and looked up at him. What else now, he said.

Take out for a dope, Holme said, nudging the coins across the tradeworn wood.

To drink here?

Just outside.

You like two pennies, the clerk said with a small malignant smile.

For what?

The bottle.

I ain’t going but just to the front stoop with it.

Well, he don’t like for me to let em leave the store.

Holme looked at him.

Course if you ain’t got it you could drink it in here.

Shit, Holme said.

The clerk flushed. Holme reached again into the pocket of his overalls and plucked forth the kerchief. He took out the two bits of copper with a disdainful flourish and let them trickle down over the counter.

Thank ye, said the clerk, raking the coins into his palm. He rattled them into the wooden cashdrawer and looked up at Holme with satisfaction.

Holme grunted, gathered up the two packets, crossed the floor to the coolbox and got the drink and went out. While he was sitting on the stone veranda eating the cheese and crackers in the noon sun the wagon driver reappeared from the store and took a practiced leap up onto the box, unlooped the reins from the whipstand and cocked one mudcumbered boot upon the dashboard.

Say, Holme said.

The driver paused in the act of chucking the reins and looked down. Yes, he said.

Say you don’t need no help?

No, don’t believe I do.

Well, you don’t know where a man might find work hereabouts do ye?

The driver studied him. Him looking up with eyes narrowed against the light, his jaws working slowly over the dry crackers.

Steady work?

Any kind.

Well, the driver said. The mill ort to be takin on summer hands in a week or so. He looked down at the man again but the man said nothing, watching him, chewing. Yes, he said. Listen. Maybe the squire might have somethin. Some work around the house or somethin. He seized up the reins again.

Where’s he at?

The man took the reins in one hand and with the other he pointed down the road to the north. Bout a quarter mile, he said. Big house on the left as you leave town. You’ll see it. He lifted the reins and chucked them and the horse leaned into the traces and broke the wheels with a slight sucking noise.

Much obliged, Holme said.

The man raised one hand.

He watched them go, the bottle tilted upward to his mouth, watching the horse veer and wobble, the wheels dripping back into their furrows the upturned clots of muck. He took the empty bottle inside and collected his money and came out again and started down the road the way the man had directed him.

He did see it, a large two-storey house fronted with wooden columns on which the paint lay open in long fents like slashed paper and a yellow stain of road dust paling upward in the sunlight until the gables shone clean and white. He turned up the graveled drive and walked around the house, along a little cobbled walkway until he came to what he took for the back door. He tapped and waited. No one came. He tapped again. After a while he went on to the other side of the house. There was a kitchen door and a window through which he could see an old negro woman bending over a table and paring potatoes. He tapped at the glass.

She came to the door and opened it and looked at him.

Is the squire in? he said.

Just a minute, she said, pushing the door half to but not closing it. He could hear her shuffling away and then he could hear her calling. He waited. Presently he heard bootsteps crossing the floor and then the door opened again and a big man looked out at him with hard black eyes and said Yes.

Howdy, he said. I was talkin to a man down to the store said you might need some help. Said you might have some work …

No, the squire said.

Well, he said. I thank ye. He turned and started away.

You, the squire said.

He stopped and looked back.

You don’t mind no for a answer, do ye?

I figured you would know one way or the other, he said.

Or maybe you don’t need work all that bad.

I ast for it. I ain’t scared to …

Come here a minute.

He retraced his steps and stood facing the squire again, the squire looking him over with those hard little eyes as he would anything for sale. You got a good arm, he said. Can you swing a axe?

I’ve been knowed to, he said.

The squire seemed to weigh something in his mind. Tell you what I’ll do with you, he said. You want to earn your supper they’s a tree blowed down out back here needs cut up to stovewood.