'No much obliged,' Miss Reba said. 'No matter how long your wife stays at Monteagle, she'll come back home some day and you'll have to explain it.'
'Nonsense,' Colonel Linscomb said. 'I'm boss in my house.'
'I hope you'll keep on being,' Miss Reba said. 'Oh yes,' she said to Minnie. 'Show them.' She—Minnie— didn't smile at us: she smiled at me. It was beautiful: the even, matched and matchless unblemished porcelain march, curving outward to embrace, almost with passion, the restored gold tooth which looked bigger than any three of the natural merely white ones possibly could. Then she closed her lips again, serene, composed, once more immune, once more invulnerable to that extent which our frail webs of bone and flesh and coincidence ever hold or claim on Invulnerability. 'Well,' Miss Reba said. Mc-Willie's father cranked the engine and got back in; the automobile moved on. Grandfather and Colonel Linscomb turned and went back toward the house and I had begun to move too when the automobile horn tooted, not loud, once, and I turned back. It had stopped and Sam was standing beside it, beckoning to me.
'Come here,' he said. 'Miss Reba wants to see you a minute.' He watched me while I came up. 'Why didn't you and Ned tell me that horse was really going to run?' he said.
'I thought you knew,' I said. 'I thought that was why we came here.'
'Sure, sure,' he said. 'Ned told me. You told me. Everybody told me. Only, why didnt somebody make me believe it? Oh sure, I never broke a leg. But if I'd just had Miss Reba's nerve, maybe I could have got that boxcar covered too. Here,' he said. It was a tight roll of money, bills. 'This is Ned's. Tell him the next time he finds a horse that wont run, not to wait to come and get me: just telegraph me.' Miss Reba was leaning out, hard and handsome. Everbe was on the other side of her, not moving but still too big not to notice. Miss Reba said:
'I didn't expect to wind up in jail here too. But then, maybe I didn't expect not to, neither. Anyway, Sam bet for me too. I put up fifty for Mr Binford and five for Minnie. Sam got three for two. I—I mean we—want to split fifty-fifty with you. I aint got that much cash now, what with this unexpected side trip I took this morning—'
'I dont want it,' I said.
'I thought you'd say that,' she said. 'So I had Sam put up another five for you. You got seven-fifty coming. Here.' She held out her hand.
'I dont want it,' I said. '
'What did I tell you?' Sam said.
'Is it because it was gambling?' she said. 'Did you promise that too?' I hadn't. Maybe Mother hadn't thought about gambling yet. But I wouldn't have needed to have promised anybody anyway. Only, I didn't know how to tell her when I didn't know why myself: only that I wasn't doing it for money: that money would have been the last thing of all; that once we were in it, I had to go on, finish it, Ned and me both even if everybody else had quit; it was as though only by making Lightning run and run first could we justify (not escape consequences: simply justify) any of it. Not to hope to make the beginning of it any less wrong—I mean, what Boon and I had deliberately, of our own free will, to do back there in Jefferson four days ago; but at least not to shirk, dodge—at least to finish— what we ourselves had started. But I didn't know how to say it. So I said,
'Nome. I dont want it.'
'Go on,' Sam said. 'Take it so we can go. We got to catch that train. Give it to Ned, or maybe to that old boy who took care of you last night. They'll know what to do with it.' So I took the money; I had two rolls of it now, the big one and this little one. And still Everbe hadn't moved, motionless, her hands in her lap, big, too big for little things to happen to. 'At least pat her on the head,' Sam said. 'Ned never taught you to kick dogs too, did he?'
'He wont though,' Miss Reba said. 'Watch him. Jesus, you man. And here's another one that aint but eleven years old. What the hell does one more matter? aint she been proving ever since Sunday she's quit? If you'd been sawing logs as long as she has, what the hell does one more log matter when you've already cancelled the lease and even took down the sign?' So I went around the car to the other side. Still she didn't move, too big for little things to happen to, too much of her to have to be the recipient of things petty and picayune, like bird splashes on a billboard or a bass drum; just sitting there, too big to shrink even, shamed (because Ned was right), her mouth puffed a little but mostly the black eye; with her, even a simole shiner was not content but must look bigger, more noticeable, more unhidable, than on anyone else.
'It's all right,' I said.
'I thought I had to,' she said. 'I didn't know no other way.'
'You see?' Miss Reba said. 'How easy it is? That's all you need to tell us; we'll believe you. There aint the lousiest puniest bastard one of you, providing he's less than seventy years old. that cant make any woman believe there wasn't no other way.'
'You did have to,' I said. 'We got Lightning back in time to run the race. It dont matter now any more. You better go on or you'll miss that train.'
'Sure,' Miss Reba said. 'Besides, she's got supper to cook too. You aint heard that yet; that's the surprise. She aint going back to Memphis. She aint just reformed from the temptation business: she's reformed from temptation too, providing what they claim, is right: that there aint no temptation in a place like Parsham except a man's own natural hopes and appetites. She's got a job in Parsham washing and cooking and lifting his wife in and out of bed and washing her off, for that constable. So she's even reformed from having to divide half she makes and half she has with the first tin badge that passes, because all she'll have to do now is shove a coffeepot or a greasy skillet in the way. Come on,' she told Sam. 'Even you cant make that train wait from here.'
Then they were gone. I turned and went back toward the house. It was big, with columns and porticoes and formal gardens and stables (with Lightning in one of them) and carriage houses and what used to be slave quarters— the (still is) old Parsham place, what remains of the plantation of the man, family, which gave its name to the town and the countryside and to some of the people too, like Uncle Parsham Hood. The sun was gone now, and soon the day would follow. And then, for the first time, I realised that it was all over, finished—all the four days of scuffling and scrabbling and dodging and lying and anxiety; all over except the paying-for. Grandfather and Colonel Lins-comb and Mr van Tosch would be somewhere in the house now, drinking presupper toddies; it might be half an hour yet before the supper bell rang, so I turned aside and went through the rose garden and on to the back. And, sure enough, there was Ned sitting on the back steps.
'Here,' I said, holding out the big roll of money. 'Sam said this is yours.' He took it. 'Aint you going to count it?' I said.
'I reckon he counted it,' Ned said. I took the little one from my pocket. Ned looked at it. 'Did he give you that too?'
