Unvanquished

'Bayard,' she said, 'what was that word you used?'

'Word?' I said. 'When, Granny?' Then I remem­bered; I didn't look at her, and she lying back in the chair, looking at me and panting.

'Don't repeat it. You cursed. You used obscene lan­guage, Bayard.'

I didn't look at her. I could see Ringo's feet too. 'Ringo did too,' I said. She didn't answer, but I could feel her looking at me; I said suddenly: 'And you told a lie. You said we were not here.'

'I know it,' she said. She moved. 'Help me up.' She got out of the chair, holding to us. We didn't know what she was trying to do. We just stood there while she held to us and to the chair and let herself down to her knees beside it. It was Ringo that knelt first. Then I knelt, too, while she asked the Lord to forgive her for telling the lie. Then she rose; we didn't have tune to help her. 'Go to the kitchen and get a pan of water and the soap,' she said. 'Get the new soap.'

it was late, as if time had slipped up on us while we were still caught, enmeshed by the sound of the musket and were too busy to notice it; the sun shone almost level into our faces while we stood at the edge of the back gallery, spitting, rinsing the soap from our mouths turn and turn about from the gourd dipper, spitting straight into the sun. For a while, just by breathing we could blow soap bubbles, but soon it was just the taste of the spitting. Then even that began to go away al­though the impulse to spit did not, while away to the

36

F

THE UNVANQUISHED

north we could see the cloud bank, fault and blue and faraway at the base and touched with copper sun along the crest. When Father came home in the spring, we tried to understand about mountains. At last he pointed out the cloud bank to tell us what mountains looked like. So ever since then Ringo believed that the cloud-bank was Tennessee.

'Yonder they,' he said, spitting. 'Yonder hit. Ten­nessee, where Marse John use to fight um at. Looking mighty far, too.'

'Too far to go just to fight Yankees,' I said, spitting too. But it was gone now—the suds, the glassy weight­less iridescent bubbles; even the taste of it.

RETREAT

mn the afternoon Loosh drove the wagon up beside the back gallery and took the mules out; by supper-time we had everything loaded into the wagon but the bedclothes we would sleep under that night. Then Granny went up stairs and when she came back down she had on her Sunday black silk and her hat, and there was color in her face now and her eyes were bright.

'Is we gonter leave tonight?' Ringo said. 'I thought we wasn't going to start until in the morning.'

'We're not,' Granny said. 'But it's been three years now since I have started anywhere; I reckon the Lord will forgive me for getting ready one day ahead of time.' She turned (we were in the dining-room then, the table set with supper) to Louvinia. 'Tell Joby and Loosh to be ready with the lantern and the shovels as soon as they have finished eating.'

Louvinia had set the cornbread on the table and was going out when she stopped and looked at Granny. 'You mean you gonter take that heavy trunk all the way to Memphis with you? You gonter dig hit up from where hit been hid safe since last summer, and take hit all the way to Memphis?'

'Yes,' Granny said. 'I am following Colonel Sartoris' 37

38

THE UN VANQUIS HED

instructions as I believe he meant them.' She was eat­ing; she didn't even look at Louvinia. Louvinia stood there in the pantry door, looking at the back of Granny's head.

'Whyn't you leave hit here where hit hid good and I can take care of hit? Who gonter find hit, even if they was to come here again? Hit's Marse John they done called the reward on; hit ain't no trunk full of------'

'I have my reasons,' Granny said. 'You do what I told you.'

'All right. But how come you wanter dig hit up to­night when you ain't leaving until tomor------'

'You do what I said,' Granny said.

'Yessum,' Louvinia said. She went out. I looked at Granny eating, with her hat sitting on the exact top of her head, and Ringo looking at me across the back of Granny's chair with his eyes rolling a little.

'Why not leave it hid?' I said. 'It'll be just that much more load on the wagon. Joby says that trunk will weigh a thousand pounds.'

'A thousand fiddlesticks!' Granny said. 'I don't care if it weighed ten thousand------' Louvinia came in.

'They be ready,' she said. 'I wish you'd tell me why you got to dig hit up tonight.'

Granny looked at her. 'I had a dream about it last night.'

'Oh,' Louvinia said. She and Ringo looked exactly alike, except that Louvinia's eyes were not rolling so much as his.

'I dreamed I was looking out my window, and a man walked into the orchard and went to where it is and stood there pointing at it,' Granny said. She looked at Louvinia. 'A black man.'

'A nigger?' Louvinia said.

'Yes.'

For a while Louvinia didn't say anything. Then she said, 'Did you know him?' 'Yes,' Granny said. 'Is you going to tell who hit was?' 'No,' Granny said. Louvinia turned to Ringo. 'Gawn tell your pappy and

RETREAT