Unvanquished

began to smell them. 'Niggers,' I whispered. 'Sh-h-h-h,' T whispered. We couldn't see them and they did not see us; maybe they didn't even look, just walking fast in the dark with that panting, hurrying murmuring, going on. And then the sun rose and we went on, too, along that big broad empty load between the burned houses and gins and fences. Before, it had been like poising through a coua-

70 THEUNVANQUISHED

try where nobody had ever lived; now it was like pass­ing through one where everybody had died at the same moment. That night we waked up three times and sat up in the wagon in the dark and heard niggers pass in the road. The last time it was after dawn and we had already fed the horses. It was a big crowd of them this time, and they sounded like they were running, like they had to run to keep ahead of daylight. Then they were gone. Ringo and I had taken up the harness again when Granny said, 'Wait. Hush.' It was just one, we could hear her panting and sobbing, and then we heard another sound. Granny began to get down from the wagon. 'She fell,' she said. 'You-all hitch up and come

on.'

When we turned into the road, the woman was kind of crouched beside it, holding something in her arms, and Granny standing beside her. It was a baby, a few months old; she held it like she thought maybe Granny was go­ing to take it away from her. 'I been sick and I couldn't keep up,' she said. 'They went off and left me.' 'Is your husband with them?' Granny said. 'Yessum,' the woman said. 'They's all there.' 'Who do you belong to?' Granny said. Then she didn't answer. She squatted there in the dust, crouched over the baby. 'If I give you something to eat, will you turn around and go back home?' Granny said. Still she didn't answer. She just squatted there. 'You see you can't keep up with them and they ain't going to wait for you,' Granny said. 'Do you want to die here hi the road for buzzards to eat?' But she didn't even look at Granny; she just squatted there.

'Hit's Jordan we coming to,' she said. 'Jesus gonter see me that far.'

'Get in the wagon,' Granny said. She got in; she squatted again just like she had in the road, holding the baby and not looking at anything—just hunkered down and swaying on her hams as the wagon rocked and jolted. The sun was up; we went down a long hill and began to cross a creek bottom.

'I'll get out here,' she said. Granny stopped the wagon and she got out. There was nothing at all but the thick

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71

gum and cypress and thick underbrush still full of shadow.

'You go back home, girl,' Granny said. She just stood there. 'Hand me the basket,' Granny said. I handed it to her and she opened it and gave the woman a piece of bread and meat. We went on; we began to mount the hill. When I looked back she was still standing there, holding the baby and the bread and meat Granny had given her. She was not looking at us. 'Were the others there in that bottom?' Granny asked Ringo.

'Yessum,' Ringo said. 'She done found um. Reckon she gonter lose um again tonight though.'

We went on; we mounted the hill and crossed the crest of it. When I looked back this time the road was empty. That was the morning of the sixth day._

late that afternoon we were descending again; we came around a curve in the late level shadows and our own quiet dust and I saw the graveyard on the knoll and the marble shaft at Uncle Dennison's grave; there was a dove somewhere in the cedars. Ringo was asleep again under his hat in the wagon bed but he waked as soon as I spoke, even though I didn't speak loud and didn't speak to him. 'There's Hawkhurst,' I said.

'Hawkhurst?' he said, sitting up. 'Where's that rail­road?' on his knees now and looking for something which he would have to find hi order to catch up with me and which he would have to recognise only through hearsay when he saw it: 'Where is it? Where?'

'You'll have to wait for it,' I said.

'Seem like I been waiting on hit all my life,' he said. 'I reckon you'll tell me next the Yankees done moved hit too.'

The sun was going down. Because suddenly I saw it shining level across the place where the house should have been and there was no house there. And I was not surprised; I remember that; I was just feeling sorry for Ringo, since (I was just fourteen then) if the house was gone, they would have taken the railroad too, since anybody would rather have a railroad than a house.

72

THE UNVANQUISHED

We didn't stop; we just looked quietly at the same mound of ashes, the same four chimneys standing gaunt and blackened hi the sun like the chimneys at home. When we reached the gate Cousin Denny was running down the drive toward us. He was ten; he ran up to the wagon with his eyes round and his mouth already open for hollering.

'Denny,' Granny said, 'do you know us?'

'Yessum,' Cousin Denny said. He looked at me, hol­lering, 'Come see------'

'Where's your mother?' Granny said.

'In Jingus' cabin,' Cousin Denny said; he didn't even look at Granny. 'They burnt the house!' he hollered. 'Come see what they done to the railroad!'

We ran, all three of us. Granny hollered something and I turned and put the parasol back into the wagon and hollered 'Yessum!' back at her, and ran on and caught up with Cousin Denny and Ringo hi the road, and we ran on over the hill, and then it came hi sight. When Granny and I were here before, Cousin Denny showed me the railroad, but he was so little then that Jingus had to carry him. It was the straightest thing I ever saw, running straight and empty and quiet through a long empty gash cut through the trees, and the ground, tooN and full of sunlight like water in a river, only straighter, than any river, with the crossties cut off even and smooth and neat, and the light shining on the rails like on two spider threads, running straight on to where you couldn't even see that far. It looked clean and neat, like the yard behind Louvinia's cabin after she had swept it on Saturday morning, with those two little threads that didn't look strong enough for anything to run on run­ning straight and fast and light, like they were getting up speed to jump clean off the world.