Unvanquished

Jingus knew when the train would come; he held my hand and carried Cousin Denny, and we stood between the rails and he showed us where it would come from, and then he showed us where the shadow of a dead pine would come to a stob he had driven in the ground, and then you would hear the whistle. And we got back and watched the shadow, and then we heard it; it whistled and then it got louder and louder fast, and Jingus went

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to the track and took his hat off and held it out with his face turned back toward us and his mouth hollering, 'Watch now! Watch!' even after we couldn't hear him for the train; and then it passed. It came roaring up and went past; the river they had cut through the trees was all full of smoke and noise and sparks and jumping brass, and then empty again, and just Jingus' old hat bouncing and jumping along the empty track behind it like the hat was alive.

But this time what I saw was something that looked like piles of black straws heaped up every few yards, and we ran into the cut and we could see where they had dug the ties up and piled them and set them on fire. But Cousin Denny was still hollering, 'Come see what they done to the rails!' he said.

They were back hi the trees; it looked like four or five men had taken each rail and tied it around a tree like you knot a green cornstalk around a wagon stake, and Ringo was hollering, too, now.

'What's them?' he hollered. 'What's them?'

'That's what it runs on!' Cousin Denny hollered.

'You mean hit have to come in here and run up and down around these here trees like a squirrel?' Ringo hollered. Then we all heard the horse at once; we just had tune to look when Bobolink came up the road out of the trees and went across the railroad and into the trees again like a bird, with Cousin Drusilla riding astride like a man and sitting straight and light as a willow branch in the wind. They said she was the best woman rider in the country.

'There's Dru!' Cousin Denny hollered. 'Come on! She's been up to the river to see them niggers! Come on!' He and Ringo ran again. When I passed the chimneys, they were just running into the stable. Cousin Drusilla had already unsaddled Bobolink, and she was rubbing him down with a crokersack when I came in. Cousin Denny was still hollering, 'What did you see? What are they doing?'

'I'll tell about it at the house,' Cousin Drusilla said. Then she saw me. She was not tall; it was the way she stood and walked. She had on pants, like a man. She was the best woman rider in the country. When Granny

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THE UNVANQUISHED

and I were here that Christmas before the war and Gavin Breckbridge had just given Bobolink to her, they looked fine together; it didn't need Jingus to say that they were the finest-looking couple in Alabama or Mis­sissippi either. But Gavin was killed at Shiloh and so they didn't marry. She came and put her hand on my shoulder.

'Hello,' she said. 'Hello, John Sartoris.' She looked at Ringo. 'Is this Ringo?' she said.

'That's what they tells me,' Ringo said. 'What about that railroad?'

'How are you?' Cousin Drusilla said. 'I manages to stand hit,' Ringo said. 'What about that railroad?'

'I'll tell you about that tonight too,' Drusilla said. 'I'll finish Bobolink for you,' I said. 'Will you?' she said. She went to Bobolink's head. 'Will you stand for Cousin Bayard, lad?' she said. 'I'll see you-all at the house, then,' she said. She went out. 'Yawl sho must 'a' had this horse hid good when the Yankees come,' Ringo said.

'This horse?' Cousin Denny said. 'Ain't no damn Yankee going to fool with Dru's horse no more.' He didn't holler now, but pretty soon he began again: 'When theycome to burn the house, Dru grabbed the pistol and run out here—she had on her Sunday dress—and them right behind her. She run in here and she jumped on Bobolink bareback, without even waiting for the bridle, and one of them right there in the door hollering, 'Stop,' and Dru said, 'Get away, or I'll ride you down,' and him hollering, 'Stop! Stop!' with his pistol out too' —Cousin Denny was hollering good now—'and Dru leaned down to Bobolink's ear and said, 'Kill him, Bob,' and the Yankee jumped back just in time. The lot was full of them, too, and Dru stopped Bobolink and jumped down in her Sunday dress and put the pistol to Bobo­link's ear and said, 'I can't shoot you all, because T haven't enough bullets, and it wouldn't do any good anyway; but I won't need but one shot for the horse, and which shall it be?' So they burned the house and went away!' He was hollering good now, with Ringo staring at him so you could have raked Ringo's eyes

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off his face with a stick. 'Come on!' Cousin Denny hol­ered. 'Le's go hear about them niggers at the river!'

'I been having to hear about niggers all my life,' Ringo said. 'I got to hear about that railroad.'

When we reached the house Cousin Drusilla was al­ready talking, telling Granny mostly, though it was not about the railroad. Her hair was cut short; it looked like Father's would when he would tell Granny about him and the men cutting each other's hair with a bayonet. She was sunburned and her hands were hard and scratched like a man's that works. She was telling Granny mostly: 'They began to pass in the road yonder while the house was still burning. We couldn't count them; men and women carrying children who couldn't walk and carrying old men and women who should have been at home waiting to die. They were singing, walk­ing along the road singing, not even looking to either side. The dust didn't even settle for two days, because all that night they still passed; we sat up listening to them, and the next morning every few yards along the road would be the old ones who couldn't keep up any more, sitting or lying down and even crawling along, calling to the others to help them; and the others—the young strong ones—not stopping, not even looking at them. I don't think they even heard or saw them. 'Going to Jordan,' they told me. 'Going to cross Jordan.' '

'That was what Loosh said,' Granny said. 'That General Sherman was leading them all to Jordan.'

'Yes,' Cousin Drusilla said. 'The river. They have stopped there; it's like a river itself, dammed up. The Yankees have thrown out a brigade of cavalry to hold them back while they build the bridge to cross the in­fantry and artillery; they are all right until they get up there and see or smell the water. That's when they go rnad. Not fighting; it's like they can't even see the horses shoving them back and the scabbards beating them; it's like they can't even see anything but the water and the other bank. They aren't angry, aren't fighting; just men, women and children singing and chanting and try­ing to get to that unfinished bridge or even down into the water itself, and the cavalry beating them back with sword scabbards. I don't know when they have eaten;

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