'Where is this precious paper?' Rafe said.
Dog-eared and worn so thin along the creases you could pretty near look through them. Bender got it from his vest and, leaning against the well rim, tried with hands that shook to spread it out as Rafe stepped closer.
There didn't seem much point in reading it once his glance had taken in the official seal. It was bonafide enough; a number of women had got remarried, he'd heard, on the strength of papers like that. Give a man a kind of scalp-twitching feeling to come so sharp against proof he was dead. Made him wonder, by grab, it he wasn't better off to leave it!
Then he saw the covert exchange which passed between Duke and his sister; and he remembered how Joseph had been sold into Egypt. He thought,
But Duke, rushing up, cried fierce through his teeth, 'No you don't—I'll take care of that!' and, before anyone realized what he was up to, grabbed the paper and defiantly crammed it into his pocket, backing hastily away.
Rafe, seeing his father's bewilderment, put a hand on his shoulder, the good hand, of course, because there wasn't very much he could do with the other. 'Never mind, suh. Let him have it,' he said. 'It's only a paper. I'm right here beside you.'
The old man reached out and, milky stare peering blindly, suddenly stiffening when his touch came against that twisted claw. 'Boy, you lied. You're not Rafe—'
''Course he ain't! Rafe's brother snarled. 'We tried to tell you!
Something smoothly hard, something rigid as hate, came down like a house on the top of Rafe's head. His legs seemed to float right up off the ground.
VI
He came out in black waves across teeth sharp as needles from the depths of incalculable time. And always, it seemed, to hover and bump as though trapped under glass just short of awareness.
This was something he seemed to do over and over with the pain splintering clean up into his shoulders in bursts of recurrent, almost intolerable, agony. More frequently then, with the pain subsiding, the invisible surface appeared to give just a little, to sway like thin ice when his weight came against it; he could imagine he saw light and, sometimes, a garble of sounds echoed fustily down through the shadowy cracks.
At last, in a lamplit room, he broke through, owlishly blinking against the unaccustomed radiance. Eyes swimming into focus he beheld in startled wonder the peeled yeso-coated poles, a remembered halo of copper hair and, feeling bitterly put upon, clamped shut his eyes and dived incontinently back into the oblivion from which he had clawed.
Perhaps there was some good in it, but nothing was substantially altered next time he cautiously examined his whereabouts. He was still in Pike's house and Pike's filly was beside him. Also, like before, he was flat on his back in that dang female's bed!
It was a kind of situation no self·respecting Rebel could bring himself to countenance even for a minute if there had been any way around it. To be obligated once was cross enough for anyone. To find himself in their hands again—Rafe's eyes snapped shut with a shudder.
His mind cast back, trying to think how he'd come here. He remembered Duke yelling, 'Clabber 'im, Jess!' and the world exploding like Harper's ferry, but the fog was too thick to fish anything else out.
Cracking open one eye he nervously took another squint. She was across the room now, sitting by the window with her head bent, sewing. You would never think to look at her she could be so dang deceitful, so demure she seemed, so quiet and sweet; but there'd been nothing sweet about the way she'd poked that sawed-off at him and Rafe wasn't about to forget it. Her old man, he reckoned, was probably gone to fetch the sheriff.
A sigh welled out of Rafe in spite of himself, and Bunny's head came up. 'Hi,' she said, her whole look disapproving. 'I suppose what has happened is the story of your life. In again, out again. When are you going to learn to take care of yourself?'
He was so piddlin' weak he couldn't seem, even, to work up a decent outrage. She put her sewing aside and, not waiting for an answer, got up and went off.
Through the door she'd left open he could hear her bustling around in the kitchen. Pretty soon the mouth- priming aroma of chicken made him think he'd pass out before she got the stuff to him.
When she finally came with a bowl of water the gird had been rinsed in he was too whipped to protest; so weak, by grab, he couldn't even get his hands from under the covers. He had to lay there and let her spoon it into him.
Next time he came around it was Pike who sat watching. Pike looking thoughtful, said, 'How you feel? Up to taking more nourishment?'
Rafe had been determined to have it out with the feller, but the needs of the body appeared suddenly more important than making clear where he stood on the subject of Yankees. Sourly scowling, he nodded.
'Bunny—' Pike called, 'fetch in the rest of that broth and a soft boiled egg. Bring a handful of crackers. And a mug of weak tea.'
Rafe said, glowering, 'You got to kill me by inches?'
'You'll live through it,' Pike chuckled, 'if we can keep down the complications. What'd you do to that hand?'
'Hand...? Oh! Horse rolled on it. In the war. I was—'
'You told me about that. I'm talking about the one you were using when you tore out of here.'
Seeing Rafe's puzzlement Pike reached out and pulled down the covers. Rafe was dumbfounded. Both hands were bandaged clean to the elbows. He couldn't move either one. 'Looked to me,' Pike said, 'like someone took a club to you. That left hand of yours was in bad shape. Thought I might just as well work on both of them while I was at it.'
