Shad didn't know what she was going for, but he had an idea. He sprinted for the door, the outside door, and wrestled with the key. It opened and he stepped onto the porch. 'I'm sorry, Iris,' he called back. 'I'm -'
Something smashed against the half-closed door. He ducked and slammed it shut. Then he ran for the woods. He could still smell the sweet stench of the shattered perfume bottle tagging after him.
10
It was twilight when the bus let Mr. Ferris out at the forks. The sun was already below the cabbage palms and now they looked stark, stooped like tired people caught in the suspension of their weary thoughts. Mr. Ferris, holding a small travelling bag, stepped carefully down into the dust and paused a moment, looking up and away with the look of a man who has returned to a remembered place.
A woman was coming from a shanty down in a grove of shaggy trees, coming with the brisk, bright determination of a duty that was almost a pleasure. Mr. Ferris remembered her, a Mrs. Ty Waldridge, and he recalled that she had an idiosyncrasy. She took a daily newspaper. Each day at sunset she came up to her gate near the fork and was handed her paper by the bus driver. The thing that Mr. Ferris had found so charming was that neither Mrs. Waldridge or her husband knew how to read. The newspaper was a red herring. Mrs. Waldridge liked to see who got on and off the bus, liked the moments of gossip with the driver and any of the female passengers she happened to know.
The bus was an ancient three-ton affair with a roaring old monster for an engine. The only time the passengers could communicate verbally was during the stops. When the bus was in motion you had to settle for face and hand signals- unless you wanted to strain your lungs shouting.
One man, sitting on the right, had the dress and mannerisms that marked him for a northerner. He looked out the window and up at the cabbage palms. His expression was cryptic. He and Mr. Ferris had become friendly on the way from the airport. He was travelling to Three Creek to visit relatives for the first time. He looked down at Mr. Ferris standing below him and smiled wryly. 'So this is what you thought you'd missed?' he wondered.
Mr. Ferris' dry features moved almost imperceptibly, coming to a slow, considered smile. He turned his head right-shoulder, then left-shoulder and nodded. 'It takes some getting used to. But you see what I mean about the primitive?'
'Oh yes, yes, that's plain enough.'
Both men smiled, understanding each other, as separate as two European adventurers set down in the center of Inner Mongolia. And the man in the bus emphasized their agreement by canting his eyes meaningfully toward his travelling companions, all of them natives of the district.
'I'm going to miss your company, Mr. Ferris, I can assure you.'
Mr. Ferris' laugh was soundless but obvious. 'Get to know them,' he suggested. 'It's worth while. They'll make you feel right at home. Just don't bring up the Civil War.'
The man in the bus grinned. 'Never heard of it.'
Mrs. Waldridge came through her gate and stopped short at the edge of the road, blinking at Mr. Ferris.
'Why -' she began. 'Why, it's Mr. Ferris! Well, lan'sake, it
Mr. Ferris turned, smiling his slow smile and lifted his grey Borsalino hat to her, hearing the man in the bus murmur, 'Well, I'll be damned!'
'Mrs. – Waldridge, isn't it?' Mr. Ferris said. 'So good to see you again. How have you been? And your husband?' He turned smoothly and held his hand out to the emerging driver. 'I'll take the newspaper, thank you. Here you are, Mrs. Waldridge.'
The poor fat lady was flustered, at a loss for words. Some of the women in the bus were acquaintances of hers. They gawked at her, saying nothing. Mrs. Waldridge started to take the paper in her left hand, became confused and also started to reach for it with her right, suffered a hand collision in mid-air, and stood for a brief embarrassed moment simply waving both hands helplessly saying, 'Why -why, Mr. Ferris – why -'
Mr. Ferris said, 'Quite all right.' Then, as the worn-out engine burst into a clattering roar, he stepped clear of the road – taking Mrs. Waidridge's meaty elbow and assisting her as though she were made of Dresden – and turned back to wave at the man in the bus.
The old ruin leaped forward as the driver released the clutch, and again Mr. Ferris laughed soundlessly when he heard his new friend shout back at him, 'No wonder they make you feel at home! You should run on the Democrat ticket! Bye!'
Alone together by the road, Mrs. Waldridge seemed bent on continuing the stilted conversation that consisted primarily of unfollowed 'why's' and 'well's.' But Mr. Ferris' gallantry had its limitations. He lifted his hat to her again.
'Nice to have seen you again – and remember me to your husband.'
'Well – well, yes, I'll shore do hit, Mr. – Mr. Ferris. I'll -Did you come back on 'count a the Money Plane?'
Mr. Ferris looked back, nodding.
'Yes, that's right, Mrs. Waldridge.'
'Well! Well, I never! Shad Hark – they say Shad Hark found hit, Mr. Ferris. Did you hear that already? Mr. Ferris?'
He was safely on his way by now. He smiled and waved, 'Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Waidridge.'
He remembered the way. The trail he was on was used by half-wild cattle and gaunt pigs. It led him down to a deeprutted turpentine road that was used by Negroes with mule wagons who came to scrape resin from the clay cups on the tapped turpentine trees.
And he remembered the next place very well, remembered the smell. It was a turpentine still. Negroes lived there in ratty cabins and abject poverty. It was a part of the swamp that Mr. Ferris didn't find at all picturesque. The little pickaninnies scattered to the weeds when they saw him coming, their eyes like small snowballs, each dotted with a single raisin. He nodded to a heavy Mammy, saying 'Good evening,' in passing, and heard her chanted 'Yus suh, yus suh,' follow him beyond the quarters.
He paused reflectively when suddenly confronted with a shallow dirt path running out of the bush to become a tributary to the road. That was his path, wasn't it? The path leading to the Culvers? Yes, he was certain of it.
A man passing through the shrub stopped a moment to look at Mr. Ferris. Then he put his hands akimbo and cocked his head off centre, as though the unbalance would help his power of observation. Suddenly he called. 'Hey! Hi there, Mr. Ferris!' and waved.
Mr. Ferris smiled and waved back without stopping. Mr. Ferris frequently forgot other people, but other people never forgot Mr. Ferris.
The path led one mile from the road, around the head of a horseshoe lake and down to the Culver place. Mr. Ferris stopped and looked at the remembered wilderness. The lake lay like a chunk of blue shadow, lustrous and empty, while beyond the cypress barrier the swamp squatted green under the opaque sky. It recalled to his mind Heyst's abrupt declaration in
He climbed a shaky stile – remembering with amusement that four years ago Larry Culver was promising Iris he would do something about it – and traversed the meadow, coming at last to the grassy yard and the house. He paused on the bottom step, glancing at his shoes. No shine left; they looked like two small loaves of powdered bread. He looked right and left, didn't see what he wanted, and drew a handkerchief from his pocket. He swatted, not rubbed, at the shoes; then shook out the handkerchief, folded it neatly and returned it to his pocket. He picked up his bag and went up the steps to the screen door.
'Larry?' he called across the veranda. 'Iris?'
He could hear the mechanical whirr of the air conditioner pulsating through the open living-room doors, and heard the drone punctuated by a liquid click of sound, like ice in a drink. Then he heard Iris Culver's voice. 'Who is it?'
And a moment later he listened to her heels clicking toward him. She was but vaguely visible through the veranda screen, and the shadow from the porch overhang only showed her feet, legs, and bottom of her dress
