threatened to spill over the rim of her blouse.
She pushed his hand down impatiently and said, 'Now, Shad, don't you go to start that again. My goodness, we'll never git that old money if you keep fooling your time away.'
He looked at her. 'All night, sugar doll, but Sally Brown never treated me thataway.'
Instantly she was jealous. 'Who's she? Who's Sally Brown?'
'Just a mulatto gal I knowt once.'
'Well, Shadrack Hark! The idee of comparing me with some dirty little -'
Shad laughed. 'Hit's just a joke, Dorry. Honest Injun, that's all. She's just the girl in the old song.'
'Well -'
'You goan kiss me goodbye?'
'Well, I suppose.' But she wasn't really mollified, and he knew it when he kissed her Her mouth was nothing. Some day soon, he thought, he would have to swing her into line. She had a disposition like a bobcat dipped in boiling water. 'Well -' he said.
'You git back soon's you kin,' she said. ' I'll be waiting to home.'
'See you,' he said, and he started for the woods.
'You be careful, hear? You take care, Shad,' she called. And then – 'Shad, you got something to tote that money in?'
The stillness of the night was like nothing around Dorry. She was unconscious of it. She strolled languidly through the pale phantoms that the moonlight threw on the road, head down and humming softly thinking of herself at a dance; the fiddler's fingers adroitly highstepping over the violin's neck, the bow dipping and rising and swooping, making the box sing, alive; the caller all Adam's apple and mouth and red silk shirt, beating his right foot on the platform, doing a vertical sashay with his right hand, his left in his pocket jingling change – I wish I were in the Dutchman's Hall! Lowlands, lowlands, hurrah, my boys! All the girls whirling by, skirts a-swirl; herself in her new dress, light of leg and tappy toe, cakewalking like a queen.
Away in the distance the palmettos were ebony silhouettes, and closer in a hooty owl challenged her but didn't really seem to care, and she didn't even realize he'd asked. Through a stand of oak saplings she could see the sombre black shack where old man Hark lived in drunken befuddlement, and her hand made a small fist around the crumpled ten-dollar bill.
Now it was just plain foolishness, she rationalized, to go and give good money to that disgusting old man who was never sober enough to remember to button his own pants. My goodness, if a girl didn't watch her pennies she'd end up in nags and barefoot like any poor white, and where was the sense in that she'd like to know. After all, something might happen to Shad in the swamp – or maybe someone else had found his money – or maybe someone would take it away from him. And ten dollars was ten dollars, and right now it was a bird-in- hand.
Her lacquered fingernails dug into her palm, and the bill was as captured as a coon in a drop-trap and had as much chance of getting away.
She went on down the road, humming the play-party tune, secure in the self-righteousness of personal conviction.
Two shadows separated themselves from the woods and stepped, dark and ominous, into the road before her. Dorry stopped with a jolt and her heart went
'Well, look a-here what we come at, Sam,' Jort Camp said.
'Yeah,' Sam murmured. 'Yeah.' And he began edging to the left, gradual and smooth and inhuman in movement.
She started to turn back, and with a flicker of motion he had her by the left arm and his fingers were like damp narrow bones in her bare flesh. She caught her breath and raised her fist to hit him, and then Jort had that arm and she saw his teeth white in the moon and she was being lifted from the road, and before she really knew what it was all about the black shadows of the woods had closed oven her and she was standing with her back to a tree and Jort Camp and Sam Parks had her fenced in.
'What's wrong, Miss Dorry?' Jort asked. 'We didn't go to scare you none, did we?'
Sam was fidgeting, dry-washing his hands, shift-footing himself like a horse in a stall, husking air through his mouth. 'No – no, we don't want to scare you none,' he whispered, and he tentatively reached for her arm to soothe her.
She jerked back as though he'd offered her a lizard.
'What you want with me, Jort Camp? I got nothing fer you.'
'Oh, now that's where you're wrong, Miss Dorry. Be dog if you ain't. I got me a fat type idee you know something
Sam giggled as though he couldn't help it. She was all dank in the shadow and reminded him of an unbelievably beautiful coloured gal, and her dress was all crinkly sounding when she moved.
'You leave me alone, Jort Camp. I'll – I'll sic my boy friend on you!'
Jort seemed interested. He straight-arm leaned himself against the tree, bringing his big face within six inches of her mouth.
'Who's that, Miss Dorry? Huh? Old Tom are you talking about?'
She didn't say anything to that.
Jort shook his head in a reflective manner. 'No. Laugh at myself fer thinking so. Hit would be Shad Hank, now wouldn't it be, Miss Dorny? Yeah, I reckon it would be old Shad. Sam, don't you reckon it would be Shad?'
Sam's eyes were busy. He mumbled, 'Yeah – yeah,' absently.
'Tell you how it be with Sam and me, Miss Dorry,' Jort offered. 'We got us a fat old problem. We don heered about all that money Shad got hisself and we was thinking mebbe you could tell us where he's got it hid at.'
'I don't know nothing about that money. I don't know nothing about Shad neither. And I'm goan tell my pa you holding me here, Jort Camp, and he'll cold come at you with his shotgun.'
'Yeah, yeah, we'll worry about that later. Let's talk about Shad right now. You know – the fella you shack up with down to the shantyboat.'
'You hush your dirty mouth, Jort Camp!' The tears were starting to come now.
'What you hiding there behind your back?' Jort asked. 'What you got in your hand back there – a play- pretty?'
She forgot about crying. 'That's my nevermind.'
'Let's have us a look.' He caught her wrist and twisted her arm out of the shadow. She winced and said, 'Don't-'
'Hayday,' Jort whispered. 'Looky here, Sam. A ten dollar she got here. Now I wonder where that come from?' He glanced at Sam. 'By juckies, Sam. Will you kindly remember we ain't here to play peek-a-boo! Don't you see what this means? Shad must a just give this to her – er – yeah – er she knows where at he keeps hit hid.'
'Well, where's that?'
'Dunno. She might a ben coming from the old Colt place. Yeah. How about that, Miss Dorry? That would be a good place fer Shad to hide his money, wouldn't it?'
She shook her head, panicky now, trying to wiggle her arm free from Jort's bear paw. 'I don't know about no money! He ain't got none. I got that from my ma!'
Sam clawed the top of her blouse. 'You tell us, you little devil! You tell us night out where he got that money hid!'
She jerked violently to one side, the blouse tearing, her left breast bobbling against Sam's hand. 'You – you dirty little -' And she screamed, twisting and strildng at him.
'Shad!'
Jort grabbed for her hair, but missed as she ducked down pulling herself free.
