'No,' Shad said shortly. 'Not airy.'
He still had his hand in his jeans and he wished the big man would move away. He didn't especially want to bring the ten-dollar bill into Jort Camp's sight. But Jort stayed right at his elbow, and Joel Sutt was waiting forhis money. Like it meant nothing, Shad pushed the crumpled bill over the counter, saying, 'I want me a carton of tailormades out'n that too, Joel.'
Jort Camp leaned forward, following the bill from Shad's hand to Sutt's. 'Hayday,' he said. 'Lookit what Shaddy's done got him.'
Joel Sutt seemed a bit surprised himself when he flattened the bill and saw the denomination. He looked quizzically at Shad.
'Where at you come by this, Shad?'
'Fella down river owed me that fer some skins. I finally collected.' Shad was offhand.
'Oh?' Sutt said. 'Thought you was selling me all your skins?' His voice hinted at the touch of hurt he felt.
'No,' Shad said stiffly. 'Not quite all.'
Sutt fetched a carton of tailor-mades and gave Shad his change. He didn't say anything more. But Jort Camp, watching Shad stow the money in his pocket, asked, 'What fella be that, Shaddy? What down-river fella?'
'Just a fella I knowed. Joel-I'm saying good night now.'
'All right. Good night, Shad.'
Jort Camp followed Shad to the door. 'Shaddy, you ain't forgit you'n me is going gator-grabbing?'
Shad had agreed to help Jort in a weak moment. The big man wasn't much of a hand at swamp tracking, and it was common knowledge that Shad knew more of the swamp than many of the old-timers. Jort had been pestering him for months to help him locate an easy-git-at gator hole. 'No, I ain't forgot.'
'Well, me'n Sam is fixing to go at her come Monday.'
'Uh-huh. Well, I'll see if'n I'm free then.' He went out on the porch and down the steps quickly, wanting to get away from Jort. He didn't really like the man.
'Be by fer you nigh sun-up!' Jort called after him.
Beyond the crooked, picket-missing excuse for a fence the yard was stark sand, spotted with sandspurs; and it went on that way around the east and west corners of the house until the bull-grass picked up again, back where it held the sagging privy captive. There was a jasmine vine entwined over what was left of the porch, but it looked like something old and discarded, like something a previous owner had left behind. And there was the neck of a whisky bottle jutting up from the sand midway between where the gate should have been and the porch. Shad remembered because his pa had thrown it at him. That was the time Shad had first returned from the swamp, having spent three nightmare days and nights looking for Holly.
The old man had been waiting on the porch, drunk. He had raised his troubled, bleary eyes from the empty bottle in his hand to stare at the boy coming through the fence.
'Where at's your brother?' he'd shouted.
The boy had stopped short in the yard, annoyed – hurt even-that the old man hadn't asked first about his trip. Don't give him a damn if'n I near got me cotton-mouth-bit and gator-et, he'd thought savagely. No. Just Holly. All the time Holly.
'I didn't cut acrost him,' he'd answered sullenly.
The old man had stood silent for a moment staring, sinking the words through the corn. Then-'Nor yet see airy of him?' he'd shouted.
'No.'
'Well, why the hell you done come back? Why ain't you still out there a-looking? You done forgit he be your own flesh and blood?'
Shad hadn't moved. He'd learned from bitter childhood experience never to cut across on the old man when he was drinking.
'You done forgit I'm yourn?' Shad had retorted.
And then the old man had thrown the bottle.
'Well,' his pa had muttered after a cold moment of embarrassed silence, 'pick that up when you come. Don't want nobody to go cut a foot on hit.'
'I'll be eternally damned if'n I will!' Shad had shouted 'Pick hit up yourself, you want it so bad.'
But the old man hadn't and Shad wouldn't; so it stayed there and became a mute reminder of the love that never could have been lost because it never had been.
The house's line had a crippled down-at-the-corner look, low, rambling and one-storied, cracked and grey- boarded from lack of paint, and the shingled room looked like the cuts on a long dead and well-decayed gator's back. The old man was limp in his rocker on the porch.
Shad passed through the fence opening and walked across the yard, glancing at the black neck of the bottle.
The old man raised his grizzled head, and it was an effort. It was almost painful to watch him bring his rheumy eyes into focus. He scraped the phlegm in his throat to a new and higher position.
'You seen airy of your brother?' he asked. It was a question of habit and sounded automatic.
'No.' Shad stared at the shadowy shape of the old man, frowning. 'Where at did you git it this time?' he asked finally.
The old man decided to circumvent that. He played sly.
'Git what, Shad?' he asked innocently, and his head wavered on its spindly neck. 'My cough?' He coughed hopefully. 'I dunno. I think mebbe-'
'Stop beating your-fool-self about the bush. Where did you git the money fer the corn?'
Times had changed since the day the old man had thrown the whisky bottle at him, had changed the night he tried it again, with a loaded coffee pot, and Shad had hit him hard in the face, knocked him down and out for five minutes. The old man cowered in on himself, whining. 'You ain't a-goan like hit, Shad. You just ain't a-goan to, I kin tell. You-'
Shad covered his smile in the darkness and pretended an impatience that he'd long since given up. 'You goan come at it sometime tonight?' he demanded. 'Or do I got me to listen to 'I ain't goan to' fer the next hour? What did you go and sell this time'
'I couldn't help it, boy. I was just a-sitting here a-rocking and a-waiting fer you to come home and a-tending my own nevermind, and a-rocking-'
'You done said that.'
'-and, Shad-Shad, a thirst done come up at me like I'd ben down on my knees a-licking out a tobacco furrow, agoing at me and-'
'And so you went and sold the house to some passing beggar fer a dollar.'
The old man became frantic at the suggestion. 'No, I didn't, Shad! On my knees to God, I didn't! It was just that book of yourn I seen in on your bed. That one the Culver woman gived you, is all.'
'Loant me,' Shad amended.
'Well, anyhow, I gived it to Jaff Paulson because he tolt me his boy was learning to read, and he-and he gived me a dollar fer hit.'
Shad had to chuckle. 'You old fool. You know what that book were? T'were called
'Well-' the old man mumbled in soggy confusion, 'well-won't hurt him none, will it?' Abruptly he giggled a low sniggering sound. 'Never went to hurt you and me, now did it, Shad?'
Shad went up the steps smiling. 'Oh? When did you ever read it? I didn't know you could read, 'cepting fer whisky stickers.'
The old man wagged a hand against the dark in protest.
Shad left him and went into the house.
He found a match, scraped his thumb over the head and applied the flame to the lampwick. The expanding saffron glow rammed the corners and angles of the rough room back into brown shadow. There wasn't much to the shanty: a table, two benches, fireplace, two beds, a hutch that was a dismal clutter of pots, pans, cans, and cold garbage. A ragged screen over the open window allowed a steady stream of mosquitoes to make for the oil lamp.
