Kill your ass, the man said. They slogged about in the dark of the lot, coming out of their boots. The kid had his knife now and they circled crabwise and when the man lurched at him he cut the man’s shirt open. The man threw down the bottleneck and unsheathed an immense bowieknife from behind his neck. His hat had come off and his black and ropy locks swung about his head and he had codified his threats to the one word kill like a crazed chant.
That’ns cut, said one of several men standing along the walkway watching.
Kill kill slobbered the man wading forward.
But someone else was coming down the lot, great steady sucking sounds like a cow. He was carrying a huge shellalegh. He reached the kid first and when he swung with the club the kid went face down in the mud. He’d have died if someone hadn’t turned him over.
When he woke it was daylight and the rain had stopped and he was looking up into the face of a man with long hair who was completely covered in mud. The man was saying something to him.
What? said the kid.
I said are you quits?
Quits?
Quits. Cause if you want some more of me you sure as hell goin to get it.
He looked at the sky. Very high, very small, a buzzard. He looked at the man. Is my neck broke? he said.
The man looked out over the lot and spat and looked at the boy again. Can you not get up?
I dont know. I aint tried.
I never meant to break your neck.
No.
I meant to kill ye.
They aint nobody done it yet. He clawed at the mud and pushed himself up. The man was sitting on the planks with his boots alongside him. They aint nothin wrong with you, he said.
The kid looked about stiffly at the day. Where’s my boots? he said.
The man squinted at him. Flakes of dried mud fell from his face.
I’m goin to have to kill some son of a bitch if they got my boots.
Yonder looks like one of em.
The kid labored off through the mud and fetched up one boot. He slogged about in the yard feeling likely lumps of mud.
This your knife? he said.
The man squinted at him. Looks like it, he said.
The kid pitched it to him and he bent and picked it up and wiped the huge blade on his trouserleg. Thought somebody’d done stole you, he told the knife.
The kid found his other boot and came and sat on the boards. His hands were huge with mud and he wiped one of them briefly at his knee and let it fall again.
They sat there side by side looking out across the barren lot. There was a picket fence at the edge of the lot and beyond the fence a boy was drawing water at a well and there were chickens in the yard there. A man came from the dramshop door down the walk toward the outhouse. He stopped where they sat and looked at them and then stepped off into the mud. After a while he came back and stepped off into the mud again and went around and on up the walk.
The kid looked at the man. His head was strangely narrow and his hair was plastered up with mud in a bizarre and primitive coiffure. On his forehead were burned the letters H T and lower and almost between the eyes the letter F and these markings were splayed and garish as if the iron had been left too long. When he turned to look at the kid the kid could see that he had no ears. He stood up and sheathed the knife and started up the walk with the boots in his hand and the kid rose and followed. Halfway to the hotel the man stopped and looked out at the mud and then sat down on the planks and pulled on the boots mud and all. Then he rose and slogged off through the lot to pick something up.
I want you to look here, he said. At my goddamned hat.
You couldnt tell what it was, something dead. He flapped it about and pulled it over his head and went on and the kid followed.
The dramhouse was a long narrow hall wainscotted with varnished boards. There were tables by the wall and spittoons on the floor. There were no patrons. The barman looked up when they entered and a nigger that had been sweeping the floor stood the broom against the wall and went out.
Where’s Sidney? said the man in his suit of mud.
In the bed I reckon.
They went on.
Toadvine, called the barman.
The kid looked back.
The barman had come from behind the bar and was looking after them. They crossed from the door through the lobby of the hotel toward the stairs leaving varied forms of mud behind them on the floor. As they started up the stairs the clerk at the desk leaned and called to them.
Toadvine.
He stopped and looked back.
He’ll shoot you.
Old Sidney?
Old Sidney.
They went on up the stairs.
At the top of the landing was a long hall with a windowlight at the end. There were varnished doors down the walls set so close they might have been closets. Toadvine went on until he came to the end of the hall. He listened at the last door and he eyed the kid.
You got a match?
The kid searched his pockets and came up with a crushed and stained wooden box.
The man took it from him. Need a little tinder here, he said. He was crumbling the box and stacking the bits against the door. He struck a match and set the pieces alight. He pushed the little pile of burning wood under the door and added more matches.
Is he in there? said the boy.
That’s what we’re fixin to see.
A dark curl of smoke rose, a blue flame of burning varnish. They squatted in the hallway and watched. Thin flames began to run up over the panels and dart back again. The watchers looked like forms excavated from a bog.
Tap on the door now, said Toadvine.
The kid rose. Toadvine stood up and waited. They could hear the flames crackling inside the room. The kid tapped.
You better tap louder than that. This man drinks some.
He balled his fist and lambasted the door about five times.
Hell fire, said a voice.
Here he comes.
They waited.
You hot son of a bitch, said the voice. Then the knob turned and the door opened.
He stood in his underwear holding in one hand the towel he’d used to turn the doorknob with. When he saw them he turned and started back into the room but Toadvine seized him about the neck and rode him to the floor and held him by the hair and began to pry out an eyeball with his thumb. The man grabbed his wrist and bit it.
Kick his mouth in, called Toadvine. Kick it.
The kid stepped past them into the room and turned and kicked the man in the face. Toadvine held his head back by the hair.
Kick him, he called. Aw, kick him, honey.
He kicked.
Toadvine pulled the bloody head around and looked at it and let it flop to the floor and he rose and kicked the
