He walks around. His shadow walks around.
It was not her. I was there, looking. I saw. I thought it was her, but it was not. It was not my mother. She went away when the other one laid down in her bed and drew the quilt up. She went away. “Did she go as far as town?” “She went farther than town.” “Did all those rabbits and possums go farther than town?” God made the rabbits and possums. He made the train. Why must He make a different place for them to go if she is just like the rabbit.
Pa walks around. His shadow does. The saw sounds like it is asleep.
And so if Cash nails the box up, she is not a rabbit. And so if she is not a rabbit I couldn’t breathe in the crib and Cash is going to nail it up. And so if she lets him it is not her. I know. I was there. I saw when it did not be her. I saw. They think it is and Cash is going to nail it up.
It was not her because it was laying right yonder in the dirt. And now it’s all chopped up. I chopped it up. It’s laying in the kitchen in the bleeding pan, waiting to be cooked and et. Then it wasn’t and she was, and now it is and she wasn’t. And tomorrow it will be cooked and et and she will be him and pa and Cash and Dewey Dell and there won’t be anything in the box and so she can breathe. It was laying right yonder on the ground. I can get Vernon. He was there and he seen it, and with both of us it will be and then it will not be.
Tull
It was nigh to midnight and it had set in to rain when he woke us. It had been a misdoubtful night, with the storm making; a night when a fellow looks for most anything to happen before he can get the stock fed and himself to the house an supper et and in bed with the rain starting, and when Peabody’s team come up, lathered, with the broke harness dragging and the neck-yoke betwixt the off critter’s legs, Cora says “It’s Addie Bundren. She’s gone at last.”
“Peabody mought have been to ere a one of a dozen houses hereabouts,” I says. “Besides, how do you know it’s Peabody’s team?”
“Well, ain’t it?” she says. “You hitch up, now.”
“What for?” I says. “If she is gone, we can’t do nothing till morning. And it fixing to storm too.”
“It’s my duty,” she says. “You put the team in.”
But I wouldn’t do it. “It stands to reason they’d send for us if they needed us. You don’t even know she’s gone yet.”
“Why, don’t you know that’s Peabody’s team? Do you claim it ain’t? Well, then.” But I wouldn’t go. When folks wants a fellow, it’s best to wait till they sends for him, I’ve found. “It’s my Christian duty,” Cora says. “Will you stand between me and my Christian duty?”
“You can stay there all day tomorrow, if you want,” I says.
So when Cora waked me it had set in to rain. Even while I was going to the door with the lamp and it shining on the glass so he could see I am coming, it kept on knocking. Not loud, but steady, like he might have gone to sleep thumping, but I never noticed how low down on the door the knocking was till I opened it and never seen nothing. I held the lamp up, with the rain sparkling across it and Cora back in the hall saying “Who is it, Vernon?” but I couldn’t see nobody a-tall at first until I looked down and around the door, lowering the lamp.
He looked like a drowned puppy, in them overalls, without no hat, splashed up to his knees where he had walked them four miles in the mud. “Well, I’ll be durned,” I says.
“Who is it, Vernon?” Cora says.
He looked at me, his eyes round and black in the middle like when you throw a light in a owl’s face. “You mind that ere fish,” he says.
“Come in the house,” I says. “What is it? Is your maw—”
“Vernon,” Cora says.
He stood kind of around behind the door, in the dark. The rain was blowing on to the lamp, hissing on it so I am scared every minute it’ll break. “You was there,” he says. “You seen it.”
Then Cora come to the door. “You come right in outen the rain,” she says, pulling him in and him watching me. He looked just like a drowned puppy. “I told you,” Cora says. “I told you it was a-happening. You go and hitch.”
“But he ain’t said—” I says.
He looked at me, dripping on to the floor. “He’s a-ruining the rug,” Cora says. “You go get the team while I take him to the kitchen.”
But he hung back, dripping, watching me with them eyes. “You was there. You seen it laying there. Cash is fixing to nail her up, and it was a-laying right there on the ground. You seen it. You seen the mark in the dirt. The rain never come up till after I was a-coming here. So we can get back in time.”
I be durn if it didn’t give me the creeps, even when I didn’t know yet. But Cora did. “You get that team quick as you can,” she says. “He’s outen his head with grief and worry.”
I be durn if it didn’t give me the creeps. Now and then a fellow gets to thinking. About all the sorrow and afflictions in this world; how it’s liable to strike anywhere, like lightning. I reckon it does take a powerful trust in the Lord to guard a fellow, though sometimes I think
