“Jewel,” Vernon says, not loud, but his voice going full and clear along the water, peremptory yet tactful. “It’ll be back here. Better come back.”
Jewel dives again. We stand there, leaning back against the current, watching the water where he disappeared, holding the dead rope between us like two men holding the nozzle of a fire-hose, waiting for the water. Suddenly Dewey Dell is behind us in the water. “You make him come back,” she says. “Jewel!” she says. He comes up again, tossing his hair back from his eyes. He is swimming now, toward the bank, the current sweeping him downstream quartering. “You, Jewel!” Dewey Dell says. We stand holding the rope and see him gain the bank and climb out. As he rises from the water, he stoops and picks up something. He comes back along the bank. He has found the chalk-line. He comes opposite us and stands there, looking about as if he were seeking something. Pa goes on down the bank. He is going back to look at the mules again where their round bodies float and rub quietly together in the slack water within the bend.
“What did you do with the hammer, Vernon?” Jewel says.
“I give it to him,” Vernon says, jerking his head at Vardaman. Vardaman is looking after pa. Then he looks at Jewel. “With the square.” Vernon is watching Jewel. He moves toward the bank, passing Dewey Dell and me.
“You get on out of here,” I say. She says nothing, looking at Jewel and Vernon.
“Where’s the hammer?” Jewel says. Vardaman scuttles up the bank and fetches it.
“It’s heavier than the saw,” Vernon says. Jewel is tying the end of the chalk-line about the hammer shaft.
“Hammer’s got the most wood in it,” Jewel says. He and Vernon face one another, watching Jewel’s hands.
“And flatter, too,” Vernon says. “It’d float three to one, almost. Try the plane.”
Jewel looks at Vernon. Vernon is tall, too; long and lean, eye to eye they stand in their close wet clothes. Lon Quick could look even at a cloudy sky and tell the time to ten minutes. Big Lon I mean, not little Lon.
“Why don’t you get out of the water?” I say.
“It won’t float like a saw,” Jewel says.
“It’ll float nigher to a saw than a hammer will,” Vernon says.
“Bet you,” Jewel says.
“I won’t bet,” Vernon says.
They stand there, watching Jewel’s still hands.
“Hell,” Jewel says. “Get the plane, then.”
So they get the plane and tie it to the chalk-line and enter the water again. Pa comes back along the bank. He stops for a while and looks at us, hunched, mournful, like a failing steer or an old tall bird.
Vernon and Jewel return, leaning against the current. “Get out of the way,” Jewel says to Dewey Dell. “Get out of the water.”
She crowds against me a little so they can pass, Jewel holding the plane high as though it were perishable, the blue string trailing back over his shoulder. They pass us and stop; they fall to arguing quietly about just where the wagon went over.
“Darl ought to know,” Vernon says. They look at me.
“I don’t know,” I says. “I wasn’t there that long.”
“Hell,” Jewel says. They move on, gingerly, leaning against the current, reading the ford with their feet.
“Have you got a holt of the rope?” Vernon says. Jewel does not answer. He glances back at the shore, calculant, then at the water. He flings the plane outward, letting the string run through his fingers, his fingers turning blue where it runs over them. When the line stops, he hands it back to Vernon.
“Better let me go this time,” Vernon says. Again Jewel does not answer; we watch him duck beneath the surface.
“Jewel,” Dewey Dell whimpers.
“It ain’t so deep there,” Vernon says. He does not look back. He is watching the water where Jewel went under.
When Jewel comes up he has the saw.
When we pass the wagon pa is standing beside it, scrubbing at the two mud smears with a handful of leaves. Against the jungle Jewel’s horse looks like a patchwork quilt hung on a line.
Cash has not moved. We stand above him, holding the plane, the saw, the hammer, the square, the rule, the chalk-line, while Dewey Dell squats and lifts Cash’s head. “Cash,” she says; “Cash.”
He opens his eyes, staring profoundly up at our inverted faces.
“If ever was such a misfortunate man,” pa says.
“Look, Cash,” we say, holding the tools up so he can see; “what else did you have?”
He tries to speak, rolling his head, shutting his eyes.
“Cash,” we say; “Cash.”
It is to vomit he is turning his head. Dewey Dell wipes his mouth on the wet hem of her dress; then he can speak.
“It’s his saw-set,” Jewel says. “The new one he bought when he bought the rule.” He moves, turning away. Vernon looks up after him, still squatting. Then he rises and follows Jewel down to the water.
“If ever was such a misfortunate man,” pa says. He looms tall above us as we squat; he looks like a figure carved clumsily from tough wood by a drunken caricaturist. “It’s a trial,” he says. “But I don’t begrudge her it. No man can say I begrudge her it.” Dewey Dell has laid Cash’s head back on the folded coat, twisting his head a little to avoid the vomit. Beside him his tools lie. “A fellow might call it lucky it was the same leg he broke when he fell offen that church,” pa says. “But I don’t begrudge her it.”
Jewel and Vernon are in the river again. From here they do not appear to violate the surface at all; it is as though it had severed them both at a single blow, the two torsos moving
