THE ROAD MADE a switchback at the top of the hill and then ran along the ridge so that following it he had a long time to watch the river below him, slow and flat, a dead clay color and wrinkling viscously in the late afternoon light. The road was good until it started down the bluff and then it was washed out again and muddy and plugged with the tracks of mired horses or men or small things that had crossed it in the night. When the road reached the river it went right on into the water and he could see that the water was up. There was a heavy timbered scaffold and a ferrycable running from it out across the river, bellying almost into the current and rising again at the far side. A voice was coming from the far side too but he could not understand what it said. After a while he saw a man come from the ferry and stand on the bank and put his hands to his mouth and then in a minute came the voice again faint with distance. It was just a voice with no words to it. He cupped his own hands to shout but he could think of nothing to shout so he let them fall again and after a while the man went back to the ferry and he couldn’t see him any more.
Holme found a dry place in the grass to sit and he watched the river. It was very high and went past with a dull hiss like poured sand. The air had turned cool and the sky looked gray and wintry. Some birds came upriver, waterbirds with long necks, and he watched them. After a while he slept.
When he woke it was growing late and he could see the ferry on the river. What woke him was a horse and when he turned to look there was a man at the landing holding the reins while the horse drank in the river. Holme rose and stretched himself. Howdy, he said.
Howdy, the man said.
You goin acrost?
No, he said. He was watching the ferry.
Holme rubbed his palms together and hunched his shoulders in the cold.
He thinks I am, the rider said.
He does?
Yes. He jerked the horse’s head up and ran his palm along its neck. You reckon that’s half way, he said.
What’s that? Holme said.
The man pointed. The ferry yander. You reckon she’s half way here?
Holme watched the ferry coming quarterwise toward them with the snarl of water breaking on the upriver side of her hull. Yes, he said. I allow he’s a bit nigher here than yander.
That’s right, the man said. Hard to tell where half way is on a river unless you’re in the middle of it. He pulled the horse’s head around and put one toe in the stirrup and mounted upward all in one motion and went back up the road in a mudsucking canter.
The ferry was the size of a small keelboat. It slowed in the slack shore currents and nosed easily into the mud. The ferryman was standing on the forward deck adjusting the ropes.
Howdy, Holme said.
You still cain’t cross. You a friend of that son of a bitch?
Him? No. I was asleep and he come up.
I’m fixin to get me one of them spyglasses anyways, the ferryman said. He came from the barge deck with a little hop and seized up nearly to his knees in the soft mud and cursed and kicked his boots about and made his way to the higher ground. Yes, he said. One of them spyglasses put a stop to that old shit. He was raking his boots in the grass to clean them. He wore a little leather vest and a strange sort of hat that appeared vaguely nautical. Holme chewed on a weed and watched him.
Little old spyglass be just the thing to fix him with, the man said.
What all does he do? Holme said.
The ferryman looked at him. Do? he said. You seen him. Just like that. He does it all the time. Been doin it for two year now. All on account of a little argument. Sends his old lady over to Morgan for him. I ort by rights to quit haulin her fat ass.
Holme nodded his head vaguely.
So anyway you still cain’t cross till I get a horse.
All right, Holme said.
People is just a dime. Horses is four bits.
All right.
I cain’t afford to make no crossin for no dime.
No. How long do ye reckon it’ll be afore a horse comes?
I couldn’t say, mister.
I ain’t seen many people usin this road.
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. It was busy yesterday evenin. I ain’t never been more’n a day or two without somebody come along.
Day or two? Holme said.
They be somebody along directly.
I sure would hate to have to wait any day or two.
They ort to be somebody along directly.
It’s nigh dark now, Holme said.
They come of a night same as they do of a day, the ferryman said. It’s all the same to me. You goin to Morgan?
If it’s yan side of this river and in the road I’m goin thew it.
Good little old town, Morgan. Say you ain’t never been there?
No, Holme said.
Good little old town, the ferryman said again. He squatted in the grass, looking out over the river. Say you don’t aim to lay over there?
No, Holme said. I don’t reckon.
Well, I don’t ast nobody their business.
Holme sat and crossed the boots before him. He plucked a grass stem and fashioned a loop in one end. It was growing dark rapidly. The river hissing blackly past the landing seemed endowed with heavy reptilian life.
She’s still risin, the ferryman said
Yes.
Say you just goin thew Morgan?
I don’t know, Holme said. They any work there?
The ferryman spat and wiped his mouth on his knee. What sort of work? he said.
I don’t know, Holme said. He knotted the stem and snapped it. I ain’t choicey.
You ain’t got nary trade?
No.
I don’t know. Might find somethin. Nice enough little old town, Morgan.
Is that your home?
Yep. Borned and raised there. My daddy built this here ferry. I guess you come from over in Clayton County.
No, Holme said.
He could no longer see the ferryman’s face and the ferryman didn’t say anything for a while. With the dark the river grew louder and Holme wondered if the water was rising or if it was just the dark.
She runs just on the current I reckon you noticed, the ferryman said.
What?
I said she runs on the current if you’ve not seen such a ferry afore.
No, Holme said. I ain’t.
I allowed maybe you’d not. What you do is you snug up the front and let out the back on a loose line so she noses upriver and the water just pushes her right acrost. Then when ye want to come back you just loose up the snug end and snug up the loose and here she comes.
You don’t have to swap ends?
Nope. They both the same. You just change your lines thataway and here she comes.
That’s pretty slick, Holme said.
Yes tis. Don’t cost nary cent neither.
Did your daddy think it up?
Naw. Folks say he done but he never. He seen one like it somewheres.
It’s pretty slick.
Yep. Just change them lines is all they is to it. If you was to set em both the same you wouldn’t go nowheres.
No.
Might bust the cable.
Yes.
The ferryman sat down from off his haunches and stretched his feet in the grass. Cable busted once and killed a horse. They said they was a man holdin it and it knocked the horse plumb in the river and left him standin there holdin the reins.
He was lucky, Holme said.
The ferryman nodded. Yes, he said. It wasn’t even his horse.
I wish one would come on now, Holme said. I’m gettin cool.
We don’t get somebody directly we might ort to have a fire.
I doubt they be much dry wood about.
Well, maybe somebody be along directly.
Yes.
If it was saturday they’d be here. It’s a sight in the world the traffic I get on a saturday.
What day is it? Holme said.
I don’t know, the ferryman said. It ain’t saturday.
They sat in the grass and watched the river run in the dark as if something were expected there. Yes, said the ferryman. She is risin.
Been a sight of rain up here too I reckon.
Yes. Risky to run at night when she’s high thataway. Easy to get stove with a tree or somethin.
I guess it would, Holme said.
She scoots acrost like a striped-assed ape when the river’s up.
I guess it’s up pretty high now.
Yes. Hush a minute.
Holme listened.
The ferryman rose. Here we go, he said.
Is they someone comin?
Listen.
He listened. When the horse came out on the hard ground of the bluff above the river he could hear its hoofs clatter dead along the road, a sound moving sourceless through the dark, no silhouette among the sparse trees of the ridge, no horseman against the night sky. The ferryman had gone to the barge and was making ready to cast off. The rider above them faded out of hearing and Holme knew that he was coming down the road toward the river in the soft mud and after a while he could hear the chink of the horse’s trappings and the animal’s windy breathing in the dark and then they came out on the landing, visible against the river, the rider leading the horse. He could hear the ferryman say something and the rider said no, and the ferryman said something else and the rider said no again. You’ve got another fare there.
Holme rose and stretched and made his way across the mud to the ferry. The rider was leading the horse aboard, the horse with knees high and head jerking up nervously and its hoofs clopping woodenly on the ferry deck until the man got him forward and tethered. Holme boarded and got his dime out and handed it to the ferryman. The ferryman nodded and swung his rope and made it fast and the boat began to quiver and to move very slowly out, the eyerings riding on the cable overhead with a rasping sound and water beginning to boil against the hull. The river was dark and oily and it tended away into nothing, no shoreline, the sky grading into a black wash little lighter than the water about them so that they seemed to hang in some great depth of darkness like spiders in a well.
Holme had taken a seat on a bench that ran under the gunwale at the rear of the barge. He reached down and trailed one hand for a moment palmdown in the cold water as if to check his balance. The ferryman was standing riskily on the afterdeck adjusting the ropes. They had begun to move very fast and the water against the upriver hull was raging and he could feel the ferry shuddering under him.
She goes right along, don’t she, he called to the ferryman above the howling water, but the ferryman was busy at his ropes, his mariner’s cap skewed on his head, watching upward at the cable beneath which they ran and where the rings were now screeching in a demented fiddlenote. At the front of the boat the horse snorted and nickered and clapped one hoof on the boards. When Holme looked back to the ferryman again he appeared to be dancing among his ropes and Holme could hear him swearing steadily. He stood up. They seemed to be in high wind and water was blowing over the deck. The river was breaking violently on the canted flank of the boat, a perpetual oncussion of black surf that rode higher until it began to override the rail and fall aboard with great slapping sounds. Holme could no longer hear the ferryman. They were careening through the night wildly. The ferryman leaped to the deck and ran forward. The horse stamped and sidled. The ferryman sprang at the forward ropes. Water was now pouring across the rail and Holme had jumped to the rear capstan where he balanced as best he could and looked about him in wonder. They appeared to be racing sideways upriver against the current. The barge shuddered heavily and a sheet of water came rearward and circled the capstan and fanned with a thin hiss. Then there was a loud explosion and something passed above their heads screaming and then there was silence. The ferry lurched and came about and the wall of water receded and they were drifting in windless calm and total dark.
Holme splashed forward. There was no sound. Ho, he called. He could see nothing. He felt his way along the gunwale. Something reared up out of the dark before him with a strangled cry and he fell to the deck, scrabbling backwards as the hoofs sliced past him and burst against the planking. He clambered crabwise back along the deck, wet now and very cold. Ho there, he called. Nothing answered. It’s tied, he said. But it wasn’t tied. When he crossed to the other side he heard it go down the deck and whinny and crash and then he heard it coming back. His eyeballs ached. He dropped to the deck and crawled beneath the rail, up in the scuppers, and the horse pounded past and crashed in the bow. He pulled himself up and started for the rear of the barge and then he heard it coming again. He clawed at the darkness before him, cursing, throwing himself to the deck again while the horse went past with a sound like pistolfire. He waited, his cheek against the cold wood. The barge drifted, swung slowly about, trembling. A race of water wandered over the deck, ran coldly upon him, in his shirt and down his boots and receded again. He could not hear the horse. He could hear the sandy seething of the river beneath him. After a while he rose and started back up the deck. A black fog had set in and he could feel it needling on his face and against his blind eyeballs. When the horse came at him the third time he flattened himself half crazed against the forward bulkhead and howled at it. The horse reared before him black and screaming, the hoofs exploding on the planks. He could smell it. It yawned past him and crashed and screamed again and there was an enormous concussion of water and then nothing. As if all that fury had been swallowed up in the river traceless as fire. The barge rocked gently and ceased. Holme slid to the deck, gasping, his two fists together against his chest. He raised his head and listened to the silence. When he was sure it had gone he rose cautiously and made his way to the bow, unbalanced and staggering in such blackness. With his hands on the rails he leaned and looked down toward the water. The river mouthed the hull gently. After a minute he realized he was standing on something and he reached down to pick it up. It was a boot. He held it in his hands for a moment. Then he leaned and dropped it into the water. The boot tilted and filled and sank instantly as if a hand in the river had claimed it. He felt very cold.
He did not know what to do. He groped his way along to the benches and sat and hugged himself and rocked back and forth. He could hear the whisper of water going up and down over the deck. It sounded as if it were looking for him. After a while he cupped his hands and hallooed into the night. There was not even an echo. His voice fell from his mouth in a chopped bark and he did not call again. He wondered how far away the shore could be, and the dawn.
Once in the night they went through a shoal and he could hear the river going louder until it had risen to a babble and the ferry swung away in a sickening yaw and slid down some rocky flume, him sitting helpless and blind, clutching the bench, his stomach lapsing down black and ropy glides and the fog cold and wet upon him, praying silent and godless in his heart to the river to be easy. They came about in still water and went on. Much later the fog lifted. He rose and watched out over the river. He could see the face of it in sullen and threatful replication and after a while he could see a dark mullioned line of trees. He could not tell how fast they were going, he and this boat. He had not thought of them turning either, but now the gradied imprecision of the silhouetted trees swung slowly away into a colorless vapor and went behind him and crept forth again on the far side. And again. They had begun to move faster. When they swung a third time he began to think that they were closer to the trees and now too he could see the pale teeth of a rip in the river near the shore and he could hear it like the stammerings of the cloistered mad. Very soon after this he saw a light. It went away again before he could guess what kind of light it might be but he watched for it. The barge had swung twice more and now he was in eddy-water almost beneath the dark wall of trees. He could feel the slide and bump of debris on the hull, the dull grinding of a log sliding under. The light appeared again. A pin-flicker set in a glozed cup. He watched. It had begun to rain. He felt it very lightly on his arms and was surprised. He watched the light with his shoulderblades cocked against the chill and the rain falling upon him and soundlessly in the dark upon the peened and seething face of the river.
At first he thought it to be a cabin but it was not a cabin. It had no shape but what it took from breaking on the arch of trees above it and he knew that it was a campfire. The barge had slowed. Some trees passed across the front of the fire and he thought they were men and then a man did cross it, an upright shape that seemed to be convulsed there for a moment before going from sight like something that had incinerated itself. He was very close to the bank now but moving in a slick again and gaining speed.
Ho, he called.
He could see them move. He called again.
Who’s there? a voice came back.
He already had a rope up from the bow and in his hand. Now as the barge slid past a last clump of trees there were three men standing on the bank of the river in the gentle rain with the fire behind them projecting their shapes outward into soaring darkness and with no dimension to them at all.
Catch a line, he called to them.
How many of ye is they?
Just me. Here. He couldn’t see their faces. He was moving before them and before the light like someone in a stageprop being towed from wing to wing.
You want me to shoot him? a voice said.
Shut up. Thow the line, mister.
He held the line. He was trying to see them but they were only silhouettes. Then the boat began to turn and he could hear the sound of the river again and he threw the line. It uncoiled across the water with a hiss and he could see one of the men move and squat and rise again.
You got it? he called.
Hitch it, one said.
He had swung past them now and no longer could see them at all. He heard the rope saw along the gunwale and tauten and there was a creaking sound as the ferry hove about and he took two little steps to recover his balance. Some tree branches scratched along the hull and broke and came aboard. Then he was ashore, staving off brush with his arms and making his way through the woods toward the light.
When he entered the little clearing there were only two of them standing there. One was holding a rifle loosely in one hand and picking his teeth. The other stood with long arms dangling at his sides, slightly stooped, his jaw hanging and mouth agape in a slavering smile. The one with the rifle dropped his hand for a moment as if he might be going to speak, but he didn’t.
I was on the ferry and it busted loose, Holme said. That’s it yander. He pointed vaguely to the darkness. Neither of them looked. They were watching Holme.
You wouldn’t care for me to dry a little in front of your fire would ye? I’d be proud to tote wood.
Neither of them spoke. Holme looked about him. The third one was standing just in the rim of light to his left, watching him. He was dressed in a dark and shapeless suit that could not have buttoned across his chest and he wore a shirt with some kerchief or rag knotted at the neck. His face scowled redly out of a great black beard. He jerked his head at Holme. Come up to the fire, he said.
Thank ye, Holme said. I’m wet plumb thew and might near froze to boot.
The other two turned slightly to follow him with their eyes, a predacious curiosity. Holme nodded to them as he passed but they gave no sign of having noticed this.
Set down, the bearded one said, motioning with his hand.
Thank ye, Holme said. He squatted before the fire and extended his palms over it like some stormy and ruinous prophet. The small rain fell upon them silently and wet wood sang in the flames. The bearded one watched him.
That river sure is up, Holme said.
It is.
Ferryman went overboard.
What ferryman?
Holme looked at him across the fire. The ferryman, he said. The one that was runnin that there ferry.
You ain’t the ferryman.
No. I was just crossin the river. We never made it. They was another feller on a horse and I reckon it got him too.
The bearded one was leaning forward with interest. Ah, he said. You ain’t the ferryman.
No, Holme said. It knocked him plumb out of his boots. That cable did when it busted. Sounded like a cannonload of cats goin by.
Well now, the bearded one said. I allowed you was the ferryman.
No, Holme said. It was like I told ye.
The bearded one was watching him very intently. He looked down at the fire. On a rock was a pan of black and mummified meat. He watched the fire and rubbed his hands together. The other two men had come up and were squatting half in darkness watching him. The bearded one looked toward them and Holme looked at the pan of meat again.
Help yourself to some meat there if you’re hungry, the man said.
Holme swallowed and glanced at him again. In the up-slant of light his beard shone and his mouth was red, and his eyes were shadowed lunettes with nothing there at all.
What kind is it?
The man didn’t answer.
Holme looked to the fire. I really ain’t a bit hungry, he said, but I’d admire to dry this here shirt if you don’t care.
The man nodded.
He started to pull the wet shirt off and as he jerked his arms forward he felt the cloth part soundlessly down the back. He stopped and reached behind him gingerly.
Looks like you about out of a shirt, the man said.
Yes, he said. He peeled the shirt from him and looked at it, holding it up before the fire.
Holme’s stomach turned coldly.
Ain’t no need to be backards about it. Get all ye want. We’ve done et.
He laid the shirt across his knees, reached gingerly and took a piece of the blackened meat from the pan and bit into it. It had the consistency of whang, was dusted with ash, tasted of sulphur. He tore off a bite and began chewing, his jaws working in a hopeless circular motion.
The bearded one nodded. And a rider, he said.
A what? Holme said.
A rider.
Yes.
Ah, he said.
Old crazy horse like to of killed me, Holme said. Whatever it was had swollen in his mouth and taken on a pulpy feel warped and run with unassailable fibers. He chewed.
Where was it you was headed? the man said.
He worked the clot of meat into one cheek. I was just crossin the river, he said. I wasn’t headed no place special.
No place special.
No.
Ah, the man said.
Holme chewed. I don’t believe I ever et no meat of this kind, he said.
I ain’t sure I ever did either, the man said.
He stopped. You ain’t et none of this? he said.
The man didn’t answer for a minute. Then he said: They’s different kinds.
The one with the rifle across his squatting thighs giggled. Ain’t they, he said. Shitepoke, pole …
The bearded one didn’t say anything. He just looked at him and he hushed.
Ain’t no such a thing, he said. Don’t pay him no mind, mister. Pull in a little closter there. You Harmon, get some wood.
The one with the rifle rose and handed it to the one who had not spoken and disappeared.
I’d be proud to help fetch some wood, Holme said.
You just set, the man said. You don’t need to worry about it.
He chewed.
That is a jimdandy pair of boots you got there, the man said.
Holme looked at the boots. He had sat and they were stretched sideways along the fire, one crossed over the other. They all right, he said.
Yes.
I wisht it’d let up rainin, Holme said. Don’t you?
Yes, the man said. What did ye do with the horse?
What horse?
The rider’s horse.
I didn’t do nothin with him. He like to of killed me. Commenced tearin up and down like somethin crazy till he run plumb off in the river.
More horse than you could handle was it?
I couldn’t even see it.
Or maybe you was afraid to take it. That makes sense.
I don’t need no horse, Holme said.
No. Get ye some more meat there.
I still got some, Holme said.
The man turned his head. Harmon had come up with a load of wet limbs and now he dumped them on the ground and knelt in the loamy river soil and began to arrange them before the fire to dry. The man waited. Then he said: Set down. Harmon squatted on his haunches and folded his arms about his shinbones.
Well, the man said, turning to Holme. You’ve set there and dried and warmed and et but you’ve not said your name. A feller didn’t know he’d think you wanted it kept for a secret.
I don’t care to tell it, Holme said. Folks don’t commonly ast, where I come from.
We ain’t in them places, the man said.
Holme, Holme said.
Holme, the man repeated. The word seemed to feel bad in his mouth. He jerked his head vaguely toward the one with the rifle. That’n ain’t got a name, he said. He wanted me to give him one but I wouldn’t do it. He don’t need nary. You ever see a man with no name afore?
No.
No, the man said. Not likely.
Holme looked at the one with the rifle.
Everthing don’t need a name, does it? the man said.
I don’t know. I don’t reckon.
I guess you’d like to know mine, wouldn’t ye?
I don’t care, Holme said.
I said I guess you’d like to know mine wouldn’t ye?
Yes, Holme said.
The man’s teeth appeared and went away again as if he had smiled. Yes, he said. I expect they’s lots would like to know that.
Holme wiped his mouth on his naked arm and tried to swallow and then went on chewing. It was very quiet. He listened but he could hear no sound anywhere in the woods or along the river. Not of owl or nightbird or distant hounds.
Some things is best not named, the man said. Harmon here—he gestured toward the squatting figure—that’s his right name. I like for him to set and listen even if he cain’t understand much.
Holme nodded.
I like for him to have the opportunity.
Yes.
Harmon did not appear to be listening. He was gazing into the fire like a lean and dirty cat.
He might know somethin and him and me neither one know about it, the man said. Asides I like for him to set there and listen and maybe mend the fire.
Harmon moved. He did not stop looking at the fire but he leaned and groped with one hand until he had hold of some wood and he poked a few pieces into the wasting flames. Holme could see the third one squatting on the far side with the rifle upright between his knees and his face resting against the side of the barrel.
I like to keep the fire up, the man said. They might be somebody else comin.
Holme swallowed the leached and tasteless wad of meat, his eyeballs tilting like a toad’s with the effort. I would doubt they was, he said.
The bearded one didn’t seem to hear. He stretched his feet forth and crossed them and recrossed them. Holme reached toward the pan before he thought and checked too late. He lifted a sour black chunk of meat and bit into it.
Now these here old boots of mine, the man said, is plumb wore out.
Holme looked at the boots. They were cracked and weatherblackened and one was cleft from tongue to toe like a hoof. He looked at Harmon and he looked at the fire, chewing.
Ain’t they? the man said.
I reckon, Holme said. He rearranged the shirt and felt of it.
Get ye some more meat there, the man said.
Thank ye, Holme said. I’ve a plenty.
Did that ferryman not have nary better shirt than that?
What?
I said did that ferryman not have no better a shirt on him than that? I never noticed his shirt.
The man watched him. After a minute he turned to Harmon. He says he never noticed his shirt, he said.
Harmon squeezed his shins and giggled and nodded his head up and down.
The man had stretched out before the fire and was propped up on one elbow. He said: I wonder where a feller might find him a pair of bullhide boots like them you got.
Holme’s mouth was dust dry and the piece of meat seemed to have grown bigger in it. I don’t know, he said.
Don’t know?
He turned the shirt again. He was very white and naked sitting there. They was give to me, he said.
They look a mite turned up at the toes, the man said. Did they not know your size?
They was bought for somebody else. He died and I got em give to me is how come they a little big. They all right.
The man shifted slightly and raised one of his own broken boots and looked at it and lowered it again. Holme could see part of one naked foot within the rent leather.
I reckon a dead man’s boots is better than near no boots a-tall, the man said.
He felt cold all over. Harmon raised his head and looked at him and even the one with the rifle that had appeared to be sleeping had now opened his eyes without moving at all and was regarding him with malign imbecility.
You say you was just goin crost the river? the man said.
Holme’s voice came out quavering and alien. He heard it with alarm. I was huntin my sister, he said. She run off and I been huntin her. I think she might of run off with this here tinker. Little old scrawnylookin kind of a feller. Herself she’s just young. I been huntin her since early in the spring and I cain’t have no luck about findin her. She ain’t got nobody but me to see about her. They ain’t no tellin what all kind of mess she’s got into. She was sick anyways. She never was a real stout person.
The man was listening closely but what he said next: I wouldn’t name him because if you cain’t name somethin you cain’t claim it. You cain’t talk about it even. You cain’t say what it is. I got Harmon to look after him if they do fight. I keep studyin him. He’s close, but I keep at it.
Holme stared at him. The man had sat up again and had his legs crossed before him.
He’s the one set the skiff adrift this mornin, he said. Even if it just drifted off he still done it. I knowed they’s a reason. We waited all day and half the night. I kept up a good fire. You seen it didn’t ye?
Yes, Holme said.
How come ye to run your sister off? the man said.
I never.
How come her to run off?
I don’t know. She just run off.
You don’t know much, do ye?
Holme looked past him and past Harmon to the one with the rifle. He appeared to be sleeping but he wasn’t sleeping. He looked at the man again. I ain’t bothered you, he said.
I ain’t in a position to be bothered.
Holme didn’t answer.
That ain’t the way it is, the man said.
Holme leaned slightly forward and held his elbows. He could feel the meat weighty and truculent in the pit of his stomach.
Is it? the man said.
No.
Get ye another piece of meat yander.
I’ve got about all I can hold.
You know, I would think them there big boots would chafe on a feller’s heels, the man said.
They all right, Holme said.
I don’t believe they are, the man said.
All right. I don’t believe they are.
Well, it don’t make no difference.
When I believe somethin it makes a difference.
Holme watched the fire. In his unfocused vision the coals beaded up in pins of light and drifted like hot spores. Blood had come up in his ears and they were warm and half deaf with it. I don’t care, he said.
You will care mister. I think maybe you are somebody else. Because you don’t seem to understand me very much. Now get them boots off.
Harmon looked up and smiled. Holme looked at the man. The fire had died some and he could see him better, sitting beyond it and the scene compressed into a kind of depthlessness so that the black woods beyond them hung across his eyes oppressively and the man seemed to be seated in the fire itself, cradling the flames to his body as if there were something there beyond all warming. He reached and slid the boots from his feet, one, the other, and stood them before him.
Harmon, the man said.
Harmon rose and came for the boots and took them to the man. The man seized them and examined them, bending closer to the fire, turning them in his hands like some barbaric cobbler inspecting the work of another world. He pulled off his own boots and put on these new ones and stood in them and took three steps up and two back and turned. Harmon had gathered up the old boots and was putting them on. The one with the rifle watched happily.
All right, the bearded one said.
Holme squatted with his naked feet beneath him.
Fix his, the man said.
Harmon carried the boots he had discarded to the one with the rifle and stood them before him. The one with the rifle looked at them and looked up at Harmon. Harmon took the rifle from him and kicked at the empty boots.
Do em for him, the man said.
Harmon knelt and pulled off the nameless one’s boots and pushed the other boots at him. Then he rose with these boots and turned. The man gestured.
Holme watched, squatting shoeless and half naked. Harmon came toward him smiling, the rifle in one hand and the last pair of boots in the other. He dropped them alongside Holme and stood looking down at him. Holme looked at the bearded one.
Them’s for you, the man said.
Holme looked at them. They were mismatched, cracked, shapeless, burntlooking and crudely mended everywhere with bits of wire and string. He looked at the nameless one who sat likewise barefoot with a pair of boots before him. Relieved of the rifle his hands lay on the ground on either side of him and he was watching Holme. Holme looked away.
I said them ones there is yourn, the man said.
Holme looked at the boots again, then took one up slowly and pulled it onto his foot. A sour reek welled out of the top.
You don’t have much to say, do ye? the man said.
No.
I guess you think maybe you and me should of traded.
I believe in takin care of my own, the man said. That’s the way I think.
Ever man thinks his own way, Holme said.
Leave him alone Harmon.
Harmon stepped away from him. Sometime it had stopped raining. Holme hadn’t noticed. He had not felt the rain on his naked back, the small rain that died in the fire soundlessly.
You may see the time you wish you had worse, the man said.
Holme made a small helpless gesture with one hand.
Where was you headin sure enough?
Nowheres, Holme said.
Nowheres.
No.
You may get there yet, the man said. He came along the edge of the fire and stopped, looking down at Holme. Holme could see only his legs and those of Harmon a little further beyond. The fire had burned low and there was but a single cleft and yellow serpent tongue of flame standing among the coals. A third pair of boots came up and Holme looked at them. They stood slightly toed in and on the wrong feet.
That ain’t all, is it? the man said.
I ain’t got nothin else, Holme said.
The man spat past him into the fire. Somethin else, he said. Have you got a sister sure enough?
I done told ye.
Run off with some tinker.
Yes.
She ain’t here to tell it her way. Is she?
No.
And where do you reckon they’ve got to by now?
I don’t know.
Just further on down the road. Don’t you reckon?
Yes. I reckon. I ain’t studied it.
Ain’t studied it.
No.
He seemed to be speaking to the fire. When he lifted his head he could see the three of them standing there watching him, ragged, filthy, threatful.
Yes, the man said. You’ve studied it.
Holme didn’t answer. He turned his face to the fire again.
Harmon, the man said. Leave him be.
Holme didn’t look up. He heard their steps receding out of the firelight among the wet leaves toward the river where the ferry was tied. He had the shirt clutched in both hands and was staring in mute prayer at the wand of flame that trembled before him so precariously and he did not move at all. Then he heard steps coming back. He lifted his head. Harmon came smiling out of the dark like an apparition. He did not have the rifle. He did not have anything in his hands. He slouched toward Holme and bent over him. Holme recoiled. Harmon didn’t seem to notice. He took up the pan and tilted the remaining meat into the fire and clicked the pan against a rock and stepped back and turned and was gone. Holme could see one of the chunks in the bright coals. It lay there soundless as stone and apparently impervious to flame. He did not move. He listened for their voices but he could hear nothing. After a very long time he could hear the river again and even though the fire had died he did not move. Later still he heard a mockingbird. Or perhaps some other bird.