As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner [15]
I carry the buttermilk in. Pa and Cash and he are at the table.
"Where's that big fish Bud caught, sister?" he says.
I set the milk on the table. "I never had no time to cook it."
"Plain turnip greens is mighty spindling eating for a man my size," he says. Cash is eating. About his head the print of his hat is sweated into his hair. His shirt is blotched with sweat. He has not washed his hands and arms.
"You ought to took time," pa says. "Where's Vardaman?"
I go toward the door. "I cant find him."
"Here, sister," he says; "never mind about the fish. It'll save, I reckon. Come on and sit down."
"I aint minding it," I say. "I'm going to milk before it sets in to rain."
Pa helps himself and pushes the dish on. But he does not begin to eat. His hands are halfclosed on either side of his plate, his head bowed a little, his awry hair standing into the lamplight. He looks like right after the maul hits the steer and it no longer alive and dont yet know that it is dead.
But Cash is eating, and he is too. "You better eat something," he says. He is looking at pa. "Like Cash and me. You'll need it."
"Ay," pa says. He rouses up, like a steer that's been kneeling in a pond and you run at it. "She would not begrudge me it."
When I am out of sight of the house, I go fast. The cow lows at the foot of the bluff. She nuzzles at me, snuffing, blowing her breath in a sweet, hot blast, through my dress, against my hot nakedness, moaning. "You got to wait a little while. Then I'll tend to you." She follows me into the barn where I set the bucket down. She breathes into the bucket, moaning. "I told you. You just got to wait, now. I got more to do than I can tend to." The barn is dark. When I pass, he kicks the wall a single blow. I go on. The broken plank is like a pale plank standing on end. Then I can see the slope, feel the air moving on my face again, slow, pale with lesser dark and with empty seeing, the pine clumps blotched up the tilted slope, secret and waiting.
The cow in silhouette against the door nuzzles at the silhouette of the bucket, moaning.
Then I pass the stall. I have almost passed it, I listen to it saying for a long time before it can say the word and the listening part is afraid that there may not be time to say it I feel my body, my bones and flesh beginning to part and open upon the alone, and the process of coming unalone is terrible. Lafe. Lafe. "Lafe" Lafe. Lafe. I lean a little forward, one foot advanced with dead walking. I feel the darkness rushing past my breast, past the cow; I begin to rush upon the darkness but the cow stops me and the darkness rushes on upon the sweet blast of her moaning breath, filled with wood and with silence.
"Vardaman.You, Vardaman."
He comes out of the stall. "You durn little sneak! You durn little sneak!"
He does not resist; the last of rushing darkness flees whistling away. "What? I aint done nothing."
"You durn little sneak!" My hands shake him, hard. Maybe I couldn't stop them. I didn't know they could shake so hard. They shake both of us, shaking.
"I never done it," he says. "I never touched them."
My hands stop shaking him, but I still hold him. "What are you doing here? Why didn't you answer when I called you?"
"I aint doing nothing."
“You go on to the house and get your supper."
He draws back. I hold him. "You quit now. You leave me be."
"What were you doing down here? You didn't come down here to sneak after me?"
"I never.I never. You quit, now. I didn't even know you was down here. You leave me be."
I hold him, leaning down to see his face, feel it with my eyes. He is about to cry. "Go on, now. I done put supper on and I'll be there soon as I milk. You better go on before he eats everything up. I hope that team runs clean back to Jefferson."
"He kilt her," he says. He begins to cry.
"Hush."
"She never hurt him and he come and kilt her."
"Hush." He struggles. I hold him. "Hush."
"He kilt her." The cow comes up behind us, moaning. I shake him again.
"You stop it, now. Right this minute. You're fixing to make yourself sick and then you cant go to town. You go on to the house and eat your supper."