The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [315]
"Men, Ah'll give ya anythin'." Wilson's voice had changed, become almost shrill. He would talk in long spates, droning on and on, his voice singsonging almost unrecognizably. "Jus' name it, men, Ah'll give it ya, any ol' thing, y' want some goddam money Ah'll give ya hundid poun' you jus' set me down, gimme drink. Jus' gimme it, men, tha's all Ah ask."
They stopped for a longer halt, and Goldstein lunged away and fell forward on his face, lying motionless for several minutes. Ridges stared dully at him, then at Wilson. "What you want, some water?"
"Yeah, gimme that, gimme some water."
Ridges sighed. His short powerful body seemed to have condensed in the last two days. His big slack mouth hung open. His back had shortened and his arms become longer, his head bent over at a smaller angle to his chest. His thin sandy hair drooped sadly over his sloping forehead and his clothing sagged wetly. He looked like a giant phlegmatic egg set on a stout tree stump. "Shoot, Ah don't know why y' can't have water."
"You jus' gimme it, they ain' anythin' Ah won' do for ya."
Ridges scratched the back of his neck. He was not accustomed to make a decision by himself. All his life he had been taking orders from someone or other, and he felt an odd malaise. "Ah ought to ask Goldstein," he mumbled.
"Goldstein's chicken. . ."
"Ah don' know." Ridges giggled. The laughter seemed to come from such a distance inside himself. He hardly knew why he laughed. It was probably from embarrassment. He and Goldstein had been too exhausted to talk to each other, but even so he had assumed that Goldstein was the leader, and this despite the fact that he knew the route back. But Ridges had never led anything, and out of habit he assumed that Goldstein was to make all the decisions.
But Goldstein was now lying ten yards away, his face to the ground, almost unconscious. Ridges shook his head. He was too tired to think, he told himself. Still, it seemed absurd not to give a man a drink of water. Little ol' drink ain't gonna hurt nobody, he told himself.
Goldstein knew how to read, however. Ridges balked at the idea of breaking some law out of the vast mysterious world of books and newspapers. Pa use' to say somethin' about givin' a man water when he's sick, Ridges thought. But he couldn't remember. "How you feel, boy?" he asked doubtfully.
"You gotta gimme water. Ah'm burnin'."
Ridges shook his head once more. Wilson had led a life full of sin and now he was in the fires of hell. Ridges felt some awe. If a man ended up a sinner, his punishment was certainly terrible. But the Lord Christ died for pore sinners, Ridges told himself. It was also a sin not to show a man some mercy.
"Ah s'pose y' can have it." Ridges sighed. He took out his canteen quietly and glanced at Goldstein again. He didn't want to be reprimanded by him. "Here, you jus' drink it up."
Wilson drank febrilely, the water splattering out of his mouth to trickle down his chin, wetting the collar of his shirt. "Oh, man." He drank lavishly, eagerly, his throat working with lust. "You're a good sonofabitch," he mumbled. Some water caught in his throat, and he coughed violently, wiping the blood from his chin with a nervous furtive motion. Ridges watched a droplet of it which Wilson had missed. Slowly it spread out over the moist surface of Wilson's cheek, faded through progressive shades of pink.
"Y' think Ah'm gonna make it?" Wilson asked.
"Shore." Ridges felt a shiver. A preacher had once given a sermon about the way a man resisted the fires of hell. "Y' cain't avoid it, you're gonna get caught if you're a sinner," he had said. Ridges was telling a lie now, but nevertheless he repeated it. "Shore you're gonna be awright, Wilson."
"That's what Ah figgered."
Goldstein put his palms against the ground, forced himself upward slowly. He wanted so very much to remain lying on the ground. "I suppose we ought to go," he said wistfully. They harnessed themselves again to the litter and trudged forward.
"You're a good bunch of men, they ain't anybody better'n you two men."
This shamed them. At the moment, still enmeshed in the first pangs of setting out again, they hated him.