Cormac McCarthy - Outer Dark

This’n here is Mrs Salter, the one sitting said, cocking his thumb backward at the stone against which he leaned. He supposed to go on the right cause I ast his right or my right and he say her right.

Holme unloaded the tools from his shoulder and leaned on them and looked about him and then at the negroes again. You mean you ain’t diggin but the one hole, he said.

That’s all we’s told.

It’s for somebody else I reckon. You ain’t seen the preacher have ye?

I seen him go up the road a little while back.

Holme nodded. To the rear of the church was an untended lot where he could make out some thin board headstones tilted among the weeds. I reckon yander’s the place for buryin anybody that ain’t spoke for, ain’t it?

The one had started to dig again and he stopped but neither answered.

Or ain’t it?

Yessir, the one said. I reckon.

Holme nodded to them and went on.

He worked until nightfall and then a little later. He was beginning to feel lightheaded and his empty belly had drawn up in him like a fist. He worked on for a while in the dark and then he quit. There were no lights at the preacher’s house. When he got to the store there were no lights there and there was nobody about. He did not know how late it was. He slid the pick and shovel beneath the porch and went on up the road, a solitary figure in that warm and breathing dark, shadowless and unwitnessed. He slept the night in the lee of a hayrick and he woke again before it was light. Before there was any sign or hope of light. Something had passed on the road and he lay huddled against the chill of pending dawn with his arms crossed on his chest in that attitude the living inflict upon the dead and he listened but he could hear nothing. There was something fearful about. He listened for dogs to bark down along the road but no dogs barked. He lay awake a long time and the morning came up in the east in a pale accretion of light heralded by no cock, no waking birds. He rose and went into the road, dusting the chaff from his wretched clothes and stomping his feet in the fine boots now calked with grave earth. He went along toward the town and as he topped a rise in the road two buzzards labored up out of a dead tree in a field from which hung the bodies of three men. One was dressed in a dirty white suit. Nothing moved. The buzzards swung away beyond the woods and there was no sound and no movement anywhere. There was only the gradual gathering of light to which these eyeless dead came alien and unreal like figures wandered from a dream.

He hurried on, into the empty town. It was daylight now. When he got to the store Clark’s rig was standing untethered at the corner of the porch with the mule asleep in the traces. He went up the steps and tapped at the door and waited and tapped again. He peered through the window. His silhouette lay on the floor in the bent light. All was dim and dusty with abandonment. He called. After a while he descended the steps into the road again and he stood there and looked all about him and listened for any sound at all but there was nothing. He turned and went on through the town. He was walking very fast and after a while he was running again.

SHE RESTED for a while sitting on the slatted walkway and leaning her aching breasts forward into her hands. The air was dark with gathering rain. A woman went past laden with a feedbag in which something alive struggled mutely. When she spoke the woman gave her an empty look and went on. She rose after a while and went on herself, the dust warm and soft as talc beneath her toes. There were some men standing in front of a store on the other side of the road and they were watching her. She set her shoulders back a little. Then a man came out of a building on the left and crossed in front of her and as he did he tipped his hat, a brief gesture as if swatting idly at a fly. There was a trace of a smile at his mouthcorners.

Hey, she said.

Hey yourself.

She was watching him go on. You ain’t a doctor are ye? she called after him.

He stopped and looked back. No, he said. A lawyer. I get the winners, he gets the losers. He was standing in the middle of the road smiling a little, his hand gone to the brim of his hat again.

Well listen, she said, where’s they a doctor at?

The lawyer tucked a long forefinger into his waistcoat pocket and fished forth a watch. He snapped it open, looked at it, looked at the sun where it rode darkly as if to verify the hour in that way. He won’t be in till about one-thirty, he said. It’s ten till now. He snapped shut the watch-case and slipped it into his vest once more. Is it urgent? he said.

What?

Are you in a hurry? His office is in the same building as mine. We sort of mind shop for one another. Right over here. He pointed to a three-storey house with tall windows in the upper part and lettering on the glass.

She looked, brushing back the hair from her face.

What seems to be the trouble? Is it serious? Or were you asking for someone else?

No. It’s me.

Yes. Well. Are you sick? I could let you rest in my office until he gets in if you’d like.

She looked across the street toward the house and she looked at the lawyer. I don’t want to put ye out none, she said.

No, he said. No trouble. I’m on my way back now.

Well, she said, I would appreciate you showin me where he’s at.

Sure, he said. Come along.

She fell in behind him and they crossed the road, her shuffling along rapidly to keep up, watching the backs of his heels, the curved wheeltracks and moonshaped mule-prints, until they reached the walkway and on a little further to the building where he stepped to one side and motioned with his hand. After you, he said.

She started up the long dark stairwell, feeling under her naked feet the cold print of nailheads reared from the worn boards. At the top was a small parlor and on either side a door. She turned and looked down at him.

Here, he said. He went past her and set a key in the lock and held the door open for her to enter. Sit down, he said. She looked about, then backed up to and sat in a sort of morris chair with gouts of horsehair erupting from the splayed seams in the leather. She sat with her toes together and her hands in her lap and looked at the floor.

Well, he said. Where do you hail from?

She raised her eyes. He was sitting at his desk, his feet propped into an open drawer, his head bent forward while he held a match to a cigar.

I just come over from acrost the river, she said.

He had been puffing at the cigar and he stopped and gave her a quick look and then went on and got it lit and flipped the match toward an ashtray on the desk. You feel all right? he said.

Tolerable thank ye.

Well the doctor will be along directly.

All right, she said. Listen.

Yes.

I wanted to ast ye somethin afore I seen him.

All right. What is it?

Well, she said. I ain’t got but a dollar and I know doctors is costy and what I was wonderin was if he could do me much good for just a dollar.

The lawyer plucked the cigar slowly from his mouth and folded his hands in a coil of blue smoke. I reckon he’ll do you at least a dollar’s worth, he said. What was your trouble? If you don’t mind me asking.

Well, I’d rather just tell him if you don’t care.

Yes. Well I’m sure he’ll do something for you. He’s a good doctor. Anyway we’ll know directly.

I don’t want to ast no favors from nobody, she said.

Favors?

Yessir. I mean if it’s more’n a dollar I’d just as leave not bother him.

He lifted his feet from the drawer and leaned his elbows on the desk. If you need a doctor, he said, it’s not too easy to do without. It’s not like needing a pair of shoes or … she was looking nervously at her feet, one crossed over the top of the other … or say a new skillet or something. You just tell him what your trouble is and let him worry about how much to charge. If you don’t have but a dollar he might let you pay the rest later on. Or bring him some eggs. Or garden stuff when …