Cormac McCarthy - Outer Dark

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.

Are what?

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.