William Gay - Little Sister Death

Standing there in the hall of the haysmelling barn dappled with moted light, he estimated the number of horses, said to himself, how about a pad of hay for my horses, Brother Beale? Or two pads, or an armful of corn.

Yet he watched with more than cynicism. He studied these outlanders, neighbors, halffools and wholefools. There might be the one man who would study this chaos with a bright and unjaundiced eye and say, as if it were something they should have noticed long ago, why here’s the trouble right here, leant to study the situation like a man indicating the fault in a hay mower that would not work.

He watched his sons cross the field with the horses, angle along toward the creek to water them. Dusk drew on. Lights were lit in the house. Soon he would be expected to put in an appearance, to exchange civilities with his neighbors, with these strangers who’d come to amuse themselves at his expense, and say you’re from where? My land, that’s a far piece, and you come all the way by wagon. Their eyes asking each other, how does he do it anyway? And why does he?

He waited, loathe to leave here for the tobacco smoke — scented front room, the turbulent emotional atmosphere from which the Haunt drew strength. Here he could smell the placid animals that he had come to respect more than men, the hay that reminded him of the last days of summer.

The blondehaired girl in a green dress sat by the fireplace. She sat in a willow rocker, unmoving, her hands in her lap. Her eyes were closed; perhaps she slept. Yet every eye in the crowded room was upon her. The people jammed into the room and seated on ladderbacks and kitchen chairs or just hunkered against the wall seemed not to breathe. What’s the matter with her? She’s subject to the vapors. The girl’s color was high, cheeks lit by a mottled red blush, and her breathing was harsh and irregular, could be heard from the farthest corner of the room.

Joseph Primm began to pray, kneeling on the floor, bracing himself against the hearth of the dead fireplace, speaking of theft, of the value a man attached to his personal belongings, of the roiling flames of hellfire awaiting the man who took this value lightly.

The girl had not moved. She slept on. Beside her sat an old black woman with a fan, moving it listlessly, the faint breeze moving in the pale tendrils of flaxen hair at the temples.

At last Primm ceased. A sigh of creaking chairs, a general hum of coughing and throatclearing. A few began to talk about stealing. Things they had taken from them.

I was never one to hold with stealin, a man from Jack’s Branch said boldly. But I reckon if a man was starvin to death and took a little grub the Lord would take that into consideration. It don’t seem right for a man to burn in hell forever for stealin a bite to eat.

How long’d it take you to eat that horse you stole in South Carolina? a voice shot back instantly. The voice seemed to come from the far corner of the ceiling and every head in the room turned, the necks twisting like some synchronous machine.

I never stole no horse, the man cried.

You’re a goddamned liar. You never stole a chestnut gelding from a man named Burbank and sold it in Town Creek, Alabama?

The voice was at once sourceless and omnipresent, seeming to shift its position, as if it feared to remain in one place too long: rising and falling, a soft feminine voice, sweet and innocent, a dream voice, a voice like no other they had heard in all their lives.

I never took no horse, the man said stubbornly to his neighbor.

Hell, the other said, wryly amused, don’t tell me. I never said you did.

After a while the man left. He would not be the first that night, but the voice had lost interest, began to hum to itself some old gospel song. Come to the church in the wildwood, breaking the song off, childlike, as if its attention span were short.

Where’s old Jake? it wondered abruptly. Where’s Jake Beale? Is he not in here? Where is that whorechasing old smellsmack?

The voice ceased, as if counting heads, searching among all those present.

Mr. Beale is not here, Joseph Primm said. He’s taking care of the livestock.

Oh he is, is he? I know the livestock Mr. Beale has his mind on, Sugarmouth. He’s peeping at those courting couples playing a little stinkfinger out in the edge of the woods…is Virginia here? That thicklegged little slut, is she here? She likes to play that stinkfinger too. I saw her and Mr. Posey down by the springhouse a night or two ago…he had her dress wadded up around her waist and his finger up in her and Lord, how she loved it.

The room was struck by a delirious hush of silence. In the back of the room a woman had arisen haughtily, her face a haggard mask of contempt.

She never played it, the voice said, her leaving there. She never had one in her, not in a day or two anyway. She’s like Sugarmouth there, he don’t know what stinkfinger is. Do you, Sugarmouth? He doesn’t. He thinks it’s something like tiddlywinks, but Virginia doesn’t. Virginia thinks it’s much nicer than that, don’t you, Virginia? Sugarmouth doesn’t know anything about such worldly things, he doesn’t even lope his mule behind the barn anymore.

The voice babbled on mindlessly, rising and falling like a madman talking to himself.

Why do you carry on such crazy filth? Primm asked earnestly. You have a fine mind, a great knowledge and memory of the Bible. You could move countless souls toward heaven. Your singing could move thousands of lost sheep into the folds of Christianity.

Don’t you just love the way old Sugarmouth talks? The voice was fey and whimsical. Don’t you just wish you could go home and talk that way too, whenever you wanted? I know I do. But Sugarmouth’s not very smart. He thinks it’s me. It’s not me, Sugarmouth. I’m…I’m everything and nothing. Here the voice faltered, trailed weakly off, struggled with a thought, a concept or the way to express one. I’m just a mirror, Sugarmouth. All I can do is reflect what you bring me. You give me a roomful of Christians and I’ll give you back Christianity. These folks here, though.

She’s doin it, a man said suddenly. That whiteheaded gal’s makin it talk somehow.

Sewell Beale was watching with indolent, sleepy eyes. He was sitting backward in a canebottom chair, his arms laced across the top slat, his bootheels hooked in the rounds. He was a young man with long dirtyblond hair. His eyes were hooded and chill. His upper lip was covered by a soft blond mustache. You’re talking about my sister, sir, he said coldly, and you are doing it in her house. Say one more word and you will answer to me outside, and you be required to furnish more than your mouth to do it with.

The man arose awkwardly. I forgit where I am, he said. I apologize.

Beale nodded coldly in dismissal.

The black woman had laid aside her fan. Every eye in the room watched alike. Her movements had something of ceremony, intuition, a ritual performed many times before. She clasped the girl’s mouth, the fingers of each hand overlapping over her lips. The girl didn’t stir. The silence stretched, elongated. The audience sat hypnotically rapt.

It would serve the little bitch right if I kept my peace, the voice mused, altering, taking on a selfsatisfied tone. The old black woman sat still as ebony statuary. Then what you do? the voice asked. Band together, tar and feather her, I suppose, and it would be no more that she deserves, the little spreadlegged beast.but do you actually think I’m something she dreamed up to pass the time? I’m more than that.

Then just what sort of monster are you? Primm asked it.

I’m no kind of monster. I am greater than the God you pray to, less than the spittle of a dog’s tongue. I have been here forever, and I will be here when the worms have long finished with you. Now, what kind of monster are you?