William Faulkner - Light in August

“That reward? Sho. I’m going to take you to the place myself right now, where if you are going to get any reward, you’ll get it.”

Brown sobered. But he moved, though he still watched the deputy suspiciously. “This here is a funny way to go about it,” he said. “Keeping me shut up in jail while them bastards tries to beat me out of it.”

“I reckon the bastard ain’t been whelped yet that can beat you at anything,” the deputy said. “Come on. They’re waiting on us.”

They emerged from the jail. In the sunlight Brown blinked, looking this way and that, then he jerked his head up, looking back over his shoulder with that horselike movement. The car was waiting at the curb. Brown looked at the car and then at the deputy, quite sober, quite wary. “Where are we going in a car?” he said. “It wasn’t too far for me to walk to the courthouse this morning.”

“Watt sent the car to help bring back the reward in,” the deputy said. “Get in.”

Brown grunted. “He’s done got mighty particular about my comfort all of a sudden. A car to ride in, and no handcuffs. And. just one durn fellow to keep me from running away.”

“I ain’t keeping you from running,” the deputy said. He used in the act of starting the car. “You want to run now?”

Brown looked at him, glaring, sullen, outraged, suspicious. “I see,” he said. “That’s his trick. Trick me into running and then collect that thousand dollars himself. How much of it did he promise you?”

“Me? I’m going to get the same as you, to a cent.”

For a moment longer Brown glared at the deputy. He cursed, pointless, in a weak, violent way. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go if we are going.”

They drove out to the scene of the fire and the murder. At steady, almost timed intervals Brown jerked his head up and back with that movement of a free mule running in front of a car in a narrow road. “What are we going out here for?”

“To get your reward,” the deputy said.

“Where am I going to get it?”

“In that cabin yonder. It’s waiting for you there.”

Brown looked about, at the blackened embers which had once been a house, at the blank cabin in which he had lived for four months sitting weathered and quiet in the sunlight. His face was quite grave, quite alert. “There’s something funny about this. If Kennedy thinks he can tromple on my rights, just because he wears a durn little tin star …”

“Get on,” the deputy said. “If you don’t like the reward, I’ll be waiting to take you back to jail any time you want. Just any time you want.” He pushed Brown on, opening the cabin door and pushing him into it and closing the door behind him and sitting on the step.

Brown heard the door close behind him. He was still moving forward. Then, in the midst of one of those quick, jerking, allembracing looks, as if his eyes could not wait to take in the room, he stopped dead still. Lena on the cot watched the white scar beside his mouth vanish completely, as if the ebb of blood behind it had snatched the scar in passing like a rag from a clothesline. She did not speak at all. She just lay there, propped on the pillows, watching him with her sober eyes in which there was nothing at all—joy, surprise, reproach, love—while over his face passed shock, astonishment, outrage, and then downright terror, each one mocking in turn at the telltale little white scar, while ceaselessly here and there about the empty room went his harried and desperate eyes. She watched him herd them by will, like two terrified beasts, and drive them up to meet her own. “Well, well,” he said. “Well, well, well. It’s Lena.” She watched him, holding his eyes up to hers like two beasts about to break, as if he knew that when they broke this time he would never catch them, turn them again, and that he himself would be lost. She could almost watch his mind casting this way and that, ceaseless, harried, terrified, seeking words which his voice, his tongue, could speak. “If it ain’t Lena. Yes, sir. So you got my message. Soon as I got here I sent you a message last month as soon as I got settled down and I thought it had got lost—It was a fellow I didn’t know what his name was but he said he would take— He didn’t look reliable but I had to trust him but I thought when I gave him the ten dollars for you to travel on that he …” His voice died somewhere behind his desperate eyes. Yet still she could watch his mind darting and darting as without pity, without anything at all, she watched him with her grave, unwinking, unbearable gaze, watched him fumble and flee and tack until at last all that remained in him of pride, of what sorry pride the desire for justification was, fled from him and left him naked. Then for the first time she spoke. Her voice was quiet, unruffled, cool.

“Come over here,” she said. “Come on. I ain’t going to let him bite you.” When he moved he approached on tiptoe. She saw that, though she was now no longer watching him. She knew that just as she knew that he was now standing with a kind of clumsy and diffident awe above her and the sleeping child. But she knew that it was not at and because of the child. She knew that in that sense he had not even seen the child She could still see, feel, his mind darting and darting. He is going to make out like he was not afraid she thought. He will have no more shame than to lie about being afraid, just as he had no more shame than to be afraid because he lied .

“Well, well,” he said. “So there it is, sho enough.”

“Yes,” she said. “Will you set down?” The chair which Hightower had drawn up was still beside the cot. He had already remarked it. She had it all ready for me he thought. Again he cursed, soundless, badgered, furious. Them bastards. Them bastards But his face was quite smooth when he sat down.

“Yes, sir. Here we are again. Same as I had planned it. I would have had it all fixed up ready for you, only I have been so busy lately. Which reminds me—” Again he made that abrupt, mulelike, backlooking movement of the head. She was not looking at him. She said

“There is a preacher here. That has already come to see me.”

“That’s fine,” he said. His voice was loud, hearty. Yet the heartiness, like the timbre, seemed to be as impermanent as the sound of the words, vanishing, leaving nothing, not even a definitely stated thought in the ear or the belief. “That’s just fine. Soon as I get caught up with all this business—” He jerked his arm in a gesture vague, embracing, looking at her. His face was smooth and blank. His eyes were bland, alert, secret, yet behind them there lurked still that quality harried and desperate. But she was not looking at him.

“What kind of work are you doing now? At the planing mill?”

He watched her. “No. I quit that.” His eyes watched her. It was as though they were not his eyes, had no relation to the rest of him, what he did and what he said. “Slaving like a durn nigger ten hours a day. I got something on the string now that means money. Not no little piddling fifteen cents a hour. And when I get it, soon as I get a few little details cleared up, then you and me will …” Hard, intent, secret, the eyes watched her, her lowered face in profile. Again she heard that faint, abrupt sound as he jerked his head up and back. “And that reminds me—”

She had not moved. She said: “When will it be, Lucas?” Then she could hear, feel, utter stillness, utter silence.

“When will what be?”

“You know. Like you said. Back home. It was all right for just me. I never minded. But it’s different now. I reckon I got a right to worry now.”

“Oh, that,” he said. “That. Don’t you worry about that. Just let me get this here business cleaned up and get my hands on that money. It’s mine by right. There can’t nere a bastard one of them—” He stopped. His voice had begun to rise, as though he had forgot where he was and had been thinking aloud. He lowered it; he said: “You just leave it to me. Don’t you worry none. I ain’t never give you no reason yet to worry, have I? Tell me that.”