Sanctuary

The jar lay on the floor. He kicked it aside and started the engine. He

knew that he needed something on his stomach, but there wasn't time. He

looked down at the jar. His inside coiled coldly, but he raised the jar and

drank, guzzling, choking the stuff down, clapping a cigarette into his

mouth to restrain the paroxysm. Almost at once he felt better.

He crossed the square at forty miles an hour. It was sixfifteen. He took

the Taylor road, increasing speed. He drank again from the jar without

slowing down. When he reached Taylor the train was just pulling out of the

station. He slammed in between two wagons as the last car passed. The

vestibule opened; Temple sprang down and ran for a few steps beside the car

while an official leaned down and shook his fist at her.

Gowan had got out. She turned and came toward him, walking swiftly. Then

she paused, stopped, came on again, staring at his wild face and hair, at

his ruined collar and shirt.

"You're drunk," she said. "You pig. You filthy pig."

"Had a big night. You dont know the half of it."

She looked about, at the bleak yellow station, the overalled men chewing

slowly and watching her, down the track at the diminishing train, at the

four puffs of vapor that had almost died away when the sound of the whistle

came back. "You filthy pig," she said. "You cant go anywhere like this. You

haven't even changed clothes." At the car she stopped again. "What's that

behind you?"

"My canteen," Gowan said. "Get in."

She looked at him, her mouth boldly scarlet, her eyes watch-

24 WILLIAM FAULKNER

ful and cold beneath her brimless hat, a curled spill of red hair. She

looked back at the station again, stark and ugly in the fresh morning.

"Let's get away from here." He started the car and turned it. "You'd

better take me back to Oxford," she said. She looked back at the station.

It now lay in shadow, in the shadow of a high scudding cloud. "You'd

better," she said.

At two o'clock that afternoon, running at good speed through a high

murmurous desolation of pines, Gowan swung the car from the gravel into

a narrow road between eroded banks descending toward a bottom of cypress

and gum. He wore a cheap blue workshirt beneath his dinner jacket. His

eyes were bloodshot, puffed, his jowls covered by blue stubble, and

looking at him, braced and clinging as the car leaped and bounced in the

worn ruts, Temple thought His whiskers have grown since we left Dumfries.

It was hair-oil he drank. He bought a bottle of hair-oil at Dumfries and

drank it.

He looked at her, feeling her eyes. "Dont get your back up, now. It wont

take a minute to run up to Goodwin's and get a bottle. It wont take ten

minutes. I said I'd get you to Starkville before the train does, and I

will. Dont you believe me?"

She said nothing, thinking of the pennant-draped train already in

Starkville; of the colorful stands; the band, the yawning glitter of the

bass horn; the green diamond dotted with players, crouching, uttering

short, yelping cries like marshfowl disturbed by an alligator, not

certain of where the danger is, motionless, poised, encouraging one

another with short meaningless cries, plaintive, wary and forlorn.

"Trying to come over me with your innocent ways. Dont think I spent last

night with a couple of your barber-shop jellies for nothing. Dont think

I fed them my liquor just because I'm big-hearted. You're pretty good,

aren't you? Think you can play around all week with any badger-trimmed

hick that owns a Ford and fool me on Saturday, dont you? Dont think I

didn't see your name where it's written on that lavatory wall. Dont you

believe me?"

She said nothing, bracing herself as the car lurched from one bank to the

other of the cut, going too fast. He was still watching her, making no

effort to steer it.

"By God, I want to see the woman that can-" The road flattened into sand,

arched completely over, walled completely by a jungle of cane and brier.

The car lurched from side to side in the loose ruts.

She saw the tree blocking the road, but she only braced herself anew. It

seemed to her to be the logical and disastrous end to the train of

circumstance in which she had become involved. She sat and watched

rigidly and quietly as Gowan, apparently looking straight ahead, drove

into the tree at twen-

SANCTUARY 25

ty miles an hour. The car struck, bounded back, then drove into the tree

again and turned onto its side.

She felt herself flying through the air, carrying a numbing shock upon

her shoulder and a picture of two men peering from the fringe of cane at

the roadside. She scrambled to her feet, her head reverted, and saw them

step into the road, the one in a suit of tight black and a straw hat,

smoking a cigarette, the other bareheaded, in overalls, carrying a

shotgun, his bearded face gaped in slow astonishment. Still running her

bones turned to water and she fell flat on her face, still running.

Without stopping she whirled and sat up, her mouth open upon a soundless

wail behind her lost breath. The man in overalls was still looking at