Sanctuary

She whirled again and without a break in her stride and still watching

the old man, she ran right off the porch and fetched up on hands and

knees in a litter of ashes and tin cans and bleached bones, and saw

Popeye watching her from the corner of the house, his hands in his

pockets and a slanted cigarette curling across his face. Still without

stopping she scrambled onto the porch and sprang into the kitchen, where

a woman sat at a table, a burning cigarette in her hand, watching the

door.

V1

POPEYE WENT ON AROUND THE HOUSE. GOWAN WAS LEANING over the edge of the

porch, dabbing gingerly at his bloody nose. The barefooted man squatted

on his heels against the wall.

"For Christ's sake," Popeye said, "why cant you take him out back and

wash him off? Do you want him sitting around here all day looking like

a damn hog with its throat cut?" He snapped the cigarette into the weeds

and sat on the top step and began to scrape his muddy shoes with a

platinum penknife on the end of his watch chain.

The barefoot man rose.

"You said something about-" Gowan said.

"Pssstl" the other said. He began to wink and frown at Gowan, jerking his

head at Popeye's back.

"And then you get on back down that road," Popeye said. "You hear?"

"I thought you was fixin' to watch down ther," the man said.

"Dont think," Popeye said, scraping at his trouser-cuffs. "You've got

along forty years without it. You do what I told you.

28 WILLIAM FAULKNER

When they reached the back porch the barefoot man said: "He jest caint

stand fer nobody-Aint he a cur'us feller, now? I be dawg ef he aint

better'n a circus to-He wont stand fer nobody drinkin' hyer cep Lee. Wont

drink none hisself, and jest let me take one sup and I be dawg ef hit

dont look like he'll have a catfit."

"He said you were forty years old," Gowan said.

"'Taint that much," the other said.

"How old are you? Thirty?"

"I dont know. 'Taint as much as he said, though." The old man sat in the

chair, in the sun. "Hit's jest Pap," the man said. The azure shadow of

the cedars had reached the old man's feet. It was almost up to his knees.

His hand came out and fumbled about his knees, dabbling into the shadow,

and became still, wrist-deep in shadow. Then he rose and grasped the

chair and, tapping ahead with the stick, he bore directly down upon them

in a shuffling rush, so that they had to step quickly aside. He dragged

the chair into the full sunlight and sat down again, his face lifted into

the sun, his hands crossed on the head of the stick. "That's Pap," the

man said. "Blind and deef both. I be dawg ef I wouldn't hate to be in a

fix wher I couldn't tell and wouldn't even keer whut I was eatin'."

On a plank fixed between two posts sat a galvanized pail, a tin basin,

a cracked dish containing a lump of yellow soap. "To hell with water,"

Gowan said. "How about that drink?"

"Seems to me like you done already had too much. I be dawg ef you didn't

drive that ere car straight into that tree."

"Come on. Haven't you got some hid out somewhere?"

"Mought be a little in the barn. But dont let him hyear us, er he'll find

hit and po hit out." He went back to the door and peered up the hall.

Then they left the porch and went toward the barn, crossing what had once

been a kitchen garden choked now with cedar and blackjack saplings. Twice

the man looked back over his shoulder. The second time he said:

"Yon's yo wife wantin' somethin'."

Temple stood in the kitchen door. "Gowan," she called.

"Wave yo hand er somethin'," the man said. "Ef she don't hush, he's goin'

to hyear us." Gowan flapped his hand. They went on and entered the barn.

Beside the entrance a crude ladder mounted. "Better wait twell I git up,"

the man said. "Hit's putty rotten; mought not hold us both."

"Why dont you fix it, then? Dont you use it every day?"

"Hit's helt all right, so fur," the other said. He mounted. Then Gowan

followed, through the trap, into yellow-barred gloom where the level sun

fell through the broken walls and roof. "Walk wher I do," the man said.

"You'll tromp on a loose boa'd and find yoself downstairs befo you know

hit." He

SANCTUARY 29

picked his way across the floor and dug an earthenware jug from a pile of

rotting hay in the corner. "One place he wont look fer hit," he said.

"Skeered of sp'ilin them gal's hands of hisn."

They drank. "I've see you out hyer befo," the man said. "Caint call yo

name, though."

"MY name's Stevens. I've been buying liquor from Lee for three years.

When'll he be back? We've got to get on to town."

"He'll he hyer soon. I've seen you befo. Nother feller furn Jefferson out

hyer three-fo nights ago. I cant call his name neither. He sho was a

talker, now. Kep on tellin' how he up and quit his wife. Have some mo," he

said; then he ceased and squatted slowly, the jug in his lifted hands, his

head bent with listening. After a moment the voice spoke again, from the

hallway beneath.

"Jack.,,

The man looked at Gowan. His jaw dropped into an expression of imbecile

glee. What teeth he had were stained and ragged within his soft, tawny

beard.