Sanctuary

revolution that fetched her up against the table, her arm flung back for

balance, her body bent and her hand fumbling behind her among the soiled

dishes, watching him across the inert body of the child. He walked toward

her. "Stand back," she said, lifting her hand slightly, bringing the

butcher knife into view. "Stand back." He came steadily toward her, then

she struck at him with the knife.

He caught her wrist. She began to struggle. He plucked the child from her

and laid it on the table and caught her other hand as it flicked at his

face, and holding both wrists in one hand, he slapped her. It made a dry,

flat sound. He slapped her again, first on one cheek, then the other,

rocking her head from side to side. "That's what I do to them," he said,

slapping her. "See?" He released her. She stumbled backward against the

table and caught up the child and half crouched between the table and the

wall, watching him as he turned and left the room.

She knelt in the comer, holding the child. It had not stirred. She laid

her palm first on one cheek, then on the other. She rose and laid the

child in the box and took a sunbonnet from a nail and put it on. From

another nail she took a coat trimmed

56 WILLIAM FAULKNER

with what had once been white fur, and took up the child and left the

room.

Tommy was standing in the barn, beside the crib, looking toward the

house. The old man sat on the front porch, in the sun. She went down the

steps and followed the path to the road and went on without looking back.

When she came to the tree and the wrecked car she turned from the road,

into a path. After a hundred yards or so she reached the spring and sat

down beside it, the child on her lap and the hem of her skirt turned back

over its sleeping face.

Popeye came out of the bushes, walking gingerly in his muddy shoes, and

stood looking down at her across the spring. His hand flicked to his coat

and be fretted and twisted a cigarette and put it into his mouth and

snapped a match with his thumb. "Jesus Christ," he said, "I told him

about letting them sit around all night, swilling that goddarn stuff.

There ought to be a law." He looked away in the direction in which the

house lay. Then he looked at the woman, at the top of her sunbonnet,

"Goofy house," he said. "That's what it is. It's not four days ago I find

a bastard squatting here, asking me if I read books. Like he would jump

me with a book or something. Take me for a ride with the telephone

directory." Again he looked off toward the house, jerking his neck forth

as if his collar were too tight. He looked down at the top of her sun-

bonnet. "I'm going to town, see?" he said. "I'm clearing out. I've got

enough of this." She did not look up. She adjusted the hem of the skirt

above the child's face. Popeye went on, with light, finicking sounds in

the underbrush. Then they ceased. Somewhere in the swamp a bird sang.

Before he reached the house Popeye left the road and followed a wooded

slope. When he emerged he saw Goodwin standing behind a tree in the

orchard, looking toward the barn. Popeye stopped at the edge of the wood

and looked at Goodwin's back. He put another cigarette into his mouth and

thrust his fingers into his vest. He went on across the orchard, walking

gingerly. Goodwin heard him and looked over his shoulder. Popeye took a

match from his vest, flicked it into flame and lit the cigarette. Goodwin

looked toward the barn again; Popeye stood at his shoulder, looking

toward the barn.

"Who's down there?" he said. Goodwin said nothing. Popeye jetted smoke

from his nostrils. "I'm clearing out," he said. Goodwin said nothing,

watching the barn. "I said I'm getting out of here," Popeye said. Without

turning his head Goodwin cursed him. Popeye smoked quietly, the cigarette

wreathing across his still, soft, black gaze. Then he turned and went

toward the house. The old man sat in the sun. Popeye did not

SANCTUARY 57

enter the house. Instead he went on across the lawn and into the cedars

until he was hidden from the house. Then he turned and crossed the garden

and the weed-choked lot and entered the barn from the rear.

Tommy squatted on his heels beside the crib door, looking toward the

house. Popeye looked at him a while, smoking. Then he snapped the

cigarette away and entered a stall quietly. Above the manger was a wooden

rack for hay, just under an opening in the loft floor. Popeye climbed the

rack and drew himself silently into the loft, his tight coat strained

into thin ridges across his narrow shoulders and back.

x1n

Tommy WAS STANDING IN THE HALLWAY OF THE BARN WHEN

Temple at last got the door of the crib open. When she recognised him she

was half spun, leaping back, then she whirled and ran toward him and

sprang down, clutching his arm. Then she saw Goodwin standing in the back

door of the house and she whirled and leaped back into the crib and leaned

her head around the door, her voice making a thin eeeeeeeeeeeee sound like

bubbles in a bottle. She leaned there, scrabbling her hands on the door,