Sanctuary

"Her paw sent her up north somewhere, with an aunt. Michigan. It was in the

papers couple days later."

"Oh," Horace said. He still held the cold pipe, and he discovered his hand

searching his pocket for a match. He drew a deep breath. "That Jackson

paper's a pretty good paper. It's considered the most reliable paper in the

state, isn't it?"

"Sure," Snopes said. "You was at Oxford trying to locate her?"

"No, no. I just happened to meet a friend of my daughter who told me she

had left school. Well, I'll see you at Holly Springs."

SANCTUARY 101

"Sure," Snopes said. Horace returned to the pullman and sat down and lit

the pipe.

When the train slowed for Holly Springs he went to the vestibule, then

he stepped quickly back into the car. Snopes emerged from the day coach

as the porter opened the door and swung down the step, stool in hand.

Snopes descended. He took something from his breast pocket and gave it

to the porter. "Here, George," he said, "have a cigar."

Horace descended. Snopes went on, the soiled hat towering half a head

above any other. Horace looked at the porter.

"He gave it to you, did he?"

The porter chucked the cigar on his palm. He put it in his pocket.

"What're you going to do with it?" Horace said.

"I wouldn't give it to no-body I know," the porter said.

"Does he do this very often?"

"Three-four times a year. Seems like I always git him, too . . . Thank'

suh."

Horace saw Snopes enter the waiting-room; the soiled hat, the vast neck,

passed again out of his mind. He filled the pipe again.

From a block away he heard the Memphis-bound train come in. It was at the

platform when he reached the station. Beside the open vestibule Snopes

stood, talking with two youths in new straw hats, with something vaguely

mentorial. about his thick shoulders and his gestures. The train

whistled. The two youths got on. Horace stepped back around the comer of

the station.

When his train came he saw Snopes get on ahead of him and enter the

smoker. Horace knocked out his pipe and entered the day coach and found

a seat at the rear, facing backward.

XX

AS HORACE WAS LEAVING THE STATION AT JEFFERSON A TOWNward-bound car slowed

beside him. It was the taxi which he used to go out to his sister's. "I'll

give you a ride, this time," the driver said.

"Much obliged," Horace said. He got in. When the car entered the square,

the courthouse clock said only twenty minutes past eight, yet there was

no light in the hotel room window. "Maybe the child's asleep," Horace

said. He said, "If you'll just drop me at the hotel-" Then he found that

the driver was watching him, with a kind of discreet curiosity.

"You been out of town today," the driver said.

"Yes," Horace said. "What is it? What happened here today?"

102 WILLIAM FAULKNER

"She aint staying at the hotel anymore. I heard Mrs. Walker taken her in at

the jail."

"Oh," Horace said. "I'll get out at the hotel."

The lobby was empty. After a moment the proprietor appeared: a tight,

iron-gray man with a toothpick, his vest open upon a neat paunch. The woman

was not there. "It's these church ladies," he said. He lowered his voice,

the toothpick in his fingers. "They come in this morning. A committee of

them. You know how it is, I reckon."

"You mean to say you let the Baptist church dictate who your guests shall

be?"

"It's them ladies. You know how it is, once they get set on a thing. A man

might just as well give up and do like they say. Of course, with rne-"

"By God, if there was a man-"

"Shhhhhh," the proprietor said. 'You know how it is when them-"

"But of course there wasn't a man who would- And you call yourself one,

that'll let-"

"I got a certain position to keep up myself," the proprietor said in a

placative tone. "If you come right down to it." He stepped back a little,

against the desk. "I reckon I can say who'll stay in my house and who

won't," he said. "And I know some more folks around here that better do the

same thing. Not no mile off, neither. I ain't beholden to no man. Not to

you, noways."

"Where is she now? or did they drive her out of town?"

"That ain't my affair, where folks go after they check out," the proprietor

said, turning his back. He said: "I reckon somebody took her in, though."

"Yes," Horace said. "Christians. Christians." He turned toward the door.

The proprietor called him. He turned. The other was taking a paper down

from a pigeon-hole. Horace returned to the desk. The paper Jay on the desk.

The proprietor leaned with his hands on the desk, the toothpick tilted in

his mouth.

"She said you'd pay it," he said.

He paid the bill, counting the money down with shaking hands. He entered

the jail yard and went to the door and knocked. After a while a lank,

slattern woman came with a lamp, holding a man's coat across her breast.

She peered at him and said before he could speak:

"You're lookin' fer Miz Goodwin, I reckon."

"Yes. How did- Did-"

"You're the lawyer. I've seed you befo. She's hyer. Sleepin' now."

"Thanks," Horace said, "Thanks. I knew that someone I didn't believe that-"

SANCTUARY 103