Sanctuary

"You'd better tell me what it is, then," he said.

He could feel Snopes watching him. "You remember one day you got on the

train at Oxford, where you'd been on some bus-"

"Yes," Horace said.

Snopes puffed the cigar to an even coal, carefully, at some length. He

raised his hand and drew it across the back of his neck. "You recall

speaking to me about a girl."

"Yes. Then what?"

"That's for you to say."

He could smell the honeysuckle as it bore up the silver slor)e, and he

heard the whippoorwill, liquid, plaintful, reiterant. "You mean, you know

where she is?" Snopes said nothing. "And that for a price you'll tell?"

Snopes said not.ang. Horace shut his hands and put them in his pockets,

shut against his flanks. "What makes you think that information will

interest me?"

"That's for you to judge. I aint conducting no murder case. I wasn't down

there at Oxford looking for her. Of course, if it dont, IT dicker with the

other party. I just give you the chance."

Horace turned toward the steps. He moved gingerly, like an old man. "Let's

sit down," he said. Snopes followed and sat on the step. They sat in the

moonlight. "You know where she is?"

"I seen her." Again he drew his hand across the back of his neck. "Yes,

sir. If she aint-hasn't been there, you can git your money back. I caint

say no fairer, can IT'

"And what's your price?" Horace said. Snopes puffed the cigar to a careful

coal. "Go on," Horace said. "I'm not going to haggle." Snopes told him.

"All right," Horace said. "I'll pay it." He drew his knees up and set his

elbows on them and laid his hands to his face. "Where is- Wait. Are you a

Baptist, by any chance?"

"My folks is. I'm putty liberal, myself. I aint hidebound in no sense, as

you'll find when you know me better."

"All right," Horace said from behind his hands. "Where is she?"

"I'll trust you," Snopes said. "She's in a Memphis 'ho'house."

XXIII

AS HORACE ENTERED MISS REBA'S GATE AND APPROACHED THE

lattice door, someone called his name from behind him. It was evening; the

windows in the weathered, scaling wall were close pale squares. He paused

and looked back. Around an adjacent corner Snopes' head peered, turkey-like.

He stepped into view. He looked up at the house, then both ways along the

street. He came along the fence and entered the gate with a wary air.

"Well, Judge," he said. "Boys will be boys, won't they?" He didn't offer to

shake hands. Instead he bulked above Horace with that air somehow assured

and alert at the same time, glancing over his shoulder at the street. "Like

I say, it never done no man no harm to git out now and then and-"

"What is it now?" Horace said. "What do you want with me?"

"Now, now, Judge. I aint going to tell this at home. Git that idea clean

out of your mind. If us boys started telling what we know, caint none of us

git off a train at Jeff erson again, hey?"

"You know as well as I do what I'm doing here. What do you want with me?"

"Sure; sure," Snopes said. "I know how a fellow feels, married and all and

not being sho where his wife is -at." Between jerky glances over his

shoulder he winked at Horace. "Make your mind easy. It's the same with me

as if the grave knowed it. Only I hate to see a good-" Horace had gone on

toward the door. "Judge," Snopes said in a penetrant undertone. Horace

turned. "Dont stay."

"Dont stay?"

"See her and then leave. It's a sucker place. Place for farm boys. Higher'n

Monte Carlo. I'll wait out hyer and I'll show you a place where-" Horace

went on and entered the lattice. Two hours later, as he sat talking to Miss

Reba in her room while beyond the door feet and now and then voices came

and went in the hall on the stair, Minnie entered with a torn scrap of

paper and brought it to Horace.

"What's that?" Miss Reba said.

"That big pie-faced-ted man left it fer him," Minnie said. "He say fer you

to come on down there."

"Did you let him in?" Miss Reba said.

"Nome. He never tried to git in."

"I guess not," Miss Reba said. She grunted. "Do you know him?" she said to

Horace.

"Yes. I cant seem to help myself," Horace said. He opened the paper. Torn

from a handbill, it bore an address in pencil in a neat, flowing hand.

117

118 WILLIAM FAULKNER

"He turned up here about two weeks ago," Miss Reba said. "Come in looking

for two boys and sat around the diningroom blowing his head off and

feeling the girls' behinds, but if he ever spent a cent I dont know it.

Did he ever give you an order, Minnie?"

"Nome," Minnie said.

"And couple of nights later he was here again. Didn't spend nuttin,

didn't do nuttin but talk, and I says to him 'Look here, mister, folks

what uses this waiting-room has got to get on the train now and then.'

So next time he brought a half-pint of whiskey with him. I dont mind

that, from a good customer. But when a fellow like him comes here three

times, pinching my girls and bringing one half-pint of whiskey and

ordering four coca-colas . . . Just a cheap, vulgar man, honey. So I told

Minnie not to let him in anymore, and here one afternoon I aint no more