Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

Bookwright and Armstid were already digging. When he came close enough to see, Armstid unaided was three feet down and his pit was very nearly as long as the one Ratliff and Bookwright had dug together. He went on to where Bookwright had started the new pit and took up his shovel (Bookwright had fetched it for him) and began to dig. They dug on through that night too, beneath the marching and familiar stars, stopping now and then to rest although Armstid did not stop when they did, squatting on the lip of the new excavation while Ratliff talked, murmurous, not about gold, money, but anecdotal, humorous, his invisible face quizzical, bemused, impenetrable. They dug again. Daylight will be time enough to look at it, he thought. Because I done already looked at it, he thought. I looked at it three days ago. Then it began to be dawn. In the wan beginning of that light he put his shovel down and straightened up. Bookwright’s pick rose and fell steadily in front of him; twenty feet beyond, he could now see Armstid waist-deep in the ground as if he had been cut in two at the hips, the dead torso, not even knowing it was dead, laboring on in measured stoop and recover like a metronome as Armstid dug himself back into that earth which had produced him to be its born and fated thrall forever until he died. Ratliff climbed out of the pit and stood in the dark fresh loam which they had thrown out of it, his muscles flinching and jerking with fatigue, and stood looking quietly at Bookwright until Bookwright became aware of him and paused, the pick raised for the next stroke, and looked up at him. They looked at each other—the two gaunt, unshaven, weary faces. “Odum,” Ratliff said, “who was Eustace Grimm’s wife?”

“I dont know,” Bookwright said.

“I do,” Ratliff said. “She was one of them Calhoun County Dosheys. And that aint right. And his ma was a Fite. And that aint right either.” Bookwright quit looking at him. He laid the pick down carefully, almost gently, as if it were a spoon level-full of soup or of that much nitro-glycerin, and climbed out of the pit, wiping his hands on his trousers.

“I reckon I know now,” Ratliff said. “But I reckon you’ll still have to tell me.”

“Fite was his second wife’s name. She wasn’t Eustace’s ma. Pa told me about it when Ab Snopes first rented that place from the Varners five years ago.”

“All right,” Ratliff said. “Tell me.”

“Eustace’s ma was Ab Snopes’s youngest sister.” They looked at one another, blinking a little. Soon the light would begin to increase fast.

“Sholy now,” Ratliff said. “You finished?”

“Yes,” Bookwright said. “I’m finished.”

“Bet you one of them I beat you,” Ratliff said. They mounted the slope and entered the house, the room where they slept. It was still dark in the room, so while Ratliff fumbled the two bags out of the chimney, Bookwright lit the lantern and set it on the floor and they squatted facing each other across the lantern, opening the bags.

“I reckon we ought to knowed wouldn’t no cloth sack …” Bookwright said. “After fifty years …” They emptied the bags onto the floor. Each of them took up a coin, examined it briefly, then set them one upon the other like a crowned king in checkers, close to the lantern. Then one by one they examined the other coins by the light of the dingy lantern. “But how did he know it would be us?” Bookwright said.

“He didn’t,” Ratliff said. “He didn’t care. He just come out here every night and dug for a while. He knowed he couldn’t possibly dig over two weeks before somebody saw him.” He laid his last coin down and sat back on his heels until Bookwright had finished. “1891,” he said.

“1901,” Bookwright said. “I even got one that was made last year. You beat me.”

“I beat you,” Ratliff said. He took up the two coins and they put the money back into the bags. They didn’t hide them. They left each bag on its owner’s quilt and blew out the lantern. It was lighter now and they could see Armstid quite well where he stooped and rose and stooped in his thigh-deep pit. The sun would rise soon; already there were three buzzards soaring against the high yellow-blue. Armstid did not even look up when they approached; he continued to dig even while they stood beside the pit, looking down at him. “Henry,” Ratliff said. Then Ratliff leaned down and touched his shoulder. He whirled, the shovel raised and turned edgewise and glinting a thin line of steel-colored dawn as the edge of an axe would.

“Get out of my hole,” he said. “Get outen it.” 2