Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

He wrote He will be out in 2 more years why not wait till then He wrote He has known nothing else but that cage for 38 years He wont live a month free like an old lion or tiger At least give him 2 more years

“Two years of life are not important,” she said. “Two years of jail are.”

He had even moved the pencil again when he stopped and spoke aloud instead; later he told Ratliff why. “I know why,” Ratliff said. “You jest wanted to keep your own skirts clean. Maybe by this time she had done learned to read your lips and even if she couldn’t you would at least been on your own record anyhow.” “No,” Stevens said. “It was because I not only believe in and am an advocate of fate and destiny, I admire them; I want to be one of the instruments too, no matter how modest.” So he didn’t write: he spoke:

“Dont you know what he’s going to do the minute he gets back to Jeffersn oranywhere else your father is?”

“Say it slow and let me try again,” she said.

He wrote I love you thinking rapidly If I say No she will find somebody else, anybody else, maybe some jackleg who will bleed her to get him out then continue to bleed her for what the little rattlesnake is going to do the moment he is free, and wrote Yes we can get him out it will take a few weeks a petition I will draw them up for you his blood kin the judge sheriff at the time Judge Long and old Hub Hampton are dead but Little Hub will do even if he wont be sheriff again until next election I will take them to the Governor myself

Ratliff too he thought. Tomorrow the petition lay on his desk, Ratliff standing over it pen in hand. “Go on,” Stevens said. “Sign it. I’m going to take care of that too. What do you think I am—a murderer?”

“Not yet anyway,” Ratliff said. “How take care of it?”

“Mrs Kohl is going to,” Stevens said.

“I thought you told me you never mentioned out loud where she could hear it what Mink would do as soon as he got back inside the same town limits with Flem,” Ratliff said.

“I didn’t need to,” Stevens said. “Linda and I both agreed that there was no need for him to come back here. After forty years, with his wife dead and his daughters scattered God knows where; that in fact he would be better off if he didn’t. So she’s putting up the money. She wanted to make it a thousand but I told her that much in a lump would destroy him sure. So I’m going to leave two-fifty with the Warden, to be handed to him the minute before they unlock the gate to let him through it, with the understanding that the moment he accepts the money, he has given his oath to cross the Mississippi state line before sundown, and that another two-fifty will be sent every three months to whatever address he selects, provided he never again crosses the Mississippi line as long as he lives.”

“I see,” Ratliff said. “He cant tech the money a-tall except on the condition that he dont never lay eyes on Flem Snopes again as long as he lives.”

“That’s right,” Stevens said.

“Suppose jest money aint enough,” Ratliff said. “Suppose he wont take jest two hundred and fifty dollars for Flem Snopes.”

“Remember,” Stevens said. “He’s going to face having to measure thirty-eight years he has got rid of, put behind him, against two more years he has still got to spend inside a cage to get rid of. He’s selling Flem Snopes for these next two years, with a thousand dollars a year bonus thrown in free for the rest of his life. Sign it.”

“Dont rush me,” Ratliff said. “Destiny and fate. They was what you told me about being proud to be a handmaid of, wasn’t they?”

“So what?” Stevens said. “Sign it.”

“Dont you reckon you ought to maybe included a little luck into them too?”

“Sign it,” Stevens said.

“Have you told Flem yet?”

“He hasn’t asked me yet,” Stevens said.

“When he does ask you?” Ratliff said.

“Sign it,” Stevens said.

“I already did,” Ratliff said. He laid the pen back on the desk. “You’re right. We never had no alternative not to. If you’d a said No, she would jest got another lawyer that wouldn’t a said No nor even invented that two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar gamble neither. And then Flem Snopes wouldn’t a had no chance a-tall.”