Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

At last he was that close, that near. It had taken thirty-eight years and he had made a long loop down into the Delta and out again, but he was close now. But this road was a new approach to Jefferson, not the old one from Varner’s store which he remembered. These new iron numbers along the roads were different too from the hand-lettered mile boards of recollection and though he could read figures all right, some, most of these were not miles because they never got any smaller. But if they had, in this case too he would have had to make sure:

“I believe this road goes right through Jefferson, dont it?”

“Yes,” the Negro said. “You can branch off there for the Delta.”

“So I can. How far do you call it to town?”

“Eight miles,” the Negro said. But he could figger a mile whether he saw mileposts or not, seven then six then five, the sun only barely past one oclock; then four miles, a long hill with a branch bottom at the foot of it and he said,

“Durn it, let me out at that bridge. I aint been to the bushes this morning.” The Negro slowed the truck toward the bridge. “It’s all right,” Mink said. “I’ll walk on from here. In fact I’d pure hate for thatere doctor to see me getting out of even a cotton truck or likely he’d try his durndest to collect another dollar from me.”

“I’ll wait for you,” the Negro said.

“No no,” Mink said. “You want to get ginned and back home before dark. You aint got time.” He got out of the cab and said, in the immemorial country formula of thanks: “How much do I owe you?” And the Negro answered in it:

“It aint no charge. I was coming anyway.”

“Much obliged,” Mink said. “Jest dont mention to that doctor about it if you ever run across him. See you in the Delta someday.”

Then the truck was gone. The road was empty when he left it. Out of sight from the road would be far enough. Only, if possible, nobody must even hear the sound of the trial shot. He didn’t know why; he could not have said that, having had to do without privacy for thirty-eight years, he now wanted, intended to savor, every minuscule of it which freedom entitled him to; also he still had five or six hours until dark, and probably even less than that many miles, following the dense brier-cypress-willow jungle of the creek bottom for perhaps a quarter of a mile, maybe more, when suddenly he stopped dead with a kind of amazed excitement, even exhilaration. Before him, spanning the creek, was a railroad trestle. Now he not only knew how to reach Jefferson without the constant risk of passing the people who from that old Yoknapatawpha County affinity would know who he was and what he intended to do, he would have something to do to pass the time until dark when he could go on.