Flags in the Dust

6

Where the dim, infrequent road to MacCallum’s left the main road, rising, he halted Perry and sat for a while in the sunset. Jefferson, 14 miles. Rafe and the other boys would not be along for some time, yet, what with Christmas eve in town and the slow festive gathering of the county. Still, they may have left town early, so as to get home by dark; might not be an hour away. The sun’s rays, slanting away, released the chill they had held prisoned in the ground during the perpendicular hours, and it rose slowly and gradually about him as he sat Perry in the middle of the road, and slowly his blood cooled with the cessation of Perry’s motion. He turned the pony’s back to town and shook him into his foxtrot again,

Darkness overtook him soon, but he rode on beneath the leafless trees, along the pale road in the gathering starlight Already Perry was thinking of stable and supper and he went on with tentative, inquiring tossings of his head, but obediently and without slackening his gait, knowing not where they were going nor why, save that it was away from home, and a little dubious, though trustfully. The chill grew in the silence and the loneliness and the monotony of their progress. He reined Perry to a halt and produced the jug and drank, and fastened the sack to the saddle again.

The hills rose wild and black about him; no sign of any habitation, no trace of man’s hand did they encounter. On all sides the hills rolled blackly away in the starlight, or when the road dipped into valleys where the ruts were already stiffening into iron-like shards that rattled beneath Perry’s hooves, they stood about him darkly towering and sinister, feathering their leafless branches against the spangled sky. Where a stream of winter seepage trickled across the road Perry’s feet crackled brittly in this ice, and Bayard slacked the reins while the pony snuffed at the water, and drank again from the jug.

He fumbled a match clumsily in his cold Angers and lit a cigarette, and pushed his sleeve back from his wrist 11:30. “Well, Perry,” his voice sounded loud and sudden in the stillness and darkness and the cold, “I reckon we better look for a place to hole up till morning.” Perry raised his head and snorted, as though he understood the words, as though he would enter the bleak loneliness in which his rider moved, if he could. They went on, mounting again.

The darkness spread away, lessening a little presently where occasional fields lay in the vague starlight, breaking the monotony of trees; and after a time during which he rode with the reins slack on Perry’s neck and his hands in his pockets seeking warmth between leather and groin, a cotton house squatted beside the road, its roof dusted over with a frosty sheen as of hushed silver. Not long, he said to himself, leaning forward and laying his hand on Perry’s neck, feeling the warm, tireless blood there. “House soon, Perry, if we look sharp.”

Again Perry whinnied a little, as though he had understood, and presently he swerved from the road, and as Bayard reined him up he too saw the faint wagon trail leading away toward a low vague dump. of trees. “Good boy, Perry,” he said, slackening the reins again.

The house was a cabin. It was dark, but a hound came gauntly from beneath it and bayed at him and continued its uproar while he reined Perry to the door and knocked upon it with his numb hand. From within the house at last a voice, indistinguishable, and he repeated “Hello.” Then he added: ‘Tm lost. Open the door. “ The hound continued to bellow at him, and the door cracked upon a dying glow of embers, emitting a rank odor of negroes, and against the crack of warmth, a head.

“You, Jule,” the head commanded. “Shut yo’ mouf.” The hound ceased obediently and retired beneath the house, growling. “Who dar?”

“I’m lost,” Bayard repeated. “Can I sleep in your barn tonight?”

“Ain’t got no barn,” the negro answered. “Dey’s anudder house down de road a piece.”

“I’ll pay yon.” Bayard fumbled in his trousers with his numb hand. “My horse is tired out.” The negro’s head peered around the door, against the crack of firelight. “Come on, uncle,” Bayard added impatiently, “don’t keep a man standing in the cold.”

‘Who is you, whitefolks?”

“Bayard Sartoris, from Jefferson. Here,” and he extended his hand.

‘Banker Sartoris’s folks?”

“Yes. Here.”

“Wait a minute.” The door closed. But Bayard tightened the reins and Perry moved readily and circled the house confidently and went on among frost-stiffened cotton stalks that clattered drily about his knees. As Bayard dismounted onto frozen rutted earth beneath a gaping doorway, a lantern approached, swung low among the bitten stalks and the shadowy scissoring of the man’s legs, and he came up with a shapeless bundle under his arm and stood with the lantern while Bayard stripped the saddle and bridle off.

“How you manage to git so fur fum home dis time of night, whitefolks?” he asked curiously.

“Lost,” Bayard answered briefly. “Where can I put my horse?”

The negro swung the lantern into a stall. Perry stepped carefully over the sill and turned into the lantern light again, his eyes rolling in phosphorescent gleams; Bayard followed and rubbed him down with the dry side of the saddle blanket. The negro vanished and reappeared with a few ears of corn and dumped them into the manger beside Perry’s eager nuzzling. “You gwine be keerful about fire, ain’t you, boss?”

“Sure. I won’t strike any matches at all.”

“I got all my stock and tools and feed in here,” the negro explained. “I can’t affo’d to git burnt out. Insu’ance don’t reach dis fur.”

“Sure,” Bayard repeated. He shut Perry’s stall and drew the sack forth from where he had set it against the wall, and produced the jug. “Got a cup here?” The negro vanished again and Bayard could hear him in the crib in the wall opposite, then he emerged with a rusty can, from which he blew a bursting puff of chaff. They drank. Behind them Perry crunched his corn. The negro showed him the ladder to the loft.

“You won’t fergit about no fire, boss?” he repeated anxiously.

“Sure,” Bayard said. “Goodnight” He turned to mount. Again the negro stopped him and handed him the shapeless bundle he had brought out with him.

“Ain’t got but one to spare, but hit’ll help some. You gwine to sleep cole, tonight.” It was a quilt, ragged and filthy to the touch, and impregnated with that unmistakable odor of negroes.

“Thanks,” Bayard answered, “Much obliged to you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, whitefolks.”

The lantern winked away, to the criss-crossing of the negro’s legs, and Bayard mounted into darkness and the dry, pungent scent of hay. Here, in the darkness, he made himself a bed of it and lay down and rolled himself into the quilt, filth and odor and all, and thrust his icy hands inside his shirt, against his flenching chest After a time and slowly his hands began to warm, tingling a little, but still his body lay shivering with weariness and with cold. Below him Perry munched steadily and peacefully in the darkness, and gradually the shaking of his body ceased. Before he slept he uncovered his arm and looked at the luminous dial on his wrist. One o’clock. It was already Christmas.

The sun waked him, falling in red bars through the cracks in the wall, and he lay for a time in his hard bed, with vivid chill upon his face like fresh city water, wondering where he was. Then he remembered, and moving, found that he was stiff with stale cold and that his blood moved through his arms and legs in small pellets like bird-shot. He dragged his legs from his odorous bed, but within his boots his feet were dead, and he sat flexing his knees and ankles for some time before his feet waked as with stinging needles. His movements were stiff and awkward, and he descended the ladder slowly and gingerly into the red sun that fell like a blare of trumpets into the hallway. The sun was just above the horizon, huge and red; and housetop, fenceposts, the casual farming tools rusting about the barnyard and the dead cotton stalks where the negro had farmed his land right up to his back door, were dusted over with frost which the sun changed to a scintillant rosy icing like that on a festive cake. Perry thrust his slender muzzle across the stall door and whinnied at his master with vaporous fading puffs of frosty breath, and Bayard spoke to him and touched his cold nose. Then he uncovered the jug again and. drank, and the negro with a milk pail appeared hi the doorway.

“Mawnin’ whitefolks. You g’awn to de house to de fire. I’ll feed yo’ hawss. De ole woman got yo’ breakfus’ ready.” He was eyeing the jug and Bayard gave him another drink and picked up the sack. At the well he stopped and drew a pail of icy water and splashed his face.

A fire burned on the broken hearth, amid ashes and charred wood-ends and a litter of cooking vessels. Bayard shut the door behind him, upon the bright cold, and warmth and rich, stale rankness enveloped him. A woman bent over the fire replied to his greeting diffidently. Three pickaninnies became utterly still in a corner and watched him with rolling white eyes. One of them was a girl in greasy, nondescript garments, her wool twisted into tight knots of soiled wisps of colored cloth. The second one might have been either or anything. The third one was practically helpless in a garment made from a man’s suit of wool underclothes. It was too small to walk and it crawled about the floor in a sort of intense purposelessness, a glazed path running from either nostril to its chin, as though snails had crawled there.

Without looking at him the woman placed a chair before the fire, and Bayard seated himself and thrust his boots to the blaze. “Had your Christmas dram yet, aunty?” he asked.

“Naw, suh. Ain’t got none, dis year.”

He swung the sack across his legs and set it on the floor. “Help yourself,” he said. “Plenty in there.” The three children squatted against the wall, watching him steadily, without movement and without sound. “Christmas come yet, chillen?” he asked them. But they only stared at him with the watchful gravity of animals until the woman returned and spoke to than in a chiding tone.

“Show de whitefolks yo’ Sandy Claus,” she prompted. “Thanky, suh,” she added, putting a tin plate on his lap and setting a cracked china cup on the hearth at his feet “Show ‘im,” she repeated.

“You want folks to think Sandy Claus don’t know whar you lives at?”

The children stirred then, and from the shadow behind them, where they had hidden them when he entered, they produced a small tin automobile, a string of colored wooden beads, a small mirror and a huge stick of peppermint candy to which trash adhered and which they immediately fell to licking gravely, turn and turn about. The woman filled the cup from the coffee pot set among the embers, and she uncovered an iron skillet and forked a thick slab of sizzling meat onto his plate, and raked a grayish object from the ashes and dusted it off and put that too on his plate. Bayard ate his side meat and hoecake and drank the thin, tasteless liquid. The children now played quietly with their Christmas, but from time to time he looked up and found them watching him again. Presently the man entered with his pail of milk.

“Ole ‘oman give you a snack?” he asked.

“Ye. What’s the nearest town on the railroad?” he inquired. The other told him—eight miles away. “Can you drive me over there this morning, and take my horse back to MacCallum’s some day this week?”

“My brudder-in-law bor’d my mules,” the negro answered readily. “I ain’t got but de one span, and he done bor’d dem.”

“I’ll pay you five dollars.”

The negro set the pail down, and the woman came and got it. He scratched his head slowly. “Five dollars,” Bayard repeated.

“You’s in a pow’ful rush, fer Chris’mus, white-folks.”

“Ten dollars;” Bayard said impatiently; “Can’t you get your mules from your brother-in-law?”

“I reckon so. I reckon he’ll bring ‘um back. By dinnertime. We kin go den.”

“Why can’t you get ‘em now? Take my horse and go get’em. I want to catch a train.”

“I ain’t had no Chris’mus yit, whitefolks. Feller workin’ ev’y day of de year wants a little Chris’mus.”

Bayard swore beneath his breath, but he said: “All right, then. After dinner. But you see your brother-in-law has’em back here in time.”

“He’ll be here: don’t you worry about dat.”

“All right. You and aunty help yourselves to the jug.”

“Thanky, suh.”

The stale, airtight room dulled him; the warmth was insidious to his bones wearied and stiff after the chill night. The negroes moved about the single room, the woman busy at the hearth with her cooking, the pickaninnies with their frugal and sorry gewgaws and filthy candy. Bayard sat in his chair and dozed the morning away. Not asleep, but time was lost in a timeless region where he lingered unawake and into which he realized after a long while that something was trying to penetrate; watched the vain attempts with peaceful detachment. But at last it succeeded: a voice. “Dinner ready.”

The negroes drank with him again, amicably, a little diffidently—two opposed concepts antipathetic by race, blood, nature and environment, touching for a moment and fused within the illusion of a contradiction—humankind forgetting its lust and cowardice and greed for a day. Then dinner: ‘possum with yams, more gray ashcake, the dead and tasteless liquid in the coffee pot; a dozen bananas and jagged shards of cocoanut, the children crawling about his feet like animals scenting food. He realized that they were holding back until he ate, but he overrode them; and at last (the mules having been miraculously returned by a yet incorporeal brother-in-law) with his depleted jug between his feet in the wagon bed, he looked once back at the cabin, with the woman standing in the door and a pale windless drift of smoke above its chimney.

Against the mules’ gaunt ribs the broken harness rattled and jingled. The air was warm, yet laced too with a thin distillation of chill that darkness would increase. The road went on across the bright land. From time to time across the shining sedge or from beyond brown and leafless woods, came the flat reports of guns; occasionally they passed other teams or horsemen or pedestrians, who lifted dark restful hands to the negro buttoned into an army overcoat, with brief covert glances for the white man on the seat beside him. “Heyo, Chris’mus!” Beyond the yellow sedge and the brown leafless ridges the ultimate hills stood bluely against the immaculate sky. “Heyo.”

They stopped and drank, and Bayard gave his companion a cigarette. The sun behind them now; no cloud, no wind in the serene pale cobalt. “Shawt days! Fo’ mile mo’. Come up, mules.” Between motionless willows, stubbornly green, a dry clatter of loose planks above water in murmurous flashes. The road lifted redly; pines stood against the sky. They crested this, and a plateau rolled away before them with its pattern of burnished sedge and fallow fields and brown woodland, and now and then a house, on into a shimmering azure haze, and low down on the horizon, smoke. “Two mile, now.” Behind them the sun was a balloon tethered an hour above the trees. They drank again.

It had touched the horizon when they looked down into the final valley where the railroad’s shining threads vanished among houses and trees, and along the air to them distantly, there came a slow, heavy explosion. “Still celebratin’,” the negro said.

They descended the final hill, among houses, in the windows of which hung wreathes and paper bells, and whose stoops were littered with spent firecrackers; and went along streets where children in bright sweaters and jackets sped on shiny coasters and skates and wagons. Again a heavy explosion from the dusk ahead, and they debouched into the square with its Sabbath calm, littered too with shattered scraps of paper. It looked like that at home, he knew, with men and youths he had known from boyhood lounging the holiday away, drinking a little and shooting fireworks, giving nickels and dimes and quarters to negro boys who shouted Chris’mus gif! Chris’mus gif! as they passed; and after dark, somewhere a dance, with holly and mistletoe and paper streamers, and the girls he had always known with their new bracelets and watches and fans amid warmth and lights and music and glittering laughter. A small group stood on a corner, and as they passed and preceded by a sudden scurry among the group, yellow flame was stenciled abruptly on the twilight and the heavy explosion reverberated in sluggish echoes. The mules quickened against their collars and the wagon rattled on.

There were lights within the houses now, behind the wreathes and the rotund bells, and through the dusk voices called with mellow insistence; children’s voices replied, expostulant, reluctantly regretful. Then the station, where a bus and four or five cars stood aligned, and Bayard descended and the negro lifted down the sack.

“Much obliged,” Bayard said. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, whitefoiks.”

In the waiting room a stove glowed red hot and about the room stood cheerful groups, in sleek furs and overcoats, but he did not enter. He set the sack against the wall and tramped up and down the platform, warming his blood again. In both directions along the tracks green switch lights were steady in the dusk; a hands-breadth above the western trees the evening star was like an electric bulb. He tramped back and forth, glancing now and then into the ruddy windows, into the waiting room where the cheerful groups in their furs and overcoats gesticulated with festive though soundless animation, and into the colored waiting room, whose occupants sat patiently and murmurously about the stove in the dingy light As he turned here a voice spoke diffidently from the shadow beside the door. “Chris’mus gif, boss.” He took a coin from his pocket, and went on. Again from the square a firecracker exploded heavily, and above the trees a rocket arced, hung for a moment, then opened like a closed fist, spreading its golden and fading fingers upon the serene indigo sky without a sound.

Then the train came and brought its lighted windows to a jarring halt, and he picked up his sack again. And in the midst of a cheerful throng shouting goodbyes and holiday greetings to one another, he got aboard, unshaven, in his scarred boots and stained khaki pants, and his shabby, smoke-colored tweed jacket and his disreputable felt hat, and found a vacant seat and stowed the jug away beneath his legs.