Omensetter’s Luck

9

The fire and the lamp made pairs of crossing shadows, one steady and firm, one leaping and vague. Her shadow spotted the wall and disappeared, drawn magically back beneath her chair as she rocked, then darting forth to climb the wall as rapidly again. He found himself marking the height. Incredibly swift, it bent itself up from the floor, passing the picture, the long head reaching a mar in the paper and covering a cluster of leaves while the lengthening finial that followed behind struck a rose. Each time it was the same. Omensetter's shadow dwindled under him and Furber had the Impression of something being poured steadily through a hole in the floor. The girls sat mute in ladder chairs, their stiff and strangely twisted figures fastened to the wall like ill-cut paper silhouettes. Another corner was darkened by the cradle where the baby, ominously quiet now, lay dying of a closing throat, an occasional wisp of its breath crossing the room like a little draft of air or brief creak of the house. I shall make a rabbit with my fingers. I shall make a tiger. I shall make a bird. His own thin outline oozed through generous cracks and hung alongside wintering ants and modest spiders between the boards. I shall make a goose. I shall make a bear.

There were foolish men in the woods, death in the trees. What did a body matter? It was such a damp low place, hardly fit to put a spirit in. What did they think they were rescuing?

In seminary they'd been called The Great Hypotheses. The One and The Other. The Spirit and its Enemy. Yes and No. A and B. Truth against The Adversary, Father of Lies. A always won, while B….

If I enumerated all the contents of my soul, he thought; if I made a thorough list of them; if I overlooked nothing; if I counted twice; if I wrote each down carefully with a spit-wet pencil end like Luther's accomplished clerk; would I find an item I could say belonged to me, made me, formed my core and heart? Thus The Other always argued.

If you were to place a lamp before a wall and put your hand in the light that flows between them, you would make a shadow. Purse your fingers properly, the shadow is a duck, while with the thumb thrust up, a horse. Then on mastery of these you may try to make a hawk fly slowly with both hands. End of the lesson. Who was teaching?

Death was only another arrangement. For suppose, and mind it narrowly, that life is simply a shadow bodies cast inside themselves when struck by all those queerly various bits and particles, those pieces, streams of — what? — of science. Death in such a case would be only another arrangement.

He said: the fire needs wood; we must keep the room warm.

Why was it sorrowful, The Great Alternative? No hell afterward, but blessedness. What could be more blessed than to rest in a coil of silence — not to be? He'd meant to preach to that. His whole life, he'd Meant to preach, to preach… Where was his preaching and his preachment now? Would Henry's body, hanging in its tree, be dreaming? Would it be canting in itself another kind of shadow, a goblin shadow, to be feared?

But no dream could wound as cleverly as the painful edges of perception.

… while B persisted like a monstrous suspicion. Yes and No. A and …

Did they think he was praying, his head so holy, his hands so discreet in the folds of his priestly clothing? Perhaps his lips were moving. The fire sank under the added log. If there were only something in the room beside it, anything — speech — but not this ache of silence.

You can smooth the bruises from our bodies; You can sweep off the sickness that's infected them. Breathe gently on this infant, that he may one day carry in his lungs the fragrance of Your heart.

Crap.

A and… It could very well be. What kind of shadow would strangulation cast? How fares the spirit of the throttled man? The soul was once believed to exit from the mouth and nose and return on the insucked air, but just suppose, the breath cut off, belt grimly crimping in the pipe, that while the soul struggled to escape, the bungling body died? Imagine, then, this messy bit of business quickly buried with the soul still stuck like an animal inside. What sounds would funeral speeches make in a dead ear; what meaning would they carry for a skull? The body swells down there, takes water on, then pops — the spirit's out. But what, by this time, is it? What's the shadow in a swelling corpse? a chorus of shouts? Shut in the earth, it dies each minute, each minute is replaced by the reflection of a new arrangement. So it is with us. So it is with me. So. So. It is so like. Buried in this air, I rot. Moment by moment, I am not the same. And all I desire is to escape — get out. Then notice — look carefully on it — what happens when the body splits. The snow-white wormlings of the flies seethe out. The soul, the immortal principle of life, in its last condition, has come to this — this transmigration.

They are rescuing something then: Henry Pimber somewhat rearranged — who knows for worse or better? Get him down and smartly under. Play it safe. You never can tell.

Up and down, yes and no, A and B. She rocked. Suddenly it struck him — added up. It was as though he had been jumped at from the dark. Chilled. The rocker creaked. Its legs rubbed in their sockets. All this time a sound — each time the same — had issued from its motion. Yet he'd never heard it. Where was it when he'd watched the shadow pulsing, her head to the leaves and the finial to the rose, the knurl at its blotting? Now the squeal tore at his nerves. It became difficult to see.

For the boy — shall we pray? How?

He got up slowly, sweat gathering coldly on his chest and under his arms, and began to pace. Soon he would prickle. She was only an ear, not half alive, reduced to one expectation. How alive was he — the great square O? Furber risked his name, sailed it across the current of the squeak. O-men-set-ter. Now his name has entered his ear. In whose porches I poured the poison. It has penetrated to his brain. But? Nothing. Blank. Dead then, to that. Dead by so much. Nevertheless alive in some ways — movable. In stumbling shamble. Rocky-walky. Bear shuff. And in the woods the breath of the men as they climb the trees will be floating from their noses just as always. Unperceived. The spirit. The Holy Spirit.

Is it two falls out of three? God wins the first but the Devil takes the next one. There has not yet been a third to anybody's knowledge.

He had a desire to dance, to whirl while kicking his leg in the air, crying kangaroo. He would whirl and whirl and slowly mount toward the ceiling — whirling. Too bad he'd never made a study of ballet.

He was moving — stately — like a sailing ship. He saw the woodwork and the paper sliding. Then spots by. Another instance of it. So life and death were ranges of degree and no more opposite than snow and sleet or pie and pain. Note that. Four and twenty black Flacks. Everything alive. Who was the fellow who first said it? It was a matter, merely, of awake. Awake. Ho! the guard! Ho! the keep! So surely the house, and this, the stomach of the house, and these, the flickers of its feelings. Alarm within. Turn out the watch. So surely these are shadows cast inside. By. Then the bitter rocker. Bitterly alive to scrape sensations through its feet and speak. Arouse within! The treasure of the temple's stolen. So then dead — and then alive. Tick-teek. Tick-teeek. Tickteeeek. Tick-teeeeek. Everywhere upon him. Soles of his feet, behind the lids of his eyes, beneath the roots of his teeth. Furber sank into the hallway, itching intolerably, and like a hairy spider, every twitch meant victim.

Matthew, I lied. Am I not believed as one who strives to tell the truth in everything? He did not say: I am of the dark ways, preacher. He did not use those foolish words. He was merely stricken by my turns of speech and by my mad religious ways. Oh what a meager adversary after all! I could have preached in Cleveland, Matthew — in Cleveland in great cathedrals, in robes so heavy they would weary my arms. But I was fearful and vain of my righteousness, Matthew, fearful for my soul, and I came to Gilean to flee temptation, to put Satan behind me, as they say on Sunday. More terrible theology. Like Henry's in that. With my adversary, the Red Chief, all the time inside me, perched on my liver, feet crossed, meeting with the rest, making his spiel. What sayeth the psalmist? "He sitteth in ambush with the rich in secret to murder the innocent, his eyes are privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den; he lieth in wait to catch the poor." Poor Henry. Poor Matthew. Poor Janet. So our worthy Jerome also warns us, whose belly wants to be god in Christ's place. As I recall, it was the crotch in auntie's case. If only he could be like Splendid Turner, he thought, who had a soul like a sponge soaked in greed and fornication which Splendid simply squeezed out when he got contrite. In seminary they used to say that Jesus had an upright Peter, but I always said that swearing by that soft apostle made a limp appeal. Whoo-oo-ee. Purple thistles in dizzy rows. He laid his head against the wall, the paper wall, and shut his eyes. Dead to the thistles, the darkness, the golden wood. Musty, cool — the paper wall. If he had an eye at the end of a line and payed it to the bottom of the river, while he stared with his own pair at the sky, what sort of world would his three eyes put together? My eyes comprise… Little pimples of plaster, the weight of his body in his soles, old paper, damp paper, cold tips of finger, cloth cooling at the corners of his shoulders and elbows, vague pale rings against his closed lids…Or an eye like an aggie — rolling to the corner. To spin into illness. No, the soul a balloon. It was how much air you got. A French invention. Montpellier was it? Like the town. And then stirring behind him. And voices. He swung around. Heat rises. The soul swells and sails to heaven. Bye baby bunting. No. It is the corpse which obliges. Firm flesh refines itself to fearful fumes by water. Who was the fellow? Goes off like a cannon. The capture of Paris. A French invention. He was alive to the firelight, to the moving rows of thistles. If I kick my feet and whirl, I shall rise to the ceiling. I should have studied dancing, I move so gracefully sometimes. You're quite a sport, Furls; you can play the picnic on our banjo.

Great and mighty God, who has brought us down to the grave as careless children to the sea, bring us back from there, for now we are afraid, for we have seen our own death in the heavy water, in the sand our toes have squeezed the print of our own end…

Matthew, listen, believe in the Devil. I know you for a man who merely believes in God. Bad theology and careless observation, Matthew. You can believe me, for I have seen him. He and I are on familiar terms. He has a sharp tongue and strange ideas, like myself. We are friends in fact. Men have no other.

The shadows of the lamp were steady but the fire was like dark lace. Their voices were low and intense and filled with surprise; a continual thread of bewilderment and wonder held their words together. You are letting him die, she said, and it seemed to Furber he was hearing something that had been repeated already with an agonizing regularity, like the squeak of the rocker. Omensetter's protests were driven from him. With every word he seemed to wither and diminish. Soon speech would be beyond his strength.

… you are letting him die.

Luce—

You are.

Omensetter swayed rhythmically a moment like a bear.

I am letting him be. I am giving him a chance.

A chance to die, she said in a flat cold bitter voice.

Lucy—

She was wasted too, but like a wire. She had lost the fullness of her pregnancy; her skin was pale and drawn, her bones lay like shadows under it; even her astonishing breasts seemed drained, though with the child not feeding, they should have been swollen painfully.

. . just letting him.

There's no other way.

She rose from the rocker like an angry gesture.

Where is my husband, she said in a whisper.

Then she slid back to the chair. Tick, it said.

Omensetter squatted by her, reaching out.

She brushed at his hands as though they were bugs in her lap.

Luce—

They have forgotten the children as they have forgotten me, Furber thought. He turned toward the girls, and they froze his heart.

How can I know what to do? Fetch Orcutt? Does a hen give her eggs to a weasel?

Let him die, then.

Her fingers flew in her hair.

You'd take more trouble for a cat, she said.

There's nothing anyone can do.

He may have taken death already just from hearing you.

He mustn't.

Musn’t …

We've got to trust my luck.

We've a baby — sick. Isn't that enough? What do people do when their baby's sick? That's all I want — what anyone would want — what you'd have wanted once — nothing strange ornew or put on — just what's ordinary — decent — human. Now I look at you — the way you've been — all set on something I can't understand — so crazy — hunching in your self where I can't feel you — and I think it can't be true — your changes — they just can't be true.

I don't want to change. I'm trying not to.

I thought I knew what I loved.

I want to — I'm trying to do what I've always done—

It's worse — Brackett, will you believe me? — it's worse than losing that poor baby — losing you. But I can't trade the baby for you, can I?

Oh no — no — no trade—

You won't be the same. Is that a trade?

What's this now? I don't want a trade.

What will I do when you're dead too?

Don't talk that way.

This is the son I thought you wanted.

Don't—

We loved each other once. Why don't we feel the same love now — now when we need to? Why must we live in these lonely pieces?

We had it on my luck.

All our life till now is nothing — luck — a raindrop hitting. And our beauty? Brackett, is it a weed, annoying you where it comes up? All our life till now I could live in easy, breathe in easy — swallow easy — loving you. It was as though — as though you'd taken room in me — with that I could be happy. But it was luck, you say, just luck. And when I came to you with my arms before me like a present of flowers? And when I said sweet heart, dear love… do you remember? Never a foolish name. Dear heart, I said, dear love—

Omensetter attempted to throw himself in his wife's lap, but the arm of the rocker prevented him and his head slid onto her chest, while he flung one arm awkwardly around her.

For Henry. You are letting him die because of Henry.

No.

And you are killing me.

I love you.

You are killing them.

Lucy—

All of us.

I love you.

For Henry — is this for Henry? Did you love Henry more to kill him sooner?

Omensetter clumsily reached his feet.

Those men — they suspect you, don't they? I could see it. They hate us. Why?

I am no mur-der-er, Omensetter howled, raising his arms like weapons above his head. I am no mur-der-er! Can't you see? Should I tear away my skin? Would you see inside me then, and see how my life ceases when you speak this way to me?

The daughters stirred, beginning to weep, and Omensetter turned, remembering them. Furber extended his arms, but they careened down the hall, blindly striking the walls as they went like bewildered birds. Furber sank, groaning, to his knees.

He had fathered every folly, every sin. No goat knew gluttony like his, no cat had felt his pride, no crow his avarice. He had said the psalm against envy, the psalm against anger, the psalm against sloth and the loss of hope, but they were no defense. He had wanted women. He had imagined them in every posture. He had wanted men. There was no perversity he had not thought to practice with them. Further, he had wanted little girls. He had wanted boys. He had wanted most of all himself. He had stolen. He had blasphemed. He had cheated. He had lied — his single skill. He had been cruel and contemptuous, malicious and willful. He'd lacked courage, piety, loyalty, hope. Without moderation or charity, without relish or enthusiasm, he'd led a wanton, heedless, selfish life. In meanness, in darkness and squalor of spirit, he had passed his time. Faithless he'd professed a faith. Faithlessly, he'd preached. Indeed, he'd labored on the Devil's side as if the Lord Himself had begged it of him, and in the line of duty proved that bigotry needs no beliefs, for on behalf of Heaven he'd been intolerant with dispassion, puritanical for pleasure, and zealous out of boredom. Touch me nor, he'd always cried; do not burden me with love. Even now he made himself a monster, overblew his vices so his charge would lack conviction. Was that not, admittedly, the maneuver of a monster? So often clever. Note how sweetly I pronounce her, musically wig-wag my ringalingling tongue. May I not admire my skill like any harlot? Am I not quite honestly dishonest? So in all his mirrors, fair and square, he threw his errors. All this, of course, God knew. God knew, as he addressed Him — mewl-ing, kneeling — his holy cloth and posture were disguise; that did not believe. Then what did he deserve? Wasn't it punishment enough that he perpetually disgrace his feelings? Had he sinned so much that innocence should suffer this from him?

It seemed darker, doubtless, than it was. Omensetter moved along the steep beach on all fours like some nocturnal animal. He appeared to be gathering stones. The snowflakes were scattered still, but the wind was stinging. There would ho bitter weather before morning. Furber had followed Omensetter from the house, forgetting overshoes and gloves, but gathering his coat, scarf, hat — his priestly rigging — and putting them on as he blundered toward the river. He had no purpose. Perhaps he knew some genuine disgust. Once again, n^' place of feelings — speeches. On a patch of cleared ground above the beach Omensetter set the stones in piles to form a circle. Several times he returned for more, scuttling past Furber with his head down, his body bent awkwardly, one shoulder jutting forward. There was a faint splash as he stepped in the edge of the river. The pale stones lay in their piles like luminous faces. Then Omensetter stood in the middle, swaying, as dark and vague as any of the trees. The poor fool doesn't know how, Furber thought, he hasn't the cast idea. The wind blew the sound of shouting up, and then withdrew it. Furber called to him and Omensetter cried out anxiously:

Furber?

What in god's name are you doing?

Furber — will you pray for the boy?

And this, Furber asked, restraining a gesture useless in the darkness.

What comes next? What do I say?

Furber ran about the circle kicking at the piles. There was a spatter of stones in the water and a rush of others in the weeds.

You'll pray for the boy, won't you, Furber? You've nothing against him — a little boy — a baby — you'll pray for him?

Do you know what your wife believes? She thinks, like any decent man, you've gone for Orcutt.

No. She knows I can't do that.

You call this feeble nonsense trusting to your luck? Is asking me to pray — is that trusting to your luck or just more madness? Neither's the least use. You've got to go for Orcutt, the baby's nearly dead of your confusion. You wouldn't listen to your wife — what are my chances? Well I don't love you, that ought to help. I think you're a monster and you are proving me right… I've been right about everything all along… if only I had believed myself.

There was more shouting — angry tones.

Listen, Omensetter — it won't be endurable. No — wait now — wait for me. She'll hate you. Don't be a — a jackassed donkey, damn you, you don't want that. It's diphtheria, it's no theological disease. No witches' brew or number you can roll will cure it. You've got to go — there's no luck in this world and no god either… You stupid selfish fool, you blind dumb bastard, when you come to — it won't be bearable. To have had what you dreamed you had — and let it go Hey, stop that. Christ. You'll never understand. Orcutt can't cure anyone. He can't do a thing. That's not the point. It's your going for him that counts, not what he does; it's how your girls will feel — after — how Agnes and Emerald will respond—

Eleanor… and Angela.

And Lucy — how she'll—

Omensetter turned and blundered off down the beach, away from the shouting.

I'll pray, Furber yelled after him, I'll pray… for what it's worth, he finished bitterly, knowing that he wouldn't pray at all; real prayer would embarrass him. Really, he knew no more about it than Omensetter did about his stones. Furber retreated up the slope. The snow was falling thickly now and his feet and hands were cold. Apparently he couldn't speak with his hands in his pockets. Even in the dark, they'd been out gesturing, fluttering about like moths.

So it was coming true, and he had played the chorus to his own Cassandra. That was put nice, preacher. Shit. Swearing was also an empty habit. What had he said — made up — that wasn't coming true? Aunt Janet hurls herself from the dizzy height of her ladder-backed Shaker. A pretty thought. A plaything like a horse on wheels. The choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world-the snow now, his streaming eyes — were they just words, too, just characters, as he had always pretended? It was coming true. God was coming true, coming slowly to light like a message in lemon. Ah, and what was the message? in yet another lingo? Truth is the father of lies; nothing survives, nothing dies; only the wicked can afford the wise. And shouts through gaps in the wnid. Blasphemers are believers. And there were sermons in stone, as he'd frequently said. Wasn't it what he'd always wanted — God to exist? Deep in the weeds, peering between the pickets, he'd dreamed his revenge… They were closing in; there was a wagon creaking. The snow fell on him as on a tree. But he really wanted to embrace the body of the symbol. But the body of every symbol was absurd. But not when the gods were Greek. But they never, never were… All the while, He was, and only He has been, and only He has the brass to continue.

You here Furber?

Furber?

You?

What's up?

Hey.

Here?

Hell. Just hell.

We've wagoned Stitt and Pimber both together, all ourselves. It was too damn dense there for horses.

A bit right.

My leg's broke, Furber, broke in two.

Right.

— lost the horses.

Ever hear of — right I said, I said right.

Oh go to hell.

Furber? That really you?

Our goddamn horses—

— easy in the morning.

Ho, listen at him, listen at the pizzler.

Go to hell.

Where's Tott? where's that tit? where's Tott?

I can't see a thing with this snow in my eyes.

What?

… what what what …

— all the time drifting.

Listen I got my nose froze, my fingers froze, my feet and eyes and private peter, and I ain't about to finish another fuckin' foot of this buggy-wheeling wagon over these goddamn rocks and ruts and tree roots in all this goddamn snow and all this dark and cold — not one more wheel around, you bet — not for me — no sir.

We were lucky the wind died.

Pee that out a pig.

Lost the whole lot — you want to know how?

Ah shut up.

His house is here, we'll get Stitt in.

Me in—me, boys, me.

Well then come on, hurry up.

Will you listen at that?

He's goddamn Cleopatra in his goddamn barge.

Pee it out a pig.

Come on, then, since your cock's so curly.

Shit.

Lend a hand, Furber, for christ's sake.

You really here?

We're on a fuckin' slope.

We've always been on a fuckin' slope.

I've spent my life on a fuckin' slope.

All right then, don't drag your ass, push.

You push—you push- I been a-pushing — push, for christ's sake — you been the whole way yelling push, push, push — ain't you got jaws to shut your mouth with?

How about you? You been dragging your ass the whole way. It must be sore. Still got skin on? Biggest ass in this state, too. Ugliest ass in the country. Heaviest ass in this asshole world.

You been doing a lot of examining to that ass?

Ah — ah shut up.

Is that you, Tott? you tit, you titter.

Hey — owwwww.

Come on — careful. Don't bounce him — lift.

Hear that? Furber says how's Henry.

Jeez.

Push.

Hear that? Henry.

How is he, Boylee? the Reverend wants to know.

— no stiffer than I am.

Come on, you suckers.

Cold as a snowman's dick, ain't that right, Boylee?

Wait. Hold up. Bush… Wait, goddamn, goddamit, bush, I said… Now… easy… okay.

Say Furber, lend a hand back here.

Fell out of the tree like a stone, the both of them, one after the other.

A little left.

Haul away easy, I can't see.

Couldn't tell if he hung himself up there or not.

There it is — come on — heave.

— branch broke. Dropped like a rock, the both of them. I cut my eye — bad — there's blood all over me.

There's light there — see?

I can taste it, it's salty.

That's your pee.

I hope they got a fire as big as a woods in there. Then I'm going to squat right down in them leaping flames, smack in the middle of them like a nesting hen.

You'll smother it and lay smoke.

George thinks his shit won't burn.

I know damn well my piss won't.

Know what I want? I want my hands around a cup of coffee. That's what I want. That's all I want. How we going to get past this?

Hot and steaming — I'll just wrap them right around, and then I'll lower — I'll just dip — my nose in.

Oh for christ's sake, let him walk, it ain't far.

Back — back up.

Back?

Yeah, back, everybody back.

What I want's a drink. I'd sell my soul off.

It wouldn't bring the price of piss-in-your-face.

Ah shut your shit.

I'll tell you one thing — that sonofabitch didn't get up there by himself.

My eye, Furber, I got blood in my eye still.

Back, you guys, will you back?

God damn and christ — it's lots of rocks… How's it look now, Curtis, can you see?

By god, no more for me, not another fuckin' inch.

Meng's got diarrhea of the dingus and all his strength's leaked out.

Easy… jesus. He keeps sliding over on me. Listen, I ain't staying in this thing if he keeps sliding over on me. You got to keep him from sliding over like that. Sweet christ, he's cold, I tell you, cold, sweet jesus, he is — oh god, my leg — my leg hurts.

If you can feel it, you still got it. If you've still got it, what's your bitch?

Ache your belly out and bust.

You can't go far, Boylee, with that leg of yours, I guess you'll lie there nicely where you are.

I'll tell you one thing, Jethro, he didn't get there on his own — not way up here, he didn't — not on your life… All right now, George — push.

Oww. Hey. Owwwww. You bastards. I climbed up there for you damn you dirty bastards, when none of you dirty bastards would. You're all bastards all right, all bastards.

Easy Boylee, we're almost there. Tie your tail on.

Your ass may feel easy, but I tell you the world's been shitting through mine.

He's been dragging his. It don't feel easy, either.

Say, my eye, it hurts awful, Furb, it really does… You've no gloves on. What are you doing out here without no gloves on? Hey, Furber's got no gloves on.

Faith's a furry mitten, Furber, ain't it?

You should have heard how they sang, it was so sweet, like choirs: only you can do it, Boylee, they sang; fine work, Boylee, that's the boy, Boylee, climb up that ice-cold tree in the cunt-colored dark and just let down that little hanging man.

Tott's a fine soprano.

Well we missed the road someway.

Missed it — hell, you never even shot at it. Oh shut your shit.

He came down like a rock. Branches snapped like popcorn, didn't they George?

Stitt didn't care to come down the whole way by himself.

Go to hell.

He held up a bit near the bottom.

Go to hell.

Lit on a branch like a bird.

I broke some ribs, I swear I broke some ribs, it hurts to breathe.

What did Henry break, I wonder.

He broke his prick.

Like a rock. Down. Wham pop bang. You should have heard him — thunk.

Look out for that goddamn dog. That goddamn dog — he's somewhere around. I’ll poison him with a stick.

Really — honest — thunk.

Here we are. Okay. do. Take his head, Luther. George at the middle. Out of the way, Bessie, damn it, out of the way. Ease him up. Don't bitch. Everybody knows it's cold. I'll do the bitching. Easy, easy, slow…

You bastards.

Howl your head off.

Henry'll keep nicely, anyway.

Who'll take care of me?

The church will, George. You're for church. The church is here. The church will care for you.

I sure hope Olus shakes a leg.

Now slide him out. Menger — the door.

Please keep the noise down, gentlemen, Furber said, that child is sick to death, remember — he can barely breathe

Sweet sweat of jesus, I forgot, Luther Hawkins said, and he stood on the porch holding Stitt by the shoulders and the head, swearing long and deeply and with love.

Furber crawled carefully into the wagon. Henry, he whispered. His stomach ached and his face and ears burned, his head felt light, his hands and feet were numb. Snow was captured in his eyes. Henry? The coat was stiff and hard as stone — soaked with melted snow and rain, then frozen. Omensetter had said he was wearing it, a gray wool with wide pockets. Furber ran his thumb on a twig and withdrew his hand with a cry. There were a number of twigs thrust through the coat like nails and the cloth was torn. Of course — they'd been driven in when he fell. Cautiously his hands felt along Be arm to the shoulder, brushing away snow. Are you in there, Henry? We can still be friends. He withdrew his hand again when it touched the belt. The cut end, how deceptively strong it was, cut halfway through and then torn the rest of the way by his weight… hence… to drop, he thought. Henry's in there, but he's in there differently. Furber placed his hands on Henry's head. Snow lay thickly in the hair. And all the while he'd had the forehead of a man who was destined to be drowned. The face was rough and icy… pale moon-shaped face. Unshaven, Furber decided, and then he wondered whether, even after death, it grew. He still had his woolly eyebrows. But cold… so cold. You've put on weight, old friend, death's diet suits. It was true that Henry was fuller in the — pecked! Furber recoiled, cracking his elbow against the side of the wagon. Of course. Birds pass. There were shapely limbs and dancing leaves. He slid the length of the wagon and lay there, shivering. He was furious with his disease and cursed it fervently. You're an old man already, Furber. You've been shaken half out of life by the effort of living in it. Ah, that would do to preach. Oh shut your shit. When he lifted his face, the snow struck it smartly, and in the light from the house he saw the flakes driven swiftly on the wind. The light was another kind of shadow, he thought, a shadow for a dry, bright soul. It spilled on the porch, running the snow-, and he noticed, looking closely, that within it the darker lights of the fire drifted. Of course no soul is simple, though if that were true, if no soul were, what of Plato's grandest argument? The elemental simples cannot decompose. And why not? Of course they cannot come to pieces, but what is simpler than the shadow of a stick? There, for instance: that tuft of weed struck through the snow like a knife, deviously edged; the soul it casts is blue and sharp, though bent a little toward compassion by a hollow in the crust — a soul like Chamlay's maybe. Is compassion's line in Chamlay anywhere? Perhaps not. But the wind puffs, the shadow mists. The weed bends a little, and the soul of Chamlay pales and widens into Olus Knox. It alters altogether, not in parts. Yet cold… so cold. The wind blew viciously and Furber turned his face toward Henry. A simple thing but complex in its cause. Rage warmed him a little. He felt a familiar pressure on his chest and he remembered standing by the river and narrowing his eyes at the sunlight that was so merciless from the water while Arthur swam for Omensetter's hat. Yesterday he should have eaten. Flack! Where was the fellow? He tugged roughly in his anger and folds of clothing parted. Heavenly Father, You may call our soul our best, but this, our body, is our love. He lifted one of Henry's legs and let it fall like wood. How simply is our fondness for it guaranteed: we can't live outside of it, not as we are, not as we wish. So this is someone else's body now. He banged a shoe against the bottom of the wagon. Who? The snow softened the sound. Asleep? No. He was no longer living the life of sleep. It was the snow that was slumbering, coasting through these dreams. What power have You, if You can't continue us, and what cruel nature have You to refuse? The moist soul hangs about the body, too heavy to rise. How cleverly, Henry, you avoided that. Henry, listen, Omensetter was nothing, only another man. Now he is given to despair beyond any of yours. Well there you are — we all despair. Were you listening? Nothing but despair. They are in despair, and you're the one in luck. Say, you should listen. Furber shook the body. Observe how we build our cemeteries by you and shape our bodies like yours. We wish to be so like the dead, we living. But we shiver from the cold in spite of ourselves, and we hate your liberty of lying like a stone enough to envy the birds who pecked your eyes. Most of all, we envy you — that you should open them unfeeling to their bills. My god! my eyes are every minute pained by what they see. I should take strength from being blind, if I were you. Vision is no kindly injury. Furber touched Henry's hands they're cold as mine — then the ridges of his ears. Well no human speech can reach you now. I envy that too. Furber dangled his feet over the end of the wagon. He thought of Maggie Scanlon, whose legs always hung like cracked sticks, and he swung them to and fro. Why have You made us the saddest animal? He pushed himself off and felt the jar in his bones. He cannot do it, Henry, that is why. He can't continue us. All He can do is try to make us happy that we die. Really, He's a pretty good fellow.