Sanctuary

14

While she was sitting beside the spring, with the sleeping child upon her knees, the woman discovered that she had forgot its bottle. She sat there for about an hour after Popeye left her. Then she returned to the road and turned back toward the house. When she was about halfway back to the house, carrying the child in her arms, Popeye’s car passed her. She heard it coming and she got out of the road and stood there and watched it come dropping down the hill. Temple and Popeye were in it. Popeye did not make any sign, though Temple looked full at the woman. From beneath her hat Temple looked the woman full in the face, without any sign of recognition whatever. The face did not turn, the eyes did not wake; to the woman beside the road it was like a small, dead-colored mask drawn past her on a string and then away. The car went on, lurching and jolting in the ruts. The woman went on to the house.

The blind man was sitting on the front porch, in the sun. When she entered the hall, she was walking fast. She was not aware of the child’s thin weight. She found Goodwin in their bedroom. He was in the act of putting on a frayed tie; looking at him, she saw that he had just shaved.

“Yes,” she said. “What is it? What is it?”

“I’ve got to walk up to Tull’s and telephone for the sheriff,” he said.

“The sheriff,” she said. “Yes. All right.” She came to the bed and laid the child carefully down. “To Tull’s,” she said. “Yes. He’s got a phone.”

“You’ll have to cook,” Goodwin said. “There’s Pap.”

“You can give him some cold bread. He wont mind. There’s some left in the stove. He wont mind.”

“I’ll go,” Goodwin said. “You stay here.”

“To Tull’s,” she said. “All right.” Tull was the man at whose house Gowan had found a car. It was two miles away. Tull’s family was at dinner. They asked her to stop. “I just want to use the telephone,” she said. The telephone was in the dining-room, where they were eating. She called, with them sitting about the table. She didn’t know the number. “The Sheriff,” she said patiently into the mouthpiece. Then she got the sheriff, with Tull’s family sitting about the table, about the Sunday dinner. “A dead man. You pass Mr Tull’s about a mile and turn off to the right.……Yes, the Old Frenchman place. Yes. This is Mrs Goodwin talking.…Goodwin. Yes.”