Tom moved close to put his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’ touch me,” she said. “I’ll hol’ up if you don’ touch me.
That’d get me.”
Pa said,
“We got to go on now.
We got to go on down.”
Ma looked up at him.
“Can—can I set up front?
I don’ wanna go back there no more—I’m tar’d.
I’m awful tar’d.”
They climbed back on the load, and they avoided the long stiff figure covered and tucked in a comforter, even the head covered and tucked.
They moved to their places and tried to keep their eyes from it—from the hump on the comfort that would be the nose, and the steep cliff that would be the jut of the chin.
They tried to keep their eyes away, and they could not.
Ruthie and Winfield, crowded in a forward corner as far away from the body as they could get, stared at the tucked figure.
And Ruthie whispered,
“Tha’s Granma, an’ she’s dead.”
Winfield nodded solemnly.
“She ain’t breathin’ at all.
She’s awful dead.”
And Rose of Sharon said softly to Connie,
“She was a-dyin’ right when we——”
“How’d we know?” he reassured her.
Al climbed on the load to make room for Ma in the seat.
And Al swaggered a little because he was sorry.
He plumped down beside Casy and Uncle John.
“Well, she was ol’.
Guess her time was up,” Al said. “Ever’body got to die.” Casy and Uncle John turned eyes expressionlessly on him and looked at him as though he were a curious talking bush. “Well, ain’t they?” he demanded.
And the eyes looked away, leaving Al sullen and shaken.
Casy said in wonder,
“All night long, an’ she was alone.” And he said,
“John, there’s a woman so great with love—she scares me.
Makes me afraid an’ mean.”
John asked,
“Was it a sin?
Is they any part of it you might call a sin?”
Casy turned on him in astonishment,
“A sin?
No, there ain’t no part of it that’s a sin.”
“I ain’t never done nothin’ that wasn’t part sin,” said John, and he looked at the long wrapped body.
Tom and Ma and Pa got into the front seat.
Tom let the truck roll and started on compression.
And the heavy truck moved, snorting and jerking and popping down the hill.
The sun was behind them, and the valley golden and green before them.
Ma shook her head slowly from side to side.
“It’s purty,” she said. “I wisht they could of saw it.”
“I wisht so too,” said Pa.
Tom patted the steering wheel under his hand.
“They was too old,” he said. “They wouldn’t of saw nothin’ that’s here.
Grampa would a been a-seein’ the Injuns an’ the prairie country when he was a young fella.
An’ Granma would a remembered an’ seen the first home she lived in.