But the shadow of it and of her arm and hand on the wall did not waver at all, the shadow of both monstrous, the cocked hammer monstrous, backhooked and viciously poised like the arched head of a snake; it did not waver at all.
And her eyes did not waver at all.
They were as still as the round black ring of the pistol muzzle.
But there was no heat in them, no fury.
They were calm and still as all pity and all despair and all conviction.
But he was not watching them.
He was watching the shadowed pistol on the wall; he was watching when the cocked shadow of the hammer flicked away.
Standing in the middle of the road, with his right hand lifted full in the glare of the approaching car, he had not actually expected it to stop.
Yet it did, with a squealing and sprawling suddenness that was almost ludicrous.
It was a small car, battered and old.
When he approached it, in the reflected glare of the headlights two young faces seemed to float like two softcolored and aghast balloons, the nearer one, the girl’s, backshrunk in a soft, wide horror.
But Christmas did not notice this at the time.
“How about riding with you, as far as you go?” he said.
They said nothing at all, looking at him with that still and curious horror which he did not notice.
So he opened the door to enter the rear seat.
When he did so, the girl began to make a choked wailing sound which would be much louder in a moment, as fear gained courage as it were.
Already the car was in motion; it seemed to leap forward, and the boy, without moving his hands from the wheel or turning his head toward the girl hissed:
“Shut up!
Hush!
It’s our only chance!
Will you hush now?”
Christmas did not hear this either.
He was sitting back now, completely unaware that he was riding directly behind desperate terror.
He only thought with momentary interest that the small car was travelling at a pretty reckless speed for a narrow country road.
“How far does this road go?” he said.
The boy told him, naming the same town which the negro boy had named to him on that afternoon three years ago, when he had first seen Jefferson.
The boy’s voice had a dry, light quality.
“Do you want to go there, cap’m?”
“All right,” Christmas said. “Yes.
Yes.
That will do.
That will suit me.
Are you going there?”
“Sure,” the boy said, in that light, flat tone. “Wherever you say.” Again the girl beside him began that choked, murmurous, small-animallike moaning; again the boy hissed at her, his face still rigidly front, the little car rushing and bouncing onward: “Hush!
Shhhhhhhhhhh.
Hush!
Hush!” But again Christmas did not notice.
He saw only the two young, rigidly forwardlooking heads against the light glare, into which the ribbon of the road rushed swaying and fleeing.
But he remarked both them and the fleeing road without curiosity; he was not even paying attention when he found that the boy had apparently been speaking to him for some time; how far they had come or where they were he did not know.
The boy’s diction was slow now, recapitulant, each word as though chosen simply and carefully and spoken slowly and clearly for the ear of a foreigner:
“Listen, cap’m. When I turn off up here.
It’s just a short cut.
A short cutoff to a better road.
I am going to take the cutoff.
When I come to the short cut.
To the better road.
So we can get there quicker.
See?”
“All right,” Christmas said.
The car bounced and rushed on, swaying on the curves and up the hills and fleeing down again as if the earth had dropped from under them.