‘Why, Mr. Bunch.
Ain’t you ashamed.
You might have woke the baby, too.’ Then he come out the back door of the truck.
Not fast, and not climbing down on his own legs at all.
I be dog if I don’t believe she picked him up and set him back outside on the ground like she would that baby if it had been about six years old, say, and she says, ‘You go and lay down now, and get some sleep.
We got another fur piece to go tomorrow.’
“Well, I was downright ashamed to look at him, to let him know that any human man had seen and heard what happened.
I be dog if I didn’t want to find the hole and crawl into it with him.
I did for a fact.
And him standing there where she had set him down.
The fire had burned down good now and I couldn’t hardly see him at all.
But I knew about how I would have been standing and feeling if I was him.
And that would have been with my head bowed, waiting for the Judge to say,
‘Take him out of here and hang him quick.’
And I didn’t make a sound, and after a while I heard him go on off.
I could hear the bushes popping, like he had just struck off blind through the woods.
And when daylight came he hadn’t got back.
“Well, I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t know what to say.
I kept on believing that he would show up, would come walking up out of the bushes, face or no face.
So I built up the fire and got breakfast started, and after a while I heard her climbing out of the truck.
I never looked around.
But I could hear her standing there like she was looking around, like maybe she was trying to tell by the way the fire or my blanket looked if he was there or not.
But I never said anything and she never said anything.
I wanted to pack up and get started.
And I knew I couldn’t leave her in the middle of the road.
And that if my wife was to hear bout me travelling the country with a goodlooking country gal and a three weeks’ old baby, even if she did claim she was hunting for her husband.
Or both husbands now.
So we ate and then I said,
‘Well, I got a long road and I reckon I better get started.’ And she never said nothing at all.
And when I looked at her I saw that her face was just as quiet and calm as it had ever been.
I be dog if she was even surprised or anything.
And there I was, not knowing what to do with her, and she done already packed up her things and even swept the truck out with a gum branch before she put in that paper suitcase and made a kind of cushion with the folded blanket at the back end of the truck; and I says to myself,
‘It ain’t any wonder you get along.
When they up and run away on you, you just pick up whatever they left and go on.’—‘I reckon I’ll ride back here,’ she says.
“ ‘It’ll be kind of rough on the baby,’ I says.
“ ‘I reckon I can hold him up,’ she says.
“ ‘Suit yourself,’ I says.
And we drove off, with me hanging out the seat to look back, hoping that he would show up before we got around the curve.
But he never.
Talk about a fellow being caught in the depot with a strange baby on his hands.
Here I was with a strange woman and a baby too, expecting every car that come up from behind and passed us to be full of husbands and wives too, let alone sheriffs.
We were getting close to the Tennessee line then and I had my mind all fixed how I would either burn that new truck up or get to a town big enough to have one of these ladies’ welfare societies in it that I could turn her over to.
And now and then I would look back, hoping that maybe he had struck out afoot after us, and I would see her sitting there with her face as calm as church, holding that baby up so it could eat and ride the bumps at the same time.
You can’t beat them.”
He lies in the bed, laughing.
“Yes, sir.
I be dog if you can beat them.”
Then what?
What did she do then?