I caint call his name neither.
He sho was a talker, now.
Kep on tellin how he up and quit his wife.
Have some mo,” he said; then he ceased and squatted slowly, the jug in his lifted hands, his head bent with listening.
After a moment the voice spoke again, from the hallway beneath.
“Jack.”
The man looked at Gowan. His jaw dropped into an expression of imbecile glee.
What teeth he had were stained and ragged within his soft, tawny beard.
“You, Jack, up there,” the voice said.
“Hyear him?” the man whispered, shaking with silent glee.
“Callin me Jack. My name’s Tawmmy.”
“Come on,” the voice said.
“I know you’re there.”
“I reckon we better,” Tommy said.
“He jest lief take a shot up through the flo as not.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Gowan said, “why didn’t you—Here,” he shouted, “here we come!”
Popeye stood in the door, his forefingers in his vest.
The sun had set.
When they descended and appeared in the door Temple stepped from the back porch.
She paused, watching them, then she came down the hill.
She began to run.
“Didn’t I tell you to get on down that road?” Popeye said. “Me an him jest stepped down hyer a minute,” Tommy said. “Did I tell you to get on down that road, or didn’t I?”
“Yeuh,” Tommy said.
“You told me.”
Popeye turned without so much as a glance at Gowan.
Tommy followed.
His back still shook with secret glee.
Temple met Popeye halfway to the house.
Without ceasing to run she appeared to pause.
Even her flapping coat did not overtake her, yet for an appreciable instant she faced Popeye with a grimace of taut, toothed coquetry.
He did not stop; the finicking swagger of his narrow back did not falter.
Temple ran again.
She passed Tommy and clutched Gowan’s arm.
“Gowan, I’m scared.
She said for me not to——You’ve been drinking again; you haven’t even washed the blood———She says for us to go away from here.……” Her eyes were quite black, her face small and wan in the dusk.
She looked toward the house.
Popeye was just turning the corner.
“She has to walk all the way to a spring for water; she——They’ve got the cutest little baby in a box behind the stove.
Gowan, she said for me not to be here after dark.
She said to ask him.
He’s got a car.
She said she didn’t think he———”
“Ask who?” Gowan said.
Tommy was looking back at them. Then he went on.
“That black man.
She said she didn’t think he would, but he might.
Come on.”
They went toward the house.
A path led around it to the front.
The car was parked between the path and the house, in the tall weeds.