Goodwin swept his other arm under Temple’s knees.
She felt herself swooping, then she was lying on the bed beside Gowan, on her back, jouncing to the dying chatter of the shucks.
She watched him cross the room and lift the lamp from the mantel.
The woman had turned her head, following him also, her face sharpening out of the approaching lamp in profile.
“Go on,” he said.
She turned, her face turning into shadow, the lamp now on her back and on his hand on her shoulder.
His shadow blotted the room completely; his arm in silhouette backreaching, drew to the door.
Gowan snored, each respiration choking to a huddle fall, as though he would never breathe again.
Tommy was outside the door, in the hall.
“They gone down to the truck yet?” Goodwin said.
“Not yit,” Tommy said.
“Better go and see about it,” Goodwin said.
They went on.
Tommy watched them enter another door.
Then he went to the kitchen, silent on his bare feet, his neck craned a little with listening.
In the kitchen Popeye sat, straddling a chair, smoking.
Van stood at the table, before a fragment of mirror, combing his hair with a pocket comb.
Upon the table lay a damp, bloodstained cloth and a burning cigarette.
Tommy squatted outside the door, in the darkness.
He was there when Goodwin came out with the raincoat.
Goodwin entered the kitchen without seeing him.
“Where’s Tommy?” he said.
Tommy heard Popeye say something, then Goodwin emerged with Van following him, the raincoat on his arm now.
“Come on, now,” Goodwin said.
“Let’s get that stuff out of here.”
Tommy’s pale eyes began to glow faintly, like those of a cat.
The woman could see them in the darkness when he crept into the room after Popeye, and while Popeye stood over the bed where Temple lay.
They glowed suddenly out of the darkness at her, then they went away and she could hear him breathing beside her; again they glowed up at her with a quality furious and questioning and sad and went away again and he crept behind Popeye from the room.
He saw Popeye return to the kitchen, but he did not follow at once.
He stopped at the hall door and squatted there.
His body began to writhe again in shocked indecision, his bare feet whispering on the floor with a faint, rocking movement as he swayed from side to side, his hands wringing slowly against his flanks.
And Lee too, he said, And Lee too.
Durn them fellers.
Durn them fellers.
Twice he stole along the porch until he could see the shadow of Popeye’s hat on the kitchen floor, then returned to the hall and the door beyond which Temple lay and where Gowan snored.
The third time he smelled Popeye’s cigarette.
Ef he’ll jest keep that up, he said.
And Lee too, he said, rocking from side to side in a dull, excruciating agony, And Lee too.
When Goodwin came up the slope and onto the back porch Tommy was squatting just outside the door again.
“What in hell—” Goodwin said.
“Why didn’t you come on?
I’ve been looking for you for ten minutes.”
He glared at Tommy, then he looked into the kitchen.
“You ready?” he said.
Popeye came to the door.
Goodwin looked at Tommy again.
“What have you been doing?”
Popeye looked at Tommy.
Tommy stood now, rubbing his instep with the other foot, looking at Popeye.
“What’re you doing here?” Popeye said.