Sanctuary (9 page)

“Go on,” Goodwin said, carrying Gowan’s shoulders, “put him on the bed.” They swung Gowan onto the bed. His bloody head lolled over the edge. Van jerked him over and slammed him into the mattress. He groaned, lifting his hand. Van struck him across the face with his palm.

“Lie still, you—”

“Let be,” Goodwin said. He caught Van’s hand. For an instant they glared at one another.

“I said, Let be,” Goodwin said. “Get out of here.”

“Got proteck.……” Gowan muttered “.…girl. ’Ginia gem.……gemman got proteck.……”

“Get out of here, now,” Goodwin said.

The woman stood in the door beside Tommy, her back against the door frame. Beneath a cheap coat her nightdress dropped to her feet.

Van lifted Temple’s dress from the bed. “Van,” Goodwin said. “I said get out.”

“I heard you,” Van said. He shook the dress out. Then he looked at Temple in the corner, her arms crossed, her hands clutching her shoulders. Goodwin moved toward Van. He dropped the dress and went around the bed. Popeye came in the door, a cigarette in his fingers. Beside
the woman Tommy drew his breath hissing through his ragged teeth.

He saw Van take hold of the raincoat upon Temple’s breast and rip it open. Then Goodwin sprang between them; he saw Van duck, whirling, and Temple fumbling at the torn raincoat. Van and Goodwin were now in the middle of the floor, swinging at one another, then he was watching Popeye walking toward Temple. With the corner of his eye he saw Van lying on the floor and Goodwin standing over him, stooped a little, watching Popeye’s back.

“Popeye,” Goodwin said. Popeye went on, the cigarette trailing back over his shoulder, his head turned a little as though he were not looking where he was going, the cigarette slanted as though his mouth were somewhere under the turn of his jaw. “Dont touch her,” Goodwin said.

Popeye stopped before Temple, his face turned a little aside. His right hand lay in his coat pocket. Beneath the raincoat on Temple’s breast Tommy could see the movement of the other hand, communicating a shadow of movement to the coat.

“Take your hand away,” Goodwin said. “Move it.”

Popeye moved his hand. He turned, his hands in his coat pockets, looking at Goodwin. He crossed the room, watching Goodwin. Then he turned his back on him and went out the door.

“Here, Tommy,” Goodwin said quietly, “grab hold of this.” They lifted Van and carried him out. The woman stepped aside. She leaned against the wall, holding her coat together. Across the room Temple stood crouched into the
corner, fumbling at the torn raincoat. Gowan began to snore.

Goodwin returned. “You’d better go back to bed,” he said. The woman didn’t move. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Ruby.”

“While you finish the trick Van started and you wouldn’t let him finish? You poor fool. You poor fool.”

“Come on, now,” he said, his hand on her shoulder. “Go back to bed.”

“But dont come back. Dont bother to come back. I wont be there. You owe me nothing. Dont think you do.”

Goodwin took her wrists and drew them steadily apart. Slowly and steadily he carried her hands around behind her and held them in one of his. With the other hand he opened the coat. The nightdress was of faded pink crepe, lace-trimmed, laundered and laundered until, like the garment on the wire, the lace was a fibrous mass.

“Hah,” he said. “Dressed for company.”

“Whose fault is it if this is the only one I have? Whose fault is it? Not mine. I’ve given them away to nigger maids after one night. But do you think any nigger would take this and not laugh in my face?”

He let the coat fall to. He released her hands and she drew the coat together. With his hand on her shoulder he began to push her toward the door. “Go on,” he said. Her shoulder gave. It alone moved, her body turning on her hips, her face reverted, watching him. “Go on,” he said. But her torso alone turned, her hips and head still touching the wall. He turned and crossed the room and went swiftly
around the bed and caught Temple by the front of the raincoat with one hand. He began to shake her. Holding her up by the gathered wad of coat he shook her, her small body clattering soundlessly inside the loose garment, her shoulders and thighs thumping against the wall. “You little fool!” he said. “You little fool!” Her eyes were quite wide, almost black, the lamplight on her face and two tiny reflections of his face in her pupils like peas in two inkwells.

He released her. She began to sink to the floor, the raincoat rustling about her. He caught her up and began to shake her again, looking over his shoulder at the woman. “Get the lamp,” he said. The woman did not move. Her head was bent a little; she appeared to muse upon them. 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.

“Aint doin nothin,” Tommy said.

“Are you following me around?”

“I aint trailin nobody,” Tommy said sullenly.

“Well, dont, then,” Popeye said.

“Come on,” Goodwin said. “Van’s waiting.” They went on. Tommy followed them. Once he looked back at the house, then he shambled on behind them. From time to time he would feel that acute surge go over him, like his blood was too hot all of a sudden, dying away into that warm unhappy feeling that fiddle music gave him. Durn them fellers, he whispered, Durn them fellers.

T
he room was dark. The woman stood inside the door, against the wall, in the cheap coat, the lace-trimmed crepe nightgown, just inside the lockless door. She could hear Gowan snoring in the bed, and the other men moving about, on the porch and in the hall and in the kitchen, talking, their voices indistinguishable through the door. After a while they got quiet. Then she could hear nothing at all save Gowan as he choked and snored and moaned through his battered nose and face.

She heard the door open. The man came in, without
trying to be silent. He entered, passing within a foot of her. She knew it was Goodwin before he spoke. He went to the bed. “I want the raincoat,” he said. “Sit up and take it off.” The woman could hear the shucks in the mattress as Temple sat up and Goodwin took the raincoat off of her. He returned across the floor and went out.

She stood just inside the door. She could tell all of them by the way they breathed. Then, without having heard, felt, the door open, she began to smell something: the brilliantine which Popeye used on his hair. She did not see Popeye at all when he entered and passed her; she did not know he had entered yet; she was waiting for him; until Tommy entered, following Popeye. Tommy crept into the room, also soundless; she would have been no more aware of his entrance than of Popeye’s, if it hadn’t been for his eyes. They glowed, breast-high, with a profound interrogation, then they disappeared and the woman could then feel him, squatting beside her; she knew that he too was looking toward the bed over which Popeye stood in the darkness, upon which Temple and Gowan lay, with Gowan snoring and choking and snoring. The woman stood just inside the door.

She could hear no sound from the shucks, so she remained motionless beside the door, with Tommy squatting beside her, his face toward the invisible bed. Then she smelled the brilliantine again. Or rather, she felt Tommy move from beside her, without a sound, as though the stealthy evacuation of his position blew soft and cold upon her in the black silence; without seeing or hearing him, she knew that he had crept again from the room, following
Popeye. She heard them go down the hall; the last sound died out of the house.

She went to the bed. Temple did not move until the woman touched her. Then she began to struggle. The woman found Temple’s mouth and put her hand over it, though Temple had not attempted to scream. She lay on the shuck mattress, turning and thrashing her body from side to side, rolling her head, holding the coat together across her breast but making no sound.

“You fool!” the woman said in a thin, fierce whisper. “It’s me. It’s just me.”

Temple ceased to roll her head, but she still thrashed from side to side beneath the woman’s hand. “I’ll tell my father!” she said. “I’ll tell my father!”

The woman held her. “Get up,” she said. Temple ceased to struggle. She lay still, rigid. The woman could hear her wild breathing. “Will you get up and walk quiet?” the woman said.

“Yes!” Temple said. “Will you get me out of here? Will you? Will you?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “Get up.” Temple got up, the shucks whispering. In the further darkness Gowan snored, savage and profound. At first Temple couldn’t stand alone. The woman held her up. “Stop it,” the woman said. “You’ve got to stop it. You’ve got to be quiet.”

“I want my clothes,” Temple whispered. “I haven’t got anything on but.……”

“Do you want your clothes,” the woman said, “or do you want to get out of here?”

“Yes,” Temple said. “Anything. If you’ll just get me out of here.”

On their bare feet they moved like ghosts. They left the house and crossed the porch and went on toward the barn. When they were about fifty yards from the house the woman stopped and turned and jerked Temple up to her, and gripping her by the shoulders, their faces close together, she cursed Temple in a whisper, a sound no louder than a sigh and filled with fury. Then she flung her away and they went on. They entered the hallway. It was pitch dark. Temple heard the woman fumbling at the wall. A door creaked open; the woman took her arm and guided her up a single step into a floored room where she could feel walls and smell a faint, dusty odor of grain, and closed the door behind them. As she did so something rushed invisibly nearby in a scurrying scrabble, a dying whisper of fairy feet. Temple whirled, treading on something that rolled under her foot, and sprang toward the woman.

“It’s just a rat,” the woman said, but Temple hurled herself upon the other, flinging her arms about her, trying to snatch both feet from the floor.

“A rat?” she wailed, “a rat? Open the door! Quick!”

“Stop it! Stop it!” the woman hissed. She held Temple until she ceased. Then they knelt side by side against the wall. After a while the woman whispered: “There’s some cottonseed-hulls over there. You can lie down.” Temple didn’t answer. She crouched against the woman, shaking slowly, and they squatted there in the black darkness, against the wall.