Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner (13 page)

Ab Snopes came and helped me and Joby with the new fence the next day, so we finished it early in the afternoon and I went back to the cabin. I was almost there when I saw Ringo on the mule turning in at the gates. Granny had seen him, too, because when I went inside the quilt, she was kneeling in the corner, taking the window shade from under the loose floor board. While she was unrolling the shade on the bed we heard Ringo getting off the mule, hollering at it while he hitched it to Louvinia’s clothesline.

Then Granny stood up and looked at the quilt until Ringo pushed it aside and came in. And then they sounded like two people playing a guessing game in code.

“—th Illinois Infantry,” Ringo said. He came on toward the map on the bed. “Col. G. W. Newberry. Eight days out of Memphis.”

Granny watched him while he came toward the bed. “How many?” she said.

“Nineteen head,” Ringo said. “Four wid; fifteen widout.” Granny just watched him; she didn’t have to speak at all for the next one. “Twelve,” Ringo said. “Out of that Oxford batch.”

Granny turned to the map; they both looked at it. “July the twenty-second,” Granny said.

“Yessum,” Ringo said. Granny sat down on the saw chunk before the map. It was the only window shade Louvinia had; Ringo had drawn it, with Granny showing him where to draw in the towns. But it was Granny that had done the writing, in her neat spidery hand like she wrote in the cookbook, written on the map by each town: “Colonel, or Major, or Captain So-and-So, Such-and-Such Regiment or Troop.” Then, under that: “12 or 9 or 21 mules.” And around four of them, town and writing and all, in purple pokeberry juice instead of ink, a circle with a date in it, and in big neat letters, “Complete.”

They looked at the map, Granny’s head white and still where the light came through the window on it, and Ringo leaning over her. He had got taller during the summer; he was taller than me now; maybe from the exercise of riding around the country, listening out for fresh regiments with mules, and he had got to treating me like Granny did—like him and Granny were the same age instead of him and me.

“We just sold that twelve in July,” Granny said. “That leaves only seven. And you say that four of them are branded.”

“That was back in July,” Ringo said. “It’s October now. They done forgot about hit. ’Sides, look here”—he puts his finger on the map now—“we captived these here fourteen at Madison on the twelfth of April, sont um to Memphis and sold um, and had all fourteen of them back, and three more besides, here at Caledonia on the third day of May.”

“But that was four counties apart,” Granny said. “Oxford and Mottstown are only a few miles.”

“Phut,” Ringo said. “These folks is too busy keeping us conquered to recognize no little ten or twelve head of stock. ’Sides, if they does recognize um in Memphis, that’s Ab Snopes’ trouble, not ourn.”

“Mister Snopes,” Granny said.

“All right,” Ringo said. He looked at the map. “Nineteen head, and not two days away.”

Granny looked at the map. “I don’t think we ought to risk it. We have been successful so far.”

“Nineteen head,” Ringo said. “Four to keep and fifteen to sell
back to um. That will make a even two hundred and forty-eight head of Confed’rit mules we done recovered and collected interest on, let alone the money.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Granny said. “I want to think about it.”

“All right,” Ringo said. Granny sat still beside the map. Ringo didn’t seem patient or impatient either; he just stood there, thin and taller than me against the light from the window, scratching himself. Then he began to dig with his right-hand little fingernail between his front teeth; he looked at his fingernail and spat something, and then he said, “Must been five minutes now.” He turned his head a little toward me without moving. “Get the pen and ink,” he said.

They kept the paper under the same floor board with the map and the tin can. I don’t know how or where Ringo got it. He just came back one night with about a hundred sheets of it, stamped with the official letterhead: U
NITED
S
TATES
F
ORCES
. D
EPARTMENT OF
T
ENNESSEE
. He had got the pen and the ink at the same time, too; he took them from me, and now it was Ringo sitting on the saw chunk and Granny leaning over him. Granny still had the first letter—the order that Colonel Dick had given us in Alabama last year—she kept it in the can, too, and by now Ringo had learned to copy it so that I don’t believe that Colonel Dick himself could have told the difference. All they had to do was to put in the right regiment and whatever number of mules Ringo had examined and approved, and sign the right general’s name to it. At first Ringo had wanted to sign Grant’s name every time, and when Granny said that would not do any more, Lincoln’s. At last Granny found out that Ringo objected to having the Yankees think that father’s folks would have any dealings with anybody under the General-in-Chief. But at last he realized that Granny was right, that they would have to be careful about what general’s name was on the letter, as well as what mules they requisitioned. They were using General Smith now; he and Forrest were fighting every day up and down the road to Memphis, and Ringo always remembered to put in rope.

He wrote the date and the town, the headquarters; he wrote in Colonel Newberry’s name and the first line. Then he stopped; he didn’t lift the pen.

“What name you want this time?” he said.

“I’m worried about this,” Granny said. “We ought not to risk it.”

“We was on ‘F’ last time,” Ringo said. “It’s ‘H’ now. Think of a name in ‘H.’ ”

“Mrs. Mary Harris,” Granny said.

“We done used Mary before,” Ringo said. “How about Plurella Harris?”

“I’m worried about this time,” Granny said.

“Miz Plurella Harris,” Ringo said, writing. “Now we done used up ‘P’ too. ’Member that, now. I reckon when we run out of letters, maybe we can start in on numbers. We will have nine hundred and ninety-nine before we have to worry, then.” He finished the order and signed “General Smith” to it; it looked exactly like the man who had signed the one Colonel Dick gave us was named General Smith, except for the number of mules. Then Granny turned and looked at me.

“Tell Mr. Snopes to be ready at sunup,” she said.

We went in the wagon, with Ab Snopes and his two men following on two of the mules. We went just fast enough so that we would reach the bivouac at suppertime, because Granny and Ringo had found out that that was the best time—that the stock would all be handy, and the men would be too hungry or sleepy or something to think very quick in case they happened to think, and we would just have time to get the mules and get out of sight before dark came. Then, if they should decide to chase us, by the time they found us in the dark, there wouldn’t be anything but the wagon with me and Granny in it to capture.

So we did; only this time it was a good thing we did. We left Ab Snopes and his men in the woods beyond the bivouac, and Granny and Ringo and I drove up to Colonel Newberry’s tent at exactly the right time, and Granny passed the sentry and went into the tent, walking thin and straight, with the shawl over her shoulders and Mrs. Compson’s hat on her head and the parasol in one hand and hers and Ringo’s General Smith order in the other, and Ringo and I sat in the wagon and looked at the cook fires about the grove and smelled the coffee and the meat. It was always the same, Granny would disappear into the tent or the house, and then, in about a minute, somebody would holler inside the tent or the
house, and then the sentry at the door would holler, and then a sergeant, or even sometimes an officer, only it would be a lieutenant, would hurry into the tent or the house, and then Ringo and I would hear somebody cursing, and then they would all come out, Granny walking straight and stiff and not looking much bigger than Cousin Denny at Hawkhurst, and three or four mad Yankee officers behind her, and getting madder all the time. Then they would bring up the mules, tied together. Granny and Ringo could guess to the second now; it would be just enough light left to tell that they were mules, and Granny would get into the wagon and Ringo would hang his legs over the tail gate, holding the lead rope, and we would go on, not fast, so that when we came back to where Ab Snopes and his men waited in the woods you could not even tell that they were mules. Then Ringo would get onto the lead mule and they would turn off into the woods and Granny and I would go on home.

That’s what we did this time; only this time it happened. We couldn’t even see our own team when we heard them coming, the galloping hoofs. They came up fast and mad; Granny jerked up quick and straight, holding Mrs. Compson’s parasol.

“Damn that Ringo!” she said. “I had my doubts about this time all the while.”

Then they were all around us, like the dark itself had fallen down on us, full of horses and mad men hollering “Halt! Halt! If they try to escape, shoot the team!” with me and Granny sitting in the wagon and men jerking the team back and the team jerking and clashing in the traces, and some of them hollering “Where are the mules? The mules are gone!” and the officer cursing and hollering “Of course they are gone!” and cursing Granny and the darkness and the men and mules. Then somebody struck a light and we saw the officer sitting his horse beside the wagon while one of the soldiers lit one light-wood splinter from another.

“Where are the mules?” the officer hollered.

“What mules?” Granny said.

“Don’t lie to me!” the officer hollered. “The mules you just left camp with on that forged order! We have got you this time! We knew you’d turn up again. Orders went out to the whole department to watch for you a month ago! That damn Newberry had his copy in his pocket while you were talking to him.” He cursed
Colonel Newberry now. “They ought to let you go free and court-martial him! Where’s the nigger boy and the mules, Mrs. Plurella Harris?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Granny said. “I have no mules except this team I am driving. And my name is Rosa Millard. I am on my way home beyond Jefferson.”

The officer began to laugh; he sat on the horse, laughing. “So that’s your real name, hey? Well, well, well. So you have begun to tell the truth at last. Come now, tell me where those mules are, and tell me where the others you have stolen from us are hid.”

Then Ringo hollered. He and Ab Snopes and the mules had turned off into the woods on the right side of the road, but when he hollered now he was on the left side. “Heyo the road!” he hollered. “One busted loose! Head um off the road!”

And that was all of that. The soldier dropped the light-wood splinter and the officer whirled his horse, already spurring him, hollering, “Two men stay here.” Maybe they all thought he meant two others, because there was just a big noise of bushes and trees like a cyclone was going through them, and then Granny and I were sitting in the wagon like before we had even heard the hoofs.

“Come on,” Granny said. She was already getting out of the wagon.

“Are we going to leave the team and wagon?” I said.

“Yes,” Granny said. “I misdoubted this all the time.”

We could not see at all in the woods; we felt our way, and me helping Granny along and her arm didn’t feel any bigger than a pencil almost, but it wasn’t trembling. “This is far enough,” she said. I found a log and we sat down. Beyond the road we could hear them, thrashing around, hollering and shouting and cursing. It sounded far away now. “And the team too,” Granny said.

“But we have nineteen new ones,” I said. “That makes two hundred and forty-eight.” It seemed like a long time, sitting there on the log in the dark. After a while they came back, we could hear the officer cursing and the horses crashing and thumping back into the road. And then he found the wagon was empty and he cursed sure enough—Granny and me, and the two men he had told to stay there. He was still cursing while they turned the wagon around. Then they went away. After a while we couldn’t hear them. Granny got up and we felt our way back to the road, and we went
on, too, toward home. After a while I persuaded her to stop and rest, and while we were sitting beside the road we heard the buggy coming. We stood up, and Ringo saw us and stopped the buggy.

“Did I holler loud enough?” he said.

“Yes,” Granny said. Then she said, “Well?”

“All right,” Ringo said. “I told Ab Snopes to hide out with them in Hickahala bottom until tomorrow night. All ’cep’ these two.”

“Mister Snopes,” Granny said.

“All right,” Ringo said. “Get in and le’s go home.”

Granny didn’t move; I knew why, even before she spoke. “Where did you get this buggy?”

“I borrowed hit,” Ringo said. “ ’Twarn’t no Yankees handy, so I never needed no paper.”

We got in. The buggy went on. It seemed to me like it had already been all night, but it wasn’t midnight yet—I could tell by the stars—we would be home by midnight almost. We went on. “I reckon you went and told um who we is now,” Ringo said.

“Yes,” Granny said.

“Well, I reckon that completes that,” Ringo said. “Anyway, we handled two hundred and forty-eight head while the business lasted.”

“Two hundred and forty-six,” Granny said. “We have lost the team.”

It was after midnight when we got home; it was already Sunday. Ab Snopes would not get back with the new mules until tomorrow morning. But they had already heard about it. Then I remembered that it would be Ab Snopes’ Memphis trip that they had heard about, because when we came to the church there was the biggest crowd waiting there had been yet. We were late, because Granny made Ringo get up at sunup and take the buggy back where he got it; so when we came to the church they were already inside, waiting. Brother Fortinbride met us at the door, and they all turned in the pews and looked at Granny—the old men and the women and the children and the maybe a dozen niggers that didn’t have any white people now—they looked at her exactly like father’s fox hounds would look at him when he would go into the dog run, while we went up the aisle to our pew. Ringo had the book; he went up to the gallery; I looked back and saw him leaning his arms on the book on the balustrade.