Hidy, she said.
Howdy. I expect you could use a bite to eat by now.
I ast could I help but she said she’d ruther to do it her own self.
She does everthing by herself.
The woman opened the oven door and slid forth a tray of cornbread.
That’s finelookin butter ain’t it? That she’s made.
I cain’t eat it, the man said.
Her joined hands went to her lips for a moment and returned to her lap again.
Cain’t eat it. Makes me sicker’n a dog.
I guess they’s some things everbody cain’t … I guess everbody has got somethin he cain’t eat.
What’s yourn?
What?
I said what’s yourn? That you cain’t eat. It ain’t turnips I don’t reckon.
She was watching her hands, yellow skin tautening over the knuckles. I don’t know, she said.
No.
A body gets hungry I reckon will eat pret-near anything.
I’ve heard that. I’m proud I ain’t never gone hungry.
It’s best not to have to. I reckon.
It’s best not to have to do lots of things. Like hunt somebody you never heard of … Was that not it?
Never seen, she said.
Never seen then. And I reckon sleep wherever dark fell on ye. Or worse.
The woman lifted her head to toss back the hair from her face. Leave her alone, she said. She ain’t botherin you.
Just get it on the table, woman. You don’t need to be concerned about nothin else.
Don’t you pay him no mind. He’s meanhearted and sorry and they ain’t nothin to be done for him.
That’s all right, she said. We was just talkin.
The man’s speckled hands had drawn up clenched like two great dying spiders on either side of the empty white plate that sat before him. You flaptongued old bat, don’t call me sorry. I’ll show you what sorry is if you want.
The woman flung her head above the stove again. O yes, she said. That’s nice for company now ain’t it?
Goddamn you and some company both, the man said, rising. Don’t come on with that fancy shit to me about some company. If you looked to your own a little better and companied less …
What? she said, turning. What? You’ve got the nerve to thow my family up to me?
Your family? Why damn you and your family to everlasting shit. You know what I’m talkin about …
She had risen from the table with her parcel beneath one arm and moved to the nearest wall, watching this tableau with widening eyes. The spoon made a vicious slicing sound, crossing the room in a wheel of sprayed stew. The man scooped up one of the bricks of butter and let fly with it. It hung in a yellow blob on the warmer door for a moment before it dropped with a hiss to the top of the stove.
You leave my butter alone, the woman said. Don’t you lay a hand on that butter.
She eased her way along the wall to the door and got the handle under her fingers, turned it, backing carefully out as it opened. She saw the man smile. The last thing she saw before she turned and ran was the board of butter aloft, the woman screaming. As she crossed the yard the breakage mounted crash on crash into a final crescendo of shattered glass and then silence in which she could hear stricken sobs. She did not look back. When she reached the road she slowed to a fast walk and soon she was limping along with one hand to her side and bent against the stitch of pain there. When she had put two bends in the road between her and the house she stopped to rest in the grass at the roadside until the pain was gone. She was very hungry. She wanted to wait for the chance of a wagon coming but after she had waited a long time and no wagon came she went on again.
She passed the last of the cleared land and the road went down into a deep and marshy wood. Cattails and arrowheads grew in the ditches and in the stands of pollenstained water where sunning turtles tilted from stones and logs at her approach. She went this way for miles. It was late afternoon before she came to any house at all and it a slattern shack all but hidden among the trees.
And she could not have said to what sex belonged the stooped and hooded anthropoid that came muttering down the fence toward her. In one hand a hoe handled crudely with a sapling stave, an aged face and erupting from beneath some kind of hat lank hair all hung with clots like a sheep’s scut, stumbling along in huge brogans and overalls. She stopped at the sight of this apparition. The road went in deep woods and constant damp and the house was grown with a rich velour of moss and lichen and brooded in a palpable miasma of rot. Chickens had so scratched the soil from the yard that knobs and knees of treeroots stood everywhere in grotesque configuration up out of the earth like some gathering of the mad laid suddenly bare in all their writhen attitudes of pain. She waited. It was an old woman spoke to her:
I’ve not been a-hoein. This here is just to kill snakes with.
She nodded.
I don’t ast nobody’s sayso for what all I do but I’d not have ye to think I’d been a-hoein.
Yes, she said.
I don’t hold with breakin the sabbath and don’t care to associate with them that does.
It ain’t sunday, she said.
It’s what?
It ain’t sunday today, she said.
The old woman peered at her strangely. I don’t believe you been saved have ye? she said.
I don’t know.
Ah, the old woman said, one of them. She tamped down a small piece of earth with the flat of the hoe.
You live here, I reckon.
The old woman looked up. I have lived here nigh on to forty-seven year. Since I was married.
It’s a nice cool place here, she said.
O yes. This is a shady spot here. I don’t allow no wood cut near the house.
She could see that the porch of the house was ricked end to end with cords of stovewood and the one window which faced them held back in webbed and dusty tiers more wood yet. Is it just you and the mister at home now? she said.
Earl died, she said.
Oh.
I just despise a snake don’t you?
Yes mam.
I’m like my granny that way. She always said what she despised worst in the world was snakes hounds and sorry women.
Yes mam.
I won’t have a hound on the place.
No mam.
The old woman drew up the wings of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and sneezed forth a spray of mucous and wiped her fingers on the overalls she wore.
Earl’s daddy used to keep half a holler full of old beat-up hounds. He had to keep Earl’s too. I won’t have one on the place. Wantin to lay out half the night runnin in the woods with a bunch of dogs like somethin crazy. Ain’t a bit of use in the world somebody puttin up with such as that. I run his daddy off too. Told him he’d run with hounds so hard and long he’d took on the look of one let alone the smell. And him a squire. They wasn’t no common people but I declare if they didn’t have some common habits among em. He’s a squire ye know. Course that never kept his daughter from runnin off with a no-account that sent her back big in the belly and thin in the shanks and nary word from him ever from that day to this. Or doomsday if ye wanted to wait. How far are ye goin?
Just up the road. I’m travelin.
Where to?
Well. I mean I’m not goin to just one place in particular.
The old woman cocked her elf’s face and peered at her with eyes gone near colorless with years. The thin and ropy hands with which she clutched the handle of the hoe opened and closed. Maybe you’re goin to several places in particular then, she said.
No mam. Not no special places. I’m a-huntin somebody.