TULL
A FTER they passed I taken the mule out and looped up the trace chains and
followed. They were setting in the wagon at the end of the levee. Anse was setting there, looking at the bridge where it was swagged down into the river with just the two ends in sight. He was looking at it like he had believed all the time that folks had been lying to him about it being gone, but like he was hoping all the time it really was. Kind of pleased astonishment he looked, setting on the wagon in his Sunday pants, mumbling his mouth. Looking like a uncurried horse dressed up: I don’t know.
The boy was watching the bridge where it was midsunk and logs and such drifted up over it and it swagging and shivering like the whole thing would go any minute, big-eyed he was watching it, like he was to a circus. And the gal, too. When I come up she looked around at me, her eyes kind of blaring up and going hard like I had made to touch her. Then she looked at Anse again and then back at the water again.
It was nigh up to the levee on both sides, the earth hid except for the tongue of it we was on going out to the bridge and then down into the water, and except for knowing how the road and the bridge used to look, a fellow couldn’t tell where was the river and where the land. It was just a tangle of yellow and the levee not less wider than a knife-back kind of, with us setting in the wagon and on the horse and the mule.
Darl was looking at me, and then Cash turned and looked at me with that look in his eyes like when he was figuring on whether the planks would fit her that night, like he was measuring them inside of him and not asking you to say what you thought and not even letting on he was listening if you did say it, but listening all right. Jewel hadn’t moved. He sat there on the horse, leaning a little forward, with that same look on his face when him and Darl passed the house yesterday, coming back to get her.
“If it was just up, we could drive across,” Anse says. “We could drive right on across it.”
Sometimes a log would get shoved over the jam and float on, rolling and turning, and we could watch it go on to where the ford used to be. It would slow up and whirl crossways and hang out of water for a minute, and you could tell by that that the ford used to be there.
“But that don’t show nothing,” I say. “It could be a bar of quicksand built up there.” We watch the log. Then the gal is looking at me again.
“Mr. Whitfield crossed it,” she says.
“He was a horse-back,” I say. “And three days ago. It’s riz five foot since.”
“If the bridge was just up,” Anse says.
The log bobs up and goes on again. There is a lot of trash and foam, and
you can hear the water.
“But it’s down,” Anse says.
Cash says, “A careful fellow could walk across yonder on the planks and logs.”
“But you couldn’t tote nothing,” I say. “Likely time you set foot on that mess, it’ll all go, too. What you think, Darl?”
He is looking at me. He don’t say nothing; just looks at me with them queer eyes of hisn that makes folks talk. I always say it ain’t never been what he done so much or said or anything so much as how he looks at you. It’s like he had got into the inside of you, someway. Like somehow you was looking at yourself and your doings outen his eyes. Then I can feel that gal watching me like I had made to touch her. She says something to Anse. “. . . Mr. Whitfield . . .” she says.
“I give her my promised word in the presence of the Lord,” Anse says. “I reckon it ain’t no need to worry.”
But still he does not start the mules. We set there above the water. Another log bobs up over the jam and goes on; we watch it check up and swing slow for a minute where the ford used to be. Then it goes on.
“It might start falling to-night,” I say. “You could lay over one more day.”
Then Jewel turns sideways on the horse. He has not moved until then, and he turns and looks at me. His face is kind of green, then it would go red and then green again. “Get to hell on back to your damn ploughing,” he says.
“Who the hell asked you to follow us here?”
“I never meant no harm,” I say.
“Shut up, Jewel,” Cash says. Jewel looks back at the water, his face gritted, going red and green and then red. “Well,” Cash says after a while, “what you want to do?”
Anse don’t say nothing. He sets humped up, mumbling his mouth. “If it was just up, we could drive across it,” he says.
“Come on,” Jewel says, moving the horse.
“Wait,” Cash says. He looks at the bridge. We look at him, except Anse and the gal. They are looking at the water. “Dewey Dell and Vardaman and pa better walk across on the bridge,” Cash says.
“Vernon can help them,” Jewel says. “And we can hitch his mule ahead of ourn.”
“You ain’t going to take my mule into that water,” I say.
Jewel looks at me. His eyes look like pieces of a broken plate. “I’ll pay for
your damn mule. I’ll buy it from you right now.”
“My mule ain’t going into that water,” I say.
“Jewel’s going to use his horse,” Darl says. “Why won’t you risk your mule, Vernon?”
“Shut up, Darl,” Cash says. “You and Jewel both.”
“My mule ain’t going into that water,” I say.
