Free Knight's Gambit by William Faulkner Page B

spent, incredulous voice—finish describing the finding of the body. He watched the coroner sign the certificate and return the pen to his pocket, and he knew he was not going back to town.
    ‘I reckon that’s all,’ the coroner said. He glanced toward the door. ‘All right, Ike,’ he said. ‘You can take him now.’
    Stevens moved aside with the others and watched the four men cross toward the quilt. ‘You going to take him, Ike?’ he said.
    The eldest of the four glanced back at him for a moment. ‘Yes. He had his burying money with Mitchell at the store.’
    ‘You, and Pose, and Matthew, and Jim Blake,’ Stevens said.
    This time the other glanced back at him almost with surprise, almost impatiently.
    ‘We can make up the difference,’ he said.
    ‘I’ll help,’ Stevens said.
    ‘I thank you,’ the other said. ‘We got enough.’
    Then the coroner was among them, speaking testily: ‘All right, boys. Give them room.’
    With the others, Stevens moved out into the air, the afternoon again. There was a wagon backed up to the door now which had not been there before. Its tail gate was open, the bed was filled with straw, and with the others Stevens stood bareheaded and watched the four men emerge from the shed, carrying the quilt-wrapped bundle, and approach the wagon. Three or four others moved forward to help, and Stevens moved, too, and touched the youth’s shoulder, seeing again that expression of spent and incredulous wild amazement.
    ‘You went and got the boat before you knew anything was wrong,’ he said.
    ‘That’s right,’ the youth said. He spoke quietly enough at first. ‘I swum over and got the boat and rowed back. I knowed something was on the line. I could see it swagged—’
    ‘You mean you swam the boat back,’ Stevens said.
    ‘—down into the—Sir?’
    ‘You swam the boat back. You swam over and got it and swam it back.’
    ‘No, sir! I rowed the boat back. I rowed it straight back across! I never suspected nothing! I could see them fish—’
    ‘What with?’ Stevens said. The youth glared at him. ‘What did you row it back with?’
    ‘With the oar! I picked up the oar and rowed it right back, and all the time I could see them flopping around in the water. They didn’t want to let go! They held on to him even after we hauled him up, still eating him! Fish were! I knowed turtles would, but these were fish! Eating him! Of course it was fish we thought was there! It was! I won’t never eat another one! Never!’
    It had not seemed long, yet the afternoon had gone somewhere, taking some of the heat with it. Again in his car, his hand on the switch, Stevens sat looking at the wagon, now about to depart.
And it’s not right
, he thought.
It don’t add. Something more that I missed, didn’t see. Or something that hasn’t happened yet
.
    The wagon was now moving, crossing the dusty banquette toward the highroad, with two men on the seat and the other two on saddled mules beside it. Stevens’ hand turned the switch; the car was already in gear. It passed the wagon, already going fast.
    A mile down the road he turned into a dirt lane, back toward the hills. It began to rise, the sun intermittent now, for in places among the ridges sunset had already come. Presently the road forked. In the V of the fork stood church, white-painted and steepleless, beside an unfenced straggle of cheap marble headstones and other graves outlined only by rows of inverted glass jars and crockery and broken brick.
    He did not hesitate. He drove up beside the church and turned and stopped the car facing the fork and the road over which he had just come where it curved away and vanished. Because of the curve, he could hear the wagon for some time before he saw it, then he heard the truck. It was coming down out of the hills behind him, fast, sweeping into sight, already slowing—a cab, a shallow bed with a tarpaulin spread over it.
    It drew out of the road at the fork and stopped; then he could hear