The Unvanquished Read Online Free PDF Page B

about mountains. At last he pointed out the cloudbank to tell us what mountains looked like. So ever since then Ringo believed that the cloudbank was Tennessee.
    “Yonder they,” he said, spitting. “Yonder hit. Tennessee, where Marse John use to fight um at. Looking mighty far, too.”
    “Too far to go just to fight Yankees,” I said, spitting too. But it was gone now—the suds, the glassy weightless iridescent bubbles; even the taste of it.

Retreat
1.
    I n the afternoon Loosh drove the wagon up beside the back gallery and took the mules out; by suppertime we had everything loaded into the wagon but the bedclothes we would sleep under that night. Then Granny went up stairs and when she came back down she had on her Sunday black silk and her hat, and there was color in her face now and her eyes were bright.
    “Is we gonter leave tonight?” Ringo said. “I thought we wasn’t going to start until in the morning.”
    “We’re not,” Granny said. “But it’s been three years now since I have started anywhere; I reckon the Lord will forgive me for getting ready one day ahead oftime.” She turned (we were in the diningroom then, the table set with supper) to Louvinia. “Tell Joby and Loosh to be ready with the lantern and the shovels as soon as they have finished eating.”
    Louvinia had set the cornbread on the table and was going out when she stopped and looked at Granny. “You mean you gonter take that heavy trunk all the way to Memphis with you? You gonter dig hit up from where hit been hid safe since last summer, and take hit all the way to Memphis?”
    “Yes,” Granny said. “I am following Colonel Sartoris’ instructions as I believe he meant them.” She was eating; she didn’t even look at Louvinia. Louvinia stood there in the pantry door, looking at the back of Granny’s head.
    “Whyn’t you leave hit here where hit hid good and I can take care of hit? Who gonter find hit even if They was to come here again? Hit’s Marse John They done called the reward on, hit aint no trunk full of——”
    “I have my reasons,” Granny said. “You do what I told you.”
    “All right. But how come you wanter dig hit up tonight when you aint leaving until tomor——”
    “You do what I said,” Granny said.
    “Yessum,” Louvinia said. She went out. I looked at Granny eating, with her hat sitting on the exact top of her head and Ringo looking at me across the back of Granny’s chair with his eyes rolling a little.
    “Why not leave it hid?” I said. “It’ll be just thatmuch more load on the wagon. Joby says that trunk will weigh a thousand pounds.”
    “A thousand fiddlesticks,” Granny said. “I dont care if it weighed ten thousand——” Louvinia came in.
    “They be ready,” she said. “I wish you’d tell me why you got to dig hit up tonight.”
    Granny looked at her. “I had a dream about it last night.”
    “Oh,” Louvinia said. She and Ringo looked exactly alike except Louvinia’s eyes were not rolling as much as his.
    “I dreamed I was looking out my window and a man walked into the orchard and went to where it is and stood there pointing at it,” Granny said. She looked at Louvinia. “A black man.”
    “A nigger?” Louvinia said.
    “Yes.”
    For a while Louvinia didn’t say anything. Then she said, “Did you know him?”
    “Yes,” Granny said.
    “Is you going to tell who hit was?”
    “No,” Granny said.
    Louvinia turned to Ringo. “Gawn tell your pappy and Loosh to get the lantern and the shovels and come on up here.”
    Joby and Loosh were in the kitchen. Joby was sitting behind the stove with a plate on his knees, eating. Loosh was sitting on the woodbox, still, with the two shovels between his knees but I didn’t see him at first because of Ringo’s shadow. The lamp was on the table and I couldsee the shadow of Ringo’s head bent over and his arm working back and forth and Louvinia standing between us and the lamp, her hands on her hips and her elbows spread