"My father used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time." "Where Jewel?" "I asked you where Jewel at?" "Down at the barn, harnessing the team." "Probably down there fooling with that damn horse." "Come here, sir." "Come here." "Dinner time." "Come on." "Come on, eat it up." "Get that goddamn stuff out of sight while you still got a chance." "Pussel-gutted bastard." "Sweet son of a bitch." "What?" "You ready?" "Yeah, if you're all hitched up." "You wait." "If she don't last till you get back, she gonna be disappointed." "I gave her my word we'd keep the team here and ready, in case she goes." "Ma ain't that sick." "That's right." "She been acting more herself today than all week." "Yeah, well, you ought to know." "Been coming around here often enough looking at her." "You and your folk all neighbor like..." "Shut up, Jewel." "If everybody wasn't burning hell to get it done already, huh?" "With Cash under that window all day long!" "Sawing... and hammering..." "It was her wish." "She wanted to know it were her own blood sawed the boards and drove the nails." "Just like she want to go in our own wagon." "We will be beholden to no man, me and her." "It means three dollars." "You want us to go or not?" "I'm a luckless man." "It fixing up to rain." "Be back by sundown." "Well..." "Well, come on!" "By sundown, you hear?" "I would not keep her waiting!" "What do you want, Darl?" "She gonna die before we get back." "Then why you going?" "It means three dollars." "Why take Jewel?" "You know he will never forgive you." "She'll want to get started right off." "It's far enough to Jefferson at best." "Well, the road's good now." "For now." "We'll see once the rain come." "Funny how things work." "Addie's people... gotta be buried a day's hard ride from here." "Shame you can't just go to your folks' ground in New Hope not but three miles away." "They'll be back in plenty of time." "I wouldn't worry none." "Might be won't be no needs to rush no ways." "I hope it." "She's going." "Her mind is set on it." "The Lord giveth" "The Lord giveth" "What you got there, boy, a hog?" "Where you find that?" "Down at the bridge." "You aim to leave it there?" "I aim to show it to Ma." "You clean that fish." "Can't Dewey Dell clean it?" "You clean it." "How, Pa?" "You clean it." "Go on now!" "It's bigger than him." "Jewel!" "Jewel!" "Takes two people to make it..." "one people to die." "You know she's gonna die, don't you?" "That's how the world will end." "Which two made you two?" "She's gonna die, Jewel, your mother." "Our mother." "Addie Bundren's gonna die." "Just... breathe easy." "Why didn't you call me sooner?" "Well, it was just one thing and then another." "That ere corn me and the boys was hoping to get up with." "Dewey Dell was taking such good care of her." "Folks was stopping by offering to help and such." "I just..." "Damnit, Anse." "She's a' going, is she?" "I knowed it." "I knowed her mind was set on it." "Pa!" "You better go quick." "Jewel!" "Wheel's stuck in the ditch!" "Damn!" "It's Jewel she wants." "Why, Addie, him and Darl went to make one more load." "They thought there was time, that you would wait for them." "And that's three dollar and all..." "Ma." "Ma!" "Cash!" "Get it up." "Get it up." "You got it?" "You got it?" "A little more." "A little more!" "Hold on." "You're on?" "Yeah, I think so." "All right, hold it." "All right." "Get that bolt." "You know she dead, Jewel." "You know that, right?" "Addie Bundren's dead?" "Just shut up!" "Shut up!" "Just shut your mouth!" "She's gone." "She's taken and left us." "How nigh are you done?" "I reckon you better get back at it." "You're gonna have to do the best you can with them boys going off that-a-way." "Go on now, put supper on." "We gotta keep our strength up." "God's will be done." "Now I can get them teeth." "You could do so much for me, if you just would." "If you just knew." "If you just would then I could tell you... and then nobody's have to know it, except for you and me." "And Darl." "You all right?" "Where she gonna go?" "Do you think she'll still go as far as town?" "She went farther than town." "She's in upside down." "Told you she loved that dress." "Don't want it wrinkled." "I made it on the bevel." "One, there's more gripping surface for the nails." "Two, there's twice the gripping surface to each seam." "Three, the water will have to seep in at a slant." "Water moves easiest up and down than sideways." "Four, in a house were people are upright two thirds of the time... the seams and joints are built up and down... because the stress is up and down." "Five, in a bed where people lay down all the time... the joints and seams go sideways because the stress is sideways." "Six, except." "Seven... a human body is not like a crosstie." "Eight, animal magnetism." "Nine, the animal magnetism of a human body... makes the stress come slanting... so a coffin is built on the bevel." "Ten, if you look at an old grave site... you'll see where the earth is sucked towards the bevel." "Eleven, while on a natural hole... it sinks toward the middle, the stress being up and down." "Twelve, so I made it on a bevel." "Thirteen, it makes a neater job." "That river is up and rising." "It's already covered the highest water mark on that bridge piling that I've ever seen." "That bridge won't stand a whole lot of water." "Anybody told Anse?" "I told him." "He said he reckoned them boys had already heard and unloaded, and was on the way back by now." "He better bury her at New Hope." "That bridge is old." "I wouldn't monkey with it." "Yeah, well his mind is set on taking her to Jefferson." "Well, he had better get at it soon." "It's been there quite a long time, that there bridge." "The Lord kept it there, you mean." "Peabody, you was the first guy to cross it." "You was on the way over to our house, see My sweetheart give birth to our first son, Jody." "If I would'a crossed it every time she littered since it'd be worn out long before this." "The Lord giveth." "The Lord giveth." "Where that rail run?" "My mother is a fish." "His grace be upon this house!" "Anse." "She going to a better place." "♪ Shall we gather at the river" "♪ Where bright angels' feet have trod ♪" "♪ Gather with the saints at the river ♪" "♪ That flows by the throne of God ♪" "♪ Yes, we'll gather at the river" "♪ The beautiful, the beautiful river ♪" "♪ Gather with the saints at the river ♪" "♪ That flows by the throne of God ♪" "♪ Soon we'll meet by the river" "♪ Soon our pilgrimage will cease" "Hey, Jewel!" "Look at them." "Goddamn you." "Goddamn him!" "I know your mother was Addie Bundren, Jewel same as mine." "But who was your father?" "And as long as I can recall who it isn't... but who it is." "I still don't know." "It ain't gonna balance." "If you want it to tote and ride on a balance..." "Pick up your goddamn your thick- nosed soul to hell and pick up!" " Easy, Jewel." "Jewel, I'm telling you!" "She will not tote and ride..." "Easy!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "Pick it up!" "Watch the stairs!" "No, pick up!" "Pick up your end!" "Watch it!" "Come on, Cash!" "Watch it!" "Let loose, Cash!" "Watch it!" "Watch it!" "Pick up!" "Pick up!" "Watch it, Jewel!" "She's backwards." "Jewel!" "You leave that horse here, you hear me?" "We all go in the wagon with your Ma, like she wanted." "Not with you prancing around like a darn circus animal on that horse." "My mother's a fish." "Yeah." "Jewel's mother's a horse." "And what's your Ma, Darl?" "I ain't got one." "Why you got them tools?" "'Cause I aim to stop off at Tull's on the way home and get that roof up on that barn." "It ain't respectful." "That's deliberate flouting of her and of me." "Where your sister?" "What's that?" "Mr. Tull's cakes." "Taking them to town, Pa." "It ain't right." "It's flouting of the dead." "And there's little enough for you do to do for her." "What sprung hell from her own flesh and blood." "Then go on." "Leave him stay if he wants to." "Pepper!" "It's a hard country on man." "Nowhere in this sinful world can a honest, hard-working man profit." "It takes them that run the stores in the towns... doing no sweating, doing no sweating... living off them that sweat." "It ain't the hard-working man, the farmer." "Sometimes I wonder why I keep at it." "It's because there's a reward for us above... where they can't take their autos and such." "Everyone will be equal there." "And it will be taken from them that have... and give to them that have not by the Lord." "But it seems like a long ways." "I told them it wasn't balanced." "They should'a let me put it on a balance." "Yeah, maybe so, but we done waited long enough." "Especially in this heat." "Hey!" "Jewel!" "I don't expect you to have no respect for me... but with your own Ma not cold in her coffin yet." "I don't know how many times I have to tell you..." "Jewel!" "I don't know how many times I told you... it's doing such things makes folks talk about you." "Come on!" "Darl knew." "He knew this and he knew before." "He knew the first time me and Lafe picked on down the row." "We'd picked on down the row, the woods getting closer and closer and the secret shade." "Picking on into the secret shade with my sack and Lafe's sack." "Because I said, will I or won't I when the sack was full?" "'Cause I said, if the sack's full when we get to the woods, then it won't be me." "I said, if it don't mean for me to do it the sack will not be full and I will turn up the next row." "But if the sack is full, then I cannot help it." "And so it was, because I could not help it." "He was in." "And then I saw Darl, and he knew." "He said he knew without the words like he told me that Ma was gonna die without words." "And I knew he knew 'cause he said he knew with the words." "I would not have believed that he had been there and saw us." "But he said he did know." "And I said, "Are you gonna tell Pa?" "Are you gonna kill him?"" "Without the words I said it." "And he said, "Why?" without the words" "Why not admit it?" "You know it's true." "Even if it's just to yourself." "The relief you feel." "You needed her to die so that you could go to town and get it done." "And that's why I can talk to him with knowing and hating 'cause he knows." "Couple of days now, it'll be smelling." "You might tell Jewel that, he'd like to hear it." "It ain't balanced for no long ride neither." "You can tell him that, too." "We're going to use your bridge!" "Bridge is out!" "Louder!" "The bridge is out!" "We'll be all right." "How about use the one across at Samson's?" "Yeah." "That bridge is gone." "Like this?" "Worse." "It's gone entire." "What now?" "I guess we ford here." "If it was just up, we could drive across." "We could just drive right on across it." "That's where the ford was." "That don't show nothing." "That could be a bar of quicksand built up there." "Mr. Wheatfield crossed it." "On horseback." "Two days ago." "It's raised five foot since then." "Mr. Wheatfield crossed it." "If the bridge was just up." "But it's not, is it?" "I bet you a careful fella could walk across on those planks and those logs." "Yeah, but you ain't gonna tote nothing." "Likely you put a foot on that mess, the whole thing go too." "I gave her my promised word in the presence of the Lord." "I reckon it'll cross fine." "It probably start falling come the night." "You can lay over a day." "You should get the hell back to your own damn plowing." "Ain't nobody asked you to follow us here." "Never meant no harm." "Why don't you shut up, Jewel." "Yeah, shut up, Jewel." "What you wanna do?" "If the bridge was just up, we could drive across it." "What you say, Cash?" "Dewey Dell and Vardaman and Pa... they all better walk across on foot." "He's right." "Vernon can help them." "Come on." "You go with them." "We'll go on down the ford, meet you on the other side." "I don't advise it." "Come on, Vardaman." "I gave her my word!" "It is sacred on me." "I know you begrudge it... but she will bless you in heaven." "This is fool's work." "Y'all should'a laid over a day." "Water's gonna go down, ain't gonna rain no more." "Surely ain't gonna get no higher." "It's the turning back." "It ain't no luck in turning back." "I give her my word." "She's a-counting on it." "The dark current runs." "Talks up to us in a murmur... become ceaseless and myriad." "Fading swirls move along the surface for an instant... silent, impermanent... profoundly significant... as though something just beneath the surface... huge and alive... was waked for a moment." "I reckon we're still on the road." "Tull taken and cut down those two big white oaks." "I hear tell, at high water in the old days... people used to ford by those trees." "If I'd suspicioned it, I coulda come out here last week and taken sight of it." "There's no way we coulda knowed." "What do you want me to do?" "All right, I'm gonna go on ahead... and y'all just follow where I am, okay?" "I ain't gonna let nothing happen to you. okay." "It's just you and me." "I ain't gonna let nothing happen to you." "Come on." "Come on." "Come on." "Come on now." "Guys!" "This way!" "Guys, here!" "The ford is over here!" "This is it, Jewel!" "Right here!" "Wait!" "Jewel, wait!" "It ain't on a balance!" "Well, then go back and walk on the goddamn bridge, both you and Darl!" "You let me on that!" "Ride back and cross, too!" "Walk across the bridge... and meet us on the other bank with the rope, and then Vernon will take your horse!" " There's some loose logs!" " Yeah, you go to hell!" "Take the rope around the other bank!" "Three ain't no better than two." "We got one to drive and one to balance." "I don't care what we do just so long as we do something!" "Sitting here not doing a goddamn thing!" "Take the rope and meet us on the other side!" "Can you do that jewel?" "You might as well hop off now and go across the bridge, too, if you want." "I'll stay." "Might take two of us." "Watch yourself!" "I'm on it!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "Come on then, you can come to me, all right?" "Come on!" "Watch it!" "Log!" "Jewel!" "Let the rope go!" "Go!" "Go!" "I used to hear the dark land talking God's love..." "His beauty and His sin." "Hearing the dark voicelessness in which words are deeds and the other words that are not deeds just the gaps in people's lack coming down like the cries of the" "geese in the wild darkness in the old terrible nights." "Anse had a word, too." "Love, he called it." "But I had been used to words for a long time." "I knew that word was like the others." "Just a shape to fill a lack." "When I knew that I had Cash..." "I knew that life was terrible and that this was the answer to it." "That was when I learned that words are no good." "Words don't ever fit even what they are trying to say at." "When he was borned, I knew motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it" "Because the ones that had the children... didn't care if there was a word for it or not." "Sometimes I would lay by him in the dark... hearing the dark land that was now of my blood and flesh and I would think, "Anse."" ""Why Anse?" "Why is he Anse?"" "And I would think about his name until, after a while" "I could see the word as a shape... a vessel." "I would watch him liquefy and flow into it... until the jar stood full and motionless." "I told Cora one day... that he was my cross, and he would be my salvation." "He would save me from the water and the fire." "Even though I had laid down my life... he would save me." "She told me it was sinful when she realized how we were talking about God." "But sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who have never sinned nor loved nor feared, have." "But what they never had, and cannot have... until they forget the words." "She wanted me to pray, ask for forgiveness... because to people to whom sin is just a matter of words to them, "salvation" is just words, too." "I would think of him as dressed in sin." "I would think of him as thinking of me... as dressed also in sin." "Even more beautiful... because the garment he exchanged for sin was sanctified." "I would think of the sin as garments which we would remove." "And then it was over." "He gave me jewel." "And jewel was my salvation." "His grace be upon this house!" "He got the saw, Cash!" "I got the rule!" "Found the rule, Cash!" "He got your saw, Cash!" "He got your saw!" "I'm going to Armstid's." "Give cash help." "After school was out and the last one had left with his dirty little snuffling nose instead of going home, I would go down the hill to the spring where I could be quiet and hate them." "I would have to look at them day after day... each with his and her sacred selfish thought." "And I would look forward to the times when they faulted so I could whip them." "When the switch fell, I could feel it upon my flesh." "When it welted and ridged it was my blood that ran... and I would think with each blow of the switch:" "Now you are aware of me!" "Doc Peabody had gone down below Inverness somewhere... but Uncle Billy's coming." "He's a horse doctor." "But he's about the closer we come now." "Well... what y'all thinking?" "In here, Uncle Billy." "What you been into now, boy?" "All right, get me a chair and a big glass of whiskey." "Lucky for him, that were the same leg he broke last summer." "Me and you might got a different notion of what's lucky." "I reckon I get your point." "But can you help him?" "Well, men ain't so different from a horse or a mule... except maybe... horse or a mule might have a little more sense." "I want you to drink this." "All of it." "It's okay to holler, boy, if you feel like you need to." "All right, need some help holding him down." "Hold him down." "Hold him still." "Hold him still." "Put a bite on him." "Bite on it." "Put the rag in your mouth and bite on it." "Bite." "All right." "Is he all right?" "He's all right." "I'm gonna need some help with these splints while he's out." "You're welcome to the use of my team." "I thank you, but she'll want to go in ourn." "Well..." "You might wanna think about Snopes." "He's got three, four span." "Maybe one of them'd suit you." "He a close man to trade with." "Yeah" "But I reckon I can talk him around." "How does it taste, huh?" "Go!" "Get outta here!" "Leave!" "Go!" "Go!" "Go!" "Get outta here!" "Shoo!" "Get off!" "Go!" "Shoo!" "Shoo!" "Get out of here!" "Just go!" "Git!" "Shoo!" "Go!" "Go!" "shoo!" "Shoo!" "Go!" "Leave my Mama alone!" "Go!" "You've got to do something." "It's an outrage." "He should be lawed for treating her so." "He's getting her in the ground best he can." "Dear Lord!" "That smell!" "You have to do something." "Anse!" "Anse!" "He's gone." "Where's Anse?" "Done light out this morning trade for a new team with Snopes." "How'd he get there?" "Jewel's horse." "I didn't think he'd ever let nobody else touch that beast." "Never has." "I don't mean no offense, but... smell, smell's getting pretty bad." "I know." "Come on eat now." "You, too, Jewel." "Jewel, come on eat!" "Pa's home!" "Got us a team." "Got a team from Snopes?" "I reckon Snopes ain't the only fella in this town itching to drive a trade." "A fella that just beat Snopes in a trade ought to feel pretty darn good." "What you give him, Anse?" "I give him a chattel mortgage on my seeder and cultivator." "That ain't worth more than $40." "I give other things." "What other things?" "Other things." "That's what he was doing in Cash's clothes last night." "You know he was planning to buy that talking machine from Suratt." "That's just $8." "That ain't enough to buy another team." "Lord knows... if there were ere a man." "And the horse." "What horse?" "We give him the horse right after we bury your mother." "You mean, you think you swapped my horse?" "My horse?" "Five months hard work... clear near 40 acres of Quick's field to earn it." "For 15 year I ain't had a tooth in my head." "Lord knows... for 15 year He know that I ain't had the victuals... that He aimed for man to eat to keep his strength up." "And me saving a nickel here and a nickel there... so my family wouldn't suffer it, to buy them!" "And I thought that if I could do without eating... my son could do without riding!" "God knows I did!" "Hell" "Come on." "Up!" "Where's Jewel?" "We can't leave without Jewel." "Jewel disappeared with his horse." "Be the last time we see Jewel, sure enough." "Maybe they get a postcard from him down in Texas, I reckon." "Anse Bundren is an outrage against decency." "I be darn if he ain't a sight." "How you feeling, Cash?" "It don't bother none." "You want me to prop it up some?" "You all right?" "It's just on a bump... it kinda grinds together a little bit on a bump." "But it don't bother nothing." "Is it because Jewel's mother is a horse, Darl?" "Is that why he went away?" "That's part of it." "Hey, Cash, you want me to tighten this?" "If you just would." "That hurt?" "Maybe just put it back down." "Hurt?" "It don't bother none." "You want Pa to slow down?" "No." "There's no point in slowing down now." "It don't bother nothing." "I reckon we gotta get him some medicine." "There ain't no way around it." "Just tell him to go on." "Them cakes is gonna be nice by the time we get to Jefferson." "You best sell them in Mottson, if you know what I'm saying." "When will we get to Mottson, Darl?" "Tomorrow." "If this team don't step itself to pieces." "I think Snopes fed them on sawdust." "Why did he feed them on sawdust, Darl?" "Look." "I couldn't see." "I couldn't feel." "I couldn't feel the bed under me." "And I couldn't think of where I was." "I couldn't think of my name." "I couldn't even think I am a girl... but I knew that something was." "But I couldn't even think of time" "Then, all of a sudden, I knew that something was." "It was wind blowing over me." "I believe in God." "I believe in God." "I believe in God." "I believe in God." "God, I believe in God." "I believe in God." "I believe in God." "I believe in God." "Gonna hawl a little." "Gonna hawl a little." "Pepper!" "Pepper!" "Dewey, make it quick." "Where you going?" "Where she going?" "What can I do for you?" "You looking for some toilet things, or is it medicine you want?" "That's it?" "I'd rather go back there." "All right." "What's the trouble?" "Tell me what it is you want." "I'm pretty busy." "It's a female trouble." "Is that all?" "Where's your Ma?" "Haven't you got one?" "She's out yonder in the wagon." "Why don't you talk to her about it before you take any medicine?" "I mean, any woman would tell you about it." "Are you too regular or not regular enough?" "Yes, I reckon so." "Yes." "Well, which?" "Don't you know?" "You want something to stop it, is that it?" "No." "You see, it's already stopped." "Oh, well, we..." "You're not married, are you?" "No." "Well, I don't have anything in my store for you... and I'd advise you to go home and tell your Pa, if you have one... and let him make somebody buy you a wedding license." "But I got the money to pay you." "A thousand dollars wouldn't be enough in my store." "Ten cents wouldn't be enough." "Howdy." "Can I have a bag of cement?" "That'll be 50 cents." "50 cents?" "Could I have 10 cents worth?" "10 cents...?" "For what?" "My brother broke his leg." " What?" " You gotta get this wagon outta here." "It's a public street!" "I reckon we can stop to buy something same as any other man." "We got the money to pay for it, and there ain't any law..." "I just want 10 cents worth." "I don't wanna break a sack." "Don't you know you'll cause that boy to lose his leg?" "You take him to the doctor." "I would like 10 cents worth of cement." "Fine." "Just get that boy to a doctor." "You get this thing buried as soon as you can." "Don't you know you're tempting jail for Endangering the public health?" "We're doing the best we can." "We woulda set out to bury her today, but had to wait for that boy to bring the wagon back." "Shut up, Pa!" "Sir, I'm sorry." "We'll be gone in a minute." "Get this man to a doctor." "Ain't got to worry about me." "I'm fine." "Hurry up, Dewey Dell!" "We done lost too much time." "We ain't gonna discommode you no more." "Pepper!" "(indistinct)" "Here a place." "Right here." "Hold, mule." "Hold, mule." "We could get some water over yonder." "Dewey Dell, you better go see you can borrow a bucket." "Guess you had less luck than you expected selling them cakes in Mottson." "We better not try and lift him down." "We fix it here." "When we get to Jefferson, tomorrow?" "I could just last it out." "It'll be easier this way on you." "It won't rub together." "But I can last it out." "And we'll lose time if we stop now." "We done bought the cement now." "Listen, I can last it out." "It's just one more day." "And it don't bother none." "It sets up so." "We done bought it now." "How's that look?" "You don't wanna put too much water in it... or it won't work right." "How's that?" "You know, maybe if you..." "y'all could find some sand." "Vardaman, go on and get some sand." "I can last it out... if it's just one more day, you know?" "'Cause it don't bother none." "All right." "Careful with that there." "Bring your leg out." "Just mind it so it don't get on" "How's that feel?" "It feels fine." "It feels cold and good on there." "It feels fine." "If it'll only help..." "I ask your forgiveness." "I couldn't have foreseen it more than you." "I feel fine." "All right?" "I think it's gonna rain." "Look, there's Jewel!" "Where that horse?" "Delivered him to Snopes himself." "You did right." "This here sure got me tired." "Darl, if Snopes didn't feed them mules on sawdust... would they be able to make the hill without us have to get out and walk?" "Maybe." "Dewey Dell, when we stop at night in the barn, where do them buzzards stay?" "I asked Darl." "He doesn't know neither." "Tonight I'm gonna see where them buzzards stay while we're in the barn." "Where you going?" "Hate to discommode you." "Well, no, sirs, ain't no trouble." "But we wonder about that leg, though." "How's that feeling, son?" "It's getting a little bit hot from being in the sun like that all day." "You want some water poured on it?" "Maybe that'll ease it some." "I'd be obliged." "It's just from being in the sun all day." "I ought to kept my mind on it to kept it covered." "How's that feel?" "I'm obliged." "That feels fine." "Well, you folks... you have a good night." "We'll be right inside if you need anything else." "Fine." "Cash, see if you can get some sleep." "Sure." "Yeah, it feels fine." "I miss Ma." "Come here." "Put your head right down there." "Listen." "Can you hear?" "Yeah?" "I can hear her." "You hear?" "What's she saying, Darl?" "Who's she talking to?" "Talking to God." "She's calling on Him to help her." "What she wanting to do?" "She wants Him to hide her from the sight of man." "Why does she want to get hid away, Darl?" "So she can lay down her life." "Why does she wanna lay down her life?" "Just listen." "Listen." "You can hear?" "She's been calling out." "Ever since the river, she's been calling out." "What are they doing, Dewey Dell?" "They're bringing Ma on the barn." "They don't wanna leave her outdoors all night." "I can smell her." "Can you smell her, too?" "Hush." "I went looking to find where them buzzards stay at night." "I saw something Dewey Dell told me not tell nobody." "It's not about Pa and it's not about Cash... and it's not about Jewel and it's not about Dewey Dell... and it's not about me." "Help!" "Fire!" "There's a fire!" "Pa!" "Pa!" "Let's get the mules!" "Get the mules!" "Get the mules!" "Come on." "Look out!" "Jewel!" "Jewel!" "Jewel!" "Jewel!" "Stop him!" "Jewel!" "Stop him!" "Where Darl?" "Where Darl got to?" "Your foot look funny, Cash." "I reckon we gonna have to bust that off." "You take that off, gonna take the hide, too." "Why in tarnation did you put it on there?" "I thought it might steady it some." "Didn't anybody think to grease his leg first?" "I only aimed to help him." "It was Darl put it on." "Where is Darl?" "Where is Darl?" "Oh, God." "Be it best to leave it on." "You gonna keep the cat away, Darl?" "You needn't to cry." "Jewel got her out." "You needn't to cry, Darl." "If you could just travel out into time, that would be nice." "It'd be nice if you could just travel out into time." "Takes two people to make you." "And one people to die." "It's how the world will end." "Can you still hear her?" "Hey, Darl, we close to Jefferson?" "Yeah." "Life was created in the valleys." "It was blew up on the hills on the old terrors... the old lusts and the old despair." "That's why you must walk up the hills, so you can ride down." "I gotta stop." "What for?" "I gotta go to the bushes." "Can't you wait till we get to town?" "Stop!" "I gotta go to the bushes!" "Hold, mule!" "Leave them cakes." "We'll look after them." "We gonna have to take him to the doctor." "I reckon we just have to." "We ought to send word from Gillespie's... have someone get that grave ready." "I just never wanna be beholden to none but her flesh and blood." "Who can't dig a damn hole in the ground?" "It ain't respectful talking that way about your Ma's grave!" "You just don't know what it is." "You never pure loved her, none of you." "I thought I told you to leave them clothes to home." "Pepper!" "Come on, mule." "How many more hills now, Darl?" "Just one." "Next one goes all the way into town." "Hold, mule!" "I reckon we gotta slide it in yonder." "They got... one or two Christians inside, I'm betting." "What we need is some shovels." "We can go to a hardware store." "That costs money!" "You begrudge her it?" "Skeet, there's a woman up front that wants to see the doctor." "I said, "What doctor do you want to see?", she said, the doctor that works here." "When I told her there ain't any doctor works here, she just stood there, looking this way." "What kind of woman is it?" "Tell her to go upstairs to Alford's office." "Country woman." "Send her to the courthouse." "Tell her all the doctors have gone to Memphis to a barbers' convention." "All right." "She's just pretty nice for a country girl." "Wait." "Wait." "What can I do for you?" "Are you the doctor?" "Sure." "Can we go back yonder?" "Now... madam... what is your trouble?" "It's a female trouble." "I got the money." "Have you got female trouble is all?" "Or you want female trouble?" "If this so, you've come to the right doctor." " No." "No which?" "I ain't had it." "That's it." "I got the money." "You got something in your belly you wished you didn't have." "'Course you realize I could be put in the Penitentiary after doing what you want?" "I would lose my license." "Then I'd have to go to work." "You realize that." "I ain't got but $10... but I could bring the rest next month, maybe." "Ten dollars." "You see, I can't put no price on my knowledge and skill." "Certainly not for a little poultry sawbuck." "What do you want then?" "You guess three times, then I'll show you." "I got to do something." "You come back 10 o'clock tonight, I give you the rest of it." "Will it work?" "Sure it'll work." "If you come back and get it." "Get on up outta there." "Fill it in." "Go on." "Darl Bundren?" "Yeah." "How does Gillespie know it was Darl that done it?" "Vardaman swore he never told nobody but me." "If Vardaman never told nobody but you, how come they know it?" "It don't matter." "What matters is Gillespie knows." "He'd suspicioned it sooner or later." "I reckon it ain't no way around it." "We got to send him to Jackson." "It's either that or Gillespie sue us." "So you wanna fix him now?" "Fix him?" "Yeah, catch him." "Tie him up." "Or you wanna wait till he sets fire to the goddamn team and wagon?" "He's crazy!" "That's 'cause Jewel was too hard on him." "I thought about it more than once... before we crossed the river and after... that it would be God's blessing... if He'd taken her out of our hands... and we got shut of her in some clean way." "It seemed to me, when Jewel was working to get her out in the river... he was going against God in a way." "And when Darl seen that it looked like one of us was gonna have to do something... well, I can almost believe that he done right, in a way." "But that don't excuse burning down a man's barn... or endangering his stock, or destroying his property." "I guess there ain't no excuse for what Darl did... endangering that stock, destroying his property." "I reckon that's how a man's crazy." "He can't see eye to eye with other folks." "And I suppose there ain't much you can do... except for what it is that most folks says is right." "But it's a shame in a way." "Are you Darl Bundren?" "You better come with us." "Get off me!" "Cash!" " Cash!" " You son of a bitch!" " Cash!" " All right." "Dewey, let go of him!" "Cash, I thought you woulda told me." "I never thought you wouldn't have told me." "Cash?" "All right, all right, all right." "You can scratch at me all you want." "Maybe, you see, if I'm gone... no one'll know." "Ain't gonna go away, just like whatever you got in that box ain't gonna make it go away." "And you..." "What, you think the questions are just gonna go away just 'cause I ain't here to ask them?" "Darl..." "Is this what you want?" "Maybe it'll be better for you." "It's quiet down there without all the bothering." "Is that what you think I am?" "It'll be better for you, Darl." "Better?" "Better?" "It's quiet down there, yeah." "Is that what you think I am?" "It'll be better for you." "Maybe it'll be better." "Maybe." "Maybe!" "Vardaman, come here." "It was getting right noticeable... the smell, that is." "We didn't have no time to waste." "It don't bother none." "Don't you lie there and tell me that." "You with all that time on a wagon... with no springs and a broken leg, and it don't bother you." "Well..." "It don't bother much." "You mean, it don't bother Anse much." "Why don't he just take you over to the nearest sawmill... and put your leg in a saw?" "That woulda cured it." "And you all coulda taken..." "Anse over to the saw, stuck his head in there and cured the whole family." "Son, this toe is gangrenous." "Get it off, Doc!" "Take it!" "Go!" "Go!" "You wait out here." "Why can't I come in?" "I wanna come in, too." "You wait out here." "All right." "You want something?" "A banana." "Where is it?" "There it is." "And you're sure it'll work?" "Sure." "As long as you take the rest of the treatment." "Where do I take it?" "Let me show you." "That's what you want." "That's what you came back for?" "That's what you came back for." "Take that little seed out." "Take the little acorn that you got in." "Yeah, that's what you came back for." "I'm gonna fix you." "My brother, they say he went crazy." "But he went to Jackson, too." "Jackson is further away than crazy." "He had to get on a train to go to Jackson." "I've not been on a train." "But Darl has been on a train." "Darl." "Darl is my brother." "Why do I laugh?" "Why do you laugh, Darl?" "Is it because you hate the sound of laughter?" "Is that why you laughing, Darl?" "Is it because your mother is a fish?" "A horse?" "Is it because you no longer have a mother?" "Because you hear the dark lands speaking of God and His beauty and His sin?" "Because we use each other with words... like spiders hanging by their mouths from the rafters... swinging and twisting and never touching." "He got them teeth." "Who's that?" "That there is Cash." "That there is Jewel." "That Vardaman, and that's Dewey Dell." "Meet Mrs. Bundren." "Pepper." "It's gonna be a little."