“No, he’s sick,” Chimney said. “I saw him puke up his biscuit this morning.” He stepped back a couple of feet, started trying to squeeze a splinter out of the palm of his hand.
Cane leaned over and put his ear against Pearl’s chest. He listened for a minute, then raised up. “Jesus,” he said. He grabbed hold of the old man’s bony shoulders and shook him.
“What ye doin’?” Chimney asked.
“Pap?” Cane said. “Hey, Pap.” He shook him again, but not so hard this time.
“Well?”
“I think his ol’ heart’s give out.”
“No way,” Chimney said. “Hell, I couldn’t keep up with him five minutes ago.”
“He sleeps pretty hard sometimes,” Cob said, gently smoothing his hand over Pearl’s forehead. “Poor ol’ Pap, he’s just tired, is all.”
“No,” Cane said, “that’s not it.” He turned and looked at Chimney. “I hate to say it, but I think he’s gone.”
Cob’s brow wrinkled and his hand moved down to pick a burr off Pearl’s shirt. For a moment, his brothers wondered if he understood, but then he said, as casually as if he were talking about the weather, “Well, that makes sense, I reckon. Remember what he said this morning?”
“No,” Cane said, “I don’t recall.”
“He said he could see someone a-settin’ a plate out for him. I just thought he was goin’ on about them ghosts again, but I bet he was talkin’ about the heavenly table, wasn’t he?”
“Shit, that don’t mean nothin’,” Chimney said. “That’s all he ever talked about.”
“Yeah, but still…”
Nothing else was said for several minutes, and Cane pushed Pearl’s muddy brown eyes closed with his thumbs, his living hands framing the wasted face for a moment like a picture hanging on a wall. Then he raised up and looked about the clearing. To his disgust, he found himself thinking that there was no way they would ever finish in time to get the chicken bonus now. The least he could have done was speak up this morning when Tardweller lied through his goddamn teeth about how many days they had left. That would have been something anyway, taking up for the old feller one last time. He fought down a sick feeling rising in his throat and said quietly to Cob, “Help me get his pants back up.”
As he stood watching, Chimney spat on his hands, then ran them through his hair. He wondered what Penelope was doing, hating her more than ever just then. From what he had seen those weeks he had worked in the barn, all she ever did was ride around in her college beau’s automobile and drink lemonade on the front porch. Well, whatever it was, she sure as hell wasn’t standing soaked with sweat in a field staring down at a dark, bloody lump behind her father’s feet, green bottle flies already buzzing around it. An anxious feeling swept over him just then, a wild desire to take off running and never look back, and he turned about in a circle several times before he could get settled down. Goddamn, he thought, just takin’ a shit. What a lousy way to go. Snake bit would have been a hundred times better.
Cob finished tying the belt and looked up at the sky. Somewhere out there beyond that blue expanse was the new country his father would soon be entering, one blessed with goodness and cool breezes and an everlasting repast. He smiled. There was nothing to be sad about. As he had heard Pearl say many times since his meeting with the hermit, a certain amount of suffering was called for to gain entry into paradise, and now that trial was over with for him. “Just think,” Cob said. “The heavenly table. He’s got it made now, don’t he?”
“He sure does,” said Chimney. “Shame we couldn’t have hitched a ride with him. Hell, they probably already fittin’ him for his feed bag.”
“This ain’t the time to be jokin’ around,” Cane told him.
“Maybe not,” Chimney said, “but I think Cob’s right. That poor old sonofabitch lying there just got the only thing he’s wanted for years. Christ, we should be happy for him.”
Although Cane couldn’t dispute the logic in his brother’s argument, such an attitude was still, to his way of thinking, a little too swift and coldhearted for the occasion. It was only right that a tear or two be shed, or, at the very least, some kind words spoken, before you started poking fun at someone’s passing. He stood up and walked over to the water bucket to retrieve his shirt. As he did so, he heard Cob say, “Well, I know I am. Heck, he’ll be eatin’ steaks big around as wagon wheels, and tender as…as…Oh, shoot, how tender was them steaks again, Chimney?”
“Tender as a young girl’s kitty-cat.”
“An’ the biscuits? What was it you said about them?”
“Oh, they’ll be hot and fluffy as—”
“Enough,” Cane said. He looked toward the shack on the other side of the cotton field. “You gather up the tools and me and Cob will carry him back to the house.”
“Where we gonna bury him?”
“Back there by the hog pen,” Cane said, as he finished buttoning his shirt. “At least that way he’ll have some company.”
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