Piety fought for breath. She dug her old horny toes into the foot of her bed and struggled like a bass on a set-line. Lant had gone for Kezzy. He had not seen her since she clicked the garden gate behind her and walked away across the clearing with swollen eyes. He had avoided her. He crossed the river by boat and found her watering rutabagas in her garden.
He said, "Ma's 'bout done for," and she answered, "I'll come with you."
They returned together in silence. The two children chattered like birds. Kezzy shook her head when the older one asked her questions. She dropped them both in the Lantry yard to play and went into the house ahead of Lant. He noticed that she was thin and the black eyes seemed deep-sunken. She went to the bed.
"How yuh, Aunt Py-tee? It's Kezzy speakin'."
"I'm sick, Kezzy, and dyin'."
Kezzy drew a chair to the side of the bed and reached in to take the old knotted hands.
"Tell me 'bout it. Your spells comin' frequent?"
"Mighty frequent and mighty bad. The doctor were here 'fore Lant goed for you. I heered 'em talkin'. I cain't see, but I kin hear."
"What's it like when you're takened?"
"Things gits grey and distant, Kezzy. I go off into the twilight. Into some lonesome-lookin' place."
The winter afternoon darkened early.
Kezzy said, "I'll go to the kitchen and cook a leetle hot supper. Kin you eat a mite o' somethin' tasty?"
"I couldn't."
"You want your snuff?"
"Nary thing."
Kezzy cooked supper. She and Lant and the children ate hungrily. She put the children on the couch near the hearth-fire in the front room and covered them with a quilt. Lant followed her into Piety's bedroom. The old woman was losing consciousness. She roused as they came in.
"That you, Kezzy? Kezzy! Where's Cleve?"
The woman caught her breath.
"He's gone, Aunt Py-tee."
"He been gone long?"
"Since 'way before last new moon."
"Kezzy?"
"Here I be."
"Folks think ary thing?"
"Folks thinks nary thing, Aunt Py-tee," she said quietly. "Nobody jest don't look for him back."
Piety sighed.
"Lant," she complained, "outen that light."
"They ain't no light lit."
"'Tis, too. Hit scalds my eye-balls."
She relaxed and breathed steadily through the night. Lant and Kezzy sat unmoving on stiff chairs. A screech owl quavered and Kezzy found an old hat and turned it inside out.
"To stop that quiverin' fuss," she said.
At daylight the cat stirred from his nest on the foot of the bed. He walked across it and sniffed at the lean face with its closed eyes. He bristled and jumped from the bed and scrambled out of the room.
Kezzy said, "Oh, my God."
She covered Piety's face with the counterpane. Lant moved his chair to the window at the far side of the bed and sat with his back to the room, looking out into the scrub. A streak of saffron spread across the east. Kezzy walked around the bed and stood beside him. She put one hand on his forehead and began smoothing back his shaggy forelock. The window framed the grey slat fence, with coral honeysuckle blooming across it. The sun swung up above the scrub and the dew glistened across the red-top.
Kezzy said, "You never been lonesome, young feller. Scaperin' around in the scrub, a-huntin' and a-trappin'. You like to be mighty lonesome now."
He did not answer.
"Don't you reckon you better leave me and the young uns take up with you?"
She drew his head to her.
"You and me git married, and me to he'p you at the outfit?"
He turned and buried his face against her breast.
"I've always thought a heap o' you, Lant."
His voice was muffled.
"My God, Kezzy, how kin I?"
"What you mean?"
"I shot Cleve."
The gentle stroking was suspended a moment and then continued.
"You think I didn't know?"
The steady heart-pulse under his ear did not change its beat.
"I been grievin' for all two of you—you and Cleve. But most pertickler for you. I reckon you had it to do."
"I don't know. I cain't be shore, did he mean me harm."
"Well, it's done."
She left him and pressed her face against the cool moist window.
"Man, the scrub's a fine place to be," she said. "If things ever gits too thick, you and me jest grab us each a young un and a handful o' shells and the guns and light out acrost it. I'd dare ary man to mess up with me, yonder in the scrub."
The growing sunlight wakened the children on the couch. The man and woman went into the front room and closed the bedroom door after them.
Kezzy said, "Your Aunt Py-tee's dead. You young uns be nice and quiet."
She cooked breakfast and they left for the river.
Lant said, "I don't reckon it's right to leave the house, but I belong to go down the river to the Dread and look at my mash."
"I'll hurry," Kezzy said. "I'll git somebody to come lay her out and I'll see the preacher for the buryin' and be back by noon."
At the edge of the creek she stopped short.
"Lant," she burst out, "where-all's he at?"
The hair rose on his neck. Kezzy would go where he went. She had hunted the swamp islands with him. She would visit them again. Long storms might rot the hollow log where Cleve lay. 'Possums were scavengers. They might drag out the bones, one by one. He could not have Kezzy stumble up on anything that had been Cleve. He decided at once to come at night and drag the log with its contents to the river.
He said, "Kezzy, don't ask me sich as that. I'll give my promise you won't never see him."
She nodded, white of face.
"That's good enough."
Sweat stood out around his eyes. The log might not sink before it was seen. It might lodge up against a lower bank and fall to pieces and Cleve's bones lie suddenly white under over-hanging elder. He wondered if the rifle bullet through the chest had left its record on a bone. He would have to risk it.
He thought desperately, "The law's like to come up with me yet."
Kezzy held the children in front of her in the rowboat. He poled through the creek to the river. The woman pointed out a motionless grey form on a limb above them. She tilted the children's heads to show it.
"Lookit the ol' mammy cat-squirrel settin' so still. She's likely got leetle ol' squirrel young uns a-waitin' in the nest."