Page:Mosquitos (Faulkner).pdf/183

 “Let the boy join his club, if he wants,” Pete added. “What kind of a club is it? What do they do?”

“I don’t know. They just join it. You work for it three years, she said. Three years Gee, by that time you’d be too old to do anything if you got to join it. Three years. My Lord.”

“Sit down and give your wooden leg a rest,” Pete said. “Don’t be a dumbbell forever.” He examined the deck a moment, then without changing his position against the rail he turned his head toward Jenny. “Give papa a kiss.”

Jenny also glanced briefly up the deck. Then she came with a sort of wary docility, raising her ineffable face presently Pete withdrew his face. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“The matter with what?” said Jenny innocently.

Pete unhooked his heel and he put his arm around Jenny. Their faces merged again and Jenny became an impersonal softness against his mouth and a single blue eye and a drowsing aura of hair.

The swamp did not seem to end, ever. On either side of the road it brooded, fetid and timeless, somber and hushed and dreadful. The road went on and on through a bearded tunnel, beneath the sinister brass sky. The dew was long departed and dust puffed listlessly to her fierce striding. David tramped behind her, watching two splotches of dead blood on her stockings. Abruptly there were three of them and he drew abreast of her. She looked over her shoulder, showing him her wrung face.

“Don’t come near me!” she cried. “Don’t you see you make ’em worse?”

He dropped behind again and she stopped suddenly, drop-