Страница:
400 из 425
For an instant he wonders what the boy must see, looking up through the silver shield of the surface at the face of thejllow who’s holding him down, thejllow who’s drowning him, and then Harry pushes that away. Just a nigger, he reminds himself desperately.
That’s all he is, just a nigger. No kin of yours.
Kito’s arm comes out of the water his dripping dark-brown arm. Harry pulls back, not wanting to be clawed, but the hand doesn’t reach Jr him, only sticks straight up. The fingers curl into a fist. Open. Curl into a fist. Open. Curl into a fist. The boy’s thrashing begins to ease, the kickingjet begin to slow down, the eyes looking up into Harry’s eyes are taking on a curiously dreamy look, and still that brown arm sticks straight up, still the hand opens and closes, opens and closes. Draper Finney stands on the shore crying, sure that now someone will come along, now someone will see the terrible thing they have done the terrible thing they are in fact still doing. Be sure your sin will find you out, it says in the Good Book. Be sure. He opens his mouth to tell Harry to quit, maybe it’s still not too late to take it back, let him up, let him live, but no sound comes out. Behind him Sara is choking her last. In front of him her drowning son’s hand opens and closes, opens and closes, the reflection of it shimmering on the water, and Draper thinks Won’t it stop doing that, won’t it ever stop doing that? And as if it were a prayer that something is now answering, the boy’s locked elbow begins to bend and his arm begins to sag,’ the fingers begin to close again into a fist and then stop. For a moment the hand wavers and then I slammed the heel of my hand into the center of my forehead to clear these phantoms away. Behind me there was a frenzied snap and crackle of wet bushes as Jo and whatever she was holding back continued to struggle. I put my hands inside the split in the canvas like a doctor spreading a wound. I yanked. There was a low ripping sound as the roll tore the rest of the way up and down.
Inside was what remained of them—two yellowed skulls, forehead to forehead as if in intimate conversation, a woman’s faded red leather belt, a molder of clothes… and a heap of bones. Two ribcages, one large and one small. Two sets of legs, one long and one short. The early remains of Sara and Kito Tidwell, buried here by the lake for almost a hundred years.
The larger of the two skulls turned. It glared at me with its empty eyesockets. Its teeth chattered as if it would bite me, and the bones below it began a tenebrous, jittery stirring. Some broke apart immediately; all were soft and pitted.
|< Пред. 398 399 400 401 402 След. >|