1“HERE’S a place,” pa says. He pulls the team up and sits looking at the house. “We could get some water over yonder.”

2“All right,” I say. “You’ll have to borrow a bucket from them, Dewey Dell.”

3“God knows,” pa says. “I wouldn’t be beholden, God knows.”

4“If you see a good-sized can, you might bring it,” I say. Dewey Dell gets down from the wagon, carrying the package. “You had more trouble than you expected, selling those cakes in Mottson,” I say. How do our lives ravel out into the no-wind, no-sound, the weary gestures wearily recapitulant: echoes of old compulsions with no-hand on no-strings: in sunset we fall into furious attitudes, dead gestures of dolls. Cash broke his leg and now the sawdust is running out. He is bleeding to death is Cash.

5“I wouldn’t be beholden,” pa says. “God knows.”

6“Then make some water yourself,” I say. “We can use Cash’s hat.”

7When Dewey Dell comes back the man comes with her. Then he stops and she comes on and he stands there and after a while he goes back to the house and stands on the porch, watching us.

8“We better not try to lift him down,” pa says. “We can fix it here.”

9“Do you want to be lifted down, Cash?” I say.

10“Won’t we get to Jefferson to-morrow?” he says. He is watching us, his eyes interrogatory, intent, and sad. “I can last it out.”

11“It’ll be easier on you,” pa says. “It’ll keep it from rubbing together.”

12“I can last it,” Cash says. “We’ll lose time stopping.”

13“We done bought the cement, now,” pa says.

14“I could last it,” Cash says. “It ain’t but one more day. It don’t bother to speak of.” He looks at us, his eyes wide in his thin grey face, questioning. “It sets up so,” he says.

15“We done bought it now,” pa says.

16I mix the cement in the can, stirring the slow water into the pale-green thick coils. I bring the can to the wagon where Cash can see. He lies on his back, his thin profile in silhouette, ascetic and profound against the sky. “Does that look about right?” I say.

17“You don’t want too much water, or it won’t work right,” he says.

18“Is this too much?”

19“Maybe if you could get a little sand,” he says. “It ain’t but one more day,” he says. “It don’t bother me none.”

20Vardaman goes back down the road to where we crossed the branch and returns with sand. He pours it slowly into the thick coiling in the can. I go to the wagon again.

21“Does that look all right?”

22“Yes,” Cash says. “I could have lasted. It don’t bother me none.”

23We loosen the splints and pour the cement over his leg, slow.

24“Watch out for it,” Cash says. “Don’t get none on it if you can help.”

25“Yes,” I say. Dewey Dell tears a piece of paper from the package and wipes the cement from the top of it as it drips from Cash’s leg.

26“How does that feel?”

27“It feels fine,” he says. “It’s cold. It feels fine.”

28“If it’ll just help you,” pa says. “I asks your forgiveness. I never forseen it no more than you.”

29“It feels fine,” Cash says.

30If you could just ravel out into time. That would be nice. It would be nice if you could just ravel out into time.

31We replace the splints, the cords, drawing them tight, the cement in thick pale green slow surges among the cords, Cash watching us quietly with that profound questioning look.

32“That’ll steady it,” I say.

33“Ay,” Cash says. “I’m obliged.”

34Then we all turn on the wagon and watch him. He is coming up the road behind us, wooden-backed, wooden-faced, moving only from his hips down. He comes up without a word, with his pale rigid eyes in his high sullen face, and gets into the wagon.

35“Here’s a hill,” pa says. “I reckon you’ll have to get out and walk.”