William Faulkner, SANCTUARY – WordPress.com - literature save 2

Again Snopes looked at the house. "Keeping batch, are you?" he said. Horace said
nothing. "Like I always say, every married man ought to have a little place of his own,
where he can git off to himself without it being nobody's business what he does. 'Course a
man owes something to his wife, but what they dont know caint hurt them, does it?
Long's he does that, I caint see where she's got ere kick coming. Aint that what you say?"
"She's not here," Horace said, "if that's what you're hinting at. What did you want
to see me about?"
Again he felt Snopes watching him, the unabashed stare calculating and
completely unbelieving. "Well, I always say, caint nobody tend to a man's private
business but himself. I aint blaming you. But when you know me better, you'll know I
aint loose-mouthed. I been around I been there. . . Have a cigar?" His big hand flicked to
his breast and offered two cigars.
"No, thanks."
Snopes lit a cigar, his face coming out of the match like a pie set on edge.
"What did you want to see me about?" Horace said.
Snopes puffed the cigar. "Couple days ago I come onto a piece of information
which will be of value to you, if I aint mistook."
"Oh. Of value. What value?"
"I'll leave that to you. I got another party I could dicker with, but being as me and
you was fellow-townsmen and all that."
Here and there Horace's mind flicked and darted. Snopes' family originated
somewhere near Frenchman's Bend and still lived there. He knew of the devious means
by which information passed from man to man of that illiterate race which populated that
section of the country. But surely it cant be something he'd try to sell to the State, he
thought. Even he is not that big a fool.
"You'd better tell me what it is, then," he said.
He could feel Snopes watching him. "You remember one day you got on the train
at Oxford, where you'd been on some bus--"
"Yes," Horace said.
Snopes puffed the cigar to an even coal, carefully, at some length. He raised his
hand and drew it across the back of his neck. "You recall speaking to me about a girl."
"Yes. Then what?"
"That's for you to say."
He could smell the honeysuckle as it bore up the silver slope, and he heard the
whippoorwill, liquid, plaintful, reiterant. "You mean, you know where she is?" Snopes
said nothing. "And that for a price you'll tell?" Snopes said nothing. Horace shut his
hands and put them in his pockets, shut against his flanks. "What makes you think that
information will interest me?"
"That's for you to judge. I aint conducting no murder case. I wasn't down there at
Oxford looking for her. Of course, if it dont, I'll dicker with the other party. I just give
you the chance."
Horace turned toward the steps. He moved gingerly, like an old man. "Let's sit
down," he said. Snopes followed and sat on the step. They sat in the moonlight. "You
know where she is?"
"I seen her." Again he drew his hand across the back of his neck. "Yes, sir. If she
aint-hasn't been there, you can git your money back. I caint say no fairer, can I'll'