that violence which had slain the mules that drew it not an hour since) above the edge of the flood. In the wagon-bed it lies profoundly, the long pale planks hushed a little with wetting yet still yellow, like gold seen through water, save for two long muddy smears. We pass it and go on to the bank.
One end of the rope is made fast to a tree. At the edge of the stream, knee-deep, Vardaman stands, bent forward a little, watching Vernon with rapt absorption. He has stopped yelling and he is wet to the armpits. Vernon is at the other end of the rope, shoulder-deep in the river, looking back at Vardaman. “Further back than that,” he says. “You git back by the tree and hold the rope for me, so it can’t slip.”
Vardaman backs along the rope, to the tree, moving blindly, watching Vernon. When we come up he looks at us once, his eyes round and a little dazed. Then he looks at Vernon again in that posture of rapt alertness.
“I got the hammer too,” Vernon says. “Looks like we ought to done already got that chalk-line. It ought to floated.”
“Floated clean away,” Jewel says. “We won’t get it. We ought to find the saw, though.”
“I reckon so,” Vernon says. He looks at the water. “That chalk-line, too. What else did he have?”
“He ain’t talked yet,” Jewel says, entering the water. He looks back at me. “You go back and get him roused up to talk,” he says.
“Pa’s there,” I say. I follow Jewel into the water, along the rope. It feels alive in my hand, bellied faintly in a prolonged and resonant arc. Vernon is watching me.
“You better go,” he says. “You better be there.”
“Let’s see what else we can get before it washes on down,” I say.