It was ten o’clock when I got back, with Peabody’s team hitched on to the back of the wagon. They had already dragged the buckboard back from where Quick found it upside down straddle of the ditch about a mile from the spring. It was pulled out of the road at the spring, and about a dozen wagons was already there. It was Quick found it. He said the river was up and still rising. He said it had already covered the highest watermark on the bridge-piling he had ever seen. “That bridge won’t stand a whole lot of water,” I said. “Has somebody told Anse about it?”
“I told him,” Quick said. “He says he reckons them boys has heard and unloaded and are on the way back by now. He says they can load up and get across.”
“He better go on and bury her at New Hope,” Armstid said. “That bridge is old. I wouldn’t monkey with it.”
“His mind is set on taking her to Jefferson,” Quick said.
“Then he better get at it soon as he can,” Armstid said.
Anse meets us at the door. He has shaved, but not good. There is a long cut on his jaw, and he is wearing his Sunday pants and a white shirt with the neckband buttoned. It is drawn smooth over his hump, making it look bigger than ever, like a white shirt will, and his face is different too. He looks folks in the eye now, dignified, his face tragic and composed, shaking us by the hand as we walk up on to the porch and scrape our shoes, a little stiff in our Sunday clothes, our Sunday clothes rustling, not looking full at him as he meets us.
“The Lord giveth,” we say.