See What You Done Now — As I Lay Dying

See what you done now, Vernon yells knee-deep at Anse, but first he tells Cora how Darl jumped off the wagon while Cash tried to save it and Jewel fought his horse back from the bank. Cora says Darl alone had sense to get off and Anse was too smart to be on it at all. Vernon says they would have made it but for the log. Log, fiddlesticks, Cora says, it was the hand of God, then asks why dare it if nobody can guard against God. Vernon points out she faults Anse for not being on the wagon while calling the crossing sacrilege. His place was there, Cora says, if he had been a man he would have been there instead of making his sons do what he dursn't, then she sings at the washtub like she has marched past all foolishness.

Vernon remembers the ford. The wagon hung while Cash leaned more and more bracing the coffin until the log finished its job and went on good as a swimming man. Mules rolled stiff-legged. The wagon tilted and Cash vanished still holding the box while Vardaman ran hollering at Darl and Vernon stood in the water yelling see what you done now at Anse behind him on the bank.

Jewel leaned upstream on the rope snubbing the wagon below the ford. Cash came up on the horse grey-faced with mud, moaning like a natural man, then slid off and floated like a bundle of clothes against the bank because he could not swim. Vernon and Jewel watched the rope cut the water hard as an iron bar, hissing like it was red hot, while the wagon blumped lazy against them and a bloated shoat bumped the line and drifted on. What will Darl find when he reaches Cash on the bank and Jewel asks what else was in the wagon when the river took it?