Ten Buzzards in Black Circles — As I Lay Dying

Now there are seven of them, Vardaman says, in little tall black circles of not-moving. He tells Darl yesterday there were just four and there were more than four on the barn. If a buzzard tries to light on the wagon again, he would not let it light on her and would not let it light on Cash either. Cash is sick on the box with a quilt under his head and wood under his knee, but my mother is a fish.

Cash has a broken leg and says the bumps grind together a little but it don't bother none, even when Darl loosens the rope and his teeth look out. Pa says they ought to have left Cash at Armstid's and talks Mottson medicine while claiming Addie would not have them beholden. Jewel and his horse are gone since supper. Vardaman asks if Jewel's mother is a horse while his mind jumps to the shed where he chased buzzards away from her in the wagon.

My mother is not in the box, Vardaman repeats. She does not smell like that. She got out through the holes he bored into the water, and when they come to water again he will see her. Darl says those cakes will reach Jefferson fine and the Snopes mules walk hard like they were fed on sawdust. Now there are ten of them, tall in little tall black circles on the sky. Will Moseley send Dewey Dell away from his counter while the town smell waits outside?