Where Do the Buzzards Stay — As I Lay Dying

Jewel hasn't got a horse any more, Vardaman says, walking up the hill behind the wagon with Darl and Dewey Dell. Jewel came back on the road and got into the wagon, but he was walking. Cash is my brother, Vardaman repeats. Cash has a broken leg. We fixed Cash's leg so it doesn't hurt. Jewel is my brother too, but he hasn't got a broken leg.

Now there are five of them, tall in little tall black circles. Where do they stay at night, Darl, Vardaman asks. When we stop at night in the barn, where do they stay? The hill goes off into the sky. Then the sun comes up from behind the hill and the mules and the wagon and pa walk on the sun until you cannot watch them, walking slow on the light.

In Jefferson it is red on the track behind the glass and the track goes shining round and round, Dewey Dell says so. The memory sits beside the buzzards and the brothers walking the hill. Tonight I am going to see where they stay while we are in the barn, Vardaman ends. Will Darl ask Jewel whose son he is under the apple tree while Cash's cement leg turns hot in the sun?