Entering Jefferson — As I Lay Dying

Three mi, two mi, Darl says, drugstores and garages and mile-boards diminishing as smoke hangs low and flat on the horizon. Is that it, Darl, Vardaman asks. Is that Jefferson? Cash lies on the box with jagged cement shards cracked about his leg while buzzards hang in narrowing circles that show form without motion. We'll have to take him to the doctor, pa says at last. I reckon it ain't no way around it.

I got to go to the bushes, Dewey Dell says, carrying her newspaper package, and returns in Sunday dress, beads, shoes, and stockings while pa scolds her for not leaving those clothes home. We ought to done like Armstid and Gillespie said and sent word to town, pa mutters, but I never wanted to be beholden to none except her flesh and blood.

Red sand rises toward the courthouse clock. Faces come white-eyed to cabin doors. Great God, a passerby says, what they got in that wagon? Jewel whirls, a knife opens, and Darl makes him say I didn't mean it before the wagon rolls into the square. Jewel does not climb in. He squats on the turning rear hub wooden-backed while heads turn with the expression we know. Will Cash explain why sending Darl to Jackson was the only way after Gillespie learned who burned the barn?