2

Jack Hodge 2
remembered the things he had said. Jack told us then that he often
thought he might die there in the shack, lie there for days without
anyone knowing he was dead. "That," he said, very sadly, "is all that
I am afraid of." The boys looked at the cot and dirty quilts, and
shuddered. We could see the dark, immobile face disintegrating and smell
the pervading stench.

I met him on the street in Red Bay, but first I drove into the
woods by the Gum Creek road. I had an idea where to stop and start
walking the sawmill road to the hill, the shack, and the clearing. But
it had been long, and I asked at the doors of several tenant houses.
Some shook their heads. They talked about Jack, but they didn't know.
"Last I heard of him he was working for Lowry."

We drove back to town, and after sundown I met Hodge on the streets.
He came toward me slowly, dressed in overalls and blue workshirt, of denim,
too. His hair was coal black, his face was not only dark, it was black
in hue. His lips were full, teeth hid behind his lips. I thought "Hodge
has gone country." But he had come to Red Bay much this way, and had
remained the slow-moving, ox-brained man.

Hodge looked across the street to the hardware, and it was impossible
to read his thoughts; yet one knew he was brooding. One knew that he was
worrying. He had always been that way, I remembered. "That land was give
me to clear and tend. I was to git it for half the crop for two years. It
ain't worth over a dollar a acre. It wasn't no 'count for making money.
I thought I could git something or other out of it..." He seemed to be
leaving something unsaid, something that would clear up the mystery of his
going to the woods.

"I ain't been as low in all my life. There ain't been a time I couldn't
git a hundred dollars from the bank, or somebody. When I left town--you
remember me selling papers here--I thought I'd git a better start by clearing
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