human
Ben, you must let me go back. Mother----
gpt
Ru, thou knowest she is dead.
human
You never loved her or you could not say it.
gpt
I loved her, Reuben. Now save thy breath for walking.
human
They still there, boy?
gpt
Yes, Ben wheezed--
human
I think so.
gpt
You're bad hurt.
human
Water?
gpt
Water of Jamaica.
human
God magnify you! Jesse drank.
gpt
Don't know you--'d pray for you was I a'ready in Hell.
human
How many?
gpt
Jesus, I don't know. Killed one Inj'an with my axe. Jesse said that in startled thoughtfulness as if just remembering.
human
My own gun got me--peddler sold it me for a musket, bloody grape-shot it is now, might've killed me deader'n a son of a bitch. The sergeant ran on to the head of the column.
gpt
A'n't left you much, Jesse apologized, and discovered the flask still in his hand.
human
Why, he's gone and left me it, in the name of God.
gpt
Come on, Jesse--he meant to. Come on!
human
I will, Ben. But do you boys walk on ahead--it be'n't right a thing so ugly as me should walk naked in the sun, the Lord never intended it.
gpt
If I knowed that man's name I could pray for him. The race is not alway to him that can the swiftest run--call that a Psa'm, they do, no music in 'em, Church of England myself, if so be it makes any difference when a man's a sinner and lost and bound to Hell. I know what I'll do, I'll say to the Lord Jesus, that man who gave me a drink on the Hatfield road the first day of March, that's what I'll say, mark it, Ben, and pity but the dear Lord'd understand, you would think--Benjamin? Won't he? I'll say, that man who gave me a drink on the first bloody day of March, right about there on the Hatfield road, do you see, and will that do fair enough, Benjamin?
human
Of course, Jesse.
gpt
You're a sweet soul, Benjamin, to gi' me that out of the good learning you got. I call that an act of kindness to an old fart that's wallowed in ignorance and sin all his days, I won't forget it, I could kiss your foot. I used to could sing, Benjamin. At Mother Gilly's house they'd use to _ask_ me to sing, every smock there would ask me--her house was in Stepney, not far from the Mile End Road. 'Brave Benbow lost his legs'--that's a song I picked up from a chapman come by your father's house, Benjamin, I think it was last year. 'Brave Benbow'--oh, bugger me blind if I a'n't forgot it, anyway there was better songs in the days of King Charles that won't come again, needn't to think they will, boy. That's all past, that is....
human
Ru, brother----
gpt
I can't go on, nor I will not.
human
You must.
gpt
I cursed you.
human
What? That?--you know that was nothing.
gpt
I'm rotten with sin. I let it happen. I did nothing. And yesterday she chided me for using an ugly word, and I went out into the shed and I--and----
human
That's nothing.
gpt
You say that. I befouled myself. I didn't pray last night. So I'm to die in sin and be damned forever.
human
No. No....
gpt
God-damn flask's empty. Ben's eyes were compelled to follow the motion of a brown thing soaring up from Jesse's long arm, flying, descending to the river ice and skidding off to lie still, a dot of darkness.
human
Don't know m' own bloody strength,
gpt
Reuben, thou art no more in sin than any child of Adam.
human
I let it happen. He came out of the dark. I let it happen.
gpt
Reuben, get up on your feet! As Reuben answered that angry shout with nothing but a sick stare, Ben searched in desperation for anything at all that might reach the boy's mind, and could find nothing, thwarted by the barrier that rises or seems to rise between one self and another, and so cried out unthinkingly:
human
For my sake then! Because I need thee and love thee.