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Dorothy dropped the branch into the water. It submerged a moment, paused, and then was spun away over a fall of tiny rapids. Mary stared at the branch out the rear window until it was out of sight and imagined somehow that it was more responsible for what had been done to her uncle than was her aunt.

Dorothy Sims knelt over her husband, took both his arms and dragged him back to the side of the car. Mary crouched on the other side, as far away from her aunt as she could get. Dorothy pushed Malcolm's unconscious form under the car between the wheels. She held tight on to him by his ankles so that he would not be borne away by the rushing water. For a few moments there was a slight struggle and one of Malcolm's feet escaped her, but she caught it quickly enough again and held ever more tightly. In a couple of minutes Dorothy let the body go, assured that her husband had drowned.

Mary, still inside the car with the water a few inches over the level of the back seat, was rigid with fear. She had rolled down the window and was about to crawl out of it into the water despite her fear of the snakes, when Dorothy released her husband's ankles. The corpse of Malcolm Sims knocked about under the car for a moment, and then emerged on the downstream side. His purple face appeared just beneath the surface of the water, a halo of blood surrounding it. Mary screamed, dropped down on to the seat, and began to cry. Her uncle was dead, her aunt was doubtless going to kill her next, she was like to drown in the back seat of a car, and the creek was filled with snakes.

Dorothy Sims, however, ignored her niece and waded to the shore. Bedraggled, she struggled up on to a sandbar, stepped across a narrow muddy streamlet, and then climbed up a clayey embankment about three feet high. She sat for a moment in a nest of pine needles to catch her breath, then made her way along the creek bank to the bridge; she made slow progress because of the denseness of the vegetation. It looked as if she were going to flag down the next vehicle that came along in the dusk.

She was nearly to the road when a farmer's pickup truck appeared at the top of the hill. Though the dusk was deepening into night in this small valley, the truck did not yet have Fts headlamps on.

Dorothy Sims struggled against the briars, which tore her dress and slip, and leaped out into the road, trying to catch the attention of the driver of the truck. But she tripped on the uneven edge of the pavement, and stumbled headlong into the highway.

Her clothes were dark, so that the driver of the truck did not see her before he was almost upon her, and by then it was too late to stop. He swerved to the right, but Dorothy had not the sense to dart backward, and so was caught by the right fender. She was knocked clear across the road and against the concrete piling at one end of the bridge. Her spine was snapped instantly.

Mary heard the screeching of the truck's brakes and she stared out the window but could see nothing of what was happening. Making sure that her uncle's corpse was farther downstream, Mary struggled out the right-hand window of the back seat and fell into the water; she came up sputtering and screaming, 'Snakes! Snakes!' «

Jack Weaver backed his truck off the bridge, and on to the narrow shoulder of the highway. Shaking, he climbed down out of the cab and ran quickly over to the body of Dorothy Sims. It was apparent from the abnormal way in which her torso was bent that her back had been broken. He took Dorothy's hand; there was no pulse. He breathed an automatic but thoroughly sincere prayer, and closed the woman's eyes.

His wife Merle was also out of the truck now and had approached timorously. 'Jack', said the woman, 'is she dead? Did we kill her?'

'She's dead', he replied. The middle-aged couple then looked up, and saw for the first time that the bridge had been broken through, and that there was a car in the water. Mary had just come up out of the water and begun to scream for fear of the snakes.

'Oh, Jack, they must have been a accident, and we run the poor woman down when she was trying to get help!' cried Merle.

'You go get the child, Merle. Poor thing's in hysterics. Get her out of the water.'

'What about this lady?'

'I' 11 put her on the back of the truck. I don't want the little girl to have to see her, and then we'll drive into Brundidge. Looks like that was where they was headed.'

'Maybe the girl will know', said Merle.

Merle and Jack Weaver were good, conscientious people and this accident was an enormous burden on their minds, not because of the possible consequences of it to themselves, but simply because of the death of the unfortunate woman whom they had killed and because of the child. They owned a small farm on hard acreage and had worked all their lives tearing a living from the stubborn earth. They were pious, well-meaning people, whose only child had been electrocuted during a rainstorm.

Merle climbed down to the creek bed, and waded out into the water towards Mary, soothing her with her words. 'They's no snakes, child. No snakes! I'll carry you, come here, child!'

Mary stopped blubbering and began walking towards Merle through the water. Merle snatched her up out of the creek and brought her to the shore. There she waited a few minutes in order to give her husband time to place Dorothy's body out of sight on the back of the truck.

'You tell me what happened, child', said Merle, piteously.

'Well', said Mary, with a conspiratorial air, 'we was going to Montgomery—'

'You and your mother', interrupted Merle.

'My mama's
dead',
whispered Mary.

'You saw it then!' cried Merle, thinking that the child had been witness to the accident.

'My mama's dead, because we buried her today. This afternoon. My daddy's sister was in the car, and she just now run up here into the trees.' *

Merle was shocked and dismayed to think that the child had lost her mother and now her aunt in so short a time.

'We was going to Montgomery', Mary continued, with her eyes almost shut tight, 'and we come to this bridge and Aunt Dot turned the wheel of the car, and we went in the water with all them snakes in it. And then Malcolm-that was Dot's husband - tried to get me out of the back seat, where there was all this water, you know, and Aunt Dot beat him over the head with a big stick and killed him and he is floating off down to the Gulf of Mexico right now! I thought she was gone kill me next, she could have put a snake in the back seat! You better watch out', Mary warned her rescuer, ' 'cause she might try to kill you too!'

'Jack! Jack!' Merle screamed, and pulled the child after her back towards the highway. Jack was just covering the body with a piece of canvas. He turned at his wife's voice.

'Jack! There's another body, floating down the creek - this woman's husband. The girl says she killed him and then ran up on the road.'

Jack Weaver's eyes widened. He ran to the cab of the track and brought out a heavy-duty flashlight. He stood on the downstream side of the bridge and flashed the light over the surface of the creek. He caught sight of another corpse about twenty yards away, caught in the exposed roots of a cypress that stood at the edge of the water. Jack sickened at the ghastly sight.

'Merle', he turned to his wife, 'you get in the car with the girl, and don't you let her see a thing. Don't you let her look out the window, whatever you do.'

Merle climbed into the cab, and coaxed Mary in after her. While they waited for Jack to retrieve the body of Malcolm Sims and place it on the truck beside that of his wife, Merle pieced together the events of the past few days from Mary's rambling narrative and was appalled by all that the child had suffered. When finally, grimly, Jack got into the cab Merle repeated to him what the child had said, being constantly interrupted by Mary with new and inconsequential details, and it was decided that they ought to return to Pine Cone right then.

It was the early part of the evening, but the streets of Pine Cone were already deserted. The Weavers' pickup truck was parked directly in front of the courthouse, with the headlamps still on. The harsh light from a mercury lamp shone down into the cab, directly on to Maiy Shirley and Merle Weaver. The little girl was still wet and bedraggled, and lay with her head in Merle's lap, very weary and confused by all that had happened since that morning. Merle Weaver stroked the little girl's hair, and thought of the two corpses in the rear of the truck.

Presently, Jack Weaver came down the front steps of the courthouse. Sheriff Garrett and Deputy Barnes were directly behind him, talking in low voices. Jack went down and was about to uncover the corpses for their inspection, but the two men first glanced into the front of the truck and saw that it was Mary Shirley inside.

'Hey, Mary, how you doing?' said Deputy Barnes automatically, but very infelicitously. The sheriff punched him and they moved away before Maiy had the opportunity to reply that she was very very wet.

From Jack's description of what had happened on the road and of the story related to him by the little girl who had survived the strange happenings on the highway and in Burnt Corn Creek, the sheriff and his deputy had concluded that the bodies must have been those of Malcolm and Dorothy Sims.

Garrett and Barnes glanced at one another and shook their heads. Then they moved round beside Jack, one on either side, and glanced as he pulled back the canvas, uncovering the upper portions of the two corpses. The faces were ghastly in the mercury light, and still wet with thin blood and creek water.

'The girl', Jack repeated, 'say
she',
and he indicated Dorothy Sims,
'beathim
', and he nodded at Malcolm. 'Beat him overthe

head with a pine branch until he was dead, and then she ran up on the bridge.'

Sheriff Garrett pulled the canvas entirely off. 'If she'd have been wearing something light coloured, maybe you'd have seen her', he said, trying to console the farmer, who was obviously greatly distraught.

The deputy said then, 'She was at her own brother's funeral today - he was a deputy just like me - and so she wouldn't have been wearing white in no case.'

'And this wasn't
their
little girl, then?' said Jack.

'No', said the sheriff. 'Like I said. Mary was James Shirley's little girl. James Shirley was this woman's brother. James Shirley's wife pushed a ice pick into his brain and then cut her throat. That was on Thursday night.'

Jack shook his head and whistled. 'What's gone come of her now?'

Sheriff Garrett shrugged.

'We gone get in trouble, Sheriff?' the farmer asked. 'You know', he said piteously, 'I didn't mean to run the woman down.'

'Well', Garrett replied, 'wasn't your fault, like you said. She wasn't wearing white, and she ought not be running up on bridges when the sun's gone down. And she ought not be killing her husband with pine branches either.'

'Ought not do that in any case', added the deputy. 'No, sir', he added a moment later, for emphasis, when no one thought to second his opinion.

'It's real peculiar', mused the sheriff.

'What is?' said Jack.

'Ever'body dying like they are. ..' said the sheriff.

'You mean these two, and then the policeman and his wife?' asked Jack. 'Not much family left there, is there?'

'Wasn't just them', said Deputy Barnes, "cause last Wednesday night, seven people burned up on the other side of town.'

'Well', said the farmer, 'burning up's a lot different from stabbing and shooting and getting run down on bridges and being hit on the head with pine branches in the middle of the

creek.'

'Maybe', said the sheriff, 'but I tell you, sir, I just can't say I

was surprised when you folks pulled up and said you had two bodies in the back of your truck, what with all these people dying. And if I had thought about it for twenty seconds I think I could have guessed that it would be Malcolm and Dorothy Sims.'

'And you know what's funny too?' said the deputy.

'What?' asked the sheriff, pulling the canvas back over the corpses; there wasn't any point in examining them further now.

'For the last nine dyings', said the deputy, 'we ain't had one open coffin, and from the looks of these two, we're not gone get it now.'

'We not gone get them anyway. They was from Montgomery, just down for the funeral.'

'You'd think she'd have waited till they got back to Montgomery', said the deputy.

'I sure do wish she had', said Jack Weaver, shaking his head slowly.

At this point, little Mary Shirley leaned her head out the cab of the truck, and said loudly, 'And you know what, Sheriff? She did it on purpose! She pushed the car off the road! I saw her turn the wheel! She did it 'cause I saw her do it!'

'Mary', said the sheriff, 'you be quiet, till we know what's gone come of you.'

'They's all dead', said the little girl with more gravity. 'I don't know what you gone do 'bout me. They's Gussie, I could go live with Gussie, 'cept I just know she's gone make me eat collard greens, and I
hate
collard greens.'

Merle Weaver drew the little girl back into the truck and held her tight against her breast for warmth and comfort.

The parking lot of the Pine Cone Munitions Factory was two acres of packed red dirt that was bright blood-coloured dust in dry weather and thick, sucking mud after any amount of rain. A small corner of paved ground was reserved for those high up in the company. A great array of automobiles crowded this lot every working day: cars that were twenty and even thirty years old, cars that had been purchased only the week before and still retained the dealer's stickers on the side windows, all manner of trucks and vans, a couple of motorcycles, and even a school bus.