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Thrusting his car keys into his pocket, his fingers knocked against the strange gift that Jo Howell had given him for his wife. He pulled the necklace out and examined it briefly in the light of the declining sun. Two of the children, one of them his youngest girl, the other a little boy totally unfamiliar to him, noisily grabbed for the swinging, shiny metal, but he lifted it out of their reach.

Rachel Coppage opened the wooden front door to her husband, and talked to him through the screen. 'What you got, Larry?'

Standing a few feet away from her, he held the piece up for her to see. She opened the screen a little, so as not to let in flies, reached round, and snatched the necklace from his grasp. 'Where'd you get it?' she asked.

'Present for you', he smiled.

Rachel looked at Larry sarcastically. 'Where'd you get it?' she repeated.

'Dean Howell's mama gave it to me.'

Rachel said, 'Larry, you can't wear a necklace, look like a hippie. You and me and all five kids would be laughed right out of town.'

'Rachel', said Larry patiently, 'I said this was for you. A present for you. Miz Howell said for me to give it to you.' Rachel was a good wife in many respects, but she had a habit of chafing her husband. She looked closely at the pendant, traced her finger round the circle of gold. 'Jo Howell hasn't spoke to me since 1958 when my daddy bought their farm when old man Howell died so funny.'

'Well', said Larry, 'I don't know about that, but she and Dean wanted you to have it.' Then, as an afterthought, he added, it wasn't funny. It was just a snake, some old snake out in the corn, bit him on the ankle

Rachel disregarded her husband's remark. 'I don't know why she would have gotten mad at me, 'cause it was Daddy that bought the farm, not me. I didn't have anything to do with it, and besides, she hated the place and was just dying to get off it. And you say Jo Howell give this to you to give to me?'

Lariy nodded.

'Will wonders never cease', Rachel commented, and shook her head pensively. 'Next thing you know she'll start coming to Sunday school and choir practice.'

Rachel opened the screen door, and allowed her husband entrance. A couple of their five children also asked to be let into the house, but she shouted, 'No, no! You stay out here till I call you in to supper! I don't clean this house so you kids can trample all over the floors!'

Larry followed Rachel into the kitchen, where she examined the necklace under the fluorescent light. There was no manufacturer's mark.

'Wonder why they wanted to get rid of it?' mused Rachel acidly.

Larry repeated his remark. 'Jo Howell said Dean wanted you to have it. He's real bad, just real bad, Rachel. I don't even like to think about it. I didn't even recognise him. All them bandages over his face. I don't even know if they feed him with a spoon or a tube.'

'Dean never liked me either', said Rachel.

Larry did not dispute this. 'Dean was funny, sometimes, in some ways.'

'Real funny', said Rachel, with distaste, 'but if he's bad off like you say, then I feel sorry for him. I sure would hate to be laid-up in a house with Jo Howell keeping me company solid eight-to-five. And I really do feel sorry for Sarah, 'cause this wasn't her fault and now she's stuck with it.'

Her husband nodded solemnly. He felt very sorry for Sarah, sorrier for her in a way than for Dean himself. It was impossible to feel sympathy for that thing in the bed, with the pulsating black slit in the bandages, that really wasn't like a mouth at all.

'Did he lose anything?' asked Rachel. 'Like a arm, or eye or something?'

'He may have lost an eye, I think, but he looked like he was all there.'

'D'you count his fingers?' asked Rachel, and Larry shook his head.

'That would have been rude', he said.

Rachel weighed the necklace in her hand. 'There's something funny about all of this', she said and stared at her husband out of the corner of her eye. 'This thing didn't come from Wool-worth's.'

The sun had sunk behind the screen of diseased pines that backed the scanty property owned by Jo Howell, and the room where Dean lay was now in complete darkness. Jo had been too lazy to get up and switch on a lamp, so that she might have continued with her sewing.

Presently, Sarah's figure appeared in the doorway, a black shadow interrupting the dim light that struggled across the dark living room from the kitchen on the other side of the house. 'Jo, will you get the light so I don't fall with this tray?' Sarah had prepared Dean's supper, several bowls of soft, mashed foods.

'Can't see a thing, Sarah. If I was to get up, I might knock you down.'

Sarah knew better than to argue with her mother-in-law, though it was patently impossible that Jo would come in contact with her if she attempted only to switch on the bulb that was not three feet away from her. Sarah moved into the room very carefully, but still nearly tripped on the edge of the threadbare oval carpet beneath the foot of the bed. She set the tray down on the night table, turned on the small lamp that was there and then moved the straight chair to the bedside, just at Dean's head.

Spooning the food into the narrow black slit that represented Dean's mouth was an odious task to Sarah and she wished to heaven that Jo would do it. The old woman claimed that she felt no repugnance at all when she looked on her son,' but', she said toSarah, 'you'rehis wife, andyou ought to feed him. It'snotfor me to come between a man and a woman. I won't be accused of that!'

Sarah set the tray in her lap and took up the spoon. Conversation even with Jo, she thought, might distract her from this tedious, unpleasant ritual. 'Bad at the plant too', she said, referring to the heat, which was still very much in evidence in the room, though the sun had gone down.

'I hope they rot in hell! Hell won't be hot enough for 'em!' exclaimed Jo, with sudden bitterness.

'Who?' said Sarah automatically.

'Ever'body in that whole damn place, that's who!'

Sarah had heard Jo Howell go on before; it was always in the same tone, and always to the same effect. Sarah composed herself to listen, and was actually thankful for the distraction.

'Dean', said his mother in a low voice, with her sewing not yet picked up off the floor beside her chair, 'Dean was the only good man in Pine Cone, in this whole damn town of layabouts and whores, and he was the only one of 'em to go in the army. They was all in that plant, ever' one of 'em got a job and they ever' one of 'em stayed at home, niggers and white people too. And it was a Pine Cone rifle that liked to tore off his head!'

Sarah sighed, she rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. How was she supposed to tell if that black hole wanted more, how would she know when it was satisfied?

'D'you make that rifle, Sarah?' said Jo, viciously. 'D'youput your hands on it? That rifle that put out one of his eyes, and we don't even know what he's gone look like now? D 'you touch it, Sarah? Got the whole damn town's fingeiprints on it...'

'Don't blame me, Jo', said Sarah calmly. 'Wasn't my doing, what happened to Dean.' She stuck the spoon into the black hole. 'You might just as well blame me for the whole Vietnam War.'

Bitterly, Jo Howell continued, 'Them women down at the plant, on the 'ssembly line, they got silver dollars rolling out their ears, and they got their boys and their men at home. They get cane sugar from the niggers down the river, and they make cookies and send 'em to Saigon. And you just know them cookies go stale 'fore they're halfway there! I hate them women!'

Sarah knew that Jo Howell could go on for a good half hour with such speeches. It was better to have her talking, but she wished that she would speak of other things. As soon as Jo had paused to draw in a short breath, Sarah said, 'Jo, where'd you get that thing?' The necklace, which she had almost forgotten about, suddenly occurred to her as a convenient change of subject.

Evidently feigning ignorance, Jo inquired testily, 'What thing, Sarah?'

'That thing you gave Larry Coppage. That necklace. You know what I'm talking about.' Sarah pushed the spoon through the hole in the bandages and pulled it out clean.

'Not no necklace', said Jo, after a moment's consideration. 'Called a
amulet.'

Sarah looked up briefly. Why had Jo's response been so reluctant? Another spoonful. There was no motion in the body, but the spoon always came out clean. Sarah didn't think that she would ever grow used to this disgusting operation.

'Where'd you get it though?' Sarah asked.

'Always had it', said Jo. Jo watched the feeding carefully and smiled grimly, though at what Sarah had no idea.

'Well, / never saw it before. I never saw it around here.'

'Well', said Jo, 'there'slots you never saw. My cousin Bama gave me that thing one week to the day 'fore she drowned herself in Burnt Corn Creek. 1 used to wear it a lot when Dean's daddy was still alive. I had it on the day Jimmy got bit by that water moccasin in the creek on the farm. I sure do wisht we was still out there', she said dreamily, and Sarah glanced up at the sudden change in tone. 'Dean used to kill them snakes with a hoe, when they was still in the water. He never missed. After they killed his daddy, he used to go out in a little boat, with a hoe and a gun, 'cept he never used the gun, 'cause he could always get 'em with a hoe. I don't hardly see how he done it, killing snakes in the water with a hoe. But he said it was even better than blasting a covey of quail. Dean was happy out on the farm, 'cause there was the creek, and there was all the quail in the county, and I wisht we was still out there.' Jo sighed nostalgically.

'You hated the farm, Jo. You told me you couldn't wait to get off that farm. You told everybody in town that. You also told everybody in town that Dean's daddy got bit in the cornfield. I have never heard anybody say a word about a water moccasin when they was talking about Dean's daddy dying like he did. How come you start to say now that you wish you was back on the farm?' Sarah demanded, and started on the mashed carrots.

'I was talking about for Dean. I wisht we was out there for Dean's sake. If I knew he would be happy there, I'd go back out there in a minute. I'd do anything for that boy.'

Everything,
Sarah thought,
except feed him.
Suddenly, Sarah realised how Jo had turned the subject away from the amulet that she had given to Larry Coppage, as if she were hesitant to speak of it. Sarah didn't believe that Jo had always had if, she was positive that, in that case, she would have seen the thing before. It was a small house, and Jo didn't have much anyway. It was Sarah that cleaned her room, and Sarah had never seen anything among her mother-in-law's belongings that resembled the amulet.

She turned to ask Jo about the amulet again, but just at that moment, the spoon got somehow caught in Dean's mouth, and she had difficulty withdrawing it. Finally, after some seconds of pulling, it jerked out, and Sarah upset the last of the bowls of food on to the floor.

By the time she had returned from the kitchen with towels to clean the spill up, she had forgotten the question that she had intended to ask.

Making supper for her husband and five children, who ranged in age from eight months to seven years, was a task that Rachel Coppage had grown used to. She had married Larry in the course of their sophomore year at the university, much against her parents' wishes, but her parents had not known just how much money there was in Larry's family. Other married student couples might have had a rough go of it, but Larry's father had pushed Larry into college, and wanted to make sure that he came out the other end, diploma in hand. Larry's father sent Rachel a substantial cheque every month and told her he didn't want his boy worried about financial matters. Rachel had seen to it that he was not. *

But Larry grew weary of school, and in an effort to escape the intellectual rigours of the University of Alabama for a space, he enlisted in the air force. With the first two of their children still in her arms, Rachel had followed Lany first to Texas for his basic training, then to Virginia for a year and a half. At the end of that time, Larry declared he was still not yet ready to return to school, so they spent a further two years at the air station in Panama City, Florida, in which place they were blessed with two more infants. The fifth - and Rachel hoped the last - was born some time after they settled in Pine Cone.

No place that Rachel had lived was much better or much worse than any other. She didn't think so badly of her existence in Pine Cone. What she did like, however, was financial security, and she knew that as long as she remained with Larry, money would never be lacking. Rachel was not so interested in having
things
- a big house or a motorboat, or anything like that - she just didn't want to be bothered by bills, and debts, and monthly payments. If Rachel went to Montgomery and saw a pair of green shoes that she wanted, she bought them; if she felt like getting away from Pine Cone in June, then she asked Larry to rent a house in Pensacola, and she knew he wouldn't complain of the expense. Rachel's parents had worried about money, and fought about money, and yelled at her about how much money she cost them, and Rachel hadn't liked it a bit; life with Larry was decidedly a change for the better.

Rachel knew many women who would complain of having to raise five children, but she didn't mind so much. There was a maid hired to help seven days a week, and there was no problem about getting clothes for them, or braces or whatever it was that they needed. Rachel took a great deal of care with her children, though she didn't coddle them. She took pains with her house, and though she often was sharp with Larry - that was her nature, which probably would never change - she loved him, and did what she could to make things go easily for him. Larry's relationship with his father was strained, for Larry was not so ambitious as he might be, the old man considered. But it was Rachel who dealt with the senior Mr Coppage when that man wanted Larry to do this or that for him in Pine Cone. Rachel knew how to mollify the old man with a short visit from her and the grandchild of his who seemed most likely to be quiet and respectful for a couple of hours.