ISAID, “I reckon a man in a tight might let Bill Varner patch him up like a damn mule, but I be damned if the man that’d let Anse Bundren treat him with raw cement ain’t got more spare legs than I have.”

“They just aimed to ease hit some,” he said.

“Aimed, hell,” I said. “What in hell did Armstid mean by even letting them put you on that wagon again?”

“Hit was gittin’ right noticeable,” he said. “We never had time to wait.” I just looked at him. “Hit never bothered me none,” he said.

“Don’t you lie there and try to tell me you rode six days on a wagon without springs, with a broken leg and it never bothered you.”

“I never bothered me much,” he said.

“You mean, it never bothered Anse much,” I said. “No more than it bothered him to throw that poor devil down in the public street and handcuff him like a damn murderer. Don’t tell me. And don’t tell me it ain’t going to bother you to lose sixty-odd square inches of skin to get that concrete off. And don’t tell me it ain’t going to bother you to have to limp around on one short leg for the balance of your life—if you walk at all again. Concrete,” I said. “God Amighty, why didn’t Anse carry you to the nearest sawmill and stick your leg in the saw? That would have cured it. Then you all could have stuck his head into the saw and cured a whole family. . . . Where is Anse, anyway? What’s he up to now?”

“He’s takin’ back them spades he borrowed,” he said.

“That’s right,” I said. “Of course he’d have to borrow a spade to bury his wife with. Unless he could borrow a hole in the ground. Too bad you all didn’t put him in it too. . . . Does that hurt?”

“Not to speak of,” he said, and the sweat big as marbles running down his face and his face about the colour of blotting-paper.

“ ’Course not,” I said. “About next summer you can hobble around fine on this leg. Then it won’t bother you, not to speak of . . . If you had anything you could call luck, you might say it was lucky this is the same leg you broke before,” I said.

“Hit’s what paw says,” he said.