They march each with right hand clapped firmly on the shoulder of the man ahead, singing snatches of World War One battle songs. There is an air of relief and good fellowship among the kinsmen now that the crisis has past, and they call back and forth to one another in raucous voices: “Yea bo! You betcha! Damn right!” As they march past the plastic sack they conceal their shame beneath a veneer of humor: “Lookee there.” “When we said last man, we never thought anything like this.” “You right certain he qualifies as last man? Mebbe we oughta run a check . . .” “Naw. Let ’im be. I don’t want the ol’ man havin’ us paw around on him agin; it ’uz nasty enough gettin’ ’im in that sack,” he warns them. (Hank mounts the steps, feeling a little shaky. He turns down the corridor toward the room used as an office. He hears Viv call from the kitchen, where she and the other wives are doing dishes, “Boots, honey.” He stops and supports himself with one hand against the wall while he removes his dusty boots. He takes off the wool socks and puts them inside the boots and continues on barefooted, sighing deeply . . .) The clansmen have all squatted on their haunches before the ornate old woodstove into which they periodically spit tobacco; each of these oral projectiles provokes a lovely bloom of flame which lights the robust faces of the revelers a merry red. They all open pocketknives and begin whittling. Some clearing of throats . . . “Men...?” Hank goes on. “Now to the problem at hand: who’s gonna teach thisyere boy to ride a motorcycle an’ doodle a cousin an’ all that sorta thing?” (Once inside the office Hank stands for a while with his eyes closed before going to the desk for the figures Orland demanded. He finds the papers, in a folio labeled, in Viv’s graceful hand, “P & L statements, January to June, 1961.” He closes the desk drawer and walks across the room. He opens the door a few inches but doesn’t go back out into the corridor. He stands, looking at the yellowed wallpaper, his ear turned slightly toward the buzz of talk from downstairs; but he can distinguish nothing except the ceaseless barking laugh of that little bitch Orland married . . .) “Who’s gonna learn him to shave with a ax blade? To nut a nigger? We got to tend to these details. Who’s gonna see to him gettin’ a tattoo on his hand?” (From the kitchen Orland’s wife laughs, like sticks breaking. The pinball banging light bursts into a steel guitar run, “Shovel that coal, let this rattler roll . . . ’cause I’m movin’ on.” Evenwrite stumbles out to his car to sleep, his fists bloodied but his pride still unpacified: who’d ever of thought that that galoot in the bar there would know the name of the All-State high-school fullback from twenty years back? Jonathan Draeger makes a neat unruffled ridge of bedspread, and a face handsome and impassive in the calculated center of his pillow. Lee slumps against the window as the bus idles at the stop sign. Hank draws a deep breath, opens the office door, and strides into the hall. His face assumes a look of belligerent amusement and he begins whistling and smacking his thigh with the folio of profit-and-loss statements. Joe Ben comes out of the bathroom and waits at the head of the stairs, buttoning the fly of his ill-fitting slacks while he watches his cousin approach . . .) “Look at him.” Joe contorted his features into a derisive grin. “Look at him with that whistling, leg-slapping, nothing-bothers-me baloney,” he whispered as Hank approached. “Appearances, Joby. You know what the old man says about appearances . . .” “In town, maybe, but who’s gonna care about appearances in that ratpack?” “Joe! Now boy, that there is your family you’re calling a ratpack.” “Not that Orland. Not him.” Joe dug into the pocket of his slacks for more sunflower seeds. “Hank, you should of smacked him in the mouth for what he said down there.” “Hush. And give me some of those seeds. Besides, what would I want to smack good old cousin Orly for? He didn’t say anything—” “Okay, maybe not in so many words, but with what they all think about Leland and his mother and all—” “Hell, do I give a shit what they think? What people think about a man, Joby, now that doesn’t even bark the hide on his shins.” “Just the same—” “Okay, drop it. And give me some of those.” Hank held out his hand. Joe Ben gave him a few seeds. Sunflower seeds were Joe’s latest obsession and in the month he and his family had been staying with Hank at the old house while they completed his new home in town, the halls had become littered with the shells. The two men leaned against the hand-polished two-by-four that served as a banister, and ate the little seeds in silence for a few minutes. Hank felt himself growing calmer. A little bit more and he’d be ready to get back down and lock horns again. If only Orland—who as a member of the school board was naturally worried about his social position— had kept his mouth shut about the past ...But he knew better than to expect such, from Orland anyhow. “Well, Joe”—he threw aside the rest of the seeds—“let’s get with it.” Abruptly Hank stooped to pick up his boots, spat away a sunflower-seed shell, and started thumping down the steps toward the waiting furor of relatives, telling himself, Hell; what people think don’t even leave a blue spot. While to the west, almost a week away, Indian Jenny is just getting around to telling herself that Henry Stamper musta had reason to avoid her other’n her being Indian; didn’t he fool with them Yachats squaws up north? And them squaws at Coos Bay? No, it isn’t her being Indian that&r............