Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories by Ron Rash Page A

want,” the woman said, not so much a question as a demand.
    “Water,” Sinkler answered. “We’ve got a chain gang working on the road.”
    “I’d have reckoned you to bring water with you.”
    “Not enough for ten men all day.”
    The woman looked out at the field again. Her husband watched but did not unloop the rein from around his neck. The woman stepped onto the six nailed-together planks that looked more like a raft than a porch. Firewood was stacked on one side, and closer to the door an axe leaned between a shovel and a hoe. She let her eyes settle on the axe long enough to make sure he noticed it. Sinkler saw now that she was younger than he’d thought, maybe eighteen, at most twenty, more girl than woman.
    “How come you not to have chains on you?”
    “I’m a trusty,” Sinkler said smiling. “A prisoner, but one that can be trusted.”
    “And all you want is water?”
    Sinkler thought of several possible answers.
    “That’s what they sent me for.”
    “I don’t reckon there to be any money in it for us?” the girl asked.
    “No, just gratitude from a bunch of thirsty men, and especially me for not having to haul it so far.”
    “I’ll have to ask my man,” she said. “Stay here in the yard.”
    For a moment he thought she might take the axe with her. As she walked into the field, Sinkler studied the house, which was no bigger than a fishing shack. The dwelling appeared to have been built in the previous century. The door opened with a latch, not a knob, and no glass filled the window frames. Sinkler stepped closer to the entrance and saw two ladder-back chairs and a small table set on a puncheon floor. Sinkler wondered if these apple-knockers had heard they were supposed to be getting a new deal.
    “You can use the well,” the girl said when she returned, “but he said you need to forget one of them pails here next time you come asking for water.”
    Worth it, he figured, even if Vickery took the money out of Sinkler’s own pocket, especially with no sign up ahead of another farmhouse. It would be a half-dollar at most, easily made up with one slick deal in a poker game. He nodded and went to the well, sent the rusty bucket down into the dark. The girl went up on the porch but didn’t go inside.
    “What you in prison for?”
    “Thinking a bank manager wouldn’t notice his teller slipping a few bills in his pocket.”
    “Whereabouts?”
    “Raleigh.”
    “I ain’t never been past Asheville,” the girl said. “How long you in for?”
    “Five years. I’ve done sixteen months.”
    Sinkler raised the bucket, water leaking from the bottom as he transferred its contents. The girl stayed on the porch, making sure that all he took was water.
    “You lived here long?”
    “Me and Chet been here a year,” the girl said. “I grew up across the ridge yonder.”
    “You two live alone, do you?”
    “We do,” the girl said, “but there’s a rifle just inside the door and I know how to bead it.”
    “I’m sure you do,” Sinkler said. “You mind telling me your name, just so I’ll know what to call you?”
    “Lucy Sorrels.”
    He waited to see if she’d ask his.
    “Mine’s Sinkler,” he said when she didn’t.
    He filled the second bucket but made no move to leave, instead looking around at the trees and mountains as if just noticing them. Then he smiled and gave a slight nod.
    “Must get lonely being out so far from everything,” Sinkler said. “At least, I would think so.”
    “And I’d think them men to be getting thirsty,” Lucy Sorrels said.
    “Probably,” he agreed, surprised at her smarts in turning his words back on him. “But I’ll return soon to brighten your day.”
    “When you planning to leave one of them pails?” she asked.
    “Last trip before quitting time”
    She nodded and went into the shack.
    “The rope broke,” he told Vickery as the prisoners piled into the truck at quitting time.
    The guard looked not so much skeptical as aggrieved that