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at it, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
    “Look it over good,” Bonbon had probably said. “It be part of you ’fore that sun go down there.”
    Marcus had probably stood there fumbling with it a minute, while all the time Bonbon had leaned a little on the pommel of the saddle, looking down at him. The horse had stood there sweating a little and hoping that Marcus would hurry up and find out what the sack was about so he could start moving again. He didn’t mind carrying Bonbon (hewas born to carry man), but he would rather move with Bonbon or two like Bonbon than stand with one Bonbon in that hot sun.
    Marcus finally understood what the sack was about and slipped it over his shoulder. Now he started pulling corn and putting it in the sack. He was so weak now he had to jerk on an ear of corn sometimes three times before he could break it off. A dozen ears of corn in the sack, and already the sack felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. Already the rope had started to eat through that green shirt at his shoulder. Five more ears of corn, and the sack felt twice as heavy. Five more, and poor Marcus could hardly move. And Bonbon never saying a word, just leaning a little on the pommel of the saddle like he had all the time in the world.
    Marcus staggered when he tried to swing the sack on his back, so he dropped it on the ground and dragged it toward the tractor. I had parked the tractor on the headland, John and Freddie had moved up against the trailer in the shade, and the three of us watched Marcus dragging the sack toward the end. When he came up to the tractor he rested about ten seconds, then he swung the sack up on the trailer. He climbed up and dumped it, then he jumped back down and went back down the row. Bonbon hadn’t moved—I ought to say the horse hadn’t moved—Bonbon had straightened up in the saddle and he was watching a hawk flying in the sky just to his right. There was a little pecan tree fifty or sixty yards farther down the headland, and the hawk flew there and rested on one of the top limbs. Bonbon let him rest a minute, like he wanted to give him a fair shake; then I saw him pulling the Winchester slowly out of the sling and raising it to his shoulder. The first shot chipped off piece of the limb, just close enough to make the hawk fly away. The hawk broke from the tree and flew across the field. I saw Bonbonmoving the rifle slowly and I saw the sun on the barrel (blue-like) and my eyes went to the hawk. I heard the
pi-yow-yow
of the Winchester, and I saw two or three feathers busting away from the hawk, and I saw the hawk coming down over the field like a wet shirt that somebody had thrown up in the air.
    “Chicken there, Freddie,” Bonbon called to the headland.
    “Yassuh,” Freddie said, already running over to where the hawk had come down.
    Bonbon put the rifle back and touched the horse lightly to make him move. By the time Freddie got back with the hawk, Marcus and Bonbon had got to the end and Marcus had climbed up on the trailer to dump his sack.
    “Where I get him?” Bonbon asked Freddie.
    “Poor little thing ain’t got no more heart,” Freddie said.
    All of us looked at Freddie holding the hawk up in the air. The hawk was mostly gray and brown, but there were some red and black feathers across its wings and its back. When I said all of us were looking at the hawk, I should have said all of us were looking at the hawk except Marcus. Marcus was looking at Bonbon. He had probably glanced at the hawk once, but he started looking at Bonbon after. But I didn’t know it then. It wasn’t until later I knew he had been looking at Bonbon a long time.
    “Had the pistol I could get him with that,” Bonbon said.
    “Pistol go that far, Mr. Sidney?” Freddie asked. He was still holding the hawk up so everybody could see it.
    “Pistol can go, you just got to know how to shoot it,” Bonbon said.
    “If anybody can, you can, Mr. Sidney,” Freddie said.
    “I do all