I grabbed one of his shirts off the wall and had just started to clean off the lamp where I"d carried it, when I heard the car. It was somewhere across the clearing. I heard it start up, the motor racing, and then it started up the hill. She had made it. She was all right. That worry was off my mind now. I finished cleaning the lamp, then rubbed the shirt along the table and chair and the other things I"d touched. I went over to the gun racks and lifted down the shotgun, using the shirt so I wouldn"t leave any prints on it. I worked the slide action until the magazine was emptied, picked the sh.e.l.ls off the floor and placed them on the table, still being careful about touching anything with my bare fingers. Leaving the action open, I held it around to the light and looked down the barrel. It was clean. That was fine. I placed the gun across the table on his right, as if he"d just finished cleaning it and had started work on the little automatic when the accident happened. A man who has several guns never cleans and oils just one when he has the cleaning gear out. It would be like eating one peanut.
I straightened up, looking around. Where would he keep it? There was a locker nailed on the front wall near the gun racks. That looked like a good place. I opened it, using the shirt on the gla.s.s k.n.o.b, and found what I was looking for, a can of gun oil, the rod he used for cleaning the shotgun, some oily rags and cut patches, and a can of solvent. I carried it all over and put it on the table.
I rubbed the automatic very carefully with the shirt to get my prints off. Then I wiped both his hands with one of the oily rags-because he"d already cleaned the shotgun-and pressed his fingers to the barrel and the imitation mother-of-pearl b.u.t.t-plates in several places, flipped the safety off again, and put it down pointing off at an angle away from him on the other side of the table. If he"d been holding it by the barrel with oily fingers, when it went off its recoil would have kicked it over there. I had a hunch that Sheriff was a hard man to fool about guns, and I had to make it look right. I stood back and examined it.
There was one more thing, and then I was through. How many times had he shot? I stood still, trying to remember. He"d shot twice at me after the lightning flash, and then the gun had gone off when it hit the floor. So altogether there should be four cartridge cases around here on the floor. I got down on my knees and started looking. When I"d found all four, I put three of them in my pocket and stood beside the table where he was and tossed the other one in the general direction it would have gone and let it roll where it would. That left only the question of where the bullets had gone. I walked over by the bed and looked towards where I"d been when he shot. There was an open window beyond. I walked over to it. Rain was coming in. It didn"t matter. If he"d shot himself in the afternoon while he was cleaning a gun he would hardly be getting up to close the windows when it started to rain in the middle of the night. I looked around the window frame and couldn"t find any bullet hole, so probably they"d both gone out. The other one, when he"d dropped the gun, wasn"t going to be so easy. But I was lucky. I found it in less than five minutes. It was in the baseplank next to the bed, right down by the floor. There were two thicknesses of plank here, and it hadn"t gone through, so it was all right. They"d never see it.
I stood up, got the pants off the bed, put them in the purse and closed it, picked up the shoes, and stood looking at it. It was all right. It was as good as I had planned it. There was a dead man, who"d never blackmail anybody again. There was the gun he"d killed himself with because he"d forgotten a simple thing lots of others have before him but which very few people have ever forgotten twice-to check the chamber of a gun before you try to clean it.
I looked at my watch. It was two-thirty. I had plenty of time to get back to town. I hadn"t forgotten anything, and I wasn"t scared any more. I leaned over a little and blew out the lamp.
And then the calmness left me. I jerked my head around, listening, feeling my skin tighten up in goose-flesh. I could hear it quite plainly now, and there wasn"t any doubt as to what it was.
It was an automobile horn. It went on blowing, on and on, above the monotonous sound of the rain.
19
I lost my head for a minute. I ran out the front door and leaped off the porch, feeling the rain come pouring on to me, and then I was swallowed up in a world in which there was nothing anywhere except darkness, and water, and that unstoppable sound. It was laughing at me. It was accusing. It was pointing. Everybody on earth would hear it, and people would come from miles around to find out what was causing it and to stare at me- It wasn"t loud, because it was coming from away up on the hill, but it was like all the automobile horns in the biggest traffic jam in the world all rolled into one. I ran on blindly, unable to listen or pay any attention to the warning inside my head which was screaming for me to stop. It was insane. I had to find the road. I was running away from the house, and once I lost contact with that I"d have no place to start from. And then I tripped and fell, and that was the only thing that saved me.
It knocked a little sense into me. I lay there in the mud with the rain pouring over me, fighting to shut out that sound so I could think. Let it blow. n.o.body could hear it. There wasn"t another human being within miles. There wasn"t anything to be afraid of in the noise itself; that was just senseless terror. The danger was in something else entirely, and if I didn"t hang on to my senses and find the road I was done for.
I got up to my feet and looked behind me. I could see nothing at all. The shack could have been fifty feet back there, or it could have been a hundred miles. I tried to think, to see the whole clearing in my mind. I had run straight out the front door, so the road had to be somewhere to my left. I turned that way and started walking, feeling my way through the stumps and bushes of the clearing and fighting down that terrible yearning to run. Unless I got back on the road I didn"t have a chance.
Then I felt the ruts under my feet. I had found the road. I turned right, and started running again, trying to keep between them. My breath burned in my throat, and I was cursing in a monotonous kind of frenzy. Of all the cars on the lot, I"d had to pick that one. Why in the name of G.o.d hadn"t I at least asked Gulick which one it was when it cut loose on the lot Sat.u.r.day afternoon? Why hadn"t I had sense enough to see the warning in the way the motor had turned over when I"d started it?
I was soaked now. Water ran out of my hair and down my neck. With every step it sloshed in my shoes. Suddenly, I felt the road swerve left, and then I was out of the clearing and starting uphill through the timber. The horn didn"t seem any louder as I got nearer to it. Was it getting weaker? I listened, holding my breath, but I couldn"t tell. That insane urgency pulled at me, starting me running again. I missed a turn in the road and stumbled into the trees, and tripped over something and fell. The purse slipped out of my hands. I squatted on my knees and groped blindly in the mud with my free hand, afraid to let go of the shoes with the other. The sound of the horn was growing weaker. There wasn"t any doubt of it. I could hear it dying. And then I could hear myself, cursing endlessly in a sort of lost and hopeless madness as I swung my hand around in the mud and water and drowned leaves, feeling for the purse. It never occurred to me I could leave it; n.o.body would ever find it, and there was nothing in it to identify her anyway. I had the money clasp in my pocket. I had to find it. And then my hand brushed it and it slid. I reached over and grabbed it and floundered back into the road. The pitch of the horn was changing.
I don"t know how I made the last hundred yards. I was gasping, and wind was burning in my throat. I kept falling. And all the time I could hear the horn growing weaker and weaker, like an alarm clock running down. Then I was up to it. It was off to my left. I plunged off the road, feeling ahead of me with my hands to get around the tree trunks. I b.u.mped into the car, felt my way along it to the door and opened it, and tossed the shoes and purse inside. The horn was still groaning faintly. I yanked the hood up and groped around under it, jerking at wires I came in contact with and pounding on the firewall. It stopped. I collapsed weakly on the fender. In the sudden silence the rain sounded louder, falling through the trees and drumming on top of the car.
Getting off the fender with an effort, I closed the hood, and went back to the door and got in. Water ran off me on to the seat. I switched on the ignition with shaky fingers and reached for the starter b.u.t.ton, weak with the unbearable suspense of it and wishing I knew how to pray. I pushed it and the starter groaned once, coming around until it engaged the motor, and then it stopped. I tried once more, and there was nothing at all. The battery was dead.
I sat there for a minute slumped over the wheel listening to the mournful sound of the rain and feeling the sick emptiness of fear inside me. It was the thing which had been goading me down there in the clearing and while I was beating my brains out trying to get up the hill in the darkness. There was no way to get the car started, and I was at least twenty miles from town. Daybreak would catch me long before I could walk it. And if I left the car down here I might as well leave my card, with a note to the Sheriff.
I could see him getting his teeth into it-a man down there who"d accidentally shot himself through the head while I was parked here in the timber in my car because I thought it was a drive-in movie. Now wasn"t that a strange coincidence- I cursed, and tried to shut it off. There must be some way out.
How long would it take me to walk it? But I knew the answer to that. It"d take at least five hours. It"d be after eight o"clock before I got to town. A dozen people, or twenty, or even more, would see me, and they"d remember it. I knew how I must look, drowned and water-soaked, covered with mud, and my clothes torn where I"d fallen. Maybe I could push the car back on the road, and get it started downhill to crank it. I got out and felt around in the blackness to locate the trees behind it, cramped the wheels around, and went around in front. I put my shoulder against the grill, and heaved. My feet slid out from under me and I fell against the front of the car. I braced them and tried again, putting all my weight and the desperation and fear into it, and the car rolled back three or four inches, poised there, and then came back towards me. It was impossible. Four men couldn"t do it. It was slightly upgrade to the road, and I couldn"t do it if I tried for a week.
I"d been so near to winning. Right up to the time I"d leaned over to blow out that light I"d had the game in my hand, and now it was gone. I was done.
No, I wasn"t. The idea hit me with the suddenness of light, and I straightened up, feeling the hope surge through me. Why hadn"t I thought of it before? There was Sutton"s car. I could drive to town in it- No. That wouldn"t do.
That would still leave this one here. And how could they swallow an accidental death if his car had disappeared and turned up in town? But I was on the trail of it, and then I had it. Sutton"s car was the same make. I could change batteries with him.
But how about tools? Was there anything in the car I could use to disconnect the terminals? I grabbed the keys and ran around and opened the trunk enough to get my head and shoulders under it, and began pawing wildly around inside it with my hands. There was no use even reaching for a match. They were drowned long ago. I wondered if there was any light left in the world. Maybe I had gone blind and didn"t even know it. My hands b.u.mped into something and I felt it over. It was a jack handle. And then I found the jack itself. Oh, G.o.d, I thought, there must be a pair of pliers, at least. There has to be.
Then I b.u.mped into something and heard it rattle against the side. I groped for it and got it under my hand. My heart leaped. It was a pair of pliers. I let the door of the trunk down and went around to the battery. That terrible urgency had hold of me again, now that I could see a way out. How much longer did I have before daylight? There was no way to tell what time it was- Sure there was.
There"d be enough power in the battery to operate the lights for a few minutes. I pulled out the switch and the headlights came on very yellow and dim, and growing fainter as I looked at them. I ran around in front and looked at the watch. It was three-ten. I had to get this battery loose, walk back to the shack, get that one disconnected, and carry it back up the hill. Was there enough time?
I located the terminals. They were so covered with corrosion I couldn"t even tell where the bolt nuts were. I banged savagely on them with the pliers to break it loose and twisted at them with my hands. Oh, h.e.l.l, I thought in agony, if I could only see! I opened the pliers and ground them harshly around the side of the connector. And then I could feel the nut. I put the pliers on it, tightened up, and turned. Nothing gave except the pliers slipped a little, chewing up the nut. I bore down again. It came that time. The bolt broke.
It"s all right, I thought crazily. It"s all right. They"re a press fit, and it"ll work without the bolt. All I have to do is drive it on. I started gouging frenziedly at the other one. The nut turned on it, and in a few minutes I had it off. I started to lift the battery out. No, I thought. Why carry it down there? When I get the other battery I can drive down with it.
I was ready to go. I put the pliers in my pocket and groped my way through the trees to the road. I hit it and started to run when the same thought occurred to me again. I wouldn"t be able to find the car when I came back. I wouldn"t have the horn to guide me, and I couldn"t see the handkerchief. It had probably washed away. I had to mark the place somehow. But how? Geez, I thought, I can"t stand here all night. I"ve got to do something. I leaped to the side of the road and started sweeping my arms around. I found a small pine and broke off a limb six or seven feet long, and threw it across the ruts. I"d run into it with my feet when I came back.
I turned then and started running downhill through the downpour, feeling the water slosh in my shoes. I lost track of the number of times I fell and how many times I blundered off the road. When I got down in the clearing and groped and stumbled my way into the yard in front of the shack, breathing was an agony, I wanted to lie down and rest. I felt my way to the car and when I got the door open I turned on the lights and held my watch under the dash. It said twelve minutes until four. I wanted to scream at it. It was lying. It hadn"t taken that long.
I ground savagely at the bolts through the battery connectors, trying to work too fast and fumbling. I dropped the pliers and had to grope around for them in the darkness. Suddenly I was conscious that I was whispering to myself. I was saying, "Hurry, hurry, hurry-" in a kind of chant that had been going on forever like the rain. I got both connectors loose at last and lifted the battery out. I had to be careful about falling now. If I dropped the battery on anything solid it would break open like an over-ripe squash.
It was nothing now but sheer nightmare. I wasn"t going forward any more. I was just moving my feet up and down in the same place with the same weight on my shoulders and the same rain coming down while time ran past me like a river around a snag. I couldn"t remember the turns in the road. I didn"t know how far I"d come, or how far I had to go. I must have pa.s.sed the car. It couldn"t have been this far. Maybe I"d brushed past that limb and hadn"t noticed it. I"d never make it now.
And then I felt the limb against my leg. It was there. I swung off the road and started pushing my way through the trees in a frenzy to get it done, to be able to see again, and to get out of here before it was too late. And then it happened. My shoulder brushed hard against a tree trunk and it threw me off balance. The battery slipped out of my grasp and fell somewhere into the darkness ahead of me as I crashed to the ground. I heard it slam into a tree.
This was the end. It had just been teasing me all the time, and now I was really done. The battery was broken. I couldn"t even find it. I lay on my stomach in the water and wet pine needles and swept my arms around, trying to locate it and still afraid of what I"d find. My fingertips brushed it and I slid forward and got my hands on it. It was lying on its side. I rolled it upright and ran my hands around it to find out if the case was broken. I couldn"t tell for sure, but it seemed to be all right. There was a hole broken in the top of the middle cell, but both of the terminals felt solid. Maybe it was still all right.
I picked it up and located the car. I set it on the fender, and lifted the other battery out. It wasn"t until then that I remembered I had to get the polarity right. There wasn"t any way I could tell which was the positive and which the negative terminal. I ran my fingers across the tops of them, trying to feel the plus and minus markings, but I couldn"t tell because they were corroded over. There wasn"t any way on earth- Wait, I thought. Sure there was. The positive terminal was always larger, and the connectors would be the same. I felt both, and I could tell which was which. I set it in and drove the connectors down on the terminals with the pliers, and ran around to turn on the lights. They came up bright and strong. I looked at the watch. It was twenty minutes after four.
I threw the other battery in, and backed out on to the road. It was only a miracle I stayed on it at the pace I went down the hill into the clearing. I put the battery in his car and connected it up, working fast now with the headlights for illumination, and as I got back in the car and turned around the lights swept once across the bleak and lonely cabin sitting there in the rain. I thought of him inside, alone in the dark with his face on the table, and then I gunned the car out of the yard, fast, and started up the hill. I went down the other side and across the river bottom like a man running away from h.e.l.l, while the rain washed out my tracks behind me. When I got out on the highway there was no traffic and I rode the throttle down to the floorboards all the way to town.
Swinging left at the cotton gin, I circled around the way I had before. It was still dark, but this was the dangerous part of it now. I came up the side street and just before I swung on to the lot I cut the headlights. I came up alongside the last car in line and stopped and sat there for a minute before I got out. Main Street was empty in the rain.
The inside of the car was a mess from the water that had run out of my clothes, but there wasn"t anything I could do about it now. I"d have to get off the lot and over to the garage the first thing when we opened, before Gulick had a chance to see it. I grabbed the purse and the shoes and got out, slipping down the street in the shadows. When I got in the alley behind the rooming house I eased through the gate and into the yard without a sound except the pounding of my heart. I hadn"t seen anyone at all.
I stopped on the little porch outside my door and took off my trousers and sports shirt and wrung the water out of them, and then squeezed all I could out of the purse. Then I carried everything inside and without turning on a light felt around in the closet for my flannel robe and rolled all of it up in that. I took off the shorts and threw them in the laundry bag, and dried myself off with a towel. Using the same towel and feeling around on the floor in the dark, I mopped up what water I"d brought in with me. Then I put on some dry shorts, got a package of cigarettes out of the dresser drawer, and lay down on the bed. I looked at my watch as I lighted the cigarette. It was nearly six. It would be growing light in a few minutes. I had made it.
A little after seven I got up and shaved and dressed. It was still raining, so I got a raincoat out of the closet, picked up the bundle of stuff in the flannel robe, and carried it out to the car. I drove down and parked on the lot, and took the bundle out of the rear seat and locked it in the trunk.
As I started up the street to the restaurant I looked back under the line of cars. That was something which had been worrying me. But it was all right. The water had run, and it was just as wet under the ones that"d been there all night as under the one I"d been using.
I went on over to the restaurant. There were several people there already and they were all talking about it. It was all over town.
Harshaw was dead. He"d died a little after three that morning of another heart attack.
20
I couldn"t take hold of it at first. Why three o"clock in the morning? I ordered some breakfast and couldn"t eat it. It was a rotten shame. And then I wondered why I felt so sorry about it. After all it hadn"t been six hours since I"d killed a man; why should the natural death of another one bother me? I walked back to the office and just sat there looking out at the dark, miserable day. When Gulick showed up I told him he could go home. We"d close the lot and the loan office for the day, and also the day of the funeral.
Gloria came along a few minutes later. Robinson dropped her off on this side of the street and she hurried into the office. She had on a blue plastic raincoat with a hood, which made her look very pretty and young, but her face was pale and she was tired. She had already heard about Harshaw.
"Don"t you think we ought to close up, Harry?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "I"ve already told Gulick."
She was in the doorway, and she turned a little away from me and looked out into the street. "It"s so terrible," she said quietly. She had thought the world of Harshaw.
And then I wondered if she meant Harshaw. I wanted to tell her I had her purse and shoes in the car, that there was nothing to worry about, and I couldn"t. I ran right into a wall. I couldn"t say a thing.
I locked the office and we went out and got in the car. I drove down the highway very slowly and we were both silent, just watching the rain. When we got to the long bridge I parked the car near the end of it and we sat there looking at the water. It was brown, and we could see the river was rising a little. They might not find him for days, I thought. If there was much more rain the road through the bottom would be impa.s.sable. Once, when there were no cars in sight in either direction, I kissed her. She drew back a little.
"It just doesn"t seem right, I guess." She turned and looked out of the window.
We stayed there a half hour or longer, and I could feel the wall of silence growing up between us. I knew now why I hadn"t been able to say anything back there at the office. If she couldn"t talk about it, how could I? And then I suddenly realized she wasn"t thinking about the shoes and purse at all, because she didn"t know yet that I"d killed him. And when she did find out he was dead she would know I hadn"t left them there to incriminate her. I wanted to cry out and tell her it was all right, that I knew why she"d done it and it didn"t mean a thing, but how could I? I thought of the shame and the loathing she must feel, and how having to talk about it right out in the open-even to me-would crucify her, and I couldn"t open my mouth. Maybe she could stand it if we didn"t mention it, if we pretended it hadn"t happened.
And then I thought of something else. What would it be like when they found him? Could we ever talk about it? Everything would tell her that I"d done it, but in her heart there"d always be that hope, that slim chance I hadn"t as long as we didn"t insist on dragging it out into the open. The whole thing was an ugly mess, and maybe the only way we"d ever be able to live with it was by ignoring it.
After a while I drove back to town. The stuff in the back of the car was still weighing on my mind, but I knew I"d have to wait until after dark to get rid of it.
"Don"t you think we ought to see Mrs. Harshaw, Harry?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "We"d better go now."
I stopped in the driveway by the side porch, and the Negro girl let us in. She said yes, Mrs. Harshaw was in and she"d see us. We went in, and she was in the living room, pale and red-eyed and dressed in a housecoat and slippers. I thought she was over-doing it a little with the weeping until I noticed she had a bad head cold. That helped her to look like the grief-stricken widow.
They had already taken him to the mortuary, and the funeral was to be on Wednesday. We expressed our sympathy and said what a fine man he"d been, and between sessions of sniffles she told us how it had happened. Apparently he had got up for something, because she had heard him out in the hall and just as she was about to call out to him and ask if anything was wrong she heard him fall. He rolled all the way down the stairs in the living room.
"Oh, it was horrible," she said pitifully, and I"d have felt sorry for her if I hadn"t known better. "Going down the steps in the dark, trying to get to him, I fell myself before I got to the bottom." She slipped the housecoat down a little and showed us the bruise on her shoulder. "Somehow I got to the phone and called the doctor, but when he got here it was too late." She started crying again. She made me sick.
Well, she finally outlasted him, I thought. The whole works is hers now-probably a hundred thousand or more. I wondered if she"d sell out and leave. Probably, I thought. She could keep a whole stable of boy friends now, like a riding academy or a stud farm, and it"d work out better in a city.
Her sniffling got Gloria started. We left in a little while and I drove her home. I went back to the rooming house and tried to sleep in the afternoon, but it wasn"t any good. I kept having a nightmare about trying to run uphill out of a river bottom with a dead man shackled to my leg. I"d wake up covered with sweat and shaking.
When would they find him? That was beginning to get me now. I hadn"t thought about that part until now that I was getting a taste of it. What about the waiting? I thought everything was all right, and that they"d go for it, but how did I know? What if I"d forgotten something? I wouldn"t know until they found him and held the inquest. Every time I thought of that cold-eyed Sheriff I"d get scared. It was going to be great. I could see that. And if it went on very long I"d be crazy.
After it was dark I drove downtown and tried to eat. My mouth was dry and everything tasted like straw. I got in the car and drove out to the abandoned sawmill, stopping on the road for a while to be sure I wasn"t followed. The rain had stopped during the afternoon and now the stars were out. I parked beside the sawdust pile and got the bundle of clothes out of the trunk, went over all of it with the flashlight looking for laundry marks and cutting them out, and then carried the stuff down to the bottom of the ravine. Scooping out a hole in the bottom of the sawdust slide, I shoved them in, clothes, purse, shoes, everything, and covered them up. Then I went up a little way and started another slide. They were well buried, and as time went by more and more would fall down on them. Maybe, I thought if she stayed around here, she"d keep it sliding down. The place made me think of her, and remembering that night made me uncomfortable. Hating her didn"t make any difference. Maybe that was what she"d meant by saying I"d always come back. It was so easy to remember the last time.
The funeral was Wednesday afternoon, and they still hadn"t found Sutton. I couldn"t seem to sleep at all now. I"d doze off for a few minutes and then wake up sweating and scared. I wondered how much longer I could take it.
Gloria and Gulick and I ordered a big floral piece for the funeral, and we all went, of course. Everybody in the county seemed to be there. Gloria cried along at the end of it, and I had to blow my nose several times myself. He was a good man, a better man than I was, even if I"d been a long time in finding it out. Gloria and I drove around afterwards, not going anywhere, and that awkward silence was still there between us. When I took her home we sat in the car a few minutes in front of the house.
"What do you suppose she"ll do with the business?" she asked. "Do you think she"ll sell out?"
I got what she meant, and it was the first time I"d thought of it. There"d been so much I"d overlooked that possibility of grief. If she did sell there"d be an audit of the books, and it"d probably happen before we could get all that deficit cleaned up, even though I still had the five hundred dollars that was in Sutton"s wallet. G.o.d, I thought, how messed up can you get?
"I don"t know," I said. "She hasn"t said a thing, and I didn"t want to bother her with business. But I"ll see what I can find out."
But I didn"t find out anything. She didn"t call up or come around the place, and I didn"t call her because I was reaching the point I couldn"t think about anything except Sutton, and when they"d find him, and what the inquest would turn up when they did. It went on all day and all night because I never slept more than a few minutes at a time now. In another day or two I even quit seeing Gloria. I didn"t even call her up. I was so savage and on edge I didn"t know what I"d do or say next. By the Sat.u.r.day after the funeral I wondered if I wasn"t reaching the breaking point. I began to have an idea they"d found him and weren"t saying anything, just waiting for me to crack under the strain. Maybe they were just playing with me, and any minute one of them would tap me on the shoulder. And then I"d get hold of myself and I"d know this wasn"t true. They just hadn"t found him yet. n.o.body ever went out there. I"d just have to wait. Wait! G.o.d, how much longer could I stand it?
It broke on Sunday morning. Two farm boys hunting rabbits found him and came to town to report it to Tate. Everybody was talking about it around the drugstore and the restaurant. The Sheriff himself came over and they went out to the oil well and were gone for a little over two hours. When they returned, early in the afternoon, they brought the body out and went on back to the county seat. n.o.body knew anything except what the boys had said. He was sitting at a table, kind of bent over it, and looked like he had been dead a long time, and they were afraid of him. They didn"t go inside the cabin.
I had to live through Sunday afternoon with nothing more than that. I couldn"t go around asking everybody I met what they"d heard about it. I went back to my room, but in a little while I knew I"d go crazy there. The old man next door was reading the Bible again. I got in the car and drove over to the county seat to a movie. It was a long picture, or maybe it was a double feature and I didn"t realize it, and when I came back it was dark. There was still the night to get through. When I got back to town I went to the restaurant and forced down a little food. Tate had come back, somebody said, but he hadn"t talked about it. The man died of a gunshot wound. And there"d be an inquest Monday morning. That was all.
I sat on the bed smoking cigarettes in the darkness until after three, and when fatigue caught up with me and I dozed off I began having dreams. When I shaved, I could see it on my face. I couldn"t take much more. I held on to it all through Monday morning and into the afternoon, burying myself in paper work and going out on the lot now and then to go through the motions of demonstrating a car to faceless and unreal people.
I went up to the restaurant for a cup of coffee at three-thirty, and the waitress told me. She was just making conversation. She was bored, and it was something to talk about. Tate had been in. They"d held an inquest on that man, what was his name, the one who lived out by the oil well that had been found dead, remember-yesterday morning, wasn"t it-sure it was yesterday morning because that was Sunday and she was just dead, that dance Sat.u.r.day night, honestly-but about the man, they had held an inquest, she thought that was what Tate called it, and the man had been shot through the head with a gun, wasn"t it awful, and Tate had told her the way it was- Oh, the verdict?
It was accidental death. The man had shot himself cleaning a gun, wasn"t it silly.
I never did know afterwards how I got back to the lot. All I can remember is sitting there at my desk trying to get my mind to accept the news that I had done it, that we were free of Sutton forever, and that the danger was all past. It was just too much for me to take in all at once. I"d been living with the danger and the suspense for so long I couldn"t readjust that quickly.
Suddenly, I had to tell Gloria. I wanted to call her on the phone. I"d been avoiding her because of the pressure I was under, and now I wanted to see her and start making up for it. Then I stopped. What was I going to tell her? Sutton was something we didn"t talk about. And certainly not over the phone. But I wanted to call her anyway, and make a date to see her that night. We could go on now. Everything would be just the way it had been before, and somehow we"d break down that wall that had grown up between us. Some way I could make her understand it didn"t matter. But I wouldn"t call her; she was just across the street, and I wanted to see her. I had started out the door when the phone rang.
"Mr. Madox?" the voice said when I picked up the receiver. It was Dolores Harshaw.
"Yes," I said.
"I"m sorry I haven"t called before, but I"m sure you"ll understand. I wanted to thank you for the flowers and for being so kind, and all. It was very nice of all of you." She paused. Now, what the h.e.l.l, I thought. Why so goody-goody? There must be somebody in the room with her, one of the neighbors, or the maid.
"Why, that"s all right," I said. "It was the least we could do."
"Well, it was awful nice. But what I wanted to talk to you about was the business. I know you"ve been wonderful about it; what my plans were, I mean. Do you think you could come over tonight, say around seven, so we could discuss it, you and Miss Harper both, I mean?"
"Sure," I said. "I"ll tell her. We were wondering about it, as a matter of fact, but we didn"t want to bother you. Are you planning to sell out? Is that it?"
"Oh, no. I guess from what the lawyers say it"ll take some time for the whole thing to be settled, but I wouldn"t sell out anyway. I think I should try to carry it on-for George"s sake, you know. And of course I"ll want you and Miss Harper to go right on the way you have been. I"m sure it couldn"t be in better hands."
There must be a dozen people in the room, I thought. She hadn"t even thrown in a nasty dig at Gloria just for old times" sake. Maybe she"d decided to become a social leader, and pull down the shades before she turned in with her boy friends. Well, I didn"t care a d.a.m.n what she did, as long as she paid my salary.
After she had hung up I sat there a few minutes letting it soak in before I called Gloria. It was wonderful to tell her.
I picked her up that evening and we started over. I thought of how much it was like that other time, when Harshaw had asked us to come over. And afterwards we could go out to the river, as we had then, and I could take her face in my hands and kiss her and we could break through to each other again. We would start all over. The past was gone. Sutton didn"t matter any more. I could make her see that. I knew I could.
She broke in on my thoughts. "Harry," she said, "there"s something I"ve got to tell you. I"ve been trying to all week, but I want to tell you now."
"We"ll go somewhere afterwards and talk," I said. "Then you can tell me, if you think you have to."
"Yes. I have to. It"s about Sutton."
I stared ahead into the lights, trying to keep my face still. "Sutton"s dead. Nothing matters about him any more. Nothing at all. You believe me, don"t you, honey, that it doesn"t matter now?"
"This does, Harry. I"ve got to tell you. You see, I thought all week that he had gone away. Because- Well, you see, I gave him that five hundred dollars. After you told me not to. I took it out there and begged him to leave. So now it"s going to take us that much longer."
I reached out and patted her hand. "It"s all right," I said. "It doesn"t make any difference."