"I thought you said it was a smart sentiment," said Joseph. "For city slickers. I ain't one." He scrutinized the writing closely. "You write a fine hand, Joe." "I am not a clerk," said Joseph. "I do not intend to be one." "Joe, how much money did you make at your last job?" "I worked a full week, and I received eight dollars a week. That isn't enough." Mr. Healey's mouth made a soundless whistle. "Nearly eighteen, and eight dollars a week ain't enough! A man with a family's mighty lucky, Joe, to make that. Hard labor, too." "Not enough," said Joseph. "What do you aim to make?" "A million dollars." His square white teeth suddenly flashed in his face. "You're mad," said Mr. Healey, with simplicity. "Mr. Healey, don't you want to make a million dollars?" "I'm older'n you. Got more experience." "I am younger than you, sir, and so I have much more time. And experience comes with living, and doing." "Hum." They regarded each other in a short silence. Joseph thought, If he had not had to fight the world as I am fighting it he would have been a good man, for he'd prefer to be kind. We make scoundrels of each other. "You're a hard customer," said Mr. Healey. "If I weren't, I'd be no use to you." "You never said a truer word, I am thinking," said Mr. Healey. "I see we understand each other. Here's my idea: I show you around. You help manage my business. You study law with a smart lawyer feller. I pay you seven dollars a week until you're worth more." "No," said Joseph. Mr. Healey leaned back in his chair and smiled sweetly. "That includes room and board."
Joseph had had no intention of remaining in this house longer than he could find a boardinghouse in Titusville. He wanted to be, as always, his own man, and not "beholden" to anyone else. But he thought of the books in this house, to which he would have access, and he hesitated. Then he said again, "No. I want eighteen dollars a week, and to pay five for my board. In one month I want a four dollar raise-a week. Then we'll discuss just how valuable I am to you." Mr. Healey ruminated, his beefy face as closed as Joseph's own. He said, "You got a right high opinion of yourself, don't you, Irish? Well, I like that, too. How about the boyeen upstairs?" and he tilted his head at the ceiling. "I've paid you for his room and board, until he can work." "And who's he going to work for?" Joseph shrugged. "He said he has a job in this town." "How about him working for me, too?" "Mr. Healey, that is entirely your affair, and Haroun's, not mine." "You don't want no burdens?" "That is right." Mr. Healey smoked thoughtfully. He said, "Eighteen years old, and talks like a sharpie with pockets full of gold. Well, how do you expect to make a million dollars?" "When I have enough money I intend to buy a string of tools, myself, and drill."
"In competition with me and the other lads?" "Mr. Healey, I'll never cheat you. On that you can rely." Mr. Healey nodded and said again, "We understand each other." He considered. "All right, eighteen dollars a week, and you pay five for board. For yourself. Then I'll find out if you're worth a corncob to wipe my ass. If you ain't, we part. If you are, we'll talk again. Now"-and he leaned back in his chair and assumed a very open expression, candid and even a little pious-"I believe in laying my cards out on the table so a feller can see them. They call me 'sincere' around here." Joseph immediately became wary. "So you can trust me, Joe." Joseph said nothing. Mr. Healey laughed gently. "A real sharpie. You don't trust nobody. You must've had a hard life, Joe." "I did." "Want to tell me about it?" "No. It isn't important." "You got to trust some people, Joe, or you won't get nowhere." "Mr. Healey, the less we confide in each other about our private affairs the better friends we'll be. We'll just discuss our work together, frankly.
"You ain't even prepared to trust me, and I've laid everything on the line to you, Joe. I'm sorry you think everybody's a rascal." Joseph could not help smiling. "Let's say," he said, "that we may learn to trust each other." "Good enough," said Mr. Healey, with heartiness, and slapped his fat hand on the table. "Let's get down to business. I'm the president of eight oil companies. Ever since 1855. Started in Pithole, with the oil coming right out of the ground. No need to drill. Pithole ain't developed yet. But I got my options out there; first one to do it. Just scoop it up off'n the water and out of the holes. For twenty-five dollars I sell twenty-five thousand shares in my companies. Can't get out the certificates fast enough, that's how good business is in Titusville. And I've got three distilleries, too, right on Oil Creek. Up to date, we've been shipping out the barrels on flatboats all over the state and country. Kerosene. And just the crude oil to distilleries elsewhere. Kerosene's going to replace all other fuel for lamps, and the crude oil's being used for lubricants instead of the more expensive oils being used. I got part of a patent for burning kerosene -since 1857. Saw the possibilities at once. I call that the Healey Kerosene Company. And helped develop better lamps than the old ones burning whale oil and such. "When they run the railroad regular from Titusville in a few months, instead of one train on Sunday, my business will be ten times as much. Quicker and more than the flatboats. I got an interest in the railroad, too. You might say I got many interests. Did a lot of business in Mexico not long ago." He stared expressionlessly at Joseph. "Legal, sir?" "Well, it wasn't oil. I told you: I never miss a chance at turning a penny." Joseph thought. He remembered reading, in a newspaper, of men like Mr. Healey who had made fortunes gun-running in Mexico. But he held his tongue. It was none of his affair just yet. "I own salt mines here, too," said Mr. Healey. "And I do a good business in lumber. Lumber's what made this town, before oil. Wide interests, Joe. All in all, I got about two hundred men working for me, townsmen and outsiders. I'm a director in the new bank, too. Own a couple of lawyers, but they ain't smart. But one of them can teach you what you need to practice law, yourself. If I was you, Joe"-and Mr. Healey leaned forward in a most paternal and confidential manner, as one speaking to a beloved young relative, perhaps a son-"I'd concentrate on patent laws, criminal laws." "Especially criminal law," said Joseph. Mr. Healey laughed expansively, and leaned back. "Well, I don't do nothing downright criminal, you understand. But every businessman runs close to the edge, or why else is he a businessman? Couldn't make a living if he didn't. Now law's law; you got to have laws, or the country wouldn't hold together. But sometimes law can be-well, can be-" "Ambiguous," said Joseph, with a little malice. Mr. Healey frowned. He did not understand the word. "Well, anyways. I mean you take two lawyers, and they can't agree what's legal and what ain't, and that goes for judges and juries, too. Laws're written funny, sometimes. And it's the funny part that's profitable, if you're smart." Joseph nodded. "And if you have a good lawyer." Mr. Healey nodded and smiled also. "And there's this here war I hear we're going into, right now. Lots of profit there for a smart man. I hear there's a patent in England for a six- or eight-chamber rifle-but that ain't for tomorrow, Joe." Joseph suddenly became intensely interested. "And Washington will buy the rifle from England?" "Well, sir," said Mr. Healey, "the Sassenagh ain't particularly fond of the Union, boyeen. His sympathies are with the South. Already said so, he did. Still, being a Sassenagh-there ain't anyone keener for a dollar or a sovereign than the Sassenagh in spite of his piety and all them churches of his, and the Queen-he might sell to both sides. I hope not." "Which is the most prosperous side, the Union or the South?" "The South, son, the South. South wasn't hit by the Panic that's here, like the North. King Cotton. Slave labor. Farming. The South's where the money is. And that's what makes the Northern factory owners and businessmen madder'n a hornet. They ain't worried about slave labor because it ain't moral, or something. They just wish they could have slave labor, themselves, though that's just about what they have right now, with the foreign labor they're importing from Europe, foreigners can't speak English, and starving. Still, they got to pay some wages, and that's killing them. No, sir, ain't morals and the rights of man them there suffering Northerners care about. It's the cost of labor. Profits. Joe, if you want to use just one word"-and Mr. Healey wagged a huge finger at Joseph-"to describe wars and the making of wars, it's profits. Nothing else. Profits." "And this war, too?" "Joe! What else? Sure, and Mr. Lincoln talks about saving the Union, and a house divided against itself must fall, an
d the immorality of slavery, and from what I've seen of him I reckon he speaks without lying and hypocrisy. He's kind of simple, in a way. Businessmen always like simple politicians; they're easier to manage and persuade. So, they give Mr. Lincoln highfalutin' slogans and talk moral-like to him. But all it is is profits. King Profits. Kill off slavery in the South and the South ain't got the big factories and businessmen, and where does that leave the South? The South's where gentlemen live, and gentlemen ain't up to managing business. And so the Northerners can go down there and get rich. Profits, again. Do you follow me?" "Yes," said Joseph. "Who do you think will win?" Mr. Healey winked. "Well, the North, of course. They got the factories for munitions. It ain't fair, it ain't. Somebody ought to even up the balance." Joseph nodded solemnly. "Only fair," said Mr. Healey. "Provided there ain't no interference .in honest trade. But we won't know about that for a little while."
"And Mr. Lincoln wants to abolish slavery?" "Well, not rightly. That ain't exactly what he's saying. It's preserving the Union. Did hear he said that if slavery would preserve the Union he wouldn't interfere with it. But the South's sick and tired of all them howling preachers up North screaming for abolition, and the hungry businessmen and factor}' owners, and interference, and being called names, such as murderers and Simon Legrees. As I told you, the Southerners are gentlemen. The South wasn't used much for the dumping of English whores and thiefs like the North was. Easier to ship them here, the Sassenagh thought, than hanging all of them. So the South sort of despises the North besides being mad at the interference. The South knows what it's all about, and they want an aristocratic nation of their own. Of course, that ain't democracy, and me, Ed Healey, I'm for democracy, too. Didn't vote for Lincoln, myself, that Republican." He nodded virtuously. Then he stood up, and pulled down his florid waistcoat and took out his thick gold watch and sounded the repeater. "Well, Joe. It's three o'clock, and time's apassing. What say we go out and look around a little, so you get the feel of the town and some of my business?" They went downstairs, Mr. Healey shouting for his surrey and Bill Strickland. Joseph saw the almost mute Bill sitting like an image in the hall, waiting. He stood up, galvanized, when he saw his master, and Joseph observed the absolute devotion and blind dedication on the man's ugly face. The back of his neck prickled for no reason he could feel consciously. Then Bill turned his head slowly in Joseph's direction and stared at him emptily. Joseph saw the killer's fervid eyes and an icy finger touched him between the shoulder blades. Mr. Hcaley laid his hand with affection on Bill's incredibly narrow shoulder, and he smiled at Joseph. "Bill," he said, "would do anything for me. Anything." His smile widened as he and Joseph regarded each other in a little silence. The surrey was standing on the wooden bridge overlooking Oil Creek. The green stream was stained with oily rainbows, and the banks were poisoned with oil so that the shrubs and plants and trees drooped in deathly attitudes, and many of them were already dead. Barges and flatboats filled the narrow and curving stream, and were being rapidly and noisily loaded with barrels of oil, and lumber. Joseph looked up at the un- ravished hills with their bowers of light and at the distant folds of tender valleys, and at the polished blue sky which would always resist the horribleness which was man. "It is beautiful," he said, and Mr. Healey nodded with satisfaction and pride. "We made this town," he said, and shifted his cigar. "Nothing but greenhorns sleeping their lives away, and standing on the black gold all the time! I tell you, Irish, people are real dumb." "Yes," said Joseph. He clenched down on all the spiritual anguish in himself and thought of Scan and Regina and what he must do for them in this place. But the hills haunted him. If he permitted them to haunt him there would be no rescue for his brother and his sister. He looked at the narrow little river and forced himself to observe the noisy busyness of the flatboats. "We got enough oil here," said Mr. Healey, "to light every town in the U. S. A. Ain't that a wonderful thought?" "Yes," said Joseph. A tall thin man with a beard was standing on the bridge taking wet photographs of the creek and the flatboats. His enormous equipment stood about him. "That's Mr. Mather," said Mr. Healey. "Takes pictures in five minutes! Ain't that incredible? Five minutes!" "Does he think it's pretty, down there?" asked Joseph. "Prettiest thing you ever saw, boyo! Money!" said Mr. Healey. I must remember that, thought Joseph. I forgot for a few minutes. Your money or your life. He watched the lean black-clad figure of the young man feverishly darting under a black cloth that covered the lens of his camera, which stood on a tall tripod. The surrey rolled on. "Now I'll show you one of my oil wells," said Mr. Healey. They drove out into the countryside, which was, to Joseph, no countryside at all but a raped Eden. Derricks and well houses filled a landscape once placid and silent. Here and there at a distance he could see rich fields filled with black and white cattle, and the shine of a blue pond and meadows with rising corn and clumps of trees. But the air was permeated with the sick and pungent stench of crude oil; smoke, black and oily, poured from the steeples of the well houses which, incongruously, resembled miniature brown churches. The new God, thought Joseph, and oil is His prophet. The white farmhouses had a false tranquillity, as if immune to all this, but Joseph now knew enough to understand that the farmers were equally involved in this havoc, and had connived with it for money.
And here, as always, lay the embrace of jasper and aquamarine hills beaming as innocently as though man had never been born and was not a lethal menace to them, and lifting their iridescent flurries of leaf to the sky, as if glorifying a God who cared not in the least for them, but conspired with His human race to cancel it all. "Well, here we are," said Mr. Healey. They had arrived at a large cluster of housed oil wells and Joseph could hear the rhythm, like mechanical heartbeats, of machinery. The primeval stench was thicker here as the decayed and oleaginous vitals of ancient animals and plants poured to the surface after millions of years of quietude, to give wealth to a race who had never known the riches of their being. Who am I to quarrel with God? thought Joseph with bitter cynicism. He followed Mr. Healey into one of the housed oil wells. He saw the great wheels being turned by leather belts and the sweating attendants and heard the monotonous and imbecile pound of the pumps as they sucked up the black blood of the earth. He saw the donkey engine being fed sedulously by young men, naked to the waist. He smelled the smoke and the acrid odor of oil, and the wood which was being burned to move the wheels and the pump. He looked up at the tall wooden chimney which spewed out billows of black clouds. The workers had the intense and dedicated appearance of priests, their faces and their bare arms stained with streaming wet moisture as black as coal, their brows sooted. They looked at Mr. Healey and their white teeth glittered in their young faces. They were just as avid as he, but they were also subservient. "Hundred barrels so far today!" one of them shouted at Mr. Healey. "And more to come, sir!" Mr. Healey nodded. He said to Joseph, "It's all surface oil; just pump it out. Maybe lakes of it. Perhaps the whole damned world is filled with oil. Never can tell." He smiled widely at Joseph and his small dark eyes squinted. "Want to work here, for eight dollars a week or keep your hands clean and make more?" Some of the young men working about the well were not more than fifteen years of age and Joseph felt old as he watched them. "I heard tell," said Mr. Healey, "that John Rockefeller said a man's worth a dollar a day from the neck down but there ain't no limit to what he's worth from the neck up. Muscles don't get you anywheres, Irish. Brains do." "I knew that when I was in nappies," said Joseph. "I thought this was all settled today." Mr. Healey inclined his head. "Just thought I'd show you, if you had any funny idecs." He chewed on his cigar, ruminatively. Then he grasped Joseph's arm. "Ain't never been married. Don't have no sons. I aim to make you one I never had. But you be square with me, hear?" "I told you, I'd never betray you," said Joseph, and Mr. Healey smiled. "And remember what I told you, too, Joe. All men are Judas. Every man has his price. Mine's higher." They returned to the town and Mr. Healey took Joseph into a three- story building near the square. The wooden steps were gritty and dusty; the halls were narrow
and lightless. Splintered doors lined them, and Mr. Healey flung one open. "Here's where I really conduct my business," he said. "My house is just for important folks." The door opened on what Joseph immediately saw was a series of small adjoining rooms. The dirty windows were shut tightly and the air was heavy with heat and smoke, and if these rooms had ever been cleaned in a decade it was not evident. The floors were filthy with tobacco spittle, though cuspidors were placed here and there, and the walls were a dull brown and the ceilings were of dark-brown tin. Every room held a roll-top desk stuffed with papers and a high bookkeeping desk with a stool, and a dilapidated chair or two. Mr. Healey's own office was little better but it did have a long table as well as a desk and a comfortable leather chair. The light that seeped in through the gray-smeared windows was like light struggling through fog. Joseph also noticed that the windows were barred, as if the offices held prisoners, and that the one door leading into the series of rooms was steel-sheathed on the inside and had a number of complicated locks. Garish calendars hung on some walls, and Mr. Healey's room held a bookcase full of law books. But what caught Joseph's interest at once was not so much the decrepit and ugly and polluted atmosphere of the rooms as the inhabitants of them. He saw at least fourteen men there, and not one was over forty, the youngest being in his early twenties. However, they had various things in common, so that they seemed of one family, one breed, one blood and mind: They were all tall, slender, elegant and deadly and dispassionate, and their faces were as unreadable as his own. They were richly dressed, though they had discarded their long coats because of the heat. All wore fawn or gray or discreetly plaid pantaloons, and their immaculate white shirts were ruffled, their cravats smooth-folded perfection, their waistcoats beautifully embroidered, with watch chains across their lean middles; their fluted cuffs showed no stain or gritty deposit. Their jewelry was most decorous, unlike that of the flamboyant Mr. Healey, yet obviously expensive, and their black boots were brilliantly buffed and narrow. Their figures were the figures of gentlemen, or actors, and they moved with the sure grace, restrained and economical, of the professional assassin. Their eyes might have been of different colors, their features might not have been identical nor their heights exact, yet Joseph caught the impression of oneness and affinity, which had no need for many words or explanations. Handsome though they were, and smooth and polished, they exuded cold menace. Joseph recognized them as the sort of quiet men who had waited in the depot at Wheatfield, the men who had been pointed out to him as gamblers and other unscrupulous men who lived by their wits. They did not move as Mr. Healey entered with Joseph, though those who had been sitting rose and stood. They said nothing. They did not smile. It was as if the king wolf had come among them and they waited for his orders, which would be obeyed instantly and without question. Some of them were smoking the long thick cigars Mr. Healey favored, and they removed them from their mouths and held them, in their long and extraordinarily aristocratic hands. Their black boots twinkled in the muted light from the dirty windows, but did not stir. Their attitudes were supple and quiet and attractive. Their thick hair, of many different shades, was fashionably long, covering their napes, and marvelously burnished and sleekly waving. With the exception of neat sideburns they were all cleanshaven, and all complexions were uniformly pale and unblemished and displayed minute care. From them all exuded faint perfumes and the scent of expensive hair tonics. They were incongruous in these close and filthy and crowded rooms, like patricians, or parodies of patricians, caught in noisome alleys or lurking fitfully in dark doorways in dangerous sections of a city. But Joseph felt the incongruity only briefly, and then he intuitively understood that this, indeed, was their proper milieu. Mr. Healey boomed affectionately, "Lads, I want you to meet this here spalpeen, Joe Francis he calls himself, and he's going to help keep the books while I'm off making money for all of us!" He laughed happily. "Then I won't have to strain my eyes over all those details. You just tell him. He'll boil it down. Smart, and sure he is. Fine hand, too. He'll give me in an hour what takes me, now, a whole day to get into my head," and he tapped his rosy and glistening temple. His attitude was affable and easy. "My manager, you can call him. Kind of young, but he ain't young in his mind, are you, Joe?" None said a word but Joseph was suddenly the target of narrowed and intent eyes and merciless speculation. If any man present felt the matter was incredible no expression at all appeared on his face. Here was a youth, much younger than the youngest, meanly dressed, shabby and patched, with no ruffled shirt, no watch chain, no silken cravat, no jewelry, his thick boots dusty and broken, his pantaloons of a coarse brown cloth and stained, and with a pallid, ginger-freckled face that betrayed his immaturity, and surely, thought Joseph, they must feel some surprise. If they did, they did not reveal it. No one moved, and except for their roving and sharply observant eyes they might have been elegant statues. Joseph was to learn later that none of these men ever questioned or doubted Mr. Healey's decisions or wisdom, or ever protested or ever ridiculed them privately. He ruled them absolutely not because he was rich and potent and their employer, but because wolves, themselves, they recognized and honored a more puissant wolf who had never, as yet, made a mistake. Had they once discovered a weakness in him, a hesitancy, a stupid blunder or an uncertainty, they would have pulled him down and destroyed him utterly. Not from malice or greed or thievery would they have done this at once, and instinctively, but because in his self-betrayal he had betrayed the pack and endangered them. He would have no longer been master, and for abdication they knew but one remedy: execution. Joseph waited for a protest, for a subtle smile or one half-hidden, for a wink of disbelief, or a murmur. But there was none. It was a long time before he understood that a few had recognized him almost immediately -not a criminal like themselves-but as powerful and more dangerous even than the most dangerous among them. Moreover, Mr. Healey had chosen him and they never were dubious about his methods or decisions. He had proved himself too often to them, and they were certain he would continue to prove. Joseph saw no signal, but the men came together in a thin-hipped queue and held out their soft gamblers' hands to him and bowed a little. He took their hands. He still felt the incredulity of the whole affair. There were a few men here old enough to be his father, yet they lowered their tall heads in respect. They felt his lack of fear for them, but if they guessed it was because he did not know exactly what he should fear, they did not show it. However, a number of the more experienced silently decided to test this newcomer very soon to see if Mr. Healey had, at last, made a stupid mistake. Joseph heard names mentioned by Mr. Healey's jovial voice, but he did not really listen. Later, he supposed, he would know them by name, all of them. If he did not, it did not matter. What was important was what they could teach him and tell him. However, he did observe that Mr. Healey, still smiling like the sun but with cold blank eyes, drew two of the older men aside and spoke to them almost inaudibly, and that once or twice he made a ruthless chopping motion with his jeweled hand. He suspected that he was the object of these quiet conversations and it annoyed him, then he shrugged mentally. Of what importance was it? If he failed, then he had failed. If he succeeded, then he would be on his way. He determined not to fail. A man who refused to fail was a man who did not fail. Once he had read an ancient Roman saying, "He is able who thinks he is able." I am able, said Joseph to himself. I dare not be anything else but able. A young man gracefully offered him a cigar, but Joseph shook his head. He looked at the man and said, "I do not smoke. I never intend to smoke. I don't want to waste my time and my money." Mr. Healey overheard this and sauntered back, beaming and chuckling. "And that, boyo, is just my sentiments, too. But everybody to his own pizen, I say." He said to the company, "Joe, here, this miserable young spalpeen, is eddicated. He reads books. Now, lads, don't hold that agin him!" and he held up his pink palm in a parody of defensiveness. The gentlemen dutifully laughed. "I don't hold with book-learning as such," Mr. Healey continued. "Softens a man's brains and makes him a fool. But it done the oppos
ite with Joe, this Irisher. It toughened him. Made him ambitious, like. Taught him what things was all about, it did. And he's got an Irish head on his shoulders and I'll tell ye this, lads, you don't beat an Irisher at any game. Not ever, not once. Don't I know it, being Irish, myself? We burn like peat but like peat we never just flare up; we keep on burning until there ain't nothing left. And Joe here don't like whiskey. If there's one mortal thing bad for an Irisher it's whiskey, though I ain't found that out for myself!" He beamed and patted his enormous paunch. "But I don't drink the booze when I'm working, and you know my sentiments about that, too. No whiskey in these offices. Pistols yes, but no whiskey. And no hangovers tolerated. This is just for Joe's information, lads. And now, I want Joe to have my office, beginning tomorrow, and my desk, but not my table. That's mine. He'll be on hand at seven in the morning." He looked at Joseph, then indicated the man nearest him. "This here is Mr. Montrose. We never call each other by Christian names, Joe. Just Mister, and God knows if their monikers is the ones they were born with. Don't matter, anyway. Mr. Montrose will take you to the shops tomorrow morning and buy you clothing fitten my men." "Not unless I can pay for it myself," said Joseph. Mr. Healey waved his cigar. "That's understood. Get off your high horse, Joe," but he was pleased and looked at the others with a self- congratulatory smirk. He took Joseph by the arm, nodded to his employees, and led the young man out into the gritty corridor. "Finest lads in the world," he said. "Smart as turpentine, too. Don't fear God or man, or the police. Just fear me. I reckon there's not one but police are looking for them somewheres. Maybe like you, Joe, eh?" Joseph said, "No police are looking for me, Mr. Healey. I've told you that before. Nor am I running away from anyone, nor have I ever been in jail. Nor will I ever be." "No shame in once being in jail," said Mr. Healey and Joseph at once knew that his employer spoke from experience. "Finest men in the world, been in jail. No disgrace on them, I always say. There's better men been in jail than ones never been there, I'm thinking." The air was blessedly cooler and cleaner than the air in the offices and Joseph breathed of it deeply. There were hollows of bright gold in the tall trees and the western sky was deepening into a bluish purple in which small flecks of rose floated. Bill Strickland was waiting in the surrey. His attitude was as still and as removed as an Indian's, and Joseph wondered if there were not Indian blood in him as well as Anglo-Saxon of a degenerate sort. Certainly he had the capacity for infinite patience and immovability. They drove home, Mr. Healey placidly smoking and relaxed. But Joseph could feel him thinking, and thinking intensely and with absolute precision. A soft and benevolent smile touched Mr. Healey's fat gross mouth, behind which he thought and thought and made plans. Joseph did not speak. He knew that Mr. Healey had temporarily forgotten him and that he had compartments in his mind which he closed when he thought out some problem or made some plan. He, Joseph, had just this genius and he respected it in others. A man whose mind idly wandered was feckless and of no importance. They arrived at Mr. Healey's house. The tall thin upper windows blazed like fire in the increasing sunset. The lawns appeared greener and thicker than ever, and the trees glittered with fresh and blowing gold. But for some reason he could not explain to himself Joseph felt a sudden desolation at the sight of the fortress-like house, as if no one lived there at all, and it was hostile in its isolation. There were neighboring old houses on the same street on their own vast lawns, yet Joseph had the eerie conviction that they were not aware of Mr. Healey's house, and never saw it. He looked up at the hills, which were turning violet in the evening light and they seemed far and cold to him, unaware also. It was these mysterious insights which had plagued Joseph all of his almost eighteen years, and which were to plague him, despite angry rationalizations, all his life. He thought, neither nature nor God seem to know or care anything about us, though they care about other things, such as the earth. His Irish soul was struck by an inexplicable sadness, a sense of total alienation, a sense of exile, a sense of heartsick yearning which had no words. "Now, we'll wash and then we'll have our supper," said Mr. Healey, who apparently never experienced any of these emotions. " 'Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.' George Washington." "Benjamin Franklin," said Joseph. Mr. Healey's bright smile became fixed. "Smart, ain't you? Who cares who said it? True, ain't it?" They went into the hall with its immense sofas and chairs and rugs. Mrs. Murray was there in her black crinoline and her ruffled white apron and cap. She made a little grudging curtsey to Mr. Healey, but gave Joseph a malignant glance. "Supper in ten minutes, sir," she said. "It's late." He laid his hand genially on her shoulder, which was as broad as his, and her formidable face softened for an instant. "Miz Murray, ma'am," he said, "you'll pardon me, I know, and begging your pardon, too, but when I come down you hit the gong. Not before." She curtseyed again, but gave Joseph a murderous look as if it were all his fault. "It's a hard day we had," said Mr. Healey to his housekeeper, as he began to mount the stairs with Joseph. "Got to forgive us businessmen." She snorted then disappeared down the hall. Mr. Healey laughed. "I'm always kind, that I am, to folks who work for me, Joe. But there's a limit. You get familiar like with them and first thing you know they're running you and you not running them. It hurts me, Joe. I'd like to love everybody, but it don't do. Got to have authority. Got to show them the nine-tails once in a while." Mr. Healey went to his own quarters in the front of the second story and Joseph walked down the hall to his own room. He was about to open his door when he heard a weak and fretful voice behind the door of the green room, and a soft young female voice answering. He said to himself, It's none of my business any longer, what happens to Haroun. I have my own self to consider, and no involvements. But still he hesitated. He remembered what he had felt outside this house a few minutes ago, and then with an imprecation against himself he went to Haroun's room and opened the door, throwing it open angrily as if driven not by his own will but by the power of a stupid stranger. Vivid red sunlight poured into the room and Joseph noticed at once that this room was as beautifully serene and as austere as his own, but in green shades. Haroun was lying in a magnificently carved poster bed made of some black wood, and he was resting on plump white pillows. Beside him sat little Liza, holding his hand and soothing him and talking to him in the gentlest and sweetest of voices. They were both children, and Joseph, in spite of himself, thought of Scan and Regina. Liza jumped to her feet in obvious terror when she saw Joseph, her thin flat body quaking in its black cotton uniform, her starved face tremulous. She shrank; she tried to make herself invisible, and cowered. She dropped her head as if awaiting a blow. But Haroun's fevered face, the huge black eyes shining, brightened with delight. He was ominously sick; he appeared to have dwindled in size and shape. He held out his dusky hand and quavered, "Joe!" Joseph looked at Liza. He said, "Thank you for taking care of-for taking care of-" She lifted her head a little and glanced with fearful timidity at him. "I just been talkin' to Mr. Zeff, sir. I didn't do no harm. I'll bring him his supper," and she fled from the room like a meager small shadow in apprehension of violence. Joseph watched her go, and his face darkened and tightened. You fool, he said to himself, what does it matter? These are of no consequence. They ought never to have been born. He turned to Haroun and felt umbrage because Haroun, though now conscious, was evidently suffering and it was no affair of Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh's, who had been intruded upon. Haroun still held out his hand and Joseph was forced to take it. "I don't know how I got here, Joe," said Haroun. "But I reckon you did it." "It was Mr. Healey. This is his house, not mine." "But you did it," said Haroun with the most absolute conviction. "He'd never look at me 'cept for you." "Well, get well, Haroun, and you can repay Mr. Healey. I did nothing." "You saved my life, Joe. I remember the train." It was then that Haroun looked up at Joseph with a glowing look, a deep and intense devotion, a total trust, a passionate fervor. It was the look which Bill Strickland gave Mr. Healey, unquestioning, dedicated. It was not to be shaken, that faith. It was beyond reason. "I am your man," said Harou
n, in a whisper. "For all my life." Joseph pulled his hand from Haroun's. "Be your own man, for life," he said in a harsh tone. But Haroun still glowed upon him, and Joseph almost ran from the room.
Captains and the Kings Page 16
