More Good Old Stuff

by John D. MacDonald

  The old man tapped himself on the chest. “Sound as a nut. Now, what is all this about?”

  They stood in the middle of the alleyway, the early sun slanting across them, throwing their shadows in long strips toward the woods. Drake stepped closer to the old man and looked up into his face.

  “You know, Benderson, in addition to running this place, I’m a philosopher. Did you know that?” There was something secret and dangerous in Drake’s tone.

  The older man looked puzzled and stepped back. Drake’s face was so close to his own that Post could see that it made him uncomfortable.

  “Yes, I’m a philosopher. This is a country where we value human dignity, Benderson. We bow deeply to the rights of the individual … I don’t think the individual has any rights.”

  “But what has that got to do with …”

  “Don’t be hasty, Benderson. Let me finish. You’re treated with what amounts to reverence because you stink with money. Money that was handed to you. I don’t think I’ll give you any reverent attention, Mr. Benderson.”

  The gray cheeks flushed and Benderson coughed. “Look, Drake, I didn’t come down here to listen to any silly theories. I didn’t come to be insulted. Now get to the point. I believe that I may leave here today. Yes, I’m certain of it.”

  Drake stepped forward again, slightly crouched, his head tilted sharply upward. “You’re quite right, Benderson,” he said, his voice soft and strangely warm. “Neither of us is interested in theory. We’re men who like to see theory in practice.”

  His thin hand flashed up and the smack of hard palm on flesh resounded in the narrow space between the buildings. Benderson staggered back, bewildered, and stared in silent appeal at Post. Post could see that he felt he was dealing with a man who had gone suddenly mad. The red mark on Benderson’s cheek reminded Post of the mark he had made on Drake.

  He glanced over and saw Frick leaning against the end of the building, watching Drake. Frick’s face seemed masked as usual. His heavy arms were folded.

  “Now, Benderson, we start the practice. Now tell me. What did that do to you? How did it affect your immortal dignity? Tell me.”

  “You’re mad,” Benderson gasped.

  “Not mad. Just curious. Let’s try it again.” Benderson tried to duck but he was old and stiff. The force of the blow staggered him and he held his hand against his cheek. He looked as though he wanted to run. Drake darted around him and blocked one exit. Frick stood at the other exit. Benderson turned and faced Drake.

  “You still seem to retain your dignity, Benderson. How about this?” Drake stabbed the old man in the diaphragm with a rigid forefinger. He gasped and doubled up, holding his stomach. Drake slapped him across the eyes. The glasses splintered and fell into the grass. A bit of glass cut the gray cheek and a trickle of blood started slowly down, following the line of a deep fold in the flesh. Before the old man was breathing properly again, Drake slapped him hard on the cheek for the third time. It knocked him down. He scrambled to his feet and looked again at Post and Frick. He seemed to Post to look like an old gray horse being worried by a yapping terrier.

  Drake stepped toward him again and the old man put his hands up to ward off the blow. Then, he seemed to remember, to reach deep into his past and call up the forgotten motions of youth. He clenched his fists and held them rigidly in front of him. It was pathetic and as brave as banners in the wind.

  Drake stepped to the side and hooked a short left into the old man’s stomach. As he slowly fell, Drake slapped him twice. The man lay on his back, gasping. He rolled over onto his stomach and pushed against the ground. He stood up and staggered against the building for support. Then he rushed at Drake, stumbling, his thin arms flaying the air. Drake stepped aside and he rushed into the side of the building. Drake laughed at him.

  “The dignity is leaving, Benderson? Where could it be going? Where is that charming calm?”

  He walked up to the old man and grasped the loose clothes under the old man’s chin with his left hand. With his right hand he slapped, firmly, in monotonous tempo, forehand and backhand across the sagging cheeks and mouth. Blood came on the lips and was sprayed across the lower half of his face with each slap.

  “Any dignity left, Benderson? Any guts left?” He stepped toward the old man again. Benderson covered his face with his hands.

  His voice was more of a bleat than a moan. “Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me again.” Drake dragged him to his feet and turned him around so that Drake’s back was toward the building. He shut his fist and released Benderson. The old man swayed but stood erect. Drake swung with all the power in his wiry back and shoulders. The small hard fist cracked against the lean jaw and Benderson fell with his gray bloody face against the green grass.

  “Too hard, boss,” Frick said quietly.

  Drake grinned and made a dusting motion with his hands. “Nonsense, Sam. He’s a tough old citizen, and he’s got to be sore as hell when he comes to.” He stopped smiling and stared at Post. “You look a little green. What’s wrong? This one isn’t dead. Don’t tell me a little rough stuff gets you down. Maybe I figured you wrong.” He stood and thought for a minute.

  Then he turned to Frick. “Samuel, you better take Sister Ann away for the next act. There’s such a thing as knowing too much. Bring him back in an hour. Take him up the trail a ways.”

  Frick stirred and pushed himself away from the building. He waited until Post got up and walked ahead of him. Then he followed along.

  They walked across the clearing and entered the mouth of the trail. Post slowed and stopped.

  “Move along. Get up the hill a little further.”

  “Relax, Sam. This is good enough. Why climb that damn hill?”

  Frick shrugged. “Okay. It’s hot. How’d you like the way the boss worked on the old gent?”

  “Very pretty, if you like that sort of thing.”

  “The boss and I can do it okay. Strane can’t. Anytime he hits anybody, it’s got to be for keeps.”

  Post stood and tried not to look as ill as he felt. He couldn’t get his mind away from what Drake had said about human dignity. He suddenly realized what it was that had made him feel so peculiarly about Drake. The man barely concealed an enormous contempt for everyone around him. The small flame of excitement that had been burning secretly inside of him flared up a little higher. He’d like to show Drake how much dignity there is in being on the wrong end of eager fists. The color of the growing flame turned to red, the color of anger. He wanted to go back and have a few short words with Drake.

  He moved over toward the familiar aspen. Frick blocked his way and looked at him peculiarly. “Move over, Sam. I want some more shade.” He stood under the aspen and yawned. He yawned again. Finally he stretched, moving his right hand around until his fingers grasped the familiar handle of the club he had made.

  With one convulsive movement he tore it loose from the tree and crashed it across Frick’s head. Frick stood, his eyes half shut, swaying. Post raised the club and slammed him across the temple. The square man spun half around and dropped face down in the dirt. Post grabbed his arm and turned him over. He slapped at his clothes. No bulge of any gun. On a hunch, he slapped the stocky legs. He felt something against the solid calf of the left leg. He pulled the trouser leg up. There was a thin heavy knife in a stained cloth scabbard strapped to Frick’s leg. He ripped it out and threw it off into the brush. He picked up the club and walked quietly back to where he could see across the clearing. He angled off to the side and ran quickly around to the other side of the bunkhouse.

  He knew that Benderson must be in the grass almost opposite where he was standing. The club was awkward. He laid it down. He grasped the low edge of the roof and slowly pulled himself up. His arms cracked with the strain. With infinite care, he got his body up over the edge. Then he wriggled slowly up to the peak, up to where he could look down into the open alleyway on the other side.

  When he was near the peak he stopped and rested, waiting unt
il his breathing was more regular. He knew that he had made a foolish move, that he had cut himself off from the safety of the lake. It was too late to turn back. He realized vaguely that he was enjoying himself. He tried not to think of the fight in the bar.

  At last he could breathe quietly and his arms had stopped quivering. He raised himself slowly until he could look down into the open space. He saw Benderson first. The man was still on his side, but one hand was moving feebly, combing at the thick grass. Then he looked toward the lake. Ten feet from Benderson’s form, Drake lay stretched out on the grass on his face, his arms spread wide. Post couldn’t make any sense out of the scene. Drake didn’t look like a man who was resting. He knew that Benderson couldn’t have come out of it and flattened Drake. And yet it looked as if Drake was injured.

  Then, with infinite caution, Benderson began to crawl toward the silent form of Drake. After each few feet he would stop and peer behind himself. He found something in the grass. He picked it up and looked at it. It was a short heavy club. He waved it in the air as though testing it. He carried it in his right hand and continued to creep. At last he was poised over Drake. He sank back onto his buttocks and grasped the club in both hands. Then he raised it high in the air and brought it down on the back of Drake’s head.

  Post felt his mouth go dry as the club was lifted. Then, as the blow fell, he relaxed. He knew what had happened in the heart of the old man. There had been the idea of quick and brutal murder. But as his arms swung the club, some gentleness about him that he had almost forgotten softened the blow. It wasn’t a blow that would kill.

  He left the club by Drake’s form and crawled over to the far wall. He grabbed it and pulled himself to his feet. He was shaking visibly. He panted and stared at the form on the grass with dull eyes.

  Drake came walking around the end of the kitchen. Post almost gasped aloud. Drake was wearing different clothes. He was smiling. Benderson fell back against the wall and slid to the ground. He sobbed aloud. Drake leaned over and carefully hit him again. The old man’s lean form lay stretched out in the angle made by the wall and the ground. Drake turned him so that his face was against the building.

  He stepped quickly over and picked up the club that Benderson had dropped. He stood over the form that Post had thought was Drake. He lifted the club and swung it down with the force with which a man would swing a mallet at a country fair. He grunted as he swung. When the noise of the blow hit Post’s ears, he pressed his face against the shingles and his stomach lurched. He felt dizzy. He knew that the man dressed in Drake’s clothes was the little man who had slept in drugged stupor in the top bunk. He knew that Drake had picked him for size as well as unimportance.

  Drake whistled a gentle tune as he walked back toward the kitchen. He was back in the yard in a few moments. He fiddled with a small movie camera. He stepped over and took a close-up of the smashed back of the stranger’s head.

  Then he walked over and looked down at Benderson. He spoke just loud enough so that Post could hear him. “Beautiful! A half million bucks’ worth of home movies. Just wait till I run it off for you and your haughty daughter, grandpop. Drake, you’re a right smart boy.”

  There was a crashing noise in the brush across the clearing. Both Drake and Post looked over. Frick was coming across in a blundering run. He looked white.

  “Where’s Post?” Drake snapped.

  “I don’t know. I just come to. He slugged me somehow. I didn’t even see him do it. I got two knots on my head.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how long I’ve been out. It was maybe five minutes or so after we got up there. Maybe ten.”

  “You’re a fool, Frick. Where’d you hide the rifle I brought in?”

  “Under the mattress on my bunk.”

  “That wasn’t very bright, either. Go on up and get Strane. I’ll get the old guy into the shade and get the rifle. I can’t figure that Post guy out. He should be scared as hell about making me mad.”

  Frick hurried off toward the cabins. Drake took the old man by the heels and dragged him around the corner into the shade. Then he darted into the bunkhouse. Post crawled along the roof peak until he was at the end above the door. Quickly he reversed his position so that his legs hung over the edge. He sat on the peak. It was a twelve-foot drop to the ground. He heard Drake’s footsteps hurrying across the board floor toward the door. He dropped, spinning as he dropped so that he’d land facing the door.

  He had the punch wound up before his feet touched. Drake’s face was in front of him, at the right distance. He swung a short heavy right and felt the meaty flattening of the proud slim nose under his fist. He dashed through the door. Drake lay on his back, scrabbling with his fingers on the floor.

  Post scooped up the rifle and the camera and ran out. He turned to the right as soon as he was outside the door, and pounded off into the thick brush. After he estimated that he had gone a hundred yards he turned to the right again. He tried to gauge the slant of the sun through the leaves to keep his direction right.

  The rifle was awkward to carry. The ground slanted steeply upward and he climbed for a time and then struggled along parallel with the slope. He kept looking to the right, trying to catch the glimmer of the lake below him.

  At last he found the spot he was looking for. Gray rocks climbed up out of the slanted forest floor. He circled the rocks and climbed up behind them. Then he walked to the edge. He was above the tops of the trees which grew on the slope below the rocks. He could see the entire lake, the two long buildings on his right and the three cabins almost directly across from him.

  He sat down on the mossy top of the rocks and put the rifle and the camera beside him. His shirt stuck to him and he pulled it away from his damp skin. He took deep breaths until his wind was back. He watched across the lake.

  Frick came running from the bunkhouse down to the lakeshore. He dipped what looked to be a tin pail into the lake water and hurried back. Post grinned as he thought of Drake nursing his crushed nose. He regretted that he hadn’t had time to stay and enjoy it. He hummed softly to himself.

  He saw the slim figure of Nan hurry from the Bendersons’ cabin and head toward the long buildings. There was something frantic in the way she was running. He stopped humming and watched her. Strane ran from the bunkhouse and met her when she was in front of the last cabin. Post could see that he was shouting at her.

  She tried to squeeze past him. He grabbed her wrist and looked around for a long second, staring at the long buildings. He ignored the blows she was flinging at his head. He turned back to her and grabbed her around the waist. He clamped a big hand across her mouth and carried her, kicking and struggling, into a nearby clump of brush. Post jumped up and then realized that there was nothing he could do.

  She broke out of the bushes, Strane behind her. She poised for a second on the rocks as the tall man reached for her again. Then she went out in a long, shallow dive. Strane hesitated. He waited long enough to give her ten yards’ start and then he went in after her.

  At first it looked to Post as though he couldn’t possibly catch her. She surged through the water with a smooth-flowing stroke, her dark hair plastered against her head. Strane slapped the water with his arms and kept his head high. He looked clumsy. But as he watched, he saw the distance begin to narrow between them. It narrowed slowly, but he could see that he would catch her before she reached the middle of the lake.

  He wondered if he could put a shot between them. He aimed and sighted. It was too long a shot. He estimated it at six hundred yards. He was afraid he would hit the girl.

  Then Strane seemed to tire. He wasn’t closing the gap. He stayed the same distance behind the girl. Post realized that he probably wasn’t tiring. He was probably content to stay up with her, a dozen feet behind her, and catch her on the far shore. She looked around and saw him and increased her speed. He stayed at the same distance. They drew nearer. They were both going much more slowly. She began to roll
in the water with each stroke.

  Post suddenly realized that when they drew close enough to the shore beneath him, the trees would block his view. He saw Frick come out and peer across the water, then go back into the bunkhouse.

  He aimed the rifle again. He realized that it might take two shots to discourage Strane, so he decided to fire before they were too close to the trees. He checked the clip and then worked the bolt. They were about two hundred yards away. He aimed carefully at the strip of clear water between them. He steadied his arm and slowly squeezed the trigger.

  The gun cracked and jerked against his shoulder. He looked for the splash of the bullet. There wasn’t any. The smack of a bullet hitting a hard substance echoed back to him. Strane’s head sank slowly out of sight. For a second he saw the glow of the red hair just below the surface and then that too was gone.

  He laid the gun down and plunged recklessly down the hill, slowing himself by grabbing the trees. He burst through the bushes at the edge of the water just as she touched bottom and stood up.

  She took a few steps and fell and struggled to her feet. He waded out to meet her. Her face was twisted and she was making a high continual sound that was neither laughing nor crying. He slapped her and she stopped suddenly. Her slacks and halter clung to her.

  At last he led her around the edge of the outcropping of rock and she stretched, exhausted and panting, on the thick moss. He saw her glance at the rifle. The ejected case lay gleaming on the moss near her hand.

  He sat and watched the long buildings. No one came out. His mind kept circling back to the way the red hair had looked as Strane had sunk slowly under the surface. He realized what he had forgotten—that guns fire high when aimed downward. He cursed his stupidity and forgetfulness.

  At last she was relaxed. She said in a weary tight voice, “I’m glad you killed him. I’m glad.”