by Gil Brewer
“Do we follow the road?” she asked.
“I shook my head. “We’d never get there that way. Take all night. Got to cut cross country. Think you can do it?” I didn’t believe I could myself. Yet I knew I had to. Because ever-blossoming in the back of my mind was the reminder of murder. I pointed down the narrow stream away from the bridge. “That way.”
“All right, darling,” she said. “I’m game.”
She was game for anything.
We hadn’t gone a half mile when I knew what we were up against for real. The rain had settled down to a fine dripping drizzle. The rain didn’t matter. We were soaked through, mud-caked, and my leg was plenty stiff.
We kept to the mud-choked bank of the steam. It would bring us out on the Oklatoochee River and Frank’s cabin should be about a mile upstream. I knew we’d have to cross this small tributary, but I didn’t want to chance it now. The water would be black, deep, and treacherous. Clots of sodden moss brushed us as we pushed on.
“Look out!” Leda cried, falling back on me. A bird—probably a white heron—thundered up from directly before us. Leda breathed harshly, clung to me. Her dress was torn in the front and she clutched her coat across her breasts, looking as wild and untame as a jungle cat.
“Best thing is to move fast,” I said.
“Oh, sure.”
“If we stop, it’ll only be that much longer.”
“Can’t we just rest a while?” She paused, her eyes flicking around the night. “No. No, we can’t. You’re right. We’d better get going.”
At a small bend in the steam an uprooted slash pine bridged the moldering banks. Its trunk thrust itself away into darkness on the other side, but I knew we had to cross here. An obscene grunting and thrashing on our side of the stream in the underbrush decided the move quickly.
Leda went first and I guided her with my hands on her hips. We made the other side and I took a look at the sky. A couple of stars winked fitfully between ragged wisps of dirty storm clouds. The rain was decreasing more and more, the storm was breaking. High overhead among the drenched clutter of oak and cypress a monotonous wind moaned.
Still we clung to the bank of the stream.
During the past few months plenty had happened to me. Right now my work seemed empty and foolish; the elements could do that to a man. Mother dead because of Frank’s blind, selfish witlessness. Frank murdered by somebody who had it in for me, or who used me as an easy mark to frame. I’d been with two fine women, one lost with me now, chancing death because I’d been a fool. The other kind and good in every respect, hurt deeply because I couldn’t see as she saw, couldn’t return her love. For love it was. I knew that now. Norma had never disguised it, but I’d never been able to believe it.
And behind me somewhere Clyde Burkette clicked his teeth with his thumbnail and snapped his black button eyes.
With me always the haunting shadow of the dream. . . .
Frank, dead on the floor, with a wooden mallet beside him. The very implement I’d always used to kill him in the dream. But I couldn’t make myself believe such a thing was true. Dream, yes—actuality, no. And I knew I wasn’t nuts, then; death had proved it to me.
The cabin was our only home, now, escape was really cut off. No transportation. The only thing I could think of was finding a boat someplace around the cabin. With a boat of some kind, we could go down the Oklatoochee to the Gulf of Mexico.
The rain ceased. But where the trees had seemed to shelter us some before, now they rained from their water-laden branches.
Bleak gray dawn paled the eastern sky as we broke through the undergrowth and found the broader, deeper, blacker Oklatoochee.
Leda was excited for all her tiredness. “I remember this,” she said. “Frank and I hiked down this far once. I remember it!”
“Good,” I said. Then I hadn’t been wrong. The cabin wouldn’t be far off, because Frank was no man for the woods. He wouldn’t go far from the cabin.
“It’s up this way,” Leda said.
I looked at her. She was a mess, but even so, with the cut over her eye, her water-slimed clothes, her matted hair, she was somehow wildly beautiful. Her face was pale, but there was bright excitement in her eyes. She seemed to have more energy than I.
“Don’t know what keeps you going,” I said.
“You do, Eric. You do.”
“Thanks. But it can’t be just me.”
“Is, though. What you do to me, too.”
We stood there looking at each other, trying to smile, weaving with fatigue.
“You’re a rich woman now, Leda. Damned rich.”
“Does that matter?” She came against me and touched her lips to mine. “C’mon, Eric. Let’s get to the cabin. I’m about knocked out.”
We reached the cabin after locating the dirt road. The road was muddy, a mess, but we slogged along it and found the cabin up against the river bank beneath the mammoth spread of banyan.
The excitement of reaching the place stirred Leda. I noticed the change. Whatever tiredness had been in her seemed to disperse. She walked faster, striding. The soft water of the rain had dried out in her hair now, and the auburn hues sparked even without sunlight. The sky was overcast again and the air was chill.
It was a four-room cypress-plank affair, built solid and weather-tight.
“Well,” she said. “We’re here.” She stood at the door and looked back into the roadway, across at the tight growth of jungle that pushed against the horizon. Out back the Oklatoochee wound like a black snake, its mirrored surface tingling with mystery.
The door was open. We went in. It was furnished comfortably, in heavy leather, deep-napped rugs, and with a large fireplace in the front room.
Then I noticed how really tired I was. Leda went through the house hurriedly, her heels thudding on the rugs. She returned to where I was throwing newspapers and small chunks of dry wood on the hearth. I lit the papers and in a few moments warmth began creeping out.
“Any signs of life?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Anybody been around?”
“Oh. Certainly not.” She draped her coat over the mantel and looked down at herself. Her dress was torn across the breasts and there was a slit in her skirt clear to the waist. The thin material clung to her form like adhesive. Then she eyed me quietly.
I bent down, poked the fire, laid some heavier wood on the irons. Resinous pine caught instantly and the cold morning warmed.
“We made it all right,” Leda said.
“Yeah. Now we’re here,” I said.
She smiled, turned and walked into the other room.
I sat on the floor feeling the heat from the fire and feeling suddenly drowsy as the room warmed. We were here, and now what? We couldn’t stay long, because they’d find us eventually. We’d have to move on, someplace. I saw us forever on the move, then, forever looking back, forever chased. It was no good. I had to find an answer because there was an answer. Someplace.
The only way I could find that was to return to Cypress Landing and start snooping. But how could I do that? Inside I was empty and sick and the more I thought about it, the worse I felt.
It didn’t seem to strike Leda so badly. She took things more in her stride than I was able to. I could see the papers hitting the street this morning. I could see the body of Frank with its head smashed lying on my studio floor. The clay image of Leda. The blood-covered mallet.
I’d been poking through life like the average guy, dreaming of murder more than the average, but still never realizing it could get so close. And when it is close, when it happens like this, you don’t understand it at first. Shock, sure, but only because it’s so close to you. Because you’ve seen dead men before. But your brother, even if he was a louse, was still your brother. Even half brother.
Then you see you’re the guy who’s nailed to the cross. You’re the guy they’re after. But even that doesn’t hit you until you comprehend the fact that you didn’t do it. And that
somebody you probably know did it. And they framed you for it.
“Darling.”
I turned around, blinked my eyes. Leda stood beside me with a blanket wrapped around her. She knelt down and the blanket fell open. She’d brushed her hair to a coppery sheen and her lips were damp. There was only a slight bump over her eye now and the cut hardly showed. I was drowsy, tired, and she looked good.
“Why don’t you undress?” she said. “You’ll catch cold.”
“Sure.” I slipped off my swimming shorts and she rolled up next to me, opening the blanket.
“We’ll stay here,” she breathed. She kissed my throat, her teeth nibbling as she moved against me. “We’ll just stay here together.”
“We can’t for too long.”
Her pressure tightened. “Yes. Yes, we can! Oh, Eric! Excitement gets me this way and when I’m tired—”
We were lying in front of the fire. We were warm and comfortable with the fire and I felt worse every minute.
“We’ll see if we can’t dig up something to eat,” I said. “Then we’ll pull out of here.”
“Pull out?” She sat up, squeezed her hair away from her face with both hands. “We’ll stay right here,” she said. “Listen, Eric. Where would we go?”
She had me there. But I wasn’t going to sit here and wait for nothing to happen. I had to make things happen. What good was life if you couldn’t live it all the way? What was the real murderer thinking? How did he feel? He was free, roaming someplace, laughing up his sleeve. But who in hell was he? And why had I been framed?
She snuggled close. “Why don’t we go to sleep for a while?”
I ignored that. “Has Frank got a boat?”
She hesitated. “No,” she told me. “Not that I know of. No, he hasn’t got a boat up here. Why?”
“We could run down to the Gulf.”
“Oh, Eric. Forget it, will you?”
“Forget murder?”
“We’re safe enough.”
“For how long?”
She shook her head. “Don’t you see? We’re together, Eric. Why—Why, look. You could forget all about it, darling. I could go back, say I’d escaped from you. I’d have the money. I could meet you again. We’ll stay here a few days, then I can do that. You could change your name. We could go South America.”
“But I didn’t murder Frank!”
She shrugged. “What difference does it make?”
“For God’s sake, Leda! What difference . . .”
“Take a drink,” she said. “Don’t you like it here with me?”
“That’s not the point.”
She laughed. Her eyes were bright now. She stretched lazily, lay flat on the floor beside me on the blanket. “I’m staying right here,” she said. “It’s safe here. Where would you go? What could you do? Nothing. You know that, Eric.”
“I can’t stay here, knowing all the time I didn’t do it. That whoever did is free.”
She raised herself on one elbow. “Bosh. They’ll never find you here.”
“They would eventually. It’d get out somehow, it always does. You’ve got to keep on the move.” I felt tortured inside because nothing was clear to me. “I love you,” I told her. “I’ve brought you into hell. I’ve got to clear myself.”
She shook her head. “If you go, darling, you go alone. I’m staying. I’m tired. I don’t think I feel so well. Last night was pretty bad.”
“You look damn fine to me.”
She patted my face lightly. “Because you’re blinded by love, silly.”
I grabbed her wrist. “Damn it,” I said. “Anybody’d think you don’t want me to find out who killed my brother!”
Leda’s mouth went slack and she tried to draw her wrist away from my grasp.
The man’s voice from behind me in the kitchen doorway snaked into my guts. It was a familiar voice and I whirled sharply.
“’At’s exactly right, Eric,” he said. “Just exactly. Leda don’t want you to know a durn thing. Only now it don’t matter. Ain’t that right, kid?”
It was Lenny Conn. He lounged soaking wet and muddy against the doorjamb. In his fist was a blued-steel revolver and the muzzle was pointed at my bare middle. He let his mouth hang, and he looked very tired in his ruined tan suit and pink shirt.
Leda stood slowly. I saw her start trembling all over, and she cupped her palms over her breasts. “God!” she said. “I thought you’d never come!”
Chapter 20
Leda laughed.
She stood there and laughed. At first her stomach moved with secret mirth, then she gasped. Her laughter rang in the room, coarse, loud, and she actually staggered with it. It was wild, hysterical laughter and it cut down into me. She doubled up with it. She looked at me laughing hoarsely, and her gray eyes filled with tears, her mouth gaped like a raw wound and her body rocked. “Oh, God, God, God,” she whispered. She was unable to speak aloud.
“What the hell’s carried you off?” Lenny said. He didn’t move from the doorway.
I stood up, grabbed my swimming shorts.
“Nature boy,” Lenny said. “Take it easy, nature boy.”
I put on the shorts. Leda continued her racking laughter. She lurched over to one of the large, leather-covered easy chairs and sprawled into it. She was sobbing now, trying to talk. “I can’t help it,” she said. “I can’t. It’s been too much.”
“Yeah,” Lenny said. He eyed her. “Too much is right.”
She sobbed convulsively now, her shoulders shaking, eyes streaming. Her face was twisted and I didn’t know this Leda. I didn’t know her at all. But I was beginning to see things, terrible things that I didn’t want to believe. It was like a new kind of fear—something you were deadly afraid of. You knew what was coming, almost, you knew it. You wanted to shove it away, turn your back on it, not believe. But it was true. . . .
“It’s been so goddamned long,” Leda cried. “Oh, Lenny. I couldn’t have stood it another minute. Nerves are shot. Last night was mad—mad! Where’ve you been—where?” She shook all over, trying to hold herself with her arms. “He’s so damned dumb, Lenny—so damned dumb. Oh, thank God it’s over. Thank God.” She subsided a bit in the chair, weeping softly. Every now and then her shoulders trembled but she didn’t make much noise now. “Didn’t think I’d make it,” she said. She sprawled back into the chair, with her head flung back and her eyes on me. But she didn’t laugh now, and she abruptly moved her gaze.
“What’s it about?” I looked at Lenny. All the pent-up swine-like rottenness was staring out of his eyes.
“Ain’t ’bout nothin’,” Lenny said. He cracked a sloppy grin. “You just got yourself all messed up’s all.”
“How do you mean?”
“Is he dumb, or is he dumb?” Leda stood, watching.
Well, at last I knew. “You killed Frank,” I said to Lenny, “didn’t you? You killed him. And—” I turned to Leda, “you—you knew it. You knew it all the time. Not only knew, but—”
“Knew it?” she said. “Listen to him, Lenny.”
“How’d you find this place?”
Lenny snorted. “She done brought you here, Eric. Leda brought you here. You been framed for murder. Don’t you see yet we done it? Us?” He grinned, gawking at Leda. “Always liked you, too, Eric. But, well—” He watched Leda again.
I watched her, too. Saw her eyes, her red lips, her body and knew her for what she was. In a matter of moments my whole life had done another complete wingover. I had loved this woman.
Now I hated her. I hated her guts. In that instant I knew real hate and it stuck. My brain reeled and recovered itself and I knew I would get them. Get them right. This was no meager hate; this was the real thing.
Leda started talking. Her beautiful body bared in the room, her eyes bright again now, her full lips half smiling. “I actually had trouble with you,” she said. “I almost fell for you.”
“Yeah,” Lenny said. “You know what you tol’ me. I wonder about you sometimes. Mebbe I
wouldn’t trust you far’s I could throw my skiff.” He meant it.
“Lenny killed Frank, sure. It was a good setup. We planned it, just lately, Eric.” She licked her lips and greed showed in her eyes. The wildness I had liked in her was not what I had supposed at all. It was something else, something much worse. “I got onto the way you think in the hospital. Figured I’d hook you then, and I did. But you got messed up in that hit-and-run and Frank was there, all clear. He liked it, too—well enough to marry me quick.” She laughed. “You dumb ox. Frank schemed that hit-and-run, Eric. Didn’t know that, did you?”
I just stood there, listening. Those men who delivered the car. . . .
“The man, Allen,” she said. “He and the other fellow you saw at the hospital had been bought by Frank to pull the hit-and-run. I didn’t know then, of course. But I got it out of him afterward. He was plenty scared about it. He had faked the telegram so he’d be sure of your mother’s money when she died. Then he heard you were coming home. He had to do something, he was desperate. It wasn’t too sharp, but it fooled you. And it fooled lots of people who don’t know a guy will do about anything for dough. Like Allen. He let his friend beat the hell out of him, and they framed you for the hit-and-run. It cost plenty, too.”
Frank had had more nerve than I supposed.
“Then when he got you cooped up in Alabama, he had Allen withdraw the charges, and paid them off. Figured you’d be stuck for a good long time behind bars. He told some dandy stories to the psychiatrist there.” She paused. “I got it all out of him. He’d do anything for me.” She eyed Lenny. “So would you, wouldn’t you?”
“We’ll see,” Lenny said.
Leda bit her lip. “Anyway, you know about that now. Frank was trying to keep you away from home until your mother died. He never did know about that crazy dream of yours. Lenny and I decided we’d scare you good on that, having Frank—Frank lying there with the wooden mallet.” She stroked her thighs quickly, leaned toward me. “You’ll never even have that little blonde thing now. You won’t have anything.” She smiled, she knew what I was thinking. “Worked it pretty good, didn’t I? I played hard enough, God knows.”
