by Jim Thompson
She looked at the books, looked away quickly. She brushed at her hair, managing to push a wisp of it over her milk-eye. Buck shifted his boots squeaking, and his hand went over his mouth.
“Is—is they anything wrong, Mr. Buck?” she said.
“No, ma’am,” said Buck.
“I—I thought the j-johnnycake was kinda hard tonight. It didn’t hurt your mouth none?”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with my mouth, ma’am,” said Buck, a coldness coming into his voice. “It don’t hurt me at all, no more.”
“Uh, huh. O’ course not…” Unwillingly her eyes went to the pile of books. “I—I, uh—”
“Reckon you’re wonderin’ about them books, ma’am. Well, I’m gonna burn ’em. Be startin’ me a bonfire out in the backyard any minute now. Maybe you an’ me can go out and dance a hoedown around it. Ought to make a right handsome couple, don’t you think?”
Miss Mamie hung her head.
Buck said he supposed she thought he ought to sell the books. She and the girls didn’t have enough to eat, he reckoned, and he made ’em live in a privy and wear flour-sack drawers. “Well, don’t you worry none, ma’am. I’m studyin’ on getting us some money right now.”
Miss Mamie nodded, shook her head. Whatever Mr. Buck did or didn’t do was all right. He couldn’t help the way he was acting. He was awful, awful hurt, or he wouldn’t be doin’ it.
“Reckon I better go now,” she said. “Y-you—you want me to tell the girls good night for you?”
“Tell ’em not to worry no more about money. Tell ’em I’m gonna buy you a arm with a hook on it, and a eye that don’t look like snot.”
“I’ll tell ’em good night for you,” said Miss Mamie, and quietly she left the room.
Buck took a halting step after her, so sick with shame and remorse that he could have died where he stood.
How could he have done that to her? Why, it was worse than what Tom Lord had done to him, and there was even less excuse for it! You might understand a man goin’ kinda haywire when he was being arrested for murder. But—
Buck scowled troubledly, gave the books an angry kick. Two wrongs didn’t make a right, did they? What he’d done didn’t excuse Lord, did it? And those four men, the four hunters.…
Sooner or later, they were going to find out what they wanted to know. They had to, so they would. And as long as they were going to find out, anyway, regardless of what Buck Harris did or didn’t do.
20
Donna sat on the bunk in the shack, listening to the sheriff’s determinedly level voice as he questioned Tom, and to Tom’s laconic, seemingly disinterested replies. She was only a few feet removed from them, but their voices seemed to come from miles away. A terrible numbness enveloped her. She was caught in a tightening circle, which at once excluded and enclosed, pinning her to a stage of her own immediate concern.
“…about it, Tom,” Bradley was saying. “You had a motive. She’d blabbed on you once, and you couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t do it again. Might unchange her mind as fast as she changed it.”
“Might have,” Lord nodded. “But it wouldn’t have got her anything. Not when Mr. McBride’s own widow believed his death was an accident.”
“Believin’ ain’t the same as knowing. Miss Lakewood was a witness.” Bradley shook his head. “Even if you had those two other witnesses—them oil-field workers, Curly Shaw and Red Norton to testify for you—”
Lord shrugged, said he had no idea where Curly and Red might have drifted to by now. “Prob’ly get a line on ’em, if I tried hard enough, but I reckon it wouldn’t change nothin’, would it?”
“Not a thing.” Bradley’s eyes glinted maliciously. “The way you’d see it, Miss Lakewood had done you dirt. Lied about you, when she knew better. An’ you sure wouldn’t like it.”
Bradley had hardly looked at Donna since his arrival. He had listened to her irritably, with only half of his attention, when she had falteringly stated her conviction that Lord was innocent. The deputy—it was Hank Massey—had fastened a hypnotic stare on her from the time he entered the room. He made her feel as though he was undressing her in his mind (which was exactly what he was doing). But the sheriff’s attention was wholly for Tom.
It had to be. He had little enough concentration as it was, without trying to spread it around.
“…the house wasn’t broken in to, Tom. Whoever done it, she let him in. It was someone she knew, and wasn’t afraid of.”
“She knew about everyone in town that wore pants. Wasn’t a gal that scared easy either.”
“She hadn’t had nothin’ to do with any other men for a long time. An’ her not scarin’ easy don’t make it look no better for you.”
“So you ain’t going to look no further than me.”
“Didn’t say that. Might say I was just startin’ with you. You got an alibi for the time between ten o’clock an’ six o’clock, and I’ll start lookin’ again.”
“And suppose I don’t have one?”
“Then, I don’t have to look no more.”
Donna shook herself, tried to break through the circle of dulling terror. This couldn’t be happening to her! She wouldn’t let it happen! Her glowing goal was too near at hand to allow it to be snatched away now.
Tom hadn’t killed that woman. The idea was ridiculous—blaming him for the murder, just because he had no alibi. Why, she herself couldn’t prove where she was at the time of the slaying, and that didn’t mean that—
Of course, Tom did have a reason to kill the woman—a seeming reason, anyway. And he would have been admitted to the house, as the killer had been. And if he was capable of such a deed, well.…
A fit of fury. Temper. Not with a gun, but—
Donna took a small, shivery breath; she looked at the possibility and accepted it.
It didn’t change anything. He was still her Tom, her beloved husband-to-be, and all that a husband represented. She was naturally dismayed that he would have anything to do with a common whore. But that was before he met her, Donna, and the woman had doubtless thrown herself at him and hung onto him, and—and if she’d gotten herself killed, she had no one to blame but herself! It was regrettable, of course, and she was just as sorry as Tom probably was. But it wouldn’t have happened to her if she’d been a decent woman.
“Well, Tom. Got anything to say?”
“You mean have I got an alibi? How about you? Where were you between ten that night and six the next morning?”
“Now, never you mind about me! I didn’t have no—”
“Seems to me that you had a pretty good motive. You was mad at her for backin’ down on her story about me. And she’d have let the sheriff into her house without a struggle.”
There was an angry silence. Hank Massey swung his gaze to Lord, and his hand fingered the butt of his gun.
“All right, Tom,” Bradley gulped. “You’re under arrest. Now just come along afore there’s trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“This kind.” Massey leveled the gun at him. “Didn’t like that job you done on Buck, Tom. Just as soon put lead in your skull as not.”
“Try to put about here,” said Lord, tapping the bridge of his nose. “Don’t like to get my hair mussed.”
And then, as the sheriff stammered in angry confusion, and as Lord laughed softly, his eyes dancing, and as the hammer of the gun clicked back…
Then, at last, Donna broke through the imprisoning terror. “Wait!” she said, and she came forward with a rush. “Tom does have an alibi!”
Massey looked at her, let the gun slide back in its holster. Unwillingly, almost seeming to drag his head, Bradley also turned away from Lord.
“What are you doing here, anyway, ma’am. How long you been here?”
“That’s my business.” Donna tossed her head; and then, as he scowled at her. “I’ve been here since the day I was at your office. I came out here that same day.”
The sheriff’s eyes clouded, his thou
ghts blurring and drifting away in a half-dozen directions. This…this wasn’t right. She didn’t belong here, and he was going to say something about it earlier; but he’d been busy makin’ a case out against Tom, an’—”
“Now, wait a minute,” he said. “Last time I saw you, you was all set to kill Tom.”
“I let you think I was. I knew how you felt about him. I thought it would be the best way of getting you to tell me where he was.”
Bradley glowered, turned helplessly to his deputy; but Massey was of no help. Hank had heard of Donna, but he’d never seen her until today. He’d been out of the sheriff’s office at the time of her two visits there.
Bradley’s jaw set grimly. With a great effort, he regathered the scattered threads of his concentration.
“All right, ma’am,” he said. “We’ll just start this thing at the start. You never saw Tom Lord before you came here. Didn’t know him a-tall. But less ’n twenty-four hours after you hit town, you just go t’ see him, no matter what. Have to see him so bad that you pretend like you want to kill him. That what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Well”—Donna hesitated—“Yes, I suppose you could put it that way. I—You see, I’d met Tom the day before, and—”
“You didn’t mention nothin’ to me about it.”
“Well, I did, anyway! I took ill at his house and had to spend the night there. He left the next morning before I got up—it was about six-thirty, I remember, when I heard him go out—so I didn’t get to thank him for his kindness.”
“Ma’am,” said Bradley softly. “You sure you want to go on talkin’, ma’am? If you stop right now, I’d maybe forget you were tryin’ to obstruct the law.”
“I’m telling the truth! You’ll find my fingerprints in the office of the house, and also in one of the upstairs bedrooms.”
“I’ll check on it, ma’am.”
“I hope you do!”
Her heart was beating very rapidly, she felt flushed and breathless. A little resentfully, she wondered why Tom didn’t speak up, do a little something to help himself, instead of leaving it all to her.
“All right, ma’am,” the sheriff said grudgingly. “Maybe you did spend the night there. Won’t say you didn’t until I check. And maybe you did hear Tom leave the place after six o’clock by a nice convenient margin. But what about the time from ten o’clock on the night before?”
“Well…he was there all the time.”
“Now, how you know he was? Didn’t stay awake all night, did you?”
“No, of course, not! But—”
“An’ it wouldn’t make no difference if you had stayed awake. That’s a pretty big house. Fella could wander in an’ out of it without another party ever knowin’.”
He waited, his face impassive. Hank Massey shifted his weight from one foot to another, continued his fascinated study of her body. And Lord remained silent; stood, grinning lazily, his eyes thoughtfully narrowed.
“Yes, ma’am?” said Bradley. “I’ve gone along with everything else you told me, an’ it wasn’t easy to do. But I’m right about this, ain’t I? You can’t swear that Tom was at the house all night?”
“Y-yes. Yes, I can swear to it! And I will!”
“Now, ma’am. You—”
“I know Tom was there all night b-because—because we were in bed together!”
Bradley gaped; waved his hand desperately as though brushing something away. “B-but, ma’am. Your husband just dead, an’—”
“I don’t care! It’s t-true and I’ll swear to it in court, if you’re fool enough to make me.”
Bradley’s shoulders suddenly slumped. He gave Massey a questioning look, and the deputy nodded in answer.
“It figures, Dave. After all, they’re livin’ together here, ain’t they? No reason why they wouldn’t have slept together in town.”
“I guess,” said Bradley dully. “I guess I don’t know nothin’ about people no more. Let’s get out of here.”
They left.
Lord sauntered over to the stove, lifted the cover from a steaming kettle, and tasted a spoonful of the contents. He smacked his lips, frowned reflectively, and turned back around. The stew tasted real good, he said, but he figured it could stand just a wee bit more salt. Not a full pinch, but kind of a baby-sized smidgeon.
Donna stared at him as though through a red haze. If the kettle had been in her hands, she would have hit him with it.
“Is that all?” she said shakily. “Is that all you have to say?”
“Huh? Oh, you mean that performance you put on. Well, that was mighty fine, honey. All things considered.”
“Mighty fine! I lie for you, shame myself, and.…What do you mean, all things considered?”
“That you’re pretty sure I did kill Joyce. That I maybe bumped off Pellino, too.”
“I don’t—” she began; and then, raging, “All right, suppose I do think that! What of it? You ought to be all the more grateful for what I did!”
“That’s all you want from me, just bein’ grateful? I figured it was a pretty big obligation to pay off with just plain gratitude.”
“W-what? I don’t know what—”
She sobbed suddenly, covering her face with her hands. She stumbled to the bunk and flung herself down on it. Began to weep uncontrollably, her face buried in the pillows.
Lord remained where he was for a long, long moment. Studying her—and himself; weighing her against himself. The balance was not greatly uneven, he decided. Not provably so, at any rate, at least at this point.
His boots clicked across the floor. He knelt at the side of the bunk and slipped an arm around her.
“Donna, honey. Listen to me.…”
“N-No! I w-will not! You’re j-just as mean as you can be, an’—and I h-hate you! I h-hate you so much, Tom Lord, that—”
“I wish you didn’t. I love you.”
“I don’t care! You’re”—she gasped and turned around—“y-you—love?”
Her arms were around his neck before he could answer. She drew him down upon her breast, babbling, laughing, sobbing. “I’m s-so glad, Tom. I love you so much that I’d do anything in the world to help you, and when I tried to show you that I did—to prove it to you—W-why, darling? Why did you act as though I—I—”
“Just kind of mixed up, I guess. Might say I was plenty glad you took me off the hook, but I wasn’t sure I liked your reason for doin’ it.”
“B-but—but I did it because I love you!” She kept his face pressed to hers. “What other reason would I have?”
Lord said he wasn’t sure she had any. But neither was he completely not sure. They’d known each other a relatively short time, and there were highly unusual factors involved in their coming together.
“I was lookin’ for somethin’—myself, I guess—and you helped me to find it. You were lookin’ for something; in fact, you just had to have it. And I made it easy for you to take.”
“Oh, you did, darling, you did! And I’m so glad I could help you!”
“Might be we helped each other too much. Maybe I’m seein’ things a little too clear for comfort; maybe you ain’t seein’ ’em clear enough. You got your teeth into somethin’ tasty, and you can’t bother about who’s holdin’ it.”
“Now, Tom,” Donna said as she squirmed impatiently. “You make me sound like a dog. What possible difference does it make why we love each other as long as we do?”
Lord said that the dog wasn’t a bad comparison; fit ’em both pretty well. But he figured they ought to do a little better than dogs. “Now, about that difference you was askin’ about, it might make quite a bit. You’re in debt to me, so to speak. I got a big obligation to you. You’re pretty sure I killed Joyce, not to mention Pellino, and—”
“Now, Tom. I’m not sure of anything of the kind, and I never said I was. Anyway, I know it wasn’t your fault, whatever you did. Pellino was a killer himself, and that woman was——”
“Uh-huh. But you might not always feel
that. Maybe you’d decide to crack the whip over me a little bit, and I’d get riled an’ uneasy like. Wonderin’ if you might not go a little bit further than whip-crackin’ and put my neck in a noose…”
“P-please, Tom! Don’t talk that way.”
“It could happen. Be easy for a fella that goes around killin’ people out of hand. Sure, I’d had to kill ’em; just protectin’ myself. But I’d see it as the same way in your case…”
He was speaking in a virtual whisper, a soft, shadowy tone which blended with the gathering twilight. Far, far in the distance, a coyote bayed eerily. And the night wind whined angrily at the challenge.
“Tom…” said Donna uncomfortably. “Maybe we’d better talk about it later…”
“An’ maybe we hadn’t. Might be too late later.”
His hand had moved up from her breast. Now it lingered against her throat, around her throat, the fingers encircling the small neck, slowly, gently tightening.
“You see how it is, honey,” he whispered. “Should have seen how it was all along. You knew I’d kill if I had to. You were willing to run the risk, an’ now…”
Donna moved suddenly. Wildly. Her arms flailed frantically, and she flung herself to the floor. She backed away from him, hands shakily outthrust to ward him off.
And Lord laughed shortly. Grinned at her with a kind of wry sadness.
The blood rushed back into Donna’s face. She grimaced, with an attempt to smile, and her nervous laugh became a ridiculous cackle.
“T-that wasn’t very funny, Tom. Of course, I knew you were joking, but—well, after all—”
“After all,” Lord nodded, “you don’t know me. So I’ll tell you something, for what it’s worth. I didn’t kill Pellino. I didn’t kill Joyce Lakewood. I reckon Pellino killed her, for not following orders, but I don’t know. All I know is I didn’t kill him or her either, and I figure you ought to ’ve known it.”
“But—” Donna’s eyes dropped guiltily. “I’m sorry, Tom, but I don’t think you were quite fair.”
“Maybe not,” Lord admitted. “Not to your way of figurin’, anyway. It all comes back to the same proposition, I guess. We’ve been movin’ along too fast. We got a lot of thinkin’ to do before we go any further.”
