Vague worry filled me. She wants something, I thought, she's out here for some reason, and it couldn't be anything else but that. But she couldn't know. Nobody knows.
I leaned over and looked at myself in the still, clear water. The wild beard hung to my chest and my hair had not been combed in days. The tattered collar of the faded shirt was twisted unevenly at my neck.
All right, I thought, I'm no beauty queen. I never was. Let her just keep her damn mouth off of me, is all.
The water looked back at me silently. I let my hand trail in it and then I quickly looked over my shoulder. She was still in the shack. I took my hand out of the water and ran it through my hair and looked back into the spring.
So I'm still no beauty queen. So what?
And then a tide of shame flowed over me and I shut my eyes tightly and leaned back against one of the trees that grew by the spring. Memory rolled up out of the part of me I had locked away and my head began to ache.
Memory narrowed, for no reason at all, and my mind closed in on a Sunday, a shell-pink day when all of the world had been in tune and there hadn't been the face swimming in my brain or the loneliness or the dirt or the despair. It had been our last Easter together, over two years ago.
I had come out on the wide, rambling porch of the house and stood there a moment, waiting for Lucy, looking out across the rich rolling fields that were mine, and I had smelled spring and inside of me something was smiling. Somewhere a bird sang. There were no cars roaring by, no trains whistling and rumbling, no noises at all but the bird and the sound a spring breeze makes in pine trees.
The door opened behind me and I heard her step. I turned quickly and she was pinker, more beautiful than the day, and I went to her and held out my two hands and she took them, smiling. We stood there looking at each other and I was proud of my wife.
"Let me look at you," she said. That was the way she had been. My clothes had always had to be just right, and she had almost taken more pains with my appearance than with her own. She surveyed me then, the white linen suit I had had to have specially tailored for my lanky frame, the new Panama, the Oxford cloth shirt, a dark blue tie knotted neatly under its wide collar, and the brown and white shoes.
"You'll do," she said. "You look all right for a lady to go to church with."
"Nobody will notice me," I said. "They'll be too busy looking at you."
Her blonde hair waved softly around her head, under a spring hat that wasn't a hat at all, but that must have been made or grown or created just for her head alone, under which her blue eyes, smiling at me, seemed to mirror the very sky. A navy-blue gabardine suit, exactly matching the shade of my tie, clung to her full figure, not loo tightly, but in all the right places, and my gaze swept on down along the slim, lovely legs, and I thought that no woman in the world could wear high heels like Lucy.
We got into the Pontiac and went to church, the breeze and the coming spring and the awakening blossoms all about us, and I thought that after all the world was a small place because I could reach out and touch it, every bit of it that mattered.
I remembered all of that, sitting there against that tree by the spring, and the thoughts clawed at me. nameless marauders scaling the wall I had built around all those old days and nights. Lucy, I thought. Lucy. Were you thinking about it even then? Even that day?
I opened my eyes to get away from the images that darted at me out of the blackness and I looked in the spring again. Revulsion hit me with solid body blows and the shame was all over me now, all through me, and I got up quickly and took two steps toward the shack.
She was standing there looking at me, across maybe ten yards of bare sand, darkness nearly on us now, the shadows from the four abandoned, lonely derrick posts falling around us and the red ball of the sun fading slowly to the dunes.
I wanted to hit her, I wanted to beat that smooth face to a bloody pulp, close those eyes forever, because she had seen me like I was, because of the contempt in her lace when she looked at me. I stood there, some tremendous swelling coming inside of me, and yet, inexplicably, I did not move.
"I wasn't always like this," I said, my voice a child's, my ears incredulous at my own words.
And then the contempt and the hardness went out of her face, something else filling her eyes, and suddenly I knew she too, whoever she was, was lonely. She had it in her too, the loneliness and the despair and the awful absence of hope. Behind the flippancy and the hardness, something had eaten everything else out of her too.
"I know it," she said. "I know you weren't. Come on and get some beans."
We sat there and we ate the beans, and for the first time in two years I tasted them. Oddly enough, they were good. When I pushed my plate away she was already finished.
"You know what I'm going to do?" she said.
"No telling."
"I'm going to scrub hell out of here. I don't have to stay here but one night, but that's what I'm going to do."
"Go to it," I said. "It's your funeral."
There was plenty of water and a bar of strong lye soap I hadn't used in months and an old rag or two lying around. She rolled up the slacks above her knees and kicked off her loafers. Then she went out to her car and got a kerchief and bound up the short blonde hair and went to work scrubbing the floor.
I had made up my mind to shave after supper, but in order to keep out of the way, I stretched out on the bunk and lit up the pipe I sometimes smoked and watched her.
It was funny. It did something to me. There I was, like any other man, taking it easy after supper, and there she was, like any other woman, doing the housework. Only it wasn't really like that at all. I'm going to get cleaned up, I thought, just as soon as she finishes.
She was almost through before she spoke.
"Tell me about Lucy," she said.
It broke my thoughts abruptly. It reminded me that I still had no idea what she wanted with me.
"It was all in the papers."
"I don't mean about that. I mean tell me about her."
It should have made me mad. It wasn't anything a stranger had any call to ask about. But suddenly I found myself talking about my wife.
"She was a blonde like you," I said. "Only her hair was long. It came down to here. She was beautiful."
"I saw that in the pictures."
"Now you, you're not beautiful. You have what it takes, all right, you're good-looking, but Lucy-well, she was beautiful."
"Thanks."
"No offense, just two different types."
"What was she like?"
"A lot of fun." I thought a minute. "Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes she'd be sort of quiet. Like she was away off somewhere, but it wouldn't last long. She used to say she was absent-minded, but that wasn't it. That last year I guess she was lonely, maybe bored."
"On the farm?"
"Uh-huh."
She laughed. "I wouldn't be. I always wanted to live on a farm." She wrung out her rag in the bucket.
"You? You look like a city girl."
"I am. But I always wanted a farm."
"Lucy hated it. I think she did, anyway. That must have been it."
She got up from her knees and looked at her work.
"That'll have to do, I guess. At least it got the loose dirt." She let the rag drop into the bucket. "Who was the other woman?"
I almost dropped the pipe. "What other woman?"
"The papers said there was one."
"Oh. Yeah." I thought a moment. "None of your business."
She shrugged. "I don't get it, Harry. The way you talk, you're carrying a torch for this Lucy a mile high. I don't get the other woman."
"Me? Carrying a torch? After what she did?"
"It sticks out all over you."
"Listen," I said. "That bitch was-well, never mind. You're out of your mind."
She laughed again. "O.K., O.K… I still don't get the other woman."
"You don't have to. Just let it go."
"Wasn't Lucy any good i
n bed?"
I got up off the bunk. "That's enough. You just shut up about it."
"So that was it. I'd never have believed it. Not from the pictures."
"Shut up," I said again. I went over to the shelf and picked up the fruit jar. It was almost empty and I finished it in one drink. The hell with it, I thought. The hell with all of it.
"So much for that," she said.
I went over to the trunk in the corner and I got the key out of my pocket and opened it and got another fruit jar.
"Not quite," I said.
I locked the trunk and took the fruit jar over to the door and put it down. Then I went back to the shelf, picked up the empty fruit jar, and started out. In the door, I stopped and looked back at her standing there.
"It's just tonight," I said. "In the morning you go. I'm tired of your damned butting in. So it's just tonight. And for just that long you keep your mouth shut. Or I'll break you in two."
I threw the empty jar against the Cadet heater. It shattered to the floor.
"Clean that up too," I said. I picked up the full jar and went on out.
CHAPTER THREE
i stretched out on the sand by the spring and took another drink from the jar. Then I rolled over on my back and looked up at the stars.
Go to hell, I said to the stars, and then to the moon.
Pretty soon, the pale light in the window of the shack flickered out. Then she came out of the door, looked around for a minute, and saw me, lying there in the moonlight. She looked at me for a long time, but I didn't move or speak.
Then she started off the other way and disappeared over one of the dunes. In a minute or two she came back and went straight to the car and got in. I imagined I could hear the click of the door and then everything was still again. I took another slug at the jar.
I didn't even claim the insurance, I thought, so it couldn't be that. Besides, they'd have been around long ago if they were going to get their noses in it. So it's not the insurance.
And it's not the cops. They aren't interested in it any more. So that leaves only one. Only him.
He's tired of it, I thought, he's tired of the waiting. That must be it. So he's sent her out here to find out what I'm going to do. He could have found somebody like her. He would have known where to find somebody like her to do it for him.
So now I'll have to try again. I'll have to squeeze up the guts and the brains to figure out a way. If I'm ever going to do it. I'll have to try again, after all this time, to figure out a way. Because I don't want him to relax, not ever.
I had to think. That was clear. I had to figure it out between now and morning and get it all straight. I had to think. So I readied out for the jar and took another drink and then another.
Because I couldn't think. I couldn't think any more, not for the last two years. Not when it came to him, and now not when it came to her. I took another drink.
Now his face came, floating somewhere between me and the stars, mocking and sneering, and this time hers was beside it. Now there were two of them and I couldn't do anything about either one, or even think about them.
Pretty soon I was drunk. But the faces wouldn't go away. Then it all went out of my mind and I slept and they did go away. But hers came right back and this time it had a body. It had small, high breasts and thighs and slim hips and I wanted that body, but I could do no more about it than I could do about the face.
When I was awake again there weren't any faces or any bodies, and I rolled over and stuck my head in the spring and drank deeply.
I stood up. My head was a little clearer and I walked over to the car and stood looking through the window at her. She was asleep, sprawled across the front seat, with an old trench coat pulled across her. All I could see of her was the face framed in the fair hair, and her ankles and feet. Her face was calm and unfurrowed and she looked much younger.
The bitch. I thought. But there wasn't any bitterness in it and I went on into the shack and jerked oil my clothes and sprawled across the bunk.
Got to think, I told myself. Got to figure it out.
And then I was asleep again…
When I woke it was still dark, and I lay there a moment wondering what the sound was.
It came again, a tiny squeak no louder than a mouse squealing. I was sprawled on my stomach, my legs hanging over the side, and I turned my head very cautiously.
A small beam of light was moving in the corner, and I remembered the key in my pocket and knew it must be the trunk. She had seen me take the key out and put it back.
Very carefully, I rose from the bunk. The whisky fumes were gone from my head now and my senses seemed sharp and clear. I stopped breathing and took a slow step toward the beam of light. In it, I saw a hand moving furtively in the trunk.
I took another step. And another. Then one more. Then I sprang at the faint, dim shape of her.
She went down easily and I was on top of her. The light clattered to the floor and she struggled for only a moment, fists puny against my chest, and lay still, breathing heavily. I caught both her wrists in my hand and sat on her.
"You don't smell any better with your clothes off," she said. There was not even excitement in her voice.
I let go of her wrists and slapped her. I heard the breathing catch, but the voice went on, still calm and even: "I thought you'd be too drunk to wake up."
I slapped her again, this time with the back of my hand, and my knuckles cracked on her jawbone.
Even with my eyes accustomed to the darkness, I could hardly see her. The moon was down and it was that period of intense darkness just before the predawn glow creeps in over the earth.
I found both her wrists again and got up and pulled her with me. I dragged her to the shelf that held the kerosene lamp and pushed her against the wall. I leaned my shoulder against her, feeling the soft breasts under the stump of my arm and the light breath on my ear and neck. I let go of her wrists and fumbled on the shelf for a match, then lit the lamp.
In its uneven glow, I could already see the side of her face turning dark, where my knuckles had struck her. Her eyes were steady on mine. They dropped over me, and what might have been amusement glinted briefly in them.
I flung her across the room and pushed her down on the bunk. She laughed.
"This is getting monotonous," she said.
I turned away and pulled on my pants. Then I pulled up the chair and sat in it by the bunk and reached over and put my hand on her throat.
"You want to live, Miss Cummings?"
She said nothing, but one hand crept to ray wrist.
"Because I could choke you to death and bury you out there in that sand before the sun comes up. Don't think I can't do it because I only have one arm. And don't think I won't do it."
"I won't," she said. "I know you'd do it."
"All right. So you talk. You tell me what you want out of me."
"I told you once."
"You told me lies. About pictures of me that weren't ever printed. About a tire that somebody had screwed a valve stem out of."
I squeezed on her throat a little bit and the fingers tightened on my wrist.
"What is it you're after? Did he send you?"
"Did who?"'
"What's he want you to find out?"
She shook her head. "Honest to God, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Then how about the trunk?"
"I wanted to know more about you and Lucy. I thought maybe there'd be something else there."
"You were wrong."
She shrugged and took her hand off my wrist. "It was a chance."
"All right. Miss Cummings. You came out here butting in of your own free will. You got a black eye for your trouble and you're damn lucky to get off that light. Now let's you fish up that valve stem arid clear out of here."
She laughed. "I'll be glad to. I'll get out of here so fast it'll make your head swim."
"And take him a message. Tell him this from me. Tell him I said just to keep
waiting. And tell him not to get in an uproar. It won't be long now."
No, I thought, it won't be long. Because now there isn't any other way and I'll just have to walk in there and let him have it right in the gizzard. The hell with the rest of it now. The hell with them finding out. That way is better than nothing.
She was looking at me with her brows drawn in puzzlement. I took my hand off her throat.
"Tell who that? And what won't be long?"
She was good, all right. For just a second she had me believing it. But for only a second.
"Lover boy," I said. "Stewart."
She shook her head. "I don't know any Stewart."
Nobody could act like that, I thought. Maybe… But it had to be that way.
"Cut it out," I said.
"Look, I don't know any Stewart. I don't know anything about what you're saying. I was never even in this state before this week."
I sat there and looked at her and I knew she was telling the truth. She was leaning up on one elbow and there was honest bewilderment written all over her face.
"Honest to God," she said again.
"Then it doesn't make any sense. If he didn't send you, why did you come?"
"Listen, I'm leaving, I'm going. Why don't you just let me get up and go, and forget about me? Get on back to your bottle and your rifle and just let me go."
She was pleading with me now, for the first time, and the sincerity was gone out of her face. And then I knew that whatever it was she had come for, she had found. Because now she wanted to get out. She wanted to get away from there, after she had worked so hard to stay.
"Please," she said.
"No. You better stay a while longer."
"Why?"
And, without any conscious will to do so, I thought of a good reason.
I put my hand on her right breast and squeezed gently.
"I haven't felt that in two years," I said.
At first, she clawed at my wrist. Then she leaned up a little bit and swung at my face and I took my hand away and blocked the punch.
I stood up, and as she tried to rise. I pushed her back on the bunk. Then I was on it with her and feeling for the neckline of the T-shirt.
Tears Are for Angels Page 2
