A B Guthrie Jr

by Les Weil

  He went on.

  Summer was coming, and grass, and the wild aster would bloom in the mountains and the cactus flower on the plains. A man on a horse could watch the white drift of a cloud.

  A breeze sprang up and found a tag of paper and whisked it by him. He had torn up the note. To his right he could see the wall of the mountains. Slopers, they called those who lived across the divide. The breeze strengthened. A gust of it took his breath. In Montana a man had to get accustomed to wind.

  "If ever I can do anything for you-" The old words, past into present, promise into performance.

  "Don't you see, Joyce !" He was crossing bridges again. He walked on.

  Happy opened the back door, his eyes like sad moons in the glow of the lamp that he held. "Come in, Mist' Lat. Dey's in theah."

  One light burned in the parlor. In the circle of its shine Evans counted Callie, Jen, Carmichael, a girl he didn't know and, last of all, his friend and supporter, Linc Gorham, attorney-at-law. They sat quiet and still as if in a picture, only their heads hinging around as he entered. Callie's hair still could catch the light.

  He said, "Hello. Hello there, Callie."

  "Hello, Lat."

  Gorham got up. His head was silver. He held out his hand. "We've been waiting. Have a chair."

  Evans sat down.

  Gorham cleared his throat but waited for a minute before speaking. "Lat, we have trouble here."

  "Trouble?"

  "You haven't noticed." Gorham's thumb thumbed toward the shadowed stairway.

  At the side of the stairs a bulging blanket lay. Two feet, toes up, pushed out from the end.

  "Whey Belly Hector," Gorham said. "Knifed to death."

  33

  ABOUT ALL that Carmichael knew was that Hector was dead. Late at night Callie had come to the room he was in -Gussie's room, it was- and tapped on the door and led him downstairs to the body. Her upset showed mostly in a sort of tight quietness.

  He was quiet himself until, stepping careful because Hector had bled so much, he made sure of death. "How'd it happen?" he asked.

  "I don't know." Her hand was steady with the lamp but her face pale under the paint that she wore, pale and, he saw then, swollen, too.

  "Anyone here?"

  "I was upstairs."

  "Where's Happy?"

  "I gave him the night off. Mike, what do I do?"

  He gave up on his own questions. For an answer to hers he couldn't think of anything better than to rout out Linc Gorham. He'd done that himself. When the two of them got back, Happy and Ping's wife were in the house, and Gussie was downstairs. All had gone into the kitchen so as to leave

  the parlor to Gorham and Callie, who talked for what seemed a long time.

  That was all Carmichael knew, except that Happy had been sent to get Lat.

  Now he said as Lat seated himself, "Us others will leave you three to yourselves."

  Gorham motioned him down. "It won't hurt to hear." He turned to Lat. "This is purely exploratory, but a good advocate can't overlook any angles, and we may be able to profit by this moment of grace." He explained to them all, "No coroner here, and the deputy sheriff, I understand, is on business up north in the breaks." His eyes seemed to Carmichael to hold a bare glint. "A fruitless errand, I'll warrant."

  No one answered.

  Gorham's fingers played on the arm of his chair. "Do you want to tell him, Miss Callie?"

  "You, please," she said through lips that hardly opened.

  Gorham cleared his throat. "Correct me, Miss Callie, if I misstate the case. These are the facts, Lat, as given to me. Besides Hector, who was Miss Callie's -shall we say?- client, three people, three known people, were in the house at the time of the killing. The three were Miss Gussie and Carmichael, who were in Miss Gussie's room, and Miss Callie herself. Another girl, normally here, left yesterday for a few days' vacation in Butte City." His hand waved toward Happy, who stood bent and listening a little apart from the group. "Happy had been given the night off and was visiting -with a half-breed family, I believe?"

  Happy nodded to the question.

  "All this can be verified, Miss Callie?"

  "Yes."

  Gorham cleared his throat again but didn't go on at once.

  In the silence Carmichael wondered what he was driving at. Why was Lat called? It was one hell of a fine place for him to be! In Lat's expression Carmichael couldn't read anything.

  Gorham got up and began walking the floor as if it was a jury he talked to. "At about midnight, then, Hector left Miss Callie upstairs and came down for a drink, telling her to wait. She did wait, for perhaps a half hour. Then, curious as to the why of his absence, she herself came downstairs. Knowing the house so well, she didn't bother with a light."

  Gorham took another turn and abruptly faced around. "Where was Hector's lamp, Miss Callie?"

  The tip of her tongue came out and wet her tight lips. "He said he could find the bottle without one."

  "I see. All right." Gorham put on his jury manner again. "As Miss Callie reached the first floor someone unknown assaulted her, as you can see."

  They all looked at Callie. Her face would be discolored by morning.

  "The assailant fled, we must assume. When she could, Miss Callie lit a lamp and found Hector there with a knife in him." Gorham paused. "It happens to be her own butcher knife."

  Carmichael hadn't known that.

  "You heard no noise, Miss Callie, no sounds of a scuffle?"

  "If I did, I just thought Hector had bumped into something."

  "Yes. Knives are quiet instruments. It could very well be that the only noise was the thud of the body."

  Carmichael had heard noises, though, but had paid them no heed. Footsteps, movements, voices without words, all muffled by distance, none standing out. You expected sounds in a whorehouse. Thinking back, he couldn't figure just when he had heard them, whether right before Miss Callie called him or long before. He had been occupied or asleep or half asleep.

  Lat was looking at Jen, and Gorham caught him looking and said, "A friend in need. Happy got word to her."

  Gorham sat down. "Can you tell us, Lat, whether Hector had any enemies?"

  "I suppose you could say I was one."

  "You don't count."

  "Nobody liked him much."

  "That hardly helps."

  Gorham got out a cigar and nipped off its end and sat without lighting it. They were like dummies, Carmichael thought, a ring of dummies moving and speaking only to the strings Gorham pulled. Jen with her small, pointed face. Callie who'd look comical with a black eye. Gussie the hussy. Happy the solemncholy nigger. Himself. A funny bunch, putting on a wake in a hookshop. But Lat didn't belong in the cast. Looking at him, Carmichael asked himself again why they had called him. Lat sat bent forward, maybe wondering, too, his eyes going from Callie to Gorham and back, not shiftily but openly as was his way. The hands locked in his lap showed spots of white at the knuckles. It occurred to Carmichael to ask then why Lat had answered the call.

  Gorham leaned forward as if his thoughts had come to a head. "Lat, do you believe Miss Callie capable of murder?"

  "Of course not."

  "She's peaceful?"

  "Yes."

  "And law-abiding?"

  "Yes."

  "What would you say about her reputation for truth, honesty, integrity?"

  Lat answered, "None better."

  "How long have you known Miss Callie? How well?"

  It was a wong question to ask a solid married man and a candidate for the Senate.

  "Since the summer of 1880."

  "How well?"

  Lat lowered his head and raised it and looked Callie full in the face. It was as if he had to look her full in the face before answering. "Once we were close," he said quietly.

  "Intimate?"

  In Lat's place Carmichael would have told Gorham off. Lat's gaze went to Callie again and then off into space. It seemed to Carmichael that he could see in his face t
hose old days with her, the nights of rutting and heat that was dead now-the time of a closeness, it struck him, closer than flesh alone.

  "Intimate?"

  "That's enough, Linc."

  "Hold on!" Gorham waved with his unlighted cigar and took another tack. "You just said she was law-abiding, or enjoyed that reputation."

  "Yes."

  "Yet her profession is outlawed by the statutes."

  "Maybe it is."

  "But you just said she was law-abiding?"

  "She is, just the same."

  "Did she ever loan you money, as it has been whispered, and, if so, does that influence you to speak in her favor?"

  "I resent that."

  "I'm sorry, but be patient. You don't know much about law and the criminal courts, do you, Lat?"

  "Very little."

  Gorham nodded. "Few do in this country." He lit the cigar at last and blew out a long plume of smoke.

  Something was coming now, something was about here, Carmichael thought. He found himself edging forward in his chair.

  Gorham took the cigar from his mouth and let it dangle. "Lat, I'm your backer and friend, as you know. But I'm also Miss Callie's attorney, and the obligation of an attorney to his client comes first. Still, I want you to understand fully. The questions I've asked are prosecution questions. There's a strong possibility, I think, that the territory will charge Miss Callie with murder."

  Lat said, "That's ridiculous."

  Gorham nodded again and got up and paced a half circle. The light wavered on his white head. "From the right sources a word in court to that effect would help sway a jury. If worst comes to worst, Lat, would you, as an influential citizen, testify as a character witness for Miss Callie?"

  For a long instant, it seemed to Carmichael, they were all as dead as Hector, no movement, no sound, no breath, Lat with his head down like a steer stunned by a butcher's maul. Only the mind was alive, his own mind reaching for Lat's.

  Lat got out of his chair slowly and by degrees straightened up and stood like a man daring the weather. He made the answer that Carmichael knew he would.

  "I'll testify," he said.

  34

  CARMICHAEL walked home with Evans. He kept wanting to say something, to discuss the case, to give advice, but Lat's silence checked him. Yet he felt that Lat welcomed his company. It was almost as if, from their wordless churnings of mind, thought still passed between them, or pieces of thought, anyway. It was no use to wish he could speak the other pieces; Lat had made up his mind.

  The night was all right at least, silent and deep and undisturbed, sleeping through to the sun. When he looked up, he saw that even the stars were drowsing off. It was only men that worried, seeing God with white whiskers riding up there, a rod in His hand. He guessed it was men who made things tough on themselves, on the claim that God had so willed. The sky didn't give a damn.

  Still speechless, they stopped in front of Lat's place. The house was dark; but Joyce would be inside, and the baby, both snug and safe-dreaming, and Spartacus would go in with his burden. "`Ye call me chief ...' " The deep-timbre voice. The fond glance at Lat. The face quick and virtuous and serene. Little Lat smiling a smile as if he hadn't learned quite how to fix it.

  A queer spot, Carmichael thought, queer for him to be in. It wasn't his household, or his wife and child.

  Lat stood stooped. He sighed, not speaking, not moving, like a man nerving himself. Carmichael felt that quick touch of sympathy felt often before. Here he himself was, younger and greener and, all right, better, but needing the callus that the years put on blisters. But Lat had made up his mind. Few fathers pulled weight with their sons. Everyone had to learn fresh for himself, and maybe the learning amounted to shrink.

  Of a sudden it occurred to him there was still Callie.

  Lat said, "Good night."

  There was still Callie, and Carmichael answered, "Like as not it'll never come out, Lat. I wouldn't be openin' any gates beforehand."

  "Thanks, Mike." That was all Lat had to say, and he said it as if more out of appreciation than agreement. He started up the path to the door, walking slow.

  For a few paces Carmichael watched him, thinking how lonely the right was, or what men took for right. Then he faced around and strode off, for he had work to do.

  Walking up to the porch, he could see a low light in Callie's window on the second floor, but no one answered his knock. A drunk, they would think him, or a late customer who couldn't be let in if the corpse was still there. He tried the latch. It was locked. He beat at the door without result. He stepped back from the porch and yelled at the lighted window, "Callie! Callie! It's Mike. Mike Carmichael." He didn't have to care if good people heard.

  He went back to the door and hammered again. At last through the curtained pane he saw a glow floating toward him. The latch clicked. Happy stood there. He asked, "What, Mist' Mike?"

  "I want to see Miss Callie."

  Happy didn't step aside to admit him. "She all wo' out."

  "Doesn't matter. Call her!" Carmichael realized he was being harsh, out of dislike for his task, harsh enough to put Happy on guard. He pushed inside. The blanket still covered Hector. A pool of blood was drying at the side. No one apparently had thought to get the body out of the house. Stalling for time, maybe, while they left the girls to sleep in a morgue.

  "You ain't goin' trouble her mo', Mist' Mike?"

  "No more than I have to. Go get her!"

  Happy didn't move. He looked sad and reproachful like a broken-down hound. In his big eyes the lamp in his hand lit two little reflections. He said, "Please, Mist' Mike!"

  "Call her, I said!"

  "Whey Belly no good. Jes' common trash." Without his kind's fear of the dead, Happy flung a hand toward the body. "Needed killin', he did. But dey blame Miss Callie, and he not fittin' to lick her big toe." Carmichael had to fight the sudden, humble misery that showed in the eyes along with the tiny lamps. "She jes' all right, Mist' Mike, always all right. Please leave her be!"

  "Get her or I'll get her myself!"

  Happy turned and made for the stairs, almost stepping on the body as he passed.

  Carmichael went into the parlor. He found a match in his pocket and struck flame to a lamp and adjusted the wick. Perhaps it was better, he thought, not to have a set plan. He'd start reasonably and then see. Not planning, he rolled a careful cigarette and lit it over the chimney.

  Callie came down in a wrapper and slippers and took a seat close to him. Her loose hair fell down her back, yellow and shining but tangled as if by a wind. He wondered, as she seated herself, if she'd had to start dyeing it. Her face was unpainted and looked almost sickly. Under one eye the bruise had commenced to turn blue.

  She didn't speak until she'd sat down, and then she said one tired word. "Yes?"

  He scuffed through his pile of thoughts, telling himself to start soft and sensible, to forget for the time the strong speech he felt spurred to. "Callie," he said, "I'd like to talk to you about Lat."

  Again one word. "What?"

  "You're a good girl, Callie. Always have been."

  "Oh, sure."

  "So I figured you wouldn't want Lat to testify if you thought twice about it."

  "Do I have to think twice?"

  "It's asking a lot, you know."

  She didn't answer.

  He went on, "Both of us like Lat. Wouldn't either one of us want to see him get ruined. That's how I see it."

  It was, he thought, like talking to a battered china doll. No reaction. No response. Just the glass eyes of a doll un­winking on him, the banged-up face, the lips that couldn't move.

  "The territory needs men like him," he said, knowing the words to be feeble. "He could go a long ways."

  For all that she showed, she might not have heard him.

  "He's got a fine family, Callie, a fine boy, a fine wife. You wouldn't bust 'em up?"

  Now her face with its comical mouse under one eye pulled down at the mouth. "Wouldn't l?"r />
  "No, you wouldn't."

  "I helped him."

  "That's why he'll testify, damn it!"

  He had known this Callie for years, Carmichael thought as he looked at her, known her ever since the end of the trail at Fort Benton. Then she'd been young and giving and beautiful. Now the skin remembered as fair and smooth had begun to show tarnish and grain. The blue eyes were popped. The face looked hard, looked professional. This was the price of the life she had led -and been helped to lead by the order of men.

  "He paid back the loan?" he said.

  Her head bobbed a yes.

  "He paid you for everything?"

  Again her head bobbed.

  Carmichael drove himself on. "You had it to sell?"

  She only looked at him out of her doll eyes.

  "You had it to sell. No one made you a whore. You made yourself one. Everything's even between you and Lat."

  "Evenl" she said through closed teeth.

  But still it seemed to Carmichael she had begun to shrink, to fall back. In the dull light of the lamp it was as if her face rode apart from her body, small and discolored and bitter-mouthed and maybe defeated. His old man came into his mind to state that this hurt him more than anyone.

  "You ought to know the rules, too," he made himself say. "A good whore keeps things inside the whorehouse. No fair, going outside!"

  Her face and body came together as she jumped to her feet. One hand swung out. "It's always the men!" she cried. "No one else counts. It's always the goddam men!" Her whole face seemed one twist. "Shut up and go home, you goddam man!"