A B Guthrie Jr

by Les Weil

  Carmichael got up. There was nothing else for it. He told her, "I'll change my story if need be. I'll say you killed Hector."

  He found his hat and went out the door. Even in the right a man could feel wrong.

  35

  EVANS told Joyce after breakfast, after the baby had eaten and been put back to bed for his morning nap. He told her all of it, making the words come to mind and his mouth force them out though each of them showed like a blow on her face.

  "Now let me hear about Whitey," she had said brightly after she had tucked in Little Lat.

  So the time had come.

  He had asked her to sit down at the kitchen table and had poured more coffee and lighted a cigar to give his hands something further to do. He began with the old days in Fort Benton and carried through to last night, trying to speak the whole truth, no more and no less. She hadn't helped him, with protests or questions or nods or shakes of the head. Her face, soft and wide open with disbelief as he started, had flattened and stiffened as he went on. Her lips paled, pressing together. Only her eyes spoke, the dark of them liquid, stirred by his words.

  Now, while he hesitated before the facts of last night, she said, her mouth hardly moving, "I supposed you knew something of women. Men always seem to."

  "And you forgave that."

  "But this wasn't just passing," the tight mouth answered. "It wasn't just a moment of weakness, one transgression."

  "No. It was more than that."

  "Did you carry it on after meeting me?"

  "Once. That was goodbye."

  "You never told me."

  "There is such a thing as a good sinner." The thought hadn't struck him before, but he knew it for truth. "The bad one wants to unload."

  "She was, I hope -adequate."

  "Please, Joyce!"

  "You loved her? You could love such a woman?"

  "I could, and I couldn't. I don't know. It seems a long time ago." He put his hand out, wanting to touch her arm, to establish a contact their words couldn't manage.

  She pulled away and sat tight and shrunken against the back of her chair, beyond any reach, distant, it seemed to him, as someone seen for the first time, driven years apart by the years he'd had to summon from memory. The distant mouth said, "You love her yet."

  "You know I don't. You must know I don't. Look at me, Joyce!" She was looking at him. "I love you, only you."

  "If you're such a good sinner, why are you telling me now?"

  He took a breath and let it out and took another. He got up and put a stick in the kitchen stove and threw his cigar along with it and came back and let himself down. "Joyce, a man was killed in her place last night."

  Neither surprise nor curiosity showed on her face. Nothing showed but the abuse that had stiffened it.

  "It was Whey Belly Hector," he said.

  "He was another good friend, I assume."

  He could hear the loud tick of the kitchen clock, like time beating them farther apart. A little breeze sang outside. He wanted to get up and stride over the minutes, over the years, and kiss her back home to him. He said, "She is a suspect. She will probably be charged with the murder." The clock and the breeze kept on sounding. "Whatever she is, Joyce, she never could kill anyone."

  She put her hands to her eyes though no tears were there. "You ought to know," she said as if he should.

  "I do." He braced himself. "That's the thing. If she is accused, they want me to testify as a character witness, in court, in public."

  Her face sprang open to the thought and slowly closed. It was a long minute before she spoke. Then her voice barely reached him. "You'll have to appear then."

  This girl, he thought, this wife whom he'd always tried to protect! Faced with the stern necessity, she measured up, out of the open honesty, the sturdy fiber in her. Bottom, they would call it in a horse. She could stand all strains. "I know," he said. "I knew you'd realize."

  The mouth broke that he'd thought so strong. It jerked down at the corners and trembled in the middle, and she closed it with one hand while open tears welled in her eyes and started down her cheeks. "Lat"

  "Sweetheart!" He got up and put a hand on her shoulder. It flinched under his touch. "What's past is past and doesn't matter when we love each other."

  She jerked away from him and rose, clattering the chair. She circled the floor, her head bent in her palms. Her voice cried at him. "After everything! After all we've tried to do and be! How can we face people? How can Little Lat and I?"

  He heard the suck of her breath and felt the hard hold that she put on it. He saw her straighten, saw her drop her hands and turn her stiff back to him and move away as if he'd been removed. The bedroom door clicked shut.

  What occurred to him as he stood watching the torn space she had left was a piece from the Bible: So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom ...

  Evans walked downtown. He had no place to go but no place to stay, not with the bedroom door at home closed against him and Joyce crying behind it, "Nothing can hurt us, baby. No evil. Nothing." He pictured her, holding Little Lat hard in her arms or kneeling at the side of the cradle while the tears fell.

  She needed to be by herself, he thought dully. More talk wouldn't help. All had been said. If by a miracle anything served him, it would be time. Beyond her hurt and the hurt yet to be she had seen that he had to testify. Maybe, at last, she would see him as he had been, young and bursting with sap and enthralled with his first woman because, all right, first, she was Callie. It wasn't likely, though. Things fell between people, never to be removed, at best to be reached around awkwardly.

  He lagged up the street. Over the benchlands beyond the creek the sun was rolling high and heatless, its rays bright and clean on the town. In all the sky not a cloud showed. On a side road a milk cow ankled away, her emptied bag flopping. A rooster crowed from somebody's backyard, and another replied from far off. Southward the open land swept away and climbed into buttes just starting to green. He couldn't see the Sweetgrass Hills, but they would be north there, across a hundred miles of grass and stream. Back of him, beyond the upland reaches, he could feel the great wall of the Rockies, each lift and canyon fixed in memory.

  Here was his land, he thought. Here he was the land's. Miles, mountains, sky, waters, grass -they freed and claimed him. Here he'd hoped to work and build and rear his family and deserve a name for service to people, to a territory that was sure to be a great state. Given any choice, here he'd choose to live and die.

  His ranch didn't figure to bring much with money so shy, and his cattle might want for a buyer. It brought him up short to remember that Joyce hadn't said she'd live with him elsewhere.

  The town was quiet. The few people he saw didn't stop to talk about Hector and so hadn't heard. He found himself outside the Tansytown Mercantile Company and went in, for nothing. Marshall Strain sat figuring at his high desk, an eyeshade low on his forehead. He peered from under it. "Welcome, Lat." He climbed from his stool and held out his hand. "What's the news?"

  "None."

  Strain glanced around as if maybe an ear might be cocked round a barrel. "Joyce hasn't heard?"

  "What?"

  "Whatl About you and those rustlers?"

  "No."

  Strain looked down. "Glad to see you aren't unprepared."

  Evans couldn't remember strapping on his revolver. Even what he'd told Joyce was mixed now in his mind. "Carmichael's doings," he said.

  Strain nodded and cut back to his first words. "As I told you, I tried indirectly to smooth the way."

  "Yes."

  "With her training, her background -you don't seem as concerned as you were."

  Here they were, Evans thought, talking of something no longer important, something as good as forgotten, dusted over, withered up by worse troubles.

  Strain wasn't through. "Oh, I know she'll be all right, too, given a little time." He scratched his head with the blunt end of his pencil. "Such things aren't likely t
o happen again, either. We're changing fast, Lat. The whole country is. More and more, Joyce will come to feel at home here."

  "Sure."

  "It takes a little time to civilize a new place, but we're almost there." Strain looked off into the future. "We'll have better courts, better law enforcement, more churches and schools, a more general respect and support for the finer things." He stood gazing as if these things had come to pass and he could see them-the sunny schools, the Methodist churches, the happy law and order, the good life under God. He turned with a smile and tapped Evans on the chest. "And you, my boy, will play a big part in the process."

  "That egg hasn't hatched."

  "It's hatching." Strain went on with assurances.

  Listening while he shifted from one foot to the other, Evans had to remind himself that here was a kind man, a friend and kinsman, a steady well-wisher. It was his own disturbance of mind that branded him now as overtalkative, overgood, too blind by nice choice to what went on in

  sporting houses and who went in, or had gone. He put down the wild impulse to wise the man up.

  "Now that I've practically got you elected," Strain was saying while his smile apologized, "I'd like to mention a favor."

  "All right, Marsh."

  "How about heading up the church finance committee this year? The preacher will ask you, but I wanted to put in my oar. It's needless to warn you that the committee comes down to one man. I've been that one man for too long. We need younger blood."

  As Evans hesitated, Strain said, "Don't give me an answer now. Think it over. There's no hurry. You'll have to take your own affairs into account, I know."

  "Yes."

  "Fine." Strain's glance was both kindly and sharp. "You're a man of few words today, Lat," he said without criticism.

  Evans made himself grin. "Must be a relief. Go back to your pencil-pushing, Marsh." He went out, sensing that Strain's eyes followed him.

  Carmichael was loafing alone in front of the Gilt Edge. They gave each other hello and stood silent as men did, Evans thought, with too much on their minds. Finally, after a last drag at his cigarette, Carmichael said, "There's that damn body, Lat."

  "Didn't Gorham see to that?"

  "Not that I know of. No one was thinkin' practical last night." His face questioned Evans. "Can't speak for you, but it bothers me, them girls cooped up with a corpse."

  "Gorham will know what to do."

  Carmichael pursed his lips and looked away and after a little while answered, "Yeah -but I was just down to his place. He ain't there. Won't be today, a note on the door said."

  "Maybe he wants Hector left for the time being."

  "Maybe. But them poor girls!"

  Evans could see them, too, could see Callie, locked in the still house with the great, still body of Hector and the dried lake of blood at the side. But what could or should he and Carmichael do, except at the most to serve for a moment as company? A thought touched and left the edge of his mind. As it went he said for something to say, "I didn't know you were concerned about them."

  "I was stunned-like last night. Then I got to thinkin' about Gussie and all." Carmichael's hand took Evans' elbow and urged him to move. "We can see. That's the least we can do." He added, "Not as I'll ever arguefy for much more."

  Evans let himself be led. Why not? No harm could come of it; the harm had been done. A man reached a stage in which tiny kindnesses counted, and they not for much.

  They walked in silence until, as if the silence had spoken, Carmichael asked, "You didn't open no gates, Lat? Don't tell me!"

  "Everything in the corral." It occurred to Evans that everything in fact was there, everything, in such a corral as Carmichael didn't imagine.

  Carmichael went to the front door as if a man never gave thought to the back. He knocked and knocked again, making his fingers into a fist.

  The door opened at last. It was Jen with her rodent's face who held to the knob.

  "Mornin'," Carmichael said. He turned like a man introducing another. "Lat here wants to see Callie."

  "He does, does he?"

  Evans told her, "We want to be of help if we can. There's the body for one thing."

  "Everything's took care of, Mr. Evans." She made a point of the title.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Just what I said."

  "Where's Callie?"

  "Now wouldn't you like to know?"

  "Where's Happy, then?"

  "Wouldn't you like to know?" Hers wasn't the face of a rabbit or mouse, it seemed to Evans; it was the face of a weasel.

  "Yes," he said, "I'd like to know."

  "They're gone, both of them, Callie and Happy."

  "Where?"

  "Away." She strung the one word out. "Away where?"

  "Away."

  "For good, Jen?"

  "You'll have to ask them, Mr. Evans."

  On sudden impulse Evans asked, "Where's Tom?"

  From her silence he clinched some of the answers. Tom would have taken Callie and Happy, probably to catch the stage at Sun River. Beforehand, Tom somehow had disposed of the body. But a big question remained. "Why, Jen? Why did they go, and both of them, too?"

  Carmichael spoke up quickly. "She ain't puttin' out, Lat, and maybe don't know. And it's their own business besides."

  Jen said, "Askin' why, for God's sake!"

  Carmichael pulled at Evans' sleeve. "This winds it up, Lat. They ain't likely to be chased, much less to be caught, so there's no trial, no nothin'. Come on!"

  "But why did they both go?" With the question Evans caught the spreading glimmer of the truth.

  "Whey Belly mistreated her, Jen?"

  For once he got an answer. "The dirty puss-gut!"

  It was all there to see now. Evans said to Carmichael, "Happy killed Hector."

  36

  AS THEY WALKED away from the house Carmichael said, "You missed your callin', Lat, not bein' a detective, but just what was it that gave you the clue?"

  Evans didn't feel like talking.

  "I was way behind, not even in sight of what you seen quick. Wish you'd smart me up."

  "Callie couldn't be guilty."

  "That didn't for sure elect Happy, though?" Carmichael waited for a reply. "What did?"

  "Whey Belly."

  "Don't be so damn teasy!" From Carmichael's smile Evans couldn't tell how much he'd already figured out. "It's like you had put a price on your talk."

  "Whey Belly was the kind to abuse a woman. Change Callie's story a little, and you had the answer." It struck

  Evans and weighed on him that if he hadn't whipped Hector up there in the breaks, Hector might not have taken his rage out on Callie.

  "I reckon Happy would have tried to protect her all right," Carmichael said.

  "He would."

  "So she covered his tracks?"

  "Yes."

  "Figurin' he was some guilty, and him bein' a black man might work against him?"

  "Yes."

  "He could have fessed up, but likely she told him not to." Carmichael spoke in the tone of conclusion.

  There they were, Evans thought, a white woman and a black man, held together in innocence by the one true attachment either had ever found. There somewhere they fled, without funds enough maybe, with only what cash had been ready to hand, without friends by the way, without a place to go or one to call home. That was how it was at the last. Out of the many, the friendly, the high and unreckoning times -this!

  Before they reached the boardwalk of the main street Carmichael halted Evans to say, "You noticed how Jen acted?"

  "What does it matter?"

  "I ain't sure it does. But some things you're a detective on. Some things you ain't." Carmichael spoke earnestly. "She didn't get that way by herself, Lat."

  "Let it go."

  Carmichael wouldn't. "A favor to some people works out like an insult."

  "You mean Tom."

  "How I see it, he'll think he's one up on you. You were even, but not now.
Who took Hector from the house? Tom Ping. Who helped Callie get away, not to mention Happy? Not you, Lat. Tom Ping again."

  "He's not so loco as to figure that way."

  "Maybe not. But people's got their quirks."

  "For the Lord's sake, Mike!" Evans hadn't meant to sound so impatient. "I don't care. Let him be one up. Come on!"

  As they began walking again, Carmichael asked mildly, "Changin' the subject, then, are you travelin' back to the ranch today or tonight?"

  Evans wished he was there now, shut of his load of thought. "We'll go tomorrow, I guess."

  The street was almost empty, for the sun shone at high noon and the men who had homes to go to had gone home to eat. Those who didn't would be at Soo Son's cafe. Carmichael came to a halt in front of the Lally Cooler. "Might as well have a drink?"

  "Not for me. Thanks."

  "Wouldn't hurt you, I figure." Carmichael's eyes showed concern. "Look, Lat, it didn't turn out so bad. It turned out good for what it was. Of course there's Callie, and that's sorry but still better to my mind than you bustin' yourself over a damned old wild oat. It's a bet they'll never catch Callie. You won't have to testify. You can go home knowin' that."

  Home is the sailor, home from the sea ... The lines, deep­throated, ran in Evans' head. Home went the sailor, home with the flabby, insufficient, crawling plea that he wouldn't have to testify after all. "Get your drink, Mike," he said abruptly. "I'll be seeing you." He walked away without looking back.

  He had no place to go and no wish to go any place except to the ranch, which was too far from Joyce. He idled on the streets and in the saloons, now and then talking of nothing with men who had nothing to talk of. He saw Carmichael again and signaled in passing, knowing Carmichael's gaze traveled with him.

  The sun tipped and sank toward the west, and he idled some more. At one place or another a ranch hand complained, "The damn house is closed. Miss Callie must be takin' time off." A cloud bank sat over the mountains, yellow at the crest, then fiery, then purple, then black. Higher, one wisp of vapor was burning up. At this hour of no wind a breeze fiddled in the town's trash.