What the Dead Men Say

by Ed Gorman

  Septemus said, nodding to the Winchester, “Raise the rifle and sight it, James. Just like I showed you when you were a boy. Raise the rifle and sight it and do your duty.”

  “Go run and get the sheriff, kid. Hurry.”

  “You going to listen to the man who killed your Clarice, James? Now raise that rifle and sight it and make Clarice proud.”

  “Please, son. Please don’t listen to him. He’s insane. He already killed one man and he’ll surely kill me.”

  “James, don’t let me down. Now raise that rifle and sight it and do what’s right.”

  “Please, son.”

  “Raise the rifle, James.”

  And James-looking at Septemus, loving Septemus and knowing his uncle’s relentless grief and agony ever since the death of his daughter-James raised the rifle into a firing position.

  “That’s a good boy, James. Now sight it, just like I always showed you.”

  Squinting, James sighted along the barrel. All he could think of was that maybe Septemus was right. Maybe he wasn’t being a man. Maybe he did owe it to Clarice. Maybe the only way he was ever really going to grow up and have the respect of others, let alone the respect of himself, was to pull the trigger on the man who’d helped kill Clarice. James thought of his little cousin, how sweet and gentle she’d been, and how both his aunt and uncle had been destroyed by her death.

  “Kid, I ain’t got this coming. I really ain’t,” Kittredge said. “Please, kid.”

  Kittredge started crying.

  James sighted the rifle.

  “Make me proud of you, James,” Uncle Septemus said. “Make Clarice proud.”

  Kittredge had closed his eyes, waiting for death.

  James said, “I can’t do it.”

  “You can do it, son. Just relax. You can do it fine.”

  “You’ll be a killer if you do it, kid. You’ll be a killer and they’ll put you in prison.”

  “You just relax, James. You can do it fine.”

  James said, “I can’t do it, I really can’t. It isn’t right.” Septemus slapped James harder than James had ever been slapped before. A terrible hot feeling filled James’s face, and his head spun with stars.

  “Now you get up there, James,” Septemus said. “You get up there and do your responsibility.”

  Kittredge said, “You know what’s right, kid. Don’t give in to him. If you do you’ll be just as crazy as he is. You know what we done was an accident, don’t you kid?”

  Septemus took James by the shoulder and turned him around so he was again facing Kittredge. He took the rifle and moved it into a firing position in James’ hands.

  “Now don’t waste any more time, James. Shoot.”

  “Kid, listen, please-”

  “Shoot!”

  Their voices filling his head, the dank stink of the cabin filling his nose, the pathetic and somehow irritating spectacle of a man pleading for his life filling his mind-James let the Winchester slip from his hands to the floor.

  ***

  He turned and ran from the cabin.

  He went outside, just out from under the overhang, so he could stand in the rain, and the sound of it would drown out the madness of his uncle and the mewling of Kittredge who had, after all, been at least partly responsible for Clarice’s death.

  The rain came down silver and seemed to cleanse him and he put his hands out and opened his mouth to receive it, letting the drops splat on his face and trickle down his neck and soak into his coat.

  Then, even through the snapping rain, he heard it, the gunshot, and knew what had happened.

  He didn’t feel any regret for Kittredge; the regret was for his uncle. There would be no way back now.

  He turned and stood in the rain and after a few minutes Septemus came out of the cabin.

  Septemus came a few feet up the slope of the hill. He didn’t seem to notice the rain soaking him.

  “You let me down, James.”

  “I know.”

  “I always considered you like a son. Loved you in that same way.”

  “Just the way I loved you, Uncle Septemus.”

  “But when the time came to prove how much you loved me and loved my Clarice-” He fell silent. Rain pocked the summer-brown grass and drummed against the cabin roof. Blue-gray gunsmoke wafted out the cabin door. You could smell the blood of an animal kill on the air. In this case the animal had been human.

  “You should let me help you, Uncle Septemus.”

  “I don’t want anything more to do with you, James. Your mother has not raised you to be a man and it’s too late now for me to do anything about it.”

  “I don’t want them to hurt you, Uncle Septemus. That’s why I wish you’d give me the rifle and let me take you into town.” Septemus raised his head in the rain and looked directly at James. “I know what the dead men say.”

  “What?”

  “I know what the dead men say. They whisper to me, James. They tell me secrets. They reassure me. This”-he waved his arms in a patriarchal way to indicate the land and the cliffs surrounding them-“none of this is what it seems, James. Even Clarice tells me that when she talks to me.”

  “There’s one more, isn’t there?”

  Through the beating rain, Septemus studied him. “Are you thinking of redeeming yourself with Griff, with the last one?” He waggled the rifle in James’s direction. “Are you saying that you want to take this Winchester and do what’s right?”

  “I’m saying that you should leave him be. Killing two men is enough.”

  For a time, only the rain made sound. It seemed to be saying something, its hissing and pounding and spattering a language James yearned to understand, a dialogue shared only by rock and soil and leaves and grass.

  “He has two daughters.”

  “Who?”

  “The last one,” Septemus said.

  “They didn’t kill Clarice.”

  “I want him to know how it feels.”

  The rain continued to speak.

  James said, “Please give me your rifle, Uncle Septemus. Please let me take you in. They won’t blame you for what you did. They’ll understand.”

  “I’m going now, James.”

  Septemus started up the hill. “Please let me help you, Uncle Septemus!”

  James slipped and fell on the wet grass. Septemus walked on ahead, never once looking back.

  Scrambling to his feet, James went up the hill again, trying to grab his uncle’s sleeve.

  “Please, Uncle Septemus, please-”

  With no hesitation, Septemus turned around and doubled his fist and hit James square on the jaw.

  James felt as if he’d been shot. He saw darkness and felt a rush of cold air go up his nose and sinuses. He felt himself fall back and slam against the soggy earth. And for a moment then there was nothing at all, just a horrible spinning that made him nauseous and an overwhelming pain in the lower part of his face. He wondered if his uncle had broken his jaw.

  Then, on the hill, there was the clop of hooves and the creaking of the buggy. Septemus hied the horse.

  Septemus was gone.

  He wasn’t sure how long he lay there.

  The rain soaked him, running into his eyes, his mouth, his nose. Sometime during the darkness, before he had quite recovered his senses, he heard a horse on the road above. Then he heard a man, breathing hard and cursing under his breath, move carefully down the hill that was by now a mudslide.

  ***

  When he opened his eyes, he saw Dodds peering down at him. “You all right, boy?”

  “He hit me.”

  “Who?”

  “My uncle Septemus.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What happened?”

  “You’d better look in the cabin.”

  “What’s in the cabin?”

  “Just go look.”

  While Dodds was gone, James struggled to his feet. He felt as if he would never be dry again. He had
heard stories of Indians leaving white men out in downpours and by so doing drove them insane. James could see how that would be possible.

  He had taken two steps down the hill when Dodds came out of the cabin.

  “He did that, didn’t he, your uncle.”

  “Yes.”

  “The crazy sonofabitch.”

  “That’s his problem, Sheriff. He’s crazy. Crazy over his girl dying. He said that that was one of the men who did it.” He hesitated. “He killed another one, too. At least that’s what he said.”

  “He tell you the name?”

  “Carlyle.”

  “God damn it.” Dodds said. “I’ve got to stop him.” He looked back at the cabin. The rain hit him steady on the back of his balding head. “He was a pretty decent man, Kittredge was.” He turned back to James. “It’s sure as hell none of those men killed that little girl on purpose. Not even Carlyle. He was a lout but not a killer. Not of little girls, leastwise.”

  “That’s why he’s going to Griff’s,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because Griff has two little girls of his own.”

  Dodds stared at him. “You may have to help me, son. You willing?”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  “I know that.”

  “And I love him. He’s pretty much been my father since my real father died.”

  Dodds nodded to the cabin. “You should go back in there and take a look at Kittredge.”

  James gulped. “I don’t want to.”

  “He shot him in the face. Dead on. You ever seen that before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, believe me, son, it’s nothing to see.”

  “You aren’t going to shoot him, are you?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  “Let me talk to him, then.”

  “Long as he don’t hurt nobody else, talking to him is fine. I can’t tell you what I’m going to feel like if he hurts either of those little girls.”

  “I feel sorry for him.”

  “I feel sorry for him, too, son. But I feel a hell of a lot sorrier for those girls.”

  Dodds started up the hill. “We’re gonna have to ride double, so we better get goin’. That poor old horse of mine ain’t that fast anymore.”

  As he made his way carefully up the hill, James said again, “You promise me you won’t shoot him, Sheriff?”

  Dodds looked back at him and said, “It’s a little late for promises of any kind, son. We’re just gonna have to see what happens.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1

  He stood beneath a dripping oak, feeling tired suddenly, older than he ever had.

  An early dusk gave the rain an even colder feel now, and put lights on in the windows of the small white houses on the small respectable street where Griff and his family lived.

  He could see Griff in the window now, bending to turn up the wick in a kerosene lamp. He wondered if Griff had any sense that his two companions were dead.

  Septemus Ryan hefted the Winchester and started walking down the block to where the alley began. Getting into Griff’s house would not be easy. Going in through the rear would probably be best.

  He passed picket fences and flower beds, neatly trimmed shrubs and tidy green lawns.

  Griff’s barn dominated the alley. The other buildings were small white garages. He did not have to worry about being seen because it had been raining so long and so steadily that nobody would be looking out the window. Or so he told himself.

  As he strode over the wet cinders of the alley, he heard the voices, faintly. There was Clarice, thanking him for his brave actions today. And then the chorus of dead men-relatives and friends who’d gone on before-telling him that they were waiting for him, that the other side was good and he would like it and there was nothing to fear.

  An uncle spoke to him, and then a brother dead early of consumption, and then a schoolmate killed in the war, and then an old muttonchopped mentor who’d advised him in the ways of business…

  All these people whispered to Septemus Ryan, and said that Clarice was with them, and that like them, she awaited sight of her father as he crossed over.

  And as he walked, there in the rain, the unrelenting hissing rain a curtain that lent everything a spectral cast, he had the sense that he was already walking the land of the dead, all humanity fading, fading behind the curtain of rain, alone in a curious and endless realm of phantoms and whispered voices.

  He reached the barn and went in through the back door. He stood in the center of the dark, dusty place smelling the hay and the lubricating oils Griff used on his buggies and the sweet tart tang of horseshit from the stall where they kept the gelding.

  He felt tired again, exhausted.

  He looked enviously at the gelding. He wanted to go over and lay down next to it in the straw and hay, share the colorful threadbare horse blanket, and sleep with his arm thrown across the fleshy warm side of the animal, the way he’d once slept with his wife.

  He went to the front sliding door and stood watching the rain fall in big silver drops from the roof. He could see nightcrawlers and worms swimming in the clear puddles around his feet; he could smell rusted iron tangy from the rain; he could see mist rising like ghosts from the slanting roof of the Griff house, and hear faintly, the way he once heard Clarice, the clear pure laughter of a little girl.

  I remember you sleeping between your mother and I remember your soft pink cheeks so warm when you kissed me your eyes so lovely and blue how you made little snoring sounds in the middle of the night and kept your doll pulled so tight to you.

  He saw her in the window now, just her head, the little girl.

  He hefted his Winchester and started across the soggy grass.

  There was a screened-in back porch with chairs for sitting. He eased open the back door and went inside. He could smell dampness on the stone floor and dinner from the kitchen just behind the door. It smelled good and warm and he realized how hungry he was.

  There were no voices. From his glimpse in the window a minute ago he’d been able to see that the little girl was probably alone in the kitchen. That would make it easier.

  We used to swing till dark in the summertime on the rope swing in the backyard, your hair shining gold even in the dusk and the firefly darkness and your mother calling lemonades ready, lemonade's ready and the way you'd giggle and writhe as I’d tickle you on the way inside and your mother and I reading to you in the lamp-glow of your room as you fell asleep.

  The door was open.

  He went up two steps and found himself in the kitchen. It was about what he’d expected, modest but quite orderly. A girl of six or seven stood at the sink, drying dishes and then stacking them neatly on the sideboard.

  He went straight up to her.

  Just as she heard him, just as she started to turn to see what the noise was, he brought his hand around to the front of her face and covered her mouth.

  With the other hand, he put the Winchester to her head.

  “I want you to call out for your papa, you understand?”

  Against the palm of his hand, he could feel the girl’s hot breath and her saliva and the tiny edges of her teeth.

  The girl nodded.

  “Go ahead now,” he said.

  Before she called out, the girl twisted her neck so she could get a quick glimpse of him.

  She looked terrified.

  She said, “Papa. It’s Eloise. Could you come out here, please?”

  “Couldn’t I finish my pipe first, hon?” he said.

  Ryan nudged the little girl.

  “I need you to come here now, Papa.”

  This time when she talked her voice broke with tension.

  This time her papa came right away.

  He came to the doorway of the kitchen and saw them.

  He surprised Ryan by not saying anything.

  He just stood there gawking, as if he could not believe it.

  Finally, Griff said, “She doesn
’t have any part in this.”

  By now, his wife, apparently curious, came to the kitchen doorway, too.

  She immediately made a noise that resembled mewling. “Oh, Eloise,” she said.

  “She doesn’t have any part in this,” Griff said again.

  “My little girl didn’t have any part in your robbery, either.”

  “Please, mister, please let her go,” Griff’s wife said.

  Her mother’s tone was scaring the girl even more. She strained against Ryan’s hard grasp.

  “I’m taking her,” Ryan said.

  “Oh, no!” her mother said and tried to lunge through the door to take her daughter.

  Her husband put out a strong arm and stopped her. He said, “Go in the other room and make sure Tess is all right. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Why would he want Eloise?” the woman said. She was becoming so distraught she sounded crazed.

  “Go take care of Tess,” he said.

  Then, his wife gone, Griff said, “Take me, Ryan. You let Eloise walk over to me and you can take me anywhere you want. And do whatever you want. Just don’t take it out on my daughter, you understand?”

  Helping you with your homework at the dining room table how you always had the tiny pink corner of your tongue sticking out of your mouth when you were stumped by a problem and how you always had ink stains on the index finger of your right hand and worried that boys wouldn't think you were pretty because of the stains.

  Ryan said, “I wanted you to know that I’m taking her. I wanted you to see it, Griff. To fear for it.”

  Eloise started crying.

  Griff said, “I’m sorry for what happened to your daughter, Ryan.”

  It was then that he dived across the small kitchen to try and snatch Eloise away from Ryan, and it was then that Ryan shot Griff-two quick explosions of the Winchester-directly in the arm and leg.

  2

  Half a mile from town, the horse James and Dodds rode began to give out. He not only slowed, his legs were unsteady in the mud.

  Dodds reined him in at a tree and said, “We’d better go on foot from here.”

  In the rain the horse looked cold and sick, his hazel eyes glazed, ragged breath rocking his ribs every few seconds.