Walter Van Tilburg Clark

by Les Weil

  He peeled me down to my shoulder, and then yanked the rags off. He was neat and quick about it, but they stuck a little before they came away. The shoulder under them was swollen and dark red, the bullet hole looking little and dark in it, like the head of a boil. I had to grind my teeth when he felt around it.

  "It could be better," he said. "I'll be back in a minute."

  When he came back he had a pitcher of hot water, a jar of some kind of ointment, and some clean strips of white cloth. He squeezed the wound open again, washed it out, and rubbed in the ointment, which burned. Then he bandaged it snugly.

  "No," he said while he was finishing up, "Rose Mapen was in for a minute last night, with her new attachment and the duenna. Pretty proper Rose is getting these days. She told me you'd been shot. She said you weren't very polite about their helping either."

  "I don't like women around; not the fussy kind anyway," I told him.

  "No," he agreed.

  "I'll bet Gil was tickled to see them," he said. "I'll bring you up something to eat when Gil gets back."

  "I can come down," I said. "There's nothing the matter with my legs."

  "No need," he said.

  I told him Gil was going to get drunk, and asked him to keep an eye out. He said he would, and went out, closing the door.

  I lay there dozing and letting the ointment work. The fire was burning well now, and with that and the sun in the east window the room was getting warm. The sunlight was cheerful too. I didn't feel much connected with anything that had happened, not even my own wound.

  I must have fallen asleep, and they didn't want to wake me. The next thing I knew it was afternoon. The room was still warm but there was no sun any more. I forgot about the shoulder and stretched and remembered it. Downstairs I could hear the voices of a number of men. They sounded distant, and didn't interest me. But I was really hungry.

  I started to get up to go downstairs and eat, and then I saw Davies. He was sitting on the one chair, looking at the floor. Waking up from a sleep that had freshened me and put the night's business behind me some, I was surprised to see how bad he looked. His hair was tangled from running his hands through it, and he had a little white stubble of beard. He looked tired too, his face slack and really old, with big bruised pouches under the eyes. But that wasn't what made him look so bad. It was his forehead and eyes. His forehead was knotted and his eyes were too steady, like a careful drunk's, but not fogged in that way, but so bright they were mad. The whites of them were bloodshot too, and the rims a raw red, which made that light blue look even crazier. He was so tired he would have keeled over if he'd given up, but he hadn't given up. He was still fighting something.

  I sat up as quick as I dared. "What's wrong?" I asked.

  He looked up when he heard the bed creak, but didn't seem to hear me.

  "How's the shoulder?" he asked. "You feel better?" His voice was husky and worn out, as if he'd been arguing for hours.

  "It's all right," I said. "Canby fixed it up good."

  "You had a long sleep," he said. "I didn't know you were here."

  "It's all right. No hurry. Now or another time; it wouldn't matter."

  He wanted to say something, but couldn't get started. I was afraid of it. I didn't want to get mixed up in anything more. But I had to give him a chance to unload. "You don't look like you'd slept much," I told him.

  "I haven't," he said, "any." I waited.

  He got up with slow labor and went to the window where he could look out into the street. Without turning around he said, "Croft, will you listen to me?"

  "Sure," I said, but not encouraging him.

  "I've got to talk," he protested. "I've got to talk so can get some sleep."

  I didn't say anything.

  "I thought about everybody who was up there," he explained, "and I have to talk to you, Art. You're the only one will understand."

  Why in hell, I wondered, did everybody have to take me for his father confessor?

  "Maybe you'll think I'm crazy," he said, still at the window.

  "You sound like you had a confession to make."

  He turned around. "That's it," he said, more quickly. "That's it, Croft, a confession."

  I still waited.

  "Croft," he said, "I killed those three men." I just stared. "I told you you'd think I was crazy," he said.

  Well, I did, and I didn't like a man twice my age confessing to me.

  "As much as if I'd pulled the ropes," he was saying.

  "Why blame anybody?" I asked him. "It's done now."

  "No, it's not done," he said, "it's just beginning. Every act," he began.

  I broke in. "If we have to blame somebody," I said, "then I'd say . . ,"

  This time he stopped me.

  "I know," he said, almost angrily, "you'd say it was Tetley. That's what you all say. Smith's been preaching it was Tetley. He has himself all worked up to lynch Tetley."

  "Well, wasn't it?"

  "No," he said, and then seemed to be making sure of his thought. "No," he said again, after a moment, "Tetley couldn't help what he did."

  "Oh, that way," I said. "If you take it that way, nobody can help it. We're all to blame, and nobody's to blame. It just happened."

  "No," he said. "Most of you couldn't help it. Most men can't; they don't really think. They haven't any conception of basic justice. They ..."

  "I got all that," I told him. I thought I had too. It seemed to have ironed out while I slept, so I knew right away what he meant by anything he started.

  "Yes," he said, smiling hard, and looking down at my sharpness.

  "Most people," he went on slowly, "all of those men, see the sins of commission, but not of omission. They feel guilty now, when it's done, and they want somebody to blame. They've chosen Tetley."

  "If it's anybody," I began.

  "No," he interrupted, "not any more than the rest of you. He's merely the scapegoat. He recognized only the sin of commission, and he couldn't feel that. Sin doesn't mean anything to Tetley any more."

  "That doesn't mean he wasn't wrong," I said.

  "No," Davies said, "but not to blame."

  "If you look at it that way," I said, "only a saint could be to blame for anything."

  "There's some truth in that."

  I was mean then, but I wanted to shut him up before did try. "And Tetley's the worst of all. They're right about Tetley."

  "Tetley's a beast," Davies said suddenly, with more hatred in his voice than I'd have thought he could have against anybody.

  "A depraved, murderous beast," he said, the same way.

  "Now," I said, "you're talking sense."

  He was quiet at once, as if I had accused him of something, and then said slowly, "But a beast is not to blame."

  "He loved it," I said.

  Again he searched me, as if to determine how deep my reasons went, and as if it would set him free if they went deep enough.

  "Yes," he agreed, "he loved it. He extracted pleasure from every morsel of suffering. He protracted it as long as he could. It was all one to him, the boy's mental torment, the old man's animal fear, the Mex taking that bullet out of his leg. Did you see his face when the Mex was taking that bullet out of his leg?" he asked.

  "I saw it. He loved it."

  "Yes," he said, "and his son."

  "You mean hitting him?"

  "And the rest," he said, "clear to the end."

  "He's always been like that about Gerald," I said.

  "Tetley is a vile man," he said slowly. "That is the only security I have."

  I was lost again. He seemed to have some central conception that was the core of the whole thing to him, but to be afraid to get at it, to keep working around it, and losing me all the time.

  "Only two things mean anything to Tetley," he said, "power and cruelty. He can't feel quiet or gentle things any more; and he can't feel pity, and he can't feel guilt."

  "You know that?" I asked. "Then why be so hard on yourself?"

 
Davies didn't answer that.

  "I keep telling myself," he said, "that I couldn't have changed it; that even though Tetley can't be blamed, I couldn't have made him see."

  "That's right," I said.

  "And I wouldn't have killed him," Davies said.

  "God, no," I said.

  "And nothing else would have helped."

  "No," I said, "nothing else. Maybe," I said, "that's what made us all feel yellow. We didn't think it that way, but just knew we'd have to kill him, that we couldn't stop him any other way. And you can't do that. He was like a crazy animal," I said, remembering, "cold crazy."

  "Yes," Davies said, "cold crazy."

  Neither of us said anything for a minute, and I heard the voices downstairs in the bar and knew there was a chanqe in them. At first I couldn't figure out what it was. Then I heard a woman laugh, a deep, throaty, pleased laugh, and then her voice saving something, and her laugh again. and a lot of men joining the laugh. Then it was all quiet but one voice, a man's voice, telling something long, and then the woman's laugh again, and the general laugh. as if they were just a little slower than she was to get the point. At first, thinking about Davies still, I couldn't figure what it was that was bothering me about that talk and laughing. Then the man spoke again, and I knew. It was Rose and her husband down there. And Gil had said he was going to get drunk. I didn't know how long I'd been asleep, or whether Gil had already got drunk and passed out and Canby had put him to bed somewhere else, not to bother me, or what. Only I knew Gil wasn't down there now, not with all that laughing, and I didn't like to think what could happen if he did come in drunk and still spoiling for his fight and feeling mean about last night.

  I got to feeling mean myself. They laughed again down there. I didn't see how anybody could find anything to laugh at today. They sounded like fools.

  Davies had said something.

  "What?" I asked.

  "He killed the boy, too," Davies repeated.

  "Sure;" I said, trying to get back to where I'd been. "All three of them."

  "Gerald," he said.

  "Gerald?" I echoed.

  "You haven't heard then?" he asked, and that seemed to be another of those peculiar disappointments to him. "I thought you'd have heard."

  "I've been right here, sleeping. What would I have heard?"

  "That Gerald did kill himself."

  "He didn't," I said. I was like the sour man. I still didn't think he'd try again.

  Davies sat down slowly in the chair. Then he sat there twisting his hands.

  "You didn't think he would?" he asked finally, with that same big question.

  "No," I said. "He couldn't have. He talked too much."

  "He did, though," Davies said. "He did." And suddenly he put his head down and clung to it with both hands, passing through another seizure like the one at the window.

  Then he was quiet again, and looked up, though not at me, and told me evenly, "When he got home his father had locked the house against him. He went out into the barn and hanged himself from a rafter. The hired man found him about noon. I saw him," he said slowly. His hands stopped twisting and gripped together.

  "Jeez, the poor kid," I said.

  "Yes," he said, "the poor kid."

  And then, "The hired man was afraid to tell Tetley. He saw Sparks and told him, and Sparks came for me."

  "Did you have to see Tetley then?"

  "I didn't want to. I didn't trust myself. But I saw him."

  I didn't ask the question, but he answered it anyway.

  "It meant nothing to him; not a flicker. Just thanked me as if I'd delivered a package from the store."

  The news was like a home punch to me too. I should have known if anybody should, after the way the kid had opened up to me. Also I could see why that might have put Davies off on this spree of blaming himself. It could have been prevented so easily; just somebody to stay with the kid. The sins of omission.

  They laughed again downstairs.

  Shut up, you brainless bastards, I thought. I guess I half said it, because Davies looked up at me.

  "That's not your fault," I said. "With Tetley what he is, it would have happened sooner or later anyway. There's some things you can't butt in on."

  "But you didn't think it would happen?"

  "No," I said. "Well, I was wrong."

  "I did," he whispered. "I knew."

  "You couldn't. I should have. He talked to me all the way up. I knew then he wasn't straight. But when he didn't, when he let Smith go down and get him like that, I didn't think he'd make another try. You couldn't know."

  He suddenly switched our talk again. He couldn't sit still, tired as he was, but got up and went to the window.

  "I'm not making a very clear confession, am I?"

  "Listen, Mr. Davies," I started, and stopped because the men were laughing again downstairs and the laugh stopped short. I was listening for Gil's voice. But it must have been just a short laugh, the sort you get when the story has to go on. One voice was talking steadily, and though I couldn't hear the words I could hear the way they were clipped off, and the smooth, level tone. Rose's husband. Then he got his big, final laugh, and somebody else started.

  I don't think Davies had even heard them. He thought I just couldn't find anything to say, and turned to face me once more, and there was neither that hope or the blind self-torture showing in his face for the moment. There was more a balance, as though he had finally decided exactly what to say and was intent upon my reply. That look brought me back too, so I was only half listening for Gil.

  "You say you know what I was thinking all the time?" he asked.

  "I could feel it," I said carefully. "We all could."

  "Did you believe Martin was innocent?" he asked. "I mean at the time, before we knew. Did you believe he was innocent when they put the rope up over the limb?" he put it.

  I stayed careful. "I felt we were wrong," I said slowly, looking right at him, "I felt that he shouldn't hang."

  "That's scarcely the same thing," he said. "Nobody wants to see a man hang."

  "You couldn't know he was innocent," I said. "None of us would have stood there and seen him hang if we'd known."

  "No," Davies said. "So you didn't know." He was very quiet saying that.

  "You're twisting it again," I told him sharply.

  "No," he said, "you didn't know, but I did."

  Then it struck me so it made the blood come to my own face. He'd known something all along, and been afraid to bring it out, because of Tetley. He'd had a proof, perhaps in that letter, and been afraid for his own skin to bring it out. I could see then why he wanted to believe nothing could have turned Tetley.

  "How could you know?" I tried to bluff, but my voice didn't sound right and he caught it.

  "Yes," he said. "I knew. I'd read that letter."

  He got my question again.

  "No," he said, "not that way. There was nothing a court would have called a proof. A court won't take the picture of a man's soul for a proof. But I knew then, beyond any question, what he was like. From the first I felt a boy like that couldn't have done it; not the rustling even; certainly not the murder. And when I'd read that letter I knew it."

  So I was wrong again.

  "Is that all?" I asked.

  "He talked about me in the letter," Davies mooned. "He told his wife how kind I was to him, what I risked trying to defend him. And he trusted me; you saw that. He worked so hard to ease it for his wife, too," he went on, lower. "To keep her from breaking herself on grief or hating us. And he reminded her of things they had done together."

  He bent his head in a spasm again. "It was a beautiful letter," he whispered.

  "Listen," I said, "that may all make you feel bad, sure. It was a rotten deal, sure. But we all knew we should have brought them in like you said, and if we had, it never would have happened."

  "Half an hour," Davies mumbled. "Half an hour would have done it."

  "I know," I said. "You think I have
n't thought of that too? But there wasn't anything you could do."

  "I knew," he repeated. His knowing seemed to be what hurt him most.

  "You didn't know," I told him, "any more than the rest of us did. You knew what he was like from that letter, you say. Well, mavbe. But we all had a chance to see that letter. That kind of an argument can't stand up against branded cattle, no bill of sale, a dead man's gun, and a guy that acts like that Mex did."

  "It could have," he said. "You admit yourself you were ready to be stopped. You admit you thought most of them were."

  "There wasn't the proof," I said angrily. "You don't get all set for a hanging and stop for some little feeling you have."

  "You might," he said, "when you're hanging on a feeling too."

  "You tried to stop it, hard enough and often enough," I said.

  "That's the point," he said. This calm and reasonable self-denunciation was worse than when he broke a little. "I tried. I took the leadership, and with it I accepted the responsibility. I set myself up as the power of justice, of common pity, even. I set myself up as the light to oppose Tetley's darkness. And in their hearts the men were with me; and the right was with me. Everything was with me."

  "Everything," I reminded him, "except what we all took to be the facts."

  "They didn't matter then," he maintained. "They didn't matter."

  "God," I said, "if you take any pleasure in feeling responsible for three gang hangings and a suicide."

  He closed his eyes like I'd slapped him.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "No, you're right," he said. "I was."

  "You get some sleep," I ordered. He'd skirted the point again, if he had one. He was just cutting himself up.

  "You'll admit I took it on myself to stand up against Tetley," he persisted.

  "All right, you did. There were none of us there hog­tied, or tongue-tied either, for that matter."

  He looked at me. I was going to say something more, but suddenly the chatter downstairs stopped, and there was one voice, a new one, had it all; and it was loud and thick and angry. It wasn't till then that I realized how much I was worried about Gil. I had my hand out to take my gun belt off the foot of the bed before I knew it wasn't Gil talking, but Smith. Drunk, too, by the sound.