“Mine’s Smith. Just call me Smitty.”
“I was wondering if you’d been over to the jail yet?”
Up to this time the little man had been smiling with the charming ease of a small boy who finds himself free, but now he became furtive and disappointed. Hesitating, he said, “Yes, I was over there first thing this morning.”
“Oh, I just knew you’d go there,” Michael said. They were a bit afraid of each other. By this time they were far out on the water which had a millpond smoothness. The town seemed to get smaller, with white houses in rows and streets forming geometric patterns, just as the blue hills behind the town seemed to get larger at sundown.
Finally Michael said, “Do you know this Thomas Delaney that’s dying in the morning?” He knew his voice was slow and resentful.
“No. I don’t know anything about him. I never read about them. Aren’t there any fish at all in this old lake? I’d like to catch some,” he said. “I told my wife I’d bring her home some fish.” Glancing at Michael, he was appealing, without speaking, that they should do nothing to spoil an evening’s fishing.
The little man began to talk eagerly about fishing as he pulled out a small flask from his hip pocket. “Scotch,” he said, chuckling with delight. “Here, have a swig.” Michael drank from the flask and passed it back. Tilting his head back and saying, “Here’s to you, Michael,” the little man took a long pull at the flask. “The only time I take a drink,” he said, still chuckling, “is when I go on a fishing trip by myself. I usually go by myself,” he added apologetically, as if he wanted the young fellow to see how much he appreciated his company.
They had gone far out on the water but they had caught nothing. It began to get dark. “No fish tonight, I guess, Smitty,” Michael said.
“It’s a crying shame,” Smitty said. “I looked forward to coming up here when I found out the place was on the lake. I wanted to get some fishing in. I promised my wife I’d bring her back some fish. She’d often like to go fishing with me, but of course she can’t because she can’t travel around from place to place like I do. Whenever I get a call to go to some place, I always look at the map to see if it’s by a lake or on a river, then I take my lines and hooks along.”
“If you took another job, you and your wife could probably go fishing together,” Michael suggested.
“I don’t know about that. We sometimes go fishing together anyway.” He looked away, waiting for Michael to be repelled and insist that he ought to give up the job. And he wasn’t ashamed as he looked down at the water, but he knew Michael thought he ought to be ashamed. “Somebody’s got to do my job. There’s got to be a hangman,” he said.
“I just meant that if it was such disagreeable work, Smitty.”
The little man did not answer for a long time. Michael rowed steadily with sweeping, tireless strokes. Huddled at the end of the boat, Smitty suddenly looked up with a kind of melancholy hopelessness and said mildly, “The job hasn’t been so disagreeable.”
“Good God, man, you don’t mean you like it?”
“Oh, no,” he said, to be obliging, as if he knew what Michael expected him to say. “I mean you get used to it, that’s all.” But he looked down again at the water, knowing he ought to be ashamed of himself.
“Have you got any children?”
“I sure have. Five. The oldest boy is fourteen. It’s funny, but they’re all a lot bigger and taller than I am. Isn’t that funny?”
They started a conversation about fishing rivers that ran into the lake farther north. They felt friendly again. The little man, who had an extraordinary gift for storytelling, made many quaint faces, puckered up his lips, screwed up his eyes and moved around restlessly as if he wanted to get up in the boat and stride around for the sake of more expression. Again he brought out the whiskey flask and Michael stopped rowing. Grinning, they toasted each other and said together, “Happy days.” The boat remained motionless on the placid water. Far out, the sun’s last rays gleamed on the waterline. And then it got dark and they could only see the town lights. It was time to turn around and pull for the shore. The little man tried to take the oars from Michael, who shook his head resolutely and insisted that he would prefer to have his friend catch a fish on the way back to the shore.
”It’s too late now, and we have scared all the fish away,” Smitty laughed happily. “But we’re having a grand time, aren’t we?”
When they reached the old pier by the powerhouse, it was full night and they hadn’t caught a single fish. As the boat bumped against the rocks Michael said, “You can get out here, I’ll take the boat around to Smollet’s.”
“Won’t you be coming my way?”
“Not just now. I’ll probably talk with Smollet a while.”
The little man got out of the boat and stood on the pier looking down at Michael. “I was thinking dawn would be the best time to catch some fish,” he said. “At about five o’clock. I’ll have an hour and a half to spare anyway. How would you like that?” He was speaking with so much eagerness that Michael found himself saying, “I could try. But if I’m not here at dawn, you go on without me.”
“All right. I’ll go back to the hotel now.”
“Good night, Smitty.”
“Good night, Michael. We had a fine neighborly time, didn’t we?”
As Michael rowed the boat around to the boathouse, he hoped that Smitty wouldn’t realize he didn’t want to be seen walking back to town with him. And later, when he was going along the dusty road in the dark and hearing all the crickets chirping in the ditches, he couldn’t figure out why he felt so ashamed of himself.
At seven o’clock next morning Thomas Delaney was hanged in the town jail yard. There was hardly a breeze on that leaden gray morning and there were no small whitecaps out over the lake. It would have been a fine morning for fishing. Michael went down to the jail, for he thought it his duty as a newspaperman to have all the facts, but he was afraid he might get sick. He hardly spoke to all the men and women who were crowded under the maple trees by the jail wall. Everybody he knew was staring at the wall and muttering angrily. Two of Thomas Delaney’s brothers, big, strapping fellows with bearded faces, were there on the sidewalk. Three automobiles were at the front of the jail.
Michael, the town newspaperman, was admitted into the courtyard by old Willie Matthews, one of the guards, who said that two newspapermen from the city were at the gallows on the other side of the building. “I guess you can go around there too, if you want to,” Matthews said, as he sat down on the step. White-faced, and afraid, Michael sat down on the step with Matthews and they waited and said nothing.
At last the old fellow said, “Those people outside there are pretty sore, ain’t they?”
“They’re pretty sullen, all right. I saw two of Delaney’s brothers there.”
“I wish they’d go,” Matthews said. “I don’t want to see anything. I didn’t even look at Delaney. I don’t want to hear anything. I’m sick.” He put his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
The old fellow and Michael sat close together till a small procession came around the corner from the other side of the yard. First came Mr. Steadman, the sheriff, with his head down as though he were crying, then Dr. Parker, the physician, then two hard-looking young newspapermen from the city, walking with their hats on the backs of their heads, and behind them came the little hangman, erect, stepping out with military precision and carrying himself with a strange cocky dignity. He was dressed in a long black cut-away coat with gray striped trousers, a gates-ajar collar and a narrow red tie, as if he alone felt the formal importance of the occasion. He walked with brusque precision until he saw Michael, who was standing up, staring at him with his mouth open.
The little hangman grinned and as soon as the procession reached the doorstep, he shook hands with Michael. They were all looking at Michael. As though his work was over now, the hangman said eagerly to Michael, “I thought I’d see you here. You didn’t get down to the pier at d
awn?”
“No. I couldn’t make it.”
“That was tough, Michael. I looked for you,” he said. “But never mind. I’ve got something for you.” As they all went into the jail, Dr. Parker glanced angrily at Michael, then turned his back on him. In the office, where the doctor prepared to sign the certificate, Smitty was bending down over his fishing basket, which was in the corner. Then he pulled out two good-sized trout, folded in newspaper, and said, “I was saving these for you, Michael. I got four in an hour’s fishing.” Then he said, “I’ll talk about that later if you’ll wait. We’ll be busy here, and I’ve got to change my clothes.”
Michael went out to the street with Dr. Parker and the two city newspapermen. Under his arm he was carrying the fish, folded in the newspaper. Outside, at the jail door, Michael thought that the doctor and the two newspapermen were standing a little apart from him. Then the crowd, with their clothes all dust-soiled from the road, surged forward and the doctor said to them, “You might as well go home, boys. It’s all over.”
“Where’s old Steadman?” somebody demanded.
“We’ll wait for the hangman,” somebody else shouted.
The doctor walked away by himself. For a while Michael stood beside the two city newspapermen, and tried to look as nonchalant as they were looking, but he lost confidence in them when he smelled whiskey. They only talked to each other. Then they mingled with the crowd, and Michael stood alone. At last he could stand there no longer looking at all those people he knew so well, so he, too, moved out and joined the crowd.
When the sheriff came out with the hangman and the guards, they got halfway down to one of the automobile before someone threw an old boot. Steadman ducked into one of the cars, as the boot hit him on the shoulder, and the two guards followed him. The hangman, dismayed, stood alone on the sidewalk. Those in the car must have thought at first that the hangman was with them for the car suddenly shot forward, leaving him alone on the sidewalk. The crowd threw small rocks and sticks, hooting at him as the automobile backed up slowly towards him. One small stone hit him on the head. Blood trickled from the side of his head as he looked around helplessly at all the angry people. He had the same expression on his face, Michael thought, as he had had last night when he had seemed ashamed and had looked down at the water. Only now, he looked around wildly, looking for someone to help him as the crowd kept pelting him. Farther and farther Michael backed into the crowd and all the time he felt dreadfully ashamed as though he were betraying Smitty, who last night had had such a good neighborly time with him. “It’s different now, it’s different,” he kept thinking, as he held the fish in the newspaper tight under his arm. Smitty started to run toward the automobile, but James Mortimer, a big fisherman, shot out his foot and tripped him and sent him sprawling on his face.
Looking for something to throw, the fisherman said to Michael, “Sock him, sock him.”
Michael shook his head and felt sick.
“What’s the matter with you, Michael?”
“Nothing. I got nothing against him.”
The big fisherman started pounding his fists up and down in the air. “He just doesn’t mean anything to me at all,” Michael said quickly. The fisherman, bending down, kicked a small rock loose from the roadbed and heaved it at the hangman. Then he said, “What are you holding there, Michael, what’s under your arm? Fish? Pitch them at him. Here, give them to me.” Still in a fury, he snatched the fish, and threw them one at a time at the little man just as he was getting up from the road. The fish fell in the thick dust in front of him, sending up a little cloud. Smitty seemed to stare at the fish with his mouth hanging open, then he didn’t even look at the crowd. That expression on Smitty’s face as he saw the fish in the road made Michael hot with shame and he tried to get out of the crowd.
Smitty had his hands over his head, to shield his face as the crowd pelted him, yelling, “Sock the little rat! Throw the runt in the lake!” The sheriff pulled him into the automobile. The car shot forward in a cloud of dust.
The Runaway
In the lumberyard by the lake there was an old brick building two stories high and all around the foundations were heaped great piles of soft sawdust, softer than the thick moss in the woods. There were many of these golden mounds of dust covering the yard down to the lake. That afternoon all the fellows followed Michael up the ladder to the roof of the old building and they sat with their legs hanging over the edge looking out at the whitecaps on the water. Michael was younger than some of them but his legs were long, his huge hands dangled awkwardly at his sides and his thick black hair curled all over his head. “I’ll stump you all to jump down,” he said, and without thinking about it he shoved himself off the roof and fell on the sawdust where he lay rolling and laughing.
“You’re all stumped,” he shouted, “you’re all yellow,” coaxing them to follow him. Still laughing, he watched them, white-faced and hesitant, and them one by one they jumped and got up grinning with relief.
In the hot afternoon sunlight they all lay on the sawdust pile telling jokes till at last one said, “Come on up on the old roof again and jump down.” There wasn’t much enthusiasm amongst them, but they all went up to the roof again and began to jump off in a determined, desperate way till only Michael was left and the others were all down below grinning up at him calling, “Come on, Mike. What’s the matter with you?” Michael longed to jump down and be with them, but he remained on the edge of the roof, wetting his lips, with a silly grin on his face. It had not seemed such a long drop the first time. For a while they thought he was only kidding them, then they saw him clenching his fists, trying to count to ten and then jump, and when that failed, he tried to take a long breath and close his eyes.
In a while they began to jeer; they were tired of waiting and it was getting on to dinnertime. “Come on, you’re yellow, you think we’re going to sit here all night?” They began to shout, and when he did not move they began to walk away, still jeering. “Who did this in the first place? What’s the matter with you guys?” he shouted.
But for a long time he remained on the edge of the roof, staring unhappily and steadily at the ground. He remained all alone for nearly an hour while the sun, a great orange ball getting bigger and bigger, rolled slowly over the dray line beyond the lake. His clothes were wet from nervous sweating. At last he closed his eyes, slipped off the roof, fell heavily on the pile of sawdust and lay there a long time. There were no sounds in the yard; the workmen had gone home. As he lay there he wondered why he had been unable to move; and then he got up slowly and walked home feeling deeply ashamed and wanting to avoid everybody.
He was so late that his stepmother said to him sarcastically, “You’re big enough by this time surely to be able to get home in time for dinner. But if you won’t come home, you’d better try staying in tonight.” She was a well-built woman with a fair, soft skin and a little touch of gray in her hair and a patient smile. She was speaking now with a restrained, passionless severity, but Michael, with his dark face gloomy and sullen, hardly heard her; he was still seeing the row of grinning faces down below on the sawdust pile, and hearing them jeer at him.
As he ate his cold dinner he was rolling his brown eyes fiercely and sometimes shaking his big black head. His father, who was sitting in the armchair by the window, a huge man with his hair nearly all gone so that his smooth wide forehead rose in a shining dome, kept looking at him steadily. When Michael had finished eating and had gone out to the veranda, his father followed, sat down beside him, lit his pipe and said gently, “What’s bothering you, son?”
“Nothing, Dad. There’s nothing bothering me,” Michael said, but he kept staring out at the gray dust drifting off the road.
His father kept coaxing and whispering in a voice that was amazingly soft for such a big man. As he talked his long fingers played with the heavy gold watch fob on his vest. He was talking about nothing in particular and yet by the tone of his voice he was expressing a marvelous deep friendliness tha
t somehow seemed to become part of the twilight and then of the darkness. Michael began to like the sound of his father’s voice, and soon he blurted out, “I guess by this time all the guys around here are saying I’m yellow. I’d like to be a thousand miles away.” He told how he could not force himself to jump off the roof the second time. But his father lay back in the armchair laughing in that hearty, easy way that Michael loved to hear; years ago when Michael had been younger and he was walking along the paths in the evening, he used to try and laugh like his father only his voice was not deep enough and he would grin sheepishly and look up at the trees overhanging the paths as if someone hiding up there had heard him. “You’ll be alright with the bunch, son,” his father was saying. “I’m betting you’ll lick any boy in town that says you’re yellow.”
But there was the sound of the screen door opening, and Michael’s stepmother said in her mild, firm way, “If I’ve rebuked the boy, Henry, as I think he ought to be rebuked, I don’t know why you should be humoring him.”
“You surely don’t object to me talking to Michael.”
“I simply want you to be reasonable, Henry.”
In his grave, unhurried way, Mr. Lount got up and followed his wife into the house and soon Michael could hear them arguing; he could hear his father’s firm, patient voice floating clearly out to the street; then his stepmother’s voice, mild at first, rising, becoming hysterical till at last she cried out wildly, “You’re setting the boy against me. You don’t want him to think of me as his mother. The two of you are against me. I know your nature.”
As he looked up and down the street, Michael began to make prayers that no one would pass by who would think, “Mr. and Mrs. Lount are quarreling again.” Alert, he listened for faint sounds on the cinder path, but he heard only the frogs croaking under the bridge opposite Stevenson’s place and the faraway cry of a freight train passing behind the hills. “Why did Dad have to get married? It used to be swell on the farm,” he thought, remembering how he and his father had gone fishing down at the glen. And then while he listened to the sound of her voice, he kept thinking that his stepmother was a fine woman, only she always made him uneasy because she wanted him to like her, and then when she found out that he couldn’t think of her as his mother, she had grown resentful. “I like her and I like my father. I don’t know why they quarrel. Maybe it’s because Dad shouldn’t have sold the farm and moved here. There’s nothing for him to do.” Unable to get interested in the town life, his father loafed all day down at the hotel or in Bailey’s flour-and-feed store but he was such a fine-looking, dignified, reticent man that the loafers would not accept him as a crony.
The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Three Page 2
