The Winchesters

by James Lincoln Collier

  Skipper nodded, thinking. Then he said, “You might find it more useful to take a secretarial course. Or study accounting. Art and the dance are all well and good if you have the leisure for it, but for most people they're really not practical.”

  Marie frowned again and looked down. I wished Skipper hadn't said anything like that. “Marie's pretty smart,” I said.

  Skipper waggled the cane. “I'm sure she is, Christopher. Still, it's just as well to be realistic.”

  I took a look at Marie. She was frowning and looking down, and her hands were clenched. “I can study art if I want,” she said.

  “Oh, of course,” Skipper said. “Well, we all have things to do. It was nice to meet you, Marie.” Then he turned, went out of the dining room, and down the hall to the office.

  Marie stood there with her fists clenched, looking at me and frowning. “I'm not good enough for him, am I, Chris?” she said. “I beg your pardon, I mean Christopher.”

  “Don't get sore at me, Marie. I didn't say any of that.”

  “I can study art if I want to,” she said. “I'm just as smart as your cousin. I can learn about ballet.”

  “Marie, calm down. He was just talking. He didn't mean anything by it.” But I knew that he did.

  “Oh, yes, he did,” she said. “He meant I wasn't good enough for the Winchesters. He meant I wasn't good enough for you. Am I good enough for you, Christopher?”

  “I never said you weren't, Marie. Stop making things up.”

  “Oh, I'm not making anything up. Dad was right. Like goes to like.”

  “Please, Marie.” I took her hand. “We better go, anyway.”

  She jerked her hand away from mine. “Oh, I'll go all right. I know when I'm not wanted.” She turned and marched off through the living room and out into the front hall. I followed after. She went through the big door, down the steps, and marched off down the driveway, with me following along, not saying anything all the way down to the gatehouse. When we got there, Mom was in the kitchen. Marie just walked in, got her bathing suit, walked out, and picked up her bicycle. I stood there looking at her.

  “Good-bye,” she said. “Maybe I'll see you sometime, Chris.” Then she rode away.

  Mom came out and stared after her. “What's eating her?”

  “She's just upset,” I said.

  “Did she hear anything about Benny Briggs's father? Was that it?”

  “No,” I said. “What happened to him?”

  “They've arrested Harry Briggs for poisoning Duchess. They're throwing the book at the poor guy. They're going to destroy him if they can.”

  “Who's going to destroy him? The police?”

  “Skipper and Uncle Foster. There's one thing you don't do in Everidge, and that's injure the Winchesters. Now they're going to destroy Briggs to teach the town a lesson.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Ernest came rushing down to the gatehouse the next morning even before we were finished breakfast. He was all excited. He came charging in and said, “Chris, they're going to send you to Wakefield.” He sat down at the oak table where we were eating cereal and toast. He took a piece of toast off the plate and began to spread it with the raspberry jam that Mom made every year. “They were talking about it this morning at breakfast, Dad and Skipper.”

  “Wakefield?” I said. “What kind of a place is it?”

  “It's good,” he said. “It's over by Worcester. You can drive over there from here in an hour or so. Who knows, we might end up going to college together, Chris.”

  “That's great, Ernest,” Mom said. She looked at me. “Don't you think so, Chris?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It's terrific.” But I wasn't sure. “Listen, Ernest, what about that guy who poisoned Duchess? Did he really do it?”

  Ernest chewed his toast. “Sure he did. Dad had a private detective from Boston working on it. He gave the guy a fake job in the mill, supposedly as a busboy in the cafeteria picking up coffee cups and mopping around. A job like that gave him a good excuse to get around and listen to the people talk when they were on their coffee breaks. He heard a lot of talk—how Harry Briggs was going around saying he would get even with the Winchesters for what they did to Benny and all that.”

  “That doesn't prove anything,” I said.

  “Yeah, but then they found out that they had a lot of rat poison at Number Three mill. They use a lot of glue there, and it had been attracting rats. Seeing as Harry Briggs was in Supply, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to steal a whole lot of rat poison. The vet said it was rat poison that killed Duchess.”

  “But that still doesn't prove that Harry Briggs did it.”

  “Well, no. It doesn't exactly prove it. The police got a search warrant and went through the Briggses' house, but they didn't find anything.”

  Suddenly I knew what Harry Briggs and Mr. Melas had been burying behind the garage that day. “If they can't prove it, how can they arrest him?”

  “That's the problem. They had to let him go for now. But we'll find something sooner or later.”

  But I knew where the proof was buried. I was a witness, and I could testify. I knew I ought to tell Skipper. Why should I protect the Briggses from anything? But I couldn't tell. “Maybe we shouldn't be so tough on Harry Briggs,” I said. “I mean it was pretty bad to poison a dog that hadn't done anybody any harm, but it's not the same as hurting a human being.”

  “He's got it coming to him,” Ernest said. “Dad says that when something like this happens, you've got to come down on the people who did it hard and fast. You can't let them get away with it, or they'll try something worse the next time.”

  I didn't want to talk about it anymore. There were too many things about it that were bothering me. Why did everybody have to be so tough all the time? What was Marie going to think about me now? So I changed the subject and we talked about Wakefield for a while, and whether I could make their baseball team, and after a while Ernest left. I took Great Expectations out into the field behind the gatehouse and sat up against a tree in the shade, trying to read. But I couldn't concentrate.

  So I put a leaf in the book for a placemark, and went back into the gatehouse. “I'm going down to see Marie Scalzo,” I told Mom.

  She looked at me. “Chris, you'd be better off staying out of this. There's nothing you can do about it, and you'll only end up by antagonizing your uncle and your grandfather. This isn't the right time for that.”

  “I don't care,” I said. “I want to find out if everybody thinks it's my fault. I don't want Marie blaming me for it.”

  “Chris, there isn't anything you can do about that. You're a Winchester, and they're going to blame the Winchesters.”

  I thought about that for a minute. I could see that it was true. “What's going to happen to Harry Briggs?”

  “They'll probably be able to pin it on him. They can afford to spend anything they want on private detectives, and sooner or later they'll come up with something.”

  I thought about those two men digging in the rain behind the garage. “Maybe they won't,” I said.

  “Even if they don't, they can make life pretty hard for him around Everidge.”

  “How?”

  “Well, the Winchesters own the bank, and the bank has mortgages on half the houses in town. A lot of the merchants owe them money, too. And of course everybody is economically dependent on the Winchester Mills. Half the adults in town work for the mills directly, and their paychecks support the other half. Look at the Scalzos—the entire family lives off that little store, and if people don't have paychecks to spend there, they'll go out of business. Think what the strike is going to mean to them. They'll have to let their regular customers charge for as long as the strike goes on—and how are they going to pay their own bills?”

  That made it even worse. “Mom, I have to find out if Marie is blaming me for it. I'm going into town to see her.”

  Mom sighed. “Please be careful. There's an awful lot of animosity toward
the Winchesters in town now.”

  “Maybe I'm not a Winchester after all,” I said. I went out, got on my bike, and rode into town. All those woods I passed on the way didn't seem so pretty now. They seemed more like the outskirts of a fortress.

  I got to Mechanic Street, went on up it, and locked my bike to the telephone pole outside the store. I was pretty nervous. They might already hate me. I went in.

  Mr. Scalzo was waiting on a customer at the side counter. Marie was at the delicatessen cooler, slicing cheese for another customer. As I came in, both of them looked up to see who it was. Then quickly both looked back to what they were doing. I stood near the door and waited. Another customer came in, a woman I'd seen in the store before. She gave me a look, but she didn't say anything, either. Mr. Scalzo finished with his customer, took the money, and made change. The customer left. Mr. Scalzo looked at the new customer. “Hello there,” he said, smiling. He began to take her order.

  I went on standing there, feeling rotten, and watching Marie slice the cheese, slice some roast beef, fill a paper container with macaroni salad. She wrapped everything in a package, her hands twinkling swiftly along the way they always did. She didn't look at me, she didn't say anything at all, but did her work. Then she was finished. The customer stepped away from the counter. I started forward toward Marie. But before I'd taken two steps, she slipped away from the counter and disappeared into the back room. I stopped and looked at Mr. Scalzo. He was ringing up his customer's bill and handing her the change. Then she went out. The store was empty of customers.

  Finally Mr. Scalzo looked at me. “You're not welcome in my store anymore, Chris.”

  I looked at him, feeling hot and prickly. “Mr. Scalzo, I didn't do anything. It isn't my fault that they're after Harry Briggs.”

  “It doesn't matter what you did or didn't do, Chris. Now please go.”

  I didn't move. “I want to talk to Marie.”

  “Marie doesn't want to talk to you. She doesn't want to see you anymore.”

  “You can't stop me from talking to her,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, I can, Chris. I'm not afraid of the Winchesters. If you try to see her, I'm going to beat the living daylights out of you. A man's a man, and I'll stand up for my family.”

  “I have a right to talk to her.”

  “You don't have a right to anything concerned with my family. You Winchesters think you own us all. Well, you don't, and I'm telling you right now, if you try to see my daughter I'm going to beat you within an inch of your life.”

  “Mr. Scalzo—”

  He reached under the counter and came up with a cut-off baseball bat he kept there for when tough kids came in drunk, wanting beer. Carrying the baseball bat in one hand he came around the counter. “Get out of here, Chris.”

  His mouth was shut tight and his eyes were squinting, and I knew that he was going to hit me with the bat if I didn't leave. “All right,” I said. “I'll go. But you can't stop me from seeing Marie.”

  “Chris, I'm warning you—”

  I opened the door and went out. He slammed the door shut behind me. I stood out front, feeling shaky and angry. It was pretty scary to have somebody that sore at me. I looked up to the windows of the Scalzos' apartment over the store, in hopes of seeing Marie, but there was nobody there. I couldn't go on standing in front of the store: Sooner or later Mr. Scalzo would come out after me. So I unlocked my bike from the telephone pole and started to climb on. Just then I heard Marie's voice from somewhere around the corner of the house. “Chris, I'll meet you out at the state forest tonight, after supper.” I didn't see her, I just heard her voice. It made me feel a lot better. I climbed on my bike and rode away.

  There were a couple of state parks around, but I knew she meant the place where there was the field of wildflowers surrounded by woods, where we went a lot. If she was willing to go out there to meet me, I figured she wasn't too sore at me yet.

  I didn't tell Mom what happened when I got home. I knew that if I did she'd try to keep me from going out that night. So I just said that I hadn't had a chance to talk to Marie, which was true, and had come home because there had been a lot of customers in the store, which was part true. I went back to sitting up against the tree, trying to read Great Expectations. But there were too many things whirling around in my mind, and around three o'clock I gave up and took the twins for a swim in the pond.

  After supper I went out to get on my bike. Mom followed me out. “I don't want you going into town,” she said. “I absolutely forbid it. It's too dangerous going down there at night, the way people feel.”

  “I'm not going into town,” I said. “I'm going out to the state forest.”

  “At this time of day?”

  “There's still plenty of light,” I said. “I just feel like being by myself for a while.” I didn't like lying to her, but I knew if I told her I was going to meet Marie, she wouldn't let me go.

  “Don't be late. They way things are, I'll worry after it gets dark.”

  “I won't stay long,” I said.

  I rode on out there. I walked my bike into the woods a little way, then locked it to a tree. In the woods it was already pretty dark. I walked up the trail where we always went. There was a big oak tree at the edge of the field where we usually ate our picnics. Marie wasn't there yet. I sat down under the oak tree to wait. The sun had gone down behind the forest across the field, but there was a red streak across the sky there, and still plenty of light. Down below, in the field, it was darker, but there was enough light for me to make out the wild-flowers nearest me. It was pretty calm and quiet there, and for the first time all day I felt peaceful. I'd spent a lot of time sitting under that tree with Marie. I wondered if this would be the last time.

  I waited for nearly half an hour. Finally I heard footsteps on the trail. I stood up. Marie was coming along, in jeans and an old T-shirt. She looked very pretty to me. I gave her a hug. “Sorry I'm late,” she said. “I told them I was going to a movie, but they were suspicious. When I was riding down Main Street I stopped and got off my bike and pretended I was tying my shoe. I saw Frankie duck down behind a parked car. So I had to go into the movie and sit around for a while until I was sure he had gone home.”

  “Why are they blaming me for everything? I didn't want to kick Benny Briggs out of the pond in the first place. I'm not part of it in any way.”

  “Your family is really going to give it to Harry Briggs if they can.”

  “Look, Marie, he poisoned our dog.” I wished I hadn't said “our.”

  “Maybe he had a right to poison the dog. If you're attacked by a dangerous dog, you've got a right to kill it.”

  “I already told you, Duchess didn't attack anybody.”

  “Benny Briggs said she did.”

  “That's a lie. I was there, Marie,” I said.

  “So was Benny.”

  I couldn't answer that. They were all determined to believe Benny's story, and they weren't going to change their minds. It wasn't fair to me, and it was making me kind of sore. But I didn't want to have a fight with Marie. “Well, all right,” I said. “But Benny was in the wrong in the first place.”

  We were standing facing each other, very close, but not touching. It was getting darker, and we would have to go soon. For a minute neither of us said anything. Finally she said, “Chris, I can't see you anymore.”

  I looked at her face through the shadows. She looked very sad.

  “How can you blame me for it?”

  “I just can't see you.”

  I didn't say anything. I felt hurt and sad, too. “But why? Your dad doesn't have to know. We can come out here. Or I could meet you someplace in town.” I grabbed her hand.

  She let me take it. “Dad says if people knew I was seeing you, they'd stop trading at the store. They'd boycott it.”

  “Would they really? You didn't have anything to do with it. Would they really boycott the store?”

  Her face was low and sad. She didn't look at me, but down
at the ground, where we had trampled the long grass down. “Yes, they would. They'd do it. Everybody's sick of the Winchesters. The strike and everything, and then this thing with the Briggses. They hate the Winchesters. All right, if you want to say so, Benny shouldn't have gone swimming up there, and Harry Briggs shouldn't have poisoned that dog. But how do you think we feel, with you all living in that big house and owning five cars and the rest of us living down in town in our little apartments and lucky to own one car and dependent on the Winchesters for everything—our jobs, our money?”

  I was feeling pushed around and sore again. “How do you think we live, Marie? Our house isn't any bigger than your apartment, and all we have is that beat-up, eight-year-old Chevy.”

  “Come off it, Chris. You're going to private school now. You're going to be rich.”

  “Maybe I won't, Marie. Maybe I won't go into the business.”

  “You will,” she said scornfully. “You will. And after that, you'll say good-bye to the rest of us.”

  “No, I won't. How can you say that?”

  “They'll make you, Chris. Nobody has to tell me now. I saw the way your grandfather looked at me. I saw how he talked to me. All those questions, finding out who I was and what my folks did. When he finished questioning me like that, I felt like nothing. I'm not good enough for the Winchesters. I never should have started up with you. I was kidding myself all along.”

  I looked into her face. “Marie, if we ever got married, I'd make them accept you.” But I wondered if I could.

  “You couldn't make them. You couldn't make that old man do anything.”

  “I'd try.”

  “You'd try.”

  We stood facing each other, not saying anything. She reached up and kissed me. “Good-bye, Chris,” she said.

  “Marie—” Then I heard a noise and I looked around. Two guys were coming out of the shadows of the trees. “Who's that?” I said.

  Marie turned. “Frankie,” she said. “Oh, no.”

  I peered through the dark. They kept on coming toward us, and I saw that it was Frankie Scalzo and Benny Briggs.