The Winchesters

by James Lincoln Collier

  “It's surprising to me that Frankie would do something like that, Uncle Foster. He never seemed like a criminal to me.”

  Uncle Foster gave me a look. “Feelings are running high in town. You ought to know that as well as anybody. When you get that kind of situation, people do all sorts of things they wouldn't usually do. You saw those pictures in the paper the other day—women throwing stones at the oil truck going into the plant. Those are ordinary housewives. A lot of them are mothers. They've probably never done anything violent in their lives. But feelings are high now.”

  The whole thing bothered me a lot. I still had the feeling that it was my fault, that somehow it had to do with what Frankie did to me. There was something about it that didn't make sense. Frankie was sort of tough, but he was pretty lazy, too. He wasn't the type of guy who would get up a scheme to burn down the mills by himself.

  There was a story about it in the Ledger the next day. It wasn't much of a story, only three or four paragraphs long. It said that Frankie and Benny had been caught in the Number Three mill with incendiary materials. They claimed they had been framed. Somebody had paid them money to take the five-gallon cans into the yard, they said. They'd been told it was cleaning fluid, not gasoline, they claimed. But according to the prosecutor, Scalzo and Briggs were known to bear a grievance against the Winchester family and had a motive for the act.

  I knew Frankie. You could take him in with a story like that, if you gave him some money. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that it just happened to be the two guys who'd beaten me up who got caught. Frankie and Benny weren't pals, especially. Just to begin with, Frankie was a couple of years older than Benny. But there was the other side to it: The prosecutor was right; Frankie and Benny sure had a grievance against the Winchesters. I wished I knew the truth: I wished there was somebody I could ask about it. But there wasn't, and I'd be going away to school soon, anyway. I'd been back to Boston and the doctor had taken the bandage off my nose. He said I could go, and Mom had taken me into Boston and bought me a lot of new clothes, which Uncle Foster paid for. That was one of the advantages of being a Winchester: They weren't going to let me go around looking poor.

  When I woke the next morning, it was pouring rain. I was pretty bored by that time, and rain would make it worse. When the weather was good I could always take the twins swimming or just walk around outside when I got tired of reading. But in the rain I was stuck. I would be glad when I could finally go to school.

  So I spent the morning reading, and after lunch I played Go Fish with the twins, which wasn't much help with the boredom. Then around three o'clock one of the maids came up and said there was a state trooper downstairs who wanted to see me.

  I went down. The trooper was standing in the hall in a big slicker, dripping water onto the rubber mat they put down when it rained. “There's a girl down by the gatehouse who wants to see you.”

  My heart jumped. It had to be Marie. I wanted to see her, and it made me glad that she had come to see me. “I'll go right down,” I said.

  “Listen, you better go with me. It might be a trap.”

  But I didn't want to talk to Marie in front of a state trooper. “I'll be all right,” I said.

  Just then Mom appeared. “Marie's down at the gatehouse,” I said.

  Mom shook her head. “You're not going,” she said. “You're going to stay right here, Chris. I'm not taking any more chances with you.”

  “Mom, I'm going. You can't stop me.”

  She looked at the trooper. “Go on back down there and tell her Chris isn't here. Tell her he's gone away to school.”

  “I think that's a good idea, ma'am.” Mom had already taken on some of the power of the Winchesters; now she could give orders to state troopers.

  “Damn you, Mom, I'm going,” I shouted.

  “No, you're not, Chris. I let you go once when I shouldn't have, and I'm not doing it again.”

  The trooper went out the door and shut it. I turned to run. Mom grabbed hold of the front of my shirt. “Chris, it's a trap.”

  “No, it isn't,” I shouted. “Marie wouldn't trap me. I'm going.” She hung onto my shirt, but I was stronger than she was, and I broke loose. I slammed open the front door and ran out into the rain.

  “Chris,” she shouted. “Come back.” But I went on running. The police car was already halfway down the drive, and going much faster than I could go. I ran on. I figured that Mom would call down to the gatehouse to have them hold me there. I swerved off the driveway into the field. The hay was soaked, and my shoes and pants got wet through in a minute. I skirted around the pond and then through the pine trees toward the road. By now I was totally wet. I didn't care. I went on running, and in a minute I came out on the road, in the direction of town from the gatehouse. I knelt down there and looked out. Marie was already past me, headed toward town on her bike. She was wearing a red raincoat and red rain hat, and riding slowly. “Marie,” I shouted.

  She didn't hear me. I began to run down the road after her. “Marie,” I shouted again.

  This time she turned her head. When she saw it was me she stopped, slipped off the bike, and stood there waiting for me. I ran up. She laid down the bike. “The cop said you'd already gone to school.”

  “They didn't want me to come. They were afraid you were setting a trap for me.” I reached out to catch hold of her hand.

  She pulled her hand away. “Don't, Chris.” She gave me a cool, steady look. “I see Benny broke your nose. He said he thought he did. You won't be so good-looking anymore.”

  “Marie, I didn't have anything to do with getting Frankie arrested. What could I do about it?”

  “You could ask them to let him go. They'll let him go if you ask.”

  “Marie, they wanted me to testify about Frankie and Benny after they beat me up. I told them I wouldn't. I refused to do it. You can't blame me for it.”

  The rain was pouring down on us pretty hard. It was running down our faces and under our collars. “You're a Winchester now,” she said. “I can blame you for everything. You're trying to ruin us.”

  “What do you mean, us?”

  “Us. Everybody in town. You'll do any kind of dirty trick to hurt us for no reason. You think you're too good for us now. Well, you're not. You're the scum of the earth, all of you.”

  She hated me, and I could see there was no hope of changing that, maybe ever. I felt just terrible, hurting inside worse than when Benny and Frankie had hurt me. I wanted to put my arms around her, to hug her. It was bad enough to know that we couldn't see each other. But it was far worse to realize that she hated me. “Marie, I didn't do any of those things.”

  “It doesn't matter who did them. You're all on the same side now. You were too good for me, and now you won't stop them from destroying us.”

  I took a deep breath to try to calm myself down. “Do you think that Uncle Foster and Skipper framed them?”

  She spit into the grass. “Of course they framed them. This guy told Frankie he was supposed to make a delivery of cleaning fluid, but he was afraid of the strikers and didn't want to cross the picket line. He gave Frankie and Benny twenty bucks each to go in there. He told them where there was a back gate that was unlocked. As soon as they came through the gate, the cops nabbed them. They were lying in wait.”

  I stood there thinking about it. I didn't want to believe it. I hoped it wasn't true. “Are you sure that's right? Are you sure it wasn't just a story Frankie made up after he was caught?”

  She gave me a hard look. “Frankie couldn't make up a story like that.”

  I wanted to put my arms around her so badly I could hardly stop myself. My hair was soaked and the water was running down the back of my neck onto my skin. “Marie, if you believe that, why did you come up here to see me?”

  “I came up to beg, Chris. I came up to beg you to ask that old man to let Frankie go.”

  “He isn't the police. He can't do that.”

  “Yes, he can,” she said. “Around here
the Winchesters can do anything they want.”

  That was true—at least it was true that Skipper could get Frankie off if he wanted. “It wouldn't do any good for me to ask. They don't do what I ask.”

  “You could try. You could beg them.”

  I thought about it. “Marie, I wish I could do something. I didn't want them to get Frankie in trouble.”

  She looked at me, her face soaked with rain, the water running down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. “Chris, the reason why I came up here was to tell you I'd have sex with you if you'll ask them to let Frankie go.”

  I was shocked. I stared at her. “You'd have sex with me? But where?”

  “Here. Right now. We could go over there into the pine trees.” She began to unbutton her raincoat. “Here,” she said. She reached in under the raincoat to unbutton her blouse. “You can feel me up if you want. You can do anything you want.”

  I wanted to. Even with everything, I wanted to. I closed my eyes, feeling weak. “No,” I said. “No.”

  “Why not, all of a sudden? You always wanted to before.”

  I kept my eyes closed. “I want to, but I'm not going to.”

  She took my hand, pulled it toward her, and pushed it under her blouse. “No,” I said. I pulled my hand out of her grip.

  I heard the sound of a car engine in the distance. I opened my eyes and looked. The police car was pulling out of the driveway. It headed toward us. Marie had her blouse totally undone. She had nothing on underneath. “No,” I said.

  The police car came up, and the trooper leaned out. “Everything okay? No problems?”

  “No problems,” I said. I turned and trotted across the road, into the pines, heading toward the big house. It was all ruined—everything was ruined, and I began to cry.

  CHAPTER 15

  Mom was standing in the front door, out of the rain, watching me run up the driveway. I shook myself to stop crying. I reached the steps and started up. She said, “That was a crazy thing to do, Chris. It might have been a trap.”

  “It wasn't a trap,” I said. I reached the top step. “Mom, did they frame Benny and Frankie?”

  “Let's go in out of the rain.”

  “I want an answer.”

  “I'll give you an answer. But first come in and dry off.” I came in. We went upstairs to where our rooms were. I took a shower and changed into dry clothes, and then sat in Mom's bedroom. She had a bottle of sherry in her closet, and she poured some into a glass on her bedside table.

  “What did Marie want?”

  “She said she'd have sex with me if I'd beg Uncle Foster and Skipper to let Frankie off.”

  Her eyes got wide and she didn't say anything for a minute. Then she said, “You never had sex with her before?”

  “No,” I said. “She didn't believe in it.”

  “I was never sure,” Mom said. She took a sip of her sherry.

  “Mom, did they frame those guys?”

  She waited a minute. Then she said, “Chris, we can't remake the world. Your grandfather and your uncle are in a very tough fight right now with the people in the town. Sometimes when there's a battle like this, people feel they have to do things they might not do at other times.”

  “So they did it.”

  She sipped at her sherry again. “Nobody ever told me that in so many words.”

  “And you think it's right.”

  “No, I don't,” she said. “But what Benny Briggs and Frankie Scalzo did to you wasn't right, either.”

  “Two wrongs don't make a right.”

  “That's a nice saying, Chris. It isn't the way things are. You're one of the Winchesters. They aren't going to let something like that happen to a Winchester.”

  I didn't say anything. Whatever reasons Skipper and Uncle Foster had for what they did, I couldn't accept it. They were going to ruin a lot of people's lives just to prove that they could. I knew what I had to do. I didn't know if it was right or wrong, but I was going to do it. I got up and started out of the room.

  “Where are you going now, Chris?”

  “I'm going to talk to them.”

  “Who?”

  “You know.” I went out of the room, down the stairs, and along the corridor to the back of the house. I knocked on the office door.

  “What is it?” Uncle Foster said.

  “It's Chris,” I said.

  “Chris, we're pretty busy,” he said through the door.

  “I have to talk about it now.” I guess Uncle Foster could hear in my voice that it was serious, for he told me to come in.

  Uncle Foster was sitting at his desk as usual, with his feet up on his wastebasket, looking out into the rain pouring down on the driveway, on the slate roof of the barn, on the fields beyond. My grandfather was in the easy chair with his cane across his knees. I didn't sit down but stood near the door.

  “What is it, Christopher?” Skipper asked.

  “Did you frame Benny Briggs and Frankie Scalzo?”

  Uncle Foster swung his feet off the wastebasket and swiveled around to face me. “Chris, I think—”

  “Of course we framed them,” Skipper said. “Or, to be completely accurate, we paid somebody to do it for us.”

  “You got some guy to give them twenty dollars to—”

  Skipper held up his hand. “Let's not get into the details. I don't think that's the point.”

  I looked from one to the other. “But why? Why did you have to do it?”

  “I should think you of all people would understand that,” Skipper said. I could see that Uncle Foster was leaving it up to Skipper.

  “I said I wouldn't testify against them.”

  “Yes. That's why we had to take another route.”

  “But why? Couldn't you have just forgotten about it? It's going to be terrible for the Scalzos. It's going to be just awful for them if Frankie goes to jail.”

  “No doubt it will,” Skipper said. He put the end of his cane on the floor, cupped his hands over the handle, and rested his chin on his hands. “But then it was pretty awful for you to endure that beating. Suppose they'd given you some kind of permanent injury, which they might easily have done. That would have been pretty awful, too.”

  “But they didn't hurt me that bad.”

  Skipper shook his head. “Christopher, you can't let people who injure you like that go unpunished. You have to strike hard and fast. You have to teach them a lesson they'll never forget.” He sat up and flicked the cane at a speck in the Oriental carpet. “Don't think for a minute that we did it to avenge your honor, or pride, or something like that. What you feel about it is irrelevant. We just could not permit anybody to do something like that to one of us. Nobody touches our people with impunity. Nobody.” He tapped the cane on the floor.

  “I was the one who got beat up,” I said. “Why wasn't it up to me to decide about it?”

  “Christopher, if you show signs of weakness, people will start nibbling away at your power, and soon enough you won't have it anymore.”

  “But maybe we shouldn't have all this power. Maybe we should share it.”

  “Quite possibly,” Skipper said. “Many things are possible, and I'm sure that when you go to college and study philosophy, as I hope you'll do, you'll look at all of these questions seriously. But as for me, for whatever reasons, we have the power. And I can see no point in surrendering it to somebody else who probably will do no better with it than we have, and might do worse.”

  What he was saying was beginning to confuse me, and I decided I'd better not try to argue with him. “Skipper,” I said, “I'm begging you to let those guys off.”

  “Winchesters don't beg, Christopher.”

  “All right. I'm asking it.”

  Now Uncle Foster began tapping a pencil on his desk very fast. “We can't do that, Chris,” he said. “We can't show weakness now. Not with the strike on. It would be fatal. We've got to show them we're implacable, unshakable.”

  “Hold on a minute, Foster,” Skipper said. “Just
think what the boy is going through. He's had to change a whole set of loyalties almost overnight.” He looked at me. “Christopher, what if we don't let them off, as you put it?”

  I took a deep breath. “If you don't, I won't go to private school. I know I can't go to the high school. But I'll do something—run away, or go down to Pittsburgh and live with Mom's folks, or something. But I won't go to private school or any of that.”

  They both looked at me. Then Skipper and Uncle Foster looked at each other. Skipper nodded. “I thought it would be something like that.” He laid his cane across his lap. “All right, Christopher, we'll negotiate. Frankie Scalzo is the one you're most concerned about, isn't he?”

  “No,” I said. “All three.”

  “Three?” Uncle Foster said.

  “Mr. Briggs, too.”

  Skipper shook his head. “Not him, Christopher. He killed my dog. I have to have him.”

  I felt strange, weird, dealing away these peoples' lives—kind of cool, with my voice seeming to come from another part of the room. “But Benny, though. Frankie and Benny.”

  He sat there thinking for a minute. Just for a moment he smiled a tiny smile. “You're going to be a pretty tough negotiator one of these days, Christopher. All right, let's do what you often have to do in these situations. We'll split the difference. I'll take Briggs Senior, you take Scalzo, and we'll let Briggs Junior off with a misdemeanor charge and a year's probation. How does that sit with you?”

  That, I knew, was take it or leave it. “You promise.”

  He suddenly sat up straight and his eyes flashed. “Christopher, never ask me that. If I make a deal, you count on my word for every inch of it.”

  I blushed. “I'm sorry. I take it back.”

  Uncle Foster shook his head. “I don't like it, Skipper. If Chris can't get his loyalties straight, that's his problem.”

  “Give him time, Foster,” Skipper said. “He's a good boy, but he needs time.” Then he stood up and put out his hand. I took it and we shook. “You can call your girl and put her mind at ease,” he said. “But I wouldn't give any details. Just say that the boys won't be going to jail. Perhaps she'll look on you more favorably.”