by Gil Brewer
“What?”
She shook her head, holding the covers to her chin.
She said, “Please, come down here a minute.”
I knelt on the mattress, then sat beside her. She reached out, her hand very warm, the lips a little loose, the eyes not focusing. I thought she was going to cry, but she didn’t.
She swallowed, looking up at me, the thick dark hair spilled about her pale face. The eyes were very dark and it would have been a wonderful thing, only it didn’t matter any more to me.
“I’m sorry about how I acted the other day at the house,” she said softly. It was as if she were reciting lessons and this was number one. “I’m very sorry about that,” she said.
“Forget it.” I squeezed her hand.
“I’m sorry how I talked, how I said things—I didn’t mean them. I was hurt, I guess.”
“Sure,” I said. “Why don’t you catch a nap?”
“No. No. I’m not sleepy.”
“Maybe not. Just drunk.”
“I’m not drunk. Maybe I look drunk, but I’m not drunk. Not really. It’s just how I look.”
“All right, that’s settled.”
“Please, Al—be kind.”
The coffee was bubbling on the stove and I began to smell it. There is nothing quite like the smell of coffee very early in the morning. I knew that I needed the coffee.
I started to draw my hand away.
“Wait,” she said.
“Take a nap.”
“I don’t want a nap,” she said. She did not change her tone from that soft pleading. “I want you and you and you,” she said. “Always and ever and ever.”
“Easy.”
“I can’t help it. You’ve brought it all back, Al—you’ve made me see it.”
I stared at her. She suddenly sat up, reeled a little, then put her arms around me. Her face was buried in my chest and I sat there wishing she could be Noraine. I did not feel good about it, but I wished it just the same. “You’ve brought it back, all back,” she said again. “I’d almost forgotten—I love you, Al—I love you.
“I had to come here to see you tonight, I had to. Did it make you angry to wake up with me beside you?”
I didn’t know what to do. I brought my hand up and roughened her hair and shoved her back on the bed, trying to laugh. It seemed to come off. I found the bottle and handed it to her. She held it, watching me.
“Take a nap,” I said. I wanted to tell her that I did not love her, that she had make a mistake in coming here like this in the middle of the night, drunk. I couldn’t tell her. “It’s nearly morning,” I said.
“All right,” she said.
“Take a drink first.”
She smiled and took a drink, then handed me the bottle. I set it beside the mattresses on the floor.
“Kiss me,” she said.
I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. She tried to hold me. I pulled away and roughed her hair.
“Sleep,” I told her.
She nodded and closed her eyes.
I waited a moment and she didn’t open her eyes, so finally I stood up and went out into the kitchen, watching the coffee boil.
I found a cup in the cupboard, rinsed it at the pump, then poured some coffee.
I found my coat, put it on, left the coffee undrunk on the table and went outside. In the barn I found the shovel I’d used to dig Bunk’s grave. I took it out front and began shoveling the drive. Finally it was clean enough. I got the coupé started and headed down the main street of Pine Springs.
I drove as fast as I dared on the snow-packed road, something drawn tight inside me—wanting to find her—really scared about her not being there.
I knew the house was empty before I switched off the ignition, but I had to see. I ran across the snow-deep lawn, up onto the porch, and grabbed the bell. It made plenty of racket, clanging inside there.
I came off the porch, went around to the garage. It was empty, the door stuck open and snow drifting inside the garage.
Along Main Street it was very still. There was no light in the sheriff’s office now. Already the snow was dusting in small drifts where the plow had cleared it. I turned in my driveway again, got out and went to the kitchen.
The house smelled strongly of coffee.
Lois was asleep on the mattresses, bundled above her chin, one hand up and snarled in her hair.
I poured a fresh cup of coffee and drank it, and then another. It made me feel a little more awake, not as fuzzy.
Cold air was beginning to seep into the kitchen. I stoked the fire good, took the shotgun from the cupboard, turned off the kitchen light and went outside to the car. The shotgun fitted fine up along the back of the seat.
“You Mr. Isaacs?”
The tall thin man with the earlaps and the wooden toboggan stood with his key in the door of the gunshop.
“I’m Tillotson.”
“I’m looking for Mr. Isaacs.”
“It’s only eight.”
“I know. I’ve been waiting since six.”
Tillotson’s earlaps were red. He was middleaged, his face white and blue, with lines under the eyes. There was a sign over the door of the gunshop. The sign was a replica of a muzzle-loading long rifle with Isaacs’ name on the stock.
“Well,” Tillotson said, “he won’t be in till later on.”
“Maybe you could help me. You work here?”
“That’s right.”
He still stood there with his key in the lock. I had the shotgun under my arm. I had been waiting in the car at the curb since six forty-five.
Tillotson unlocked the door and went inside. It was a large shop, running the length of the building, and it was warm inside. There was a small room at the front, formed by a wooden counter and glass cases of revolvers and pistols. On the walls, in wooden racks, were rifles of every description. From the counter on back were workbenches and various machines, and still more guns. It was an arsenal. There was an odor of oil and heat and metal, and the place was thick with dust.
Tillotson went to a large oilstove, inspected it, took off his coat, hat and earlaps and hung them on a rack behind the stove. Then he came over to me again.
“Now,” he said.
I showed him the gun and asked him about it.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” he said, turning it in his hands. He took a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his flannel shirt pocket and hung them on his thin nose. He cocked his head over the gun. “It’s Bob, all right—he did this, all right.”
“Who for?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never seen it before. I’ve only been here a couple years.”
“When will Mr. Isaacs be in?”
“Won’t be in till sometime this afternoon.”
“No way of you looking this gun up in some books, or something?”
“Nope.”
“Isn’t there any—?”
“No way I can tell. He made it for somebody, though—somebody with a short reach, kind of, I’d say.
“Could I reach him at his home?”
“Not home. Why don’t you leave the gun here? We’ll write you about it, or call you—you live in town?”
“No.”
“Well, leave the gun and your address. You find it? That it? Trying to find-”
“No. I mean, well—yes.”
Tillotson looked at me for a moment, handed the gun to me, turned away and walked back into the shop. “He’ll be here when he gets here, I figure,” he said.
I went to the car and slid behind the wheel. I laid the gunstock down on the floor, against the seat. The sun was out. I tried not to think of Sam Gunther’s body up in Cross Glen.
I turned the car around and drove on through Riverton and along the river in the opposite direction to Pine Springs. I forced myself to keep driving. When I stopped for gas at a station on the highway, I could stand it no longer.
I drove back to Riverton and stopped in front of the gunshop. It was twelve-thirty. I went inside. Tillotson was eatin
g a sandwich at one of the workbenches, and drinking coffee from a thermos cup.
“Any sign of—?”
“Nope. He won’t be in for a time yet.”
“I see.”
Tillotson went on eating. He did not look at me.
“All right to wait a while here?”
“Yep.”
There was an old straight chair beside the counter and I sat in that, staring at my hands. Tillotson finished eating, wadded paper up and threw it on the floor, belched, stretched and returned to his work.
I sat there without speaking again until one twenty-five, then stood up. “I’ll go get a bite to eat,” I said. “If he comes in, hold him for me, will you?”
Tillotson nodded. He was working with an emery wheel.
I went outside and found a restaurant and ate something. It was two o’clock now. I suddenly knew I had to get back to Pine Springs.
In the gunshop there was only Tillotson, still at the emery wheel. I went over and sat down in the chair. I’d been sitting there for about fifteen minutes when I happened to think how Tillotson had acted earlier.
“Mr. Isaacs didn’t come in, did he?”
Tillotson shut the emery wheel off.
“Yes. Bob came in.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said. “You knew I wanted to see him.”
Tillotson shrugged.
“Where is he now?” I said. “Where can I find him?”
“He went home. He’s got a cold.”
With patient asking, I finally got Isaacs’ address out of Tillotson and went outside to the car.
“Yes, I worked on this piece,” Isaacs said. He was an old man with gentle eyes and a bushy head of white hair. His home was small, warm and tidy.
“Could you tell me who you made it for?”
“Sure. I made it for a man named Weyman Gunther, out in Pine Springs. Actually I had the order from his father, but the son had to come in for measurements.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
Isaacs tipped his head a little, watching me. Then his lips cracked into a smile. “I wouldn’t forget that gun,” he said. “Not that one.”
They picked me up just outside of Pine Springs. Sheriff Luckham and Deputy Cole in the sheriff’s sedan. They stopped my car and Luckham climbed in beside me.
“Drive,” he said. “We found Sam Gunther.”
ELEVEN
Cole brought Luckham’s sedan around behind the coupé. For a moment I couldn’t move. Luckham had picked up the shotgun where I had it leaning against the seat. He held it on his lap, looking across at me.
“What do you mean?” I said. “So you found Sam Gunther.”
“Just drive to the office.”
“How’s for an explanation?”
He said nothing; he just waited. Finally I started the car and drove on toward Pine Springs, Luckham holding the shotgun.
I parked the coupé in front of the sheriff’s office and Cole drew up with the sedan and got out and opened my door.
I looked at him. His face was very sober. He jerked his head, motioning me out. I climbed out and he slammed the door. Luckham was out on the other side. We went on inside the hot office and Cole closed the door.
“What’s this all about?” I said.
Luckham took his Stetson off and laid it on top of the desk, then looked at the shotgun again.
“This the one you used?” he said.
“You’ll have to tell me what this is all about,” I said.
Cole stood beside me, watching me.
“You lie to me,” Luckham said, “and I’ll break your head, Harper. I’ll break your head, you hear?” He said it very calmly, looking at the shotgun. He broke the gun, looked down both barrels, then closed it again. He looked sick today, his eyes like dirty cream.
“Cole,” he said, “lock the door.”
Cole left my side and I heard the latch click.
“Now, show him what I mean about breaking his head.”
Something struck me viciously on the right temple. As I reeled and went to my knees, I knew it had been the flat of a revolver. The pain was awful and I couldn’t see, kneeling there on the floor. The pain began to go away and I tried to get up. My vision cleared. I stood up and looked at Cole. He was sitting on the pile of books under the girly calendar, holding his revolver, waiting.
“That’s a promise,” Luckham said.
“You must mean Sam Gunther is dead,” I said. “You couldn’t mean anything else.”
“Good night!” Cole said.
“Oh, he’s a guesser,” Luckham said. “He’s a champeen.”
The room was very silent for a time.
“Show him,” Luckham said. “Show him, and then tell Curtiss it’s all right to call for it. Tell him to come around the back way and pick it up; I don’t want them walking through here.”
Cole stood up and motioned to me. We went to the door where the cells were. We walked down a short hall past the three cells to another door. He opened the door and there was a small woodshed out there. On the floor, lying on a blanket just beyond the door, was the body of Sam Gunther. His knees were up, his arms curiously twisted, one up under his head. He looked a little like a man resting, only the man had only half a head and it was too cold in the woodshed to rest, anyway. The left eye of the corpse was open wide, bits of leaves and stuff resting on the eyeball.
Cole closed the door and we went back to the office. He picked up the phone, and started talking.
“Now that we all know what we’re talking about,” Luckham said with a trace of sarcasm, “everything’s jiffy. We saved him for you, because after all it was dark last night and we wanted you to have a good look at him.” He rubbed his eyes with both thumbs. “You deserve that, at least.”
Cole hung up. “He’s coming right over,” he said.
Luckham went on speaking to me. “Lolladue tells us it happened last night, which we realize is right. Two boys found the body, Harper—ain’t that a dirty shame?”
I began to feel sick.
“These two boys, they saw you when you came down off the hill,” Luckham said. “They told us you were running, Harper—carrying a shotgun.”
I did not speak.
“You know how boys are. They’re curious and suspicious. Even when there isn’t anything to be suspicious about, they’re still suspicious, because they can make a game of it. See? It’s all very mysterious and interesting, like a movie they probably saw last Saturday in Westfield. See?”
My right ear continued to ring.
“These two kids, they got to thinking about your running with the shotgun, looking back up there, like—and they thought all night about it, see? And they decided they’d trail where you were.”
“You’ve got this all wrong,” I said. “All of it.”
Luckham slowly waved his head from side to side.
“Nope,” he said. “The snow didn’t cover your tracks. Snow drifted on the other side of the fence, and most of your footprints were left. Them two kids trailed you, Harper—clear to Cross Glen and they found the body—rather their dog found it. The wind had cleared it, but they said maybe somebody had tried to cover it with leaves. Scared ‘em.”
“You’ve got it wrong.”
“Doc Lolladue says it happened last night. Says it was a shotgun. Now what were you and Sam doing up in Cross Glen?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Why would I kill Sam Gunther?”
“Because he was making a play for your girl—that’s why? And maybe because of a lot of other things, too.”
“What girl?”
“Noraine Temple.”
“How do you know this?”
“We know.”
“Listen,” I said. “I didn’t do it. You’ve got to believe that. I didn’t! But something’s going on—and it scares the hell out of me. I can’t find Miss Temple.”
Luckham moved lazily in his chair. “Tough,” he said.
“Isn’t it tough?” Cole said.
“I was at my place,” I went on. “I saw a man come down off the hill, so that much is true. But he threw something beside the road. I didn’t recognize who it was. I went over there and found the gun and that’s when those two kids saw me.”
“An inventive genius,” Luckham said.
“It’s true, though,” I said. “I took the gun to Riverton this morning, over to Bob Isaacs’ gunshop. He said he made that shotgun for Weyman Gunther.”
“So he made it for Weyman Gunther. So what?”
“Have you seen Weyman?”
“No.”
Luckham was looking up at me, the white pouches beneath his eyes even heavier than usual. And it began to come to me about Weyman more and more. The kind of man he was, the way he had been back there in school days. It scared me, and I was trapped here, with Luckham certain I had killed Sam Gunther. And what if Weyman had Noraine?
“We saw Miss Temple last night,” Luckham said. “When we stopped by to see Sam about a little thing. She was all alone in the house out there, waiting for him. He’d stepped out for a while.”
Cole stood up and walked around behind me.
“You don’t seem to realize,” Luckham said. “We know you killed him.”
“I tell you I didn’t. You’d better go find Weyman Gunther—I’m telling you that.”
Cole hit me again. I had seen Luckham motion with his head and the blow caught me in the back of the neck. I staggered forward and fell across Luckham.
Luckham gave me a shove. “I liked you,” he said. “I was on your side. And now look what you’ve done. You’ve been lying all along. You’re lying right now—it’s written all over your face. Well, we’re going to change your face, Harper—and maybe that’ll bring out the truth.” He came out of the chair in one swift movement, drawing his gun. Right then somebody started beating on the door.
“Let me in! Open the door!”
It was Lois. Luckham’s hand dropped, but he continued looking at me.
“Let her in,” he said softly.
Cole went to the door and unlocked it.
Lois burst into the office. Her head was bare, the black hair snarled.
“What are you doing to him?” she said.
“Nothing,” the sheriff said. “Nothing, Miss Gunther. It’s just he killed your father, but he won’t admit it.”
