“What started? The train?”
“No. It. The train had been running already a good while; we were out in the country now. I didn’t know then that I had been chosen. I was just setting there in the train, with the portfolio on my knees where I could take care of it. Even when I went back to the ice water I didn’t know that I had been chosen. I carried the portfolio with me and I was standing there, looking out the window and drinking out of the little paper cup. There was a bank running along by the train then, with a white fence on it, and I could see animals inside the fence, but the train was going too fast to tell what kind of animals they were.
“So I had filled the cup again and I was drinking, looking out at the bank and the fence and the animals inside the fence, when all of a sudden it felt like I had been thrown off the earth. I could see the bank and the fence go whirling away. And then I saw it. And just as I saw it, it was like it had kind of exploded inside my head. Do you know what it was I saw?”
“What was it you saw?”
He watched me. “I saw a face. In the air, looking at me across that white fence on top of the bank. It was not a man’s face, because it had horns, and it was not a goat’s face because it had a beard and it was looking at me with eyes like a man and its mouth was open like it was saying something to me when it exploded inside my head.”
“Yes. And then what? What did you do next?”
“You are saying ‘He saw a goat inside that fence.’ I know. But I didn’t ask you to believe. Remember that. Because I am twenty-five years past bothering if folks believe me or not. That’s enough for me. And I guess that’s all anything amounts to.”
“Yes,” I said. “What did you do then?”
“Then I was laying down, with my face all wet and my mouth and throat feeling like it was on fire. The man was just taking the bottle away from my mouth (there were two men there, and the porter and the conductor) and I tried to sit up. ‘That’s whiskey in that bottle,’ I said.
“ ‘Why, sure not, doc,’ the man said. ‘You know I wouldn’t be giving whiskey to a man like you. Anybody could tell by looking at you that you never took a drink in your life. Did you?’ I told him I hadn’t. ‘Sure you haven’t,’ he said. ‘A man could tell by the way it took that curve to throw you down that you belonged to the ladies’ temperance. You sure took a bust on the head, though. How do you feel now? Here, take another little shot of this tonic.’
“ ‘I think that’s whiskey,’ I said.
“And was it whiskey?”
“I dont know. I have forgotten. Maybe I knew then. Maybe I knew what it was when I took another dose of it. But that didn’t matter, because it had already started then.”
“The whiskey had already started?”
“No. It. It was stronger than whiskey. Like it was drinking out of the bottle and not me. Because the men held the bottle up and looked at it and said, ‘You sure drink it like it ain’t whiskey, anyway. You’ll sure know soon if it is or not, won’t you?’
“When the train stopped where the ticket said, it was all green, the light was, and the mountains. The wagon was there, and the two men when they helped me down from the train and handed me the portfolio, and I stood there and I said, ‘Let her rip.’ That’s what I said: ‘Let her rip’; and the two men looking at me like you are looking at me.”
“How looking at you?”
“Yes. But you dont have to believe. And I told them to wait while I got the whistle—”
“Whistle?”
“There was a store there, too. The store and the depot, and then the mountains and the green cold without any sun, and the dust kind of pale looking where the wagon was standing. Then we—”
“But the whistle,” I said.
“I bought it in the store. It was a tin one, with holes in it. I couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. So I threw the portfolio into the wagon and I said, ‘Let her rip.’ That was what I said. One of them took the portfolio out of the wagon and gave it back to me and said, ‘Say, doc, ain’t this valuable?’ and I took it and threw it back into the wagon and I said, ‘Let her rip.’
“We all rode on the seat together, me in the middle. We sung. It was cold, and we went along the river, singing, and came to the mill and stopped. While one of them went inside the mill I began to take off my clothes—”
“Take off your clothes?”
“Yes. My Sunday suit. Taking them off and throwing them right down in the dust, by gummy.”
“Wasn’t it cold?”
“Yes. It was cold. Yes. When I took off my clothes I could feel the cold on me. Then the one came back from the mill with a jug and we drank out of the jug—”
“What was in the jug?”
“I dont know. I dont remember. It wasn’t whiskey. I could tell by the way it looked. It was clear like water.”
“Couldn’t you tell by the smell?”
“I dont smell, you see. I dont know what they call it. But ever since I was a child, I couldn’t smell some things. They say that’s why I have stayed down here for twenty-five years.
“So we drank and I went to the bridge rail. And just as I jumped I could see myself in the water. And I knew that it had happened then. Because my body was a human man’s body. But my face was the same face that had gone off inside my head back there on the train, the face that had horns and a beard.
“When I got back into the wagon we drank again out of the jug and we sung, only after a while I put on my underclothes and my pants like they wanted me to, and then we went on, singing.
“When we came in sight of the house I got out of the wagon. ‘You dont want to get out here,’ they said. ‘We are in the pasture where they keep that bull chained up.’ But I got out of the wagon, with my Sunday coat and vest and the portfolio, and the tin flute.”
III
HE CEASED. He looked at me, quite grave, quite quiet.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes. Then what?”
He watched me. “I never asked you to believe nothing, did I? I will have to say that for you.” His hand was inside his bosom. “Well, you had some pretty hard going, so far. But now I will take the strain off of you.”
From his bosom he drew out a canvas wallet. It was roughly sewn by a clumsy hand and soiled with much usage. He opened it. But before he drew out the contents he looked at me again. “Do you ever make allowances?”
“Allowances?”
“For folks. For what folks think they see. Because nothing ever looks the same to two different people. Never looks the same to one person, depending on which side of it he looks at it from.”
“Oh,” I said. “Allowances. Yes. Yes.”
From the wallet he drew a folded sheet of newspaper. The page was yellow with age, the broken seams glued carefully with strips of soiled cloth. He opened it carefully, gingerly, and turned it and laid it on the table before me. “Dont try to pick it up,” he said. “It’s kind of old now, and it’s the only copy I have. Read it.”
I looked at it: the fading ink, the blurred page dated twenty-five years ago:
MANIAC AT LARGE IN VIRGINIA MOUNTAINS
PROMINENT NEW YORK SOCIETY WOMAN
ATTACKED IN OWN GARDEN
Mrs. Carleton Van Dyming Of New York And Newport Attacked By Half Nude Madman And Maddened Bull In Garden Of Her Summer Lodge.
Maniac Escapes. Mrs. Van Dyming Prostrate
It went on from there, with pictures and diagrams, to tell how Mrs. Van Dyming, who was expecting a man from the office of her New York architect, was called from the dinner table to meet, as she supposed, the architect’s man. The story continued in Mrs. Van Dyming’s own words:
I went to the library, where I had directed that the architect’s man be brought, but there was no one there. I was about to ring for the footman when it occurred to me to go to the front door, since it is a local custom among these country people to come to the front and refuse to advance further or to retreat until the master or the mistress of the house appears. I went to the door. There
was no one there.
I stepped out onto the porch. The light was on, but at first I could see no one. I started to re-enter the house but the footman had told me distinctly that the wagon had returned from the village, and I thought that the man had perhaps gone on to the edge of the lawn where he could see the theatre site, where the workmen had that day begun to prepare the ground by digging up the old grape vines. So I went in that direction. I had almost reached the end of the lawn when something caused me to turn. I saw, in relief between me and the lighted porch, a man bent over and hopping on one leg, who to my horror I realised to be in the act of removing his trousers.
I screamed for my husband. When I did so, the man freed his other leg and turned and came toward me running, clutching a knife (I could see the light from the porch gleaming on the long blade) in one hand, and a flat, square object in the other. I turned then and ran screaming toward the woods.
I had lost all sense of direction. I simply ran for my life. I found that I was inside the old vineyard, among the grape vines, running directly away from the house. I could hear the man running behind me and suddenly I heard him begin to make a strange noise. It sounded like a child trying to blow upon a penny whistle, then I realised that it was the sound of his breath whistling past the knifeblade clinched between his teeth.
Suddenly something overtook and passed me, making a tremendous uproar in the shrubbery. It rushed so near me that I could see its glaring eyes and the shape of a huge beast with horns, which I recognised a moment later as Carleton’s—Mr. Van Dyming’s—prize Durham bull; an animal so dangerous that Mr. Van Dyming is forced to keep it locked up. It was now free and it rushed past and on ahead, cutting off my advance, while the madman with the knife cut off my retreat. I was at bay; I stopped with my back to a tree, screaming for help.
“How did the bull get out?” I said.
He was watching my face while I read, like I might have been a teacher grading his school paper. “When I was a boy, I used to take subscriptions to the Police Gazette, for premiums. One of the premiums was a little machine guaranteed to open any lock. I dont use it anymore, but I still carry it in my pocket, like a charm or something, I guess. Anyway, I had it that night.” He looked down at the paper on the table. “I guess folks tell what they believe they saw. So you have to believe what they think they believe. But that paper dont tell how she kicked off her slippers (I nigh broke my neck over one of them) so she could run better, and how I could hear her going wump-wump-wump inside like a dray horse, and how when she would begin to slow up a little I would let out another toot on the whistle and off she would go again.
“I couldn’t even keep up with her, carrying that portfolio and trying to blow on that whistle too; seemed like I never would get the hang of it, somehow. But maybe that was because I had to start trying so quick, before I had time to kind of practice up, and running all the time too. So I threw the portfolio away and then I caught up with her where she was standing with her back against the tree, and that bull running round and round the tree, not bothering her, just running around the tree, making a right smart of fuss, and her leaning there whispering ‘Carleton. Carleton’ like she was afraid she would wake him up.”
The account continued:
I stood against the tree, believing that each circle which the bull made, it would discover my presence. That was why I ceased to scream. Then the man came up where I could see him plainly for the first time. He stopped before me; for one both horrid and joyful moment I thought he was Mr. Van Dyming. “Carleton!” I said.
He didn’t answer. He was stooped over again, then I saw that he was engaged with the knife in his hand. “Carleton!” I cried.
“ ‘Dang if I can get the hang of it, somehow,’ he kind of muttered, busy with the murderous knife.
“Carleton!” I cried. “Are you mad?”
He looked up then. I saw that it was not my husband, that I was at the mercy of a madman, a maniac, and a maddened bull. I saw the man raise the knife to his lips and blow again upon it that fearful shriek. Then I fainted.
IV
AND THAT WAS ALL. The account merely went on to say how the madman had vanished, leaving no trace, and that Mrs. Van Dyming was under the care of her physician, with a special train waiting to transport her and her household, lock, stock, and barrel, back to New York; and that Mr. Van Dyming in a brief interview had informed the press that his plans about the improvement of the place had been definitely rescinded and that the place was now for sale.
I folded the paper as carefully as he would have. “Oh,” I said. “And so that’s all.”
“Yes. I waked up about daylight the next morning, in the woods. I didn’t know when I went to sleep nor where I was at first. I couldn’t remember at first what I had done. But that aint strange. I guess a man couldn’t lose a day out of his life and not know it. Do you think so?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I think too.”
“Because I know I aint as evil to God as I guess I look to a lot of folks. And I guess that demons and such and even the devil himself aint quite as evil to God as lots of folks that claim to know a right smart about His business would make you believe. Dont you think that’s right?” The wallet lay on the table, open. But he did not at once return the newspaper to it.
Then he quit looking at me; at once his face became diffident, childlike again. He put his hand into the wallet; again he did not withdraw it at once.
“That aint exactly all,” he said, his hand inside the wallet, his eyes downcast, and his face: that mild, peaceful, nondescript face across which a mild moustache straggled. “I was a powerful reader, when I was a boy. Do you read much?”
“Yes. A good deal.”
But he was not listening. “I would read about pirates and cowboys, and I would be the head pirate or cowboy—me, a durn little tyke that never saw the ocean except at Coney Island or a tree except in Washington Square day in and out. But I read them, believing like every boy, that some day … that living wouldn’t play a trick on him like getting him alive and then.… When I went home that morning to get ready to take the train, Martha says, ‘You’re just as good as any of them Van Dymings, for all they get into the papers. If all the folks that deserved it got into the papers, Park Avenue wouldn’t hold them, or even Brooklyn,’ she says.” He drew his hand from the wallet. This time it was only a clipping, one column wide, which he handed me, yellow and faded too, and not long:
MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE
FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED
Wilfred Middleton, New York Architect, Disappears From Millionaire’s Country House
POSSE SEEKS BODY OF ARCHITECT BELIEVED SLAIN BY MADMAN IN VIRGINIA MOUNTAINS
May Be Coupled With Mysterious Attack On Mrs. Van Dyming
Mountain Neighborhood In State Of Terror
…………, Va. April 8, …… Wilfred Middleton, 56, architect, of New York City, mysteriously disappeared sometime on April 6th, while en route to the country house of Mr. Carleton Van Dyming near here. He had in his possession some valuable drawings which were found this morning near the Van Dyming estate, thus furnishing the first clue. Chief of Police Elmer Harris has taken charge of the case, and is now awaiting the arrival of a squad of New York detectives, when he promises a speedy solution if it is in the power of skilled criminologists to do so.
MOST BAFFLING IN ALL HIS EXPERIENCE
“When I solve this disappearance,” Chief Harris is quoted, “I will also solve the attack on Mrs. Van Dyming on the same date.”
Middleton leaves a wife, Mrs. Martha Middleton, ……………st., Brooklyn.
He was watching my face. “Only it’s one mistake in it,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “They got your name wrong.”
“I was wondering if you’d see that. But that’s not the mistake.…” He had in his hand a second clipping which he now extended. It was like the other two; yellow, faint. I looked at it, the fading, peaceful print through which, like a thin, rotting n
et, the old violence had somehow escaped, leaving less than the dead gesture fallen to quiet dust. “Read this one. Only that’s not the mistake I was thinking about. But then, they couldn’t have known at that time.…”
I was reading, not listening to him. This was a reprinted letter, an ‘agony column’ letter:
New Orleans, La.
April 10,.…
To the Editor, New York Times
New York, N. Y.
Dear Sir
In your issue of April 8, this year you got the name of the party wrong. The name is Midgleston not Middleton. Would thank you to correct this error in local and metropolitan columns as the press a weapon of good & evil into every American home. And a power of that weight cannot afford mistakes even about people as good as any man or woman even if they dont get into the papers every day.
Thanking you again, beg to remain
A Friend
“Oh,” I said. “I see. You corrected it.”
“Yes. But that’s not the mistake. I just did that for her. You know how women are. Like as not she would rather not see it in the papers at all than to see it spelled wrong.”
“She?”
“My wife. Martha. The mistake was, if she got them or not.”
“I dont—Maybe you’d better tell me.”
“That’s what I am doing. I got two of the first one, the one about the disappearance, but I waited until the letter come out. Then I put them both into a piece of paper with A Friend on it, and put them into a envelope and mailed them to her. But I dont know if she got them or not. That was the mistake.”
Collected Stories Page 74
