The Kill-off Part 12

She paused, breathing heavily, her bosom heaving up and down. I was going to say something back to her, but I decided it wasn't worthwhile. I couldn't lose the election. I-why, I just couldn't. And when a person can't do something...

"Yes," she said. "Yes, you can, Henry. You know I'm right. You know you don't have good sense. You-shut up when I'm speaking to you, Henry! Henry!"

"I'm not saying anything," I said. "All I was going to say was-"

"Nothing that would make any sense, that's what you were going to say. You were going to say that no one in this town pays any attention to Luane Devore, but they do, all right. Perhaps they don't believe what she says, but they remember it-and they wonder about it-and when a man is a spineless incompetent to begin with, it doesn't take a deal of wondering to dump him out of his sinecure. At any rate, you seem to have forgotten that it takes more than the town vote to elect you. You have to have the farm people, and they don't know that when Luane Devore says you- we-that she's lying!"

"Well, they will," I said. "After all, you've had that tumor quite a while now, and when you don't have a-I mean, when nothing happens, why-"

I swallowed back the words. I looked down at my plate, tried to keep my eyes there, but something seemed to pull them back up.

She stared at me, silently. She sat there, staring and waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting and waiting.

I threw my napkin on the table, and jumped up.

I marched to the telephone, and asked for the Devore residence. There was a lot of clicking and clattering; then the operator said that the Devore line was out of order.

"Out of order, eh?" I said. "Well-"

Lily took the phone out of my hands. She said, "Did you say the Devore line was out of order, operator? Thank you, very much."

She hung up and put the phone back on its stand. It seemed to me that she owed me an apology for doubting my word, but naturally I didn't get one. Instead she asked me what I was going to do about the line being out of order.

"Why, I'm going to fix it, of course!" I said. "I'm a telephone repair man, ain't I?"

"Please-" She put her fingers to her forehead. "Please spare me your attempts at humor, Henry."

"Well, I'll wait until it's in order. Naturally," I said. "I'll call her later on from the office."

"But suppose it isn't repaired today?" She shook her head. "I think it would be best to go and see her, Henry. Lay down the law to her in person. Tell her that if she doesn't stop her lies, and if she doesn't issue a public retraction immediately, you'll have her indicted for criminal slander."

"But-but, look," I said. "I can't do that. I mean, going out and jumping all over a sick old woman, and-and it wouldn't look right! No matter what she's done, why she's a woman, a sick old woman, and I'm a man-"

"Are you?" Lily said. "Then, why don't you act like one?"

"Anyway, it's-it's probably illegal," I said. "Might get into a lot of trouble. I'm a public official. If I use my public office in a personal matter, why-All right!" I said. "Go ahead and shake your head! You're doggone good at telling someone else what to do, but when it comes to doing it yourself that's something else again, ain't it?"

"Very well, Henry." She turned away from me. "Could I impose on you to the extent of driving me out there?"

"Why, certainly," I said. "I'm always gl-what?"

"I'll see her myself. I'll guarantee that by the time I'm through, she'll have told her last lie. And if you don't want to drive me out, I'll walk. I'll-"

Suddenly, she was crying, weeping wildly. Suddenly, all the coldness and calmness were gone, and she was a different woman.

It was like that time years ago, when we were kids out on the farm. She'd taken me down in the meadow that day to search out some hens' nests. We came to one, half-filled with eggs, and just as she reached for it, a rattlesnake reared up on the opposite side. And what happened then- my G.o.d!

She busted out bawling, but it wasn't the usual kind. Not the way people cry when they're frightened or hurt or something like that. It was, well, wild-crazy. More like real mean cussing than bawling. It scared h.e.l.l out of me, a six-year-old kid, and I guess it did the same to the snake, because he tried to whip away. But she wouldn't let him. She grabbed up that deadly rattler in her bare hands, and yanked him in two! Then she threw the pieces down, and began to jump on them. Bawling in that wild, crazy way. And she didn't stop until there wasn't enough left of that snake to make a grease spot.

I've never forgotten how she acted that day. I don't think I ever will. If I'd had any idea that my harmless little remark at breakfast would have started anything like this...

"I'll take care of her! I'll fix that filthy s.l.u.t! I'll t-teach her how t-to-"

"Lily!" I said. "Listen to me, Lily! I'm going to-"

"You! You don't c-care! You don't know what it means to a woman t-to-I'LL CLAW HER EYES OUT! I'LL PULL HER FILTHY TONGUE OUT OF HER THROAT! I'LL-LET GO OF ME! Y-YOU LET-"

I didn't let go. I held on tight, shaking her as hard as I could. And I didn't like doing it, you know, but I was more afraid not to.

As soon as she was quieted enough to listen, I began to talk. To tell her and keep telling her that I'd see Luane Devore myself. That I definitely and positively promised I would. I kept repeating it until it finally sank in on her, and she snapped out of her fit.

"All r-right, Henry." She shuddered and blew her nose. "I certainly hope I can depend on you. If I thought for a moment that-"

"I told you I would," I said. "I'll do it this evening. Right after I close the office."

"After? But why can't you-?"

"Because," I said, "it's a personal matter; you can't get around that. Even seeing her after office hours could put me in a pretty awkward position if someone chose to make anything out of it. But I certainly can't do it on the county's time."

She hesitated, studying me. At last, she sighed and turned away again.

"All right," she said. "But if you don't really intend to, I wish you'd say so. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I care whether you do talk to her. I'm perfectly willing to do it myself-I'd like doing it-"

"I said I'd do it," I said. "Immediately after five tonight. Now, it's all settled, so forget it."

I left before she could say anything more. I drove down to the courthouse, and went up to my office.

It was a pretty busy morning, all in all. I had a long talk with Judge s.h.i.+vely about the coming election. Then, Sheriff Jameson dropped in with a legal matter, and I had another long conference with him. As you may or may not know, a sheriff gets part of his income from feeding prisoners. This county pays Jameson fifty cents per meal fed, and what he wanted to know was, could he feed them one double meal a day instead of two, and still collect a dollar.

Well, it was a pretty fine legal point, you know. Something you might say was this way or that, and you could make a case out either way. I finally decided, however, that there might be just a leetle danger in the double-meal proposition. But I pointed out that the word meal could mean just about whatever he wanted to. A bowl of beans could be a meal or a plate of fried potatoes, or even a hunk of bread.

It was eleven o'clock before I got Jameson straightened out. I was hoping I'd have time to take a deep breath- maybe get out and see a few voters-but it just wasn't in the cards. Because now that I'd gotten all those other things cleared up, why Nellie Otis, my secretary, needed me.

Oh, I didn't really mind. Nellie is an attractive young woman, as well as an excellent secretary and there are twelve votes in the Otis family-and she's always so appreciative of everything I do for her.

She stood by watching, all the time I was untangling the ribbon on her typewriter. She said she just didn't know how I did it; she'd tried and tried herself, and she'd just made it worse. I said there was nothing to it, really. It was just a matter of going straight to the source of the trouble, like it would be in any other problem.

I pa.s.sed it off lightly that way, but it was a pretty bad snarl. Just about the worst I'd ever untangled for her, and that's really saying something. By the time I'd finished with it, and gotten washed up, it was five minutes after twelve. The whole morning was gone, and I was already into my lunch hour.

I was turning away from the washroom sink when I happened to glance out the window. And I just stood there for a moment, staring, wondering well, what the h.e.l.l next.

Now, there, I thought, that's really something. Kossmeyer and Goofy Gannder! One great man talking to another great man. Yes, sir, I thought, water really finds its level.

Mind you, I have nothing against Kossmeyer. I've never said a word against him to anyone. But I do feel-yes, and I'm justified-that if he's what's supposed to be smart, why I don't want to be.

The way I look at it, if he's so d.a.m.ned smart, why isn't he rich? Where's the proof that he's smart? Why, half the time he don't even use good Englis.h.!.+

I had him figured right from the beginning. He's one of those jury jaybirds, one of those howlers and pleaders. All the law he knows you could put in your right eye. And he's just been lucky, so far. If he ever came up against a man who dealt in facts and details, I guess you know how long he would last.

I went to lunch.

The afternoon was even busier than the morning.

The way the work was piling up, it began to look like I might be so tied up I couldn't get out to see Luane Devore tonight. But, then, I thought about the way Sis had acted, and I decided I'd better, work or no work.

I was on my way out of the courthouse when Sheriff J ameson called to me and asked me to step into his office. He'd confiscated a batch of evidence, and he wanted my opinion of it before he went into court on it. I tested it. I told him I wouldn't hesitate to go before the Supreme Court with evidence like that. So he laughed, and gave me a bottle to take with me.

It was a little after five when I got in my car and headed out of town. Just before I got to the Devore place, I took a right fork in the road and drove up toward the hills. The land up there isn't much good any more. Either worn out, or eroded and gullied of its topsoil. All the farms have been abandoned, including the one where I was born and raised.

I turned into the lane that led up to our house. I stopped in the yard, all grown up to weeds now, and looked around. One side of the barn-loft was caved in. All the windows of the house were broken, and the kitchen door creaked back and forth on one hinge. And the chimneys had toppled, scattering brick across the rotting and broken s.h.i.+ngles of the roof.

It was kind of sad. Somehow it made me think of that poem, The Deserted Village, I used to give at Friday afternoon school recitals. It was sad-but it was nice. Because everything had gone to h.e.l.l now, but in my mind it hadn't. In my mind, nothing had changed; everything was as it used to be. And the way it used to be.. . nothing was ever nicer or finer than that.

No worries. No one fussing at you. Always knowing just what to do and what not to do, and knowing that it would be all right if you made a mistake. Not like it is now, when you mean well but you ain't real sure of yourself, and there's no one to come straight out and set you straight.

Not like it is now, when people can't understand that you're truly sorry about something-and being sorry is about all you can do-and they wouldn't give a d.a.m.n if they did understand.

I took a big drink of the whiskey. I guessed I ought to be seeing Luane Devore, but it was so nice and peaceful here, and I had all evening to do it. So I got out, and went up the back walk to the kitchen.

The big old range was still there. Lily had said what was the sense of moving an old wood-burner into town, for pity sake. So we'd left it behind, and consequently, fine stove that it was, it was rusting into junk. It looked like junk. But in my mind I could see it like it had been. Like I'd used to keep it when I was a kid, and Mama and Papa were still alive.

That was my job, keeping the stove blacked and polished. I did it every Sat.u.r.day morning, as soon as it was cooled off from breakfast, and no one was allowed in the kitchen while I was doing it. First, I'd take a wire brush and dry-scrub it all over. Then, I'd get busy with the blacking rags and polish. I'd rub it in good, get it wiped so clean you couldn't raise a smudge on your finger. After that, I'd take a little kindling splinter and tip it with the blacking, and get down in all the little cracks and curlycues.

We didn't do any farm work on Sat.u.r.days, except for just the milking and feeding, of course. So when I was through, I'd roll back the doors to the living room, and Mama and Papa and Lily would come in.

Mama would take a look, and kind of throw up her hands. She'd say, why, I just can't believe my eyes; if I didn't know better I'd think it was a new stove! And Papa would shake his head and say, I couldn't fool him, it was a new stove. I'd gone out and snuck one in from somewhere, and no one could tell him different. So, well, I'd have to take and show him that it was really just the same old stove, and . . .

Lily hardly ever said anything.

I used to wonder about it, wanting to ask her why but somehow kind of shy about doing it. And one time when I'd saved up a lot of nickels-I got a nickel every time I polished the stove-I took them all and bought her a big red hair-ribbon. I brought it home from town inside my blouse, not telling anyone about it. That night, when she was out in the kitchen alone doing dishes, I gave it to her. She looked at it, and then she looked at me smiling at her. Then she doused it down in the dishwater, and threw it into the slop pail. I watched it sink down under the sc.u.mmy surface, and I didn't know quite what to do. What to say. I didn't feel much like smiling any more, but I was kind of afraid to stop. I was kind of, well, just afraid. Mama and Papa always said if you were nice to others, why they would be nice to you. But I'd done the nicest thing I knew how, I thought. So all I could think of was that Mama and Papa must be wrong, or maybe I didn't know what was nice and what wasn't. What was bad and what was good. And for a minute I felt all scared and bewildered and lost. Well, though, Lily grabbed me up in her arms suddenly, and hugged me and kissed me. She said she'd just been joking, and she was just mixed-up and absent-minded and not thinking what she was doing. So . . . everything turned out all right.

I never said anything to Mama or Papa about it. I even lied to Mama and said I'd lost all my nickels when she asked me what had happened to them. That was about the only time I can ever remember her scolding me, or Papa saying anything real sharp to me-because she felt he had to be told about it. But I still didn't tell about the ribbon. I knew they'd be terribly upset and sad if they knew what Lily had done, and I'd've cut off my tongue before I told them. It's funny how- Dammit, it's not funny! There's nothing funny about it. And why the h.e.l.l does it have to be that way?

Why is it when you feel so much one way, you have to act just the opposite? So much the opposite?

Why can't people leave you alone, why can't you leave them alone, why can't you just all live together and be the way you are? Knowing that it's all right with the others however you are, because however they are is all right with you.

I wandered through the house, drinking and thinking. Feeling happy and sad. I went up the stairs, and into my little room under the eaves. Dusk was coming on, filling the room with shadows. I could see things like they had been, almost without closing my eyes. It all came back to me . . .

The checked calico curtains at the windows. The circular rag rug. The bookcase made out of a fruitbox. The high, quilted bed. The picture above it-a picture of a boy and his mother, t.i.tled His Best Girl. The little rocking chair..

The chair was still there. Lily hadn't mentioned moving it, and I kind of didn't like to. I hesitated, and then I tried to sit down in it.

I was a lot too big for it, of course, because San- because Mama and Papa had given it to me the Christmas I was seven. I kept squeezing and pus.h.i.+ng, though, and finally the arms cracked and split off, and I went down on the seat. That was pretty small for me too, but I could sit on it all right. I could even rock a little if I was careful. So I sat there, rocking back and forth, my knees almost touching my chin. And for a while I was back to the days that had been, and I was what I had been in those days.

Then some rats scurried across the attic, and I started and sighed and stood up. I stood staring blankly out the window, wondering what the h.e.l.l I'd better do.

Dammit all, what was I going to say to Luane? She'd just start screaming and crying the minute I opened my mouth, and I'd wind up making a fool of myself like Lily says I always do. It wouldn't do any good to ask her for a retraction, because I wouldn't be able to make myself heard in the first place and in the second place she'd know there wasn't a d.a.m.ned thing 1 could do. She'd know I wouldn't take her into court. Trials cost money, and voters don't want money spent unless it has to be. And they sure wouldn't see it as having to be in this case. They might be sore at her. They might want her to catch it in the neck. But using county money to do it just wouldn't go down with them. Besides that-besides, dammit, I couldn't bring her to trial. I didn't dare do it.

She was Kossmeyer's client. He'd fight for her to the last ditch, regardless of what he thought of her personally. He'd fight-one of the best trial lawyers in the country would be fighting me-he'd put me on the witness stand and mimic me and get everyone to laughing, and shoot questions faster than I could think. And- I took a drink. I took a couple more right behind it. My shoulders sort of braced up, and I thought, well who the h.e.l.l is Kossmeyer, anyway? He ain't so G.o.dd.a.m.ned much.

I took another drink, and another one. I let out a belch.

He-Kossmeyer-he didn't really know anything. He was just a fast talker. More of an actor, a clown, than he was a lawyer. No good outside of a courtroom where he couldn't pull any of his tricks.

Outside of a courtroom, where he had to deal strictly in facts, he'd be no good at all. I could make a fool out of him-with the right kind of facts. It would be all over the county, all over the state, how Hank Williams had shown Kossmeyer what was what.

Maybe . . .

Oh, h.e.l.l. I just couldn't talk to Luane. She wouldn't listen to me, and-d.a.m.n her, she ought to be made to! To listen or else. And what, by G.o.d, could she do about it if she was? What could Kossmeyer do about it? You'd have your facts all ready, you know. So you'd just smile very sweetly, and say, why there must be some mistake. The poor woman must have gone completely out of her mind. Why, I've been right here at home with my sister all evening. And Lily would swear that I had been, and- G.o.d Almighty! What was I thinking about? I couldn't do anything like-like that! I wouldn't any more think of-of-hurting anyone than I would of flying. So...

But they kept hurting me, didn't they? They wouldn't leave me alone, would they?

And if I didn't do something, what would I tell Lily?

Could I get away with lying to her again? If I could- give her a real good story and make it sound convincing- why, that would give me some time, and maybe I could think of something to do. Or maybe I wouldn't have to do anything at all. You know how it is. Lots of times if you can put something off long enough, it just kind of takes care of itself.

But I sure hated to try lying to Lily. Remembering the way she acted this morning, it almost made me s.h.i.+ver to think about lying to her.

And why should I have to, anyway? Why not do the other as long as it was perfectly safe?

G.o.d, I didn't know what to do! I knew what I ought and wanted to do, but actually doing it was something else.

I looked at the whiskey bottle. It was only a third full. I lifted it to my mouth, and started gulping. I took three long gulps, stopped a second for breath, and took three more gulps. I coughed, swayed a little on my feet, and let the bottle drop from my fingers.

It was empty. My eyelids fluttered and popped open, and I shuddered all over. Then, my shoulders reared way back, and I seemed to have a ramrod where my spine had been.

I gave the bottle a hard kick. I laughed and made a pa.s.s in the air with my fist.

I went down the stairs, and drove away.

It was about a quarter of nine when I got home. Lily met me in the hall-all ready, it looked like, to open up on me, so I opened up first.

"Now, just one minute, please!" I said. "You listen for a change, and then if you've got any questions you can ask 'em. Now, you'll recall that-"

"H-Henry. Henry!" she said. "I-I'm-"

"You'll recall-" I raised my voice. "You'll recall that I was against seeing Luane. I told you it was highly inadvisable, occupying the position that I do, but you insisted. So-"

"H-Henry . . ." she said shakily. "You-you did see her?"

"Naturally. Where do you think I've been all evening?" I said. "Now, it didn't turn out at all well-much worse even than I expected. So whatever you do, don't let on to anyone that I-What's the matter with you?"

She took a step back from me. Her hand fluttered to her mouth.

"Y-you've been drinking," she said. "You d-don't- didn't know what you were-"

"I've had a drink," I said. "Just a swallow or two, and I don't want to hear anything about it. I-"