5
The rain came hard
enough to bother the bay that pulled the buggy. The animal spooked
every so often on the mud road winding up through the clay
hills.
James huddled back
against the seat, trying to avoid getting any wetter than he
already was. His clothes were still damp from trying to help Liz
there in the street, and he hoped they would soon start to
dry.
His uncle hied the
horse and stared straight ahead. He leaned outside the protection
of the top. Rain smashed against his skull and face but, if this
bothered him, he didn’t let James know it.
***
After a quarter mile,
James said, “Where we going, Uncle Septemus?”
“You’ll see.”
Septemus didn’t turn around to address him.
“It’s awful
muddy.”
“So it is.”
“You’re not worried
about getting stuck?”
“The Lord is with
us,” Septemus said, speaking up so he could be heard over the
downpour.
Then he hied the
horse with the lash again and they sluiced through the gloom.
***
In forty-five
minutes, Septemus and James came to the top of a draw. Through the
rain James saw below, set between stands of white birch, a small
cabin cut from hardwoods. The windows on either side of the door
had been smashed and were stuffed with paper. There were no
outbuildings except for a privy and no animals of any kind.
“We’ll walk from
here,” Septemus said.
He jumped down,
taking his Winchester with him, wrapping it inside his coat to
protect it from the water.
“We’re going down to
the cabin?”
“Yes, we are.”
They started
walking.
“This the surprise
you told me about?”
“Indeed it is, James.
Indeed it is.”
Septemus still wasn’t
looking at James. Instead he kept his gaze fixed on the
cabin.
James knew he wasn’t
going to like the surprise. Something was wrong with Septemus and
James knew that this meant the surprise would be something
terrible. He kept thinking of what his uncle had said about
responsibility. It had something to do with that.
***
When they reached the
cabin, which smelled of wood and mildew in the rain, Septemus stood
aside and waved James on to precede him.
James put his hand on
the doorknob and said, “I’m not going to like this surprise, am I,
Uncle Septemus?” Septemus shook his head. James had never seen him
look this way before. So… strange. Rain dripped off the roof and
fell onto James’s head. “Am I?”
“You may not like it,
James. But I know you’ll fulfill your responsibility to Clarice
anyway.”
“To Clarice?”
“She was like your
sister, wasn’t she, James?
James knew how it
would hurt Septemus if he denied this. “Yes, she was.”
“Then you won’t have
any trouble doing your duty.”
And with that,
Septemus leaned forward and kicked the door inward. He kicked it
hard enough that it slammed against the opposite wall. Dust rose up
in the doorway and through the dust James saw a meanly furnished
cabin with a cot that rats had eaten the straw out of, and a cast
iron stove already rusting, and enough bent and dented cans of food
to last a short winter.
But it was the man
tied to the chair in the center of the one-room cabin that got
James’s attention.
You could see where
the man had been badly beaten, his face discolored and his mouth
raw with dried blood. There was a cut across his forehead and his
left eye was blackened.
At first the man
didn’t speak-James wasn’t certain he could
speak, he looked so beaten up-he just stared at the two of them as
they entered.
This was obviously
the surprise, the man here, though what it meant exactly James
wasn’t yet sure.
Septemus said, “Do
you know who this man is, James?”
“No,” James said. “I
don’t.”
“Run,” the man said.
“Run and get the law, kid. Get Sheriff Dodds.” He strained against
the bonds of rope that held him.
“He’s one of the men
who killed Clarice,” Septemus said. “Kittredge.”
“He’s crazy, kid.
Look at ’im. You can see it, can’t you? That he’s crazy?”
Septemus seemed not
to have heard. “This is what I meant by responsibility, James.
You’ve got to do what’s right for Clarice.”
“Kid, if I die, my
wife won’t have nobody. Nobody.” The man looked as crazed with fear
as Septemus did with anger.
James felt
embarrassed for the man and had to drop his eyes. This was all so
terrible; there was something unreal about it. It might almost have
struck him as a nightmare except for the stink of the cabin itself
and the raw look of the man’s face. People just didn’t have dreams
that well detailed.
“Run, kid,” the man
said again.
Septemus held out the
Winchester to James and said, “You take this, James, and you do
right by Clarice. You hear me?”
James looked at the
man in the chair. “Did you kill Clarice?” The man looked miserable.
“Kid, nobody killed the girl on purpose. It was an accident. We was
out of work and couldn’t find no jobs-that’s the only reason we
stuck up the bank in the first place.” The man was whining; again,
James felt sorry for him.
“Why don’t I go get
the sheriff?” James said to his uncle. “For what?”
“This man confessed,
Uncle Septemus. All you have to do is turn him over. The law’ll
take care of it from that.”
Septemus said, “You
know why I brought you along on this trip?”
James knew better
than to say anything.
“To learn how to be a
man.”
James hung his
head.
“I show you one of
the men who killed your cousin-the cousin who loved you-and what do
you do? You talk about going to get the sheriff.” Septemus waved
the Winchester in the direction of Kittredge. “You’re getting two
things confused here, James. You’re mistaking law for
justice.”
He walked over to
Kittredge and stood next to him. Kittredge watched nervously. It
was easy to see that Septemus wanted to start hitting him
again.
Septemus said, “Now,
in a court of law, Kittredge here might well convince a jury that
Clarice’s death was accidental. But we’d know better, wouldn’t we,
James? We’d know that that little girl would never have been killed
if those men hadn’t been there in the first place. Isn’t that
right, James?”
James nodded and
glanced at Kittredge. Kittredge’s eyes were huge and white,
following Septemus around as the man paced. “But being mature men,
James-you and I-we won’t settle for law. We want justice. We want
what’s right.” He raised the rifle. This time he didn’t offer it to
James, he merely held it out for James to see. “That’s where
personal responsibility enters into it, James. That’s where you’ve
got to act like a grown-up and do what’s right.”
This time he did hand
James the Winchester.
Much as he didn’t
want to, James took the rifle in his hand and brought it close to
his body.
“Kittredge is your
turn. I’ve already killed Carlyle.”
When Septemus said
this, James felt a terrible chill come over him. “You killed a man,
Uncle Septemus?”
“I most certainly
did. One of the men who killed my Clarice. The same Clarice you
yourself loved and cherished.”
“Look at his face,
kid,” Kittredge said. “You can see he’s crazy. Run and get the
sheriff. Go on now before it’s too late.”
“You shouldn’t have
killed anybody,” James said to his uncle, realizing abruptly what
he’d been sensing ever since leaving Council Bluffs-that while this
man might look like Septemus Ryan, he wasn’t. No, there Kittredge
was right. This was an insane man who bore only a passing
resemblance to his uncle.
Septemus said,
nodding to the Winchester, “Raise the rifle and sight it, James.
Just like I showed you when you were a boy. Raise the rifle and
sight it and do your duty.”
“Go run and get the
sheriff, kid. Hurry.”
“You going to listen
to the man who killed your Clarice, James? Now raise that rifle and
sight it and make Clarice proud.”
“Please, son. Please
don’t listen to him. He’s insane. He already killed one man and
he’ll surely kill me.”
“James, don’t let me
down. Now raise that rifle and sight it and do what’s right.”
“Please, son.”
“Raise the rifle,
James.”
And James-looking at
Septemus, loving Septemus and knowing his uncle’s relentless grief
and agony ever since the death of his daughter-James raised the
rifle into a firing position.
“That’s a good boy,
James. Now sight it, just like I always showed you.”
Squinting, James
sighted along the barrel. All he could think of was that maybe
Septemus was right. Maybe he wasn’t being a man. Maybe he did owe
it to Clarice. Maybe the only way he was ever really going to grow
up and have the respect of others, let alone the respect of
himself, was to pull the trigger on the man who’d helped kill
Clarice. James thought of his little cousin, how sweet and gentle
she’d been, and how both his aunt and uncle had been destroyed by
her death.
“Kid, I ain’t got
this coming. I really ain’t,” Kittredge said. “Please, kid.”
Kittredge started
crying.
James sighted the
rifle.
“Make me proud of
you, James,” Uncle Septemus said. “Make Clarice proud.”
Kittredge had closed
his eyes, waiting for death.
James said, “I can’t
do it.”
“You can do it, son.
Just relax. You can do it fine.”
“You’ll be a killer
if you do it, kid. You’ll be a killer and they’ll put you in
prison.”
“You just relax,
James. You can do it fine.”
James said, “I can’t
do it, I really can’t. It isn’t right.” Septemus slapped James
harder than James had ever been slapped before. A terrible hot
feeling filled James’s face, and his head spun with stars.
“Now you get up
there, James,” Septemus said. “You get up there and do your
responsibility.”
Kittredge said, “You
know what’s right, kid. Don’t give in to him. If you do you’ll be
just as crazy as he is. You know what we done was an accident,
don’t you kid?”
Septemus took James
by the shoulder and turned him around so he was again facing
Kittredge. He took the rifle and moved it into a firing position in
James’ hands.
“Now don’t waste any
more time, James. Shoot.”
“Kid, listen,
please-”
“Shoot!”
Their voices filling
his head, the dank stink of the cabin filling his nose, the
pathetic and somehow irritating spectacle of a man pleading for his
life filling his mind-James let the Winchester slip from his hands
to the floor.
***
He turned and ran
from the cabin.
He went outside, just
out from under the overhang, so he could stand in the rain, and the
sound of it would drown out the madness of his uncle and the
mewling of Kittredge who had, after all, been at least partly
responsible for Clarice’s death.
The rain came down
silver and seemed to cleanse him and he put his hands out and
opened his mouth to receive it, letting the drops splat on his face
and trickle down his neck and soak into his coat.
Then, even through
the snapping rain, he heard it, the gunshot, and knew what had
happened.
He didn’t feel any
regret for Kittredge; the regret was for his uncle. There would be
no way back now.
He turned and stood
in the rain and after a few minutes Septemus came out of the
cabin.
Septemus came a few
feet up the slope of the hill. He didn’t seem to notice the rain
soaking him.
“You let me down,
James.”
“I know.”
“I always considered
you like a son. Loved you in that same way.”
“Just the way I loved
you, Uncle Septemus.”
“But when the time
came to prove how much you loved me and loved my Clarice-” He fell
silent. Rain pocked the summer-brown grass and drummed against the
cabin roof. Blue-gray gunsmoke wafted out the cabin door. You could
smell the blood of an animal kill on the air. In this case the
animal had been human.
“You should let me
help you, Uncle Septemus.”
“I don’t want
anything more to do with you, James. Your mother has not raised you
to be a man and it’s too late now for me to do anything about
it.”
“I don’t want them to
hurt you, Uncle Septemus. That’s why I wish you’d give me the rifle
and let me take you into town.” Septemus raised his head in the
rain and looked directly at James. “I know what the dead men
say.”
“What?”
“I know what the dead
men say. They whisper to me, James. They tell me secrets. They
reassure me. This”-he waved his arms in a patriarchal way to
indicate the land and the cliffs surrounding them-“none of this is
what it seems, James. Even Clarice tells me that when she talks to
me.”
“There’s one more,
isn’t there?”
Through the beating
rain, Septemus studied him. “Are you thinking of redeeming yourself
with Griff, with the last one?” He waggled the rifle in James’s
direction. “Are you saying that you want to take this Winchester
and do what’s right?”
“I’m saying that you
should leave him be. Killing two men is enough.”
For a time, only the
rain made sound. It seemed to be saying something, its hissing and
pounding and spattering a language James yearned to understand, a
dialogue shared only by rock and soil and leaves and grass.
“He has two
daughters.”
“Who?”
“The last one,”
Septemus said.
“They didn’t kill
Clarice.”
“I want him to know
how it feels.”
The rain continued to
speak.
James said, “Please
give me your rifle, Uncle Septemus. Please let me take you in. They
won’t blame you for what you did. They’ll understand.”
“I’m going now,
James.”
Septemus started up
the hill. “Please let me help you, Uncle Septemus!”
James slipped and
fell on the wet grass. Septemus walked on ahead, never once looking
back.
Scrambling to his
feet, James went up the hill again, trying to grab his uncle’s
sleeve.
“Please, Uncle
Septemus, please-”
With no hesitation,
Septemus turned around and doubled his fist and hit James square on
the jaw.
James felt as if he’d
been shot. He saw darkness and felt a rush of cold air go up his
nose and sinuses. He felt himself fall back and slam against the
soggy earth. And for a moment then there was nothing at all, just a
horrible spinning that made him nauseous and an overwhelming pain
in the lower part of his face. He wondered if his uncle had broken
his jaw.
Then, on the hill,
there was the clop of hooves and the creaking of the buggy.
Septemus hied the horse.
Septemus was
gone.
He wasn’t sure how
long he lay there.
The rain soaked him,
running into his eyes, his mouth, his nose. Sometime during the
darkness, before he had quite recovered his senses, he heard a
horse on the road above. Then he heard a man, breathing hard and
cursing under his breath, move carefully down the hill that was by
now a mudslide.
***
When he opened his
eyes, he saw Dodds peering down at him. “You all right, boy?”
“He hit me.”
“Who?”
“My uncle
Septemus.”
“Where is he
now?”
“I don’t know.”
“What
happened?”
“You’d better look in
the cabin.”
“What’s in the
cabin?”
“Just go look.”
While Dodds was gone,
James struggled to his feet. He felt as if he would never be dry
again. He had heard stories of Indians leaving white men out in
downpours and by so doing drove them insane. James could see how
that would be possible.
He had taken two
steps down the hill when Dodds came out of the cabin.
“He did that, didn’t
he, your uncle.”
“Yes.”
“The crazy
sonofabitch.”
“That’s his problem,
Sheriff. He’s crazy. Crazy over his girl dying. He said that that
was one of the men who did it.” He hesitated. “He killed another
one, too. At least that’s what he said.”
“He tell you the
name?”
“Carlyle.”
“God damn it.” Dodds
said. “I’ve got to stop him.” He looked back at the cabin. The rain
hit him steady on the back of his balding head. “He was a pretty
decent man, Kittredge was.” He turned back to James. “It’s sure as
hell none of those men killed that little girl on purpose. Not even
Carlyle. He was a lout but not a killer. Not of little girls,
leastwise.”
“That’s why he’s
going to Griff’s,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because Griff has
two little girls of his own.”
Dodds stared at him.
“You may have to help me, son. You willing?”
“He’s my
uncle.”
“I know that.”
“And I love him. He’s
pretty much been my father since my real father died.”
Dodds nodded to the
cabin. “You should go back in there and take a look at
Kittredge.”
James gulped. “I
don’t want to.”
“He shot him in the
face. Dead on. You ever seen that before?”
“No.”
“Well, believe me,
son, it’s nothing to see.”
“You aren’t going to
shoot him, are you?”
“Not unless I have
to.”
“Let me talk to him,
then.”
“Long as he don’t
hurt nobody else, talking to him is fine. I can’t tell you what I’m
going to feel like if he hurts either of those little girls.”
“I feel sorry for
him.”
“I feel sorry for
him, too, son. But I feel a hell of a lot sorrier for those
girls.”
Dodds started up the
hill. “We’re gonna have to ride double, so we better get goin’.
That poor old horse of mine ain’t that fast anymore.”
As he made his way
carefully up the hill, James said again, “You promise me you won’t
shoot him, Sheriff?”
Dodds looked back at
him and said, “It’s a little late for promises of any kind, son.
We’re just gonna have to see what happens.”