Stories of Erskine Caldwell (59 page)

Myrtle’s expression changed completely, and she was glaring at Jack and Jim and the others.

“You’re a liar, Jim! And you’re a liar, Jack Randlett!” She jumped down from the table. “All of you are liars! You’re going into town to spend the evening on St. Mary’s Street!”

There was no sound or motion in the room. Each person there stared at another, and back again at Myrtle.

“I didn’t know you knew anything about St. Mary’s Street, Myrtle,” Jim said. “How did you find out anything about — ?”

“Shut up, Jim,” Jack Randlett said.

The expression on Myrtle’s face frightened them all.

“All of you come in here on your way to town and spend a few dimes and say you’ve got some business to attend to, and expect me to believe you. When you leave here, you go straight to St. Mary’s Street and buy hard drinks and start talking to those girls sitting in the windows. Then you come back by here and stop for a soft drink and try to make me believe something else. All of you do that — married, unmarried, or what not. You think you can come in here and buy a pack of cigarettes and make me believe you. You’re all a bunch of cheap rats — every last one of you. I was engaged to one of you once — not anybody in this room, but one of your bunch — and all the time we were engaged he was going into town and spending the night on St. Mary’s Street. Then he’d come back the next day and think I didn’t know. Why shouldn’t I know? You think just because I don’t see you on St. Mary’s Street that I won’t know you were there. Well, go ahead and think what you want to, but don’t expect me to believe it.”

Sid came across the room to the table where Myrtle was sitting. He stood close to her and looked down into her face.

“I asked you to marry me, Myrtle,” he said, “and I’m going to do it again, Tell Jack and Jim and the rest of them to go outside so I can talk to you.”

“They are my customers,” Myrtle said. “Why should I drive them out?”

“Because I said so.”

Myrtle laughed.

“This is a respectable roadhouse; this is no dive. People can come and go as they please, and in broad daylight too. Somebody seems to have got a bad impression of my place,”

Sid turned around and said something to Jack Randlett, and all of them went outside. Presently Myrtle heard an automobile start, and after it had left, Sid came back into the room.

“Let’s close up the front so you can lie down and rest some, Myrtle,” Sid said, taking her by the arm. “You need a rest. The heat out here in the middle of this sunfield is enough to get anybody down.”

She jerked her arm from his fingers and pushed him away from her.

“You’re a fool, Myrtle,” he said. “Just because the fellow you were engaged to was a cheap rat, that’s no sign everybody else is too. You know that. You’ve got to know it, Myrtle.”

“Why don’t you go on into town like you started to, on business?” she laughed.

“Everybody isn’t like that, Myrtle. I’m not.”

“You are a liar, Sid. You know you are a liar.”

“You’ve known me for nearly five years now, Myrtle. In all that time you know good and well I’ve always been just like I am now.”

“I don’t care what you’ve been, I won’t have anything to do with you.”

She ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Sid went to the front door and stepped outside. The sun was slanting full in his face, but he did not notice it. Several automobiles raced past the cottage on the hot concrete highway, but he did not hear them. After walking around for a while, he sat down on the running board of his car, holding his head in his hands.

When he looked up and blinked his eyes in the bright sunshine, he heard Myrtle’s phonograph begin playing. Whatever the name of the piece, it was the only one he had ever heard her play.

Wha whoo wha
. . .
Wha whoo wha . . . Wha wha wha
. . .

He sat on the step of the car listening to the music, trying to decide whether to go on into town without trying to see Myrtle until he came back, or whether to go into the house and try to talk to her again then.

The sound from the phonograph through the open windows seemed to become louder and louder, as though the machine had suddenly been regulated to issue its greatest volume. A speeding automobile passed, but its sound was drowned in the deafening blare from the house.

He jumped to his feet and ran up the steps to the front door. The door into Myrtle’s room was still closed, and he opened it soundlessly and stepped into the bedroom.

He expected to find her lying across the bed, rolling and tossing from one end to the other as he had found her earlier in the afternoon. He was sure she would be crying again.

When he stepped into the room, he saw Myrtle lying motionlessly on the bed. The phonograph blared in his ears until he could not see straight.

Running to the bed, he saw Myrtle lying on her back with her eyes closed, and in her open hand lay her revolver. There was not even a tear on her cheek.

He bent over her, calling her name and trying to speak to her. The phonograph ran on and on, the sound filling the house with its grating blare. When he grasped her shoulders, Myrtle opened her eyes and looked straight into his. There was a faint smile on her lips that stayed there after her eyes had closed again. He could not arouse her after that.

The phonograph had run into the last groove on the record. It was running in the circle, the needle screeching a little, and making the same sounds over and over again.

Wha whoo wha . . . Wha whoo wha . . . Wha wha wha
. . .

Sid jumped to his feet and knocked the phonograph from the table. It went flying across the room and crashed against the wall. It still ran on and on, making a whir, but the needle was no longer touching the groove on the record.

He went to the window, pulling the white curtains back, and looked across the sunfield. The heat was as intense as ever, and it seemed to him that the waves that rose in layer after layer each carried the sound of Myrtle’s phonograph when it ran in the last groove in the record, on and on.

(First published in
Southways
)

B
ENTON CAME RUNNING
around the corner of the house yelling for me to come quick. I didn’t have a chance to ask him then what the trouble was, but when we got to the barn, I heard Benton saying that something was the matter with King. I had been looking for that, and I wasn’t a bit surprised. If a man ever got the worst end of a bargain, I sure thought it was Benton the Friday before, when he swapped Jim Dandy for King and a durn rusty mowing machine.

All I could think of then was that maybe the best thing for the new horse was a stiff dose of medicine. I didn’t have a chance to mention that to Benton until after we got inside and had opened the stall door.

Benton was blocking the door and I couldn’t see the horse right away.

“Is he down yet, Benton?” I said, pushing past him.

Benton jumped aside as if somebody had jabbed him in the ribs.

“He don’t have to get down for me to know he’s sick, Clyde,” he said. He put his hand on King’s bony rump and stared at the scrawny tail. “I should have had the sense to have found out before I traded if he was taken to sick spells. But somehow I was thinking of something else —”

Benton stood back and I had a good look at King. I’d seen him in the sunlight the day the trade was made, and I never thought I’d see a worse-looking nag, but when I took a good look at him this time, I knew I’d never seen a bundle of horsehide like that in all my life. King was standing on four legs that looked like they had been — well, to tell the whole truth, that horse looked for all the world like one of those playthings the kids make by sticking match stems into a potato.

“I reckon we should have kept Jim Dandy,” Benton said, stopping short and looking at the horse. “But I had a feeling at the time —”

“He needs medicine, Benton,” I said. “He needs it bad.”

Jim Dandy was the finest horse we’d ever had. I guess Benton was thinking that too, because he kept glancing over to the next stall where Jim Dandy’s halter was still hanging. Benton had made up his mind to swap, though, and he got a mowing machine to boot. I could tell by looking at King that he’d never last long enough to eat the hay that mower cut.

“Clyde,” Benton said, “what had we better do?”

“He’s real sick,” I said. “He needs bracing up or something right away.”

Benton didn’t say anything for a while, and I looked around, and the minute I saw his face I knew what he was thinking. He was standing there looking at King and wondering what the visitors who were always dropping in to see the horses would say about that one. I’d seen ones a lot better-looking than King led off to the boneyard, and so had Benton, too.

“Better go get the castor oil, Clyde,” Benton said, sitting down on the harness bench.

He was almost as sick as King was, but there was nothing I could do for him.

“Maybe we’d better wait and see if he won’t get better first,” I said. “That horse looks now like he might not be able to stand castor oil yet, Benton.”

“Go get the castor oil like I said, anyway,” Benton told me. I went through the barn door and on into the house where the medicine was kept. When I got back, Benton had got up and gone around to the other side of King, and the horse looked just as sickly on that side as he did from any other direction. I knew that if he ever got rid of him we’d have to make a trade sight unseen.

I set the medicine on the harness bench. Right then King looked like he’d never live to stomach it.

“Give it to him, Clyde,” Benton said weakly.

“Benton,” I said, “I wouldn’t try to force King in the shape he’s in. He looks kind of white around the gills.”

“Give it to him, anyway. If he won’t get well, I don’t want him standing around here looking like that.”

Right then and there I had a feeling that the better use of the castor oil was to take it out behind the barn and pour it over the rust on the mowing machine, but there was no way to talk Benton out of giving it to King.

I went over to the harness room and got the gun and filled it with the castor oil like Benton said to. Benton did not make a move to help me. When I got back and was ready to give it to King, I motioned to Benton, and he came over and helped me get the horse’s head up.

When it was all over, instead of helping me with the hay, Benton went into the house and sat down. He took a seat by the front window hoping, I guess, to be able to shy visitors away from the barn if any should stop in that afternoon.

I went on about finishing up my work and didn’t have a chance to see Benton again until late in the afternoon. I had heard one car stop in front of the house, but whoever it was got headed off by Benton at the front gate and didn’t get a chance to come to the barn where the sick horse was.

About five o’clock I walked around to the front of the barn and sat down to wait for Benton to come out. I knew he would be there before feeding time to look at King, and I did not want to miss seeing if the medicine had helped any. I couldn’t get it out of my head all that time about trading Jim Dandy for King and the rusty mower. It was a fool trade, if there ever was one, and I couldn’t figure out what had made Benton go and do it. Jim Dandy was just about the finest horse a man could hope to own. He was a good height and just about perfect in weight, and he had the finest mane and tail I ever expect to see again on a horse.

I’d always rubbed him down twice a day, and I had even got so I would rather do that than take a day off and go to town. I’d curry him and brush him until his sides were as shiny as new paint. The cold weather always ruffled up his hide, and when I started in, it would be as fuzzy as a kitten’s. By the time I had finished, he looked like he’d just stepped out of the show ring with a blue ribbon. Then I’d start on his tail and mane and spend another hour working over that. I’d comb him carefully first, and then I’d begin brushing them. His mane was as silky and smooth as a young girl’s hair, and those waves would come out and shine just like they had been put there with a curling iron.

But it was his tail that showed up the wavy streaks so well. His tail reached all the way down to the ground, and after you’d worked over it three quarters of an hour and stood back to let the sunshine play on it, it looked exactly like a frozen lake that had locked up with the frost when the wind was high. You can see the same thing in November before the snow falls by standing on a hilltop somewhere and looking down a mile or two away and see one of those sheets with the waves locked up in the ice. I tell you, there’s not a prettier sight anywhere than that, and that’s exactly how the curly waves in Jim Dandy’s mane and tail looked.

I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there in the sun thinking about Jim Dandy when Benton opened the house door and came down toward the barn. Just then a car drove up, but Benton was too busy thinking about something else to hear it; and two men got out and came on down toward the barn where we were.

Benton had his head down, and I couldn’t motion to him till he got to the barn door, and then it was too late. Henry Trask and Fred Welch were too close to the barn by then to head off. I couldn’t do a thing but just stand there and pray that they would never get inside to see King.

“Well,” Benton said, “I guess we’d better go take a look.”

It wasn’t till then that he heard Henry and Fred behind him. Benton jumped like he was trying to get out of his skin.

“I heard you’ve got a new horse, Benton,” Henry said. “Trying to keep it a secret? Tell Clyde to lead him out and let us get a look at him. And don’t go trying to tell me he’s a better horse than Jim Dandy, Benton.”

Benton didn’t know what to say then. He knew there was no way to get Henry and Fred away before they saw the horse. They had already got to the door, and nothing in the world could stop them then. They’d come eight miles to take a look at King.

“Henry,” Benton said, “I wish you and Fred hadn’t come here today.”

“Why?” Fred asked. “What’s the trouble, Benton? Your wife ailing or something?”

“My horse is sick,” Benton said, reaching out tor the side of the barn to find support. Nobody could have looked more sick than Benton did right then, but somehow both Henry and Fred failed to notice it.