The Last Gentleman (49 page)

“Jamison MacKenzie Vaught,” said Sutter.

“Jamison MacKenzie Vaught,” said the priest, his fists spread wide. “What do you ask of the Church of God? Say Faith.”

Jamie said something.

“What does Faith bring you to? Say Life Everlasting.”

Jamie's lips moved.

The priest took the bent sucking tube from Jamie's water glass. “Go fill that over there.”

“Yes sir,” said the engineer. But surely it was to be expected that the priest have a kit of some sort, at least a suitable vessel. He half filled the clouded plastic glass.

As he returned with the water, Jamie's bowels opened again with the spent schleppen sound of an old man's sphincter. The engineer went to get the bedpan. Jamie tried to lift his head.

“No no,” said Sutter impatiently, and coming quickly across simply bound the dying youth to the bed by folding the counterpane into a strap and pressing it against his chest. “Get on with it, Father,” he said angrily.

The priest took the plastic glass. “I baptize you in the name of the Father—” He poured a trickle of water into the peninsula of fried dusty hair. “And of the Son—” He poured a little more. “And of the Holy Ghost.” He poured the rest.

The three men watched as the water ran down the youth's bruised forehead. It was dammed a moment by the thick Vaught eyebrows, flowed through and pooled around the little red carbuncle in the corner of his eye.

The priest bent lower still, storekeeper over his counter, and took the narrow waxy hand between his big ruddy American League paws. “Son,” he said in the same flat mercantile voice, looking first at the brown stain on the wall and then down at the dying youth. “Today I promise you that you will be with our Blessed Lord and Savior and that you will see him face to face and see his mother, Our Lady, see them as you are seeing me. Do you hear me?”

The four white vermiform fingers stirred against the big thumb, swollen with blood (did they, thumb and fingers, belong to the same species?).

“Then I ask you to pray to them for me and for your brother here and for your friend who loves you.”

The fingers stirred again.

Presently the priest straightened and turned to the engineer as blank-eyed as if he had never laid eyes on him before.

“Did you hear him? He said something. What did he say?”

The engineer, who did not know how he knew, was not even sure he had heard Jamie or had tuned him in in some other fashion, cleared his throat.

“He said, ‘Don't let me go.'” When the priest looked puzzled, the engineer nodded to the bed and added: “He means his hand, the hand there.”

“I won't let you go,” the priest said. As he waited he curled his lip absently against his teeth in a workaday five-o'clock-in-the-afternoon expression.

After several minutes Sutter let go the sheet which he still held as a strap across Jamie.

“All right, Father,” said Sutter in an irritable voice when the priest didn't move. “On the way out, would you send in the nurse and the resident?”

“What?” said the priest, bracketing his glasses with his free hand. “Oh, yes. Certainly.” He started for the washstand, thought better of it, turned and left the room. Pausing in the doorway, he turned again. “If you need me for anything else, I'd be glad to—”

“We won't,” said Sutter curtly, managing to embarrass the engineer after all.

The engineer followed the priest out into the corridor and thanked him. He wondered if one was expected to “make an offering,” but he had no notion of how to hand money over except to hand it over. He contented himself with wringing the priest's hand warmly and thanking him twice.

12
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It took him two blocks at top walking speed toovertake Sutter, who strode along with his hands in his pockets, bent forward as if he were bucking a strong wind.

“Where are you going?” the engineer asked in an unexpectedly loud voice.

“What?” said Sutter, giving a start. “Oh, to the ranch.”

“The ranch,” repeated the engineer absently. When Sutter started to leave, he held up his hand. “Wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“What happened back there?”

“In the hospital room? You were there.”

“I know, but what did you think? I could tell you were thinking something.”

“Do you have to know what I think before you know what you think?”

“That does not mean that I would necessarily agree with you,” said the engineer, trying to see Sutter's expression. Suddenly the engineer felt hisface flush. “No, you're right. I don't need to know what you think. Wait. Did you say ranch?”

“Yes.” Still he could not make out Sutter's face.

“Do you mean your ranch?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I have a date.”

“A date?” His heart began to thud. “No, wait. Please don't go to the ranch!” Without realizing that he had done so, he had taken hold of Sutter's sleeve.

Sutter angrily shook himself free. “What in God's name do you want now?”

“Oh. I—what about the family?”

“What about them?”

“I mean, meeting them. Val should be here tonight and the rest tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“They won't know. Shall I meet them? Perhaps I could even call the Vaughts and catch them before they leave.”

“Good. Fine.”

“Then I'll call the airport and see what the plane schedule is.”

“Very good.”

“What about the arrangements?”

“Arrangements? You make them. You do very well.”

Sutter reached the Edsel and got into the driver's seat but made no sign that the engineer should follow.

“All right. Wait—” cried the engineer when the old buckety Ford motor caught and roared (he wondered if Sutter had ever changed the oil or whether it had oil).

“What?”

He peered down into the dark car.

“Dr. Vaught—ah—”

“What?”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I'm going to have a drink.”

“No. I mean, what are you going to do?”

There was no answer. All the engineer could see was that Sutter had put his hands on the wheel at six o'clock and nine o'clock, left elbow on the window sill, a style of driving which the engineer faintly recalled from the 1940's when Delta sports used to pick up their dates and drive to the Marion Parlor on Front Street.

“Are you going home, I mean.”

“I told you, Barrett, I'm going to the ranch.”

“Dr. Vaught, don't leave me.”

“What did you say?”

“Dr. Vaught, listen to me. I'm going to do what I told you I planned to do.”

“I know. You told me.”

“Dr. Vaught, I want you to come back with me.”

“Why? To make this contribution you speak of?”

“Dr. Vaught, I need you. I, Will Barrett—” and he actually pointed to himself lest there be a mistake, “—need you and want you to come back. I need you more than Jamie needed you. Jamie had Val too.”

Sutter laughed. “You kill me, Barrett.”

“Yes sir.” He waited.

“I'll think about it. Here's some money for the arrangements, as you call them.”

“Oh, no, sir.” He backed away. “I have plenty.”

“Anything else?”

“No sir.”

But as the Edsel took off, spavined and sprung, sunk at one corner and flatulent in its muffler, spuriously elegant and unsound, like a Negro's car, a fake Ford, a final question did occur to him and he took off after it.

“Wait,” he shouted in a dead run.

The Edsel paused, sighed, and stopped.

Strength flowed like oil into his muscles and he ran with great joyous ten-foot antelope bounds.

The Edsel waited for him.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1966 by Walker Percy

cover design by Jason Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-4532-1623-1

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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