The Night of the Hunter (13 page)

Willa kept her eyes on her plate throughout most of the meal. She ate very little. Perhaps more than any of them, John saw the change that had come over her since Preacher had entered the family. Her eyes bore dark shadows and her mouth was thinner—paler—and her flesh itself seemed to have capitulated to the urgent moral protocols of her marriage until the very roundness of her sweet figure had turned epicene and sour in that lean season. Still, in a curious way, she seemed happier in her strange union with Preacher than she had ever been with Ben Harper. Something new had come into her life. Willa had discovered Sin. It seemed somehow that this discovery was something that she had sought and hungered after all her life. She talked about Sin constantly to John and although Pearl understood only that Sin was being bad she was pleased to sit and hear Willa out when the sermonizing mood was upon her. Willa kept after them ceaselessly each night to be sure that each prayed long and well, on their knees, on the cold, naked floor by the bed. Preacher's spring revival meeting in a tent down the river at Welcome had brought them enough money to live on through the summer. These meetings had been highlighted by Willa's own impassioned testimony, and her shrill, fevered voice had risen above the cries of the most penitent sinners in the valley.

You have all suffered! she cried out one night, her eyes burning in the torchlight, her face blanched and bloodless with the thrill of her vision. And you have all sinned! But which one of you can say as I can say: I drove a good man to lust and murder and robbery because I kept a-hounding him and a-pestering him night and day for pretty clothes and per-fumes and face paint and do you know why I wanted them things? I wanted them so's he would lust after my body more and more and more!—instead of thinkin' about the salvation of his soul and the souls of them two little kids down yonder! And finally he couldn't stand it no more and he went out and took a gun and
slew!—
yes, slew two human beings and stole their money and come home with it to give it to me and say: Here! Here!
Here,
Whore of Babylon! Take this money that is tainted with the blood of Abel and go to the store and buy your pretty dresses and per-fumes and paint! But, brethren!—ah, that's where the Lord stepped in! That's where Je-e-esus stepped in!

Yes! cried Preacher, rolling his head gently till the paper collar bit into his neck. Ye-e-es!

Yes! panted Willa, her voice rising to hoarseness, to a scream. The Lord come down out of the sky and stood by the smokehouse that day and told that man that the money would just drive his poor weak whore of a wife to hell headlong!
—headlong!

Yes! Yes! panted the sinners and the saved under the tent, under the torches.

—and them two kids would git dragged along to hell, too!
Headlong!
Yes! Yes!

—and their almighty souls would bu-urn in hellfire, too! Yes!

—and the Lord told that poor bloody-handed man to take that rotten money—that Devil's money—that bloody gold of greed and murder—

Yes! Yes!

—that money that dri-i-pped with the blood of a murdered man!—of
two
murdered men!—

Yes!

—The Lord said, Take it and throw it in the river yonder, brother! Wrap it 'round a stone and
throw
it in the old Ohio River and let it get washed clean down into the Mississippi! For it is better that it be your neck with that stone tied on it and throwed to the bottom of the river than to lead one of my little ones astray!

Yes! Yes! Hallelujah!

—Throw that money in the river!
In the river!—

Amen!

—and let it wash out into the ocean where the fish can look at it! Because a fish has got more sense sometimes than a man!

(Laughter.) Yes! Oh, yes, Sister Powell! Praise God!

—and then the Lord told that man to give himself into the hands of the Law and let justice be done—!

Amen! Yes!

—and after justice had been done to Ben Harper the Lord made me suffer alone like Moses suffered in the Wilderness!

Praise God!

—and then he led Brother Powell to me and said,
Salvation cometh!

Amen!
Amen!

And the Lord bent down and said to me: Marry this man and go forth with him and preach the Word!

Amen! Amen!

And then someone began to lead them in singing “When the Mists Have Rolled Away” and they sang for nearly half an hour until the whole bottomlands echoed with their voices and under the headlights of Ben Harper's old Model T that night Preacher counted out the collection and told Willa it had been one of their best. It was close to thirty-five dollars, two bushels of Wine-saps, and a half-gallon jug of maple sirup.

Somewhere—somehow Preacher always managed to find John alone in the house after supper. Now he stood beside him at the cellar door and because Preacher was standing in the way it was impossible to walk down the hallway to the stairs and go up to bed. Willa had gone to Cresap's Landing to visit after supper with Icey and Walt. Pearl was still playing with her doll family under the grape arbor.

Because, Preacher was saying, and his manner had long since stopped being wheedling and pleasant. Because sooner or later I will find out where it's hid, boy. It's just a matter of time.

I don't know! I don't know nothing about it!

Yes. Yes, you know!

No, said the boy, impudently. I don't.

I could thrash you for contradicting me, boy. That's back talk.

John thought: I would rather have the thrashing than the questions because the thrashing hurts quick and then it's over but the questions keep on forever and ever amen.

Well, boy?

No, he thought. No.

Where is it hid, boy?

He thought: And even she is changed now—my mother. If I go to her and tell her that he asks me the question all the time she says I am lying, that he is a man of God, that I am making it up because I hate him and because I am sick with Sin and because I am trying to turn her against him.

Preacher read his thoughts.

Your mother says you tattled on me, boy. She says you told her that I asked you where the money was hid. Isn't that so, boy?

Yes. Yes.

That wasn't very nice of you, John. Have a heart, boy.

It don't matter, the boy murmured.

No. That's right. It don't matter. Because it's your word against mine. And it's
me
she believes!

Yes, he thought. Because you have made her be crazy.

She thinks that money's in the river, smiled Preacher.

John listened to the tick of a death watch somewhere hidden in the ancient, dark wood of the old house.

But you and me—we know better! Don't we, boy? John pressed his lips tight, listening to the far-off chant of Pearl, making her little home under the grape arbor.

Don't we, boy! Goddamn you! Answer me! Answer, you little son of a bitch!

I don't know nothin', he said dully and thought: Now he will shut up and go away from me for a while. After he shouts at me he goes away. He takes the knife out of his pocket like he is doing now and he presses the button and the sharp thing flicks out and he looks at me for a minute and then he starts paring the big, blue thumbnail on the finger without a name and then he goes away.

No matter, Preacher said in an even voice, and the knife dropped back in his pocket. Sooner or later, boy, you'll tell. The summer is young yet, little lad.

He loomed above the boy, a vast dark hulk against the light behind him on the hall table: the lamp with the stained-glass shade and the silver chain pull that Ben Harper had given his wife one Christmas.

Now go and fetch your sister and put her to bed!

The big figure did not move aside for the boy to pass, making him flatten against the damp wallpaper of the passageway to get through. John ran to the kitchen and strained his eyes into the golden river dusk. The grape arbor was luminous in that twilight; its luxuriant leaves possessed strangely of their own rich light at this evening moment.

Pearl?

He could hear her voice, intimate and whispering as she scolded the doll named Willa and the stick named Mister Powell.

Pearl!

What, John?

Bedtime!

In a minute.

No—now, Pearl! I'll tell Ma!

All right.

He moved down across the grass, already wet with evening dew, toward the shape of Pearl's light pinafore: like a tiny moth within the green, dark cavern of the cool grape leaves.

Come on now, Pearl!

He could see her face turned up to him now, moonround and pallid with the big eyes like dark pansies above the tiny mouth.

You'll get mad, John, she whimpered.

I ain't mad, Pearl. Only git on up to bed. It's—

You'll get awful mad, John. I done a Sin.

You what?

He could hear her frantic movements at some task on the damp bricks at his feet; he could hear the crisp rustle of paper in her frightened hands.

Pearl! You ain't—

John, don't be mad! Don't be mad! I was just playing with it! I didn't
tell
no one!

His legs turned to water at the thought; the flesh of his neck gathered in quick, choking horror.

It's all here, she whispered placatingly and the furious movements continued.

Now the white moon of early summer appeared suddenly from the hill beyond the meadow and a vast aura of pale, clear light illumined the sight before the boy's eyes: the bricks beneath his feet littered with the green fortune in hundred-dollar bank notes that the little girl was frantically gathering together again.

Pearl! Oh,
Pearl!

Now she was stuffing them back where they had been all along; pushing them through the rent in the cloth body of the doll Jenny that was held closed with a safety pin beneath the shabby toy dress. John fell to his knees and sank his hands into the pile of certificates that had slipped through Pearl's frightened hands. And then the soft footfall in the wet grass at the other end of the grape arbor told him that the hunter had returned.

John?

Oh—yes?

Preacher: standing in the blue mists of the moon, shading his eyes with his hands to see what the children were about.

What are you doing, boy?

Getting Pearl to bed. I—

What's taking you so long about it?

It—she—

What's that you're playing with, boy?

Pearl's junk, he said, magnificently. Mom gits mad when she plays out here and don't clean up afterward.

And then he stuffed the last of the bills into the soft cotton body and fumbled the safety pin back into the tear again. Preacher had not stirred. But John could sense that he was alert, suspicious, sniffing.

Come on, boy. It's chilly out here tonight.

Yes.

And now he arose and held out the doll to Pearl and then turned, facing the long, the interminable distances to the end of the green arbor where the dark one waited: giving the doll into the frightened hands of his sister and taking one of those hands then he began to lead her, to walk slowly and ever so cautiously toward the shape of the man against the blue smoke of the moonlight and all the while praying awkwardly and badly because the only prayer he knew was about Sin and this was a prayer about escaping.

Preacher cracked his dry palms together in a whip crack of impatience.

Hurry, children!

How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten, John heard his riotous, foolish brain recite softly. Can I get there by candlelight?

He could see the gleam now of Preacher's watch chain against the death-gray vest and thought: He ain't guessed yet. He don't know.

A thousand miles to Babylon, ten thousand miles to walk yet to the end of a moonlit grape arbor where a dark man stands and he walked carefully, slowly, putting one foot before the other cautiously and holding Pearl's hand and thinking with growing nausea: But he heard me talk about cleaning up. Won't he think: Cleaning up what? Where's the paper I heard rustling? Where are the paper dolls?

And now he stood directly before him, the watch chain gleamed like fire before John's eyes and he did not breathe, did not move, waiting.

Now, said Preacher, up to bed with the both of you!

And now he was walking slowly up through the yard toward the lamp in the kitchen window and Preacher was following along behind and the boy fought back the flood of hysterical laughter that struggled and welled in his throat. He choked it back and led Pearl up the porch steps and into the kitchen.

Up! Up! scolded Preacher. Hurry!

On the steps he thought with a child's strange and wondrous irrelevance: There is a moon tonight. Maybe it won't rain. Maybe Uncle Birdie will take me fishin' in Dad's skiff tomorrow.

Within half an hour Willa returned home from the Spoons' and John listened to her voice and the voice of Preacher below the bedroom in the kitchen and presently her footsteps creaked on the back stairs and the door opened a crack.

John?

Yes, Mom, he whispered, because Pearl was asleep.

Are you in bed?

Yes.

And Pearl, too?

Yes, Mom.

He thought: Then he seen it after all. He guessed and he has let her be the one to come up and take the doll downstairs and cut it open with the knife and find the money.

Did you pray?

I forgot— Mom, I—

Get out of bed. Get Pearl up, too.

He shook his sister's arm, awoke her, whining and yawning with sleep, and together they knelt and he felt the cold, rough boards on his knees under the little nightshirt and opening one eye he saw the moon like a dandelion through his eyelashes and listened while Willa's shrill, angry voice talked for a while about Sin and Salvation. When they were back in bed again, she stood by the bed for an instant, her tired hands, grown old too soon, folded before her waist.

Were you impudent to Mister Powell again tonight, John?

Mom, I—I didn't mean—