The Night of the Hunter (20 page)

John watched, thinking: It's so quick you can't see it: the silver blade is as quick as the tongue of the blacksnake me and Uncle Birdie seen on the big millstone that day. His thumb moves and the silver tongue licks out and there is just a little click.

I'm listening. And the Lord is talkin' to me now, he said, moving toward them a little. And He's a-sayin': Not yet, brother! Stay thy hand a while! Give these lambs one more chance!

John did not move: not even when the knife was touching him: the blade pricking the soft flesh beneath the ear and Preacher's hand was closing around the nape of his neck with his free fingers.

The Lord's a-talkin' to me just as plain, John! Can't you hear Him? No.

Well He is! He's a-sayin': A liar is an abomination before mine eyes! But the Lord is a God of Mercy, boy! He's a sayin': Give Brother Ananias another chance. Now speak, boy! Speak! Where's it hid? Speak before I cut your throat and leave you to drip like a hog hung up in butcherin' time!

Pearl commenced sobbing with terror and Preacher whirled on her, smiling.

You could save him, little bird. You could save John if you was to tell.

John! John!

Pearl, shut up! Pearl, you swore!

Shut up, you little bastard, let her speak! Where, Pearl? Where!

Inside my doll! Inside my doll! she screamed, and Preacher withdrew, his jaw sagging, and then he threw back his head and roared out a single, hoarse cry of laughter.

In the doll! Why, sure! Sure! By God, what a clever one Brother Harper was! The last place anyone would look! In the doll! Why, sure, now!

And he went for Pearl just as John moved, ducking under Preacher's sleeve, moving more surely than he had ever moved in his life; thrusting out his hand to the solitary flame and knocking the candle into the peaches and then feeling for Pearl in the blackness and grabbing her little damp hand; dragging her screaming away into the darkness toward the steps. Preacher's shrill bleat of anger filled the cellar with shattering echoes and they heard the stone jar of fruit go crashing and slopping over among the rakes and hoes against the shelves and then a cascade of bursting Mason jars as Preacher stumbled, groping, and thrust his hand among them. And John thought: Because I know the cellar like I know my own room: the way among the boxes and the barrels, the way across the dank, broad floor to the steps, and he don't know the way and he will fall among the rakes and hoes and the apple baskets and trunks and if only I can get Pearl and me and the doll up them steps and lock him down here there will be a chance. They were halfway up the steps now and the door to the kitchen was ajar before their eyes, a bright bar of lamplight and safety in that hell of blackness, and behind them they could hear Preacher go down cursing again in another welter of crashing jars and Pearl was screaming in a high, keening wail. John slipped on the very top step at the landing and almost carried them both backward down the steps and into the hunter's arms and in that dreadful instant they heard the scramble and slap of his feet on the steps behind them and then they were through the threshold and John slammed the door behind him with all his might. Preacher screamed in anguish and John felt the evil fingers crush between the door and the jamb and so he drew back and slammed again and pushed the door tight and before Preacher could rally the iron bolt flew home. John sank, gasping, against the wallpaper and listened to him, crouched at the top of the steps like a trapped fox, his mouth pressed against the crack of the door, breathing hoarsely, sobbing faintly, thinking, scheming.

Children?

Cajoling and gentle: the voice now.

Children? Listen here, now!

John thought: the river. That is the only where. The warm, dark mother river running in the summer night and the only friend in that whole, swarming vast and terrible darkness: Uncle Birdie Steptoe. Yes, the river now. Quick! Quick!

Children, won't you listen to me for a minute? It was all just a joke. Aw, have a heart now. Children, can't you see? The only reason I wanted that money is so's you could have it. That's right! See? It ain't a-doin' no one no good sewed up in that doll baby. I wanted to make you see that, children.

John was still too exhausted to move; still fought to find his breath again while Pearl sobbed and hugged the doll Jenny by the pump.

Listen, little Pearl! You'll listen to me, won't ye now? Won't you, little bird? Little lamb? Listen. I'll make a bargain with you both. That's what I'll do. The Lord just spoke to me, children.

The Lord just come out plain and loud and he rebuked me for my meddlin'. Yessir, if you'll let me out I promise I'll go away tonight and never come back. Pearl? You listenin', little lamb? Want your mommy back, lamb? Want me to go get her right now?

John!

Hush, Pearl! Come on!

Children! Children! Are you listenin' to me? Open the door! Answer me, you spawn of the Devil's own whore!

And now there came a sudden rain of hammering fists against the door and the old hinges strained and squealed as he set his shoulder to the panels again and again, stumbling and slipping on the steps, and then lunging again against the old wood. Pearl screamed again as John snatched her hand and dragged her toward the kitchen door and into the night. The moon cast a little shine: a thin, sickle moon that stood now in the last phase before the dark. Behind him in that stricken house John could hear the thundering shocks on the failing cellar door: a rhythm and a clamor no louder than the thunder of his pulses as he and the girl, clutching her doll, fled pell-mell down the lane to Cresap's Landing, to the wharfboat, to the river, to Uncle Birdie Steptoe and the last asylum against apocalypse.

The landing was stone-silent except for the drowsy chirp of a shantyboat guitar down in the mists below the willows. John spied the ruddy, dusty glow of Uncle Birdie's smoking lamp in the window and led Pearl stumbling down the bricks to the wharfboat. He could not call out: his breath was gone and he dared not call out lest behind him in the sweet, untroubled streets of the summer night the hunter might be listening. Indeed, he could scarcely be sure just then from whom he fled: the blue men of that half-forgotten nightmare-day or the smiling eyes of the mad evangelist. In the doorway to the wharfboat he stared at the sprawled figure of the old riverman on the cot.

Uncle Birdie! Uncle Birdie!

An eyelid flickered, rolled back, closed again, and the old face writhed in a sick grimace of remembrance.

Bess!

Uncle Birdie! It's me—John Harper! And Pearl! You said to come a-runnin' if we needed you!

The boy's hands tugged at the old man's bony shoulders beneath the worn blue shirt.

Bess! Don't, Bess! Bess, I—

Uncle Birdie!

John slipped to his knees now, weeping unashamedly and Pearl stood against the hair trunk, clutching the doll and watching.

Uncle—Birdie! Oh—please!
Please wake up!

Something roused in the old man then and he lifted himself on one elbow and wiped the slaver from his chin and stared at the pair with starting, unblinking eyes, pondering who they were, what they wanted, whether theirs were faces of this world or another.

Johnny! he gasped and fell face down again in the flour sack of cornhusks that served as his pillow.

But the boy beat him now with his fists, pummeling his back and wailing softly and now the face lifted again and the man sat upright with enormous effort and hung swaying there like a precariously balanced cadaver, glaring wildly at the children who had come to plague him for the thing he hadn't done.

—Never done it, boy! Chris' God, never done such a terr'ble, terr'ble thing! Shantyboat trash, Cap—done it! Shantyboat trash!

Hide us, whispered John. He's comin' after us, Uncle Birdie. Listen to me! Please, Uncle Birdie! It's him that's after us—Mister Powell!

Uncle Birdie scowled and deep beneath the troubled fogs a faint lamp of comprehension gleamed for an instant on the dark river of his consciousness and now, licking his lips, he frowned again. Who, boy?

Mister Powell! Hide us, Uncle Birdie! He's a-comin' with his knife!

But now the lantern blew out behind the eyes and the old fear swept back like night mists and Uncle Birdie shrank against the wall, warding off John's wild stare as if it were a blow, and shaking till the tin shaving mirror chattered above his basin.

But I never done it, boy! Swee' Jesus, I never done it! I'll swear on the Book to it, boy! I never done it! I never!

John got to his feet, knowing suddenly how lost it all was: what a world had failed him, how deep a night when the last lamp of all went flickering down the darkness. Uncle Birdie swung his shivering, knobby legs to the floor and crooked an old finger toward the picture beneath the lamp.

Go yonder now, boy! Just go ask Bess! Bess knows it t'warn't me. Bess'll tell you boy.

John turned his eyes now to the black door, into the darkness from which he knew would appear in a matter of seconds the face of Salvation with a knife in his lettered fist.

Swee' Jesus, Bess, I'm drunk! Swee' Jesus, I don't know what's goin' on aroun' my own boat now. Who done it? Who's a-comin' after us all? The Devil, Bess? Is it Jedgment Day? Is that it, Bess? Lord save poor old Uncle Birdie Steptoe that never hurt a fly!

John thought: There is still the river. Dad's skiff is down there under the willows. There is always the river.

He took Pearl's hand and led her out into the night again while behind them in the wharfboat cabin the old man had fallen again in a welter of shame and grief and sickness and was snoring loudly in the rags of his cot. Above them the street bricks gleamed in the circle of lamplight beside the shop where the great wood key creaked and squawled on winter nights. Now it hung dumb and the street, leafy with summer night, was dreaming, while the pleasant tinkle of lemonade glasses drifted down Peacock Alley from the kitchens of the nice houses: the sound and picture of tranquil and provincial innocence, while beneath that smiling, drowsy face such a horror raged. For now the very bricks of the street seemed waiting, already vibrating to the swift and raging footsteps of the hunter. As an ear pressed to a steel rail can sometimes catch the thunder of a far-off train, John's whole flesh sensed Preacher's imminent approach. And even as he caught Pearl's hand again and dragged her into the sumac and pokeberry bushes toward the place of the skiff, the shadow of the man broke suddenly into the lamplight by the locksmith's.

Pearl, be quiet! Oh, please, Pearl!

John, where are we—

Hush!

His feet slipped and sucked in the mud and the weeds tore at his legs as he led her stumbling on toward the boat but Preacher had heard them and now his sweet, tenor voice called after them.

Hurry, Pearl! Oh, Godamighty, please hurry, Pearl!

You said a cuss word, John. That's a Sin.

He thought desperately, staring into a great patch of mists: Maybe the skiff is gone. Maybe one of them shantyboat trash borrowed it tonight.

John, where—

Hush! Hush! Hurry, Pearl!

Then he spied it, the bow jutting sharply in the blanketing white and Pearl, yawning now in a perfect picture of a child bored with a stupid game, hugged the doll Jenny and fought her way wearily through the ooze to the skiff.

Children!
Children!

They could hear him above them, thrashing down through the high brush filth, fighting his way toward them.

Get in the skiff, Pearl! Oh, Godamighty, hurry!

Children!

John! she cried out, pausing. That's
Daddy
calling us!

He uttered a sob of despair and thrust her brutally over the skiff side and down among the bait cans and fish heads in the bottom. Now they heard Preacher hacking at a vine that had entangled him and John knew well what it was he hacked with and in an instant he was free again, thrashing down through the brush not ten feet away. But they were in the boat now and John's hand grappled for the oar the way poor old Uncle Birdie had shown him that day and the way he had watched men do it since the first time he had seen the river. But they moved not an inch in the muck so tightly was the skiff grounded.

Ah, my lambs! So there you are!

John thrust and strained against the oar until the flesh of his hands tore under the wood's ragged grain and the boat moved and he bore down again, straining with every ounce of flesh and bone, and it moved again. But now Preacher had cleared the brush filth and was stepping swiftly through the mud toward them. John gave a final thrust that nigh burst his heart and the skiff swung suddenly into the gentle current.

Wait! Wait, you little bastards! Wait!
Wait!
wait!

Even in that faint show of moonlight, even with the mists wisping and curling against the land, they could see the livid, twisted, raging oval of his face: the mouth gaping and sick with hatred. Now he wallowed rapidly toward them through the shallows, the bright, open blade winking in his fist, and then he staggered and slipped and fell, floundering in the water for a moment and then rising again, splashed after them. John bore back on the oar in the lock and the blade skimmed the water ineffectually and he thought: Why can't I do it when I know how to do it! Please, let me do it! Please! And he bore back again and the oar blade bit hard into the stream and the boat swung erratically like a leaf.

Wait!
Wait!
wait! Damn you to hell!

And now some errant current in the vast, dark river caught them upon its warm wing and the boat began moving, blessedly moving, spinning at first like a mad October leaf and then heading into the channel while still they could hear Preacher: every sound drifting clean and sharp across the flat water: he was back on shore now where he could follow better, clawing his way down the brush filth through sumac and pokeberry, cursing and shouting amid that wiry jungle of the river shore, but now they were moving beyond him, they were free.