The Watchman (22 page)

You mean you want to tell me who shot Cole, he said. And who wants to kill me, too. Well, Cris, don't you think I know that already? Is that all you want to tell me? No, I don't want to, she said. I have to. He got quickly up from the bed, straightening his clothes, tucking in his unloosed shirt-tails, briskly tightening his belt and the knot of his tie.

I'm listening, he said. Tell me the thing that, Christ knows, I can see plain enough without your telling me. Tell me that your father will keep on trying to kill me as long as I love her, keep on seeing her, keep on trying to save her from this sick and crippled family she's grown up in.

God damn it, Jason! she shouted. Will you stop thinking with your cock and use your head for once? Now, listen to what I'm saying!

He stood at her feet, stared at her eyes, smirked at her eternal and indefatigable femaleness.

Go on, he said patiently. Just know that nothing you say will change it. Who wants to kill me, Cris? Then tell me. She gazed at him quietly, her face struggling to hold its

i

parts together; she was sitting now bolt upright in the bed, her fingers clenched in the candlewick spread.

Sister, I think you've told about enough tonight, said the voice of Luther Alt from the doorway. And now I believe it's time your young friend went along home and left us to do some talking of our own.

For a moment neither of the two moved; it was as if their ears, having heard and passed the words to their wits, now must wait until those wits could believe. With that buoyant, darting stealth of big men he had come into the threshold so abruptly that it seemed to them almost a materialization of him there on the wood: as if he had not come humanly, softly, swiftly up the outer stairs, and crossed the parlor to that brink of their incredulous, astonished privacy. Jason, his head half-turned, saw the Sheriff's shape from the corner of one eye. While Cristi saw nothing and dared not lift her look to the glass that mirrored him in the door, and knowing, needed not confirm it anyway.

Young Jason, I don't think you understood me, said the Sheriff, looming against the twilit room behind, waiting, quiet with an awful and infinite patience. Some men in the imminence of peril brighten and sharpen to what seems an inhuman clear-mindedness, others go watery and palsied in the sickness of disbelieving terror; Jason became reckless. Perhaps it was because he was young; perhaps, on the other hand, because he had suddenly become old. Old, that is, with the knowing that beyond the critical instant of certain showdown there is nothing left: a moment of facing-up worth all the odds since beyond it Ues no chance at all, nor even pieces to be saved.

Sister, will you tell this boy to leave?

Jason sat down again on the seat by the dressing table, staring at Luther Alt.

Cristi whispered brokenly: Jase, for God's sake, get out.

But, Cris, you were just going to tell me something that would save my life. Jason smiled impudently. Isn't that worth waiting around for?

My God, Jase, get out, she sobbed. It's too late for that now.

Too late to tell me who murdered Cole? he said. And who now wants to do the same to me?

Yes! Yes! she moaned, straining her face back to the ceiling. Too late, Jason. Too late!

Because he's standing there?

No! she sobbed. Because it doesn't matter any more. It's too late! You'll do what you'll do and nothing I can tell you would change it. I should have known! Christ, haven't I always known?

Jason looked at the Sheriff; his lips still livid and quivering with that smile.

Or maybe he wants to do it here, Jason said. Get it over with now.

Luther Alt looked back, not blinking, his face filled with that mad and imperturbable patience.

You're a might rash youngster, he said quietly. Do you know that, boy?

Or maybe I'd rather get it here—this way, said Jason. Instead of out of the darkness the way Cole Blake got it. Sheriff. Maybe I'd rather see it coming than get it from an ambush of bushes on the Mound!

Boy, I'm asking you again to leave, Luther said, his lids drooping as if from some sudden weighted weariness.

And I say to you, Sheriff, go to hell, said Jason.

The Sheriff nodded, a swift, slight acknowledging bow of his face, or as if letting something of inconsequence fall away from it.

Without having the good judgment, he said, to realize how lucky you are to even have the chance to go away at all— having heard all you've heard—knowing as much as you know. Think of it that way, boy. Doesn't it strike your mind that you've shaved it close enough already tonight? No man's luck is infinite.

Jason, I don't want you here! cried Cristi. My God, if it's some kind of child's pride you have about not running from him—then run from me. It's me that doesn't want you here. For Christ's sake get out, Jason.

Oh, he'll not shoot me, Cris, Jason said to her, still keeping his eyes on the Sheriff's face. There's too much light. Your father likes to do his shooting in the dark. And aren't you a witness, Cristi? Or would you lie for him? And you. Sheriff, don't you like to see people break down and crawl to you for mercy? Don't you want me to stick around long enough for that?

I want to see nothing of you, said the Sheriff, except your exit.

Don't you even want to know what it is I want? cried Jason. What it is I'm going to get and not your guns nor hell itself can stand in the way of my getting it?

Please go home, boy, sighed Luther Alt.

Go ahead—ask me what I want I cried Jason.

Please, boy.

Ask me, damn you!

What is it you want? murmured Luther Alt, turning his eyes away, his whole massed hugeness expressive of a tireless forbearance.

I want Jill, that's what I wantl shouted Jason. And, by God, I'm going to get her.

No, said Luther, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. No, you're not going to get Jill. Not you nor anyone.

Your face is sweating, Sheriff, Jason said. Your eyes look tired and your hand is trembling. Could it be you're not so sure I won't?

I'm sure, said Luther. I am entirely sure.

Cristi whirled and crawled clawing across the bed toward her father; she looked up at him, wheedling and cajoling, her bled-out face trying a quivering little smile of persuasion.

Daddy, listen. I can make him go. But not while you're here, she whimpered. Daddy, go away for fifteen minutes and come back then. Daddy, I swear he'll be gone. Yes, that's the way we'll do it. I know Jason will go if I ask him to. Then we can talk.

Or maybe, said Luther Alt, you'll spend that quarter hour filling his ears with a little more of your Judas treacheries —betraying us all. Is that what you meant to say. Sister?

Father, I swear! she sobbed, face-down in her fingers. I won't tell him any more. Father, I can make him go. But I can't do it while you're here! Please, Father.

No, said Luther. I will stay. It seems Fm late enough coming as it is. Are you going to get out of here now, boy?

Not yet, said Jason.

Luther's face shot up and his eyes thinned as if they were searching Jason more carefully.

In a dozen towns, he said. For forty years I've seen your tragic kind: children singing off into wars—infants shouting away in hot-rods; street fights and death rows; dope and switch-blades and chicken-runs and charging headlong into mine-fields or flame-throwers. And every one of you says it's Danger he's hunting. But it's not, boy. It's Death your kind looks for. Wants. Why? What drives you to it? Boy, why do you want so much to die?

Jason's face softened and yet with the sag not so much of mind's-ease as of fear; and it was fear not of Luther so much

as of some vision Luther had evoked by that question: a vision of himself hurtling pellmell in a drag-run toward the irresistible precipice and he thought suddenly, anguished, of Cristi's whispers only an hour before: That's just it, Jase. You're not afraid — and you should be. That's why I have to tell you.

He looked up at Luther with a face emptied of all the feckless, old bravado.

Will you listen to me? Jason said. Couldn't you listen to my side of it for just a minute?

I've heard your side of it too many times, boy, said the Sheriff.

If I promise to go afterwards? Jason said. If I could tell you all of it in three minutes—if you'd give me that—if I'd promise to go when I was through?

All right, said Luther Alt.

Well, I'm in love with Jill, Jason said abruptly, addressing the words to his upturned palms and not to Luther's face. And that's about all there is to tell. I love Jill—that's all. And it's not anything cheap or dirty like—

Like it seems to you to be with my other girl here—Sister? smiled the Sheriff. Is that what you meant?

Cris, he's bending my words into shapes I don't mean, Jason said.

She shut her eyes and nodded, telling him silently that it was all right.

What I mean is this, Sheriff— sir —I want to marry Jill.

I know, said Luther Alt.

Well, then what right in God's name do you have to stop it? sobbed Jason. Is the thought of it so terrible?

No, said the Sheriff. Not terrible. Just impossible.

Impossible? said Jason. Impossible and just because you say it's impossible?

Just impossible, said Luther Alt. It will have to rest at that.

And you expect me just to forget about her and stop seeing her and go away because you say it's impossible? whispered Jason. You expect me to give up the thing I love more than anything on earth because you give it that word —impossible? And you expect me to keep my mouth shut —knowing that—knowing the way you stand guard over her with a gun so that no one can take someone away from you that you clutch and covet with the sickest kind of love on earth? You figure I'll keep my mouth shut—knowing what

I know now? Do you think I'll go out of here tonight— even if I never saw Jill again—and not go tell Mister landers or Chief Smitherman what I know about you—that you killed Cole Blake because you couldn't stand to see him have her? That you tried to kill me tonight down at Captina?

I didn't try to kill you tonight, boy, said Luther gently. If I'd tried to kill you—I'd have killed you.

Well, then what in God's name do you call five buUets shot at a person if it isn't meaning to kill them.

A warning, said the Sheriff. Do you fancy for one minute that I couldn't have killed you where you stood if I meant to kill you? Do you reckon a man who's handled guns for forty years couldn't have brought you down with one bullet without wasting four more or even the time it takes to squeeze a trigger that many more times?

Then you just weren't ready, said Jason. Is that it? You wanted to tease me a little before that one sure bullet comes.

All right. Maybe, said Luther Alt. Maybe that's the way it was.

And maybe after that first one killed Cole Blake you found it was so much fun you couldn't end it there—so you kept on shooting till you'd torn his head half off with the other four?

Maybe that was how it was, boy, said Luther Alt. I don't mind it. I reckon I'd rather have you think it was like that.

Luther shot a sidelong glance at the clock on Cristi's dressing table.

Yes. All right, he said. As you say, boy. You have one minute and sixteen seconds left to talk. Keep on. Make the most of your three minutes.

Why do you want to keep her boxed up and locked in from the very things Life wants her to have? said Jason. Tell me that.

Do you know what Life wants Jill to have, boy?

I think I do, sir. Yes, by God, I know I do.

Sister? said Luther, looking at the bowed figure of the girl on the bed. In your little chat with the boy here tonight— your little betrayal of all the terrible secrets of our family— did you tell him that? Did you tell him what Life wants Jill to have?

But Cristi only moaned now, fallen to one side, her face drowned in the deeps of her pillow.

Boy, I tell you this, said Luther Alt. Though I know I might as well be telling it to the wind out yonder. So it won't matter. I tell you that my little Jill has nothing between her and what you call Life but me—nothing to protect her, nothing to save her from the horrors of what you call Life —cruelty and stupidity and suffering. No, you can't understand. You use that word Life as if you'd lived enough of it to know what it means. Well, maybe if you live, someday you will.

I'll live, Jason said. I'll live long enough to get Jill!

Will you, boy? asked Luther Alt.

I will, he said. Unless you shoot me now. That's the only way you'll stop me. Are you afraid to shoot an unarmed man in cold blood, Sheriff?

Yes, said the Sheriff. I'm afraid to do that. A man unarmed—armed; in cold blood—in anger. Yes, I'm afraid of killing anything that lives. You couldn't understand that— you couldn't even believe me if I'd tell you I'd rather die myself than do that. But you'd better damned well believe me when I say I'd do anything that had to be done to keep what you call Life from ever hurting my little girl again.

Jason glared at him for an instant, his face working, his eyes brightening as if with some fever-sick intention behind them, and then suddenly he crossed the rug, flung open Cristi's dresser drawer, thrust his hand fumbling down among her cool silks and fetched out the pistol. He held it up, dangling it on his thumb by the trigger guard for Luther to see.

The way you used this on Cole Blake? he said.

Cristi sprang alive from the bed, maddened, and leaped upon him, grappling for the gun.

Give it to me! Jase, give it to me. Oh, damn you to hell, Jason Hunnicutt! Give it to me! Damn you! she shrieked, beating him and tearing with her fingers. Oh, God, how could you!—spying and sneaking through my things for thisl God damn you, Jason, give it to me! I took it, away from— the night Cole was killed I took it and hid it. I hid it so no one would know!

I'll take it, said Luther Alt, stepping between them with the old movement of wearied, constabulary practice.

He turned away and slumped back to the doorway, stuffing the long, cold thing behind his belt, against his shirt, against the chilled, flinching flesh beneath it. Jason collapsed back on the little seat, his face in his palms.