off Evie? She your girl, maybe?”
Ish spoke quickly.
“This is it,” he said. “It’s simple enough. We’re a pretty good bunch of people here, not mental giants, any of us I guess, but still nobody too downright stupid. We don’t want a lot of little half-witted brats running in on us, the sort of children Evie would have.”
Only when he had stopped speaking, did he realize that by speaking at all in reply to Charlie’s question, he had made a mistake. Like any intellectual, he had been happy to stop commanding and begin arguing, and so he had admitted that his command was non-effective. Now, in spite of himself, he felt in second place, with Charlie the leader.
“Hell!” said Charlie. “What makes you think she’s been around here all this time and not had plenty of chances to have kids with all those boys around, if she was going to have any?”
“The boys never touched Evie,” said Ish. “She was something they grew up with; she was taboo. And besides, all the boys were married off as early as they could be.”
He was still arguing, and was perhaps at the bad end of the argument.
“So
Ish thought wildly for something to say. What more could be said? You could not threaten with the police or say that the district attorney might be interested. He had flung the challenge and been met head on.
No, there was nothing more to say. Ish got up, turned on his heel, and walked off. He had a sudden quick memory in his mind of once long before, when he had met a man just after the Great Disaster, and had turned, and walked away with the feeling that he might be shot in the back. Yet, after that first memory, he was not afraid, and it was the more humiliating that he was not. He realized that Charlie would think there was no need of shooting. He, Ish, had come off second-best.
He was in the depths of bitterness as he walked back toward his own house, He had forgotten how deep humiliation would be. The hammer was mere weight now, not a symbol of power. For years things had gone easily, and he had been a leader. But after all he was not so different from the strange youth that he now could hardly remember. The youth who had existed in the old days before the Great Disaster; the one who was afraid to go to dances, the one who was never quite at ease with other people, and had never been a leader. He had changed much, he had outgrown much, but he could not outgrow it all.
Then as he came, deep in bitterness, through the door of the old house, Em was there waiting for him. He laid down the hammer. He took her into his arms, or perhaps she took him into hers, he was not sure. But after that he felt suddenly a new confidence. Sometimes she did not agree with him. They had argued just the night before about Charlie, but in the end he knew that he would renew his confidence from her.
They sat on the davenport, and he poured out the story. He did not wait to hear what she thought, but he felt her sympathy flow out and enfold him. He felt the raw edge of his humiliation healing over. She spoke at last:
“You shouldn’t have done it! You should have had the boys to back you. He might have shot you right there. You’re strong at thinking and knowing things, not in meeting a man like that.”
Then it was she was began to take the next action.
“Go get Ezra and George and the boys,” she said. “No, I’ll send one of the children. No one can move in on us like this, and say what he and we are going to do!”
Yes, Ish realized, he had been wrong. There had been no need to feel again the Great Loneliness. Small and weak though it might be, there was still the strength of The Tribe to rally warmly about him.
George was the first to come, and after him, Ezra. Ish caught the movement as Ezra’s quick eyes shifted from George to Em and back again. “He has something,” Ish thought, “he wants to say to me alone.” But Ezra made no attempt to gain the opportunity. Instead he ended by looking at Em in a half-embarrassed manner.
“Molly’s had to lock Evie up in one of the upstairs rooms,” he said. Ish could tell what a hard matter it was for Ezra, a highly polite and civilized person, to have to speak in public thus about the burst of passion that had suddenly come upon a half-witted girl at a man’s caresses.
“What’s to keep her from jumping out the window anyway?” said Ish.
“Nothing, I guess,” said Ezra.
“I could fix up some bars,” said George, eagerly. “We could put something across the window, all right.”
They all laughed a little in spite of the seriousness. George was always so happy to do a little more carpentry somewhere on the houses. But it was obviously impossible to keep Evie locked up for the rest of her life.
Just then Jack and Roger, Ish’s own sons, came in; after them, Ralph, who was the last of that trio.
At the boys’ coming, there was a little relaxing, and people began to sit down and make themselves comfortable. In a moment, Ish knew they would all expect him to begin to say something and he felt again that this was all happening too rapidly. What he was actually facing was almost like the organization of a new state. And yet, they could not sit down quietly and start out by writing a constitution with a good old-fashioned preamble. No, a particular and troublesome situation faced them, and they must act in the face of it.
He put the question sharply: “What are we going to do about Evie and this Charlie?”
There was a babble of talk, and almost immediately Ish had the chilly feeling that of all the men, only Ezra was solidly with him. The boys, even George, seemed to think that Charlie might bring a new force from the outside to enliven and enrich the life of The Tribe. If he liked Evie, so much the better. They had enough loyalty to Ish to insist that Charlie must apologize for what had happened this morning. But it was evident also, Ish felt, that they all considered him to have acted precipitously—he should have talked with the rest of them before confronting Charlie.
Ish brought up the argument that they could not afford to let Evie start a line of half-witted children. But his words made less impression than he had thought they would. Evie had always been a part of the boys’ life, and the thought that there would be others around of the same kind made little impression upon them. They could not think far enough ahead to conceive that the descendants of Evie would necessarily mingle with the rest of the group and bring the whole level down.
Then curiously enough, George’s slow mind brought forth an even sounder argument. “How do we know,” he said, “that she really is half-witted anyway? Maybe it was just all that trouble she had when she was a little girl when everybody died and left her all alone to take care of herself. That would put anybody crazy. Maybe she’s just as bright as any of us really, and so her children will be all right.”
Though Ish could not imagine Evie’s ever having normal children, still there might be something to the argument, and he saw that it impressed the others, except Ezra. In fact, there was almost a feeling that Charlie was a benefactor to the community, and was going to bring Evie into it again as a normal part. And just then Ish noticed that Ezra was really wanting to say something.
Ezra stood up. That was unusual of him, too, being so formal. And it was also unusual that he seemed to be embarrassed. His florid face was even redder than usual, and he glanced back and forth, particularly at Em, it seemed, in an uncertain manner.
“I’ve got to say something more,” he said. “I talked with that fellow, Charlie, last night after we went home, quite a while. He’d been drinking a lot, you know—talked pretty freely.” He paused, and Ish noticed again his half- embarrassed glance toward Em. “He boasted, kind of, you know.” And now Ezra glanced toward the boys, as if realizing that they, poor half-savages, would not know really what a civilized man was discussing. “He told me quite a bit about himself, which was what I was after.”
Again he paused, and Ish could not remember Ezra ever having been like this before. “Come on, Ezra,” he said. “Tell us. This is just us.”
Suddenly the bonds of Ezra’s reticence broke.
Ish saw the news visibly shake George’s big body as if it had been a jolting blow on the chest. He saw the flush spread over Em’s creamy-colored face. To the boys the news was nothing. They did not know what Ezra was talking about.
