It was morning, judging from the light. He was freshly bandaged, his arm in a tight sling against his chest. He was clean, too. Somebody had sponged him down. He was undressed. With his good hand, he pulled the blanket close about him, feeling even more vulnerable. He blinked, swallowed, realized suddenly how thirsty he was. His legs ached; his head ached; there was also a bandage on his arm, and some pain. Yes, he’d been hit there; almost forgot about it.
The details swam at him; the punctured holes of the acoustic ceiling, all neat and in rows; some curtains, and how the bright sun streamed through them from some sort of porthole. The room he was in was small and dark, except for the sunlight’s beam. Next to him on a table was a pitcher filled with ice water.
He raised himself and poured a drink and swallowed it in one long gulp.
“How do you feel?”
She had slid into the doorway.
“Oh. Well, I feel like I might live a little bit. How long have I – ”
“It’s been three days.”
“Jesus.”
“You slept, you screamed, you cried, you begged. Who’s Payne? You kept yelling about Payne.”
“Payne. Oh, let’s see. A fellow that pulled a trick on me.”
“Why do I think there aren’t too many men that have pulled tricks on you?”
“Maybe not. But he’s one of them.”
“The papers say you’re a psychopathic killer, a crazy man with a rifle. They think if you’re not in New Orleans, you’re in Arkansas. Or dead. Some people think you’re dead.”
He didn’t say anything. His head ached.
“I didn’t kill the president.”
“The president!”
“I wouldn’t kill the pres – ”
“It wasn’t the president. Didn’t you listen to the radio?”
“Ma’am, I’ve been in a swamp for a week, shooting one animal every two days to live. In the cars – hell, I just drove.”
“Well, it wasn’t the president. They say you aimed at the president but you hit some archbishop.”
“I never missed what I aimed at in my life. Besides with that rifle – ”
And then he stopped.
“That’s what Donny said. And that’s what I believe. But they have evidence. Fingerprints, the tests on the gun, that sort of thing.”
“Well, maybe they aren’t as smart as they think they are. Maybe I’m not so far up the tree as they say. A bishop?”
“My God, you really
“I wouldn’t shoot a priest. I wouldn’t shoot anything. I haven’t shot to kill in more than a decade.”
Bob shook his head glumly.
Shooting a priest, he thought. And then he thought: That’s what it was all about. That’s what it was always all about.
And then he thought: And they had me bird-dog it for them. Figure out the best way. Work it out for them. And then they used it against me. For some priest.
Then a thought came to him.
He took a deep breath.
“Say, was there anything in the papers about my dog?”
“Oh,” she said. “You don’t know?”
“They killed him?”
“They say you killed your dog.”
“What they say and what happened are two different things,” he said. But it hurt him that people could say such a thing of him.
He watched her watching him.
“The bastards. Kill a great old dog like that. Oh, the sons of bitches.”
“It’s amazing. You are the most hunted man in America. And your first question isn’t about yourself but about a dog. And when he’s dead – I can tell, you’re really upset.”
“That damned old dog loved me and I wish I’d been a better friend to him. He never cut out but stayed to do his job. He deserved more than he got.”
“So does everybody. Look, you should get some rest. What you’ve been through, the physical stress, the blood loss. It would have killed most men. I know some Indians it wouldn’t have killed, but I don’t know too many white men who could have gotten through it.”
He slept again, though this time without dreams. When he awoke, she was there too. He ate a little, then dozed off. And the third time he awoke, she was still there, just staring at him.
“What time is it?”
“Time? It’s
“I don’t feel as if I’ll ever walk again.”
“Oh, I think you’ll make it. You were very lucky. The bullet went right through you with very little damage. You were smart enough to plug that entrance wound with a clump of plastic wadding. That probably saved your life. I’ve been pumping you full of penicillin to preclude infection.”
“What are they saying about me now?”
“Oh, they’ve gotten around to the psychiatrists and the psychologists, because they have no real news. There’s a lot of theorizing going on about motive. Your anger at your father for dying, how that became your anger at the president. Your anger at not becoming a big hero like – do I have the name right? – Carl Hathco – ”
“Hitchcock. Carl Hitchcock.”
“Yes. Things like that.”
“It’s just a lot of talk. They don’t know the first goddamn thing. My daddy was a great hero. And I never cared for medals. He didn’t and I didn’t. Talk’s cheap.”
“You’re certainly right about that, Sergeant.”
He stared off, bitterly. The mention of his father unsettled him. People had no right to bring his father into all this.
“You can’t let it get to you,” she said. “They’ve turned it into a circus. But they always do these days.”
He looked back at her.
“I have to thank you. What you’re doing, it’s – ”
“No, I don’t need thanks. I knew in a split second you couldn’t have shot at the president or that archbishop. If that was in you, Donny would have seen it all the years back; he would have sniffed it out.”
Bob couldn’t look at her. Hearing such judgments put baldly into language had the weird effect of shrinking him. He felt small and wan and self-conscious. He had to tell her the truth.
“If he told you I was some kind of hero, let me set you straight. I spent ten years drunk, and I used to beat on the only woman who ever loved me. But also I let myself slide into bitterness. That was maybe the worst. I let them get to me, and make me less a man.”
A puzzled look came across her face.
“Who? Oh, you know who. They’re always around: smart boys, have all the answers, always telling you what’s wrong and why what you done, you should be ashamed of it.
“But worst of all, I was stupid. I let some smart boys come into my life and turn me around. Real smart boys. They knew all my weaknesses, got real deep inside where I thought nobody could. I don’t know how they knew to get inside me like that. Turned me around, made me a fool. Christ, made me the most hated man in the country. Well, now, I seem to have survived all that. And so now it’s my turn. I need to stay until I’m better and stronger and have figured out another move. I’m sorry to have brought all this trouble to your door. No other door was open to me. So I’m asking you, please: let me stay and mend. A few weeks, maybe a month. And let me study on my problems, figure what the next step is. I can’t give you much but thanks. Will you consider it?”
