Savage Night

o'clock.

I wouldn't have cared much if the sheriff or someone had spotted me there; they'd have had a hard time making anything out of the fact that I was taking things easy my first day out of bed. But no one came into the place that! knew. Hardly anyone came in at all, for that matter. So I just sat there, feeling more relaxed and rested the longer I sat, thinking and smoking and drinking.

I felt pretty good by the time! left.

What there was of me felt pretty good.

I got through my shift at the bakery. I put in a full eight hours there the next day, Saturday, and I got through them all right, too. So I got by all right. Just barely.

Because, like I said, there just wasn't a whole lot left of me.

I wondered what would happen if something tough came up, something really hard to take. Something that I couldn't handle in my own way, a little at a time, like I did the job.

And then it was Sunday, and I began to find out.

17

Sheriff Summers belched, and leaned back in his chair. 'Fine dinner, Bessie,' he said. 'Can't remember when-ughahh- I et so much.'

'At breakfast,' said Mrs. Summers, wrinkling her forehead at him. 'More coffee, Carl? I think, from the sound of things, that His Highness will have to settle for some baking soda and water.'

'Aw, now, Bessie. Why-?'

'No, sir. Not another drop. And kindly stop picking at the meringue on that pie!'

The sheriff grinned sheepishly, and winked at me. 'Ain't she a terror though, son? 'Bout the bossiest one woman you ever seen, I'll bet.'

'I don't think I'd say that,' I laughed.

'Certainly you wouldn't. Only His Highness is capable of it.'

'He's just being polite.' The sheriff winked at me again.

'But you're not, are you? Quiet. Carl and I do not care to talk to you, do we, Carl?'

'No, ma'am,' I said, smiling.

And he and she laughed and smiled at me.

It was a nice day, any way you looked at it. Cool but sunny, just enough breeze to ripple the green-brown leaves of the trees. And it had got off to a good start. Kendall had let me set up most of my Sunday batches the day before and leave them in cold storage, and he'd insisted that I take all of today off. He'd really insisted, not in the way people do when they expect you to talk 'em out of it.

I was beginning to feel almost as much at home with the sheriff and his wife as I had with that old couple out in Arizona.

Sheriff Summers said he guessed he'd take a little nap, and Mrs. Summers told him by all means to go ahead. He went up to the front of the house where his bedroom was. She and I sat at the table a while longer, drinking coffee and talking. Then she took me outside to show me the yard.

Their house was one of those rambling old cottages which never seem to go out of date no matter how old they are. The yard was almost a half block wide and a block deep, and she'd tried to doll it up with flower beds and a rock garden in the rear.

I told her how I'd fixed up my little place in Arizona, and she said she could just see it and it sounded wonderful. We went from that to talking about the yard here, and hell, it had all kinds of possibilities. So I gave her a few suggestions, and she was tickled pink.

'That's marvelous, Carl! Will you come over and help me some time-some weekend, perhaps-if I pay you?

'No, ma'am,' I said. 'Not if you pay me.'

'Oh. But really-'

'I'd enjoy doing it. I like to see things looking nice. I started to do a little work on the Winroy place-there's quite a few things, you know, that need-'

'I do know. Yes, indeed!'

'But I haven't felt like it was appreciated-more like I might be butting in. So I fixed the gate and let the other things slide.'

'Those people. I'll bet they never even said thank you, did they?'

I shook my head. 'For that matter, I guess I wanted to do the work more on my own account than theirs. The gate was the worst off, but those front steps have me worried too. Someone could get killed on those steps.'

It was true. They were in lousy shape, and someone could get killed on them without any help. But I felt ashamed of myself for mentioning it. It was just that I always had to keep pointing so hard at one thing that 'everything coming out of me- everything I said or did-pointed at the one thing, also.

'Well,' I said. 'Speaking of work, I think it's time I was getting busy on those dinner dishes.'

We'd been sitting on the back steps while we talked. I stood up and held out my hand to her.

She took it, and drew me back down on the steps.

'Carl-'

'Yes, ma'am,' I said.

'I-I wish I could tell you how much I-' She laughed sort of crankily, as though she was scolding herself, 'Oh just listen to me! I guess I've gotten like Bill, completely out of the habit of handing out bouquets. But… you know what I mean, Carl.'

'I hope I do,' I said. 'I mean, I enjoy being with you and the sheriff so much I hope you-'

'We do, Carl. We've never had any children, no one but ourselves to think about. Perhaps that's been the… well, no matter. What can't be cured must be endured. But I've thought-I seem to have had you on my mind ever since last Sunday, and I've thought that if things had been different, if we'd had a son, he'd have been just about your age now. H-he-he'd be like… if he was like I've always pictured him… he'd be like you. Someone who was polite and helpful and didn't think I was the world's biggest bore, and-'

I couldn't say anything. I didn't trust my voice… Me, her son! Me!… And why couldn't it have been that way, instead of the way it was?

She was talking again. She was saying that she'd been 'so angry at the way Bill acted last Sunday.'

'It was all right,' I said. 'He has to be pretty careful in the job he's got.'

'Careful, fiddlesticks!' she snapped. 'It was not all right. I was never so angry in my life. I gave that man fits, Carl! I told him, 'Bill Summers, if you're going to be swayed by those Fields-someone who is obviously malicious and petty- instead of believing the evidence of your own eyes and ears, I'm-'

'The Fields!' I turned and looked at her, 'What Fields? The only Fields I know are dead.'

'I'm talking about their son, him and his family. The relatives she lived with when she went back to Iowa. Bill wired them, you know, at the time he wired-'

'No,' I said, 'I didn't know, And maybe you'd better not tell me about it, Mrs. Summers. As long as the sheriff didn't, I don't think you should.'

She hesitated. Then she said, softly, 'You mean that, don't you, Carl?'

'I mean it,' I said.

'I'm glad. I knew you'd feel that way. But he knows that I planned to tell you, and he doesn't object at all. The whole thing was so completely ridiculous in the first place! Even if he couldn't see the kind of young man you were at a glance, he had those wonderful wires about you from that judge and the chief of police