'That's all right,' I said, slowly, and a kind of chill crept over me. 'What do you mean your span-'
I was looking straight into him, through him and out the other side, and all I could see was a prim, fussy old guy. That was all I could see, because that was all there was to see. He wasn't working for The Man. He never had been.
'… so little time, Mr. Bigelow. None to waste on preliminaries. Everything that could be done for you had to be done quickly.'
'Why didn't you tell me?' I said. 'For Christ's sake, why-'
'Tsk, tsk, Mr. Bigelow. Fret you with the irremediable? Place yet another boulder in yOur already rocky path? There is nothing to be done about it. I am dying and that is that.'
'But I… if you'd only told me!'
'I only tell you now because it is unavoidable. As I have indicated in the past, I am not exactly a pauper. I wanted you to be in a position to understand when you heard from my attorneys.'
I couldn't say anything. I couldn't even see the way my eyes were stinging and burning. Then he grabbed my hand and shook it, and his grip almost made me holler.
'Dignity, Mr. Bigelow! I insist on it. If you must be mawkish, at least wait until I… I-'
He let go of me, and when my eyes cleared he was gone.
I opened the gate to the yard, wondering how I could have been so wrong. But there really wasn't much to wonder about. I'd picked him because I didn't want to pick the logical person. The person who could do everything he could, and who had a lot better reason for doing it… Ruthie.
I wasn't particularly quiet going into the house, so I guess she heard me, even if she didn't let on. The drapes to the living room were pulled back and her bedroom door was open, and I stood watching her, braced against the end of the bedstead, as she pulled on her clothes.
I looked her over, a little at a time, as though she wasn't one thing but many, as though she wasn't one woman but a thousand, all women. And then my eyes settled on that little foot with its little ankle, and everything else seemed to disappear. And I thought:
'Well, how could I? How can you admit you're screwing yourself?'
She put on her brassiere and her slip before she took notice of me. She let out a gasp and said, 'Oh, C-Carl! I didn't-'
'About ready?' I said. 'I'll drive you out to your folks.'
'C-Carl, I-I-'
She came toward me, slowly, rocking on her crutch. 'I want to go with you, Carl! I don't care what you've-I don't care about anything! Just so I can be with you.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'I know. You were always afraid I'd go away, weren't you? You were willing to do anything you could to keep me here. Help me with the school, sleep with me… be Johnny-on-the-spot if I needed you for anything. And you couldn't leave either, could you, Ruthie? You couldn't lose your job.'
'Take me, Carl! You've got to. take me with you!'
I wasn't sure yet. So I said, 'Well, go on and get ready. We'll see.'
Then, I went upstairs to my room.
I packed my two suitcases. I turned back a corner of the carpet and picked up a carbon copy of the note I'd sent to the sheriff.
For, naturally, I had sent the note. I'd meant to tell Ruthie about the carbon afterwards so that she could take credit for the tip and claim the rewards.
I hadn't had anything to lose, as I saw it. I couldn't help myself, so I'd tried to help her. The person who might wind up as I had if she didn't have help.
I hesitated a moment, turning the slip of paper around in my fingers. But it was no good now. They'd muffed their chance to catch me in the act of attempting to kill Jake Winroy, and I figured there was at least one damned good reason why they'd never get another one.
I figured that way, but I wanted to make sure. I burned the carbon in an ashtray, and crossed the hall tojake's room.
I stood at the side of his bed, looking down. At him and the note Ruthie had written.
It was stupid; no one would believe that Jake had tried to attack her and she'd done it in self- defense. But, well, I could understand. The whole setup had been falling apart. Ruthie had to do it fast if at all. And I guess if a person is willing to do a thing like that, then he's stupid to begin with and it's bound to crop out on him sooner or later.
It was all wrong. The Man wouldn't like it. And getting me for him wouldn't help her any. She had to latch onto me now, of course; and you get stupider and stupider the farther you go. But excuses didn't cut any ice with The Man. He picked you because you were stupid; he
It was done, though, and me, I was done, too. So nothing mattered now but to let her go on hoping. As long as she could hope…
I took one last look at Jake before I left the room. Ruthie had almost sawed his throat out with one of his own razors. Scared, you know, and scared not to. Angry because she was scared. It looked a lot like the job I'd done on Fruit Jar.
21
I'd never seen the place, just the road that led up to it; and I'd only seen that the one time years before when that writer had driven me by on the way to the train. But I didn't have any trouble finding it again. The road was grown high with weeds, and in some places long vines had spread across it from the bare-branched trees on either side.
The road sloped up from the Vermont highway, then down again, so that unless you were right there, right on top of them, you couldn't see the house and the farm buildings. Ruth looked at me pretty puzzled a time or two, but she didn't ask any questions. I ran the car into the garage and closed the doors, and we walked back toward the house.
There was a sign fastened to the gate. It said:
BEWARE OF WILD GOATS
'The Way of the Trespasser is Hard'
And there was a typewritten notice
tacked to the back door:
Departed for parts unknown. Will supply forwarding address, if, when, and as soon as possible.
The door was unlocked. We went in,
I looked all through the house, by myself mostly because the stairs were steep and narrow and Ruthie couldn't have got around so good. I went through room after room, and he wasn't there, of course, no one was there, and everything was covered with dust but everything was in order. All the rooms were in order but one, a little tiny one way off by itself on the second floor. And except for the way the typewriter was ripped apart, even that one had a kind of order about it.
The furniture was all pushed back against the wall, and there was nothing in the bookcases but the covers of books. The pages of them and God knows how many other pages- typewritten ones that hadn't been made into books-had been torn up like confetti. And the confetti was stacked in little piles all over the floor. Arranged into letters and words:
And the Lord World so loved the god that It gave him Its only begotten son, and thenceforth He was driven from the Garden and Judas wept, saying, Verily I abominate onions yet I can never refuse them.
I kicked the piles of paper apart, and went downstairs.
