you think he held up people and shot at the police and beat up people for gamblers? What do gamblers want people beat up for? And if they had to, why didn’t they
“Yes,” he said. She’d know it if I tried to lie to her, he thought.
“But why? Why, Mitch?”
“Jessie, I don’t know.”
“He used to make wagons for me. At Christmas. With wheels sawed off the end of a round sweet-gum log.”
I reckon an argument like that wouldn’t hold up in court, he thought, but it would take a long time to explain to her why it wouldn’t.
“Do you remember the wagons, Mitch?”
“Yes,” he said, dropping the cigarette on the ground and looking down at the red coal. “I remember.”
“And the rawhide harness he made for Mexico to pull the wagon with? That was just one year. I was too big the next year for Mexico to pull me.”
It’s fine, Mitch thought, when you’re as tough as Sewell and they can’t hurt you. Sewell’s so stinking tough nobody can hurt him.
* * *
After Jessie had gone out Joy lay on her back in the dark room in her bed, across from the small one Jessie slept in, and wondered if it was going to happen again tonight. For some time, and especially the past few weeks, she had had trouble in the dark. It would begin with the gradual appearance before her, whether her eyes were open or closed, of a bust of herself something like the one there had been in the high-school library of Shakespeare or maybe it was Daniel Webster or some other famous writer, except that it was unclothed and somewhat more comprehensive as to detail below the neckline and a little longer to include a full view of her breasts. Then the horrifying part of it would start. It wouldn’t matter that she had looked at herself, or this much of herself, quite searchingly and thoroughly in the mirror not an hour ago, just before she went to bed. It would still happen. The breasts would be leathery and sagging, and her face would be lined, not really wrinkled like that of an old, old woman, but just faintly tracked across by time, like the face of a woman in her late thirties or forties in too strong a light. It would be the same face, there would be no mistaking that, with the little brown beauty mark of a mole just beyond the corner of the slightly pouting red-lipped mouth, but there would be now the revealing evidences that flesh has weight and can fall, and the skin would be coarser and all the pathetic camouflage of make-up would not be able to hide entirely the pitiless erosion of the years. Then would begin the panicky urge to fly from the bed and turn on the light to look in the mirror and drive it away. She would lie perfectly still and try not to think about the mirror, the way a man with bladder trouble would try not to think of the bathroom so far away down the hall. It’s not true, she would tell herself. There’s no sign of it. And then she would start to hear again the brutal laughter of Sewell there in the jail.
Three years ago he wouldn’t have done that, she thought. Not even two years ago. I could have anything I wanted then. God, do you suppose I’ve lost that much of it in three years? I couldn’t have. I can’t tell any difference at all when I look in the mirror. I look just the same. I do. I know I do. I had a picture of myself then an held it up alongside the mirror, they’d look just alike.
Didn’t that man in the bus station try to pick me up when I asked him how to get out here? Didn’t he get that old look in his face and offer to drive me out? Oh, hell, he was forty-five, and one of those small-town smart alecks that’ll make a pass at anything that’s alive as long as ain’t his own wile. The wheezy old bastard, smelling like tobacco juice. Then making me walk the last hall mile.
But there was that deputy sheriff up there where Sewell was in jail, the one named Harve. He wasn’t even married and he didn’t seem to think I was any old relic. He was a great kidder and a lot of fun to go out with and he could make a girl feel like somebody still wanted her, even if he did have that funny habit of laughing sometimes when nobody had said anything. And that photographer from the Houston paper who came up to take pictures of the trial and wanted me to pose without any clothes on for his private collection. I guess he thought I still looked all right, because who ever heard of collecting pictures of old bags? I guess he knew a good-looking girl when he saw one, even if he was a kind of screwy sort of stew bum and said things that didn’t make sense, like calling me Narcissus all the time like that was my name. Narcissus. That does have a cute sound. He was cute, too, in a way, even if he was a stew bum. He never wanted anything except to take pictures of me like an artist’s model, and I liked that. Men are so damn messy and rough, always wanting to go to bed with you. But he was nice. It was a cute picture, too, and I wish I’d kept it, the copy he gave me, but Harve wanted it so bad I just had to give it to him.
I haven’t changed a bit. I just worry too much, being stranded in a dump like this without any money and not knowing how I’ll ever get out of it. Imagine, thinking I’m beginning to look faded and washed out when I’m only twenty-five. That’s a laugh. I don’t know why I get to imagining these things. Why, right now, as much as I detest him, if I even just smiled at Mitch he’d be pestering me all the time. God knows, I wouldn’t have him on a bet, but if I gave him any encouragement he’d be following me around like an old dog. Him and his stuck-up airs, pretending to look right past me like I wasn’t even there and acting like he thought I wasn’t good enough to be around that kid when all I’d have to do would be to crook my little finger at him and he’d be hanging around till I’d get sick of the sight of him. I’d do it, too, if it was worth the trouble.
* * *
It was sometime after midnight when Sewell Neely came up the steep, slippery incline of the road bed and onto the pavement. Rain was still coming down and every thread of his clothing had been saturated and drowned for hours. Water ran out of his hair, and sloshed in his shoes when he walked, and ran into and stung the ugly cut on his arm where the glass had raked it. Harve’s gun was a comforting, hard weight in his coat pocket, and the handcuffs dangled from his right arm. They were still locked, but the other cuff was empty.
I wouldn’t never want to do it again, he thought. But there wasn’t any other way. In the movies they open locks with guns, but I don’t think these here are movie hand-cuff’s and I’ve often wondered where all that hot lead goes when it splatters off of steel locks. But if it had to be done, I’m glad it was Harve. Nobody ever appreciated a good joke like Harve did, and he’s got one now that’ll stay with him. He was a great clown, all right, even if most of his ideas was old before he ever heard of ‘em, all except that one with the picture. That was a pretty good one, and Harve was just the boy that could help you along with it.
He turned right and started walking in the direction the car had been traveling when it crashed. When he reached the middle of the long bridge and could hear the river going by down below, he took the knife out of his pocket and threw it as far as he could into the darkness.
Six
The rain had stopped sometime during the night and dawn had been gray with mist coming up from the river and hanging wet and dripping among the pines along the hillside. It was midmorning now as Mitch came up toward the house from an inspection of the fields, anxiously watching the sky for some sign that the sun was going to break through. If it cleared now it would be two days before they could work in the upper fields and nearly a week before the bottom was dry enough to plow.
He came up past the barn and turned the mules out to pasture, thinking impatiently of all the work that cried out to be done if they were to save the crop and could not be started until the ground began to dry. If it rains any more we’re goners, he thought. It’s got to stop. We won’t even pay off the credit and we’ll be rooting for acorns like the hogs this winter if it keeps on. He cut across the yard, walking silently on the white, hard, rain-packed sand, and nodded a solemn greeting to Mexico as the big hound came out from under the house. Mexico approached him with the stately dignity of age and high rank and shoved a moist black nose against his palm in courtly salutation.
Mitch gave the pendulous chops an affectionate slap with his hand and went on toward the house, hearing now the excited rattle of voices somewhere out in front.. He turned and started around the corner and was hit a glancing blow by Jessie, running full tilt along the side of the house. She bounced off him, frozen-faced,
