The Far Cry

by Fredric Brown

  There were. He went through the house systematically first and didn’t find so much as a pencil sketch, but in the shed were three unframed canvases tilted with their faces against the wall. They were very dirty, but the shed had been dry and they were intact. He took them out into the sunlight and then got a rag from the house to wipe them off. He put them in a neat row, face out this time, against the side of the shed and stepped back to study them.

  They weren’t bad.

  They were considerably better, anyway, than anything he himself could ever hope to do. They weren't really good, however; he knew enough about art to feel sure of that. But there was deep sincerity in them; the man who’d painted them had considered himself to be a serious artist and had done his best.

  They were all pictures of mountains, but they were mountains in such shapes and colors as mountains have never been. They were mountains that writhed in dark agony against spectral skies. They were mountains of another dimension, on another world under an alien sun.

  Weaver said "Jesus Christ" softly, and not irreverently, to himself as he studied then.

  The pictures weren’t signed, but they didn’t have to be. He knew that they were Nelson's—and he knew that they meant two things; that Nelson was a little mad and that he had had at least a touch of genius to have expressed that madness so perfectly in paint on canvas.

  He took them inside the house and propped them up on the table, one after another, to study them in light that was not so glaring.

  He’d lost all inclination to get out his own water colors.

  He drove in to Taos and it was ten-thirty, still far too early to find mail at the post office. He drove past Doughbelly Price’s office and saw through the window that Price was seated at his desk, still wearing the big hat. Weaver parked his Chevvie and went in. Doughbelly looked up. "Hi, Weaver. You and the house getting along all right together out there?"

  "We're doing fine," Weaver said. "Listen, out in the shied behind the house I found three paintings. Not signed but I think they're by Nelson. Who owns them?"

  "I guess I do. Nelson hadn't paid his second month’s rent yet and so I was told that any stuff he left behind him was mine, which wasn't much. But I didn’t notice no paintings. Where were they?"

  "In the shed, against the wall.”

  "Hell, I remember now, I did see them when I looked through the joint after Nelson had high-tailed. I looked at ’em, and they looked to me like the rest of the junk in the shed. Why? They ain't worth anything. Sit down."

  Weaver sat down. "I rather like them," he said. "Whether they’re worth anything or not I don’t know, but I'd like to have them."

  Doughbelly Price's eyes twinkled under the brim of the Stetson. "You're going to be gypped if you offer me anything for them. I asked a friend of mine, ran a gallery here then, whether Nelson's stuff had any commercial value. He said no. Said Nelson had wanted to exhibit there and had shown him a few things and they weren't worth nothing.”

  "That's good,” Weaver said, "because I couldn’t offer you much anyway.”

  "Tell you what, Weaver, how’s this for a deal? It wouldn't hurt the value of the place out there none to have a few pictures hanged on the walls, no matter how lousy the pictures are. So how about this? You get all three of the things framed—there's lots of places around here does framing and hang ’em. When you leave here take one of ’em, to cover getting the three framed—any one you want—and leave the other two. Or if you still want all three, we'll dicker then."

  "Done," Weaver said.

  He left his car parked where it was and walked to and around the plaza, looking into windows, killing time until he could get his mail. There'd surely be a letter from Vi today telling him when to meet her.

  Somebody said, “Hi, Weaver," and he turned. It was Callahan.

  Weaver said, "Hi. How'd you go for a drink?" He'd figured it was too early to have a drink alone, but having one with someone would take the curse off it.

  The editor shook his head regretfully, "My busy day, remember? Just ducked out for a cup of coffee. Can I buy you one?"

  Weaver decided he might as well have a cup of coffee. At least it would kill time. They went to the coffee shop at La Fonda and sat at the counter. .

  Callahan shoveled two teaspoons of sugar into his. "Guess I was a little tight when I drove over to your place last night. Sorry I barged in on you so late."

  "Don’t be foolish. You got there early and left early, and it did me good to have someone to talk to. I've been spending too much time alone since I’ve been here.

  "Your wife’s coming soon?"

  “Yes.”

  "Be glad to meet her. Say, I remembered, as soon as I got home, what it was I’d been wanting to tell you about the Nelson business. I remembered about the one report they got on him after he left here. Amarillo.”

  "In the Texas Panhandle?"

  "Yes. When they circulated reports on him after the body had been found, a report came in from there. Two months before—a day or two after he left Taos, it must have been he stayed one night at an Amarillo hotel."

  "Under what name?"

  "His own. I mean, Charles Nelson. And he registered from Taos. He must have felt sure there was no pursuit after him yet, that the body hadn't been found."

  Weaver said, "He must have been heading east then. Anyone there remember anything about him?"

  "Not worth mentioning. The name clicked with the hotel clerk when he read about the murder here in Taos and he checked back on the register and found it. But he remembered Nelson himself only well enough to verify the description. He told the police there and they checked around and found the garage where he’d left his car overnight—piled high with luggage and canvases and stuff. And the attendant there thought he remembered—he wasn’t too sure—that Nelson had asked about the roads down to El Paso."

  "El Paso? Hell, if he was going to El Paso, he’d not have gone by way of Amarillo from Taos. That’s two legs of a triangle—it'd be at least a couple hundred miles out of his way."

  "More than that, I think. It could have been that he had business in Amarillo, of course. But, more likely, he was heading on east and asked about roads to the south just to throw off anybody that might be trying to trace him later."

  "But why, in that case, register under the name they'd be looking for him under?"

  "Easy answer to that. He cashed some traveler’s checks. Had three twenty-dollar checks in a book of them, in the name 0f Nelson, and cashed them at the hotel he stayed at. He must not have figured it was much of a risk, but he might have taken the extra precaution—it didn’t cost anything—to ask about roads in the wrong direction, just in case."

  Weaver said, "About the traveler’s checks. Couldn’t they—?”

  "They did," Callahan interrupted. "Sure, they traced the ones he’d cashed there, and found they’d been bought in Denver three months before; he’d bought a book of ten of them at a bank there. The other seven turned out to have been cashed in Taos during the time he was living here. He must have realized, after he lammed out, that he still had three uncashed twenty-dollar traveler’s checks and took the slight chance of registering under his own name—if Nelson was his own name—one night so he could get his sixty bucks out of them. It was a minor and calculated risk; the chance was remote that the body would have been found so soon—if, in fact, it ever was found. Way back there in the hills, he probably figured it was safe forever."

  "Did they do any checking in Denver, where he bought the traveler’s checks?"

  "Oh, sure, but he must have been just passing through. He bought them for cash at a bank where he was a stranger and no other lead to him turned up there at all. Well, I’d better get back to the office."

  Callahan insisted on paying the check for the coffees and Weaver let him; the amount wasn't enough to argue about.

  They went out to the plaza and started around it; at the corner Weaver pointed. "Is that the supermarket Carlotta Evers works at?"

>   "Yes. Want to meet her?"

  "I’d like to, if you're not in too much of a hurry—“

  "Not so much I can’t spare another two minutes. Come on.”

  Business wasn’t rushing, at that hour, in the supermarket. Callahan led Weaver to one of the cash-out registers where a dark-haired woman of about thirty or thirty-five—she looked as though she might be half Spanish, half Anglo—quite pretty, was ringing up an order of groceries. There was no one in line behind the customer and as soon as he’d carried his bag of groceries away, Callahan introduced Weaver and explained his interest in Jenny Ames.

  Weaver said, "I'd like to talk to you about it, Miss Evers. May I take you to dinner tonight?"

  Her smile showed a gold tooth that made her look slightly less attractive. "Thanks. I'd be glad to."

  "Where and when shall I meet you?"

  "Well—would six be too early? I get off at five and that would give me time to dress. I live right near here, just past the Harwood."

  Weaver said that six would he fine and absorbed complicated directions—all directions in Taos are complicated about how to find the right door.

  Another customer approached the register then, and Weaver took his leave and walked back to the newspaper office with Callahan. From there to the post office; it was time now for the first mail to be in.

  There was a letter from Vi:

  "Dear Georgie—”

  His skin crawled a bit at the grammar, spelling and punctuation that followed (no matter how ridiculous he knew it was that he should feel that way), but its purport was simple. She would take the girls to camp Friday; she herself would leave Kansas City late Saturday afternoon; her train would reach Santa Fe at six o’clock Sunday morning. She was glad that he was going to meet her. The girls sent their love.

  He wondered irritably why she couldn’t have chosen a train that arrived at a reasonable hour; there were several every day and there was no reason why she had to choose one that got in at such an ungodly time. He’d have to get up at about three o'clock in the morning to meet that train; either that or drive to Santa Fe on Saturday and stay at a hotel there. Probably that would be the lesser of the evils.

  Besides, the information was incomplete; the train didn't get into Santa Fe at six o’clock or any other time. The nearest passenger stop for Santa Fe is Lamy, eighteen miles away, and the trains connect there with a bus that carries passengers the final lap into Santa Fe. From her letter he couldn’t tell whether the train got into Lamy at six o’clock or whether that was the time the connecting bus reached Santa Fe.

  He’d been intending to drive to Lamy to meet the train itself, but since she was so inconsiderate about the time of her arrival, let her take the bus, he decided, into Santa Fe and he’d meet her there. He bought an airmail postcard at the window and wrote and addressed it at the post office desk; he told her to buy her ticket through to Santa Fe, which would make it include the eighteen-mile bus trip from Lamy, and that he’d meet her at the terminal in Santa Fe. He postscripted a reminder about the typewriter and the camera.

  That about filled the postcard, but he remembered something else and bought another one; he told Vi that if she'd either bring or ship ahead of her a few blankets and a few assorted dishes, silverware and cooking utensils, it would save them from having to buy more to supplement the few he had already bought, and would save them some money. He was getting a bit worried about money.

  Partly on account of money he decided against having lunch in Taos and drove back to the house to cook some thing for himself; he'd be feeding Carlotta Evers at a restaurant tonight and that would be enough eating expense for one day.

  He cooked himself some ham and eggs. It wasn't too good, but it wasn't too bad either—at least as good as Vi could have cooked it; she was incorrigibly careless in her cooking and sloppy in her housework. Neither praise nor censure could induce her to take the little extra trouble that made the difference between a good meal and a poor one. And she had an aversion to trying any new dishes; she cooked the same things over and over again in the same mediocre way—

  Well, he had plenty of faults of his own, he thought; and food was not too important a part of his life. Neither, for that matter, was sex, these last few years; he’d done without it most of the time and could keep on doing without it. But if Vi could only talk intelligently, or even listen intelligently, if only she'd read something besides trashy love story and confession magazines—if she could only be a companion, even in the slightest degree—

  Don't be an ass, he told himself; that isn't Vi’s fault. It’s yours.

  It was his own fault for having married suddenly and on the basis of a purely physical attraction—and nothing in common besides that—which had been all too brief for both of them. And with physical attraction gone and sex life almost nonexistent, there was nothing left between them at all—nothing except the children who tied them almost irrevocably together. Almost irrevocably—if only he could earn enough money—

  If only they hadn't had children—And yet, of course, he wouldn’t put Ellen and Betty back where they’d come from—even if that were possible—now that he had them and loved them.

  But damn, damn. Vi, he had seen within two years of marrying her, was incurably stupid, almost aggressively stupid and dull. Nothing, almost literally nothing, could penetrate the carapace of her indifference to everything worth while in literature, art, music, living. Nothing above the level of sheer unendurable trash. Love pulps, soap operas, cloying popular ballads—she chewed them all contentedly as a cow chews a cud. She needed, wanted, nothing more; these things were her life, these things and drinking and the eternal eating of candy—box after box of it—that had put forty pounds of weight on her since their marriage, forty flabby pounds that made her body, once slender and desirable, almost as gross and bovine as her mind.

  He tried to forget about her and the fact that within four days now she’d be out here with him. He washed the dishes and utensils he had used, put them away, straightened the house again. He liked neatness, orderliness, simplicity, and for a few days more he could have them.

  He studied again the three pictures Nelson had left he hind him, envying the conception and the execution of each of them. Probably only someone slightly off the beam, like himself, would appreciate them. But he'd give a lot to be able to do a fraction as well'

  He decided he might as well take them in today, when he drove in to Taos later for his dinner date, and leave them at a framer's. It would be better if he had them back, already hung, when Vi came. She'd probably never even notice them if they were already on the wall. Otherwise he'd have to explain, and even so she'd think he was crazy to have paid for the framing of such horrible things. He looked about, wondering where they should be hung, and suddenly an idea came to him.

  The shed where he’d found them—why couldn’t the junk in it be carted away and the place itself cleaned up? Then he could convert it into a studio for himself, a place where he could spend time by himself. The three small rooms of the house—without even a door between two of them—offered almost no privacy at all.

  But why couldn't the shed be made into a den, a retreat, a studio, a sanctum? He could keep his paints there, and his books and magazines, and wine—and he could be alone there as much as he wanted. Vi wouldn’t understand completely but she would make no objection. And there'd be enough wall space to hang all three of the Nelson canvases; he could have them all to himself.

  The thought cheered him tremendously; it was an inspiration that made the summer ahead look infinitely less bleak and boring.

  He went out to the shed immediately and looked it over. Yes, it was plenty big enough, about twelve by fourteen. There was a window—with the glass broken—and it was on the side away from the house. The roof didn’t seem to leak and the walls were sound except for a knothole or two it would be easy to plug or cover. No electricity, but it wouldn’t cost much to run a pair of wires from the house twenty yards away. A small oil bu
rner—he could probably, especially at this season of the year, pick up a used one for a few dollars—would keep it warm on cool evenings. The whole setup would cost him only a few dollars and would be worth hundreds. He could keep his typewriter here, too—

  The more he thought of it the more enthusiastic he became; it was the answer to most of the problems that had worried him—particularly the problem of Vi's radio. Vi wouldn’t be happy without one, and the interminable programs of soap opera and cheap music would drive him mad if he had to listen to them twelve hours or so a day. Those radio programs had been one of the causes—and not an unimportant cause—of what had happened to him; they'd driven him out of the house, evening after evening, to work or to drink. He simply couldn’t stand them, and yet he hated to be brutal with Vi about them because they were such a ridiculously important part of her life.

  Would the shed be too dark? No, not if he got himself some flat paint—or maybe even whitewash would do—and painted the walls a light color. And among the junk, that table, if painted and the wobbly leg braced, would do for his typewriter. He could spare one comfortable chair from the house——

  Yes, by all means—and before Vi came.

  He checked over the items of junk again and found nothing worth salvaging except the table. He measured the window so he could tell Ellis DeLong what size pane to bring. He checked the lock on the door and found that it worked, although it needed oiling.

  He drove in to Taos feeling more contented than he'd felt for a long time. He left the three canvases at a frame shop, with orders to frame them as inexpensively as possible, and then went to see Ellis DeLong.

  The sunlight was bright and warm and the world was a good place. His thoughts were a long way from murder, murder past or murder yet to come. He didn’t think once of Jenny Ames.

  But he remembered his date with Carlotta Evers; after he'd made arrangements with DeLong to do the few things the shed required, and as soon as possible, he killed time over a bottle of ale at the Taos Inn until time to pick her up at her apartment near the Harwood.