Seventh Sense

by Robert A. Brown

  I apologize and I’ll try to do better, even though I know it probably doesn’t matter much to you. I do appreciate that you’re keeping everything I write. You have the only copies of the letters. I could make carbons, but after all that lunacy with the cat in my room looking at my interview notes I decided not to keep anything around that might tempt the forces-that-be in this town. Now that I think about it, I guess some sharp customer could glean something from looking at your letters to me, which I’m keeping in my top bureau drawer, but I don’t think it’d be much. I looked them over again several days ago and you don’t get real specific about my experiences here, which is good.

  Anyhow, you might think about being even less specific from here on out, just as a precaution. Make it so we’ll both know what you’re talking about, but if someone should snatch ‘em, he wouldn’t.

  Sorry to be a pain, but it just seems prudent to do it this way.

  And now, I’ll let you know that my seventh sense was right again.

  When I finished up writing you yesterday morning, it was already warm but not very humid, and a nice breeze was blowing out of the east that wafted any packing-house smell out into the mountains. Things are still green around here, pretty, and on the walk I had that good God-is-in-his-heaven feeling that made me feel like a kid again.

  I mailed your letter at the p.o. and then headed across the street to Foreman’s Drug Store to check the pulp rack and enjoy a cherry phosphate. I was doing just that when someone slammed me hard from behind, almost knocking me into the magazine stand. I’d already slurped down most of the phosphate, but the force of the open-handed blow threw ice from the glass in all directions.

  I looked up into this big dull face, piggy blue eyes squinting under a shock of matted blond hair. And I knew my days of being free from the Blacks had come to an end.

  “Whatcha doin’ ta Pa, ya dumb shit?” he muttered, fire in his eyes. His breath could’ve run off a buzzard.

  Fishing an ice cube out of my uniform pocket, I did some fast thinking, coming to the conclusion that, sometimes, you just have to step into the arena.

  “I’ll tell you exactly what I’m doing,” I returned, locking eyes with him. “Step outside and I’ll explain – and then I’ll take you on in a clean fight.”

  He didn’t expect that. Bullies never do. He goggled at me.

  “We’ll settle this – like men,” I added.

  I turned toward the door, placing my glass and stray ice cubes on the chromium top of the soda fountain and hoping he wouldn’t grab me from behind. It had gotten real still in the drug store. With each step I took, the spilled ice under my shoes seemed to explode like firecrackers.

  I heard him snort behind me but pushed on without looking back. The little bell on the screen door clinked as I exited, but the door didn’t shut. He was right behind me.

  As soon as I stepped through that doorway, I took a fast leap to the side and jumped out onto the sidewalk. It was a good move, too, because he had both ham hands reaching for me and he almost lost his balance as he grabbed thin air. I laughed when he stumbled and his face went blood crimson. He almost roared as he came for me.

  Lots of things flew through my head then. I thought of that first fight I’d had with this gee and his brother, a hundred years ago on the train platform. I tried to remember what punches I’d used. And then, crazily, I remembered a name: Seth. Was that his name, or the name of the brother Pete had winged up in the mountains? I’d been thinking of ‘em as Tweedledum and Tweedledee for so long I had no idea.

  Then he swung, and my thoughts turned to pure-dee survival.

  He was fast, but awkward, grabbing at me with his left hand while throwing the hook at me with his right. I ducked and bobbed away from his swing, stepped to the side, and uncorked a hard left to his nose. It was the same punch I’d landed back there at the depot, and it had pretty much the same effect. The sodden crunch under my fist felt grand. Before I backed away, I threw a right at his Adam’s apple, hitting it dead on. The punch had some zip to it, and he staggered back, gagging and gasping.

  I couldn’t help it if the stupid bastard didn’t know how to box. He had me overmatched in height and reach and weight, and I had to do what I could. I weaved toward him and he started windmilling like a kid on a playground, graceless as a charging elephant. I got in too close, and a lucky punch from one of those leg-sized arms caught me under the chin, knocking me off balance. I staggered just long enough for him to pop me hard under the ribs. I sucked hard for air, caught another blow on the shoulder that sent waves of pain through me. Then I got in a solid right to his hard belly and sent another left over his guard to close one of his piggy eyes.

  He stumbled back into a parked jalopy then, leaning up against it, tried to catch his breath. I was aware of people all around us, frozen like figures in a painting, all eyes on me and my combatant. I glimpsed, or thought I did, some sort of uniformed guy with a gun and holster, but he didn’t make any move toward us. For a moment, I’d thought he was Sheriff Meagan, who I half-hoped would make a deus ex machina appearance like he’d done my first night in town. But we’d gotten so far now I knew that whatever he could do might not be enough to stop this melee.

  These thoughts raced through my head as I dove in on my opponent, not giving him a second to recover, shooting straight, hard-line punches from the shoulder that sometimes hit his arms but just as often slammed through to his sternum or face. He was sagging and I knew I had him when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, one of those painted background figures moving toward me. I jerked my head around just as his idiot brother swung hard at me with his good hand, his right, the other one still poking out of Doc Chavez’s sling. It swished past my nose like a Lefty Grove fastball.

  Right about that time, I stopped half-hoping and started half-praying for Sheriff Meagan and his Remington .44 to make an appearance. It was now two on one, and I knew having one arm out of commission didn’t mean a hell of a lot to this yahoo. I was in for it unless I could somehow get the best of the situation, and I mean in a hurry.

  That thought came to an abrupt end when my first assailant – let’s call him Seth, whether he was or not – found the juice to raise up and land a good one on my right cheek while I was momentarily distracted by his brother. I danced back, my ears ringing, eyes watering.

  I had to stay out of the other Black’s grasp. Even with one arm, he could reach around and pin me to his body, and as soon as Seth got his feet back under him, I’d be hamburger meat.

  So I made a tactical decision to back off quickly into the street. Seth had pulled himself up from the side of the parked auto and was teetering on his feet as his brother stalked toward me, his good hand balled into a hard fist.

  I forced myself to smile, holding my palms upward as he approached. I backed around a little, until I was between him and Seth. A plan had suddenly formed in my mind.

  “Listen,” I said, gasping a little. “This is silly. There’s no need to fight. Hell, it’s not fair. You’ve only got one good arm.”

  I dropped my hands as he stopped right in front of me, hand cocked, momentarily unsure. His astonishment didn’t last long. But it was long enough. I grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands and threw myself backward, pulling him down with me. As we fell, I stuck my right foot into his belly for leverage and just as we hit the pavement I pushed up and off. It was beautiful. He sailed over me, screaming like a woman, and, as I had hoped, cannonballed right into his staggering brother. They both slammed against the car in a heap, and I jumped up and started throwing punches as hard as I could into the brother I’d just launched with my little jiu- jitsu technique. I didn’t let up until he’d slumped to the pavement, lying atop his twin.

  I have no doubt they would’ve been ready for another round in a few minutes, but I didn’t wait to find out if I was right. I pulled myself together, stiffened my back, and walked right across that street without so much as a rearward glance. Once I’d gone a couple of blocks and
felt I was far enough away, I ducked into an alley and let myself sag against the brick wall of the Mackaville bank for a minute or two. I hurt in a dozen places and knew I’d have a first-class shiner in the morning. When I started off again I was limping, too. Suddenly, I was very, very tired and something else – homesick, maybe, as funny as that sounds. I started thinking about all those people who watched as those two big oafs took me on and didn’t do one damn thing about it. I felt alone and I wanted to go home. To Minnesota, I mean. To my people and my friends.

  Instead, I limped on down to Pete’s, and pretty soon I felt better. While I told him the story of the fight, he cleaned up a cut on my cheek I didn’t even know I had and gave me four aspirin that I washed down with a Coke from his pop box. I had a couple more Cokes and by that time I felt better, good enough to watch the pumps while Pete went down to Castapolous’s place, which he likes better than the Busy Bee too, and got a sack of hamburgers. I’d planned to work for him for a couple of hours that day before going back to Ma’s to clean up for my Saturday night date with Patricia. I didn’t want to have to break another one because of those damn Blacks.

  The folks started coming by before Pete got back. I guess word had gotten out that I was at the station. Some of ‘em bought gas, sure enough, but more just wanted to shake my hand and congratulate me on the fight. When Pete got back from the cafe and saw what was going on, he started kidding me about a rematch so that he could have a tire sale.

  Of course, I kept an eye out for the Black twins, but apparently they’d had enough because they never showed. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved as hell when it came time to leave and they still hadn’t shown up. I don’t run away from fights, John, as you know, but I wasn’t quite in shape for another bout right then.

  Sheriff Meagan did show up, a couple of hours after I’d hoped to see him and his revolver back there in the middle of town. I was standing beside the pumps with Pete when the sheriff climbed out of his black sedan and walked over to us, shaking his head slowly.

  “Guess you decided not to take my advice, huh?” he said to me.

  “You mean about walking softer?” I asked, remembering our conversation a few nights earlier outside the doc’s house. “Sheriff, I was walking soft as a kitten. I wasn’t looking for anything but a new pulpwood magazine to read. You can ask anyone who was in Foreman’s when that big palooka started in on me.”

  “Done asked ‘em,” he said, looking me up and down. “You hurt?”

  “Not mortally.”

  A flicker of a grin played across his broad face, and he looked at Pete. “You’ve got a hell of a specimen here,” he said, nodding at me.

  “He’s a dandy,” returned Pete noncommittally, pulling out his rag and wiping at an oily spot on the top of a pump.

  A car pulled up on the other side, and the old fellow in the driver’s seat grinned and gave me a wave. “Nice goin’ downtown,” he half-hollered out the car window as Pete went over to wait on him. I nodded my thanks and turned back to Sheriff Meagan, just in time to hear him tell me, “You’re a regular damn hero, Brown.”

  I couldn’t tell if it was praise or scorn.

  “Wasn’t trying to be,” I said. “I was just trying not to get killed. How’re my adversaries?”

  “Dunno. They was gone by the time I got back in town. Been out in the country since dawn lookin’ for hog rustlers. I could go ahead and visit the Black place, but I figure if either one of ‘em was dead or dyin’ I’d hear about it.”

  “You got a deputy?” I asked him suddenly.

  His eyes narrowed. “Nope. Why?”

  “I thought maybe I saw a lawman in the crowd downtown. He didn’t make any move to break things up, though.”

  “The Mackaville po-lice,” he said, deliberately exaggerating that first syllable with a long “o.” Whatever else he was, Sheriff Meagan was no hayseed. “Wasn’t the chief – he’d have waded right in. But a couple of the others, hell, they might grab a bag of peanuts and settle in to watch.”

  Still, I was surprised. “Aren’t they supposed to keep the peace in town, like you do in the county?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, emphasizing the word just enough for me to understand he didn’t think much of the Mackaville constabulary. I started to say something else, but he beat me to it.

  “Guess you know ol’ man Black’s sick as a dog.”

  “I didn’t, no.”

  “Yeah. Doc says he can’t find anything wrong, but th’ ol’ degenerate’s hurtin’ all right. Sharp pain in his chest that don’t go ‘way. Them big mulletheaded boys told Doc his medicine wasn’t doin’ no good and they was going to find somethin’ at the drug store to give ‘im. Guess that’s how they ran into you.”

  “I wasn’t looking for trouble, like I said. I was just looking at the new magazines and drinking a cherry phosphate.”

  “I know. You didn’t start it, neither. But now you’re the big hero.” He took his big cowboy hat off and wiped his brow.

  “Jus’ remember,” he said, refitting the hat, “a lot of these citizens who’re comin’ by an’ makin’ a big to-do over you about all this are the same ones who woulda stood there while them Blacks pounded you into cornmeal mush, if that’s the way it had went. Maybe the po-lice would’ve finally gotten ‘round to steppin’ in, but I wouldn’t count on it. You ain’t one of th’ locals, and when it comes right down to th’ nut-cuttin’, there ain’t very many gonna jump in to help you against the Blacks nor no one else from these parts. Folks ain’t warm toward the Blacks, but you ain’t number one on their hit parade, neither, ‘cause they still ain’t so damn sure ‘bout you. Keep that in mind, huh?”

  “I will,” I told him. “But you, and Pete here–” I nodded toward Pete, who was hanging up the gas nozzle “–and Ma Stean. I can count on you, right?”

  I saw a look pass between Pete and the Sheriff before the latter said, dyspeptically, “Sure. Long’s you keep on the straight an’ narrow, anyway. But I ain’t sayin’ we’re always gonna be around to pull your fat outta the fire.”

  “I know,” I said, thinking about how I’d hoped to see him when the trouble started with the Blacks.

  “Just try to stay outta trouble, son,” he added as he began ambling back across the drive, over to his jet-black Buick. When he opened it up to get in, there was an explosion of sunlight, reflected by the big painted-on gold star splashed across the outside of his front door.

  “I’ve been trying,” I shouted at him, shielding my eyes from the sudden flash. “Honest.”

  He shook his head a third time, with what looked like a ghost of a smile playing briefly across his broad face. Then he shut the door and drove away.

  I knew what he meant about the people who would’ve stood by and let the Black twins take me apart. I was sure some of the well-wishers had earlier been a part of that oil-painting background surrounding me during the fight. He was right. They were no particular friends of the Blacks, but at best they weren’t sure what to make of the tall outsider in the CCC uniform.

  Still, I got the feeling their congratulations were genuine. So maybe they were just intimidated by the Blacks, like downtown Mackaville was a schoolyard full of cowed kids and the oafish twins were the top bullies on the playground. I shared that thought with Pete, and he allowed as to how there might be something to it. He’d just begun to elaborate when two more cars came rolling in and we got busy. Before I knew it, it was time for me to go, and I said goodbye while he was still servicing a ‘32 Dodge driven by an old dark guy in bib overalls and straw hat – who waved at me as I left and hollered, “Good fightin’, young’un!”

  I got cleaned up and took the Indian over to the Davis house, where Patricia was waiting for me. She and Mrs. Davis must’ve been about the only two people in Mackaville who hadn’t heard about the fight, and while I tried to soft-pedal it she made over the wound on my cheek and my blackening eye.

  At least the dust-up with the Blacks had given me some status around tow
n. The teenaged boys who tried to be vaguely menacing every time I showed up with Patricia at one of the town’s movie houses were, instead, almost comically deferential toward me, nodding their hellos and practically bowing when they stepped aside to let us pass. I strutted through them, wearing my shiner like a badge of honor.

  A film called Sergeant Madden, with Wallace Beery as a hard-boiled cop, was playing at the Palace, and I would’ve been happy with that, but to my surprise Patricia told me she liked horse operas so we went to the Maribel instead and took in a Poverty Row double-feature: Texas Wildcats, a sagebrusher with Tim McCoy as a government agent who becomes a masked vigilante; and Heroes of the Marne, a French film about a big rich farmer whose life is changed when the Great War breaks out. Even though they put in American voices on the soundtrack, the second one was pretty slow going, especially after a McCoy western, and I found my mind wandering. I thought about how much prettier Patricia was than any of the women up there on the screen. Then I started thinking about what Sheriff Meagan had told me earlier that day.

  Surely, I thought, Patricia and her grandmother would be two I could count on, wouldn’t they? I glanced over at her, and she caught my eye and smiled back at me, her head nestled in the crook of my arm.

  Then my mind rambled back to the fight, and to what the Black goon had said to me there in Foreman’s, after trying to shove my shoulder blades through my chest with one pop.

  Whatcha doin’ ta Pa?

  And the sheriff, telling me that Old Man Black was sick.

  The evidence was still circumstantial, but I was just about ready to accept it, if only because it would mean that what I’d done with the cigarette butt – and part of a nine-cent block of paraffin wax from Sparky’s Market – was working.