by Jim Thompson
“Why the hell didn’t they say something sooner?”
“Why don’t a lot of people? Because they’re afraid of getting involved or they were doing something that they shouldn’t have. These three birds, for example, had stolen some Jamaica ginger out of the cook tent and were tying on a drunk.”
That sounded reasonable, but it left some pretty big questions in my mind. Like how had Four Trey known about the three men and why had he wanted me to keep quite about them. But this was hardly the time or the place to raise those questions.
“Well, Burwell…” he gestured toward the door. “You’ve missed breakfast. Come on and I’ll buy you some.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’ll buy my own.”
I put on my hat and picked up my bindle. Darrow frowned, laughed uncertainly. “Oh, come on, now! Why so huffy? I’m sorry you were held longer than you should have been. But.…”
“I get my own jobs,” I said. “I spend my own money. Now, good-bye and give my regards to that zillionaire daddy-in-law of yours.”
I went on through the door and started down the steps. Abruptly, I turned around and went back to him.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You did something that made me sore, but I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate. Anyway, I had no right to say what I did.”
He nodded evenly, his voice little more than a cold whisper. “You had no right. And I usually answer talk like that in a different way. But no one gets swung on in this jail unless he swings first, and I’m not about to break my own rules. So let me just set you straight on something.…”
“Don’t,” I said. “You don’t need.…”
But he did need to. I’d hit him in the touchiest spot a man has, and he’d been hit there plenty of times before. And he just couldn’t let it go.
“I’m a graduate lawyer, Burwell. I’m also a police academy graduate. This is one of the richest counties in the state, and they can afford the very best sheriff in the state. And that’s how I got my job. Because I was the best, and they were willing to pay for it. I was sheriff before I was married, Burwell. Before, get me? And the first time my father-in-law offers me a nickel will be the last time!”
He broke off, breathing heavily. I repeated that I was sorry, and he gestured curtly toward the steps. I started down them, and after a moment I heard him following me. We went down them together, neither of us saying anything until we were on the walk outside the courthouse. Then he tapped me on the arm and pointed to a restaurant across the street.
“That look all right to you, Burwell?” he said quietly. “I eat there a lot.”
“Whatever you say,” I said. “You’re buying.” And I guess it was the right thing to say, because the grin came back to his face as we started across the street.
I had a big breakfast: bacon and eggs and hot cakes. He settled for coffee, taking a thoughtful sip of it as we faced each other across the table.
“You said I’d made you angry, Burwell. Mind telling me how?”
I told him, admitting that I’d been foolish to take offense. He agreed that I had been, particularly after my temper had landed me in jail as a murder suspect.
“On the other hand,” he went on, “I’m kind of glad, in a way, that you did blow up. Anyone that wasn’t absolutely on the level wouldn’t have done it. Criminals can’t afford to be touchy; not in front of cops, at least. They’re too much on the defensive to be offensive.”
“Well.…” I hesitated, buttering a fork-load of hot cake. “If that’s a compliment, I don’t know how to take it.”
He shrugged, dismissing the matter. “I understand that you’ve come into quite a little money. Over four thousand dollars, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then, you won’t be going back to the pipeline. You wouldn’t in any case, I understand, since they don’t want you any longer.”
“I’ve been cleared,” I said shortly. “I’m a good all-around man and I’m entitled to a job.”
“You’ve got a bad record, Burwell. Twenty-one years old and you’ve got a record as long as my arm. Yes,” he held up his hand. “I know the good side of it, too. About your schooling and all. But the best man in the world can go wrong in a bad environment, and the pipeline is a bad one. It’s been a long time since you’ve been in anything but bad ones. Now, why not give yourself a break?”
I said I appreciated his advice and I’d give it a lot of thought. He shook his head irritably.
“I don’t get you, Burwell. Is it the girl? Is she the reason you’re bound and determined to throw your life away?”
“I’m not throwing it away,” I said and I pushed back my plate. “That was a fine breakfast, sheriff. I’m obliged to you.”
Outside the restaurant, I started to say good-bye, but he didn’t give up that easily. He sort of guided me down the street, making talk as we walked along, directing my attention toward the bank where my money was and pausing before the windows of a couple of men’s stores, more or less forcing me to look at the array of clothes inside. City clothes. Then he moved me on until we were within view of the railroad station.
“There it is, Burwell—Tom,” he said. “There’s a train east at four o’clock. I want you to be on it.”
I asked if he was floating me out of the county. He hesitated, then shook his head like a man who found it hard to do.
“I wish it could be, but I’ve never believed in enforcing the law by breaking it. So, no, it’s not an order. But it’s the best damned advice you ever had in your life, Tom. The very damned best!”
“And I’m going to take it,” I said. “But there’s something I’ve got to do first.”
“You mean ask the girl to go with you?” He sighed, gave me an exasperated look. “Now, you know better than that. If she was looking for a decent life, she wouldn’t be where she is.”
“I know better,” I said. “Anyway, I have to ask her.”
He stared at me wearily, started to say something, then shrugged and glanced at his watch. “Well,” he said. “I did my best. But I guess there’s no way of keeping a rat out of a hole.”
He turned and started back up the street. I called after him that he’d see; I’d be just fine and he could count on it. He answered me without looking around, not with words but a laugh.
The ugliest, most dismal laugh I’d ever heard.
18
The stagecoach left Matacora a little after two in the afternoon, and we were almost four hours traveling the eighty-five miles. The driver let me out in front of the Greek’s, then swung the big Hudson around in the dusky darkness and headed south toward Fort Stockton.
I’d got myself dolled up in Matacora; new khakis and under-clothes and everything the barber had to sell. But that made no difference to the Greek. He met me at the door, demanding money before he’d let me sit down; then watched me while I ate to make sure I didn’t steal anything.
The food tasted lousy. How could it taste any other way? I thought back on my talk with Darrow. And for a moment I almost wished I’d taken his advice, because I’d suddenly had enough of myself as I was. I’d had it with Tommy Burwell—hobo, junglebird, working stiff, gambler, drunk and what-have-you. I couldn’t stand him anymore, and the only way of getting away from him was to get him to hell away from here!
All the clothes and barbers in the world wouldn’t change anything as long as I lived as I did. Nothing would help but a completely new life.
The Greek tossed my change back at me, without a word of thanks. Just threw it at me, so that I had to do some wild grabbing to keep it from going on the floor. Any other time I might have cussed him out or jumped him. But tonight I merely smiled at him and dropped a penny tip on the counter.
It struck me in the back as I went out the door, but I kept right on going. The way I was determined to stay out of trouble, he could have kicked me in the pants and I’d probably have kissed his foot.
Although they were some five miles away, I could see the lights of camp
as I started out of town. I headed toward them, following the truck ruts, my heavy shoes trampling the wiry grass with the sound of secret whispering.
A stingy moon climbed up out of a distant stand of blackjack, and rose slowly into the sky like a sagged-in-the-middle candle. The night wind bustled across the prairie, and the first small stars flickered and winked as though about to blow out. Brave with darkness, a coyote howled eerily. A chorus of dog-wolves began to bark, sounding for all the world like they were scolding someone.
Four Trey had solemnly assured me one time that that was exactly what they were doing. They were scolding the moon because their butts were built so close to the ground. I went along with the gag and asked him why the moon; the moon couldn’t do anything about it. And he said, exactly—that was the whole point.
He fell asleep about then, the bottle being empty, and there was nothing more said on the subject. Thinking back on it years later, it dawned on me that there’d been nothing more to say. He’d said it all, and what he’d said was pretty profound.
I stopped walking to take a breather, coughing and spitting the dust from my mouth. The spittle had hardly hit the ground before it was swarming with black beetles—tumble-bugs—which rolled it into balls, dust and all, and rolled the balls away to their almost invisible nest-holes in the grass.
Tumble-bugs are scavengers of the prairies, keeping them clean by balling-up and disposing of anything in the way of waste matter. You find a lot of them where there are cattle and horses. In this particular area, I figured they probably didn’t have things too good, what with nothing but men and machines around. Industrialization was playing hell with their business—a situation I’d written a nutty piece of doggerel about when I should have been using my time for something better:
A tumble-bug, all ragged and black,
Stumbled along with some dung on his back.
He’d worked all the day and half the night,
Making his ball compact and tight,
For with automobiles it was getting harder
To fill the needs of the family larder.
Now, the path on which he plied his trade,
Some campers there a john had made.
Poor bug, now blind with perspiration,
Stumbled into the excavation.
He blew his nose and cleared his eyes,
And looked around in glad surprise.
“Surely,” said he, “I am dreaming.
“All around, abundance steaming!
“In my most modest estimation,
“Here’s food enough to feed a nation!”
He…
Well, I’ll leave it at that. It gets kind of dirty from then on.
I went on walking until I was within a couple hundred yards of camp. Veering off to the right there, I aimed myself toward the slight dip in the land where Carol’s housecar was parked. It took me about twenty minutes to get to it, her campsite that is. I stopped on the rim above it, looking down into the little hollow, almost calling out to her before I saw that she wasn’t there. It was the right place; I couldn’t be mistaken about that. But the housecar was gone.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to think. Hell, I couldn’t think at all, the way I felt. Then, it came to me that she might have moved to higher ground on account of that heavy rain. And, breathing easy again, I started looking for her.
The night wasn’t bright enough to see far or well. If you didn’t have a pretty good idea of where something might be, you could come within a hundred yards of it and miss it. Carol, of course, had to be parked within a fairly limited area. So I marked it out in my mind and began to search it; moving ahead for fifty yards or so, turning off at a sharp angle for a few hundred yards, moving ahead again and then angling back for another few hundred yards. Crossing and crisscrossing.
I’d done a lot of walking without moving very far from her original campsite when I heard a car. Despite the fact that even small sounds carry far on the prairie, I almost didn’t hear it. It was moving so quietly, the softly powerful purring of its motor blending and all but losing itself in the soughing of the wind.
I’d never heard a car run like that one. Its lights were off. In virtual silence, it rolled across the uneven land, swaying but never jolting, smoothly smoothing out the hillocks and hummocks, a dark shadow blowing through the night. Then, it slid down into that little dip in the land and disappeared.
There was absolute silence for a moment, a moment in which I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t been dreaming. It ended abruptly with the sound of doors opening—and voices. Carol’s and others. Men’s voices.
There were three of them. Three men. And they didn’t linger with her. I was running forward, thinking, you know, that Carol might need help—although she hadn’t sounded like it—when the three suddenly came up out of the hollow. Moving fast and walking swiftly away in the darkness. Ducked behind a bush, I tried to get a good look at them. But I didn’t have much luck at it.
They were about middling weight and height. They had beards. They were roughly dressed.
In other words, they might be any three of half the men on the line. And, of course, they were working on the line. They’d headed toward camp—where else would they go out here—and if they were in camp they had to be working.
I stayed hidden behind the bush for several minutes, making sure that they weren’t coming back.
Then, I went down to where the car was.
19
It was Carol’s housecar all right. I got inside and started it. It sounded like hell. I turned off the motor and got out of the car. Carol ran up and angrily snatched the keys from my hand.
“Well, smarty?” she said. “What do you have to say for yourself now?”
I didn’t know what to say. The car had run like any old car might have, choking and missing as bad as any I’d ever heard.
“Well, it didn’t run that way a while ago,” I said, but I was no longer so sure of myself. “I know it didn’t, and no one can tell me it did!”
“Oh, you!” She stamped her foot. “If you knew anything, you wouldn’t have come back here! You didn’t have to, dog-gone it! That friend of yours, Mr. Whiteside, he told me he’d turned a lot of money over to you, money he’d been saving for you. And you could have.…”
“Four Trey? How come you were seeing Four Trey?” I said.
“Now don’t you try to make something out of that, Tommy Burwell! He, well, he knew about us and he was afraid I’d be worried, so naturally.…”
“What about those three guys tonight? Were they afraid you’d be worried about me, too?”
She looked at me, lips together tightly. “I don’t have to answer your questions, Mr. Burwell! Just who do you think you are, anyway?”
“Don’t you bet any money that you don’t have to answer,” I said, “because I’m the guy you’re just as good as married to and the guy you’re going to be married to. So just don’t you give me any argument!”
Her eyes shifted; lowered. She kicked at a pebble. “You…you haven’t kissed me, Tommy. I haven’t seen you for a long long time, and you haven’t even kissed me.”
“What about those three guys?”
“Will you kiss me if I tell you?”
“Well, uh, yeah, sure I will,” I said. “I mean.…”
“And hug me real nice? Mmm?” She edged closer to me, her voice a teasing little-girl whisper. “An’…an’…after you’ve hugged an’ kissed me real good, will you…?” Her arms went around me, pulling my head down to hers so that she could whisper the last words into my ear. “Will you, Tommy? Just for a little while?”
Well.…
It wasn’t any little while. More than an hour passed before we came back out of the housecar. Plenty of time for her to think up a good explanation for the three men, if she had needed time to think of one. It was so plausible that I doubted that she did.
She’d had to drive into town for supplies and water. The three men had been loafing around the general
store. One of them had a couple of bucks, it seemed, and the others had come along to help him blow it. Which added up to a long walk for practically nothing, but at least broke the monotony of camp. Anyway, they’d helped Carol load her supplies and fill her water barrel. So she could hardly refuse when they asked for a ride back to camp.
“It was safe enough, don’t you think so, Tommy? I mean, the storekeeper saw us leaving together. He knew who they were, and if anything happened to me.…”
“Why were you driving with your lights off?”
“They just went out. One of the men thought I’d probably jolted a wire loose.” She put her arms around me, murmured meekly against my chest. “That’s the truth, Tommy. You just try them, and see if they come on.”
I didn’t see any point to that. Not after my experience in testing the car’s motor.
“Tommy,” she said, “you shouldn’t have come back here. You just shouldn’t have, darling. I thought my heart would break when I thought you weren’t coming back. But…but.…” Her voice was suddenly firm. “Leave, Tommy. Right tonight. Don’t go over to camp. Just go right back to town and keep going.”
“Is that what you want me to do?”
“It’s what you should do, honey. What you have to do. Mr. Whiteside made me see that. The longer you delay, the harder it will become. You’ve been in a lot of trouble already, and if you get in any more—”
“All right,” I said. “All right, I’ll leave.”
“You—you will?”
“I will. But you’ve got to leave with me.”
“B-but—but I can’t, darling. Not right away. I’ll tell you what”—she gave me a brave bright smile. “You go ahead first. Get a place for us, and get started in school and—and everything—and then I’ll join you. How will that be, hmm? Okay, honey?”
I said, no, it sure as heck wasn’t okay. She’d either go with me tonight or neither one of us would go.
“I’ll tell you something, girlie,” I said. “You may have a big lineup of guys over here on payday, but I’m goin’ to be right at the head of it. And the first bo that tries to climb into that truck with you is goin’ to get fanned with a forgy stick!”