by Richard Ford
She stood back, girding herself in the afghan, appearing dark and immense, so he wasn’t sure if under different circumstances he could have ever identified her as a woman. She eyed both him and Newel, as if for a moment she couldn’t tell who was who, then settled her eyes on Newel, who was standing half naked in the wind.
“What has happened to Mark?” she said, a tremble in her voice that he thought sounded more like anger than anything else. The wind was blowing sticks and field debris across the yard and dislodging her hair more and more.
“I think,” Newel said, shifting off one foot to the other and keeping his bare chest covered with his arms, “he electrocuted himself.” He tilted his head faintly toward the old man’s telephone.
She regarded the box indignantly, then back at Newel. “And you were there?” she said.
“Yes ma’am,” Newel said. “In the boat, and, ah, Mr. Lamb had the box up front and he just grabbed two wire ends by accident and fell backward. I don’t think he took a breath.” Newel lowered his head and looked out the tops of his eyebrows.
Mrs. Lamb pinched her mouth and considered that awhile. “So he didn’t say a word?”
“No ma’am,” Newel said. “Wasn’t time for him to.” He snapped his fingers softly.
The trees in the belt of gumwoods where the old man had been hunting were woven together, bending toward the house. Branches were breaking off and dragging across the dooryard. The charge of rain set up in his nostrils and he could hear the thunder, like buildings falling in.
“And he said nothing at all?”
“No ma’am,” Newel said, rubbing his arms.
Landrieu secretly relaid the shirt on Mr. Lamb’s face and tucked it under his head and backed off.
“T.V.A.,” Mrs. Lamb said, glancing at him before he’d even gotten reestablished. “Bring in Mr. Lamb, go and call Rupert Knox in Helena, say Mr. Lamb has passed away suddenly, then come back to me.”
She turned aside, paused, and regarded them both, the Gin Den bracking and buckling in the wind. “You men may go along,” she said imperiously, and was gone, rebinding her shoulders in the tails of her afghan, bending her head into the gale.
Landrieu frowned at the cold remains of Mr. Lamb, then frowned at the distance between himself and the first thicket of catalpa woods he would have to cross in order to reach the lake, and set his mind to working on a way out.
Landrieu watched Mrs. Lamb into the house, then turned his attention to him and Newel. “How I supposed to get him in that house, then me across that lake with all this?” Landrieu said, his eyes roaming grievously into the storm, then back at the two of them, awaiting an answer.
“Come on,” he said, and grabbed Mr. Lamb’s heels and waited for Landrieu to take hold of his shoulders. Newel shoveled in under the old man’s back, and the three of them put him up and ran with him across the yard and up the stairs just as the first drops hit the grass and popped the Gin Den roof.
They angled the old man through the kitchen, straight to the back, where the room was dark and warm. Mrs. Lamb had set up a vigilance in a chair beside the two-poster bed and had spread the afghan on top of the covers for the old man to lie on.
When they had him situated, there was a moment in the room when they all stood still and looked at nothing but Mr. Lamb as though they were surprised to find him in that state and wished the world he would relent and get up. He felt like the three of them were filling up every available inch of the room, breathing and squeezing the boards, straining the plaster on the walls. And he wanted out.
“Landrieu,” Mrs. Lamb said, and shut her eyes.
Landrieu’s mouth gaped as if he was scandalized to be discovered anywhere near where he was. “Yes’m,” he said, casting an evil eye at him and Newel and a quick one at the old man.
“Call Rupert Knox now.”
“Yes’m,” Landrieu grunted. He took a long backward stride and was gone, Newel behind him.
“Mr. Hewes,” she said with the same lasting patience, her face back out of the light.
Mr. Lamb’s mouth came open several inches and stopped.
“Ma’am,” he said.
“Your wages are put on the supper table. Mark would’ve been grateful for your loyalty. Leave his pistol in the Gin Den.”
“Yes’m,” he whispered, and could see her face then in her own darkness. “Mrs. Lamb, I’m sorry about him,” he said. He could hear Newel and Landrieu tromping down the porch steps into the heart of the storm.
“He slept on the right end of the bed last night,” she said, bemused.
“Yes ma’am.”
“When it got spring, Mark always slept with his head to the foot. He thought it equalized his body’s pressures. And when I woke up this morning he was sleeping with his head next to mine, and I said, ‘Mark, why are you sleeping to my end?’ And he said, ’Because I went to bed thinking I was going to die, and I didn’t want to be turned around like a fool. I had a feeling my heart was going to stop.’ And I suppose it did. I’ve spent the day getting myself ready, and now I am.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, looking around into the shadows, unable to make out the wallpaper. “I’m sorry about him,” he said.
“Not as much as I am, Mr. Hewes,” she said.
And he had to go that instant. He took a step through the dining room, grabbed up the money envelope, stapled and neatly written on in pencil, and headed out into the rain, thinking about situations that draw you in and wring you like a rag, and let you go in the rain when the use was out of you and you weren’t good for anything.
2
Landrieu limped to the Gin Den wearing his yellow raincoat, inside of which his face looked cold as the night. He poked his head in the doorway and announced he was ready to go.
He got his gun from under the seat, laid it in the middle of the bed, put on his slicker, and stood in the door while Newel dredged up an old paint tarpaulin and draped it over his shoulders, then the three of them took off in the jeep with Landrieu driving and Newel humped in the front, scowling.
When they got to the overlook, Landrieu paid the lake a menacing look. The water was swelling and the camp was invisible, and through the rain he could see only indentations of shore willows.
Landrieu untied the Traveler, and the two of them sledded it into the water. Landrieu hauled the little All State out of the brush from under an anhydrous ammonia sack, and screwed it on the transom. He then started pinching the bubble and spinning the crank, and staring at the lake as if he were watching a vision of his own calamity.
“Push ’em off,” Landrieu shouted meanly, installing himself in the bow. And they heaved until the boat rode out of the mud and came under power. Newel hulked in under his canvas at the middle of the boat, rain skating his cheeks and wetting his pants. They both faced Landrieu, who kept looking at them malignantly, as if they were undercutting his ability to pilot the boat by simply being there, and when the bow slipped clear of the timber, he whipped the rudder bar to the side and spun the boat into the wind, knocking Newel flat off onto the floor.
“What about the old lady!” Newel shouted when he’d gotten back on the bench. The slap of the water was getting fierce, like metal tearing on the boat’s underside.
“I’d rather leave her as leave me!” he shouted, and Newel made a sour mouth and disappeared in the canvas.
When they got where the dock was visible, the boat had collected two inches of active water and was low enough in the channel that the motor scudded bottom and kicked out suddenly with a whang that shocked Landrieu and almost rocketed him off his seat. He looked puzzled a moment, then motioned Newel out of the boat to wade. Newel crouched lower, shook his head, and pointed on to the dock. Landrieu looked reviled and whipped off down the lake sixty yards and veered back in and approached the dock from upchannel, easing the boat expertly against the swell, baffling the truck tires and cutting the motor.
He got out, tied the painter, and with Landrieu limping out ahead, started toward
Gaspareau’s, where there was a light in the front room.
He let Landrieu struggle on while he slid inside the truck and got a cigarette. Newel got in beside him, letting the tarpaulin stand in the rain.
“Where’re you going?” Newel said, gumming his face with his hands and wiping them on his tweed jacket.
He blew smoke at the windshield and watched it hang on the glass. “Motel,” he said.
“Going to see your sweetie?” Newel said, leering.
“Man.” He let the cigarette dangle off his lip while he wrestled his slicker off and stuffed it behind the seat. “Why don’t you turn me loose?” He felt in his pocket to be sure the card hadn’t gotten soaked, then sat back and hitched his knees against the dash.
“I’ve got a feeling you’re fucking up,” Newel said, widening his eyes to see better.
“Where’re you going?” he said.
“Chicago.”
“I ain’t going that far. I’ll carry you to the store.”
Newel nodded and looked wretched.
“You going to be one of them big-time shysters makes a lot of money?” He fished his key out and put it in the truck.
“That’s about it.”
“If I had the money I’d buy me a new truck.”
“You going to put on your license plate?” Newel said.
“One’ll hold me,” he said.
“It’s none of my business,” Newel said.
“Maybe we can get to the highway without you changin your mind.” He cranked the truck and watched the gauges climb.
“One thing,” Newel said earnestly. “You don’t really think the best way to solve a problem is just forget about it, do you?” Newel peered at him, his face shiny and smooth.
Rain hammered the truck. He turned on the wipers and cleared out a path where he could just see Gaspareau standing on the porch conversing with Landrieu, who was out in the rain in his yellows. He looked at Newel. “If you’re to where there ain’t nothing else, it is,” he said.
“Is that where I am?”
“Where?”
“At the end of my rope?”
“Sure,” he said, smiling. “I figure you were at it a long time ago.”
Newel chewed his cheek and faced forward.
He let the truck idle out from beside Mr. Lamb’s Continental, toward where Gaspareau was listening to Landrieu, jamming his finger at his disk every time he wanted to talk. When the old man saw the truck come up even with the house, he waved his cane and started out, leaving Landrieu standing in the rain.
Gaspareau stumped out to the side of his whistle bomb and poked his face in the window, obliging Newel with a sour look. He had on his hat with the green visor in the brim, and rain was loading it up and guttering off the back.
“Looky here,” Gaspareau said in a strangled voice, having a look at Landrieu before he spoke. “Feller come this afternoon, give your truck a good going over. Got in it and looked around. I told him you was over with the old man, and he had me point to where you was.”
“Must’ve wanted to buy my truck.”
“May-be,” Gaspareau said, his eyes flickering.
“What else did he say?”
“Wanted to know who you was. I told him I didn’t know who you was. I said you worked on the island and didn’t ask my permission to breathe.”
“What else?” He stared through the windshield at the rain.
“That was all. Just looked at the truck—that was before I could get around and tell him to leave it be. Me and him went out on the dock and he had me point where it was you put the boat in over there.”
“You catch his name?” It was raining on Newel’s arm.
“Didn’t say nothing about it.” The old man’s face was streaming. The rain was loud.
He gave the motor a little toe nudge. “I wouldn’t mind selling it if I could get out what I put in.”
“Why sure,” Gaspareau said, smiling widely.
“What’d you say he looked like?”
“Regular boy, long kindly arms.”
“I don’t know no regular boys,” he said, and throttled the engine loudly. “Except Newel here.”
“What do I hear about old man Lamb?” Gaspareau said, smiling as if something were funny, his ears dripping rain.
“He died. That’s funny, isn’t it?” Newel said right in Gaspareau’s face.
Gaspareau stepped back and scowled, his cheeks rising. A circlet of rain slid down his neck across the silver disk that fitted his throat, and disappeared in the hole. Newel put his hand on the window crank and looked at him, his legs getting wetter.
“Police might want to talk to you,” Gaspareau said, swaying on his cane. “Where’ll I tell them you’re at?”
“Chicago, Illinois,” Newel snapped, and raised the window halfway.
“I’ll be somewhere,” he said, letting his eyes roam. “I’ll get in cahoots with them.”
“What if that feller comes looking for you?” Gaspareau said, looking at Landrieu again, who had sheltered himself under the eave and was looking disconsolate.
“Tell him I’m sorry to miss him,” he said.
“He’ll be sorry he missed you,” Gaspareau said. He stood back, and looked at his soaked feet, loosening a stream of water that shot off the brim of his hat and covered his shoes. Gaspareau grinned as if he had done it on purpose, and he suddenly gunned the truck and left the old man grinning at nothing.
The truck rumbled down over the hound’s carcass and up the side of the levee. Beyond it the rain was fierce, and the field rows toward Helena were blurred out. Goodenough’s was half visible and both the tractor and the combine mired in the field were past their hubs in blinking water. A single crag of blue sky was just apparent where the rain had passed and left the air clean. The sun was below the plane of the fields, refracting a bright peach light behind the rain. He let the truck swagger down the side of the levee into the fields and onto the bed that was draining water off the high middle.
“Who was it looking?” Newel said.
He kept his eyes to the road. “Couldn’t tell you.”
“Don’t you wonder?”
“Not a whole lot.”
“You said you didn’t like to advertise, didn’t you?” Newel said.
“I might have said it.”
“If you don’t advertise, who was it looking? You must’ve put an ad someplace.”
“I don’t know nothin about it,” he said. He tried to make out the outline of the store in the rain, and could only see the shadow above the dumpy profile of the land. He tried to put whatever it was Newel was trying to stir up straight out of his mind and concentrate on when everything would be over with.
“Wasn’t your gal’s husband, was it?” Newel said.
He kept watching for the store. “Let me go, would you do that?” He felt himself itching, concentrating on the dark little square emerging shade by shade out of the storm.
“A man diddling another man’s wife in the state of Arkansas is fair game if he’s caught in flagrante delicto,” Newel said.
“You have to talk English to me,” he said.
“My granddad knew a man in Little Rock named Jimmy Scales, who shot his wife in bed with another man. The fellow jumped up and climbed out the window and went running all hell down the street and ran in Walgreen’s to call a cab, and when the cab came the guy walked outside in his underwear and Jimmy Scales shot him in the eye. And when he came up, the jury found him guilty of murder two for shooting the man in a fit of rage. They didn’t even press charges for the wife. The judge suspended and gave him a lecture about being quick on the trigger. That man’s a urine tester at the Hot Springs race track right now, if he hasn’t died with everybody else.”
“Is that what you’re going to do when you get to be a big-time lawyer—amuse them judges about how they practice the law in Arkansas? I think you better figure out something else to do.”
Newel folded his arms behind his head and leaned back in t
he seat. “I thought you might be interested.”
“Why, Newel, won’t you just let it go, goddamn it? If I want to sly around, why won’t you just let me do it?”
“Because you’re so goddamned stupid, dicking around after some fellow’s wife until you get him out hunting for you. Don’t you know that’s the one thing that’s not supposed to happen? Except if you believe the whole world just boils down to a piece of mysterious nooky, I guess that’s the one thing that’s always going to happen. I’d just hate to see anything happen to you, Robard, cause it’d take you so long to know it you’d be dead.”
“You won’t,” he said, watching the store arrive finally on the roadside.
“Won’t what?”
“Won’t see nothing happen to me,” he said, “cause you’ll be on your train, and won’t be thinking about me. And I sure as hell won’t be thinking about you.” He pulled off and idled in under the awning between the gas pumps and the building. Mrs. Goodenough stood in the double doors smiling as if she had plans for both of them. He held out his hand for Newel to shake. “Now, Newel, I want you to save everybody up there, you hear?”
Newel took his hand and pinned it to the seat as if he were keeping himself from leaving. “Screw yourself,” Newel said, and yanked his hand back and jumped beyond the protection of the awning into the rain, then hurried inside the store without looking back.
He reached across and pulled the door to, took a breath, and watched Mrs. Goodenough close the door, then idled out from under the awning and made a turn back into the rain toward Helena.
3
At the first town buildings the rain was already fading. Lights were turned on under the awning of the drive-in where he’d eaten. Cars were pulled up under, their parking lights blinking slowly.
The uncertainty made him edgy now, kept him watching the streets as if something were almost ready to barge out on top of him. And if it was W.W. out scouting the country, where, he tried to figure it, would he least likely hunt, if he wasn’t going on the island, which he might after all be intending? And if that was so, then he could just forget W., since he’d end up out on the island with no explanation for being there, among a throng of people he didn’t know coming and going, undertakers, lawyers, sheriffs, deputies, and could spend the next day explaining why he showed up on private property the day old man Lamb had picked out to die, and all so close to turkey season on top of it. He could be down the road, he figured, by the time W. cleared customs.