by Orrie Hitt
“God,” he said, feeling a chill although the room was hot.
“It would be easy, Eddie. I’ve thought about it a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“The kids coming in helped. They all use twenty-twos.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a good shot. There’s a ridge that overlooks the woods — you could get him from there, right in the head. You shoot him any other place with a twenty-two and you might as well scratch his back for all the good it’d do you.”
There was a pain in Eddie’s guts and he bent over, holding his arms around his stomach and pressing in.
“I never killed anybody in my life,” he said.
“I didn’t think you had, Eddie.”
“You could go to the chair for a thing like that.”
“Not if you don’t get caught, and you wouldn’t. Once he’s hit, the kids will run like rabbits, thinking one of them did it. Some of them will throw their guns away. If they get the bullet out of his skull they’ll try to match it, but they won’t be able to match it if they don’t find all the guns.”
“What about my gun?”
“I bought a new one for you, same make and model, and you can bury it in the swamp. The police will end up calling it an accident and we’ll end up a couple of million dollars richer. I’ll wait a discreet length of time before I marry you, and then we’ll share it, as well as our love for each other.”
He tried to think but it was almost impossible. He wanted her, wanted her badly, and a couple of million dollars was a lot of money. Jennings wasn’t any better than some of the animals he caught in his traps, not as good, and he had been asking for this a long, long time.
“I have to think about it,” Eddie said after a while.
“There’s nothing to think about.”
“There is for me.”
“It’s perfect.”
“No killing is perfect. I read that in some magazine.”
“Don’t believe everything you read, silly.”
“I’d still have to live with myself.”
“And I’ll live with you. We’ll get a nice house in some town and we’ll spend every moment that we can in bed. You can give me a kid every year, and I’ll love it. Just do this one thing for me. The kids will be here tomorrow. Wilson has to go into town in the afternoon and it would be ideal.”
“Don’t rush me.”
“There’s no time for fooling around. You want him to do the same thing to me again?”
“Oh, no.”
“Then be on the ridge tomorrow afternoon. And don’t miss.” She crept in close to him. “The hell with it,” she said. “We both know what’s going on. Let’s make a little love.”
He turned out the light and they made love, but it wasn’t as good as it had been before.
Most likely, he guessed, he was running out of steam.
12
IT WAS raining the next morning, and Eddie met Carole in the kitchen.
“I’ll beg off today,” she said.
“Okay.” It was a break he had been hoping for.
“No use in getting soaked.”
Mary returned to the kitchen and he watched Carole’s legs as she moved toward the swinging door. They were very good legs indeed, and he knew what they could do.
“Morning,” Wilson said when he came in.
“Hi, Clark.” Eddie sat down at the table opposite the older man. “Little rain, huh?”
“Hell, it would rain when I had to drop into town.”
“You seldom go to town. Must be important.”
“To Mr. Jennings it is. Tax day.”
“Tax day?”
“Yeah. You get one day a year when you can put in a bitch about your assessment.”
“I see.”
“They put up his taxes every year and it makes him furious. Can’t say I blame him none. Just because a man has money you shouldn’t tax the hell out of him. He owns one-fifth of the land and pays one-third of the school taxes in this township.”
“Think they’ll listen to you?”
“Oh, they’ll listen but they won’t do anything about it. They just hold tax day because of the law.”
Eddie ate his bacon and eggs. The food set heavy in his stomach.
“How will Mr. Jennings get down to the woods?” Eddie asked.
“He won’t go if it keeps raining. If it clears, Mrs. Jennings can help him. The chair doesn’t push hard. All he needs is some help over the rough spots.”
Eddie got out of the kitchen a little before eight, picked up his basket and things at the shack, and struck off for the woods. He hoped it would rain all day, so hard you couldn’t see fifty feet ahead. All night he had twisted on his bed, thinking of what Jennings had done to Kitty and hating him, then telling himself that the man should pay with his life. Twice he had been sick, throwing up in the bathroom. He wasn’t a killer, he just wasn’t, but the lure of having Kitty for his wife and sharing in a couple of million dollars was almost too much.
“I’ll leave the gun near that big pine tree on the ridge,” Kitty had told him the night before. “You won’t have any trouble finding it. And it’s ready to go. I sighted it in myself. You could drive tacks with it as far as you can see them.”
The rain had almost stopped by the time he reached the woods, the sun fighting to burst through the clouds, but he didn’t care if he got wet. All he had to do was to think about shooting Jennings and he felt as though his breakfast was going to come up. Twice he stopped and gagged, but the food stayed down.
He walked fast in the woods, checking the traps quickly, glad that the night hadn’t been a good one. The sun was out now, burning brightly against the damp leaves, and he knew he would have to be on the ridge that afternoon, with a gun in his hand and murder in his heart. The kids would be in the woods, horsing around, and he would lay one into Jennings. It would be an accident, pure and simple. Kitty would be free of a monster and she would be a rich widow.
It got hot in the woods, the flies savage, but he hardly noticed. He told himself that there ought to be another way of doing this. Yet when he thought of Kitty’s breasts, of what Jennings had done, he wasn’t so sure. Jennings wasn’t any good for anybody. He had a warped mind, twisted and inhuman, and death for him seemed to be the only answer.
He got a couple of foxes in the valley and continued on toward Goose Lake, passing the grass spot where he had known Carole so many times. It hadn’t been right, taking her the way he had. She would soon tire of him, if she hadn’t already, and she would find somebody else, somebody in her own class. She had spoken of love — he guessed he had, too, holding her hard and tight — but it hadn’t been love, just infatuation.
There was a mink in one of his swamp traps. He shot the animal in the head just as he would Jennings. The comparison made him shudder, and his hands shook so much he could hardly take the animal from the trap. Killing the mink wasn’t legal and it carried a fine with it if he got caught. But if he got caught killing Jennings it meant the chair.
Kitty was a good shot. Why didn’t she do the job herself if she was so anxious to get rid of her husband? Why was she putting the gun in his hands? This, more than anything else, bothered him. Perhaps the plan she had outlined was a good one, but every plan had at least one hole in it, through which the law could poke a probe. Still, the kids being in the woods, just shooting off their guns, meant a lot. Accidents happened all the time. Jennings wouldn’t be the first man to be corked by a stray bullet.
Eddie rounded the lake and took the path through the woods to the house. The sun was now high in the sky. It was noon or a little after. His feet were wet — he still hadn’t bought new shoes — and the rest of him was wet, too. He felt uncomfortable and his nerves were taut.
“I’ll get him to park his chair where you’ll get a good shot,” Kitty had said. “But do it fast when you’ve got the chance. He moves around when he can and he might get behind some bushes.”
As he neared the house he
heard the kids shooting down in the woods. He didn’t know how many kids there were but there seemed to be at least half a dozen. That was good. Once Jennings was dead the kids would get excited, and they wouldn’t know what they were talking about. Even if the cops found all of the kids and questioned them, they wouldn’t make sense. If some of them threw their guns away, and they might, that would be all the better.
Jennings was on the lawn, just starting to drink, and Eddie showed him what he had. Jennings wasn’t too pleased. Eddie’s take had dropped off during the last few days, because of fooling around with Carole so much.
“Don’t tell me all the animals have left the county,” Jennings growled.
“I’m not that foolish.”
“Well, you’ve got to bear down harder. You’re getting three hundred a month and your room and board. I expect you to earn it.”
He didn’t go in for lunch — how could he eat? He took the foxes and mink over to the field to bury them. It didn’t take long.
On the way back he met Carole. He didn’t like that. He couldn’t afford to get mixed up with her just then. If she wanted a little fun for the afternoon she would have to get it from someone else. All she had to do was to drive down to Twenty Mile River and she’d be able to find any number of guys who would be willing to take care of her. Then he looked at the way the shorts and halter fit her and he wished he had the time. If he had, he could show her a couple of things he hadn’t shown her before.
“You didn’t have a very good day,” she said, as he came up to her.
He gave her a grin.
“Been playing too much and not working enough. You can’t make love and set traps at the same time.”
She adjusted her halter.
“Joan was sick again this morning,” she said, evenly. “I went into her room to see if there was anything I could do and she passed out. When she came out of it she was asking for you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. She didn’t say so, but I gathered that you’re the father of her baby. Aren’t you, Eddie?”
There was no point in lying.
“I guess I am,” he admitted.
“What are you going to do for her?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Just forget the whole thing?”
“I can’t do that. But she doesn’t have her divorce yet — I couldn’t marry her if I wanted to.”
“If you wanted to?”
“Well.”
She kicked the toe of a sneaker into some wet leaves.
“You aren’t much of a man,” she said finally. “I thought you were but you aren’t. You give a girl a baby and then you make love to me. That’s a hell of a thing.”
“I didn’t see anything wrong with it.”
She laughed at him.
“Because you were after something you thought you had to have?”
“It was pretty good,” he retorted.
She kicked at the leaves again, disgust filling her face.
“You’re like a lot of men,” she sneered. “You want your fun but you don’t want the responsibility. Well, that’s all right with me, but you aren’t having me again. You’re going to do what you said you would do about Kitty. I — Eddie, I’m giving you a week to do it. If you don’t do something by the end of that time I’m going to see that you don’t have a job.”
“Going to tell your father about us, huh?”
She shook her head.
“No, I’m not going to confess I’ve been your private whore. There are other ways.”
“Like you did to Jim?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”
He walked on, leaving her standing there. He didn’t have to worry about a week from now. All he had to worry about was the afternoon, about holding the gun steady and straight and putting the bullet where it had to go.
Upstairs he showered and changed into fresh clothes. He looked for cigarettes, couldn’t find any and began to swear. He needed a cigarette or a drink, bad.
He walked to his window and looked out. He could see the far corner of the patch of woods and the higher ridge that overlooked it. He shuddered and turned away.
Kitty had left a fairly large butt in the ash tray and he tore off the crushed end and lit it, sucking the smoke down into his lungs. How much money was two million dollars anyway? It was, he decided, enough to last two people forever.
He walked into one of the rooms on the other side of the narrow hall and stood at the window, watching the house, waiting for Jennings to appear and start down to the woods — a journey from which he would never return alive. As soon as Jennings was in the woods Eddie would get up onto that ridge and find the gun. He would blast Jennings right in the head and then he would disappear, hiding the gun in the swamp where nobody would ever find it. After that would come the cops and the suspense of waiting, the terrible agony of not knowing just what was going on. Following this there would be a longer wait, the weeks or months until he could marry Kitty and they could settle down to a life together.
The sun was hot outside, blazing, and Eddie wiped tears from his eyes. He was on the verge of crying, but there wasn’t anything to cry about. In a few short hours it would be finished. Jennings would be dead and Kitty would be free. Wasn’t that what he wanted? Money or no money, hadn’t he wanted her to be free? Nights when he had been with her he had thought of it being legal, of it being right for them.
He brushed aside more tears and then he knew who they were for. Joan. Joan was in a fix up to her pretty neck, and he would have to do something to help her. Kitty had been very understanding about that, more than most girls would have been. A lot of girls would have dropped him right then and there. Carole had. Carole of the lovely body and the beautiful face had made her feelings very plain.
It seemed like hours before Eddie saw the wheel chair moving across the lawn. Kitty was with Jennings but she didn’t have to help him very much. He could go almost anywhere, even with that shotgun lying on his lap. Eddie was just turning away from the window when he saw Joan coming across the lawn.
He wanted to get out of there before Joan caught up with him, but that was next to impossible. What she might have on her mind he couldn’t imagine but it probably wouldn’t take long to talk to her. He didn’t have much time and he had to move fast. He had to do it while he had the guts to kill a man in cold blood.
Once downstairs he waited for her outside. She walked slowly, her head down, her shoulders slumped forward.
“Hot,” he said as she approached.
She looked up and he could see that she had been crying.
“I hoped you’d be here,” she sobbed.
“I was just leaving. I’ve got things to do.”
“Tomorrow you’ll be able to pick up your traps.”
“Huh? I don’t follow you.”
“Because you’re getting fired, the same as me.”
“Tell me more,” he said.
“I fainted this morning.”
“So I heard.”
“Carole went to her father about it, telling him that I shouldn’t have to lift things or do anything strenuous. She didn’t want me fired, but he said he wasn’t going to have any girl carrying a baby on his place. She didn’t say anything about you, but when he talked to me, telling me I was through after today, I thought she had, and I let it slip.” She almost choked on the words. “I’m so sorry, Eddie. Carole was furious with me because I gave you away, but I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to tell Mr. Jennings that I wanted to marry you as soon as I could — if you’d have me. I — well, I guess he can’t have sex and he doesn’t want anybody else to.”
Eddie was furious and he was sure that he showed it Yet, he consoled himself, Jennings would be dead and a dead man couldn’t fire anybody.
“It’s all right,” Eddie told her.
“What are you going to do now?”
“I have to think about it.”
“There are some farm jobs advertis
ed in the paper, over near the county seat. A couple of them have houses thrown in — one house is furnished — and if we told the people the truth about us they might go along.”
“Maybe.” For Eddie it was a pointless discussion.
“It’s worth trying, isn’t it?”
“We’ll see.”
Her face filled with pain.
“You don’t love me, Eddie. Do you?”
Looking at her, he honestly didn’t know. He thought of all of the beauty they had known together, of the moments they had shared, and emptiness welled up inside of him. Then he thought of Kitty, of the passion of her body, and his head spun.
“Don’t go getting upset,” he said, not answering her question.
“You’d be upset if you were me. I put my hands on my belly and I feel the baby in there. It’s going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. There isn’t much of a job I can get and keep for very long. I need help, Eddie, and you’re the only one who can help me.”
“I’ll help you.”
“How?”
“I’ll find a way. When my father died I had to get money, and I guess I can get money for you. The finance company told me I could borrow again whenever I wanted to.”
The pain was still in her face.
“I want more than money, Eddie,” she said. “I want you. We may have been wrong in what we did, but we can make part of it right by working together and loving each other.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
“Don’t let me down, Eddie. Stick with me for at least a little while.”
“I won’t let you down.”
She turned and walked away, and he felt sorry for her. He would be able to get money from Kitty but money alone wouldn’t satisfy Joan. Joan wanted a home and a husband and all that went with it. She was used to living on a small amount of money. She could stretch a dollar until she made two out of it, getting change in return. A man could do a lot worse than being married to a girl like Joan Kelder. She would forgive him his faults, and when things went wrong she would be with him a hundred per cent.