River Girl

by Charles Williams

  I pushed the bell again, and then I heard it. Someone was coming quietly down the stairs. The door opened a crack, there was a sharp gasp, and then she was throwing it back and reaching out for me. She led me hurriedly up the dark stairway, still holding me by the arm. There was light in the hallway, coming from the open bedroom door, and now she turned and stared at me, seeing the sodden ruin of my clothing and the blood across my face.

  “Jack!” she whispered frantically. “Jack! What have they done to you?”

  She had on her nightgown and robe and the coppery hair was tousled from the pillow, but I could see she hadn’t been asleep. “Thank God you’ve come. I’ve been praying…I’ve been praying all night! Ever since I heard. But you’ve been hurt!”

  “No,” I said. “It’s nothing. I fell.” I swayed and almost fell now, and leaned against the wall. The whole apartment seemed to be swinging in that big whirlpool which had caught me and I wanted to hold onto something.

  Then she had hold of me again, towing me down the hall. We were in the bathroom and she was tugging at my coat and then unlacing the mud-caked shoes. “Well leave them right here,” she was saying. “Right here where he’ll see them and know. I want him to know, damn him.” What was she talking about? I wanted to ask her what time it was, but she was busy at the shirt and I was too numb for thought. Then I could hear the shower blasting and she was shoving me into it. I was naked, and it had never occurred to me, and probably not to her, that there was anything odd about her undressing me and pushing me into the streaming water.

  “Hot,” she said. “As hot as you can stand it, and then cold.” The water beat down and I could feel the dirt and caked blood and sweat going away and my nerves unwinding, and then I was conscious that she had disappeared. She was back in a minute, holding a glass in her hand. “Drink this,” she said. She turned her head as I stepped from under the water. I took the glass and drained it in three large swallows. It burned going down and exploded into warmth and life in my empty stomach.

  I had turned off the water and was rubbing myself with a towel. She returned in a minute and handed me a pair of shorts around the partition of the shower stall. “When you get them on, come outside and we’ll get the other things.”

  I slipped them on and went out and looked at my face in the mirror as at somebody I’d never seen before. It was haggard and sunken-cheeked, black with beard, and the cut place on my head was ugly, inflamed and still encrusted with clotted blood. I went into the bedroom and she was taking clothes out of a suitcase on the bed. “They’re his,” she said. “He keeps this bag here for trips to the city.”

  Then she was gone again. I couldn’t keep up with her. I heard something rattling in the kitchen and then she came back for me once more, while I was putting on the shoes. She had me by the arm and was seating me at the table. While I was eating the piece of cold steak and drinking the milk she pulled up a chair and sat down, not across from me but just around the corner of the table at my left. She had her hand on my wrist and was talking, very fast.

  Her voice was quiet, but still full of that tremendous urgency which seemed to have hold of her now as well as of me. “I’ve done nothing but think about it since I heard the news, about nine o’clock. Just think about it, and pray you’d come, that you could get here. And now you have!”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. What was she talking about? And through all the numbness I was conscious there was something I had to know. “How did they find him? How did they know?”

  “Find him? Oh. All I heard was what was on the radio. Something about an outboard motor they couldn’t find. He was supposed to be repairing it for the man down there at the store, and it wasn’t there. So they got to thinking about some oil that was on the lake.”

  I guess it doesn’t matter now, I thought. There wasn’t any way I could have known the motor wasn’t his. It just wasn’t meant to be. That had ruined it, that and not seeing the picture of her sitting there in front of my face, but what good was there in torturing myself with it now?

  Dinah was still going on, her eyes shining, touching me with her fingers. The white, gleaming kitchen and this lovely copper-haired figurine of a girl with her unstoppable torrent of speech were all mixed up now in the endless movement of the whirlpool. What was she talking about?

  “I even went down and had the car serviced and filled with gasoline. We won’t have to stop at all for over two hundred miles. My clothes are packed and I’ve got over two thousand dollars in cash in my bag, and I took the money out of your wet suit, too. We’ll leave your old wet clothes right there where he’ll see them, and the muddy shoes, and he’ll know. Don’t you see, Jack? He can’t say anything, or tell anybody. He’ll know you’re gone and that I’ve gone with you and he can’t do anything about it and he’ll have to cover up for us, because he’s afraid to have you arrested. He was going to try to kill you in that swamp if you came back. And I would have killed him, if he had. And now you’re here and we can go, and he’s still down there looking for you.”

  I began to get it, even through the numbness in my mind.

  “Everybody is looking for you. They’ve called in the state police and all the roads around the lake are blocked, but we can get through the other way, going north. You’ll be in the back, in the luggage compartment, anyway. I took out the spare tire and put in a bunch of blankets to make a bed. It’s big. I measured it. I got in it myself, thinking: When I’m standing up, the top of my head is just under Jack’s chin. It’s plenty large enough for you. I even put in a pillow.”

  I had stopped eating. I stared at her. She had everything figured out, and for the first time I began to realize what a mind there was behind that lovely and reckless face.

  “Nobody will ever know except Buford, and he won’t talk. He can’t. The rest of them will think you died in the swamp. We’ll go on to southern California, with you traveling all the way in the luggage compartment and staying at night in tourist cabins. I’ll cut your hair short, a crew cut, so the curl doesn’t show. And you’ll grow a mustache. They’ll never find us. Think how it’ll be, Jack! Just the two of us. I’ve been crazy all night, praying to God to let you get here.”

  It would work. It would work perfectly. I could see it would. I could get in there in the back of the car and be out of the state before dark tonight. Buford’s hands would be tied and he wouldn’t even report it; there’d be no description of the car, or anything. I knew she was a little wrong about one thing, about their thinking I had died in the swamp, for the dogs would tell them I’d got out of it. But even then they’d never know where I’d gone; the trail would end at the highway, for the dogs couldn’t follow me through all that oily smell and gasoline. I would just disappear into the air. Nobody had seen me get here to this place, and nobody would see me leave. It was perfect, all of it, and this girl was tremendous, this flame-haired toy with the brain of Machiavelli. I sat there looking at it for a whole minute, at the beauty of it, thinking that two hours ago I was whipped, without a chance in the world, and now escape was right here in my hand. All I had to do was get in the car with this girl and go.

  Not with this girl, or any other girl, to anywhere, I thought. I knew what had brought me up out of that lake bottom, and it wasn’t this.

  She had both hands on my arm again, still looking at my face and talking. “It’ll take me only a minute to dress, Jack. You wait here, while I change.” I looked at her.

  “I’m not going, Dinah.”

  “What?” She was staring, open-mouthed. It didn’t make any difference. She couldn’t stop me. Nothing could, anymore. “I’m not going with you. I want your car, and a gun. I’m going after Doris Shelvin.”

  Twenty-six

  Jack! Please! For the love of God, listen to me!” She had me by the arm, pulling at my sleeve. I had run into the living room and was in front of the gun case, snatching up an automatic.

  “Where’s the ammunition for this?” I asked. Then I saw it, and jerked out the clip to l
oad it. “What time is it?”

  “They’ll kill you!” she cried out, paying no attention to my question. I shoved the gun in my pocket and grabbed her wrist to look at the watch. It was ten minutes to four. I had a little over an hour until daylight. But I still had to get the car keys from her. Would she give them to me? I thought wildly. I didn’t want to have to take them away from her, but I would if I had to.

  “Give me the keys, Dinah!” I said. “I’ve got to have that car.”

  She was around in front of me now, grabbing at my shirt. “Listen, Jack! Please listen to me. Oh, God, isn’t there any way I can make you understand? Haven’t you heard what I’ve been telling you? I can take you away, where they’ll never find you. I want you, Jack! I want you to go with me. I’ll take care of you. I’ll hide you.”

  “Dinah! The keys.” I caught her arms.

  “I’ll watch out for you. We’ll go anywhere you say! What do you want with her? What kind of woman is she for you? Don’t you know that she confessed tonight, after they got her back to Harrisville?”

  Suddenly she let go my shirt and became deadly calm.

  “We’re too wild to use our heads. We’ve got to stop it. I don’t think you understand, and I want you to be perfectly quiet while I tell you. I love you. And I can take you out of here. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And if you try to take her out of that jail in Harrisville they’ll kill you. And even if you got her out, you know what would happen, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said again. Somehow, in all the mad urgency of it, there was enough sense left in me to know that she was right.

  “They’ll have every road blocked. They’ve got radio cars all around that lake, and they’d be swinging out and onto every road in this end of the state in a matter of minutes. You’d be trapped. Now, will you listen to me?”

  We were both silent for a minute, staring at each other. Somehow I was as calm as she was now and I understood everything she had said, and I knew that none of it made any difference at all. “Where are the keys, Dinah?”

  She dropped her head and turned away from me. “They’re in my purse. In the bedroom.” She walked over and sat down in a big armchair, not looking at me any more or saying anything.

  I ran out and across the hall to the bedroom and found the purse on a dresser. I took out the keys and the roll of wet bills that had been in my suit. Catching a glimpse of my face again in the mirror, I suddenly remembered I should have shaven, but there wasn’t time for it now. I pawed hurriedly through Buford’s bag, however, and found the razor and some shaving soap, and stuck them in my pocket. One of his big hats was lying on a chest, and I snatched it up and put it on. It would hide the ugly cut.

  I came back across the hall and she hadn’t moved. “I’m sorry about the car, Dinah,” I said.

  “Yes. Isn’t it too bad about the car?” She turned away and put her head down on her arms.

  I went down the stairs and backed the Lincoln out of the garage.

  * * *

  Time was a burning fuse. It was twenty-eight miles to Harrisville and I made it in twenty-five minutes by the clock on the dash. There were no patrol cars on the road, and I knew they were all back there covering the roads on both sides of the lake. Raines and all his deputies would be down there. In the wilderness of the irresistible compulsion that had hold of me now there was some part of my mind still calm and thinking about it. There shouldn’t be anybody there except the jailer himself.

  I stopped the car right in front of the entrance and got out. It was still dark, and the glaring pool of light from a street lamp was shiny against the leaves of the trees along the street. In one of the windows of the jail a Negro was singing, an insane dirge with something about the Lawd over and over.

  I went up and knocked on the door. It opened a little and I shoved my way in. He was alone in the office, a lank, sandy-haired man of about forty-five with a lean, sour face, and tough eyes with a little yellow in them like a goat’s. He was wearing wide police-type suspenders to hold up his seersucker pants, but had taken off his shirt on account of the heat.

  “I want Mrs. Shevlin,” I said. “Open it up.” I prodded toward the steel-barred door in the back of the office.

  He looked at me, and I could see he knew who I was. “Go to hell,” he said.

  I saw the ring of keys on his desk, next to the detective magazine he had been reading, “Open it up,” I said. “What cell is she in?”

  “You can go to hell,” he said again. He had been sidling a little toward the desk, and suddenly he lunged for the open drawer. I hit him over the eye with the flat of the gun barrel and he doubled up on the desk. Yanking him erect, I shook him, and then threw him back against the wall. “Get smart,” I said. I tossed the keys to him and he opened the door.

  He was taking too much time. I shoved him in the back and he snapped out of it. Some of the prisoners had waked up by this time and they began to yell, thinking it was a lynching. We came to her cell and she had been sitting on the side of the bunk. She looked up and saw me. “Jack!” she screamed, and while he was fumbling with the lock I saw her slide to the floor. I wanted to hit him again, but by that time he had it open.

  “You won’t get away with this, Marshall,” he said. I pushed him and he slammed into the wall and lay on the floor, moaning a little.

  I knelt down beside her, wanting to gather her up and kiss her until she came around, but feeling time running past us like a millrace. I turned her over very gently. She still had on the white suit she had bought, but it was wrinkled and soiled, and didn’t look cool any more. Her face was waxen white and the lashes were dark and very long, almost unreal against her cheek. I wondered if I had strength left to pick her up.

  Somehow I got her up and went out and slammed the door shut. Turning the key in it, I hurried along the cell block and back out through the office. There was still no one in the street. As we went under the glaring light I looked down at her. Her head was tilted back, the face very still and white, with the long dark hair swinging free. I couldn’t help it. I bent my head and kissed her on the throat.

  I started to slide her into the seat, and then suddenly thought of something. What was it Dinah had said about the bed she’d made in the back? That would be perfect. There would be a lot less chance of our being spotted with just me alone up here than with both of us. I put her down temporarily in the seat while I reached for the keys to unlock the trunk. Then I noticed I was still carrying the jailer’s key ring in my hand. I threw it out into the street and went around to the back, and unlocked the trunk and raised it. She went into it perfectly, curled up like a child with her head on the pillow. But suppose she wakes up there in the dark, I thought. I ran back to the front and looked in the glove compartment. There was a flashlight, as I had hoped, and I snapped it on and put it down beside her on the blankets. She’ll know where she is, I thought.

  I didn’t want to leave her. But it’s only for a little while, I thought. As soon as we’re out of the worst of the danger area I’ll pull off onto a side road somewhere, by a little creek, and she can get out and I’ll shave myself. I put the shell down and went back and lifted the back seat up, pulled it out a little. Feeling back with my hand, I could see there was plenty of opening for air to get through, and with the shell closed the carbon monoxide from the exhaust couldn’t back up on her.

  I jumped into the seat, and then discovered I had left the keys in the lock of the trunk. I was getting jittery with the hurry now. There still wasn’t anyone in the street and it was growing light. I ran back, snatched them out, and climbed in. It had been too easy, and I was scared.

  Take it easy, I thought. Keep your head. The worst is over. They’ll discover it in a little while, but the jailer didn’t see the car and they’ll have no description of it. I hit the starter and had just got out from under the street light when the other car pulled into the street behind us. For an instant the headlights washed acros
s us, glaring in the mirror, then they went out. He had stopped. Fighting the terror, I went on, picking up speed without gunning it. Just before I turned the corner I looked back. A man had gotten under the street light and was walking up the steps of the jail.

  He didn’t pay any attention to the car, I told myself. Sweat was greasy on my face as I swung around another corner and went up through the deserted streets in the middle of town, headed for the highway going north. When I passed the city limits I was doing sixty and gaining speed. The road dipped down in a long grade, across a valley two or three miles wide, and over the hill on the other side. Darkness was fading, with the sky growing pink over to the east, as we shot across the valley and started up the hill. They won’t know which road we took, I thought. There are four of them out of town. Just before we topped the hill I looked back and the road was empty.

  It was thirty miles to Woodley. That was a highway junction too, and if we got past it before they got the alarm on the air, the chances were against their having all the roads blocked. They wouldn’t have enough cars. In a few minutes I shot another look behind me and felt the terror again. Headlights had just topped a hill, far back. I hadn’t passed anybody, and if a car was overhauling us at this speed it was chasing us. It was nearly full daylight now, and I cut the headlights as we went over another rise and slowed to swing into a country road running west. At the first crossroad I turned south. About fifteen miles down there it should bisect the highway running west from Harrisville. It did, but just as I approached I saw a patrol car go careening past, headed west. I’ll be behind him, I thought desperately, and they’re going to plug it somewhere up ahead. When he was out of sight I shot across the highway, still roaring south on the secondary road.