Everybody Had A Gun

by Richard Prather

  Now it was in Mrs. Sader's right hand, and it looked too big for her hand, but her finger was curled around the trigger.

  She said, "Come in, Mr. Scott," in a flat voice, all on one level with hardly any inflection. She had some kind of beads around her neck and she kept playing with them while she spoke.

  I shivered at the eerie pitch of her voice, and looked at her, and suddenly I wasn't looking at the beads or the bore of the big gun. I was looking at the madness staring out of her eyes.

  "Come in, Mr. Scott."

  Mrs. Sader said it again and moved the gun slightly. I went on inside as she backed up. I'd had so many guns pointed at me I was used to it. The one she had was just bigger, that was all.

  I said, "I wish it had been you, damn you."

  She smiled sadly and said, "Bad, bad, they were bad." She looked right through my eye sockets as she had before, as if there were something unpleasant on the back of my head. After what Lonely had done back there, I guess there was. She hissed, "Sinners! She deserved to die. So did he."

  "You didn't really think you'd get away with it, did you?" I was watching her. Just as soon as I got the chance, if I ever did, I was going to jump her and maybe break her neck.

  She answered me flatly, "I did what was right. I did what was right."

  I laughed at her. "But you sure tried to make it look like murder and suicide. How'd you get Marty to go back to the Pit?"

  "I asked him to. It was"—she frowned—"important. It was important."

  It had been important to Marty, all right. It didn't really make much difference what she'd told Marty to get him there; she'd done it. I said, "And that sweet little kid. Was she in bed when you went out there? Did you get her out of bed and get her sitting on the couch and shoot her in the head? Then leave that junk around her?"

  She looked at me out of those frightening, staring eyes. She didn't say anything, but she was humming. Humming! This was a picnic.

  The blood boiled in my head. "If I get my hands on you, I'll kill you, woman." I don't know whether I meant it or not, and it wasn't a smart thing to say, but I hated her in that second. And then I got what she was humming. I couldn't place it for sure, but it was some kind of hymn.

  And it hadn't made any difference what I'd said to her. I don't think she even heard me.

  "Come," she said.

  "What?"

  "Come." She waved toward the back of the house. Not with the gun, though. With her other hand. She wasn't that crazy.

  I didn't get this. Was she going to take me out back and shoot me? Maybe she had a big grave already dug out there somewhere; she looked like a gravedigger. It was going to be real cute if I shot up a whole roomful of hoods, charged all over hell throwing my weight around, and then was blasted to small pieces by a little old lady with her marbles scattered.

  I did what she said.

  I walked toward the back of the house as a little dizziness swept over me and I got that hot sickness in my throat again. And the place where I'd been shot throbbed and burned. I noticed that every damn light in the house was on. I kept on walking and she tramped along behind me humming that hymn. I wasn't sure, but maybe I'd heard that hymn at a funeral.

  I got clear to the back door of the house before she stopped me. There was a switch on the wall to my left and she said, "Stop there. Turn on that switch, please." She was polite about it.

  I started to lift my hand, and pain jumped through my arm and chest. I stopped and reached with my right hand, and she spoke again.

  "Wait! Why did you stop?"

  I turned and looked at her. "My arm's hurt. I got shot. O. K.?"

  She smiled a sweet, sweet smile, and nodded toward the switch. She stayed several feet away from me and played with her beads.

  I turned on the switch and light flooded the whole back of the house. I could see the pepper tree under which I'd first seen this witch sitting, the branches bending and whipping now in the high wind.

  "Go on out." Then she started humming again.

  I went. I kept hoping for a chance to jump her, but I wasn't getting any. Most of the time my back was toward her, and the rest of the time she was too far away. She might not be a very good shot, but all she had to do was nick me with one of the balls from that bazooka, and the impact would probably unravel me.

  I kept going and we walked to the tune of her off-key musical accompaniment till we got to the barn. There was a long, heavy ladder lying alongside the barn.

  "Pick up the ladder," she said.

  "What?" This was a new one. Maybe she thought she was going to climb to heaven. Well, I'd be glad to hold the ladder for her—till she got to the top. I grinned, thinking about it.

  She snapped, "Pick it up!"

  Apparently she meant it. I'd had time for some of my shock and anger to die down to a dull throb inside me by now, and I was getting increasingly worried about the possibility of getting a hole through my frame. There wasn't any way to figure this cracked gal; she might suddenly take it into her mind to pot at me instead of Truman.

  I bent over with no more hesitation, not grinning any more, and got hold of the ladder about the middle. I managed to hoist it off the ground, but the strain sent pain gnawing at my chest and left arm. The dry, stiff wind snatched at the ladder and made it even more unwieldy.

  And now I could tell how tired I was. I'd been up since early the morning before, and I hadn't been resting. My heart pounded a little faster with the strain of lifting, and a throbbing began inside my head.

  I thought of swinging the ladder around and busting this gal, but it felt as if it weighed a ton, and I barely got the end of it swinging toward her when she said, "Walk away from me. Don't try to get away, Mr. Scott."

  She said it calmly and flatly, but the end of the ladder had another ten feet to go and was moving about six inches a second. This was a losing game. I walked away from her toward the house, dragging the rear end of the ladder on the ground behind me. She tripped along, humming her dirge.

  Finally it hit me that maybe I wasn't going to get away from here alive. Not without help. And here we were far from town and a good hundred yards from another house, so where the hell would I get help? This was great. Private-eye Scott and a cracked little woman. And I needed help.

  At the house she said, "Put the ladder up to the window."

  It puzzled me, but I worked on it. I got the ladder halfway up the side of the house and rested it against the wood momentarily. I was probably scratching that brand-new coat of white paint. I was glad.

  Mrs. Sader said, "Go on."

  I turned halfway toward her. "I'm beat. I'm ready to drop." I wasn't kidding, either. "I told you I got shot, and I'm just plain tired. Let me rest a minute, then up it goes."

  She was content to wait. She wanted that ladder up there. I started getting an idea why, and I looked up toward the window. I'd stood there yesterday watching Mrs. Sader at target practice. It was her room. The blinds and curtains were drawn, but I could see there was a light on inside. And right underneath the window were the four bales of hay. My brain started clicking again, slowly.

  I said, "Mrs. Sader, I—I'm dizzy." I shook my head and reached into my right-hand coat pocket and wrapped my fingers around my Zippo cigarette lighter.

  She raised her voice. "Stop! Stop! Stop! I'll shoot you."

  I froze. "I want a cigarette. I told you I'm dizzy." I didn't think she'd shoot unless she had to. Maybe she was nuts, but she had a plan and she'd stick to it all the way if she could. At least I thought she would. Be hell if I was wrong.

  "No!" she said. "Put up the ladder."

  I moved slowly and brought my hand out of my pocket with care, and reached up and got hold of the ladder. But the lighter was still in my right hand. I shoved the heavy ladder up another six feet and there were only about four feet to go till it hit the window. And I was two feet from those four bales of dry, dry hay, some of it now scattered by the wind.

  I looked at Mrs. Sader. "Far enough? Don't
know if I can make it."

  "No." But she helped. She moved to her left a few feet, watching me, the bore of the gun steady on me. It helped because that put her a little to the left of the bales, and that's where I wanted her.

  "O.K.," I said, and made a great show of straining at the ladder. I pushed the top up till it touched the sill of the window and slid the base of the ladder in toward the wall of the house, and strands of hay brushed at my coat.

  Mrs. Sader had a clear shot at the middle of my back, but maybe, maybe she couldn't see my right hand, and I moaned, "Dizzy. Christ, I'm dizzy," and leaned up against the bales of hay and shoved the lighter up against the crack at the bottom of the two top bales.

  I flipped the damn little flint on the damn little lighter and nothing happened except that Mrs. Sader said, "Come away. Come away now," and I thought merrily, Why zip, zip, zip. . .when one zip does it!

  "Come away!" she piped, and I saw I had the lighter backward in my hand and I twisted it around and went zip again, and the most beautiful little flame in all this wide world flared and flickered in my hand. I shoved the lighter, still open and burning, between the two bales of hay and stepped back from them and took a step toward Mrs. Sader so she'd look straight at me.

  She did, and she backed up a step and said, "Go in the house."

  Maybe she meant in through the back, but just in case there was a little fire smoldering, I didn't want her to spot it yet. I walked around to the front, up on the porch, and inside with her right behind me.

  "Up the stairs," she said, and I went up the wide old stairs to the second floor, stalling as much as I could. She directed me into her bedroom and there we stopped. Her bedroom. Why did it have to be her bedroom?

  I turned around and said, "Say! This is wonderful. Wonderful!" I wasn't sure how you humored a crazy person, but I had a stab at it. A woman, even a crazy woman, should react to flattery, I thought.

  She did. Not much, but it was a start. "Do you think so?" Still not much inflection in her voice, but some.

  "I sure do," I told her. "I'd never have thought of it, myself. And another thing, Mrs. Sader. The rest of it was smart, too."

  She beamed. Then she frowned. "I thought so. I thought it was perfect. But you figured it out."

  "No." I shook my head solemnly. If I could just keep her talking a little while. Talking about anything, just to use up time. "Not at all," I said. "But you did plan it all, didn't you? You got Marty to go to the Pit and shot him there. Then you shot her at her place and fixed up the letter and picture. Isn't that right, now?"

  She nodded slowly. "That's right; that's right. But I didn't think—"

  I cut her off. I wanted her to stay happy. "But I didn't figure it out, Mrs. Sader. You were very clever. Very clever. I certainly admire you."

  She was still frowning. "But how did you know?"

  In a confidential whisper I said, "I saw you." Then I wondered if maybe I was nuts. How stupid was I going to get? But she didn't laugh at me. That's right; she was nuts.

  But she didn't get very happy. She said, "Go over by the window."

  Here it was. It was getting close. And now I was sure I knew what her warped mind had planned for me.

  I moved, all right, but I stopped before I got to the curtained window where she wanted me and I said, "How did you ever think of this?"

  She stared glassy-eyed at me, fiddling with her beads and humming, and didn't answer.

  I swallowed and said quickly, "See if I got it! I'm coming in the window and you shoot me. Right?"

  She nodded.

  "Boy!" I said. "That's swell!" The words stuck in my throat.

  She smiled a little.

  I kept on going, trying to keep her interested. "I'm coming in through the window. I sneaked out here and got the ladder and started to sneak in. I got just inside the window and you shot me. Right?"

  "That's right."

  "I'm coming in to—to attack you!" I was really getting carried away.

  Her lips pressed tight. I'd said the wrong thing again.

  "Over to the window."

  I was damned if I'd move. If I got there I was sure she'd blaze away at me. Blaze. . .If I wasn't imagining things, it was warmer here in the bedroom.

  She wiggled the big gun.

  "Tell me one thing," I yelped. "Why did you do it? To them?"

  "They were evil. They were sinners." At least she was still talking. And I could hear her.

  "Sure," I said. "But why kill them?"

  She hummed a few snatches, then she said, "He told me."

  I gawked. "Huh? Who?"

  "He."

  "Who?"

  "He."

  I was afraid if I gave out with another "Who?" she'd shoot me. I wouldn't have blamed her.

  I heard it then. At first I though it might be my imagination, but I listened till I was sure. The cracking and the roar of fire.

  "Mrs. Sader," I said. "Listen."

  She listened and she frowned and she said, "What—what is it?"

  I said, "Perhaps, Mrs. Sader, perhaps it's a sign."

  She looked straight at me, but she wasn't humming.

  She was still listening. The noise was getting louder now, rising high over the wind swirling about the old house. It was the roar of a good-sized fire, and suddenly the acrid smell of smoke was in my nostrils. I'd been too busy to notice it before. And it was definitely warmer.

  I grinned at Mrs. Sader. One thing, if nothing else: I'd set her goddam house on fire.

  She had a little frown on her face and she looked more like a horse than ever. A sick horse.

  I yelled at the top of my voice, almost screaming, "It's a sign! It's a sign, Mrs. Sader!" and right then the heat swelling outside and running up the dry wooden wall and eating away at that new coat of white paint cracked all hell out of the bedroom window. The glass gave with a sharp splintering sound and fragments tinkled to the floor, and dear old wild-eyed Vivian let out a strangled moan and ran hippety-hop out of the room.

  I hesitated a second, then I raced out after her. It was sort of funny. Here I was in a burning house, with a crazy woman, and the two of us were scampering around the top floor like mad, and like mad was right. It suddenly stopped being funny.

  I piled out the door and I spotted her about twenty feet down the long hall leading to the north wing, and just then she spun around and leveled that great big gun at me and blasted away.

  I dived for the floor and skidded on the carpet as the glass window crashed at the end of the hall on my left. I kept rolling, pain raking through me, as she blasted at me and missed again. I came up against the door, reached for the knob, twisted it, and fell into the room. Pretty soon my nose would look like Joe-Joe's.

  Then I heard her footsteps thumping down the hall away from me, getting fainter. I jumped back into the hall in time to see her running with her skirts pulled high up over her knees. It didn't do a thing for me. She went through a door on her left, on the forward side of the house, before she reached the door at the hall's end. For a minute there I'd thought she was headed for the roof.

  I got out of there.

  I walked to the stairs, ran down them, and got outside. My Cad was parked close to the house, and the way the place was blazing now, the car was going to get burned too. I climbed in, started the engine, and backed out the drive. I parked on the street in front, then walked back to about fifty feet from the house and stood watching it burn.

  Flames were shooting high into the air now, twisting in the wind, and I wondered when the fire engines would be getting here. That had been the main reason I'd started the blaze, and I'd hoped the fire boys would have arrived before now. This was more than I'd bargained for. I didn't like the idea of getting shot, but all I'd wanted was a little help, not a holocaust. I strained my ears listening for the sound of sirens, but I couldn't hear anything over the crackling roar of the flames. Already heat licked out at me and swept across my face, even where I stood.

  I started getting worr
ied; this damn thing was getting out of hand. When were those blasted engines going to get here? I could hardly leave Mrs. Sader, no matter what she'd done, in there to burn. I got out a cigarette and nervously fumbled for a light. No lighter. That was a small loss; I had a whole house now.

  I crumpled the cigarette in my hand and threw the weed away. I still couldn't hear sirens, and the whole back of the house was flaming and shooting sparks into the air. Flames were licking even along the right side of the place, up at the front. It wouldn't be long now, with those dry, drafty walls cooking and half the windows in the place open.

  The hell with it. I went back in. Insanity must be contagious.

  There was smoke swirling all through the lower floor and it bit into my lungs as I ran through the front door and pounded up the stairway to the top. I was here, but how did I get to the stupid woman?

  I walked left down the long hall to the door I'd seen her enter. When I got there I was afraid to open it. I was afraid if I did she'd spot me and take another shot at me. I stood there two or three minutes, maybe longer, undecided what to do, and then I heard her singing. She must have been singing as loud as she could, because the sound was coming from my left, back toward the stairway, and I could hear it even above the rising noise of the wind and the flames.

  She came out of a door forty feet down the hall, the huge gun still in her hand. She looked up toward the ceiling, then around her, alternately coughing and singing away like mad till she spotted me. She stopped singing just long enough to level the gun. The song had words, but I couldn't make them out; I probably wouldn't have understood them, anyway.

  "Boop-boop-be-doop. . ." Then she leveled the revolver and let fly a slug the size of a billiard ball.

  She missed me by four feet, but I didn't give her another chance. I opened the same door she'd gone through a little while back and jumped through, then eased back and peeked at her. She stood where she'd been when she shot at me. She kept on singing.

  I watched her a while, fascinated, then decided the hell with this old coot. She'd had all of the unwanted help I was putting out this night. I was going to get out of here some way, and she could stay if she wanted to. And then I saw that, even if I could get by her without picking up a bullet on the way, it wouldn't be much good. Beyond her another twenty feet, flames licked up toward the ceiling at the top of the stairway. I'd been so cute I was stuck up here with my crazy woman.