Lightning Bug

by Donald Harington

  “She caint belong to no boy who’s six feet under,” Billy says. “John, when you gonna git that through yore noodle?”

  “I don’t feature that,” John says. “Aint nobody said he was officially dead. For all anybody knows, he could still be in some hospital over there, banged up bad maybe but still kicking. I don’t aim to hold with him being dead till I git the word from Uncle Sam.”

  Every speaks up. “Might have to wait forever for that, Mr. Ingledew.”

  John’s voice bristles. “Then by God I’ll wait forever, but I shore don’t aim to ’low no unprincipled cur-dawg to swoop down like a vulture the minute Raymond’s gone and try to take his bride away!”

  “Why’ntcha lock er up in yore bank vault, John?” Billy says. “That way ye’d keep her a ole maid till the Judgment Day when her and Raymond could finally tie the knot.”

  “I don’t have to take no sass off you, Billy Dill!” John says. “You’re fergittin somethin I already got in my bank vault, and that’s the mortgage on your shop!”

  “How ’bout that, Ev?” Billy says to his son. “Kinder looks lak this son of a bitch is threatenin to run us up a stump, don’t it? I’m jest skeered shitless, aint you?”

  Mrs. Dill speaks up. “Such language, Bill,” she says. “Is that any way to talk in front of these sons of bitches?” Then to John Ingledew she says, “Why’nt ye take that mortgage to yore outhouse and use it for wipes?”

  “By God, you don’t think I might?” John demands.

  “Beats corncobs a real sight,” she says.

  “Naw,” says Billy. “That mortgage paper’s too slick. It’d slide right off ole John’s bung-hole and leave him nasty as ever.”

  “Shoot,” says Every. “When God made old John, he plum fergot to give him a bung-hole.”

  John says to his brother, “Willis, I’ve had all I can stand. Remind me tomorrow to foreclose on these riffraff.” He turns to Every. “Now you listen to me, boy. And listen good. You kin visit yore folks all you want, but if you aint out of this town by noon tomorrow, you’re gonna have an escort party of about seven fellers to see you out. Noon tomorrow. And if you come anywhere near the girl before then, you’ll be leavin all the sooner.”

  “Well, I’ll tell ye, sir,” Every says. “As far as gettin out of town’s concerned, I got to go back in the mornin anyhow. As far as seein that girl’s concerned, hell and high water aint gonna stop me. But I’ll tell ye why I got to go back in the mornin. I got to face court-martial. Want to know why they’re court-martialin me? Cause I knocked a lieutenant flat on his ass. Want to know why I knocked him flat on his ass? Cause he wouldn’t let me crawl fifty feet through the woods to untie Raymond from a tree. Want to know why he wouldn’t let me? Cause the Germans had tied Raymond to that tree for a decoy, to ambush us. Want to know what Raymond said to me after I’d knocked down that lieutenant and went to him anyway and tried to untie him? Said to me, ‘Get away from here, you fool!’ Want to know what I said back to him? Said back to him, ‘Naw, Ray, I done writ yore sweetheart and tole her I’d fine you by and by and git you out alive or else die tryin.’ Want to know what he said to me then?”

  Every’s voice chokes, but he clears his throat and continues in a fierce, quivering tone, “Said to me, ‘Ev,’ said to me, ‘Ev, no sense in both us gittin kilt! Clear the hell out a here while ye kin! It’s a trap!’ But I started untyin him anyhow, and I said to him, ‘I don’t see no trap. Reckon if it’s a trap, they aint about to settle for just me. They’re waitin to git a few more before openin up.’ But just then I ’spose they got tired of waitin and figgered I was all they’d ever git. They opened up. See these here red scars on my laigs? Them’s machine gun bullets. I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t no more of stood up and finished untyin him than I could of took off and flew. And him screamin at me, ‘Ev, you fool, clear the hell out a here!’ So I did. My boys was brave enough to come down and open fire on that machine-gun nest long enough for me to drag myself out of there.”

  There is a long silence. Eventually John Ingledew asks in a quiet voice, “Was Raymond hit. Did they hit him?”

  “I don’t know,” Every says. “Some a that spray that cut me down might’ve hit him, but then on the other hand maybe that tree he was tied to was shieldin him. I don’t know. The next thing I knew a couple a my boys had tuck me under the arms and dragged me clean out a there afore I could take a good look back. Then that lieutenant I’d clobbered came up mad as a rattlesnake and kicked me in the face. I woke up in a field hospital.”

  “So you have no way of knowing that Raymond’s dead,” John Ingledew said.

  “Naw. But the war’s over, dammit. If they’d kept him alive as a prisoner, he’d of been liberated, and he’d of showed up by now, wouldn’t he?”

  Willis Ingledew says to his brother, “You know what I think, John? I think maybe this rascal is just makin up a tall tale. I think maybe the real reason they’re court-martialin him is that he killed pore Raymond hisself.”

  “Hmmm,” says John Ingledew. “I wouldn’t be too surprised.”

  “Goddammit,” Every says. “Come to the trial with me and hear the story from somebody else, then.”

  “Still and all…” John says, and then he says, “How do we know you aint even makin up the whole story about the court-martial? If they really meant to court-martial you, they wouldn’t be lettin you run around loose like this.”

  “They sure wouldn’t,” Every agrees.

  “You mean you’re—what’s it called?—you’re—”

  “A wall,” Every says. “a.w.o.l. I broke barracks.”

  “But you’re going back to face up to it?”

  “In the morning.”

  “Well, even if the court-martial don’t put you in the hoosegow, they’ll put you away for being A-wol, won’t they?”

  “More’n likely.”

  “So you aint gonna have no chance to be foolin around with that girl for several years maybe.”

  “That’s right. So I’ve got to do all of my foolin around while I’m still here.”

  “Naw you aint neither. You leave her alone. Time you git out a jail, Raymond’ll be back.”

  “Maybe not. Time I git out a jail, maybe some other feller who aint got any right to her is liable to’ve took her away from me.”

  “Then good for her, sonny boy, cause she’d shore be a lot better off with just about anybody ’ceptin a devil lak you.”

  Billy Dill speaks up. “If you disparage my boy just once more, you bastard, I’ll come to the bank tomorrow and wipe my own ass with that mortgage and make you a hat out of it.”

  “Come on, Willis,” John Ingledew says. “Let’s leave these scum.” To Every he says, “But I’m tellin you for the last time, if you even dare look at that girl again, they’ll be eight going out and seven coming back!”

  John and Willis turn and stalk quickly away.

  You leave too, Bug, but you are left with the feeling that somehow the Ingledews have not sufficiently intimidated the Dills, and that Every probably would not heed their threats. Thus you are anticipating that he might present himself to you again, and you are wondering what you can say to get rid of him. You are also in deep distress from hearing him tell how the Germans had caught Raymond and had used him. When Every had written you that letter claiming that he would find Raymond “for you” and get him out alive “for you,” you had considered it merely more of his vainglorious boasting, just as he had boasted when leaving to enlist, “I’m gonna go over there and protect him for you,” and just as he had later boasted by mail, “Here I am a sergeant already, and he aint but a corporal still,” and “Killed me two Boches barehanded today,” and “Tole Raymond that when I get to be general I’ll make him a colonel if he’ll let me have you; he said he’d think about it,” and “Today they pinned the Craw de Gur on me—that’s one of the medals the Frenchies give out—the only decoration Ray’s got is the Dose of Clap—the Frenchies give that one out too.” You are inclined, like John
and Willis Ingledew, to be skeptical of his story, although you cannot quite accept the possibility that he would actually have killed Raymond…unless his desperation to have you was so great as to drive him to it.

  But for the first time you begin to realize that Raymond might actually be dead. Before, you have not been able to accept this. And if he is dead? Would you have Every? Certainly not. He is the last man you would have. Indeed, even if he did not actually kill Raymond, he was responsible for Raymond’s joining the service in the first place.

  This is what you are going to remind him if he bothers you again.

  But the afternoon passes on without his showing. You have returned home and have eaten supper, waiting, expecting him any minute, but he does not show up. After supper you sit on the cabin’s porch until full dark, waiting, but he does not appear. “Lookin fer cumpny?” your father asks. No, you say. “Reckon I’ll turn in,” he says, and leaves the porch.

  You are alone for several minutes in the dark, before you hear the whippoorwill. It is a good whippoorwill, coming from the woodlot, but, real as it sounds, there is an edge about it that tells you human lips are making it, and for a moment you are washed with a flood of old memories, some sweet but mostly bitter. When you were twelve and he was thirteen the whistle of the whippoorwill had been his signal, coming from that same woodlot, to tell you he was there. It was a near-perfect imitation; one night your mother had said “That shore is purty,” and had listened sweetly entranced for a moment to what she thought was a real bird. Many times, all but the last time, you had heeded the signal and gone to the woodlot. Now again you do not heed it. It comes twice, thrice, four times, at one-minute intervals, but you remain seated. When it sounds the fifth time, you turn you head toward the woodlot and say, “Go away,” not loudly, not loudly enough for anyone in the house to hear, nor anyone in the woodlot either. When it sounds the sixth time, mournful as the dancing of dead leaves, you cannot stand it. You leave the porch and walk out through the yard to the very edge of the woodlot, and you peer into the black mass of trees and say, “Go away!”

  “Thought you’d not remember,” his voice says softly. You cannot see him in there at all. He makes the whippoorwill whistle once more, just loud enough for you to hear. “The whippin of ole pore Will,” he says. “Means you’ll be making a journey in the direction it was heard. Remember? This way’s northeastwards from your house. We was gonna head northeast. Remember? Well, I got to go northeast myself now, tomorrow. Wonder could I say anything to get you to go too, to bear me out, to stand by my side. Guess I caint, but I’ll try anyhow.”

  “You’re not a real whippoorwill,” you say, needing to say something, even to assure yourself that he is not, despite the eerie resemblance between the plaintive tone of his words and the cry of that bird. You still cannot see him, though you know where his dark form stands.

  “Am too,” he says. “Me all over, I’m one. Same habits. Same lonesomeness. Just a-lookin everwhere for my mate. Caint find her. Keep a-callin and a-callin for her. Keep—”

  “Please go,” you say. “Please, Every.”

  “Got to tell you somethin first, Latha. Want to tell you about ole Ray. I’m shore abashed if any of them smart-alecky letters I sent ye gave ye any offense. Didn’t mean em that way. Didn’t mean to make em look lak I considered myself a cut above him, no. Naw, he was second to none, Latha. He was a real brave boy, lots more of a man than me. I want to tell you what he done.”

  “I’ve heard your story,” you tell him.

  “Oh,” he says. “Them Ingledews tell ye?”

  “No,” you say. “I was there. You didn’t see me, but I was listening in.”

  “Oh,” he says, and his voice loses its gentle plaintiveness, sharpens. “I reckon you put em up to pay in a call on us.”

  “No,” you say. “Mandy’s letter put em up to that.”

  He comes nearer to you, out of the woods; you can see his dark shape clearly before you, although you cannot see his eyes. He is still wearing that Army uniform with the round-brimmed doughboy hat. “Latha,” he says, “I let down on you. I let down on the promise I made ye. I couldn’t get him out. But I tried my best.”

  A laugh escapes your throat. “Too bad you couldn’t’ve got him out as easy as you got him in,” you say, with sarcasm.

  “You still blaming me for that?” he asks, hurt.

  “I’ll forever blame you for that,” you return.

  “You don’t hold yourself none to blame?” he demands.

  “A little,” you admit. “Not much.”

  “All right,” he says. “But listen, Latha, he’s not coming back. I would bet almost anything on that. Now if you were hearing me when I tole them Ingledews about the court-martial, you know I aint in any position to ask you to marry me. So I’m not. But could I just ask you to wait just a little while, to see what the Army’s gonna do to me? Could you just not marry nobody else for a little while, till I get some word to you?”

  “The word I want,” you tell him, “is a word from the government saying that Raymond is dead and buried.”

  “You might never get that,” he says. “Then what?”

  “Then I’ll wait,” you say.

  “You might wait forever.”

  “Then I’ll wait forever.”

  His hands come up and grip your arms. “Latha, don’t you want a man?” he reasons with you. “Do you want the coldness of being a maiden all your life? Was Ray so important to you that you’ll wait forever, lonely and cold, for him to come back? Won’t you ever long for somebody to be close to?”

  His words more than the grip of his hands grip you, and draw you for an instant to him, and you are about to say, Oh yes, Every, I will long even for you, when a lantern suddenly flares up to illuminate the two of you, and a voice says, “Okay, buster, git yore goddamn hands off that gal before I blow yore gizzard out!”

  The voice is Tearle Ingledew’s and you turn and see him aiming a shotgun at Every’s heart. Bevis Ingledew is holding high the lantern in one hand, a pistol in the other. Stanfield Ingledew and Odell Ingledew are each holding rifles. E.H. Ingledew is holding a pitchfork.

  Every does not relax his grip on your arms. He glowers at Tearle.

  “You think I don’t mean it?” Tearle snarls. “Well, just hold on till I count three, and then you kin count the number a buckshot sprinkled through yore innards! One…Two…Thr—”

  You break away from Every and stand back from him. He remains there with his hands still gripping the air where you had been. “Goddamn ye,” Every says to Tearle, “I aint armed. Lay down yore yellow-livered shotgun and I’ll take ye on man for man!”

  “And I’d whup the shit out a ye so fast,” returns Tearle, “thet you’d think ye was a freshed-up stable! But I aint gonna bother. I’d jest as soon blow off yore haid as look at you. And I reckon I will!” He raises the shotgun toward Every’s head.

  “Drop it, Tull!” comes another voice, from the woodlot. “All you fellers lay down yore arns! You heerd Ev, it aint fair he aint got a gun.”

  Tearle does not lower his shotgun. “Who’s thet?” he demands, squinting into the woods. “Who’s thet in thar?”

  “Drop it, I say!” the voice persists.

  “Thet you, Lawlor?” Tearle demands. “Lawlor Coe, thet you in thar?”

  “Yeah, and if you fellers don’t lay down yore arns and fight fair, they’s gonna be a big gatherin up at the cemetery tomorrow.”

  “Lawlor now, you lissen a me,” Tearle says. “This aint none a yore business. You butt in whar ye don’t belong, yo’re liable to git hurt yoresef!”

  “Nobody’s gonna git hurt but y’all, ’less y’all lay down them guns right now, and I don’t mean maybe! My Winchester’s on yore heart, Tull, and my finger’s giving me trouble!”

  “I see ye now, sonny boy,” comes still another voice from the woodlot, and you realize with alarm that it is your own father, “and I got a right fine Springfield a my own that’s ready to handle the l
ikes of Lawlor Coe meddlin whar he don’t belong!”

  “Saultus Bourne!” comes a voice from the path to the road. That white nightshirt a yourn makes a fine target fer my old flintlock!”

  Bevis Ingledew with his pistol says, “Naw ye don’t, Billy Dill! I got the drap on ye!”

  Then there is a long moment of complete silence.

  Tearle finally breaks it. “Somebody better git a drap on ole Bevis, he’s the only one aint got a drap on im.” Then he says, “Well, all right, we might as well all fire together, and the devil take the hindmost. Aim good, everbody, ’cause the only one dead sartin to be kilt is Every, and I’ve got him.”

  A shot explodes—Lawlor’s?—a shot is fired, and the lantern in Bevis’s hand shatters and after a quick burst of flame it goes out. In utter darkness, other shots are fired, matched by violent curses.

  You run to the cabin, where your mother is standing on the porch. “Maw!” you yell, “get a lantern, quick! Light a lantern!” She runs into the house and you stand waiting, trembling, listening to the shots fired and the curses screeched. When she returns with the lantern, the shooting has stopped but the curses are roaring louder then ever. You take the lantern and run bravely with it back out to the midst of the fight at the edge of the woodlot.

  Every has his arm in a stranglehold on Tearle’s neck and is choking him to death. Your father has a stranglehold on Lawlor Coe but Lawlor is breaking loose. Bevis Ingledew has clubbed Billy Dill over the head with his pistol butt and is standing over his unconscious form. Stanfield Ingledew with his rifle and E.H. with his pitchfork are taking aim at Every, while Odell is taking aim at Lawlor Coe.

  “Let him go, Ev!” E.H. snaps, and pokes Every in the back with the sharp tines of the pitchfork. Every continues choking Tearle. E.H. thrusts forward with the pitchfork. Every lets out a yelp and releases Tearle and grabs himself in the small of the back.

  “Goddamn ye, you punctured my backbone!” he yells at E.H.

  “Yeah, and I might put yore eyes out too!” E.H. replies.