Lightning Bug

by Donald Harington

Tearle, freed, grabs up his shotgun, howling, “By God, now I’ll plug holes through the bastard!” and he raises his gun at Every again, but Stanfield puts his hand on the barrel and forces it down.

  “Naw,” Stanfield says to Tearle. “We aint gonna kill him. We’re jest gonna give him a head start afore we start firing.”

  “And you too,” Odell says to Lawlor Coe. “You kin jest keep him company on that head start, Lawlor, and both you sonsabitches kin git clean out a town.”

  “My dad’s hurt,” Every says. “If you fellers’ve hurt him—”

  “He aint hurt,” Bevis says. “Might have a knot on his head when he wakes up, but he aint hurt.”

  “Now listen, Every,” Tearle says. “Yo’re leavin town fast, kin ye understand? Yo’re leavin town fast as yore two legs kin carry ye, and ye aint never comin back. Never! Ye understand! If you ever show yore hide in this town again, we’uns will shoot you down afore ye could git word to God! We won’t speak fust, we’ll jest fire. I swear that to ye. Now march! You too, Lawlor, start marchin, and I don’t keer to see ye again neither.”

  The Ingledews advance on Every and Lawlor and prod them with their weapons. They begin moving.

  “Latha!” Every hollers. “Come with me! Please come with me!”

  There is a brief thoughtless instant when you are tempted to yield to this pathetic request, but you do not move. The Ingledews would not have let you go with him anyway. You shake your head.

  “Then wait for me, Latha!” he hollers. “I’ll come back!”

  “You’ll never come back, I told ye,” Tearle snarls. “If you come back, it’ll be to git yoreself measured out fer a coffin. We’ll be lookin at each other, and one of us won’t know it. Now march! Run! We start shootin any minute! You too, Lawlor! Get a move on there!”

  Every and Lawlor trot down the path to the road. When they reach the road, the Ingledews begin firing. They reload and fire several times.

  You do not watch Every run out of sight. It is bad luck to watch somebody go all the way out of sight. It means they might die.

  But maybe you should have, Bug. There would come many a time when you would wish that you had watched him walk out of sight, so he would have died and never returned. Because he did return, once more.

  Another two years pass; you forget him; it is when you have completely forgotten him that he comes again, again by surprise.

  It is after supper again, it is a summertime evening after supper again, and you are doing your evening chores. You are feeding the hogs. You have thrown their slop to them and are turning around with the empty slop bucket in your hand when he comes out of the woods. You drop the slop bucket. It rolls down the hill. You watch it roll away.

  “No, now,” you say, as if to the bucket. “Go away. You will be killed.”

  “He hasn’t come back, has he?” he says. “I told you he wasn’t coming back. He won’t ever come back.”

  “How did you get out?” you ask. “They told me you were locked up in that Army prison.”

  “I broke out. I had to talk to you, Latha. I had to tell you that I could stand being locked in there for two more years if you would just tell me that you will wait for me.”

  “I won’t tell you that.”

  “Who are you going to marry, then? Has somebody spoken for you?”

  “No.”

  “Raymond’s never coming back, I told you. I know. Believe me, he’s dead.”

  “All right, but I can’t marry you, Every.”

  “Why not, Latha? What’s wrong with me?”

  “They wouldn’t let me marry you. Not just the Ingledews. There’s nobody in this town who would let me marry you.”

  “We could run away.”

  “I don’t want to run away. Stay More’s my home.”

  “Then I’ll come back here, and mend my ways, and make folks like me. I’ll make em all like me.”

  “You forget the Ingledews have sworn to kill you if you ever come back.”

  “They got no right to.”

  “That won’t keep them from it.”

  “I’ll talk to them! I’ll try to get em to understand!”

  “They’ll shoot you before you get a word out of your mouth.”

  “Then, Latha, you talk to em! Try to get em to understand!”

  “Understand what?” you say. “Understand that you’re still stubborn enough to want to marry me still? After all that’s happened?”

  He clenches and unclenches his fists. Through clenched teeth he says, “Latha, put yourself in my place! What would you do? What can I do?”

  “The first thing you better do is give yourself up, and tell them you’re sorry you broke out. Then if they ever do let you out, you ought to look around for some place to go, some place except Stay More.”

  He pounds his fist upon the rail of the hog pen. “All right, goddammit!” he says. “Looks like there’s nothing I can do, is there?”

  “No.”

  “All right, Latha. Goodbye, then, I’m going. Tell Mom and Dad I said hello. Tell em I’m all right. Tell em I’ll be back one day, tell em to keep their chins up.”

  “Your dad’s dead, Every. He died last winter.”

  “Naw!” he says. “Please don’t say that’s true! What’d he die of?”

  “Stroke, I guess,” you say. “I’ll tell you one thing I did, Every. I went to his funeral. I don’t know why, but I went. Nobody else did. Just me and your mother.”

  He pounds the fence rail with his fist so hard he breaks it. “By God!” he screeches. “I got a mind to kill everybody in this town! I got a mind to get me some dynamite and blow the whole motherfucking town sky high!”

  “I’m sorry,” you say. “You can’t blame everybody.”

  “I caint, huh?”

  “No,” you say.

  He hangs his head. For a moment, you want to reach out and touch him; more than that, more than touch him, you would like to make love to him once more; but even if you could do this, it is not the right time of the month for you, and you know it; and even if you could do this, it would make it all the harder for him to leave. You cannot touch him. You cannot allow him to touch you. You must not. A touch would ruin it all.

  He raises his head. His eyes are damp. But do not touch him! “Well, so long, Latha.” You must not touch him. “Be seeing you some day, I reckon. I’m bound to, I reckon.” Then some day touch him, but not now. “Do you suppose you could give me a goodbye kiss? I aint never even kissed you for nearly five years.” You cannot, you must not.

  “No,” you say. “Don’t you touch me.”

  He starts to reach for you; you pull back. “Just a kiss,” he says. “I aint even had a kiss in nearly five years. I bought a woman, once, over in France, but I never kissed her.” He comes after you, but you back away. You must back away.

  Your backing alone does not stop him. You must say something. “If you touch me,” you say, “I’ll holler, and Paw’ll come up here and shoot you himself.”

  Your threat changes him, angers him. “He will, huh?” he says. “Well, we’ll just see about that.” He clamps his hand over your mouth and with his other hand forces you up against a tree and presses you against it with his body. He whips off his belt and uses it to tie your hands together behind the tree, holding you to the tree. He whips out a handkerchief and gags your mouth with it. Now you cannot holler, you cannot even speak, you cannot even tell him that you are in the wrong time of your month.

  He yanks up the hem of your dress and stuffs it into your collar. He tears away your panties with one strong pull and flings them aside. You squirm and try to bite through your gag; you cannot holler, but you can squeal; you squeal as loud as you can; the hogs watch you curiously.

  He bends at the knee and then straightens up, and when he straightens you feel yourself entered, and all your squirmings cannot dislodge him. You feel the bark of the tree biting into your back as he thrusts and thrusts violently against you. You pray that he will come, and leave you,
but he is holding himself back, and then you are praying that he will not come.

  You hear a whippoorwill warbling shrilly, but realize it is your own bird within you.

  You are still squirming, but in a rhythm to match his own.

  You know he has come but has not stopped; you are glad; you hope he will go on, but he does not he comes out of you, he leaves you and flings himself back from you just as you reach the edge, when you want to cry out: Oh, stay, Every, stay, stay more forever and have me forever but he turns and begins running into the woods, and you realize he is disappearing into the woods and if you watch him go all of the way out of sight he will die, and you must not do that, and you must get over the edge.

  You close your eyes to keep from watching him disappear all the way out of sight. You go over the edge.

  It is full dark when you come to, and at first you do not know whether the blackness is of the night or of your passing out. Your first thought is I have swooned. And you wonder Have I swooned so’s not to watch him go, or so’s not to feel him come?

  Your wrists are still bound by his belt behind the tree. Maybe this is the way poor Raymond was strung to that tree. You wriggle your wrists, for a long time you twist them and tug them before you can slip the belt off them. Then you are free. You pick up the belt and keep it.

  You return to the house and build a fire in the kitchen stove to heat water.

  Your mother comes and says, “Law, whar you been, gal?”

  “Walkin,” you say.

  “Whut you fixin to do?” she asks, pointing at the kettles of water on the stove.

  “Take a bath,” you say.

  “A hot bath this time a year?” she says, but it is not really a question, it requires no answer. She goes.

  It is a hot bath you take, Bug, a scalding hot bath in which you sit and soak a long time, thinking But it’s too late, this isn’t doing any good.

  The next day at noon when Mr. Ingledew says, “Watch out for robbers” before leaving to eat his dinner, you want to say, “Don’t leave me” but you cannot.

  You hear the approach of horse’s hooves, and you start to think He is sure enough going to do it but you do not think this yet. You do not think it until he comes through the door, carrying the empty toe-sack in one hand and the revolver in the other. He is fully disguised: strange, old-fashioned clothes, a queer hat, beneath the hat a pillowcase covering his head with two slits for the eyes. He does not even walk like Every, but you think It must be him.

  He comes quickly to the counter and passes you the note; you know then; you have seen a note before, the same handwriting:

  CLEAN OUT THE SAFE IN 2 MINITS OR YOU ARE A DEAD GIRL

  “Haven’t you done enough?” you say to him.

  He raises the pistol point-blank to your nose.

  You do not move.

  He cocks the hammer. He hands you the sack.

  You take the sack to the safe and stuff it. You take the sack back to him. Then you hand him his belt, rolled in a neat coil.

  He looks at the belt but does not take it. He refuses it.

  He backs out through the door, holding the pistol on you until the last moment, when he turns and leaps from the porch to the back of his horse, and gallops quickly away.

  You turn aside to keep from watching him go out of sight.

  THREE: Afternoon

  Why, land sakes, Every!” she exclaimed. “Whatever do you mean by that?” But before he could begin explaining himself, they were interrupted by the approach of a man on horseback. “Uh-oh,” she said, and in an aside to Every she said, “Listen. Just pretend you’re my husband, all right? I’ll explain it to you later.”

  Dolph slowly climbed down off his horse and tethered it.

  “Howdy,” he said to them. “Shore is one hot day, aint it?” He came up onto the porch and sat in the swing. He began to swing gently.

  To her he said, “Would you like to hear a funny story about what happened to me over to the cannin factry?”

  “I’ve already heard it,” she said. “From Luther Chism.”

  “I bet it liked to tickled the daylights out of you, didn’t it?”

  “It was pretty funny.”

  “Wal, now that you’ve had yore fun, would ye keer to tell me who you really are?”

  “I’m Latha Dill,” she said and was surprised at how much she liked the sound of that, “and this is my husband Every.”

  Dolph looked at Every and then extended his hand and said, “Pleased to meet ye, Mr. Dill.” He shook hands with Every and said, “Or I reckon I should say Brother Dill. Yore pitcher’s been starin me in the eye from every tree and fence post in town. Come to Stay More to give a revival, have ye?”

  “That’s right,” Every said, “And I’d be happy to have you come.”

  “Reckon I might just do that, preacher. Reckon I’d shore lak to hear you explain to folks how you managed to hit town one night and git married to Latha Bourne the very next day.”

  A long and awkward moment of silence followed that. She wondered how he knew her real name, but she realized it wouldn’t have been much trouble to have made a few inquiries here and there.

  Every said to him, “What’s your interest in this matter, sir?”

  “Wal, I’ll tell ye,” he said, “I aim to marry Miss Latha myself, and if it’s shore enough a fact that you’ve done beat me to it, why, then I reckon I aim to kill ye.”

  “Those are strong words, my friend,” Every said, and stood up. Dolph rose with him. “What do you aim to do it with?”

  “My bare hands,” Dolph said, holding them out.

  Every looked at his hands and said, “Them’s right powerful-lookin biscuit hooks you got, my friend. Well, if you’ll just step down into the yard we’ll find out just how powerful they are.”

  “Glad to,” Dolph said, and jumped off the porch.

  “Boys!” she snapped at them.

  “Well, it’s him or me, isn’t it?” Every asked, taking off his coat and his glasses before jumping off the porch to face Dolph.

  “No,” she said. “Dolph, you just clear out of here and leave him alone.”

  “He’s done already challenged me,” Dolph said, “and I shore aint one to back down from a challenge. Come on, preacher, and let’s see how long you kin last.”

  Every asked him, “You mind if I pray, first?”

  “Go right ahead,” Dolph said. “Matter a fact, I advise ye to.”

  Every knelt in the dust. “O Heavenly Father,” he said in a loud voice, “Thou knowest that when I killed those three fellers in that barroom up in Springfield, Missoura, I done it in self-defense. Thou knowest, too, Lord, that when I splattered Carl Rawley’s brains all over his corn patch that it was forced upon me. And it was sure self-defense when I had to strangle those two Germans in that trench in the Argonne forest. So now, Lord, Thou has heard this here pore wretch threaten to kill me, and when I put him in his grave I ask Thee to have mercy on his soul. In Jesus Name, Amen.” He stood up and presented his fists to Dolph.

  “Haw,” Dolph said nervously. “Tryin to git me skeered, huh? Wal, fer one thing I don’t skeer easy. And for another thing I don’t believe ye. And for yet another thing, you aint a goddamn bit bigger’n me.” And he swiftly lashed out a fist and caught Every a blow that sent him sprawling backward into the dust.

  Every scrambled to his feet but couldn’t get his hands up in time. Dolph pummeled both sides of his head with several hard blows, the last of which sent him into the dirt again.

  She yelled, “Dolph! you quit that! you hear me?”

  “Had enough, preacher?” asked Dolph, standing over him.

  “Enough?” said Every, “Why, my friend, we’ve not truly started yet. I’m just testing your punches out, to see how hard they are. I’d say they were about medium, maybe a little on the light-to-medium side.”

  “Then git on yore feet and I’ll show you some heavier ones!”

  She did not even see Every rise, he was up that
fast, and the first thing she noticed was Dolph’s head whipping from side to side as Every drove him with quick drubbing smashes out toward the road. Now Dolph was reeling groggily, and Every could have flattened him with one more punch but he stopped and said, “Those were what I think of as my light-to-medium punches, my friend. Are you still game for some medium ones?”

  This pause gave Dolph time to clear his head. “You talk too much, preacher,” he snarled, and sprang at Every with his head down and butted him in the stomach hard enough to lay him on his back. Then Dolph knelt over him and began pounding his face with short blows. Every arched up suddenly with his hips and threw Dolph off him.

  Oh my, she thought, there’s so many fights in that yard I ought to set up a booth and sell tickets.

  They both got to their feet and squared off again. Dolph swung and missed; Every missed his first swing but connected with his second, which caught Dolph’s shoulder and sent him staggering back. Then Every hit him two tremendous punches on the jaw, the second one actually lifting him off his feet and laying him flat out.

  Every stood over him. “Those two,” he said, “were of the medium variety. I’m afraid that the heavy variety are going to bust your head clean open. Git up.”

  Dolph could hardly move but he managed to climb slowly to his feet, and he even took a couple of wild slow swings, saying, “If yo’re gonna kill me, preacher, then kill me, cause I don’t keer to live without Latha!”

  Every drew back his fist for a roundhouse wallop, then swung it mightily forward—and wrapped Dolph around the neck in a hug. Holding his neck that way, he led him toward the porch, saying, “Let’s have a little talk. Might could get more accomplished that way.” He put Dolph in a chair, and said to her, “Latha, could we have us some liniment?”

  She went into the store for the jar of liniment and when she came back, Dolph was saying, “Not very long, but long enough to know I love her.”

  Every took the jar and opened it and dabbed into it and began spreading the liniment on Dolph’s face. “And you?” he said to her. “How do you feel about him?”

  “I hardly know him,” she said. “I like him, but I think he’s a fool to leave his wife and kids and come over here making trouble.”