The Night of the Hunter

by Davis Grubb

  How would I know, said Willa presently, if Preacher was to ask me to marry him—that he wasn’t just after the money? Maybe he thinks I’ve got it hid somewhere.

  He’s a man of God, said Icey, gravely. It’s plain enough to me.

  Oh, I know, Icey—

  Besides. It was wrote plain enough in the papers—how Ben wouldn’t tell—how Mr. McGlumphey said he might get him off with Life if he told and he still wouldn’t tell.

  Secretly, said Willa. He could have told me secretly. And give it to me to hide.

  Well, did he?

  No.

  Well then why don’t you just come right out plain and ask Mr. Powell if Ben ever said anything to him about it?

  About the money?

  Yes.

  He’d think it was queer, Icey.

  Fiddlesticks! A man never knows what a woman really means.

  Besides—like you say—he’s a man of God. I’d be ashamed to have him know I suspicioned him.

  Hark! cried Icey, holding up a finger. That’s him a-comin’ up Peacock Alley now!

  Yes! Yes! cried Willa, flushing. That’s him a-singin’! Don’t he have the grandest singin’ voice?

  They could have heard it moments before had they been still: Preacher’s sweet, high tenor as he drew closer along the sidewalks, singing the old hymn.

  Oh, Icey, I’m a sight!

  Pshaw! You look grand. Now, fill him up with cocoa, Willa! Men can’t think good when they’re gettin’ fed.

  Icey ran off to the kitchen so she could listen at the crack. But the old woman’s ears did not serve her well in these late years and she knew nothing of what the two had said until ten o’clock struck and Willa returned, flushed and happier-looking than Icey ever remembered seeing her.

  Has he gone?

  Yes, Icey! Yes!

  Well, child, what’s the commotion?

  Willa flung herself upon the old woman’s shoulder, hugging her and sobbing happily.

  Here, now! Here! What’s all this?

  Oh, Icey! It’s such a load off my mind!

  Did he ask you to marry him?

  No! No, it’s not that, Icey! It’s about the money!

  Well, gracious sakes alive, stop fidgeting and tell me. What now?

  Icey, I just come right out bold as brass and asked him straight.

  Ask him about the money?

  Icey, I just said: Did Ben Harper ever tell you what he done with that money he stole? And Mr. Powell just looked at me funny for a minute with his head on one side and directly he smiled and he says to me: Why, my dear child, don’t you know? And I told him I didn’t know and I said I’d asked Ben myself during those last days and he wouldn’t never tell me because he said that money had the curse of Cain on it and if I was to have it I’d just go to hell headlong.

  Well, then what—

  Wait, now! I’ll get to it, Icey. Then Mr. Powell just looked at me peculiar for a minute and then he finished his cocoa and he smiles and he says: Well now I’m mighty surprised he wouldn’t tell you, my child. And I says: Why, whatever do you mean, Mr. Powell? And he says: Because the night before they hanged him he told me where that money was.

  He told Mr. Powell?

  Yes.

  Then where—

  Wait, now, Icey! I’m getting to it! He said Ben sent for him that night and said that the curse of that money had soured on his conscience long enough. He said he wanted to leave this world without leaving that gold behind for other poor, weak mortals to lust after and murder for—

  Icey pursed her lips rapidly, her black eyes twinkling like hat pins in her flushed, plump face.

  —and Ben told him that night that the money was gone where it wouldn’t never do no one any more harm because of the sinful and greedy willfulness of poor mortals like himself—

  The clock in the hall rattled suddenly and rustled like an awakening bird. It chimed the quarter hour.

  Then where is the money?

  At the bottom of the river, said Willa gladly. Wrapped around a twelve-pound cobblestone.

  Ah, Lord! It’s a blessing from God, Willa. A blessing from God.

  Yes, Icey! Oh, yes! And I can mind the time when I would have sold my soul to Satan himself to know how I could lay hands on that bloody gold. Oh, Icey, sin gets such a hold sometimes! There was nights when I’d want to know about that money so bad I’d even fergit the awful thing that was going to happen to Ben up there at Moundsville penitentiary. That’s what sin and greed will do to a human soul, Icey.

  Praise God! Yes, Willa! Yes!

  But Ben took care of me, Icey. Even in death he kept me from the awful sin that money would have brought with it.

  Yes! Yes! Oh, that’s so true!

  I feel clean now, Icey. My whole body’s just a-quiverin’ with cleanness.

  I know! I know!

  That money was cursed!

  It was that! Cursed and bloodied! Praise God!

  And now God has saved me from it!

  They subsided, uttering little crooning cries of emotion and directly Icey bent forward in her rocker and shook a finger gently under Willa’s nose.

  And now! she cried softly. You’ll know that when Mr. Powell asks you to marry him—that it won’t be for that. You know well and good that a man of God like him don’t give a whipstitch about money or not. It’s a cinch he’s not stayin’ here at Cresap’s Landing just for the fun of helping Jason Lindsay with his second plowing!

  No, reflected Willa. I know that. But still—

  Still what?

  I just can’t help wonderin’ how little John will take the news.

  About what?

  About the money, Icey.

  Pshaw! Why tell him at all?

  Yes, said Willa. Yes, I’m going to tell him. He should know.

  She was silent a moment.

  It’s all so strange, Icey.

  Willa’s eyes were bright with the old fear again.

  All along, she said, I had the feeling that John knew something.

  —

  John thought: I will go with them because not going would make them think: What does he know? Why is he afraid for us to see him? Is he afraid we’ll make him tell?

  He thought: Because Mr. Powell knows. He knows I know where the money’s hid. He has always known and that’s why he told Mom that fib about Dad saying the money was in the river. That’s so he can have me all to himself—get it out of me his own way. I am afraid of Mr. Powell. I am more afraid of him than I have ever been of shadows or the thunder or when you look through the little bubble in the glass of the window in the upstairs hall and all of the out-of-doors stretches and twists its neck.

  Willa called: Pearl? John? You ready?

  Yes, he thought. Yes, I am ready. Because I mustn’t let them know I am afraid and I must keep on pretending I am brave because I promised I would be. When the blue men come and took him away that day I promised that I would take care of Pearl with my life and I promised I wouldn’t never tell about what he made me swear not to. His name is Preacher. His name is Harry Powell. But the names of the fingers are E and V and O and L and E and T and A and H and that story he tells about the one hand being Hate and the other hand being Love is a lie because they are both Hate and to watch them moving scares me worse than shadows, worse than the wind.

  Willa in a pretty new hat from Moundsville was busy by the pump tucking the last of the sandwiches into the picnic basket. Pearl’s hair was brushed till the ringlets shone like dark, carved wood against the shoulders of her bright gingham dress. John waited, transfixed with his thoughts, on the back porch.

  John? You ready? Have you got your hair brushed?

  Yes.

  She came to the screen door and glared at him.

  Young man, just kindly wipe that pout off your face ’gainst I give you more of what you got the other night!

  He sighed heavily and turned from the door, staring at the yard pump, at the smokehouse, and beyond the picket fence where the hills were
peppered now with the first green smoke of spring. It had come overnight: a burgeoning and a stirring in the land that was tired and musty-smelling like the flesh of old folks after the death of winter; now the land was alive and the air was ripe and musky with the spring river smell like the ripe, passionate sweat of a country waitress. He could hear them preparing for the day’s outing. It was to be a church picnic downriver at Raven Rock at the old Presbyterian graveyard where his father was buried and all the lost, forgotten progenitors before him. They were taking a little chartered packet down river and at nightfall they would return.

  John thought: Is God one of them? Is God on the side of the fingers with names that are letters like the letters on the watch in Miz Cunningham’s window?

  There now! Willa was saying to Pearl. You look just grand. Aren’t you happy we’re all going on a picnic with Mr. Powell?

  Yes. Oh, yes!

  John thought: But I can’t hate Pearl. Dad said I couldn’t hate her because she is mine to protect with my life. But I am scared. I am scared more than I was ever scared of dark or wind or the twisting bubble world, but then I reckon Dad was scared, too, when the blue men took him away, but he was brave and that’s what you have to be.

  Preacher appeared in the hallway. Willa and Pearl ran to greet him and John knew Willa would be holding Pearl and the doll up to kiss and be kissed by Preacher and there was nothing he could do to stop that.

  John? John? Come on, now! We’re leaving!

  Off on the sweet morning wind he heard the foolish, womanly hoot of the little steamboat at the wharf. He turned and pushed through the screen door and into the kitchen to where they were. His hair was flattened and itching where she had wet it down and brushed it slick-flat and his thighs scratched and tingled against the harsh cloth of his good Sunday knickers.

  Ah, there’s my boy! There’s the little man! Good morning, John.

  ’Morning.

  He tried to smile because they might ask him questions if he didn’t smile.

  Willa, you were truly left a priceless legacy when Brother Harper passed on! These fine, fine youngins!

  Willa flushed with pleasure and patted Pearl’s curls more neatly against her shoulders.

  Priceless beyond the worth of much fine gold, Preacher said, the laughter of these precious little children!

  John stared. The finger named H reached over and chucked him under the chin. John thought: She says he is a man of God. And so God is one of them; God is a blue man.

  Yes, Willa said. I’m right proud, Mr. Powell. Such a comfort they’ve been to me.

  John thought: I wish it was night. I wish I was in bed under the comforter. I wish the wind was blowing and the darkness was being because I am not as much afraid of them as I am of the finger whose name is H.

  Well, I reckon we’d best be gettin’ down to the boat! boomed Preacher.

  They followed him, the picnic basket in his hand, and in Peacock Alley it was spring and the warped mossy bricks of the pavement were covered with little green wings from the silver maples and they crunched under their feet, and the air was blue and green and yellow with little broken soft pieces of sun that blew on the river wind. At the wharf John spied the face of Uncle Birdie, and Willa stiffened when the old man waved courteously and she told John he should not speak to that dirty old man. Then John saw Walt Spoon and Icey and a lot of other people on the landing and by the wharfboat the little stern-wheeler lay waiting, its stacks puffing white clouds impatiently into the raspberry-cobbler sky.

  Forevermore! What a pretty day! sighed Willa, her cheeks pinched pink by the air, her eyes sparkling with happiness.

  Well, sure! It’s spring—that’s why it’s so purty, laughed Walt Spoon and led them all through the wharfboat and up the little plank onto the boat. There was really no cabin. They sat in the shelter of the little boiler deck by the railings where they could look out over the broad expanse of rich, motionless river and the rolling hills of spring beyond the water and in its reflection another spring, another world.

  Here, John! Come and set by me and Pearl and Mr. Powell.

  John obeyed, stiff with fright that had long gone beyond the prerogative of anger or protest; moving now to the dumb bidding of muscles he had set in motion from an earlier outset. He squatted by the borrowed folding chair (there were a dozen on the deck, borrowed from the funeral parlor) beside his mother and listened as Icey Spoon chattered on about a lantern slide show some missionary fellow was going to give at the church and he could smell the steam of the boat and the smell of Walt Spoon’s pipe and back in the wharfboat Uncle Birdie Steptoe was picking out a silly tune on a rusty banjo.

  Gracious! cried Willa, when the whistle blew again, surrounding them for an instant in a shivering glass ball of sound.

  Land’s sakes! We’re moving! cried Icey, and old Friend Martin, the preacher at the church, lifted his enormous palm as if on cue, and Nelly Bloyd, the choir leader, raised her sweet soprano voice in the hymn. They were all singing now: the voices of different texture and size mingling together into a curious and pleasant chord.

  Shall—we—gather at the r-i-v-e-r! Where bright angel feet have tro-od!

  John watched the land move, the wharfboat move, the world moving slowly away from them with the dark water’s intervention stranding them somehow upon the river’s implacable face, and he thought: It will be all right because Pearl is sitting on the other side of him and the doll is where he can’t see it. Nothing will happen. It will be all right.

  We—will—walk and worship e-e-ver! All the happy, golden d-a-ay!

  So they sang on for an hour and between hymns Walt Spoon called out the river points and hamlets as they passed them: That’s Sunfish yonder, folks! Over there is Petticoat Ripple! Yonder is Grape and Bat Island! We’re passin’ Sistersville already! I declare, Mother, this little boat makes right fair time, don’t she?

  Above them the chattering puffing of the steam engine and the occasional shrill scream of the whistle left stuttering echoes among the environing hills and set yard dogs bawling and howling in the bottom farms along the shore. The air was unbelievably rich and sweet with the temper of the season: the river smell like the incense of some primal pagan fertility.

  Why are you so still, boy?

  John lifted his eyes at the question, beyond the fingers, beyond the dead-gray vest and the stiff paper collar and the black tie. He shrugged swiftly as small boys do and then grinned, the perfect picture of a fool.

  I’d figure a boy like you would be mighty excited—takin’ a ride on a real steamboat.

  Still he said nothing in reply. John, I don’t believe you like me very much. He could not make the lie with his mouth and so he sat mute and blushing. Willa, chattering happily with Icey Spoon and Nelly Bloyd, did not overhear Preacher talking to the boy and Pearl was dreaming, her eyes lost in the magic mirror of the passing river, the doll’s face pressed close against her pink bonnet brim.

  Aw, have a heart, boy! I think you made up your mind not to like me from the first.

  And John thought: When I walked on the tall fence in Jason Lindsay’s meadow that time I walked with my feet going very carefully so that I wouldn’t fall and that is how I must make myself be when he is looking at me. Eh, boy? What?

  He lifted his gaze now and met Preacher’s eyes steadily. Was there something quite calm and deadly in those eyes now? The glitter not of ice but of chilled blue steel?

  Perhaps you better start trying to like me, smiled Preacher, ominously.

  He paused a moment, letting the words sink in, before he went on.

  —Because your mamma likes me, John! John clenched his teeth until his spittle tasted like pennies under the tongue.

  —And your dear little sister Pearl likes me, Preacher went on, with a mock cajoling warmth. And if both of them like me and you don’t—why, then that makes you different, John. Now, don’t you think you might try to like me just a little? You don’t want to be different do you? No—yes.

&
nbsp; He thought: Because when you tell a lie it must be to keep from saying a worse thing. Then lying is not a sin and God will not punish you. (But what if God is one of them?)

  Ah, that’s the boy! boomed Preacher. Did you hear that, Willa my girl?

  He turned and pressed his hand gently upon her shoulder so that she turned laughing, in mid-sentence.

  Pardon?

  John! cried Preacher. He says he likes me!

  Icey intervened, her face flushed and kittenish.

  Why, of course he likes Mr. Powell! she cried. He’s a fine boy! He likes all his elders—don’t you, John?

  Now the boat whistle blew three shrill blasts and they moved from the channel toward the grove of trees on the West Virginia shore where in those pale, sweet reaches shone the white spire of a country church and, among the fences, the pale stones of the burying ground.

  We’re here! We’re here! cried Willa with a child’s happiness, and John sprang suddenly to her side, clasping her hand, having thought in one sudden, wonderful moment that she had cried: He’s here! He’s here!

  Is Dad—

  The picnic joy washed from her eyes for that moment and the smile faded on her mouth.

  John, how could you be that mean? To mention his name to me today!

  But I thought—I thought you said—

  He stumbled away from her, foolish and clumsy among the braces and chairs and the steam and the stirring, stiff legs of the standing people and he kept thinking over and over: Because if I cry then they will know something is wrong and then they will guess that I know something that I would die before I would tell any of them.

  Then the little boat scraped on the brick landing, the green and fair wind blew, and up in the meadow behind the grove the little country church woke suddenly as if in greeting and began striking soft golden notes of April sound.

  They spent the morning solemnly trimming the grass on the little mounds of earth and wrenching winter weeds away from the carved names and the foolish sandstone angels and the little inlaid enamel pictures above the lost and faded dates. They set jelly glasses of Johnny-jump-ups at the headstones and carried little pails of water from the faucet at the edge of the grove. The wind blew gently all the morning and white clouds glided slowly across the blue sky like strange, grand frigates. And so until noon there was no other sound but the snip-snip of grass scissors and the hushing sigh of sickles and the occasional scratching cry of a spring bird soaring in restive and feral joy into the untroubled sky. They ate late in the afternoon. John had carried his share of water pails and stood by the unmarked grave of his father while Willa wept and Pearl stood beside her hugging the old doll until the older ones walked away again and then she began the questions again.