The Night of the Hunter

by Davis Grubb

  Pearl?

  He could hear her voice, intimate and whispering as she scolded the doll named Willa and the stick named Mister Powell.

  Pearl!

  What, John?

  Bedtime!

  In a minute.

  No—now, Pearl! I’ll tell Ma!

  All right.

  He moved down across the grass, already wet with evening dew, toward the shape of Pearl’s light pinafore: like a tiny moth within the green, dark cavern of the cool grape leaves.

  Come on now, Pearl!

  He could see her face turned up to him now, moonround and pallid with the big eyes like dark pansies above the tiny mouth.

  You’ll get mad, John, she whimpered.

  I ain’t mad, Pearl. Only git on up to bed. It’s—

  You’ll get awful mad, John. I done a Sin.

  You what?

  He could hear her frantic movements at some task on the damp bricks at his feet; he could hear the crisp rustle of paper in her frightened hands.

  Pearl! You ain’t—

  John, don’t be mad! Don’t be mad! I was just playing with it! I didn’t tell no one!

  His legs turned to water at the thought; the flesh of his neck gathered in quick, choking horror.

  It’s all here, she whispered placatingly and the furious movements continued.

  Now the white moon of early summer appeared suddenly from the hill beyond the meadow and a vast aura of pale, clear light illumined the sight before the boy’s eyes: the bricks beneath his feet littered with the green fortune in hundred-dollar bank notes that the little girl was frantically gathering together again.

  Pearl! Oh, Pearl!

  Now she was stuffing them back where they had been all along; pushing them through the rent in the cloth body of the doll Jenny that was held closed with a safety pin beneath the shabby toy dress. John fell to his knees and sank his hands into the pile of certificates that had slipped through Pearl’s frightened hands. And then the soft footfall in the wet grass at the other end of the grape arbor told him that the hunter had returned.

  John?

  Oh—yes?

  Preacher: standing in the blue mists of the moon, shading his eyes with his hands to see what the children were about.

  What are you doing, boy?

  Getting Pearl to bed. I—

  What’s taking you so long about it?

  It—she—

  What’s that you’re playing with, boy?

  Pearl’s junk, he said, magnificently. Mom gits mad when she plays out here and don’t clean up afterward.

  And then he stuffed the last of the bills into the soft cotton body and fumbled the safety pin back into the tear again. Preacher had not stirred. But John could sense that he was alert, suspicious, sniffing.

  Come on, boy. It’s chilly out here tonight.

  Yes.

  And now he arose and held out the doll to Pearl and then turned, facing the long, the interminable distances to the end of the green arbor where the dark one waited: giving the doll into the frightened hands of his sister and taking one of those hands then he began to lead her, to walk slowly and ever so cautiously toward the shape of the man against the blue smoke of the moonlight and all the while praying awkwardly and badly because the only prayer he knew was about Sin and this was a prayer about escaping.

  Preacher cracked his dry palms together in a whip crack of impatience.

  Hurry, children!

  How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten, John heard his riotous, foolish brain recite softly. Can I get there by candlelight?

  He could see the gleam now of Preacher’s watch chain against the death-gray vest and thought: He ain’t guessed yet. He don’t know.

  A thousand miles to Babylon, ten thousand miles to walk yet to the end of a moonlit grape arbor where a dark man stands and he walked carefully, slowly, putting one foot before the other cautiously and holding Pearl’s hand and thinking with growing nausea: But he heard me talk about cleaning up. Won’t he think: Cleaning up what? Where’s the paper I heard rustling? Where are the paper dolls?

  And now he stood directly before him, the watch chain gleamed like fire before John’s eyes and he did not breathe, did not move, waiting.

  Now, said Preacher, up to bed with the both of you!

  And now he was walking slowly up through the yard toward the lamp in the kitchen window and Preacher was following along behind and the boy fought back the flood of hysterical laughter that struggled and welled in his throat. He choked it back and led Pearl up the porch steps and into the kitchen.

  Up! Up! scolded Preacher. Hurry!

  On the steps he thought with a child’s strange and wondrous irrelevance: There is a moon tonight. Maybe it won’t rain. Maybe Uncle Birdie will take me fishin’ in Dad’s skiff tomorrow.

  Within half an hour Willa returned home from the Spoons’ and John listened to her voice and the voice of Preacher below the bedroom in the kitchen and presently her footsteps creaked on the back stairs and the door opened a crack.

  John?

  Yes, Mom, he whispered, because Pearl was asleep.

  Are you in bed?

  Yes.

  And Pearl, too?

  Yes, Mom.

  He thought: Then he seen it after all. He guessed and he has let her be the one to come up and take the doll downstairs and cut it open with the knife and find the money.

  Did you pray?

  I forgot— Mom, I—

  Get out of bed. Get Pearl up, too.

  He shook his sister’s arm, awoke her, whining and yawning with sleep, and together they knelt and he felt the cold, rough boards on his knees under the little nightshirt and opening one eye he saw the moon like a dandelion through his eyelashes and listened while Willa’s shrill, angry voice talked for a while about Sin and Salvation. When they were back in bed again, she stood by the bed for an instant, her tired hands, grown old too soon, folded before her waist.

  Were you impudent to Mister Powell again tonight, John?

  Mom, I—I didn’t mean—

  What were you impudent about?

  He asked me about the money again, Mom!

  You know that’s not so, John! You always make up that lie. You’re always saying that Mister Powell asks you about the money. There’s no money, John. Can’t you seem to get that through your head?

  Yes’m. I told him—

  You think you can turn me against him, don’t you, John? she whispered. Don’t you know he’s a man of God?

  He said nothing and heard a whippoorwill swoop and cry in the meadows where the river mists shone like lamb’s wool beneath the moon.

  You sinned, boy, she said. Ask God to forgive you for making up that lie about Mister Powell.

  What’s a Sin? said Pearl suddenly, rising with the doll in her arms.

  Hush, Pearl! Did you hear me, John?

  Yes.

  Ask God to forgive you. Ask him, John.

  Forgive me, he said. God.

  And she closed the door and the tired footsteps stole away down the back stairs to the kitchen again and presently Pearl spoke, dreadfully worried.

  John?

  What?

  John, I done another Sin tonight. I cut up two of them—only two, John. I cut them out with the scissors—the faces—

  He thought: So I will be God. Then I won’t be so scared of Him.

  I forgive you, he said. But don’t never do that again, Pearl. And don’t never take them out again. You hear me, Pearl?

  Yes. Yes, John. I swear!

  And she fell asleep again, face to the summer moon, dreaming.

  Come back! Come back, you naughty children! she cried in the dark nest of sleep. But the paper children spun away into the summer wind: beyond recall, beyond heeding, whirling and dancing over the buttercups, into the sun.

  —

  It is a night for dreams. John sleeps and once again he is playing in the grass beside the smokehouse with Pearl in that late afternoon of Indian sum
mer.

  There comes Dad yonder! he cried, jumping to his feet, and Pearl stood up, too, with the doll named Miz Jenny in her arms.

  Where, John? Where?

  See! There comes the car down yonder! You can see it through the apple trees!

  When Ben Harper’s Model T rounded the bend in the lane below Jason Lindsay’s orchard the loud racket of its pounding engine always drifted clear and sharp toward the house. Now the old car bounced and rattled up the ruts into the yard below the grape arbor. Ben fell through the door and came staggering up toward the house.

  Dad! Hey, Dad!

  John ran down the yard toward him, thinking: I’ll bet he has brought me and Pearl a present from the five-and-ten because he is acting funny and when he plays jokes on me like this there is always a little poke in his coat pocket with a cap pistol or a toy lead streetcar or something in it.

  Dad! Hey, Dad!

  Ben whirled and staggered, squinting his stunned and bloodshot eyes toward the direction of the voice and wiped his hand across his face as if to tear away a veil that had fallen there.

  Hey, Dad! You bring me a present?

  He could hear Pearl stumbling along behind him on her short legs, wailing for him to wait and then he was looking up at his father, seeing the eyes, seeing the torn shirt sleeve, the dark, spreading stain.

  Dad! What’s wrong?

  Where’s Willa? Where—

  She ain’t here. She’s gone to Cresap’s Landing to buy some calico. Dad, what’s wrong. You’re bleeding, Dad.

  Ain’t nothin’. Now listen to me, boy—

  Dad! Dad! You’re hurt bad!

  Boy! Listen to me! There ain’t much time! John, listen!

  And the boy listened for a moment and then saw the gun in Ben’s left hand and the thick roll of bank notes in the other. Then he began to scream; the world was gone mad. And Ben Harper stuck the pistol in his heavy motorcycle belt with the big glass studs and slapped the boy smartly across the face.

  Listen to me, John! For God’s sake, listen!

  Pearl put her finger in her wet mouth and watched with grave eyes.

  I done something in Moundsville, Ben whispered, wincing and swaying a little as if against the wind. They’re comin’ to take me, boy.

  Dad! Dad!

  Hush! Hush, boy! This money here—

  Dad!

  —I stole it, John. Yes. I stole all this money.

  John did not know what stole meant but he knew it was all right because it was Ben.

  They mustn’t get it, whispered Ben, his eyes gone crazy now. None of them! Not even Willa! Do you understand me, boy? Not even your mom!

  Dad, you’re bleeding! he wailed.

  Hush, John! Just listen—

  John thought: I mustn’t go to screaming again because then he will think I am a coward the way I was that day the moccasin bit me down among the cattails while we were fishing for blue-gills.

  We’ve got to hide it. Now think, boy. Where? We’ve got to hide the money before they come to take me.

  John thought: But why not give them back the money and then they won’t be mad anymore: the men who are coming?

  There’s close to ten thousand dollars here, boy. And it’s yours. Yours and little Pearl’s.

  He thought: I don’t want the money, Dad, because already some of the red has dripped off onto the green numbers and if I touch the money it will get on my hands and Mom will think I been fighting.

  Think, boy! Think! Where? Behind a stone in the smokehouse. Yes, that’s it. Ah! No! Under a brick under the grape arbor. No! They’d dig for it.

  Pearl knew it was all a game her dad and John were playing and she sat down suddenly in the daisies and threw Miss Jenny high above her head, falling back into the ironweed and Queen Anne’s lace, kicking her legs at the sun.

  I just can’t clear my head! Ben was crying, shaking his shoulders like a wounded dog. What’s happened? God a’mighty, what was I thinking? Because she ain’t strong enough for it—in her hands it would be just like a gun—she’d drag them all to hell headlong. No! I remember now! It’s for them! Yes, that’s why I done it. Sure, that’s it. Them kids! That Pearl and John! That’s the way it was!

  John looked at the trees and the hills behind and the black hood of the smoking Model T and each thing in the world had a tiny fringe of red around it and he felt the sour bile of fear well against his back tongue and he swallowed hard and clenched his fists like small, hard apples and thought: When the moccasin bit me down in the cattails I was ashamed because I was scared and I screamed when Dad taken his gutting knife and cut the place to make it bleed so’s I wouldn’t die!

  Now Ben’s mad eyes opened and squinted and opened wide again and focused on the doll in Pearl’s arms and he smiled as if under the impact of a fresh and wonderful revelation.

  Why, sure! Sure! In the doll! Sure! That’s where!

  There was a torn place in the doll’s cloth back and it had a safety pin keeping it closed and now Ben fell to his knees and scrambled through the grass toward her and lifted the doll from her hands.

  No! No! Miz Jenny!

  Wait! Wait, now, honey! I won’t hurt her none. Pearl, baby! Wait, now!

  But Pearl wailed in anguish when Ben plucked the safety pin loose and the rent place fell open and he reached in and tore out a great wad of cotton stuffing from the doll body and then stuffed the thick roll of green bills inside.

  Now, then! Now let them look! Now, then!

  And then the pin was back and the cheap little toy dress had fallen and the doll was back in Pearl’s hands and she had stopped crying and squatted cross-legged in the grass, snuffling angrily and glaring at her father.

  You hurt her!

  Ah, no! She ain’t hurt, baby. That little spot of blood on her dress. That ain’t doll’s blood, Pearl honey. It’s mine! No, she’s all right!

  And he struggled to his feet again, swaying and passing the back of his hand over his sick eyes, his face drawn and lean like the face of the Christ in passion.

  Listen, John! Listen to me now! You must swear, boy! Swear, boy!

  What? I—

  Swear means promise, John. You must promise that you will take good care of Pearl yonder. That’s the first thing, boy. Promise? Swear?

  Yes! Yes, I—

  With your life, boy!

  Yes, Dad!

  And then swear you’ll keep the secret.

  About—

  —about the money. No matter who asks. Never tell. Never let them know, boy! Not even Willa! Not even your mom!

  Yes, Dad!

  Swear!

  Yes! I swear!

  —and when you grow up—you and Pearl—it’ll be yours. Do you understand that, John? Do you swear? Say it, boy—say, I swear I’ll guard Pearl with my life and I won’t never tell about the money—

  John repeated it with thick, fumbling tongue.

  And you, Pearl! You swear, too!

  She did not know what the game was about but she laughed and said yes and then fell to pouting again, hugging the wounded Jenny to her with fresh anger at what he had done to her baby. They heard the whine of motors and the two touring cars appeared in the bend in the lane at the corner of Jason Lindsay’s orchard.

  Here they come! They’re comin’ yonder, boy! Mind, now!

  Where you goin’ to, Dad?

  Away, John! Away!

  You’re bleedin’, Dad!

  It’s nothin’, boy. Just a scratched shoulder.

  But there’s blood, Dad.

  Hush, John! Mind what I told you!

  Yes, Dad.

  And you, too, Pearl. You swore!

  And now the blue men were coming closer and she thought: This is part of the game, too, and she watched them move cautiously through the tall grass, the tanned, grim faces white around the lips. There are guns in the hands and one of the men spits a dark jet of amber into the daisies every three or four steps he takes.

  Drop the gun, Harper!

  They circle
now, two of them fanning out below the smokehouse; two of them in the grape arbor; another standing up tall and fearless among the black-eyed Susans with the blue gun ready in his hand.

  We’ve got you, Harper! Better give it up! We don’t want them kids hurt!

  I’m going now, John! Good-by!

  The boy’s lip convulses once but the line of steadiness comes back and he knows that Ben does not hear the tiny whimper in his throat.

  Just mind what you swore, John!

  Yes!

  And take good care of Pearl. Guard her with your life, John!

  Dad! Who’s them blue men yonder?

  Never mind them! They come and I’m goin’ away with them, John. That don’t matter, boy. Just mind what you swore! Mind, boy!

  Yes!

  Now the child leaps and awakens sweating and quivering under the sheet. He is lying in bed and the cold summer moon is a silver coin stuck to the windowpane and Pearl is breathing softly in the bed beside him. He is wide awake now and he knows where he is and that it is Now instead of Then and yet he thinks: Just because I am awake don’t mean that the dream isn’t still going on out there. Now the blue men are moving up through the grass below the smokehouse again; now they are hitting him with the shiny wooden sticks and the blue guns and they are dragging him away to the big cars and there is a dream me watching it happen and when they are gone I will see it again in the grass, under the Queen Anne’s lace, where it fell out of his coat pocket when they were hitting him: the little brown paper poke with the jew’s-harp in it for me and the toy baby bottle with the real rubber nipple for Pearl’s doll. Because he never come home of a Friday once without bringing us a present from the five-and-ten. Not even once.

  —

  Yes, it is a night for dreams. Willa has prayed for nearly half an hour on her knees before crawling into the ancient brass bed beside the sleeping body of the man and even after she is in bed she begins praying again, automatically, and she has fallen asleep in the middle of a phrase and finds herself thinking how strange it is that spring is gone and here it is suddenly winter and the window has grown thick with hoar and the gas is a flickering forest of blue and yellow in the asbestos of the bedroom fireplace and it is Ben beside her in the bed. Why, it had none of it ever happened and they had only been married two months and here they are in the big house her uncle had left her.