The Night of the Hunter

by Davis Grubb

  She paused, listening to him and then thinking: But it still ain’t enough. I must suffer some more and that’s what he is making ready for me now: the last and total penance, and then I will be clean.

  Praise God! she cried as he pulled down the window blind and the pagan moon was gone and something clicked and switched softly open and she heard the swift rushing whisper of his bare feet on the floor as he moved through the darkness toward the bed and she thought: It is some kind of razor he shaves with. I knowed what it was the first night!

  —

  John stirred in the valley of his pillow and opened his eyes. Something had moved in the dark and secret world of night: something like the quick soft break and gasp of a sudden blowing flame in a coal grate in the dead of a winter’s night. And even as he listened, the house stirred. For old houses move in their sleep like the dreaming, remembering limbs of very old people. Boards whisper, steps cry out softly to the whispering remembrance of footfalls long gone to earth. Mantelpieces strain gently in the darkness beneath the ghosts of old Christmas stockings. Joists and beams and rafters hunch lightly like the brittle ribs of old women in their sleep: the heart recalling, the worn carpet slippers whispering down the halls again. But now there was another sound and John lifted his face from the damp pillow because his breath against the cloth might have been the sound after all. But the noise continued and then he knew well what it was and he slipped from his bed and crept to the window. It was the whinny-and-catch, the whinny-and-catch that the old Model T made when someone was cranking it. This was the sound among the other night sounds: beyond the fog, beyond the grape arbor and the smokehouse, beyond seeing. Behind the night of white mists he could hear the faint, vivid voices of the shantyboat people in skiffs along the shore, gigging for frogs under the willows, and someone was playing a mouth harp behind the moon. But the other sound came clearer than the rest: clear and unmistakable: the whinny-and-catch, the whinny-and-catch and then the cough and the pause and then beginning again and now the hoarse chatter as the motor caught, and after a bit the sound racketed off into the stillness and the night slid back again. John lay in the bed now thinking: What is it? Has he given it all up and stolen Dad’s old car and gone away? Has he decided he won’t never find that money and so he has quit and settled for the car and gone away forever?

  And so he fell asleep, his hand on the face of the doll whose painted eyes, staring between his fingers, kept a blind yet faithful vigilance against the night.

  —

  Walt Spoon was out in their garden, hoeing the second planting of beans, when Icey came to the door and called him. He rested the hoe against the white picket fence and wiped his face on his bandanna.

  Walt! Come quick! she cried again.

  I’m coming, Mother.

  Walt hurried down the rows toward the kitchen porch.

  What’s wrong, Mother?

  She leaned against the threshold and with one trembling, freckled hand tugged him inside.

  What’s—

  Shhhhhh! Whisper, Walt! He’s out there at one of the tables. I don’t want him to hear me. Keep your voice down.

  What’s the matter? Who—

  It’s Mister Powell, she whispered. He just come a-runnin’ from the house. Somethin’ awful has happened, Walt!

  Well Lordamighty, woman, will ye tell me what?

  Willa has run away!

  No!

  Willa’s run away! she repeated, a little louder now.

  I’ll be switched!

  Walt, when that man told me the story I thought I’d faint. I didn’t know what to say. Why, I thought when I heard him come in it was the butter-and-egg man.

  Well, didn’t she say nothin’—didn’t she leave no word?

  A note, said Icey, pressing her lips together and squinting one eye. ’Course I never asked him what it said. She took out of the bed sometime during the night—there was right smart of a fog so no one seen her go—and taken the old Model T—you remember—Ben’s jalopy.

  Now, then, I’d never have thought that of Willa Bailey, said Walt, softly, sitting suddenly in a straight-backed chair by the sink. I declare, Icey, I never would have thought it!

  Walt, I just didn’t know what to say.

  To him? Well, I reckon you didn’t, now!

  He stood there in the doorway when I come out to see who it was and I asked him what was the matter and he told me and, Walt, I just couldn’t believe my ears so I made him tell me again.

  Is he hit pretty bad by it?

  Icey motioned toward the ice-cream parlor with her head.

  Just hear him! He went all to pieces after he’d told me—throwed himself down at one of the tables and put his head down in his arms and went to prayin’ and cryin’ all at the same time! That’s when I come a-runnin’ for you, Walt.

  Walt turned his eyes sadly toward the door, toward the sound of weeping.

  There’s a little peach brandy, he said, rising and moving toward the spice cabinet. Maybe a little sip of that—

  Walt! A man of the cloth!

  Walt’s hand hesitated but he fetched the bottle down anyway and poured an inch of the liquor into the tin cup by the pump. He tossed it down and bent, coughing into his sleeve.

  Walt Spoon, that’s for sickness in the house.

  Well, I’ll be blamed if news like that don’t make a body sick, Mother.

  He turned his eyes toward the door, toward the sound of faint, thick weeping in the other room.

  What can we do, Mother?

  Well, she said, I thought if you went and talked to him. Another man.

  What—what does a person say?

  Well, shoot, Walt, I don’t know! Maybe if we was to get some idea where she could have run to—some hint she might have dropped. I mind last night she did seem upset when she left here. Didn’t you mind that? The way she kept staring and biting her lip and she hadn’t hardly set down till she was up again—wantin’ to go?

  Yes. I mind that. She left around ten it was.

  Now the weeping beyond the door eased and there was no sound but the measured ticking of the hall clock.

  There, said Walt. Sounds like he’s got ahold of himself! You better wait out here, Mother. I’ll go see if there’s anything we can do.

  But Icey followed just the same, through the door into the ice-cream parlor, and peered around her husband’s shoulder at Preacher at the table by the window. He was sitting up now, his back to them, and he had the little pocket Scripture he always carried and he was reading silently, his dry, thin mouth working faintly as two fingers traced the crabbed tiny script.

  Mister Powell?

  Walt stood awkward and helpless before the grief of another man. Preacher did not stir, gave no sign that he knew they were there. Then Icey touched him gently on the shoulder.

  Mister Powell? Me and Walt thought maybe—

  And as if a loose wire in a loud-speaker had suddenly been jarred into contact again, the whispering rose to a full booming voice as he read:

  —for a whore is a deep ditch! And a strange woman is a narrow pit!

  Amen! whispered Icey. Amen!

  She also lieth in wait as for a prey. And increaseth the transgressors among men.

  Now suddenly he folded the little book and turned to them and they were touched beyond words at his reddened eyes and the little smile of courage that flickered at the corners of his lips.

  My dear, dear friends! Whatever would I do without you?

  Mister Powell! wailed Icey.

  In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence. And His children shall have a place of refuge.

  Walt said: Is there anything?—anything?

  Preacher stuffed the Bible into the pocket of his coat and smiled.

  It is my shame—my crown of thorns. And I must wear it bravely, my friends.

  What could have possessed that girl? snuffled Icey.

  Satan, said Preacher, simply, as if it were all cut and dried. It was him that possessed her.

&
nbsp; Outside in Peacock Alley the air trembled and glistened like cold spring water and the wind flowed clean and steady from the shore. It was a fresh morning in late July—a young girl of a morning when the land was a bosom of milk and honey and the night mists long gone.

  Didn’t she—didn’t she leave no word—no explanation? said Walt.

  Yes. If you could call it that. A note. I tore it up and burned it.

  Didn’t you have no inkling? said Walt, sitting across from him at the table.

  Preacher smiled bravely and blew his nose and then tucked his handkerchief away before he spoke.

  Yes, said Preacher. From the first night.

  The first night?

  Our honeymoon. The night we was married in Sistersville and stayed at the Brass House.

  How’s that? said Walt.

  Why, she turned me out of the bed.

  No! gasped Icey, while Walt blushed and fumbled in his pocket for his pipe.

  Yes! said Preacher. I reckon having had what she was used to from a man like Ben Harper—she wouldn’t want nothin’ from a man of God.

  Yes! said Icey. Ben was lusty and ornery, I’ll grant. And you think that’s why she run off?

  She still longed for the old life, said Preacher softly. Carousin’ of a night and beer drinkin’—and that other, I reckon. I couldn’t give her that kind of life. I wouldn’t if I could, dear hearts. I taken one look at them little ones of hers and I said to myself: Better that a millstone should be fastened around my neck—

  Icey was weeping again now, sobbing in swift, fat little gasps, her lawn handkerchief balled tight against her lips.

  And what do you figure to do, Mister Powell? said Walt, puffing on his old pipe.

  Do? Why, what would any man of God do? cried Preacher, standing up. Stay and take care of them little kids in the way Jesus would want them to be brought up! Maybe He meant all this to happen this way, my friends. Maybe He never meant for a woman like Willa to taint their young lives and so He sent me—

  Praise God! choked Icey.

  That’s mighty fine of you, Reverend, said Walt, snorting and dabbing at a moistness in the corner of his eye. Mighty brave, I’d say!

  I reckon maybe it has been ordained this way, Brother Spoon. The Lord has set my task before me. Those little lambs—

  Icey, control abandoned now, shook and snuffled in unabated emotion. Walt scratched his cheek with his pipe-stem and shook his head.

  I just wouldn’t never have thought that of Willa Bailey, he said softly. Runnin’ off that way and leavin’ a husband and them two kids.

  He paused, puffing silently.

  And she left a note?

  A scrawl, said Preacher. On a piece of notepaper on the bureau. Something about how she had failed as a mother and a wife and she wasn’t no account at heart nohow and she might as well run off somewheres where people was as bad as she was.

  He held out the fingers of his hand and stared at them in disgust and then wiped his palm dramatically on the sleeve of his other arm.

  I burned it, he whispered. I tore it up and burned it—it stank so strong of hellfire!

  Amen!

  The pitcher, said Preacher, has went to the well once too often, my friends.

  And you plan to raise them kids up yourself? said Walt. Providin’, of course, Willa don’t come draggin’ her tail back home?

  Preacher smiled and shook his head.

  She’ll not be back. I reckon I’d be safe in promisin’ you that.

  Walt puffed in silence a moment longer, reflecting.

  Her conscience might git the better of her, he said. And she’d come a-runnin’.

  She has no conscience. She was weak.

  Or maybe she’s just run off on a spree.

  No!

  Well, there’s no harm in hopin’, Reverend.

  There ain’t no sense in it, neither, said Preacher. I knowed she was goin’—I figured something like this was brewin’ when she went to bed last evenin’.

  How?

  Because she tarried around the kitchen for a good half hour after I’d gone up, smiled Preacher, twining the fingers of his hands together. And when the clock struck eleven-thirty I went downstairs to see what was wrong.

  And what—

  She’d found a fruit jar full of dandelion wine that the husband—Harper—had hid away somewhere in the cellar.

  You mean she—

  Preacher nodded.

  She was drinking, he said.

  Icey stopped weeping and stared, scandalized.

  Her flesh, smiled Preacher, was just too full of it for it not to git the upper hand, dear friends—too full of Pride and Sin and Self-indulgence! I tried to save her—

  I know you did, Reverend! cried Icey. Oh, I know how you tried!

  But it was too late, said Preacher, cracking his knuckles together as the fingers began to twist. The devil got there first! You see?

  And he held up the locked hands and twisted them some more and Icey and Walt stared transfixed at the writhing fingers with the blue letters of Love and Hate warring together in midair. At last the fingers of the left hand closed over the fingers of the right and Preacher brought both hands down with a mighty crash to the table top.

  The devil wins sometimes! he whispered in a hoarse, choking voice. But can’t nobody say I didn’t do my best to save her!

  The afternoon was hot: the morning coolness from the river was gone and the air lay like a shimmering yellow sea over the bottomlands. Still, in the dark cellar of the old house it was cold and dank, with a smell in the air of a perpetual autumn: of apples and spider webs and winter coal. Pearl shivered and hugged her doll.

  John, why do we have to hide?

  It was dark behind the shelves of Mason jars, behind the barrel of stale winter apples and the bench with its boxes of onions and turnips and potatoes. Yet she could see the white shape of John’s face clearly, and the dark eyes burning in it.

  John, why?

  Hush up!

  Yes, but, John, why?

  Because! he whispered furiously, thinking: Isn’t it enough that I have to save her from him? Do I have to put up with the rest of it, too: the questions, the whys?

  John, where’s Mom?

  He thought: Mom is dead. Because she wouldn’t go away and leave him that way. She might leave us but she wouldn’t leave him and so she must be dead somewhere.

  John?

  What? Pearl, hush up!

  But where’s Mom?

  So he lied: She’s gone to Moundsville.

  And he thought about the sound of the car in the night and he thought that maybe that might not be a lie after all, that maybe she had seen him at last for what he was and fled for her life and that scared him worse than the thought of her dead so he stopped thinking it.

  To see Dad? Pearl was saying.

  What?

  Did Mom go to Moundsville to see Dad?

  I don’t know. Yes, I reckon that’s it. Now will you hush?

  Why, John? I want to see Daddy Powell.

  He shuddered, thinking: It’s too much for me: hearing her call him that while I am trying to save us both from him and all the time her trying to stop me, to get to him anyway, even though he would kill her for what’s hid in the doll.

  Someone, he said, is after us, Pearl!

  He thought: If I scare her too bad then she will start crying and he will hear it and come find us. But maybe if I scare her a little bit she will shut up.

  Why is someone after us, John?

  Never mind about that. Just be still, Pearl!

  I want to go upstairs, she said. It’s cold and spidery down here. I’m hungry, John.

  He turned in the darkness and grasped her firmly by the shoulders, feeling her tremble under his fingers because now she could feel his own fright flowing through his fingers into her arms.

  Now listen to me, Pearl, he whispered. You and me is runnin’ off tonight.

  What’s runnin’ off?

  Runnin’ awa
y, he continued, and brushed some crawling creature from his leg. If we stay here somethin’ awful will happen to us.

  Won’t Daddy take care of us?

  No, he said. That’s just it! No!

  Where are we goin’, John?

  I don’t know yet. Somewheres, Pearl. When it gets dark and he quits huntin’ for us and goes up to bed—

  Who? Who’s goin’ to bed?

  The man, he said carefully. The man who’s hunting us. When it’s night—then we can tiptoe up to the kitchen and—and steal somethin’ to eat—

  Oh, no, John! Mom will punish us. That’s spoiling our supper.

  No, he said. It don’t matter about that now. Just do like I tell you, Pearl.

  All right, John. I will. I promise.

  And she was still for a moment at least.

  John, is Mom running away, too?

  No.

  So she fell silent again and they waited, listening to the far, faint sounds of the distant daylight: so remote that they might have been from another world. There was a single barred cellar window in the stone wall beneath the joists above the coal bin. And they fastened their eyes to that single square of world, watching as it faded to gray and then, as twilight fell, winked shut like the lid of an eye, and they could hear him moving about in the dark house above them as he had throughout all that dark day, singing to himself and then stopping a spell to listen, to poke and search, and then call their names again in that tight, shivering voice of outrage. Then he would commence his singing again.

  Leaning, leaning! Safe and secure from all alarms!

  Leaning, leaning! Leaning on the everlasting arms!

  And when Pearl fell asleep against him John crouched listening alone in the roaring darkness, and the footsteps padded back and forth and the closet doors squeaked open one by one and then he would call again and after a spell he would begin to sing again and then after a bit they heard him cry out softly to himself as if he had thought of something and the footsteps moved along the hall and directly the cellar door opened far away in the distance and Pearl knew by the cold, tightening fingers on her arm that John meant for her to be still.

  Children? he whispered.