Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “You don’t have many people come this way, I’ll bet,” Barny said.

  “No, nobody comes here anymore,” the old man said. “Long time ago, when we first arrive, many people used to come by. But times change, people grow old . . .”

  He sighed and left the sentence unfinished.

  THE OLD MAN’S feminine counterpart appeared on the porch and shouted a cheery hallo at them. She was short and dumpy with plump rosy cheeks and white hair tied in a bun at the base of her neck. An enormous apron covered her ample waist and fell clear to the tips of her brightly polished shoes.

  “This is Mama,” the old man said, smiling at her with pleasure. “Mama, these good men need food and a bed.”

  “Were they in an accident?” Mama said. “There is blood on their faces.” Her eyes were very dark and solicitous and she ran the tip of a tiny tongue over her full lips in a gesture of anxiety.

  “Now do not jabber like a bird,” the old man said, but his voice was kind. “We will take care of them first, and let them tell us about themselves later.”

  “Yes, Papa,” the little woman said, and hurried off.

  Papa took them into the warm comfortably furnished parlor and with much bustling and muttering under his breath found glasses and poured them each a generous portion of brandy. After that he led them upstairs to a bedroom where Mama was filling basins with hot water. Soap and towels were ready for their use, and Papa brought them two old flannel shirts from his room.

  “Maybe they are too leetle, eh? But they are clean, non?”

  With that he left them alone. Barny looked at Filly, a slow grin spreading across his face. “I think we hit a perfect spot,” he said. “There’s no radio or telephone here, and these old duffers will put us up forever. Perfect, eh?”

  Filly grinned too and stripped off his shirt . . .

  Downstairs, half an hour later, they found an amazing breakfast waiting for them. Chicken livers, broiled to tender succulence in a sauce of wine and oil, golden potatoes swimming in butter graced with chives and garlic, a platter of rosy-yoked eggs, rich yellow muffins—Barny and Filly hardly knew where to start. There were flagons of rich Burgundy to wash down the food and steaming hot coffee to chase the wine. Afterward Mama brought in a plum pudding steeped in brandy and a plate of sharp cheeses.

  “Now you sleep good, eh?” Papa said, twinkling at them over his spectacles.

  “Brother, what food!” Barny said, letting out his breath reverently. “How about you? Aren’t you eating?”

  “Oh, I’ve had my breakfast,” Papa said.

  “And Mama?”

  “Yes, Mama too. We just enjoy watching you eat. Eh, Mama?” Mama blushed and laughed, and Filly, who was oddly perceptive about relationships between men and women, guessed that Papa’s remark was a private joke, and probably a slightly off-color one.

  The two men ate and drank the rich heavy food and wine until their eyelids began to droop from exhaustion. Then Papa led them to their bedroom, turned down the covers and opened the window. “Now you get good sleep, eh?”

  Barny and Filly stretched out on the bed and were both asleep before the old man tip-toed from the room . . .

  WHEN THEY awoke it was dark and the wind that blew in the open window was cold and sharp. Filly got up and lighted a candle on the dresser and closed the window.

  “It’s damn odd, but I’m hungry,” he said. “After that breakfast I didn’t think I could eat for a week. But I feel like I’m starving. I hope supper’s as good as that first meal was.”

  “Well, let’s find out. I guess we wore ourselves out in that hike. I’m weak as a cat.”

  Mama and Papa were sitting in the parlor, but jumped up when the two men came in. “I was just to call you,” Mama said gaily. “Dinner is all ready.”

  “Great!” Barny said.

  “Perhaps a leetle drink first for the appetite?” Papa said, smiling like a man of the world.

  Dinner was a replica of breakfast as far as bounty was concerned. There were two roasts, dripping with blood-red gravy, a variety of vegetables, each with its own rich sauces, and breads, cakes, puddings, and cheeses in profligate abundance.

  Barny and Filly were half-way through their first heaping platefuls when they noticed that Mama and Papa were not eating.

  “Hey, you don’t know what you’re missing,” Barny said. He, himself, felt that he couldn’t get enough of the rich spicy food. Every nerve and muscle in his body seemed to be crying for replenishment.

  “Mama and I ate earlier,” Papa said, and again, Filly noticed, Mama put her head back and laughed, while a warm rush of color stained her plump cheeks.

  After dinner they sat in the parlor and sipped brandy. A fire glowed in the hearth and the only sound was the pleasant sighing of the wind against the window panes.

  “It’s nice and quiet here,” Barny said. He looked from Mama to Papa. “You like that, eh?”

  “Oh, yes, we like it nice and quiet,” Papa said.

  “Nobody ever comes by for any reason?” Filly asked.

  “But hardly ever,” Mama said. Barny’s eyes drooped sleepily. With an effort he forced them open. “We thought we heard some dogs when we were out in the woods,” he said.

  “Well, we have dogs,” Papa said, smiling.

  “No, these were off in the other direction!”

  “I did not hear them,” Papa said. His smile became apologetic. “But my ears are getting old, eh? They do not hear everything so good anymore.”

  Suddenly, unmistakably, an automobile horn blasted the silence.

  Barny came to his feet in a crouch.

  “Nobody comes by here, eh?” he said harshly to Papa.

  “But who can it be?” Papa said.

  “I got a hunch you know.”

  Mama got to her feet and stood wringing her hands. “Do not be upset. Papa will send whoever it is away. We have known persecution too. Think of us as your friends. You are in trouble, eh?”

  “Yeah, and that means you’re in trouble too,” Barny said. “You and Kris Kringle here. If he doesn’t get rid of whoever’s heading this way you’ll both learn what trouble is.”

  Papa got to his feet with perfect composure and slipped into a leather jacket. “You go into the kitchen,” he said to Barny and Filly.

  “Okay, but one funny move will be your last, remember that.”

  Barny stepped into the kitchen and walked to the window. Filly was at his side and both men had their guns in their hands.

  THEY LOOKED out into the moon-lit yard and saw half a dozen men walking toward the house. The men carried rifles in the crooks of their arms and behind them, at least a hundred yards back, were the lights of a small truck.

  “How’d they get that in here?” Filly said.

  “Must be another route.”

  The men stopped about fifteen yards from the house. Barny heard the front door slam, then Papa’s voice: “ ’Allo there, my friends. What you want?”

  One of the men called out: “This is Sheriff Watson. You see a couple of men around here today, Mister Saint Gwynn.” He pronounced the name: Sang Gwine.

  “But non, my friends.”

  “You sure?”

  “But of course.” Papa laughed cheerfully. “You come in and look around, eh?”

  Some of the men moved back toward the car, Barny noticed. Sheriff Watson said, “No, that won’t be necessary,” and Papa laughed again, good-naturedly.

  The group drifted back to the car and Barny heard the motor start. The car moved away and soon its noise was swallowed up by the night.

  Putting their guns away, Barny and Filly walked back into the living room. Papa was removing his jacket, a triumphant little grin on his face.

  “You see, my friends’,” he said, studying them with his cheery twinkling eyes. “They believe me when I tell them I see no one.”

  Barney sat down in a comfortable chair and scowled at the fire. Several things were bothering him. “That’s a queer sheriff,” he sa
id, at last. “He didn’t even search the house. I wish all cops were that dumb.”

  “Or that scared,” Filly said. Things were bothering Filly too. He had noticed the reluctance of the sheriff’s men, and the nervous way they had peered about them while the sheriff was talking with Papa.

  “What were they scared of?” Barny said to Filly.

  Filly shrugged. “Maybe Papa knows.”

  Papa spread his hands in a gesture of bewilderment, but Mama suddenly put her knitting aside firmly. “You are right, they are afraid of us,” she said. “Ever since we come from old country the people around here are afraid of us. They are—how-you-say—superstitious.”

  “Mama is telling the truth,” Papa said sadly. “You know how it is? We have other customs, other ways of speaking, and our neighbors regard that as something terrible

  “It started in the war,” Mama said excitedly. “When the fighting was going on near here and we went out to help the wounded.” She wet her red lips nervously. “They would not even let us do that.”

  “Well, we are used to it now,” Papa said. He patted his wife’s hand gently. “Let us try to forget eh?”

  Barny yawned: He couldn’t keep his mind on the conversation. Every inch of him ached with weariness. “I’m going to get some sleep, if you folks will excuse me,” he muttered.

  “But of course. And sleep well. No one will disturb you,” Papa said.

  UPSTAIRS, Filly sat on the edge of the wide bed and stared at the floor with a petulant frown. “Barny,” he said, at last, “this is the country they fought the Civil War in, that’s right, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Part of it, anyway,” Barny said, stretching out on the bed without bothering to remove his clothes.

  Filly turned to him anxiously. “Well, you heard what Mama said, didn’t you? That they tried to help the wounded when the fighting was going on? She must have meant the Civil War.”

  “Ah, she’s cracked,” Barny mumbled sleepily. “Hell, she wasn’t even born when the Civil War started. That was all of ninety years ago.”

  “What was she talking about then?”

  “I tell you she’s cracked,” Barny said. “Shut up and lemme get some sleep.”

  “I don’t like it here, Barny.”

  But Barny was fast asleep. Filly stared at him angrily for a few seconds; but then his own eyes began to droop and he was suddenly overcome with drowsiness. Resolving to discuss the matter in the morning he lay down beside Barny and almost instantly fell asleep . . .

  The next morning both men were refreshed and cheerful. Barny ran his hands through his thick hair and then flexed his arms. “I feel like a new man,” he announced happily. He scratched his three-day beard. “I’ll grab a shave before breakfast. You need one too, Filly. We stumbled into luck when we hit this place, I tell you.”

  “I suppose so,” Filly said. He remembered his anxiety •‘of last night, but it seemed ludicrous in the clean bright sunlight that spilled into the room. From downstairs they could hear Mama bustling about in the kitchen and the aroma of broiling liver and bacon drifted up to them and set their mouths watering.

  Papa came in a few seconds later carrying a tray on which there were two mugs of coffee and a plate of hot buttered biscuits. “Always before breakfast there is the little coffee and a bun,” he said, beaming at them. “It is, a custom in my country.”

  “Great,” Barny said. “It’s a wonderful custom.”

  “Where is your country, by the way?” Filly said.

  “Austria,” Papa said.

  “Say, how about borrowing a razor,” Barny said. “We’ll look human after a shave.”

  “But of course.”

  Papa hurried out and returned a few minutes later with two clean straight razors, soap mugs and towels; but he had forgot a mirror. Barny asked him about it, but Papa said apologetically that there wasn’t a mirror in the house. Then Filly remembered that he-had a small one in his wallet. He dug his wallet out of his coat and went through it carefully but the mirror was gone.

  He stood in the middle of the room with the wallet in his hand and suddenly he felt cold and afraid; Papa was smiling at him and Barny was testing the razor on his thumb. Filly didn’t know why he was afraid; but from some depth in his subconscious he could feel a faint memory of horror roiling and twisting.

  “It is lost?” Papa asked.

  “Yes, I guess so,” Filly said; he shivered.

  “Well, I can get by without a mirror,” Barny said. “I know where my face is, I guess.”

  “Good. I will wait for you downstairs,” Papa said and left the room.

  Filly shaved in silence. He cut himself once but it was only a nick.

  When he was through he cleaned the razor carefully and then dried his face. Barny inspected him critically. “Just a couple of cuts which isn’t too bad without a mirror,” he said.

  “A couple of cuts?”

  “Yeah, one on your cheek, and one on your throat.”

  Filly’s hand touched his neck, his fingers moved about gently. He felt a tiny opening just beside his adam’s-apple. “I didn’t cut myself there,” he said slowly.

  “Well, maybe it’s a mosquito bite.” Filly looked at Barny sharply. He saw a tiny cut on Barny’s throat. “You nicked yourself too,” he said.

  “I did not,” Barny said. He felt the scratch and frowned. “Maybe a mosquito got me too,” he said. “Come on, let’s go down to breakfast. I’m starved again.”

  “So am I,” Filly said. “I wish I wasn’t.”

  “Don’t be a fool. We’re lucky to have good appetites considering the food Mama dishes out.”

  Filly hesitated a moment; and then he sighed and followed Barny downstairs . . .

  THE DAYS sped by quickly. Barny and Filly fell into an unvarying routine of eating and drinking and sleeping. They were always tired, always hungry, always thirsty. It got to be too much trouble to stay up during the days, so they lay on their bed most of the time napping, and not even bothering to talk to each other.

  One day Filly noticed that his clothes were hanging loosely on him. For all the rich food he was eating he was losing weight! He glanced at Barny, seeing him it seemed for the first time in weeks, and he was amazed to note that the once-huge man was a hulk of his former self.

  Barny’s shirt hung like a tent over his bony shoulders and his cheeks were sunken and drawn.

  “Barny, something’s wrong with us,” Filly said in a weak voice. “We’re fading away, dying.”

  But Barny only grunted and slumped onto the bed. “I’m hungry,” he muttered. “Hungry.”

  “But we just ate.”

  “I’m always hungry.”

  Filly stared at Barny’s recumbent form for a moment or two; and then he made a decision. Turning away, he walked downstairs. Mama and Papa were sitting in the living room. Mama was knitting, and Papa was staring into the fire with a faint smile on his face. He looked up at Filly. “Ah, hello there, my friend,” he said.

  “I’m going for a walk,” Filly said. He watched them, swaying slightly on his feet, convinced that they would prevent him from leaving in some manner.

  But Papa nodded approvingly. “That is good idea,” he said. “Walking makes the appetite, eh?”

  Filly made a strangling sound in his throat and hurried out the door.

  When he was across the clearing and into the sheltering woods he began to run with frantic, hysterical speed. The trailing vines snapped at his face and his body, and occasionally he tripped over a root and fell headlong. But he fought on as if all the devils in hell were at his heels.

  How long he ran he had no way of knowing. But at last he was forced to stop. Sobbing for breath he sat on a log and tried to muster the strength to keep going. But he was empty, drained. His strength was gone. He slipped from the log and lay flat on his back staring at the blue sky.

  Night settled slowly over the forest. Filly fell asleep several times. Each time he woke he felt the coldness in his bod
y and he knew that if he didn’t rouse himself he would die.

  Summoning his last bit of energy he forced himself to his feet. Tottering weakly he tried to plot a course; but he knew nothing about the stars or the woods. He began to cry. The tears ran down his thin cheeks and were frozen by the whipping wind. A bird screamed above him and Filly started in terror.

  “I must go back,” he whispered to the darkness. Barny was there; he could protect him. Hunger was growing in him like an aching. physical thing. Turning he trudged weakly back toward Mama and Papa’s farmhouse.

  The cheery lights of the front room showed up through the trees in a manner of minutes; and he realized with despair that he had only gone about a hundred yards in a wild dash to freedom.

  MAMA AND Papa met him at the front door with bustling solicitude.

  “We thought you were lost,” Papa said, helping him to a chair. “Some brandy, eh? You are cold, non?”

  “I will fix your dinner,” Mama said, and flitted off to the kitchen.

  “No, no food,” Filly gasped. “Where is Barny?”

  “He is gone,” Papa said.

  “Gone?” The words were only a whisper. He stared up at Papa’s round beaming face. “Gone where? Where did he go?”

  Papa shrugged. “He said he must leave. That is all I know.”

  “No, no,” Filly cried.

  “You are tired,” Papa said gently. “You must eat something and rest, eh?”

  Mama came in with a tray of food. There was a whole chicken, steaming in. a gravy of wine and blood, and a flagon of rich red wine.

  “This will do you good, eh?” she said. She licked her lips and looked down on him with a smile. “You must get your strength back,” she said.

  “Get it back so you can take it away?”

  The thought hammered in Filly’s mind. He tried to lift himself from the chair but his arms had no strength. Papa cut a sliver of meat from the breast of the chicken and gently put it between Filly’s lips. “You must eat,” he said in a low crooning voice.