1
“You going
out?”
“Thought I might take
a walk,” Dennis Kittredge said.
“You be gone
long?”
“Not too long.”
“You thinking of
stopping by the tavern?”
He was by the front
door, the lace covering the glass smelling of dry summer dust. In
the trees near the curb he could see the dying day, flame and dusk
and a half moon. “I might have me a glass or two is all.”
She was in the
rocker, knitting, a magazine in her lap. He’d seen the magazine
earlier. It had a painting of a very pretty Jesus on it. Jesus was
touching his glowing heart with long fingers. “You forgetting what
night it is?”
“I’m not
forgetting.”
“I don’t often ask
that you pray with me but I don’t see how fifteen minutes one night
a week is going to help.”
“And just what is it
we’re praying for?”
She paused and looked
down at her poor worn hands. She worked so hard and sometimes he
felt terrible for resenting her prayerfulness. She looked up then.
“I had the dream again last night.”
“I see.”
“Don’t you want to
know which one?”
“I know which
one.”
“The son we would’ve
had. I saw him plain on a hill right at dawn. He was running right
toward us. We were on a buckboard on a dusty road and we didn’t
hear him or see him. He kept running and running and shouting and
shouting but we didn’t see him or hear him. Finally, he fell down
in the long grass and all the animals came to him at night and
comforted him-because we wouldn’t comfort him.”
Kittredge sighed. “I
won’t be gone too long.”
“Don’t you know what
the dream could mean?”
“No. I guess I
don’t.”
“Why, it could mean
that He’s forgiven us, that the Lord has forgiven us for sinning
before we were married, and that now He’s ready to let us have
children.”
“I see.”
“Don’t you believe
that, Dennis?”
“I’m not sure just
what I do believe,” he said, and pulled the door open. The sounds
and smells of dusk-the robins and jays in the trees, a hard
relentless chorus, the scent of flowers as they cooled in the
dusk-he took all this in with great affection. He wanted to be out
in the night, a part of all this.
“I won’t be gone too
long,” he said again, and before she could respond he was out the
door and moving fast toward the sidewalk.
***
He liked walking
downtown at night. He liked the way the lamplight glowed and the
way women in picture hats and bustles walked on the arms of their
gentlemen to the opera house where shiny coaches and rigs stood
outside waiting. He liked the sound of player pianos on the lonely
midwestern darkness and he liked the smell of brewer’s yeast that
you picked up as you passed tavern doors. He liked the sound of
pinochle and poker hands being slapped down on the table, and the
sweet high giggle of tavern maids. This was, by God, 1901 and this
was, by God, civilized and he took a curious pride in this, as if
he were personally responsible for it all.
It was not quite
eight o’clock, so he walked down to the roundhouse tavern where the
railroad men drank. It was his favorite place unless there were too
many Mexicans in there from some road crew. He hated the way
Mexicans resorted to their knives so quickly; he’d seen it too many
times. A man stabbed was much worse than a man shot-at least to the
man watching it all.
The place was nearly
empty. At the far end of the plank bar two Mexes drank from a
bucket of suds, and at the other a white man played blackjack with
the bartender. In the corner a player piano rolled out the melody
to “My Sweet Brown Eyes” while an old man, nodding off in his cups,
lay facedown on the pianos keys, spittle running silver from his
mouth to the floor. The bartender paid him no mind.
A maid appeared from
the back and served Kittredge his beer. He stood there with his
schooner, enjoying the player piano. It was playing Stephen Foster
songs now, a medley, and his toe tapped and in just a few swallows
he felt buzzy, not drunk, but buzzy and blessedly so. He forgot
that in an hour he would meet Griff and Carlyle and that together
they would have to decide what to do about Septemus Ryan. That was
the funny thing about the whole event: he did not feel responsible.
It had been an accident, though obviously most people had chosen
not to believe that, an accident because Dennis Kittredge was a
good and responsible man and had been all his life.
He felt that if he
could open his heart and look inside he would find fine
things-patience and courage and understanding. He was not the sort
of man who cut up other men the way Mexes did and he was certainly
not the sort of man who killed young girls. It all had a dreamy
quality to it. He would always be, in his heart, the little kid
making his first communion-why couldn’t people understand
that?
“Nice night for a
walk.”
Kittredge turned
around and saw Sheriff Dodds standing there. The sheriff tossed a
nickel on the bar plank. The maid brought him a schooner with a
good foamy head on it.
“Sure is,” Kittredge
said.
The sheriff sipped
his beer, studying Kittredge as he did so. “You still think about
the days when the wagon works was up and runnin’?”
“Sure. Everybody
does.”
“Them was good
times.”
“Sure was.”
“Hell,” Dodds said,
“I remember seein’ you and Griff and Carlyle everywhere I went. You
three was some friends.”
“Some friends is
right,” Kittredge said, then swigged some of his own beer. For some
reason, his stomach was knotting and he had started having some
problems swallowing, the way he did sometimes when he got nervous.
Dodds came in there often enough, had a schooner or two a night,
nothing to scandalize even church ladies, and often as not he spoke
to Dennis, too. But there was something about his tone tonight, as
if he were saying one thing but meaning quite another. Kittredge
wondered what the hell Dodds was driving at.
“You boys don’t hang
around each other much anymore, do you?”
“Guess we don’t,
Sheriff.”
“Too bad. You bein’
such good friends and all. At one time, I mean.” He said this over
the rim of his schooner. He was still watching Kittredge very
closely.
Kittredge looked
toward the door. “Well,” he said.
Dodds followed his
gaze to the front of the tavern. “Going on home now?”
Kittredge met his
glance. “Thought I might finish my walk.”
“I’d be careful if I
were you.”
“Careful?”
Dodds drained off his
beer. “Hear there are some strangers in town.”
“Why would strangers
bother me?”
“Well, you know how
it is with strangers. You can never be sure what they want.”
Now Kittredge
finished his own beer. He belched a little because he’d put it down
too fast. “Well, guess I’ll be saying goodnight, Sheriff.”
But Dodds wasn’t
done. Not quite. “Too bad you don’t have any children,
Kittredge.”
“Yep. I suppose it
is.” What the hell was Dodds getting at, anyway?
“Man who don’t have
no children of his own don’t know what it means to lose one. Take
this man a while back, this Ryan fella, over in Council Bluffs. His
little girl got killed in the course of a bank robbery.”
“I guess I heard
about that. Don’t remember it all, quite.”
“Little girl’s father
went insane, some people said. Just couldn’t get over it. Hired an
investigator fella to start backtrackin’ the robbers. Guess the
investigator fella had some good luck.”
Kittredge felt faint.
Actually, literally faint, the way women got. He put a hand for
steadiness on the plank bar. “Sure hope they catch those
thieves.”
And all the while,
remorseless, Dodds staring at him. Staring.
“If I was them boys,
I’d be a lot more scared of Septemus Ryan than the law.”
“Oh?”
“Law’ll give them
boys a fair hearing. If it was an accident that the little girl got
killed, which some of the witnesses say it was, law’ll take that
into account.”
“But not the little
girl’s father?”
“Oh, not the little
girl’s father at all. Put yourself in his place, Kittredge. Say you
had a pretty little girl and one day she got killed like that.
Wouldn’t make no difference to you if it was an accident or not.
Least it wouldn’t to most fathers. All they’d want to do is kill
the men who killed their pretty little girl. You ever think of it
that way?”
“Ain’t thought about
it much one way or the other, Sheriff,” Kittredge said. His voice
was so dry he could barely speak, but he didn’t want to order
another schooner because then he’d have to stand there and drink it
with Dodds.
Dodds nodded. “Well,
if you ever do sit down and start thinking it over, Kittredge,
that’s just how I’d figure it-that I’d have me a much better chance
with the lawn ’n I would a grief-crazy father. You might pass that
along to Griff and Carlyle, too?”
“Now why would they
care about that, Sheriff?”
Dodds made a face.
“Carlyle, he’s too dumb and too shiftless to care. But Griff, well,
he’s smart. You tell him what I told you and he’s likely to agree
with me.”
So he knew, Dodds
did. There could be no mistaking. Somehow he’d found out about the
robbery and the little girl and knew that it was the three of them
who were involved.
Dodds said, “You have
yourself a nice walk, Kittredge.”
“I will.”
“And you say hello to
Mae. She’s a fine woman; but I guess you know that.”
“She is a fine woman,
Sheriff, and I appreciate you sayin’ that.”
Imagine what Mae
would think of him if she ever found out he was involved in the
robbery of that bank and the death of that little girl.
“So long, Kittredge,”
Dodds said, then swung back so that he was facing the tavern maid.
He ordered himself another schooner. Kittredge left.