“Kiss me, Sam.”
When I got back to Pa’s place, I knew him and Charlie had got home from town. I could see the truck parked up close to the house.
That was fine with me.
I could see a lighted window, too. It was open, and I heard voices, Ma’s and Charlie’s. I got cold up and down the middle of my back and my fingers got like thin pieces of steel. I moved up as close as I could to the window.
I saw Ma standing in there with tears running down her cheeks. Charlie was standing in front of her, his hands holding her shoulders. He had a pistol jammed in the pocket of his jacket, and he was dressed to go out. His hat lay on the center table beside him.
“...So they know he’s headed this way, Ma,” Charlie said. “Pa and I heard it in town. We got wind of it almost as soon as Sheriff Courtney.”
It hit me then what had happened. That hill tramp had done it. That same one that hit me in my sleep and took my things, spare clothes, pistol and what money I had worked and saved in Atlanta while I’d been laying low. The renegade had got to thinking, got scared I’d track him down and have his hide. He hadn’t knowed me, but he’d had a pretty good idea a man traveling the way I was on the run. So he figured he’d be safer if I was in jail and had seen to it that Sheriff Courtney had got wind that I was in this part of the hills. The tramp could have got my name easy from the things in the duffel I'd been carrying.
Ma was crying harder now. “But you can’t go, Charlie!”
“I’ve got to find him,” Charlie said.
When he said that, I brought the carbine the rest of the way to my shoulder, I was standing in the light — right in line with him. Always, Charlie had spoiled things. Pinned murder on me. Stole my money. Tried to take my girl. Now he was hell-bent on hounding me to the ends of the earth.
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. It was like trying to swallow my tongue. I drew a fine bead on him, right in the middle of his right sideburn. My finger got tight and cold on the trigger.
“Men can be fools sometimes,” Charlie was saying. “You got to understand that, Ma. You got to understand how I love him. From the time he was a little squirt in knee britches, he wasn't like the rest of us. He was smarter, and I was proud of him, Ma.
“Then he killed old man Honacker. I knew it the minute I heard Honacker was dead and remembered the way he’d looked that night when he’d slunk home. I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life, Ma.”
My finger moved a little, went outside the trigger guard.
“I was so scared,” Charlie said, “I went up behind the barn and got sick. He’d really played hell that time, but there was still a chance. In these hills a court has never been known to sentence a man to death if he walked in and made a clean break and told the whole thing and faced them to take what was coming to him.
“So I guess I was a fool. Maybe he ain’t the smart one. Maybe he’s the vicious one. But he’s my brother and these hills are going to turn into living hell for him when Courtney gets moving. There’s nothing now but to help Sam get out. I’ve got to find him, help him.”
Ma sank down in a chair. “You’ll be making yourself a party to it, Charlie. Losing one boy is bad enough, but two...”
“I’ll handle that,” Charlie said. “As long as he wears the name, he’s still a part of the family. We’ll have to give him a fighting chance.”
My face was wet, but it wasn’t sweat now. Men can be fools, Charlie had said, and he was right. I had never understood, never understood at all. I lowered the rifle away from my shoulder.
“I’m glad you did that, son.”
I twisted around. Pa was standing off there at the edge of the light spilling from the window. He had spoke very quiet. He'd had a pistol pointed at my belly...
I heard a door slam in the house, knew that Ma and Charlie had gone in another room. He’d be out here in a few minutes now.
Pa looked little and old, with his head snow white and sort of bowed. “We’ll help you get out, Sam.”
“No,” I said. “No. There’s just one thing I want now. I want it to be right for you and Ma and Charlie. I don’t want any of you mixed up in this thing.”
“You—”
“That’s the only way I'll have it, Pa. You’ll have to stop Charlie when he comes out, understand?”
He looked at me and it made a little of the cold go out of my insides.
“All right, Sam. The way you want it. Just move, boy. Move fast!”
I left him standing there. I headed for the creek and the big willow that spread out over the cold, clear water. I knew she had lied in her teeth. Charlie hadn’t made a play for her. When I’d left, she’d started on the next man in line. It was as simple as that.
She was standing under the willow when I got there. I stood and looked at her a few seconds before she knew I was around. I could see she was excited by the way she walked up and down beside the gurgling creek.
I hated her, but I went to meet her. It was going to hurt Charlie for a while, but he’d find the right girl some day for that house he was building. And maybe he’d understand about me the way I understood now about him.
Because I was taking Lucy with me. It looked like a pretty dark road ahead, and she’d travel it every inch of the way.
It was the least favor I was in a position to do for a guy like Charlie.