Three years ago he wouldn’t have done that, she thought. Not even two years ago. I could have anything I wanted then. God, do you suppose I’ve lost that much of it in three years? I couldn’t have. I can’t tell any difference at all when I look in the mirror. I look just the same. I do. I know I do. I had a picture of myself then an held it up alongside the mirror, they’d look just alike.
Didn’t that man in the bus station try to pick me up when I asked him how to get out here? Didn’t he get that old look in his face and offer to drive me out? Oh, hell, he was forty-five, and one of those small-town smart alecks that’ll make a pass at anything that’s alive as long as ain’t his own wile. The wheezy old bastard, smelling like tobacco juice. Then making me walk the last hall mile.
But there was that deputy sheriff up there where Sewell was in jail, the one named Harve. He wasn’t even married and he didn’t seem to think I was any old relic. He was a great kidder and a lot of fun to go out with and he could make a girl feel like somebody still wanted her, even if he did have that funny habit of laughing sometimes when nobody had said anything. And that photographer from the Houston paper who came up to take pictures of the trial and wanted me to pose without any clothes on for his private collection. I guess he thought I still looked all right, because who ever heard of collecting pictures of old bags? I guess he knew a good-looking girl when he saw one, even if he was a kind of screwy sort of stew bum and said things that didn’t make sense, like calling me Narcissus all the time like that was my name. Narcissus. That does have a cute sound. He was cute, too, in a way, even if he was a stew bum. He never wanted anything except to take pictures of me like an artist’s model, and I liked that. Men are so damn messy and rough, always wanting to go to bed with you. But he was nice. It was a cute picture, too, and I wish I’d kept it, the copy he gave me, but Harve wanted it so bad I just had to give it to him.
I haven’t changed a bit. I just worry too much, being stranded in a dump like this without any money and not knowing how I’ll ever get out of it. Imagine, thinking I’m beginning to look faded and washed out when I’m only twenty-five. That’s a laugh. I don’t know why I get to imagining these things. Why, right now, as much as I detest him, if I even just smiled at Mitch he’d be pestering me all the time. God knows, I wouldn’t have him on a bet, but if I gave him any encouragement he’d be following me around like an old dog. Him and his stuck-up airs, pretending to look right past me like I wasn’t even there and acting like he thought I wasn’t good enough to be around that kid when all I’d have to do would be to crook my little finger at him and he’d be hanging around till I’d get sick of the sight of him. I’d do it, too, if it was worth the trouble.
* * *
It was sometime after midnight when Sewell Neely came up the steep, slippery incline of the road bed and onto the pavement. Rain was still coming down and every thread of his clothing had been saturated and drowned for hours. Water ran out of his hair, and sloshed in his shoes when he walked, and ran into and stung the ugly cut on his arm where the glass had raked it. Harve’s gun was a comforting, hard weight in his coat pocket, and the handcuffs dangled from his right arm. They were still locked, but the other cuff was empty.
I wouldn’t never want to do it again, he thought. But there wasn’t any other way. In the movies they open locks with guns, but I don’t think these here are movie hand-cuff’s and I’ve often wondered where all that hot lead goes when it splatters off of steel locks. But if it had to be done, I’m glad it was Harve. Nobody ever appreciated a good joke like Harve did, and he’s got one now that’ll stay with him. He was a great clown, all right, even if most of his ideas was old before he ever heard of ‘em, all except that one with the picture. That was a pretty good one, and Harve was just the boy that could help you along with it.
He turned right and started walking in the direction the car had been traveling when it crashed. When he reached the middle of the long bridge and could hear the river going by down below, he took the knife out of his pocket and threw it as far as he could into the darkness.
Six
The rain had stopped sometime during the night and dawn had been gray with mist coming up from the river and hanging wet and dripping among the pines along the hillside. It was midmorning now as Mitch came up toward the house from an inspection of the fields, anxiously watching the sky for some sign that the sun was going to break through. If it cleared now it would be two days before they could work in the upper fields and nearly a week before the bottom was dry enough to plow.
He came up past the barn and turned the mules out to pasture, thinking impatiently of all the work that cried out to be done if they were to save the crop and could not be started until the ground began to dry. If it rains any more we’re goners, he thought. It’s got to stop. We won’t even pay off the credit and we’ll be rooting for acorns like the hogs this winter if it keeps on. He cut across the yard, walking silently on the white, hard, rain-packed sand, and nodded a solemn greeting to Mexico as the big hound came out from under the house. Mexico approached him with the stately dignity of age and high rank and shoved a moist black nose against his palm in courtly salutation.
Mitch gave the pendulous chops an affectionate slap with his hand and went on toward the house, hearing now the excited rattle of voices somewhere out in front.. He turned and started around the corner and was hit a glancing blow by Jessie, running full tilt along the side of the house. She bounced off him, frozen-faced, unrecognizing, her eyes full of the horror she was running from, and ran on toward the barn. He saw her go at full flight into the door and turned and ran after her. She was nowhere in sight in the gloomy interior among the empty stalls, but the door of the corn crib was open and he bent over and went in. She was huddled on the pile of unhusked corn with her face in her arms against the wall, not crying, for there-was no sound of crying, but her body was shaking as if with chill.
“Jessie, what’s the matter? What is it, Jessie?” he asked, afraid, and conscious of the old helplessness he always felt when confronted with her problems because they were never the same as his and he could not understand them or cope with them, no matter how much he ached to help her.
She did not answer and he knelt down awkwardly beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. It was still shaking badly and she drew away from his touch as if she would burrow into the corn and escape from sight.
“Go ‘way, Mitch,” she said in a muffled voice.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“Don’t look at me. Go ‘way.”
“Are you hurt?” She shook her head.
“Do you feel bad?”
She shook her head again and drew away.
“Can I do anything?”
“No,” she said in the same muffled voice. “Only go away. I’ll be all right in a little while.”
He stood up, wooden-faced, and went back out the door and across the yard, walking fast. Cass and Joy were sitting on the steps of the front porch and Prentiss Jimerson was walking up and down in front of them bursting with his story and they all talked at once.
“He escaped, Mitch,” Prentiss said breathlessly, in a hurry to get it out before the others could beat him to it.
“Got clean away. They can’t find hide or hair of him,” Cass broke in.
“Killed a deputy,” Prentiss said, verbally shoving Cass aside. “It’s all over the radio, in the news. More’n it was before. Wrecked the car, shot the deputy, and couldn’t find the keys to the handcuffs so he sawed off his hand with a pocketknife.”