“This is a hell of a time to develop scruples about paying your debts!”
“Nevertheless, that's the way it is. I'm no good, Joe, but neither am I completely rotten.”
“All right!” I was mad, but not so mad that I didn't realize that I had to get away from there. “Nurse him back to health, if you can. Take your time. Everything's going to be just dandy.” I went back to the station and worked on the grease rack until I had calmed down.
It was a long day. They don't come any longer than that one.
I couldn't keep my mind on business for wondering about the Sheriff and whether or not he actually suspected anything. I knew one thing—I had to get hold of my father and have him patch Sheldon up well enough to travel. Every minute they remained in Creston piled more odds on Otis Miller's side of this thing.
I called my dad twice that afternoon but he wasn't home. There was nothing to do but wait.
I was on edge again when Ike came in, wearing that stupid grin of his.
“Well,” I said, “maybe you'll tell me what's so goddamn funny.”
Ike didn't bat an eye. “You know,” he said, “you're beginnin' to act just like Frank Sewell when he broke up with his wife. Damn if he wasn't the hardest man to live with you ever saw.”
“If I'm so hard to live with,” I said, “maybe you'd like to gather up your work clothes and quit.”
“Nope,” Ike said quietly. “I figure you'll get over it after a while.”
I never figured that Ike fancied himself as any cupid, but I could see that he was trying to swing the conversation around to me and Beth Langford. That was about the next to the last thing in the world I wanted to talk about.
I had to get away. I went around to the wash rack and cleaned the place up a little, and pretty soon I began to cool off. After a while I went back to Ike and apologized for blowing up. I had to stay on the good side of him. I wanted him to go on thinking that everything was exactly the way it always had been.
Around six o'clock I told Ike that I'd close the station myself and sent him home.
It was well after dark when my dad came back to have another look at the patient. He was a very old man that night as he got out of his car and said heavily, “You all right, Joe?”
“Sure, Dad, I'm fine. I want to talk to you when you finish back there.”
He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. All the things my son could have been! I could see him thinking it. I could see it in those ancient, melancholy eyes. Then he nodded. “All right, Joe.” And he walked heavily back to Number 2.
That was when the black Ford rolled up in front of the station. I went out automatically and reached for the gas hose. The car door opened and a man said, “Never mind, Hooper.”
I froze.
He was a big man with a big, humorless grin. He wore a straw sombrero and a loud sport shirt. His name was Bunt Manley.
Chapter Fourteen
He didn't get out of the car. He sat there for a moment, grinning. Then he started the car and drove around to the side of the station and parked. When he came back I was still standing there, frozen, feeling the bottom falling out of everything.
“Wasn't that your dad headed back toward the cabins, Hooper?”
There were no words in me at that moment.
“Sure it was your dad,” Manley said. “Could it be there's somebody back there needs a doctor? You know, that's a right interesting idea. I think I'll just go back and give the doc a hand.”
“Stay where you are,” I said. “My father doesn't like to be bothered when he's caring for a patient.”
“I'll bet,” he said dryly. “Especially if the patient happens to be a man named Karl Sheldon.”
That was it. I didn't know how he knew, but he did. He knew everything. He stood there looking at me, half grinning, then he fished out a cigarette and lighted it. “You know,” he said roughly, “you're really quite a boy, Hooper. Tell you the truth, I didn't think you had the guts for a thing like this.”
I had to bluff it, there was no other way. “I don't know what you're talking about, Bunt.”
He laughed suddenly. “You know damn well what I'm talking about.” Then, surprisingly, he turned on his heel and went to his car. But he was back almost immediately, with a newspaper in his hand. “Here,” he said. “I want to read you a little piece of news that turned up in yesterday's paper. Date-lined Crowell, Texas. 'Last night Frank Hennessy, city marshal of Crowell, Texas, prevented the burglary of a city drugstore...' So on and so on, but here's the interesting part. 'Hennessy was able to provide descriptions of the would-be burglars. The man was of tall, athletic build. He had dark, thick hair, and was well dressed. In all probability the man is carrying one of the Marshal's bullets in his body. The man's woman companion was slight of build with short blonde hair.”
Looking at me, Manley folded the paper. “You heard enough, Hooper?”
“I still don't know what you're talking about.”
He wasn't grinning now. “I'm talking about that blue Buick back there in one of your carports, Hooper. I saw it this afternoon and began putting two and two together.” He snapped his cigarette straight at my feet. “Funny thing about it, though. I never tied you in with them until just now, when I saw your old man headed back to that shack. Sheldon's been here two days, hasn't he? And your old man has been taking care of him. Now, does it stand to reason that Doc Hooper would treat a bullet wound and not report it—unless he had a mighty good reason?” He reached out quickly and grabbed the front of my shirt. “I know the reason, Hooper. He's doing it to keep his son out of the electric chair!”
Something snapped when I felt those thick fingers grab me. A rage caught fire inside me and I wasn't afraid any more, I was just mad. I knocked his hand away and then grabbed his arm and slammed him against the station wall. “Listen,” I said hoarsely. “Listen to me, you sonofabitch. If you try to drag my father into this thing, I'll kill you!”
He was startled. He hadn't expected this kind of reaction. “Look here!”
“You look, Manley! And don't you forget! So help me God, I'll kill you if my father is brought into this!” I let him go and he almost fell.
I had learned one thing these past few days. You had to be tough if you didn't want people stepping on you. You had to let them know who was boss, even if you had to beat it into their thick skulls.
“All right,” I said, still shaking with rage. “You think you know something. You think you've got me nailed, don't you?”
“Wait a minute, Hooper! For Christ's sake!”
And only then did I realize that I was about to hit him. My fist was a hard club, ready to smash into that thick face of his. I think I would have killed him at that moment, right on the spot, if I hadn't suddenly snapped out of it. And Manley knew it. Maybe, at that moment, Bunt Manley was remembering that old watchman that they had fished out of the lake.
When I relaxed he began to breathe again, but not very well. “For Christ's sake, Hooper, I haven't got anything against you! It's them!”
“Who's them?”
“You know who I mean. Karl Sheldon and that wife of his. I've got something coming from them, but not from you, Hooper.”
“What have you got coming from Sheldon and his wife?”
“Well, it was my idea, wasn't it? That box factory?” He was thinking a little faster now. “After all, I was the one that got in touch with Sheldon and told him about it. He was supposed to cut me in on it. I want my share of the money, that's all.”
“You're not getting a penny, Manley. And you're not going to mention my father. Is that clear?”
“Sure, Hooper, I told you it wasn't you I was after. And what could I gain by bringing your old man in on a thing like this?”