Weigand assigned me to stay with Meade. He thought that was a master touch, I guess. He could see by looking at me how I felt about my idea ending the way it had. The way I felt was not good. And it had nothing to do with the fact that I probably wouldn’t get any commendation now that the gimmick had inadvertently set Weigand up for some live target practice, the way even the Brass in the department felt about him. But I didn’t care about that. That wasn’t what was bothering me.
Weigand and the others were about to leave when Meade came to again and whispered something to the doc. The doc had to bend his head down almost to Meade’s mouth, his voice was now so weak. I heard the doc say: “Okay.”
Then the doc straightened and called: “Sergeant, this man says he’s got something to say to the one who shot him. He said to tell the fat slob who shot him he wants to talk to him. Those were his words.” The doc grinned.
Weigand didn’t like that. He looked hard at the doc and he wanted to say something, you could tell. But what could he say? With a snort of disgust he stalked back into the room. He stood over the rolling table where Meade was stretched out on his back.
“What the hell is it?” Weigand demanded, impatiently.
Meade coughed. “If I’d — known it was you, Weigand, I’d — never — have run. I’ve heard — about you. You — never miss, do you?” He spoke hoarsely, haltingly. His skinny hand clawed toward his throat. “I... I can’t talk loud. It... it hurts my throat. Can’t you bend down so I don’t have to strain so much? I got one last thing to tell you, sharp-shooter. It... it’s important.”
Weigand looked him over. He couldn’t see any danger. Meade was dying and didn’t have strength to hit him or try and grab him or anything. As Meade began to whisper something unintelligble, then, Weigand bent and put his ear close to Meade’s mouth, to hear.
We were all watching. We saw Meade’s hand move suddenly but the angle of Weigand’s head blocked us from seeing what Meade did with that hand. But we saw Weigand straighten like someone had goosed him with a white hot poker. We saw his fat fists pushed against both eyes. He screamed once, a thin, womanish sound that faded in a few moments to a sick whinnying. We all stared, dumbfounded.
We watched Weigand stamp his feet like a kid playing soldier and bend and straighten and then bend again, over and over, while he lurched around the room, bumping into a table and a desk and finally the wall. He leaned against the wall, all bent over and we saw the trickle of blood running down his cheek from under one fist.
The doc ran to Weigand then and forcibly tore the big man’s hands away from his face.
“Jesus!” the doc said when he saw Weigand’s eyes.
I looked at Danny Meade, then. His right hand was across his chest and he still had the first two fingers forked, the thumb holding the others out of the way, and I knew what he had done. There was something like a grin on Meade’s drawn gray face. He whispered loud enough for all of us to hear: “He won’t ever shoot anyone again, will he?”
Weigand didn’t hear it, though. We saw he had fainted. The doc ran out into the hall to get help. I walked over to Meade and when I reached him I saw that he was gone, now, for sure. That same expression, the grin, or maybe it was just a death contraction, I don’t know, was still on his face...
We waited around until the doc came down from the operating room, some time later. He shook his head. He said: “Meade must’ve had nails like a Mandarin’s. There wasn’t much we could do. A specialist might be able to save partial sight, later, but he’ll have to wear glasses thick as headlight lenses. He won’t be much good as a cop anymore, I’m afraid.”
“Hell,” Hollenbeck said, then, belatedly. “He never was.”
I looked at Hollenbeck. I said: “Kid, does a fine, sensitive young sporting gentleman like you ever think about going out and getting roaring drunk? For emetic purposes, only, of course?”
He didn’t look at me but he said: “You’re damn well told. Let’s get out of here.”
And he and I and Smitty, we did that.
Twilight
by Hal Harwood
I’ll never forget the way it happened. I’ll remember every detail of that night as long as I live...
It happened a long, long time ago, but I won’t ever forget my father’s face that day. It was my thirteenth birthday, and Pa and me were doing the night’s chores as always on our little scrap of land right next to the river bottom. I had slopped the hogs while Pa was milking our one skinny cow, and after bringing hay to the two old plow horses at the barn, we’d be finished.
We had an old wagon we hauled loose hay in, and it was standing about halfway between the house and our old barn. I had just finished pitching hay from the wagon and taking it to the barn when I heard the first faraway sound. By the time I was back to the wagon and leaning on the long-handled pitch-fork, I knew what the sound was. When I turned around, Pa was right beside me, and I saw he had heard it too. Away off in the distance it was, and we both looked across the dusty road in front of our place towards the woods covering the hills.
I didn’t say anything, just looked up at Pa. His steady eyes were worried, but his face didn’t show anything right then. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a shirtsleeve, and ran his big hand through the short hair on my head as he turned to the house. I followed him and wondered just what the trouble was going to be like this time. I was already shaking a little, but I didn’t want Pa to know that.
When Pa got to the house, I thought he was going inside and I started in too. But when I went up the steps, he stopped and sat down, reaching up to pull me down alongside him. I sat there shivering a little, not knowing what to expect, and not wanting Pa to know I was scared.
I looked toward the hills again, right into one of the prettiest sunsets I ever saw, and it scared me more. It wasn’t long before the sun would go down, but right now it was nesting in soft clouds piled up like white cotton just poured out of a sack. The sun was turning the clouds every color, but all I could see looked like they were filling with dark red blood and about to burst. I really shivered then, and hugged closer to Pa’s knee.
When the baying sounded again, it was much closer. Like it was just over the hill in front of us. The baying came louder, and I could feel Pa stiffen. I did too when I saw what he was looking at across the road. We both stood up as a man broke through the trees and fell in the road, the soft dust clouding up around him till he was covered with it. He raised his head out of the dust to look at the house, and crawled slowly to his feet.
We could hear his breathing from where we stood. Thin and high and ragged, like a winded horse in pain. He staggered across the road then and leaned against the big gate leading into our lot. The dust had powdered his kinky black hair, making it white. His broad black face was streaked with dust and blood from the cuts and scratches of the briars and trees he’d run through. His blue shirt and overalls were torn and splotched dark with heavy sweat. He had only one shoe on, and I could see the ground go red and dark where his one bare foot rested.
As he stood there gulping in big breaths of air, he looked straight at Pa. His thick lips were pulled back from the large white teeth in a fixed grin as if everything was a big joke. The red tongue came out trying to lick the lips, but it had a hard time getting past the teeth. There was a dried, cottony paste on his mouth and nose, and I could see that he couldn’t get his lips together again.
He stood there gazing at Pa and Pa looking at him. As I stared too, I could hear the bloodhounds coming on the other side of the hill. But the man at the gate didn’t seem to hear or care. There was fear on his face all right, a sort of little-boy fear like mine. He looked as if he wasn’t scared about what he’d done, whatever they were chasing him for, nor what they’d do when they caught him. Just that look of being afraid of something else.