At the top of a rise, he stared over a meadow that rolled away from him like a sea, hazy and insubstantial under soft, pearl-colored layers of fog. There was a stone house in the meadow, almost hidden by big black maples and oaks. Except for a wisp of smoke curling out the chimney, the place looked deserted; there were no dogs around, and the doors of the old barn swayed crookedly in the gusting wind.
Earl lighted a cigarette and flipped the match into the water runneling coldly in the ditch beside the road. Then he stood quietly and looked at the house. He felt his splintered thoughts merging into a confident, unified idea; after this job he and Lorraine could clear out of the city and find an old place with some good land around it. He would go into farming. Somewhere he had read that the government passed out all sorts of books and pamphlets on soil erosion and crop rotation, things like that. He could learn the whole deal, he thought. Why not? He was no dummy. He could use an ax, and he was handy with tools. And Lorraine’s know-how about food would come in handy. She could put up enough fruit and vegetables from a garden to last them through the winter.
They’d live alone, free as the air, with no demands on them from anybody. They could spend their evenings with a drink or two in front of a wood fire, laughing at the snow and wind blowing by their windows. No more worrying about Mr. Poole and the drugstore. No worries at all.
As he walked back to the car an old hound dog scrambled under the fence and trotted along inquisitively at his heels. Earl stopped and patted the big, knobby head, grinning at his wagging tail and excited, squirming body. All alone out here, he thought. Probably covered twenty miles today, chasing after rabbits and squirrels like a fool. The dog followed him eagerly to the car, and Earl remembered he had half a bologna sandwich in the glove compartment. He laughed and said, “Got something for you, boy,” and the dog’s tail swung to the excitement in his voice. He fed the dog, and then shook the big, knobby head with his two hands. “Pretty good, eh? Good as a rabbit if you’re hungry.”
They would have dogs in the country, he thought. Bird dogs, smart and hard-working, not house pets under Lorraine’s feet all the time. “So long,” he said, giving the dog’s head a last rough shake. “Better get home now and get your supper.”
But the dog didn’t want him to go; he crowded against Earl’s legs and tried to climb into the car when he opened the door. Finally Earl picked up a lump of dirt and raised his arm threateningly. “Beat it! Beat it!” he shouted, and the dog backed away from him, his tail dragging between his legs. He wheeled and trotted off, occasionally looking warily and mournfully over his shoulder at Earl. No spirit, Earl thought, watching the dog slink away along the muddy road. Somebody must have beat it out of him or tied him up and starved him; that would do it. That really broke a dog for good.
Earl brushed the crumbs of the sandwich from his hands and got into the car. He felt irritable for some reason; probably just hungry, he thought.
Half an hour later he was back in Crossroads. He went into the restaurant beside his hotel and ordered coffee and a roast beef sandwich. The place was warm and comfortable with the bright overhead lights pressing against the rainy gloom beyond the plate-glass windows.
The same pink-cheeked waitress was on duty. She smiled at his damp overcoat and said, “You got wet, didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t help it,” he said.
“The coffee will fix you up. How do you like your roast beef? Rare?”
“That’s it. Rare.”
Earl lighted a cigarette and glanced out the rain-streaked window at the bank. The lights were on and he saw a woman working in the teller’s cage that faced the front doors. It would be like that tomorrow night, he thought. Tellers and clerks tidying up their accounts for the weekend. Not worrying about anything but a missing dime here and there.
Earl was interested in a detached way at the condition of his nerves. He had been afraid the waiting would be the worst part of the job; with time hanging on his hands he usually became restless and impatient. But he felt just fine, relaxed and easy, savoring the hot coffee and the warm, peaceful quiet of the restaurant. Tomorrow he’d stick close to the hotel room, keeping an eye on the bank and waiting for the colored man to show up. Then the waiting would be over.
He heard the door open behind him and felt a draft of cold air on his neck. Turning he saw the tall sheriff standing just inside the door, shaking water from his broad-brimmed hat. The sheriff’s hair was short and black, shot with silver at the temples, and his gray, whipcord jacket smelled cleanly of the cold and rain. As he walked to the counter, Earl felt the impact of the man. There was a solid, ingrained assurance about him, an effortless confidence that Earl had seen in certain officers; authority was a habit with those men, a self-endowed right which they exercised without the slightest doubt or fear. They didn’t expect to be obeyed; they knew they would be...
The waitress smiled and said, “Hi, Sheriff. Where did all this rain come from?” She poured a cup of coffee. “Would you like pie or something?”
“No, just the coffee, Millie.”
The waitress chattered on about the weather while the sheriff sipped the hot coffee. There was no suggestion of indifference in his silence but he gave Earl the impression that small talk was not one of his enthusiasms.
Earl watched him from the corner of his eyes. The sheriff sat steady as a rock, elbows on the counter, the coffee cup hidden in his two big hands, listening to the waitress’ theories about the weather with an expression of polite attention on his long face. The sharp overhead light glinted on the black piping at the sleeves of his jacket, and splintered on the butt plate of the forty-five at his hip. He was bigger than Earl had thought, solid and tall, with a powerful-looking body and hands that seemed made for any kind of work or trouble. The local hawkshaw, Earl thought, with a pointless bitterness, not talking, full of two-bit secrets. Turning slightly, he studied the sheriff’s unrevealing profile, seeing the way the brown skin stretched across his face like the leather on a well-worn shield. He felt confused and irritable as he stared at the sheriff; he doesn’t scare me, he thought, trying to rekindle his previous hard confidence. Not one damned bit...
The fact that the man didn’t even glance at him was exasperating; and he felt a strange, illogical need to force himself on his attention. He could nod or say hello, he thought. That wouldn’t kill him... But in spite of this feeling he also had a perverse notion that the sheriff was aware of him after all, and was drawing certain silent conclusions about him.
Maybe he had noticed him driving in and out of Crossroads today, tooling around without any apparent purpose. Or maybe, he had seen Burke sitting with him this morning, the two of them eying the bank...
He wondered what to do; it wouldn’t be smart to attract the sheriff’s attention, but it could be just as stupid to sit here and let him go on speculating about him. The problem tightened his nerves. Why hadn’t Novak thought of this? Brains were his department. But underneath Earl’s confusion and worry was a half-understood need to be something in the sheriff’s eyes. The man’s stolid indifference bothered him more than anything else.
Earl caught the waitress’ eye and said, “Let me have another coffee, okay?”
When she refilled his cup, he smiled and said, “This is pretty country around here.”
“Well, it is when the weather’s nice.”
“I was out looking at farm land, and I got soaked. You can’t get a real idea of property from a car.”
“You’re interested in farming?”
Earl laughed and said, “Well, I don’t know. But I came into a little cash lately, and I figured I should put it into something solid. I’m tired of the big-city life, anyway.”