Tom Fort hesitated. "Huh? What deal?"
"The deal on eighty-thousand dollars. You knife-stick me and that money is gone to the world fer good."
"Well, I don't give a damn. I want my girl. That air money ain't doing me no good nohow."
Shad nodded. "Ner me neither, once I'm dead. That's why I'm saying we got us a deal here."
Tom straightened up a little. "You mean you willing to cut me in on hit? You meaning that, Shad?"
Shad put a hand to the back of his neck and gave it a rub.
"Well, now hold on here a minute. We got to look at it proper. I need help gitting that money outn the swamp and outn the county, and if you do what I say, we'll split hit plumb down the middle. Forty-thousand dollars, Tom. Forty-thousand dollars."
"Yeah -" Tom said. "Yeah."
"Course there's one thing we got to come at first."
"How's that?"
"Dorry's my girl."
Tom didn't like the taste of that. "Well, now hold on here, Shad. I cain't have me none of that. I love Dorry Means. I ben fixing on marrying up with her."
Shad came in closer, wagging his hands impatiently, "Marrying Dorry!" He nearly wailed. "Tom, Tom, I'm fixing hit so's you kin marry a movie star if'n you see fit. Forty-thousand dollars, Tom. Not beans er cow pies. _Fort ythousand dollars_."
Tom blinked and stalled. "Yeah -" he whispered. "Yeah. Forty-thousand dollars. Yeah. A man could – a man – Look a-here, Shad, you really do got that money, huh? Hit ain't just village talk? You really went and found that air Money Plane? You got the money hid away? Is hit hard to come at, Shad? I mean, we ain't got to tramp way out in that old swamp fer hit, do we?"
A cold realization came to Shad. This was the price of love. This was the boy who wouldn't sell the girl he loved – not unless the price was night. The little bastard. He was no better than Jort Camp or Sam Parks.
"No," he said, "we ain't got us nowhere to tramp to."
And then he swept his left arm swordwise, catching Tom's knife-wrist with the edge of his hand, and he stepped in fast and brought his right swinging into Tom's stomach. The boy doubled up around the sunken fist, his head leaning into Shad, and Shad shoulder-butted him on the point of his chin, snapping him straight, and then landed his left square into Tom's middle again.
He rolled sideways, grabbed Tom's wrist, raised his knee and snapped the wrist over it. The knife plopped in the weeds. He stooped, grabbed it, and sprang away as Tom aimed a kick at him.
He took the knife by the handle and fired it out into the night and turned as Tom rushed him; swung himself clear with a left hook to Tom's ear, got his balance, and then went in at him again.
They closed with a grunt, heads hunched and necks fumbling, and slammed into an oak trunk. Shad saw Tom's eyes, bugged and wild, mad with hate.
"They ain't no money, hear?" he hissed, "I never found no Money Plane. You sold out fer nothing."
Tom didn't answer, He brought up his knee. Shad expected that and he rolled, taking it on the hip. Then it was his turn and he kneed fast and sharp, but he was turned off center.
They lurched apart, panting, watching each other circling in the moonlight. Tom touched down with his fingers, fumbling blindly through the weed for a root, a stick, anything – Shad stepped in and Tom spun off balance and went down onto his back with a slam.
He had the upper hand now; it was all his way. He was straddling Tom, whacking away Tom's hands with his left and slugging him with his right.
"That's because you love her so much, Tom – That's because you'd sell your goddam ma fer a dollar and a new Barlow – That's because you need a lesson you won't soon forgit in foxiness – There never was no money, Tom. I don't have nothin'."
It was over. Tom was out of it, way out of it. Shad lurched to his feet, gasping, nursing his aching right hand, hugging it to his middle with his left folded motherly about it. He stumbled around a bit, aimlessly, looking for his hat. He felt sick in the stomach, which was the after effect of the fight. The other sickness was more general and was only vaguely concerned with fighting. It had to do with money.
"You're rather good at that sort of thing."
The quiet voice startled him silly. His head jerked up, turning everywhere, and froze when he saw the man standing near him in the shadows.
"You're Shad Hark, aren't you? I've been looking for you."
15
Mr. Ferris moved and a spoke of shadow swung across his upper face, leaving his lips and chin corpse white, as though a spectre in the moonlight, when his mouth began to speak.
"I was coming along the creek path when I heard the rumpus. What was it all about?"
Stall, Shad thought desperately. Stall him. I shone God ain't in no frame of mind to play dodge-the-question with him. Mebbe I just better hit him and clean out. But Mr. Ferris didn't inspire physical fear, not as Jort Camp could and did; it was something stronger, more frightening – a kind of superstitious awe.
"Nothing much, I reckon," Shad said. "At least not to me. I guess old Tom hates me worse'n a possum hates a tree dog, though. Thinks I stole his girl."
Mr. Ferris said, "Oh?" and came farther into the moonlight. "What girl is that?"
"Just a girl."
"I see." Mn. Ferris put his hand casually in his jacket pocket and produced a pack of cigarettes. "Care for a cigarette?"
"No thanks."
Mr. Ferris looked down at the cigarette he was tapping on his thumbnail. "I've been looking for you," he said, "to ask about that airplane – the Money Plane."
Shad's heart had taken a lurch when Mn. Ferris had reached into his pocket. After all, the man was some kind of policeman, wasn't he?
"Mr. Ferris," he said too quickly, "you driving your ducks to a mighty poor puddle if you think I kin tell you anything about that air Money Plane."
Mr. Ferris' smile went a little deeper
"Shad, there really isn't any sense in your trying to maintain this fiction with me. You see, I know that -"
"Mr. Ferris, excuse me, but I cain't talk about hit now. I just ain't myself. I think I done a terrible thing just now. I think I kilt Tom." He hadn't and he knew it.
Mr. Ferris looked up. "Killed him?"
Shad nodded, putting his hands together as though his nerves were ready to fly apart. "Yes sir. I think I done busted his neck. I didn't mean to. I was just fighting him back, was all. But when I left off his neck felt all out of whack." Mr. Ferris stared at him.
Shad looked at the prone figure of Tom Fort. "Mr. Ferris, please sir, you look, will you? I just cain't – cain't bring myself-" His head went down and he hugged his hands again.
There was nothing expressive about Mr. Ferris except his eyes. He stepped easily through the shadows toward the sprawled Tom.
"Are you trying to put something over on me, Shad?" he suggested quietly. "I'm quite certain that other than having a face like a raw hamburger, there's nothing the matter with your friend."
Shad waited until he saw Mr. Ferris' back, then he turned, took one big stride into the bush, ducked down and was long gone on his way. Behind him he heard Ferris call, "Shad! Don't be a fool!"
He didn't like doing it that way; it wasn't in his nature. But he couldn't help it. There was something hypnotic about Mr. Ferris' eyes that beat him every time.
The night and the woods hung still around him now. He trotted, saving his wind, short-cutting to the Colt place. A bat went wing-clicking on ahead and lost itself in the black leaves of the upper branches. Shad could just see Mn. Ferris talking to Joel Sutt-.
I'm afraid we can't waste any more time playing around with that Shad Hark. Don't you have a sheriff or a marshal in jurisdiction over this section of country?