Peter Reed

Backlash

Boder stood silently in from of the hotel desk, feeling the hot rush of blood, the roar in his ears. He waited until he could speak quietly.

His voice sounded strange in his ears as he said to the haughty clerk. “It s no business of yours why I want a room on the north side on the second or third floor. Just say yes or no. That’s all.”

He saw the clerk’s eyes widen: he felt that he was looking and acting strangely. It was no wonder, after the months of waiting — and now he had decided.

The bell-hop took the bag and the key. Boder stood in the small elevator, trying to quiet the heavy rasp of his breathing, knowing that the clerk would remember him. Then he thought of Bess and Karl and the roaring came back in his ears. He stumbled out of the elevator in front of the bell hop.

When he had tipped the boy, he stood for a moment with his back against the locked door, breathing hard, his sullen face slack and expressionless.

He stepped quickly over to the window, and looked anxiously down at the sidewalk. It was perfect. The small tables of the sidewalk café were close and directly opposite him on the other side of the street. With an air of peculiar reverence, he unlocked the big suitcase. Front it he lifted the weapon.

He held it in his moist hands, feeling the polished surface of the wood, the oiled rawhide string. He remembered the day when he had given the Naga man from the hills three silver rupees for the crossbow. He remembered the weeks of practice at the transient camp — practice which had ended in his being able to hold the bow horizontally with a cruel slim bamboo arrow in the groove, sight along the arrow and then release the trigger, sending the fire-hardened tip deep into a soft wood block sixty yards away.

He braced it against the Moor and, using both hands, strung the bow, bending the stubborn arch of wood into a taut semi-circle. The string sang when he plucked at it.

He pulled the trigger and the string snapped viciously along the arrow groove. He placed it gently on the bed, and with unsteady fingers took Bess’ letter out of his shirt pocket. It was stained and damp with his sweat. He unfolded it and read it for the hundredth time, his lips moving:

Dear Ralph,

I don’t know what you mean. I never made promises to you. Because Karl was blinded is no reason why I don’t marry him. The doctor says maybe someday he will see again. Please don’t bother me am mote. I love Karl. Don’t try to see me. Your letter frightened me. Bess.

He packed the crossbow away and went out into the street. He pushed his way through the crowds until he found a drugstore where the booths were in an obscure corner. He dialed her number and covered the mouthpiece with one thickness of his grey handkerchief.

When he heard her soft “Hello?” he felt dizzy and sick, but he made his voice low and said, “Is this Bess Carney?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“You wouldn’t know me. My name is Fowler. I was told by Karl Downer to look you up when I got back to the states.”

“Oh! Karl is in town, too.”

He made himself sound surprised as he said, “Say, that’s swell. I’d like to see you two. How about lunch tomorrow?”

“Fine. Karl will be pleased. He’s talked about you a lot. Where?”

“Make it Emilo’s. Take a sidewalk table. Twelve-thirty. I may be a few minutes late. Order a drink.”

“We’ll be there, and... uh... Mr. Fowler. You know that Karl is... uh.”

“Sure,” he interrupted, “I won’t make any breaks. I heard he’s going to be okay though.”

“I’m praying for it.”

“Well, I’ll see you both tomorrow, then.”

“At twelve-thirty.”

“Goodbye.”

He hung up and said softly, “Goodbye, darling.” He walked out of the booth and out of the store. He bought a bottle of cheap rye and went back to his room.

Many times he awakened during the night and lay bathed in chill sweat, listening to the traffic noises, startled out of sleep by the dreams which pounded at him.

The long morning crept by. At twelve o’clock he took the crossbow out and placed it on the chair by the window. Then he took a bundle of the bamboo arrows and carefully selected the keenest and straightest. He said softly, “For Bess.” Then he selected another, held its slim deadly length in his lingers and said harshly, “For Karl.”

He strung the bow and crouched by the partly opened window. He could cover every table. He got the water tumbler and half filled it with tepid rye. It burned its way into his stomach and he could feel the warm waves rushing over him, steadying his trembling hands.

At twelve-twenty-five he saw them. He clenched his lists tightly and stared down at her slim grace and blue-black hair. Karl, a head taller than she, held onto her upper arm and walked uncertainly, seeming to peer through his dark glasses.

There were two empty tables. She guided him carefully to one in the center of the cluster of tables. He sat down awkwardly.

Boder grabbed the crossbow and strung it. His hands were steady. He laid the two arrows on the sill. He placed one in the groove, the notched end against the taut thong, remembering how the speeding arrows could sink six inches deep into soft wood. He knew they would go completely through a human body.

He sighted carefully down at the table. Bess was half facing him. He shifted his aim uncertainly from the V of her dress to her throat to her lips. He calculated the distance — only about a hundred feet. The arrow would strike an inch or so below the point at which he aimed.

He aimed at her throat and lightly touched the trigger. He could see her lips moving as she talked to Karl. Then his vision fogged and he had to wait. She seemed misty and remote. He looked away from her until once again he could see clearly. He aimed again, carefully and steadily. There could be no mistake — or Karl would have her. No one must have her.

Then there was a blinding slash of pain. The world spun with red fire and he slipped over onto the floor, clutching the bow. It felt peculiar. The tautness was gone. He couldn’t feel the string.

He realized what had happened. The rawhide, weakened by the long practice must have parted near one tip of the bow, and slashed him. He tried to blink away the blood and felt a grinding pain.

He fumbled his way into the tiny bathroom, in frantic haste to wash the blood from his eyes so that he could repair the bow and still have time to sink the two arrows deep into the flesh of the two he hated.

He felt the cool sink and turned on the water. Then, to sec how badly he was cut, he lifted his fingertips cautiously to his face. With a forefinger he felt for his eye. There was no firm rounding of eyeball under the flesh. Only an empty mashed socket. He felt the other eye and found the same soft mass.

Suddenly he realized that the whipping thong had slashed his eyes through.

He stood before the mirror, the mirror in which he would never again see himself. He began to stream with shrill, insistent monotony.

Content

Peter Reed
Backlash