Talmage Powell

Show Them You’re Tough

The thick blackness of the Georgia night swathed his cringing body like a blanket. Rain needled steadily in his narrow, haggard face, stringing his limp sandy hair down upon his forehead. His ears ached trying to find alien sound in the patter of chill rain on the leaves overhead; his eyes ached with the strain of trying to see things in the mucky loneliness of the countryside, things that weren’t there.

He mumbled bolstering words of courage to himself, his breath knotting from the living shadows that his mind created. He clutched his shredding sanity and courage with the frantic fingers of his mind; he clutched the gun in his pocket with the thin, quivering fingers of his hand.

He was thinking of murder.

It showed in his eyes, in the twitching of his face. He was also thinking of escape. Murder and escape — he was going to commit murder to escape a murder he had not committed.

It struck him as humorous; or perhaps he merely needed the shaky sound of his laugh. So he laughed. “I done killed old Gar,” he told himself. “I done planned it all, and in my mind the old fool is already dead. That’s what counts. He’s done dead. All I got to do now is just pull the trigger.”

It helped to think of it that way, to think that only the physical act, relatively unimportant, remained. The hard job was setting your mind to it.

He drew a deeper breath. No need to be afraid. The only thing that remained was finding the money.

He slogged down the hillside, into the rutted road. The road ran clay-stained water, like blood. He walked on the high ridge between the ruts worn by countless wagons drawn by head-bent, weary Georgia mules.

He fought the loneliness, the sight of stark trees standing like grotesque skeletons against the deeper black of night.

His mind kept slipping back to that first murder which had happened three weeks ago. The murder of which he was unjustly accused. The murder that had driven him to the hills. Three weeks of hiding in caves, wet, cold, miserable, prodded awake constantly by sickening terror. He’d heard the baying of hounds in the night, knowing that grim faced men with rifles were hunting him. He’d eaten roots, berries, begged corn pone at a farmhouse. He was still in one piece. A heavy chest cold rattled in his throat and lungs, but he was still alive and, save for the cold that had deepened his voice and drained his strength, he was sound.

But that three weeks of living like a crazed animal had brought murder to the front of his mind. More than anything his soul sobbed for safety. And safety meant no risks. Safety meant that he could never face a jury for the murder of Hergishiner, the storekeeper. He’d wanted to rob the man; he’d gone there for that reason. Earlier that night, three weeks ago, he’d been drinking with Ron Cline, talking the big talk he always talked because the bunch down at the poolroom, even the weaklings, sneered at him so. And later, when he’d crept in Hergishiner’s store, alone, quaking, but determined to have money and fling the word “coward” hack in the teeth of the poolroom bunch, he’d found old Hergishiner dead. Ron Cline had beaten him to the job. But no one would believe him. He’d left fingerprints: he’d been seen running from the store. Every circumstance was against him.

The thought of facing a jury of Ron Cline, who could break him in two with his bare hands, had tried to creep in his mind once in those three nightmare weeks. He had mouthed curses at Cline in the desolation of the Georgia backwoods, but there had to be an easier way; a way he could find. A way of safety. Empty-handed, a man could never run farther than those Georgia wastelands. He wanted to see city lights, hold the pliant warmth of women in his arms. Most of all he wanted to run far away. So it hadn’t been hard to begin thinking of murder. Murder meant safety.

Now, ahead of him. he saw the faint flicker of the light in the farmhouse. He wiped the rain from his face with the back of his hand. He swallowed down the beat of fluttering wings in his throat. “There’s always room for a man with a gun,” he told himself in his deep, unnatural voice, “a man that’s brave. Hell. I ain’t scairt of nothin’...”

The wind seemed to sob for this murder he had already committed in his mind, as he reached the edge of the yard. He knew the place well. He’d lived in this rambling, unpainted structure, lounged in the yard beneath the willows. This was home. The old man and woman in there called him son.

A bedraggled cur dog came from beneath the porch as he neared. Man and dog met in the blackness of the wet night, cringing creatures, strangely akin. The man’s breath caught in his throat as he thought the dog might bark, raise an alarm. Then when he saw that the dog was only sidling up to him, the man made a small sound in his throat and kicked the animal to one side.

He crept up the short, wooden stairway; the kitchen door knob was under his fingers. He licked chill rainwater from his lips, opened the door and stepped inside.

The odor of boiled cabbage, the tang of an open crock of sorghum molasses curled his insides. But he knew that food would never lay on his quivering stomach.

He moved through the room, past the huge, black stove, around the pine table with its pathetically gay oilcloth covering. The warmth of the house settled in his clothes; he smelled the odorous steam that rose from them.

Then he heard the slow footsteps coming down the hallway that led out of the kitchen. He moved to one side, his hand in his jacket-pocket, clutching the gun.

Eva came in the room with the heavy, slow tread of an old woman. She flashed in his vision, voluminous skirts, a big, smiling face ruddied by the sun and wind, made kindly by the things her years had taught her. Her hair was streaked with gray, knotted at the back of her bead. She was at the table, the lamplight flickering over her, before she heard his breathing.

He saw the stiffening of her shoulders. He said in a hoarse whisper, “Don’t you go making noise!” He held the gun jabbed out before him.

In her place, he would have screamed; he couldn’t have helped it. But she turned, silent, and looked at him, his wet, grimy face, his muddy dungarees, soggy shoes, and soaked, smelly lumberjacket.

“Jim!” She seemed not to see the gun. She came toward him, her hands reaching out, tears welling in her eyes. “You’re cold and wet. Here, son, let me fix...”

“Don’t you go trying to get close to me,” he said in his hoarse, whispering voice, “trying to get your hands on my gun!”

“Jim!” she said brokenly.

And when her hands drew away from him, he remembered there was a butcher knife in the table drawer. He leaped at her, struck her, frenzied. She made a sound and sank unconscious to the floor.

“That’ll fix her,” he breathed. “That’ll show her I’m tough.” Now for the man, the old fool. Old Car was stubborn with cranky ideas. But a man like him could handle Gar, hell yes. And when it was all over, he would be far away, in a bar with soft lights, a woman close, a slip of a blonde maybe, listening to him.

“A run-in at home,” he would tell the babe. “Can you imagine them trying to boss a man like me? So I gave them a few hundred and left. Sure, I fixed the old fools with a wad of dough. Somebody’s got to take care of the puny ones. The first job? Well, baby, it was simple. There was only eight of the guys, the toughest yeggs in town, around the poker table. I just stepped in and they knew what was what. Handed over the dough without a word. They knew nerve when they saw it, baby.”

But he wasn’t there yet. He was here in this old-fashioned farmhouse, like a wet shadow trembling in the flickering light of the kerosene lamp. He blew out the wan light, stood a moment in the darkness. He thought of the sounds he and the old woman had made — but the woman had closed the door behind her. Old Car hadn’t heard or he would have stumbled back to the kitchen already.

The hallway was a dark cavern, thick, musty with the smell of old books, old leather goods stored for years in the closet. He reached the door that entered to the living room, heard the slow hesitant movements of Gar Newell beyond the door. He forced the icicles that were his fingers to close about the knob; he opened the door.

Low lamplight tinged the room with faint yellow. He saw the ancient piano, the mohair furniture, a portrait of a shepherd feeding a flock on the wall. Secondary details. In the middle of the room stood the man.

He was tall, with great, spare shoulders that age hadn’t drooped, a face that might have been carved and lifted out of Georgia stone and a shock of white hair.

The old man said, “Eva?” but his tone revealed that he knew the sound of the steps hadn’t been Eva’s.

“Not Eva.” His chest cold, and this other thing twisting his insides, made his voice unreal.

The old man laid down the pipe he had been filling. He stood without an outward tremor, only a faint frown knitting his brow. He stared very hard, and the young man had to remind himself that old Gar Newell was blind. Blind as the night.

He had nothing to fear. He had the gun, the eyes, everything... and yet he had to hold himself desperately to his purpose, to keep from bolting blindly away.

“What might you be wanting, neighbor?” the old man asked.

“I’m not your neighbor.”

The old man shrugged. “Even so, if your heart’s in the right place, you can have most anything I got.”

“But not this,” the young man’s voice said.

“Then I reckon you want my money. I reckon, too, that you’re holding a gun on me?”

“I’m holding a gun on you, all right! Where is it?”

“You care to tell me why...” the old man began.

“Oh, you fool! You think I came here for a sermon?”

The old man reached for his pipe again, listening, thinking perhaps of his wife. This is good! Let the old devil wonder about her. For nearly ten years I put up with this old nut and his righteousness — now let him crawl!

“No, I reckon you didn’t come here for a sermon. But you’ll have to tell me. Who you are? Why you want the money?”

Humor the old fool along. That’s the easy way. He held the gun cockily and said, “I’m Jim.”

The old man’s hand stumbled over his pipe. “No! You’re not Jim! I’d know Jim’s voice, his walk.”

He smiled thinly and thought: I got a cold. The voice ain’t natural. I didn’t walk down the hall like I usually done, anyhow. It was hilarious.

“You’re not my Jim,” the old man repeated savagely. “The voice, the walk — and Jim wouldn’t do this to me. You’re thinking of packing this on Jim, the way they done the Hergishiner murder! You’re a young rascal to try and do that to my Jim!” This was rich! He said, “All right, all right. Have it your way, you crazy old fool. I ain’t your Jim. I...”

Old Gar broke in with “Ah,” softly. He sat down. “I knowed it. And it’s a mite encouragin’ that you give up that dirty angle so easy — tryin’ to pack this on Jim! Sit down, young man.”

Sit down?

“Listen,” he screamed. “I got the gun! I give the orders!”

“Shore,” the old man’s chuckle was placating. “You got the gun, but you ain’t scaring me none. Think I never seen a gun before, faced one? Lots of times, lots of times. Son, I used to be a regular hellion. Handy with my fists and brain, as well as a gun. Bobbed a couple people, beat several fellers up to take their money. Most of them was afraid to squeal on me, too. Then one day an old sheriff grabbed me. Know what he done?”

“The hell with the old sheriff!”

“I tell you what he done. He stripped his coat off and right there in the jail cell he licked the living hell out of me. Then he sent me to the pen. I stayed there five years. I learned I wasn’t so smart. I took in the lesson that old sheriff didn’t know words to tell me with his tongue but made me understand with his fists. Then I come out of the pen. And I reckon everything that had been turned upside down in my life was turned right side up. I even sneaked in Church one Sunday.” His voice broke; the wind and rain whispered about the house. The old man’s eyes stared, blind, but still able to look back over the years.

“The money!” the young man shrilled.

“What? Oh. The money. The money I saved and hid here in the house. Who told you about the money, young man? You know, it took me a long time to save that thousand dollars. Now back when I married I was stone-broke — but the woman... she was the sort of woman a young hellion who has just sneaked in Church the first time finds only once in his life. She...”

“Damn the woman!”

“...She musta had faith,” the old man continued placidly. “She musta knowed deep down inside that I’d really changed. Women is funny that way sometimes. She never would marry me when I had a pocket full of money, but when I was broke she did, and she stuck right by me when I lost my sight three years later and all the years after that.”

“Damn you and the woman! I want the money!”

“Well, I reckon you can damn me and the woman,” Old Gar said, “but the money, young man, will damn you. That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you, I reckon. Money rightly come by is fine — but if it’s stained with blood, some of it will always come off on your hands, your soul. They’re pretty hard stains to wash away.”

“Damn you and your soul!” the young man screamed. He held the gun with both hands now because he was trembling so.

The old man was quiet a moment. Then he spoke again and his voice hadn’t changed. “The woman and me — we never had a son. Till we found Jim, young man. A young hellion in some ways. He’d been in a little trouble. So the woman looked at Jim and I touched him and it was like touching myself. We brought Jim home. We called him son.” The old man paused, remembering...

“Folks was down on Jim,” he went on. “Always carryin’ tales, always sayin’ that he’d be a real bad hellion except he was a coward, he didn’t have guts enough. But I never believed them, because I wanted to believe that Jim was me thirty or forty years ago. I wasn’t all unselfish. I was sort of using Jim to wash the stains away, I guess, and I never believed the talk.”

For a moment, the young man’s trembling stopped. Years flashed through his mind. He stared hard, as if seeing something that he had never fully seen before. He remembered the way this old fool had rushed to his defense the time he’d stolen the pig, the time he’d taken a pot-shot in a moment of blind panic at a farmer down the road who’d been coming after him for stealing watermelons. Nothing could be proven on a score of occasions like that — and there had been the old fool with a lot of other fools’ respect of him, his persuasion, telling them that Jim wasn’t really bad. Bad? Hell, he was nervy! Smart. Tough. How he had wrapped this old gink about his finger! It was rich!

The young man shouted half-hysterical laughter. The old man shook his head against the sound of it, said wearily, “Nothing I’ve said has done you any good, young man? I reckoned not from the first, I guess. Like talking to a rock. Some is born with bad breaks like my Jim; and some is just born bad. You want the money; then you want to shoot me and Eva so you can keep the money and never be identified or have an alarm raised until we’re found two, three days from now. You figure to be a long ways off by then.”

“Yes, the money... the money!” He ventured to step close, lashed the old man’s face with the gun barrel.

“I ain’t got the money,” the old man rose slowly. “The money I saved for Jim. The money I done give to Jim.”

“Why, you crazy old... you gave the money to Jim,” he mimicked. “You think I’d believe that?”

“You’ll have to believe it.”

If it hadn’t been an indication that the old nut was going to be stubborn, this could have been a laugh. Hell, he was Jim!

He snicked the gun barrel again. It left a wide welt across the old man’s face. The old man staggered, bumped into the table.

The lamp teetered, tilted, fell to the floor with a crash. The room plunged in darkness.

The silence was deafening.

The young man clutched and smothered the scream in his throat. He listened for the old man’s breathing; he didn’t hear it because his own breath was too strong, too harsh. He heard only the grim whisper of the rain and the shrieking wind.

No movement. Silence. So the old man must have sensed what had happened. Now they were alike. The young man and the old one. Both blind. Both groping, each in his own kind of total darkness, with the heavy breath of death in the room.

The door. It wasn’t too late to get out. A quick dash, into the hall... the heavy poker struck him a lashing blow on the side of the face. The young man screamed; the house jarred under the impact of his body to the floor. He knew the old man had moved silently, guided by the sound of the young man’s breathing.

He squirmed on the floor, frantic. He heard the poker strike the worn carpet. He squeezed the trigger, mouthing hoarse sobs.

Still he could not see the old blind man. The sudden flash of the gun had left the young man more blind than ever.

The young man bolted blindly for the door, and the ancient piano groaned a whanging discord as his body plunged against it.

He staggered back from the piano, heard the whistling swish of the falling poker again. He had murdered this old man in his mind, and now the living corpse was demanding retribution...

He twisted to one side, and the poker missed. He sensed that the old fool was off balance. Now was his chance!

His hand shot out; he felt the cloth of the old man’s coat. In a flashing motion, sick with the knots in his belly, the young man brought the gun to bear.

He was squeezing the trigger when the aged, strong hand shot out, gripped his wrist, and twisted. The cracking of the bone of the young man’s wrist and the roar of the gun were mingled. The young man’s scream was a lost gurgle as the bullet parted flesh and bone between his eyes.

The house was still rocking with echoes when the scrape of a footstep sounded in the hallway door. The old man said heavily, “Eva?”

“Yes.”

“You’re all right?”

“Yes, Gar, and you...”

“I’m all right,” he said. “I was afraid he had done something to you, Eva.”

“No. Nothing, compared to what he might have done. I was getting my senses back when I heard the gun fire. I’ll light a lamp.”

Gar waited, heard the scratching as she struck a match, the swift intake of her breath, as the lamp, flared up and she looked at the body of the young man.

Then he peeled his lips back from his teeth and said it. “He’s not Jim, Eva? Not our Jim?”

Her voice came, slow, drawn, “No, Gar. He ain’t really our Jim.”

“I’m glad,” the old man. “Jim may come back someday and he may not, but I’m glad that this... Eva...” His voice stumbled, broke. He turned and shuffled to the window. He pushed back the calico curtains and turned his face toward the night, as if he had eyes, as if he stared out there, waiting for the first gleam of sunrise to meet his gaze.

“I tried to tell the pore young man,” he whispered, “that I’d given the money to Jim. But he was a coward he couldn’t stand the seconds passing. He never would let me get around to telling him how I’d used all the money to get the private detective down from Atlanta, and how the detective has worked these three weeks since Hergishiner’s murder and finally landed Ron Cline, the man who really murdered Hergishiner, behind bars just last night...”

Content

Talmage Powell
Show Them You’re Tough