A Covenant with Death (17 page)

“
Make you
?” She had the good grace to avoid my eyes. “You don't like it?”

“Oh, sometimes. Yes, in a way, I guess. But it's all the time. It's always there. I mean, not every minute, but when I'm with you I always think you're thinking about it. About making love. On the stairs. In the kitchen. On the street, even.”

“What would you prefer?”

“I don't know, I don't know. You never gave me a chance to find out. Look.” She hunched forward, pleading. Her hair was white in the lamplight. “You know what kind of girl I am. How I was brought up. The way I was when I was little. The church, and all. And when you do things like that to me, I have to—have to—”

“What? Force yourself?”

“No, no.” She was impatient. “Well, a little. But it's as if somebody was watching. God, I suppose.”

“The fallen sparrow,” I said.

“Oh, don't make jokes.” She raised her voice. “You
know
it's wrong.” Then she blew up. “You know it, know it, know it! Whatever you say, you know that! Don't you have to answer for it?”

“Rosemary—”

“Don't you even believe in God? Don't you think the rules are there for a reason?”

“You can't throw God at me,” I said. “You were brought up that way; I wasn't. I don't know what you feel and I don't think you do either. You don't hold back in bed; where's God then?”

“Oh, I know that,” she breathed. “But afterward. Afterward. Don't you realize I never knew anything before? I never even kissed a man until I was twenty? And I'm only twenty-three now. I'm only a
girl
, Ben, not a fancy woman, and now I don't even have what I'm supposed to bring my husband. I never had any love so I took it from you, and you enjoyed it. You let me be—be—”

“Dirty,” I said. “Dirty is the word you want. It's your word, not mine. I thought you really liked it. I thought you felt good, I thought you felt happy.”

“Sometimes I did. And sometimes I hated us both. I was scared. The first time you got up with no clothes on and went to the window to watch the sun come up, I thought I'd die!”

She sat back and closed her eyes.

My voice was slow and quiet: “And if I say that it would have been obscene to wrap myself in a towel, you wouldn't see what I meant.”

“No. Of course not. You've got everything backward. I don't know what's so wrong with modesty. Even the cave men wore clothes.”

That was true. The cave men wore clothes.

“Then what do you want?” I asked gently. “Will you marry me?”

“No!” she squeaked. “No, no, no! How could I marry you now? And you only asked me because you feel guilty! Because you want to do the right thing!”

“You asked me to be a gentleman,” I explained.

“Don't make jokes,” she said. She got up and walked here and there. “Don't make jokes. You've made me feel—oh, God!” She shivered. “I could
never
marry you. And I suppose you'd want your mother to live with us!”

That stopped me short. “Well, I suppose so,” I said, confused; and then, “what do you want me to do? Send her to a home? Stake her out in the desert?”

“Oh, I don't care. I just couldn't marry you. Not after all this.”

That interested me. And interest was the wrong emotion. I should have been angry and hurt and desolate, and was not. I remembered that later. “Then you'd rather marry someone else and remember what it was like with me? You mean that would be more moral?”

“I don't care about marrying someone else,” she said quietly. “And yes, it would be more moral. Or no—I don't know. But I do know that you don't want to marry me. I was kidding myself but you were kidding us both, and you didn't know it and you still don't know it. I think you kid yourself all the time. That's why I let you come here tonight. Somebody had to tell you that. I'm young, and confused. But you're a lot younger, and I think a lot more confused. You're a big man when you have your robe on, but you're a little boy underneath. I didn't see that for a long time.”

I drew away. I coiled up like a diamondback and sat stiff and sullen, hating her. Women! They wanted someone who was so busy paying bills and getting ahead that he had no time to annoy them with love. Automobiles and position and tasteless mayonnaise in two-pound jars.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “But it's no use. You scare me. I don't know why. But you have no shame. You don't even know right from wrong. You hurt me, and you took something from me.”

That was all I could stand. Of her, of the genteel apartment, and of course—but God! we never know these things at the time—of myself. “I see,” I said. “You wholesome blondes all think alike,” and I picked up my jacket and went away, not pausing at the door for any limpid look back. In the street I took a deep breath and swallowed a minuscule lump in the throat, but do you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, Well, I tried. I tried. I walked a bit faster and then, because it was good to be in the open air, broke into a trot. When I reached the Club at eleven o'clock I asked Paul to bring me a glass of bourbon, and I called the station. No one answered. Paul said there were no trains this time of night, but he recommended a garage, and I got the owner out of bed, finished my drink, checked out, and left Albuquerque at about midnight in a handsome Packard touring car. I fell asleep at about four and ran off the road, jolting through soft sand until I snapped awake. No harm done. In Deming I parked in front of a café and fell asleep again, and when the man came to open he woke me thinking I was drunk or dead, and I let him serve me four fried eggs with bacon and muffins, and I drank many cups of coffee, and entered Soledad City in stately disarray at about eight-thirty. There seemed to be no excitement at the courthouse so I went directly to my office. I was plenty tired and I wondered how Bryan Talbot had slept.

Geronimo was on the sidewalk eating sardines from a can; he whistled and goggled over the Packard and managed to spill fish oil on one fender. “They're still out on Talbot,” he said. “How much does this cost?”

“God knows. I got it for the weekend. John been around?”

“Not yet. Hot today. You look tired.”

Tired. He little knew. “I better get over to the courthouse.”

“Yah,” he said. “I'm surprised they took so long.”

“You never know about juries,” I said.

He shrugged. “Everybody knows he did it.”

Everybody knew a lot of things in those days. Thunder would curdle milk. Jews had tails. Tomatoes were poisonous. Wobblies were paid by Russia. Eagles carried off sheep. Hanged men died with erections.

I went to Hochstadter's chambers and knocked, and he said to come in so I came in; when I saw the relief and surprise on his face I knew that John had made lame excuses for me. “Good morning, Ben,” the Judge said heartily. “John said you had big business in Albuquerque.”

“Just something personal. I came right on back.” Now I felt shame—not at having run off, but at falling in with my own lie. Why not say, Yes, and if she'd been my old Rosemary I'd still be there, sleeping, a hand on her rump and the hell with Bryan Talbot? Why not? “What about the jury?”

“Nothing yet. I got them off to bed about ten last night; no point in these all-night sessions. They're back together now. No questions. I suspect they know he's guilty but they want to talk for a while. Nobody likes to hang a man, and they generally like to go over the ground two or three times, and chop up the responsibility in twelve equal pieces.”

I nodded. There was not much to say. I yawned.

“You need coffee.”

“God, no. I've had a gallon this morning. When's the hanging, if he's guilty?”

Hochstadter cocked his head with a sharp glance at me.

“No,” I said. “I wasn't being flippant. I want to know.”

“I thought the sixth of July,” he said. “Give him plenty of time for the appeal. You know,” and great distaste crossed his ruddy, jowly face, “I sort of hope the appeal wins. There's nothing evidentiary and nothing statutory to work on, but maybe a technicality somewhere. God damn it. The way that man says he didn't do it, that bothers me. I half believe him. And I know Oliver believes him, and Oliver's no fool. I wish to God I had some choice in the sentence.”

“Maybe the jury'll call it second-degree.”

“They can't.” He scowled. “Not on what they've got. If it was murder at all it was first-degree.”

“It's a bad law,” I said. “Nobody's death should be mandatory. But I think Parmelee made a mistake. He could have made a deal. Something. Anything. But he bet the whole roll on one throw.”

“That's why he did it,” Hochstadter sighed. “He thought his man was innocent, and in any case he thought they'd be too squeamish to hang a man without direct evidence. But Dietrich was good. Dietrich nailed him to the cross.”

Someone knocked and the Judge called, “Come,” and John stepped in.

“How,” I said. He stared. “You're supposed to be an inscrutable redskin,” I said. “You look like you'd lost your breechclout.”

“Good morning,” he said. “Good morning, Judge Lewis, sir.” To Hochstadter he said, “Chief Harmsworth has brought Talbot in. Nothing yet from the jury.”

“Thank you,” Hochstadter said. “We'll be here when they need us.” John looked at me again, wonderingly, baffled, and went on out.

“How did the charge go? I'll read it; but how did they react?”

“Very well.” Hochstadter nodded. “They followed carefully, and I'm sure they understood about premeditation. I think they also know that they can't hold his tomcatting against him or even his sloppy approach to public health.” He smiled. For Hochstadter it was a well-turned phrase. “Oliver made the usual motions, and I turned him down, but he expected that. His points for charge were sort of—well, upsetting. They weren't good points, and I refused most of them, but they bothered me. He knew they were bad, almost unprofessional, but he had to do all he could. Like one that went something like ‘If the jury find that there is no evidence placing defendant on the scene of the crime at the time of the crime, jury cannot convict.' Well, he knew damn well that was silly, and I covered circumstantial evidence in the charge; but I didn't feel right just the same. And I covered second-degree, if they believed the accused had gone instantaneously into an uncontrollable rage, but Parmelee wanted me to tell them that lacking evidence of premeditation they must acquit because the state's case required premeditation. It was as if he was trying to get at me, and not at the jury. And there isn't a damn thing I can do, unless I want to dismiss altogether. Of course he asked for that, too, in a motion, and also for a directed acquittal. I tell you, I squirmed a little. It's that damned law. If I had my way I'd never hang him. I think he did it, all right, and I think doubts would be unreasonable. But just the same I wouldn't hang him. I just hope they make it second-degree but I don't see how they can. If it was murder at all he had damn well thought it over more than once.”

I grunted agreement, and John stuck his head through the doorway and said, “They're coming in.”

I put on a robe and sat below Hochstadter at the end of the bar, unobtrusive. That morning, May 26, 1923, we had discipline. The courtroom was full; it was also orderly. When we walked out they rose immediately, with a direct attention, a solemn respect, that they had not previously shown; it was as though we were priests, or matadors. And yet this was not the critical moment; it was only the dramatic moment. What moment in the trial most demanded solemnity no one could say; just when the last juror had decided, no man, including the jurors, would ever know for sure. Just what fact, what supposition, what prejudice, what inference had resolved which juror—and those moments, twelve of them, were the climaxes. This, now, was simply an announcement. One way or the other. My stomach pitched a bit anyway and my muscles were tight, and naturally the coffee chose that moment to clamor.

Talbot was white, and what clamorings assailed him we could not know. We could not imagine. Half hours of my own life had perhaps not been too different; pulling a platoon through a mile of thunder—that war was all noise—not knowing at what moment a piece of that thunder might crystallize, solidify, be transmuted by pure chance to a lightning sliver of metal. But that was chaos and chance; this was order and purpose. Talbot's thunder would be words, and the transmutation not random but ordained. Parmelee too was livid. The spectators were blurred, their faces identical blobs.

The jury returned in awkward procession. Hochstadter recited formulas. Bryan Talbot rose. So did William Sawyer, the foreman.

Hochstadter spoke to Harvey Bump in clear, unhesitant, yet neutral tones: “You may record the presence of defendant and counsel. Then you may take the verdict.”

Harvey stood up. An extra, a spear carrier, a walk-on; but this was his moment, and a hundred of his fellow citizens who had ignored him for four days now paid him homage: they stared, unmoving.

Harvey cleared his throat. He was short and stocky, balding; his ears stuck out and his rumpled suit was of a sleazy purple cotton. But his voice was steady and he did his job: he was an agent, a messenger, a Hermes and no Apollo and if his wings were frayed and stained, what matter?

“Members of the jury,” he said, “look upon the accused. Accused: look upon your jurors.”

And that was honorable. Every hour we judge one another; and how often do we look?

“Members of the jury, have you come to a unanimous verdict in the proceedings of this state against Bryan Talbot on the charge and count of murder?”

“We have,” Sawyer said.

“And how say you: do you find him guilty or not guilty?”

Sawyer looked straight at Judge Hochstadter and said, “Guilty of murder in the first degree.”