The Angry Dream (10 page)

“I came home.” His voice was flat.

“Are you sure?” I said.

“What’s happened?”

“You know what’s happened.”

“I think you’d better leave, Al—now.”

My fist caught him just under the neck, half against the shoulder. He pivoted with the blow, and I struck again with my right. He dodged and his knee slammed the small smoking table, knocked it across the room.

“You dirty double-crosser!” I said. “You’ve been lying!”

We exchanged smashing blows, hitting hard, gasping. He turned and rushed across the room, reached a corner shelf, whirled with a revolver in his hand and the hammer clicked back, three clicks.

“This is a forty-five,” he said. “I don’t want to, but I will shoot you, Al.”

I stopped, breathing hard, watching him.

“As I said before,” he went on, “I think you’d better hit the road. What I’ve told you was the truth. And I believe I was wrong, Al—I no longer think you killed Spash. But just the same, get out of my house.”

There was a flat look to his eye. I turned and walked into the hall, opened the door.

He stood in the living-room archway.

“Sorry about this, Al. You go home and do a little thinking. I’ll do the same. If I can be of any help, just let me know. I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking, and right now I don’t want to know. Get going.”

I went outside. He kicked the door shut with a resounding slam.

I walked on across the lawn, climbed behind the wheel of the coupé and looked at the house. It seemed very peaceful again through the whirling snow. Snow buttressed the bushes along the gleaming, varnished log sides of the house, drifted thickly across the broad lawn. The lights in the windows were saffron behind steamy glass.

I drove away.

The lights in Noraine’s cottage were not turned on. I stopped the car, ran up onto the porch, pulled the bell. Nothing happened aside from the loud clanging inside the house. I had no idea where she kept her car, or even if the convertible I had seen her driving the other morning out at Welch’s farm was hers. I tried the rear of the house. There was a garage, but it was empty.

I drove home.

I sat at the kitchen table with the old wood stove loaded with a hot fire, the pipes rattling. The whisky was good and it burned going down. The electricity had been turned on and the overhead kitchen light was bright, showing the cracked and peeling walls, the ancient zinc sink, the walnut cupboards and the big black cookstove. It brought back memories. I sat there drinking the whisky and began to work on the second bottle, just looking around, remembering. Then I went over and picked up the shotgun from where I’d leaned it against the wall.

I was very drunk. Drunker than I’d been in a long time. I came slowly back to the chair by the table, sat down, laid the shotgun in front of me.

Here was a gorgeous implement that had performed murder not long before. I stared blearily at the gun, recalling how Sam Gunther had looked with most of his face gone.

Whoever killed him knew something, too—maybe.

The barrels of the gun were about thirty inches, at a guess. It had a hand-engraved ventilated rib with ivory sights, and it was custom-made, all right. The stock was short, but somehow I knew it wasn’t a woman’s gun. The stock was of beautiful curly maple with a delicate grain, seldom seen in a shotgun today unless specified. The trigger and guard were silver and gold inlay and the guard was engraved with minute scrollwork. The whole piece was a gem of spectacular silver and gold inlay with case-hardened rainbowed steel flashing through. It was 16 gauge. The curly maple stock was a sight. Gold, silver and pearl and some sort of gleaming black stone was worked into the modified pistol grip. The grip was higher arched than normal, and slimmer, coming close to the half-moon, a bit startling. The beaver-tail fore end was also modified to a painful degree, broad and much flatter on the bottom, worked to a hand conformation—not finger-gripped—in a shallow and precise cutting.

Whoever would hurl it through a window must have been nuts. Whoever did it did not care about guns—not even with the excuse of murder at hand. Unless the gun was stolen.

The inside of the barrels showed a glasslike finish, lightly dusted with specks of burnt powder. I staggered around until I found an old rag and a piece of string, and cleaned the barrels. I couldn’t stand it. I took another drink and sat down again, looking at the gun.

It was light and balanced so true you got goose-pimples sighting the damned thing. It had been fashioned for one man. The 16 gauge troubled me a little, because a man who really uses a gun a lot would not use 16 gauge, he’d be after a 12.

The recoil pad was leather; thick, pressed, ventilated, and a dream. On one side of the breech was a scene in silver and gold of ducks in a marsh, with very creditable water and a tree branch and clouds and sky. On the other side it was autumn in the cornfields and the pheasants were pheasanting.

I leaned back and took a drink, then began going over the thing inch by inch. I hadn’t noticed a maker’s name anywhere, and there didn’t seem to be any. Then I saw it, done in silver, along with the scrollwork that framed the ducky side.
R. L. Isaacs—Riverton, N.Y.—Nineteen Hundred and Fifty
.

Mr. Isaacs had very likely retired after making this bit of extracurricular unshooting fluff.

I patted the stock, took the gun and put it in the top cupboard beside the sink and, picking up my bottle, turned off the light and staggered into the dining room. I took my shoes off, I remember that, and fell back on the mattresses on the floor in the corner.

She lay there looking up at me, smiling drunkenly, her dark hair spread out across the top of the mattress and tumbling like liquid coal to the floor. Light from the kitchen illumined the dining room, so I knew she must have turned it on.

Darkly pouting lips smiled up at me.

She was watching me through half-lidded eyes with that silly look on her mouth. She looked good lying there and all I could think of was Noraine, which seemed a foolish thing to do just then.

Then she turned over and went to sleep.

It was four-fifteen.

I went out into the kitchen and pumped well-water and washed and put water on the stove to boil for coffee.

I went outside. It was brittle cold, still snowing, but the flakes were finer now—almost a dust, the ground thickly covered. I waded around to the driveway and out front.

Lois’ car was on the front lawn. She had started in the driveway, apparently, and slid to a stop nearly by the front porch. The car was a white Jaguar, the tiny black canvas top up, one side curtain hanging down over the driver’s side, the other in place. I went over and looked. The side curtains were very neatly fashioned. I buttoned the loose curtain up again. Some snow was inside on the seat and I left it that way.

Growling motors echoed through the flying snow. I walked on out by the roadside. A plow was coming down through the valley, exhaust steaming high in the night. The plow crept along through the night, vomiting a great geyser of snow into the air. I watched as it came past, dodging back so I wouldn’t get buried. The plow crawled on down the road, rumbling.

I looked up across there into the snow where Sam Gunther lay buried in Cross Glen, among the leaves. The way things were happening sickened me and frightened me. More and more now, I worried about Noraine. I couldn’t get her out of my mind and the way it was left my chest hollow. I began to see something. I had been wrong about Lois; there was nothing there for me. It was all in the past, and I realized that I wanted Noraine …

I hurried back through the drive and into the kitchen. The water on the stove boiled noisily. I took it off, found the coffee, and dumped some in.

“That you, Al?”

I moved into the dining room and stood above her.

Her voice was very soft. “Come here, with me.”

“I’m making coffee.”

She looked at me, her eyes slowly blinking, not focusing very well. “Oh, Al,” she said.

“What?”

She shook her head, holding the covers to her chin.

She said, “Please, come down here a minute.”

I knelt on the mattress, then sat beside her. She reached out, her hand very warm, the lips a little loose, the eyes not focusing. I thought she was going to cry, but she didn’t.

She swallowed, looking up at me, the thick dark hair spilled about her pale face. The eyes were very dark and it would have been a wonderful thing, only it didn’t matter any more to me.

“I’m sorry about how I acted the other day at the house,” she said softly. It was as if she were reciting lessons and this was number one. “I’m very sorry about that,” she said.

“Forget it.” I squeezed her hand.

“I’m sorry how I talked, how I said things—I didn’t mean them. I was hurt, I guess.”

“Sure,” I said. “Why don’t you catch a nap?”

“No. No. I’m not sleepy.”

“Maybe not. Just drunk.”

“I’m not drunk. Maybe I look drunk, but I’m not drunk. Not really. It’s just how I look.”

“All right, that’s settled.”

“Please, Al—be kind.”

The coffee was bubbling on the stove and I began to smell it. There is nothing quite like the smell of coffee very early in the morning. I knew that I needed the coffee.

I started to draw my hand away.

“Wait,” she said.

“Take a nap.”

“I don’t want a nap,” she said. She did not change her tone from that soft pleading. “I want you and you and you,” she said. “Always and ever and ever.”

“Easy.”

“I can’t help it. You’ve brought it all back, Al—you’ve made me see it.”

I stared at her. She suddenly sat up, reeled a little, then put her arms around me. Her face was buried in my chest and I sat there wishing she could be Noraine. I did not feel good about it, but I wished it just the same. “You’ve brought it back, all back,” she said again. “I’d almost forgotten—I love you, Al—I love you.

“I had to come here to see you tonight, I had to. Did it make you angry to wake up with me beside you?”

I didn’t know what to do. I brought my hand up and roughened her hair and shoved her back on the bed, trying to laugh. It seemed to come off. I found the bottle and handed it to her. She held it, watching me.

“Take a nap,” I said. I wanted to tell her that I did not love her, that she had make a mistake in coming here like this in the middle of the night, drunk. I couldn’t tell her. “It’s nearly morning,” I said.

“All right,” she said.

“Take a drink first.”

She smiled and took a drink, then handed me the bottle. I set it beside the mattresses on the floor.

“Kiss me,” she said.

I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. She tried to hold me. I pulled away and roughed her hair.

“Sleep,” I told her.

She nodded and closed her eyes.

I waited a moment and she didn’t open her eyes, so finally I stood up and went out into the kitchen, watching the coffee boil.

I found a cup in the cupboard, rinsed it at the pump, then poured some coffee.

I found my coat, put it on, left the coffee undrunk on the table and went outside. In the barn I found the shovel I’d used to dig Bunk’s grave. I took it out front and began shoveling the drive. Finally it was clean enough. I got the coupé started and headed down the main street of Pine Springs.

I drove as fast as I dared on the snow-packed road, something drawn tight inside me—wanting to find her—really scared about her not being there.

I knew the house was empty before I switched off the ignition, but I had to see. I ran across the snow-deep lawn, up onto the porch, and grabbed the bell. It made plenty of racket, clanging inside there.

I came off the porch, went around to the garage. It was empty, the door stuck open and snow drifting inside the garage.

Along Main Street it was very still. There was no light in the sheriff’s office now. Already the snow was dusting in small drifts where the plow had cleared it. I turned in my driveway again, got out and went to the kitchen.

The house smelled strongly of coffee.

Lois was asleep on the mattresses, bundled above her chin, one hand up and snarled in her hair.

I poured a fresh cup of coffee and drank it, and then another. It made me feel a little more awake, not as fuzzy.

Cold air was beginning to seep into the kitchen. I stoked the fire good, took the shotgun from the cupboard, turned off the kitchen light and went outside to the car. The shotgun fitted fine up along the back of the seat.

“You Mr. Isaacs?”

The tall thin man with the earlaps and the wooden toboggan stood with his key in the door of the gunshop.

“I’m Tillotson.”

“I’m looking for Mr. Isaacs.”

“It’s only eight.”

“I know. I’ve been waiting since six.”

Tillotson’s earlaps were red. He was middleaged, his face white and blue, with lines under the eyes. There was a sign over the door of the gunshop. The sign was a replica of a muzzle-loading long rifle with Isaacs’ name on the stock.

“Well,” Tillotson said, “he won’t be in till later on.”

“Maybe you could help me. You work here?”

“That’s right.”

He still stood there with his key in the lock. I had the shotgun under my arm. I had been waiting in the car at the curb since six forty-five.

Tillotson unlocked the door and went inside. It was a large shop, running the length of the building, and it was warm inside. There was a small room at the front, formed by a wooden counter and glass cases of revolvers and pistols. On the walls, in wooden racks, were rifles of every description. From the counter on back were workbenches and various machines, and still more guns. It was an arsenal. There was an odor of oil and heat and metal, and the place was thick with dust.

Tillotson went to a large oilstove, inspected it, took off his coat, hat and earlaps and hung them on a rack behind the stove. Then he came over to me again.

“Now,” he said.

I showed him the gun and asked him about it.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” he said, turning it in his hands. He took a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his flannel shirt pocket and hung them on his thin nose. He cocked his head over the gun. “It’s Bob, all right—he did this, all right.”

“Who for?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never seen it before. I’ve only been here a couple years.”

“When will Mr. Isaacs be in?”

“Won’t be in till sometime this afternoon.”

“No way of you looking this gun up in some books, or something?”

“Nope.”

“Isn’t there any—?”

“No way I can tell. He made it for somebody, though—somebody with a short reach, kind of, I’d say.

“Could I reach him at his home?”

“Not home. Why don’t you leave the gun here? We’ll write you about it, or call you—you live in town?”

“No.”

“Well, leave the gun and your address. You find it? That it? Trying to find-”

“No. I mean, well—yes.”

Tillotson looked at me for a moment, handed the gun to me, turned away and walked back into the shop. “He’ll be here when he gets here, I figure,” he said.

I went to the car and slid behind the wheel. I laid the gunstock down on the floor, against the seat. The sun was out. I tried not to think of Sam Gunther’s body up in Cross Glen.

I turned the car around and drove on through Riverton and along the river in the opposite direction to Pine Springs. I forced myself to keep driving. When I stopped for gas at a station on the highway, I could stand it no longer.

I drove back to Riverton and stopped in front of the gunshop. It was twelve-thirty. I went inside. Tillotson was eating a sandwich at one of the workbenches, and drinking coffee from a thermos cup.

“Any sign of—?”

“Nope. He won’t be in for a time yet.”

“I see.”

Tillotson went on eating. He did not look at me.

“All right to wait a while here?”

“Yep.”

There was an old straight chair beside the counter and I sat in that, staring at my hands. Tillotson finished eating, wadded paper up and threw it on the floor, belched, stretched and returned to his work.

I sat there without speaking again until one twenty-five, then stood up. “I’ll go get a bite to eat,” I said. “If he comes in, hold him for me, will you?”

Tillotson nodded. He was working with an emery wheel.

I went outside and found a restaurant and ate something. It was two o’clock now. I suddenly knew I had to get back to Pine Springs.

In the gunshop there was only Tillotson, still at the emery wheel. I went over and sat down in the chair. I’d been sitting there for about fifteen minutes when I happened to think how Tillotson had acted earlier.

“Mr. Isaacs didn’t come in, did he?”

Tillotson shut the emery wheel off.

“Yes. Bob came in.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said. “You knew I wanted to see him.”

Tillotson shrugged.

“Where is he now?” I said. “Where can I find him?”

“He went home. He’s got a cold.”

With patient asking, I finally got Isaacs’ address out of Tillotson and went outside to the car.

“Yes, I worked on this piece,” Isaacs said. He was an old man with gentle eyes and a bushy head of white hair. His home was small, warm and tidy.

“Could you tell me who you made it for?”

“Sure. I made it for a man named Weyman Gunther, out in Pine Springs. Actually I had the order from his father, but the son had to come in for measurements.”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

Isaacs tipped his head a little, watching me. Then his lips cracked into a smile. “I wouldn’t forget that gun,” he said. “Not that one.”

They picked me up just outside of Pine Springs. Sheriff Luckham and Deputy Cole in the sheriff’s sedan. They stopped my car and Luckham climbed in beside me.

“Drive,” he said. “We found Sam Gunther.”