The Cry of the Owl (14 page)

He put the ladder away in the low closet that ran behind the couch. Then he got out his pen and ink bottle and his sketchbook of trees,
and set the ink bottle on the window sill. He had been saving the willow outside his window to draw, because it was so accessible. It was his thirty-second tree drawing. At the top of each right hand page, above the drawing, went the name and genus of the tree. The willow was
Salix nigra
. When he had finished the willow drawing, he took a postal card from a drawer of his writing table and drew on it a fat, smiling bird with a suitcase under its wing, standing on a doormat in front of a door. In small, neat printing in the upper right corner, he wrote:

“T
HE
S
TUBBORN
B
IDE
-
A
-W
EE
” (
Stat semper
)

HABITAT:
Homes of the well-to-do

COLOR:
Gaily speckled breast, red on white; blue trim on red wings; black divided tail

CRY:
Resembles “I’m
here!
I’m
here!
”

This was Robert’s tenth or twelfth bird drawing. Jenny liked to get them in the mail, and she was making a collection in a little book with a blue silk cover. He had forgotten most of the ones he had sent. He could remember only the silver-throated touch, the bandy-legged roadrunner, and the clothesline bird, still Jenny’s favorite.

Then he saw it was a quarter past six. He was due to meet Jenny at seven-thirty at the Jasserine Chains, where they had not been since their first dinner together. Robert showered and washed his hair, put on the trousers of a suit fresh from the cleaners, a white shirt, and sat down at the typewriter to write a letter to his mother. He wrote first about the move to Philadelphia, for when he had last written, it had not been confirmed, and said it represented a promotion with
a bigger salary. He had mentioned Jenny only once before to her, he distinctly remembered, and then only as one of a small circle of friends he had acquired. Now he wrote:

I’ll be sorry to be leaving Langley in a way, as the Nielsons and a few other people at the office here have become good friends, and I’ll miss Jenny Thierolf also. I’m very fond of her, though she seems so much younger than I. She’s twenty-three, however. Not at all sophisticated, but not at all simple, either, not the kind of girl one meets every day.

It sounded stiff, unfinished and unlike him, but he couldn’t write any more about Jenny. He added in another paragraph that he was “feeling much better and generally more cheerful.”

Robert took the road along the river, which led meanderingly to Cromwell. There was a more direct route over a back road, but he was early and had plenty of time to cover the seven or eight miles. He liked the darkness of the River Road—though the surface was full of potholes made by the winter weather—and liked the branches and twigs of the trees that his headlights revealed briefly in changing patterns of black and gray. He saw a car’s lights behind him, and drove slower to let the car pass. The car slowed also. Robert went back to his speed of thirty-five miles an hour, checked his time, five past seven, and lit a cigarette.

Now the car was close behind him, and again Robert slowed. The car started to pass and didn’t, and Robert saw its color now. It was Greg’s pale-green Plymouth convertible. He saw Greg gesture and heard the tone of his voice, but not what he said. Greg wanted him to stop and was edging him over to the right, toward the river side
of the road. Robert pulled over, partly for safety, as Greg had nearly touched his car with his own, and partly because he was annoyed at the rudeness and wanted to see Greg face to face. Greg pulled up ahead of Robert and stopped his car with a wrench of the hand brake. Robert opened his door and got out. He threw his cigarette down and his hands clenched.

“Mr. Forester?” Greg said. “On your way to a date with Jenny?” Greg came closer, then stopped, his feet spread apart. He had turned out his car lights, but Robert’s were still on, lighting up Greg’s black-browed face.

Robert dodged and was only hit in the shoulder by Greg’s fist, but it knocked him down, because the ground on his right sloped steeply to the river, and he had lost his balance. Robert was up at once, before Greg had time to cover the distance he had rolled. Greg brought his fist down on Robert’s head. Robert grabbed Greg’s arm, pulled himself up the slope, and sent Greg into a tree behind him. Now Greg came back with fury and swung the back of his hand hard against Robert’s mouth. Another blow caught Robert in the left eye, and then he was suddenly on hands and knees, waiting what seemed like a whole minute for Greg to take one step up the slope and swing his right foot toward his face. Robert caught the foot and stood up. Greg toppled back into darkness, downward, and there was a crash of bushes. Robert went after him, saw the black blob of Greg’s head just a perfect height for hitting, and Robert put all he had into his right fist and hit him. There was a prolonged crackling as Greg went down toward the water. Robert moved slowly down the bank, expecting to see him climbing up again, but there were only faint crackles of underbrush, and Robert realized he was making
those sounds himself. It was dark. Robert could not see the river, but he could hear it.

Then, suddenly Greg was beside him on his left, had both hands on Robert’s overcoat front. Greg swung him hard toward the river, and Robert knew it was not a fistfight any more but a try for murder. A slim little tree, slanting out over the river, saved Robert from falling in, but he hadn’t gotten his footing before Greg was coming at him again, hissing his breath between his teeth like the hiss of the water over the rocks behind Robert. Robert ducked—which wouldn’t have done him any good, since Greg had been aiming for his legs, but Greg must have slipped. His dark form shot past Robert and there was a splash.

Robert slid down toward him, holding to bushes. The ground became steeper. Robert heard a smaller splash, then a groan. He put his hand down directly on Greg’s ankle and pulled at it. Robert stood with one foot in mud, the other on a submerged rock, and pulled at the front of Greg’s overcoat with both hands. Greg’s wet hair brushed past Robert’s face. Robert threw him to the ground, then climbed up a yard or so.

Greg was moaning, sitting on the sloping ground.

Robert drew his fist back—and then he had suddenly no more desire to hit him. He turned and climbed the slope with amazing ease. It was as if he flew up to the road level. His motor was still running. Robert backed his car, then went round Greg’s car and on. He was aware of a pain in his left eyetooth, of a warm trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. He stopped the car and reached for a handkerchief. The damned eyetooth was broken. He could feel a nasty jagged edge with his tongue. Something was the
matter with his left eye, and then he realized it was closing. He was such a mess it was almost funny. Funnier still that he had won, in a sense, against Greg. Greg might have drowned, if he hadn’t hauled him out, because Greg had been pretty groggy. Why hadn’t he just left him in the damned river? It was his upper lip that was bleeding, and Robert could feel the nick in it, near the broken eyetooth. He started his car again. It was astonishing how much damage a few seconds of fighting could do.

Then he was suddenly at the Jasserine Chains, rolling into the dimly lighted parking lot. An elderly lady on her way out of the restaurant stepped back a little when she saw him, then went on past. The headwaiter in the foyer looked at him and said, “Sir?”

“I have a reservation. Robert Forester. For seven-thirty. I’m five minutes late.”

The headwaiter nodded blankly. “Oh, yes. Mr. Forester. You’ve been in an accident, sir?”

“No. I’ll be back in a minute,” Robert said, and ran up the carpeted stairs to the men’s room on the second floor.

He washed his face and his scuffed knuckles with a paper towel, combed his hair and straightened his tie, after which he looked much better, though there was nothing he could do about the rapidly closing eye. He went downstairs, checked his coat, and with as much aplomb as possible entered the bar where he was to meet Jenny. She was sitting in a captain’s chair by the fireplace, and she sat up when she saw him.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry. Let’s sit at this table.” He held a chair for her.

“What
happened
?”

“Ran into Greg. I could use a drink.” And here was a waiter beside him. Robert ordered a Manhattan for Jenny and a double Scotch for himself. Then the headwaiter came over and said he was sorry but their table would not be ready for another twenty minutes, and Robert said that was fine, they would have their drinks where they were.

“Greg
where
?” Jenny whispered.

Robert told her what had happened. “He really didn’t win. I don’t know who won. Don’t ask me why I pulled him out. I was mad enough to have left him there.”

“You saved his life.”

Robert laughed. “I wouldn’t say that. The water was shallow, I think. Lots of rocks there.” He leaned over and pulled his wet trouser cuffs straight. His eye was warm and closed now, as if someone were pushing the lids shut with warm fingers. He watched Jenny take her drink from the round table, then he lifted his own. “Cheers. You know, we might not have any more trouble from Greg. Or does he like to try beating guys up twice?”

“I think he ought to be arrested,” Jenny said.

The remark struck Robert funny. “I do like the dress,” he said. She knew he liked her in black, and she had said she was going to buy a black dress she had seen in Rittersville to wear tonight.

“You do?” Her face lighted up at his approval, she touched her hips shyly, then she was solemn again, looking at Robert. “He broke a tooth. I can see it.”

Robert had just noticed her hair was completely different, caught up in the back so that it made a light brown cloud half over her ears. It no longer hung down straight. She might have been three or four years older. “Well—only one tooth,” he said.

They had a second drink. Robert began to feel much better. He was pleasantly tired, which made him relaxed. Nothing hurt now, and he felt rather victorious. Jenny looked beautiful, her hair smooth and shining, her nails an agreeable red, her lipstick put on the way she always wore it when she dressed up, the upper lip drawn fuller than it was. Jenny was apologetic about her thin upper lip, which amused Robert. She had so many other charms, namely warmth, it seemed to him very naïve and young to be worried about a minor thing like a thin upper lip. When they went into the dining room and Jenny preceded him, Robert noticed that she had lost weight. He decided not to mention it. Jenny might take it as a criticism.

At the table, Jenny said, “I suppose this is one of the last evenings we’ll have dinner together.”

Robert frowned. “No. Why should it be? I’ll be driving up now and then. You can drive down.”

“I was thinking I might move to Philadelphia, too. Would you mind, Robert?”

Robert was silent a moment. “No, but—”

“After all, what’s here? A terribly small town. I could get a better job in Philly. A secretary’s job would pay more than I’m getting. I even know some steno. Enough. And that house I’ve got now—” She stopped.

“I thought you liked that house.”

“I don’t think I’d like it any more if you weren’t around. I mean nearby, coming to see me now and then.”

The conversation was getting lugubrious. Hopeless to try to improve things by saying something silly, he knew. They had already
ordered the first course, and now the wine list he had asked for was in front of him. He scanned it and decided on a Château Haut-Brion. Jenny was having filet mignon. Then suddenly Robert saw things in a different light: if he and Jenny moved out of the district, it would leave Greg here by himself, because Philadelphia was out of the area he worked in. It would be harder for him to annoy either of them. And there was the possibility that he might one day feel different about Jenny, that three or four months from now he might love her as she loved him. It was not impossible.

“What’re you thinking about?” Jenny asked.

“I was thinking—that it might not be a bad idea at all if you moved to Philadelphia. If you really want to. You should take time to think about it first. After all, I’m going to be there for two years.”

“I don’t need any more time. I’ve thought about it.”

He looked at her serious gray-blue eyes. They did not look young or childlike now. Maybe it was the hairdo, maybe the sophisticated dress—but Jenny looked like a grown woman now.

“Would you mind if I moved near to you?” she asked.

“Well—” He really didn’t want that. “With cars—is that necessary?”

The answer depressed her. She looked hurt, the corners of her mouth drooped, even though the rest of the evening went off well enough and Robert talked about several things—Albuquerque and San Francisco, his Army service in Florida and Alaska. She still looked disappointed. Gone was that air she usually had of relishing the time they were spending together.

“Robert, you don’t think you’ll ever love me enough to want to get married, do you?”

He had a cigarette in his mouth, and he drew on it so hard the smoke nearly choked him. “I don’t know, Jenny. I’m afraid to make promises. And I don’t want you to count on it or wait.”

“All right. I understand.”

“I mean that. I don’t want you to wait.”

As they were going out, Robert saw a mailbox and crossed the street to mail the letter to his mother and Jenny’s bird postcard. Jenny was going to go with him next Saturday to look for a house or an apartment in Philadelphia for him. Or for her.

On Monday morning, Jenny received a telephone call at the bank from Greg’s landlady, Mrs. Van Vleet. She wanted to know if Jenny knew where Greg was.

“No, I’m sorry, Mrs. Van Vleet. Not right now, I don’t. I haven’t seen him in several days.”

“Well, he’s been missing since Saturday.”

“Missing? Maybe he went to Philly.”

“I don’t think he’s in Philly now. The police found his car yesterday on the River Road near Queenstown. His car was just abandoned with the door open. The police think he might have drowned.” Her voice trembled on the last word.