The Ox-Bow Incident (30 page)

“You lay here and take a rest for a while,” he said. “I’ll take the horses over to Winder’s.”

When he’d left I could hear Smith talking again downstairs. Then, after a bit, it was quiet. I was half asleep when the door opened and Canby came in. He had another armload of wood for the stove. He dumped it, and started putting some in.

“Monty won’t talk for a while,” he said, without looking around. “He’s back in the poolroom with a whole bottle. Then he’ll have to sleep it off.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “Everybody knows.”

“Yes,” Canby said, straightening up, “but Smith strengthens the facts a bit.”

He came over and stood by the bed.

“How’s the shoulder?” he asked.

“Not so good,” I admitted. “Smith tell you about that too?”

“No,” he said, “he was telling me mostly about how he saved young Tetley, and what a first-rate bastard Tetley was, and more about how he saved young Tetley. You didn’t walk right,” he explained.

“Let me have a look at it,” he went on, starting to undo my shirt.

“You a doctor?” I asked him.

“You have to know a little of everything in this business,” he said. “Somebody’s always getting hurt. They come in to get their courage up, and then they have to prove it.”

He peeled me down to my shoulder, and then yanked the rags off. He was neat and quick about it, but they stuck a little before they came away. The shoulder under them was swollen and dark red, the bullet hole looking little and dark in it, like the head of a boil. I had to grind my teeth when he felt around it.

“It could be better,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

When he came back he had a pitcher of hot water, a jar
of some kind of ointment, and some clean strips of white cloth. He squeezed the wound open again, washed it out, and rubbed in the ointment, which burned. Then he bandaged it snugly.

“No,” he said while he was finishing up, “Rose Mapen was in for a minute last night, with her new attachment and the duenna. Pretty proper Rose is getting these days. She told me you’d been shot. She said you weren’t very polite about their helping either.”

“I don’t like women around; not the fussy kind anyway,” I told him.

“No,” he agreed.

“I’ll bet Gil was tickled to see them,” he said. “I’ll bring you up something to eat when Gil gets back.”

“I can come down,” I said. “There’s nothing the matter with my legs.”

“No need,” he said.

I told him Gil was going to get drunk, and asked him to keep an eye out. He said he would, and went out, closing the door.

I lay there dozing and letting the ointment work. The fire was burning well now, and with that and the sun in the east window the room was getting warm. The sunlight was cheerful too. I didn’t feel much connected with anything that had happened, not even my own wound.

I must have fallen asleep, and they didn’t want to wake me. The next thing I knew it was afternoon. The room was still warm but there was no sun any more. I forgot about the shoulder and stretched and remembered it. Downstairs I could hear the voices of a number of men. They sounded distant, and didn’t interest me. But I was really hungry.

I started to get up to go downstairs and eat, and then I saw Davies. He was sitting on the one chair, looking at the floor. Waking up from a sleep that had freshened me and put the night’s business behind me some, I was surprised to see how bad he looked. His hair was tangled from running
his hands through it, and he had a little white stubble of beard. He looked tired too, his face slack and really old, with big bruised pouches under the eyes. But that wasn’t what made him look so bad. It was his forehead and eyes. His forehead was knotted and his eyes were too steady, like a careful drunk’s, but not fogged in that way, but so bright they were mad. The whites of them were bloodshot too, and the rims a raw red, which made that light blue look even crazier. He was so tired he would have keeled over if he’d given up, but he hadn’t given up. He was still fighting something.

I sat up as quick as I dared.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He looked up when he heard the bed creak, but didn’t seem to hear me.

“How’s the shoulder?” he asked. “You feel better?”

His voice was husky and worn out, as if he’d been arguing for hours.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Canby fixed it up good.”

“You had a long sleep,” he said.

“I didn’t know you were here.”

“It’s all right. No hurry. Now or another time; it wouldn’t matter.”

He wanted to say something, but couldn’t get started. I was afraid of it. I didn’t want to get mixed up in anything more. But I had to give him a chance to unload.

“You don’t look like you’d slept much,” I told him.

“I haven’t,” he said, “any.”

I waited.

He got up with slow labor and went to the window where he could look out into the street. Without turning around he said, “Croft, will you listen to me?”

“Sure,” I said, but not encouraging him.

“I’ve got to talk,” he protested. “I’ve got to talk so I can get some sleep.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I thought about everybody who was up there,” he explained, “and I have to talk to you, Art. You’re the only one will understand.”

Why in hell, I wondered, did everybody have to take me for his father confessor?

“Maybe you’ll think I’m crazy,” he said, still at the window.

“You sound like you had a confession to make.”

He turned around. “That’s it,” he said, more quickly. “That’s it, Croft, a confession.”

I still waited.

“Croft,” he said, “I killed those three men.”

I just stared.

“I told you you’d think I was crazy,” he said.

Well, I did, and I didn’t like a man twice my age confessing to me.

“As much as if I’d pulled the ropes,” he was saying.

“Why blame anybody?” I asked him. “It’s done now.”

“No, it’s not done,” he said, “it’s just beginning. Every act,” he began.

I broke in. “If we have to blame somebody,” I said, “then I’d say …”

This time he stopped me.

“I know,” he said, almost angrily, “you’d say it was Tetley. That’s what you all say. Smith’s been preaching it was Tetley. He was himself all worked up to lynch Tetley.”

“Well, wasn’t it?”

“No,” he said, and then seemed to be making sure of his thought. “No,” he said again, after a moment, “Tetley couldn’t help what he did.”

“Oh, that way,” I said. “If you take it that way, nobody can help it. We’re all to blame, and nobody’s to blame. It just happened.”

“No,” he said. “Most of you couldn’t help it. Most men can’t; they don’t really think. They haven’t any conception of basic justice. They …”

“I got all that,” I told him. I thought I had too. It seemed to have ironed out while I slept, so I knew right away what he meant by anything he started.

“Yes,” he said, smiling hard, and looking down at my sharpness.

“Most people,” he went on slowly, “all of those men, see the sins of commission, but not of omission. They feel guilty now, when it’s done, and they want somebody to blame. They’ve chosen Tetley.”

“If it’s anybody,” I began.

“No,” he interrupted, “not any more than the rest of you. He’s merely the scapegoat. He recognized only the sin of commission, and he couldn’t feel that. Sin doesn’t mean anything to Tetley any more.”

“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t wrong,” I said.

“No,” Davies said, “but not to blame.”

“If you look at it that way,” I said, “only a saint could be to blame for anything.”

“There’s some truth in that.”

I was mean then, but I wanted to shut him up before he’d talked so much he’d be ashamed of it afterwards. You can hate a man you’ve talked too much to. He’s like a man who’s seen you show yellow.

“Meaning you’re a saint?” I asked him.

He looked at me, but didn’t wait even to make sure how I meant it. He was just following his own trouble.

“Something like that,” he said without a smile, “by comparison. Or I was before this,” he added after a moment. “Oh, God,” he said suddenly. “That boy; all night.”

He closed his eyes hard and turned back to the window. Holding onto the window sash, he pressed his forehead against his hand and leaned there, trembling all over, like a woman who’s been told pretty bad news too suddenly.

I waited until he wasn’t shaking, and then asked him, easy as I could, “Meaning this was a sin of omission?”

He moved his head to say yes, but still keeping it against his hand.

“You’re thinking about it too much,” I told him. “You’re making it all up.” I was embarrassed that he could show so much emotion. It wasn’t natural. Most old men have their feelings so thinned out they can’t be much stirred, or their habits so set they can’t show it if they are. He was like a boy, or a woman who hasn’t had to work much with her body.

He moved his head again, to say no.

I got up off the bed. “You get some sleep,” I said. “You can sleep right here. I’m going down and get some grub. I’ll tell Canby not to let anybody bother you.”

He shook his head, but then turned around slowly, not looking at me.

“You’re cutting it too fine,” I told him. “This was a sin of commission if I ever saw one. We hung three men, didn’t we? Or was that a nightmare I had?”

He looked up at me so I began to hope I was reaching him. All of a sudden I felt awful sorry for that little, bent, old man, ripping himself up about something most of us wouldn’t have known was there.

“And if anybody came out of it clean,” I said, “you’re the one. You and Sparks, and Sparks was just letting it go.”

You’d have thought I was offering him his first water after two days in the dry hills in August. He nearly whispered.

“Do you think so, Croft,” he whispered, “really?”

“Sure,” I said, “I know so. Now you get some sleep,” I said, shaking up the bed to get my own dent out of it.

“You’ll see it from the outside when you’ve slept,” I told him.

When I straightened up and looked at him again that light was all gone out of him.

Now what the hell have I said? I wondered.

“Now what’s the matter?” I asked him.

He stared at me out of an old and heavy face again, and the eyes dead in it too now. I thought he was going to pass out, and started to give him a hand.

He brushed me off with a short, angry gesture, and stood there swaying like he was drunk.

“For a minute I was going to believe it,” he said hoarsely. “Oh, I want to believe it, all right. All day,” he went on, “I’ve been trying to convince myself I was the saint. For a minute,” he said, with a little, crazy laugh, “I thought you really knew.”

I didn’t have anything clear by now.

“If you mean all that about justice,” I began.

“Yes, all that about justice,” he said.

“I got that,” I assured him. “I got that so I could tell what you were thinking every move; like it was me.”

“Could you?” he asked.

“Sure. Every move.

“Listen,” I argued, “if being able to think of all those things but still not stop it, is all that makes your sin of omission, then I’m as guilty as you are. More, for that matter,” I added. “I didn’t even try to do anything. Why was it your business any more than mine?”

“You knew what I was thinking?” he insisted.

“Every move. And so did most of the rest, for that matter.”

“They couldn’t have,” he said hopefully.

“They did. They wouldn’t have argued it the same way, maybe, but they knew it was there. They could feel it. And they didn’t do anything either. Why, if that’s all you mean,” I burst out when he just kept watching me like I still might say something, “we’re all more guilty than you are. You tried. You’re the only one that did try. And Tetley’s the worst of all. They’re right about Tetley.”

“Tetley’s a beast,” Davies said suddenly, with more hatred in his voice than I’d have thought he could have against anybody.

“A depraved, murderous beast,” he said, the same way.

“Now,” I said, “you’re talking sense.”

He was quiet at once, as if I had accused him of something, and then said slowly, “But a beast is not to blame.”

“He loved it,” I said.

Again he searched me, as if to determine how deep my reasons went, and as if it would set him free if they went deep enough.

“Yes,” he agreed, “he loved it. He extracted pleasure from every morsel of suffering. He protracted it as long as he could. It was all one to him, the boy’s mental torment, the old man’s animal fear, the Mex taking that bullet out of his leg. Did you see his face when the Mex was taking that bullet out of his leg?” he asked.

“I saw it. He loved it.”

“Yes,” he said, “and his son.”

“You mean hitting him?”

“And the rest,” he said, “clear to the end.”

“He’s always been like that about Gerald,” I said.

“Tetley is a vile man,” he said slowly. “That is the only security I have.”

I was lost again. He seemed to have some central conception that was the core of the whole thing to him, but to be afraid to get at it, to keep working around it, and losing me all the time.

“Only two things mean anything to Tetley,” he said, “power and cruelty. He can’t feel quiet or gentle things any more; and he can’t feel pity, and he can’t feel guilt.”

“You know that?” I asked. “Then why be so hard on yourself?”

Davies didn’t answer that.

“I keep telling myself,” he said, “that I couldn’t have changed it; that even though Tetley can’t be blamed, I couldn’t have made him see.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“And I wouldn’t have killed him,” Davies said.

“God, no,” I said.

“And nothing else would have helped.”

“No,” I said, “nothing else. Maybe,” I said, “that’s what made us all feel yellow. We didn’t think it that way, but just
knew we’d have to kill him, that we couldn’t stop him any other way. And you can’t do that. He was like a crazy animal,” I said, remembering, “cold crazy.”

“Yes,” Davies said, “cold crazy.”

Neither of us said anything for a minute, and I heard the voices downstairs in the bar and knew there was a change in them. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then I heard a woman laugh, a deep, throaty, pleased laugh, and then her voice saying something, and her laugh again, and a lot of men joining the laugh. Then it was all quiet but one voice, a man’s voice, telling something long, and then the woman’s laugh again, and the general laugh, as if they were just a little slower than she was to get the point. At first, thinking about Davies still, I couldn’t figure what it was that was bothering me about that talk and laughing. Then the man spoke again, and I knew. It was Rose and her husband down there. And Gil had said he was going to get drunk. I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep, or whether Gil had already got drunk and passed out and Canby had put him to bed somewhere else, not to bother me, or what. Only I knew Gil wasn’t down there now; not with all that laughing, and I didn’t like to think what could happen if he did come in drunk and still spoiling for his fight and feeling mean about last night.