What the Dead Men Say (14 page)

    Septemus seemed not to have heard. “This is what I meant by responsibility, James. You’ve got to do what’s right for Clarice.”

    “Kid, if I die, my wife won’t have nobody. Nobody.” The man looked as crazed with fear as Septemus did with anger.

    James felt embarrassed for the man and had to drop his eyes. This was all so terrible; there was something unreal about it. It might almost have struck him as a nightmare except for the stink of the cabin itself and the raw look of the man’s face. People just didn’t have dreams that well detailed.

    “Run, kid,” the man said again.

    Septemus held out the Winchester to James and said, “You take this, James, and you do right by Clarice. You hear me?”

    James looked at the man in the chair. “Did you kill Clarice?” The man looked miserable. “Kid, nobody killed the girl on purpose. It was an accident. We was out of work and couldn’t find no jobs-that’s the only reason we stuck up the bank in the first place.” The man was whining; again, James felt sorry for him.

    “Why don’t I go get the sheriff?” James said to his uncle. “For what?”

    “This man confessed, Uncle Septemus. All you have to do is turn him over. The law’ll take care of it from that.”

    Septemus said, “You know why I brought you along on this trip?”

    James knew better than to say anything.

    “To learn how to be a man.”

    James hung his head.

    “I show you one of the men who killed your cousin-the cousin who loved you-and what do you do? You talk about going to get the sheriff.” Septemus waved the Winchester in the direction of Kittredge. “You’re getting two things confused here, James. You’re mistaking law for justice.”

    He walked over to Kittredge and stood next to him. Kittredge watched nervously. It was easy to see that Septemus wanted to start hitting him again.

    Septemus said, “Now, in a court of law, Kittredge here might well convince a jury that Clarice’s death was accidental. But we’d know better, wouldn’t we, James? We’d know that that little girl would never have been killed if those men hadn’t been there in the first place. Isn’t that right, James?”

    James nodded and glanced at Kittredge. Kittredge’s eyes were huge and white, following Septemus around as the man paced. “But being mature men, James-you and I-we won’t settle for law. We want justice. We want what’s right.” He raised the rifle. This time he didn’t offer it to James, he merely held it out for James to see. “That’s where personal responsibility enters into it, James. That’s where you’ve got to act like a grown-up and do what’s right.”

    This time he did hand James the Winchester.

    Much as he didn’t want to, James took the rifle in his hand and brought it close to his body.

    “Kittredge is your turn. I’ve already killed Carlyle.”

    When Septemus said this, James felt a terrible chill come over him. “You killed a man, Uncle Septemus?”

    “I most certainly did. One of the men who killed my Clarice. The same Clarice you yourself loved and cherished.”

    “Look at his face, kid,” Kittredge said. “You can see he’s crazy. Run and get the sheriff. Go on now before it’s too late.”

    “You shouldn’t have killed anybody,” James said to his uncle, realizing abruptly what he’d been sensing ever since leaving Council Bluffs-that while this man might look like Septemus Ryan, he wasn’t. No, there Kittredge was right. This was an insane man who bore only a passing resemblance to his uncle.

    Septemus said, nodding to the Winchester, “Raise the rifle and sight it, James. Just like I showed you when you were a boy. Raise the rifle and sight it and do your duty.”

    “Go run and get the sheriff, kid. Hurry.”

    “You going to listen to the man who killed your Clarice, James? Now raise that rifle and sight it and make Clarice proud.”

    “Please, son. Please don’t listen to him. He’s insane. He already killed one man and he’ll surely kill me.”

    “James, don’t let me down. Now raise that rifle and sight it and do what’s right.”

    “Please, son.”

    “Raise the rifle, James.”

    And James-looking at Septemus, loving Septemus and knowing his uncle’s relentless grief and agony ever since the death of his daughter-James raised the rifle into a firing position.

    “That’s a good boy, James. Now sight it, just like I always showed you.”

    Squinting, James sighted along the barrel. All he could think of was that maybe Septemus was right. Maybe he wasn’t being a man. Maybe he did owe it to Clarice. Maybe the only way he was ever really going to grow up and have the respect of others, let alone the respect of himself, was to pull the trigger on the man who’d helped kill Clarice. James thought of his little cousin, how sweet and gentle she’d been, and how both his aunt and uncle had been destroyed by her death.

    “Kid, I ain’t got this coming. I really ain’t,” Kittredge said. “Please, kid.”

    Kittredge started crying.

    James sighted the rifle.

    “Make me proud of you, James,” Uncle Septemus said. “Make Clarice proud.”

    Kittredge had closed his eyes, waiting for death.

    James said, “I can’t do it.”

    “You can do it, son. Just relax. You can do it fine.”

    “You’ll be a killer if you do it, kid. You’ll be a killer and they’ll put you in prison.”

    “You just relax, James. You can do it fine.”

    James said, “I can’t do it, I really can’t. It isn’t right.” Septemus slapped James harder than James had ever been slapped before. A terrible hot feeling filled James’s face, and his head spun with stars.

    “Now you get up there, James,” Septemus said. “You get up there and do your responsibility.”

    Kittredge said, “You know what’s right, kid. Don’t give in to him. If you do you’ll be just as crazy as he is. You know what we done was an accident, don’t you kid?”

    Septemus took James by the shoulder and turned him around so he was again facing Kittredge. He took the rifle and moved it into a firing position in James’ hands.

    “Now don’t waste any more time, James. Shoot.”

    “Kid, listen, please-”

    “Shoot!”

    Their voices filling his head, the dank stink of the cabin filling his nose, the pathetic and somehow irritating spectacle of a man pleading for his life filling his mind-James let the Winchester slip from his hands to the floor.

    

    

    He turned and ran from the cabin.

    He went outside, just out from under the overhang, so he could stand in the rain, and the sound of it would drown out the madness of his uncle and the mewling of Kittredge who had, after all, been at least partly responsible for Clarice’s death.

    The rain came down silver and seemed to cleanse him and he put his hands out and opened his mouth to receive it, letting the drops splat on his face and trickle down his neck and soak into his coat.

    Then, even through the snapping rain, he heard it, the gunshot, and knew what had happened.

    He didn’t feel any regret for Kittredge; the regret was for his uncle. There would be no way back now.

    He turned and stood in the rain and after a few minutes Septemus came out of the cabin.

    Septemus came a few feet up the slope of the hill. He didn’t seem to notice the rain soaking him.

    “You let me down, James.”

    “I know.”

    “I always considered you like a son. Loved you in that same way.”

    “Just the way I loved you, Uncle Septemus.”

    “But when the time came to prove how much you loved me and loved my Clarice-” He fell silent. Rain pocked the summer-brown grass and drummed against the cabin roof. Blue-gray gunsmoke wafted out the cabin door. You could smell the blood of an animal kill on the air. In this case the animal had been human.

    “You should let me help you, Uncle Septemus.”

    “I don’t want anything more to do with you, James. Your mother has not raised you to be a man and it’s too late now for me to do anything about it.”

    “I don’t want them to hurt you, Uncle Septemus. That’s why I wish you’d give me the rifle and let me take you into town.” Septemus raised his head in the rain and looked directly at James. “I know what the dead men say.”

    “What?”

    “I know what the dead men say. They whisper to me, James. They tell me secrets. They reassure me. This”-he waved his arms in a patriarchal way to indicate the land and the cliffs surrounding them-“none of this is what it seems, James. Even Clarice tells me that when she talks to me.”

    “There’s one more, isn’t there?”

    Through the beating rain, Septemus studied him. “Are you thinking of redeeming yourself with Griff, with the last one?” He waggled the rifle in James’s direction. “Are you saying that you want to take this Winchester and do what’s right?”

    “I’m saying that you should leave him be. Killing two men is enough.”

    For a time, only the rain made sound. It seemed to be saying something, its hissing and pounding and spattering a language James yearned to understand, a dialogue shared only by rock and soil and leaves and grass.

    “He has two daughters.”

    “Who?”

    “The last one,” Septemus said.

    “They didn’t kill Clarice.”

    “I want him to know how it feels.”

    The rain continued to speak.

    James said, “Please give me your rifle, Uncle Septemus. Please let me take you in. They won’t blame you for what you did. They’ll understand.”

    “I’m going now, James.”

    Septemus started up the hill. “Please let me help you, Uncle Septemus!”

    James slipped and fell on the wet grass. Septemus walked on ahead, never once looking back.

    Scrambling to his feet, James went up the hill again, trying to grab his uncle’s sleeve.

    “Please, Uncle Septemus, please-”

    With no hesitation, Septemus turned around and doubled his fist and hit James square on the jaw.

    James felt as if he’d been shot. He saw darkness and felt a rush of cold air go up his nose and sinuses. He felt himself fall back and slam against the soggy earth. And for a moment then there was nothing at all, just a horrible spinning that made him nauseous and an overwhelming pain in the lower part of his face. He wondered if his uncle had broken his jaw.

    Then, on the hill, there was the clop of hooves and the creaking of the buggy. Septemus hied the horse.

    Septemus was gone.

    He wasn’t sure how long he lay there.

    The rain soaked him, running into his eyes, his mouth, his nose. Sometime during the darkness, before he had quite recovered his senses, he heard a horse on the road above. Then he heard a man, breathing hard and cursing under his breath, move carefully down the hill that was by now a mudslide.

    

    

    When he opened his eyes, he saw Dodds peering down at him. “You all right, boy?”

    “He hit me.”

    “Who?”

    “My uncle Septemus.”

    “Where is he now?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “What happened?”

    “You’d better look in the cabin.”

    “What’s in the cabin?”

    “Just go look.”

    While Dodds was gone, James struggled to his feet. He felt as if he would never be dry again. He had heard stories of Indians leaving white men out in downpours and by so doing drove them insane. James could see how that would be possible.

    He had taken two steps down the hill when Dodds came out of the cabin.

    “He did that, didn’t he, your uncle.”

    “Yes.”

    “The crazy sonofabitch.”

    “That’s his problem, Sheriff. He’s crazy. Crazy over his girl dying. He said that that was one of the men who did it.” He hesitated. “He killed another one, too. At least that’s what he said.”

    “He tell you the name?”

    “Carlyle.”

    “God damn it.” Dodds said. “I’ve got to stop him.” He looked back at the cabin. The rain hit him steady on the back of his balding head. “He was a pretty decent man, Kittredge was.” He turned back to James. “It’s sure as hell none of those men killed that little girl on purpose. Not even Carlyle. He was a lout but not a killer. Not of little girls, leastwise.”

    “That’s why he’s going to Griff’s,” he said.

    “Why?”

    “Because Griff has two little girls of his own.”

    Dodds stared at him. “You may have to help me, son. You willing?”

    “He’s my uncle.”

    “I know that.”

    “And I love him. He’s pretty much been my father since my real father died.”

    Dodds nodded to the cabin. “You should go back in there and take a look at Kittredge.”

    James gulped. “I don’t want to.”

    “He shot him in the face. Dead on. You ever seen that before?”

    “No.”

    “Well, believe me, son, it’s nothing to see.”

    “You aren’t going to shoot him, are you?”

    “Not unless I have to.”

    “Let me talk to him, then.”

    “Long as he don’t hurt nobody else, talking to him is fine. I can’t tell you what I’m going to feel like if he hurts either of those little girls.”

    “I feel sorry for him.”

    “I feel sorry for him, too, son. But I feel a hell of a lot sorrier for those girls.”

    Dodds started up the hill. “We’re gonna have to ride double, so we better get goin’. That poor old horse of mine ain’t that fast anymore.”

    As he made his way carefully up the hill, James said again, “You promise me you won’t shoot him, Sheriff?”