Роберт Артур - Alfred Hitchcock’s A Hangman’s Dozen

I heard them murmur things to each other, sweet, tender things, I imagine, and I tried to pay no attention to them.

What’s eating you, Ludlow? I asked myself. Why let it get you like this? There’s been nothing, not even a hint of it, between you and her. She scarcely knows you’re alive. Besides, she’s married, and he’s a good joe.

I circled around them and heard her say, “Please, Elroy,” and sensed her pushing away from his embrace, then I was on the steps, which she had swept clean, stamping snow from my boots. I looked to the south and west, seeing the expanse of leaden sky and the endless stretch of the evergreens for this was what we call big country up here, miles and miles of wilderness.

Endicott said: “Aren’t you coming in, Ludlow?”

I shut the door behind me. Endicott had shed his red hunting jacket and she took it from him and hung it on the rack. His big chest swelled as he inhaled deeply.

“That coffee sure smells good, Rosemary,” he said. “Get the whiskey, won’t you, hon? I feel like a good stiff slug of it.”

I stepped into the room where I bunked and unloaded my rifle and stood it in a corner. I dropped my jacket and cap on the bed and then sat down on the edge. I don’t know how long I sat there like that with my hands clasped between my thighs, staring at the floor.

Endicott’s voice brought me out of it. “Coffee, Ludlow?” he called from the next room.

“I’ll be right there,” I said.

He had a cup half full and the whiskey bottle in his hand. “Hold it,” I told him. “I’ll take mine plain.”

His brows went up. “I’ve seen you drink coffee royals before. How come?”

“I don’t feel like it today.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

I could feel her watching me, like she often did, but I pretended to be unaware of it. She went on staring, however, and finally she said, “No luck today either, Sam?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know whether to be sorry or glad,” she said. “Those poor little deer aren’t hurting anybody. Why must you men be so brutal? Why must you slaughter them?”

“Don’t mind her, Ludlow,” Endicott said. “Never known anyone as soft-hearted. She’ll walk around a bug on the ground rather than step on it.” His laugh boomed in the room. “You’ve got to get more spunk, hon.”

“It isn’t that, Elroy,” she said. “You know it. I just can’t stand the thought of anything being killed.”

Endicott’s laugh boomed again. “You’ll get over it. Just come out with me and watch me knock one over. That’ll cure you.”

She shuddered. “You know I couldn’t stand that, Elroy. I’d be sick for a week, I hope you don’t even get a shot at one.”

He was a big man and, I suppose, like a lot of big men he was attracted to women who were small or seemingly helpless. If that was all there was to it then I guess they were a perfect match. But he was much older than her, fifteen or twenty years older, I’d say.

There you go again, Ludlow, I told myself, getting mad. What business is it of yours their difference in age? Just because she looks at you sometimes— He’s crazy in love with her. Can’t you tell?

He had asked her to get chow ready but he did most of the cooking. “My only chance, Ludlow,” he said, winking and grinning. “At home she won’t even let me in the kitchen.”

After we’d eaten he washed the dishes while she wiped. I went to my room. I lay down on my blankets with a magazine but I couldn’t read. I could hear them talking, low and soft, and his pleased chuckles and once the sound of scuffling followed by her tone of reproach and his light laugh. I lay there, pretending not to hear, remembering how I’d got into this.

When he’d offered me an even hundred bucks rent plus my wages as a guide during the nine-day deer season I’d marked him for what he obviously was, a rich guy from the southern part of the state who owned a construction business down there or was it a small factory? I never bothered to make sure. He paid the rent in advance and that was enough for me. When he said his wife would be along I said okay because I figured it would be someone middle-aged like him and probably built like a tank, but then it turned out to be her.

I had put the magazine aside and was lying there staring, just staring, at the ceiling when she looked and then came in.

“Am I bothering you?” she said in that small, almost timid voice.

“Not at all,” I said. I swung my legs over the side of the bunk and sat on the edge.

She stared at my carbine and my rifle, both of which were leaning against a corner. She pointed a long, slim finger. “How come you’ve got two guns?” she asked.

I cursed the quickened beating of my heart. She’s just bored, I told myself, she’s just tired of being alone during the day while you and Endicott hunt. She’s probably used to shows and night clubs. She’s not used to being cooped up way out in the wilderness miles away from any doings.

I tried to be flippant about it. “I’m a two-gun man,” I said, “like in the western movies. One for each hand.”

She glanced at me sharply and showed me that shadowy smile. “You’re making fun of me,” she said, reproachfully. “I’m really serious. Is there any difference between the two?”

I went over and picked one up. “One’s a rifle,” I told her. “This is a carbine. It’s a little shorter and lighter and so it’s easier to carry around in the woods all day. I prefer the rifle, though. There’s no difference in caliber. They’re both .30-.30s.”

“Would you show me how it works?”

I stared at her.

For a moment a little color showed under the becoming pallor of her features. “I... I’d really like to know. Because of Elroy. He likes so much to hunt and I... I’d like to be a part of that. I like sharing things with him. But he won’t take me seriously. He makes fun of me when I ask him certain things and that gets me rattled. Would you show me how that gun works?”

I went on staring at her. Her glance started to shift but then she brought those gray eyes back and the moist appeal in them decided me.

“When the hammer’s back slightly like this it’s on safety,” I said. “When you want to shoot you cock it with your thumb like this. Then you squeeze the trigger. To eject the empty shell and get a fresh one in the breech you work the lever like this. Then you squeeze the trigger again or if you aren’t shooting any more you let the hammer down like this and set it back on safety. See?”

She nodded.

“Here,” I said. “Take it and try. It’s unloaded.”

Her eyes went wide as if I had thrust a poisonous snake at her. “Oh, no, Sam. I can’t make myself touch one.”

“Then how are you going to learn to shoot?”

“Give me time. Will you do that? When I’m alone tomorrow I’ll try. You’ll leave it unloaded, won’t you? I’ll try when I’m alone so no one will make fun of me. I know it’s silly to be like this but that’s the way I am. I so much want to learn to shoot a gun — for Elroy. You’ll teach me, won’t you?”

I knew a moment of a strange, new loneliness and a hopeless yearning. “Okay, Mrs. Endicott,” I said. “I’ll teach you.”

The deer came out of the thicket and stood still a moment. I caught him in the sights and then I hesitated, thinking, if he’ll go over that rise he’ll be set up just right for Endicott. After all, that’s what he’s paying me for. I could drop it for him but there’s no thrill like shooting your own.

The deer was a big buck with a large rack of antlers but he was far enough away so that I couldn’t count the points. Probably as tough eating as an old inner tube, but he’d make a fine trophy. I tightened my finger around the trigger. If he wasn’t going to move soon I’d shoot.