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

We went up to the bar and Endicott laid a twenty down for the first round. I ordered whiskey and drank it in one gulp and then ordered a round myself right away. I saw both Endicott and Rosemary glance at me because they had not touched their drinks yet. I sat and listened to that song.

It was a hunter’s crowd, loud and jovial. The talk was almost all of hunting, of the deer they’d killed, the ones they’d wounded, the big ones they’d missed, good-natured ribbing and joking, everyone roughly dressed in heavy woolen shirts and red trousers, even the women; the men were unshaven and smelling of the woods, of spruce and pine needles and resin, and all of them talking loudly so as to be heard above each other, and in the background the juke box blaring.

It was not long before Endicott became one of them, engaged with two other hunters in a discussion of the best rifle for deer. I’d had three more whiskeys, quick ones, and the liquor was working in me, mellowing me. Some of the gloom lifted from my mind and I would have been glad except that I knew it would return once the effect wore off.

A couple of times I caught her eyes in the bar mirror and it was always me who broke the glance. Finally I turned and looked directly at her.

At the moment she was toying with her shot glass, drawing moist circles with it on the bar and studying the pattern with a withdrawn preoccupation. After a while she looked up and around at me and our eyes locked and I thought I read a message for me in hers.

“Would you like to dance?” I asked.

She fitted nicely into my arms and I realized that this, too, had been a mistake.

“What’s the matter, Sam?” she asked as we circled the floor. “I thought going out might cheer you up. In fact, I was the one who suggested it to Elroy. What’s the matter? Won’t you tell me?”

The record ended and we came to a stop. When the next one began she seemed to have read my mind for she made no move to resume dancing.

“It’s stuffy in here,” she said. “I think I’ll get some air.”

The cars were all frosted over from the cool, damp air coming off the lake. She stood there with her back to me like she was lost in those deep thoughts of hers again and at first I fought it; then I thought what the hell this might be all the chance I’ll ever have and it was a mixture of desire and frustration. I turned her around by the shoulders and took her in my arms.

I guess she struggled at first. Anyway, it felt like that but she was so slim and frail to begin with and I was so angry and bitter that I didn’t think about maybe being too rough. Her lips were cool and indifferent at first and then they moistened and warmed and I knew I had not been mistaken after all.

It was the sudden blast of sound as someone opened the door that brought us out of it. She noticed it even before I did and pushed away. I spun around, thinking it was Endicott, but it was just another couple. They passed us by and got into a car.

We went back inside.

The day was gray, as gray as my thoughts. The clouds hung low in dark swells and billows, the air had a damp, bitter feel, the smell of an impending snowfall lay over the wilderness.

I stood outside, waiting for Endicott to take his leave of her. They were always reluctant partings for him. He’d stand on the steps with her in the open doorway, hesitating like a high school kid saying good night to his first crush. It made me grit my teeth, this time, because I was remembering the night before with her in my arms.

“Didn’t you hear her, Ludlow?”

That brought me out of it. I turned away from my study of the lake and looked at them.

“She asked you if you think it’ll snow today?”

I caught her eyes but read nothing in them. She was too far away for that anyway. “I’m pretty sure it will.”

“Very much?” he asked.

“Could be,” I said.

He kissed her then, long and hard. “So long, hon,” he said.

“Be careful, dear.”

I started up the road.

“Good-by, Sam.”

For the briefest moment my step faltered but I didn’t stop or even look around. “Be seeing you,” I called to her.

He made no attempt to talk as we walked along and neither did I. The only sound was the soft scuffing of our boots in the snow.

Where the road divided I came to a halt and he stopped beside me. “Let’s do it different today,” I said. “Let’s both strike out on our own. You know the country fairly well now and you won’t get lost as long as you follow this railroad bed. It eventually crosses the fire lane again and you can come back that way or double back on this. I’ll scout the timber. Maybe I can knock something over. Okay?”

He looked at me without answering. Does he know? I thought. Does he understand the real reason behind this? Does he guess that I’m scared of myself, scared of what I might do?

A couple of vagrant snowflakes fell, drifting slowly between us, and then he said, “Okay, Ludlow.”

“You needn’t wait for me,” I told him. “Just return to the cottage when you’re tired of hunting. Only don’t go off into the woods. This is big country and you might never find your way out if the snow covers your tracks.”

He nodded and started off.

I took the spur that wound and twisted its way up and over the hills. In the old days it had been the geared Shay engines that had clattered and squealed their slow, tortuous way up and down these steep grades. Now they were only memories, eventually to be forgotten like I wished all my memories could be forgotten.

I picked up the deer tracks heading south. They looked fresh and so I turned off the logging spur into the timber. The snow was building up, the flakes were thicker. It would not be long before it was snowing full force.

It was not long before the deer tracks crossed the old main line. I could see the trail made by Endicott where he had passed earlier. When I saw the second pair of tracks following his I pulled up sharply. They were the same tracks I had noticed the day before and as I stared at them I realized with a sick feeling what it was about them that had disturbed me.

They were small — tracks made by a boy, or a woman. I followed them...

She was crouched behind a large stump, the remnant of what had once been a giant Norway pine, and she was so intent on aiming that she was not aware of my coming up quietly behind her. He had stopped some distance up the road to light a cigarette and his back made a nice red target.

In the vast stillness of the forest the click as she cocked the carbine was a distinct sound. She had taken the mitten off her trigger hand. I still wore mine. I clamped down on the action just in time. Startlement made her pull the trigger but my thumb was there and the hammer snapped down and caught some of my glove between it and the firing pin and that was what kept the carbine from going off. Surprise so unsettled her that I easily tore the carbine out of her grasp.

She huddled there in the snow, pressed up hard against the stump, her balled right fist against her mouth. She had uttered a sharp, short gasp. That had been her only sound.

He never knew what happened behind him. When I glanced his way he was moving on, rifle cradled in the crook of his arm. He never once looked back. Soon he was out of sight.

I had known pain of mind and heart before but it was nothing compared to what I experienced now. Now it was the deep anguish of final disillusionment.