John Boland: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 54, No. 3, March 2009

From what Charlie said, we’d have to move fast. It didn’t take much thinking to decide Stark’s favorite saloon would not be the best place for a couple of fellows like us to try to run into him. That left the streets or his house. Orvil thought about waiting for him at his house after dark, catching him when he came home from the saloon. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best we could think of.

What we needed most was to know the lay of the land, and I volunteered to have a look around. I went alone so as not to attract a lot of attention, and walked through Stark’s part of town right before dark. As Charlie said, it was easy to find. Houses in his neighborhood were not really close to each other, and it looked easy. It was a two-room house, all right, and it had one door that fronted on the street. When I turned the corner I could see there was a back door and a path that led to a privy and a shed of some sort.

It still looked easy when we came back after full dark. The nearest streetlight was a bare bulb high on a light pole and it was a block away, but the moon was pretty full so we had enough light to know where to put our feet. We didn’t come across another soul as we approached the house.

There were lights on in both rooms, and we walked around to the back of the house and came up to a window. What was inside looked like the kitchen, and it seemed to be empty. Next to that window was a back door and then another window. We moved to the other window. Through it, we could see it was a bedroom, and it was lit by a floor lamp with a shade that barely cast enough light to see. But we could make out a bed and a figure lying fully clothed on top of the covers.

“Him, you think?” I whispered.

“Seems likely,” Orvil said.

It was too early in the evening to be bedtime for someone like Stark, but I noticed an empty whiskey bottle sitting on a chair near the bed. I figured we were looking at the same thing that would put an uncle of mine into a sleep so deep you couldn’t wake him by driving a herd of cows past his bed.

“Pretty lucky, findin’ him alone, first rattle outta’ th’ box,” Orvil said. With a nod of his head, he motioned back to the kitchen end of the house where the back door was. Orvil tried the knob. It turned easily and quietly.

The moment we were inside, I felt a stuffy black chill settle in, along with a brief urge to turn and run. But I stayed, and as I glanced around I was sure we had found the right house. The baseball bat we had heard so much about was resting across the arms of a chair next to the door. I ran my fingers over the teeth of the gear that was fixed to the end. It was old and brown with rust, and only a little larger in diameter than the end of the bat, but the edges of the teeth were still quite sharp. A leather loop was secured through a hole in the small end of the bat. I quickly withdrew my hand, imagining the damage a heavy blow with this thing would do even if a fellow were only hit with the shank.

The room was dimly lit by a small bulb in a plain socket hanging from the ceiling by a twisted green cord. Nothing fancy, but it gave enough light.

To our left we could see the door to the other room of the house. It was wide open. We stood for a moment, both of us expecting Stark to leap from the doorway or spring from some other dark corner. Orvil had been holding the pistol in his hand and he raised it and pulled the hammer back to cock it. The click seemed as loud as a cannon to my ears.

We began to be aware of a low rasping sound coming from the other room. Orvil gave me a nudge and I cautiously advanced to the doorway and used one eye to peer around the jamb. The light came from an old floor lamp whose faded shade contained pictures of gondolas floating in the drowned streets of a city. The bulb was a small one to start with, and the shade cut down the light even more. But it cast a warm glow over the room and I could see the figure still lying on the bed.

Orvil gave me another little nudge as he moved up beside me. We could hear the rasping sound more clearly. It was snoring.

“It’s him,” Orvil said in a whisper.

I nodded my agreement. I’d had only a quick look at him on top of that boxcar, but the memory was as clear as if I’d been carrying a photograph. I’d be seeing it in my mind for a long time in the future.

“Drunk as a jangled skunk,” Orvil whispered in my ear again. He went around me and tiptoed closer to the figure. A loud creak in the floor didn’t break the rhythm of the snoring but it sure set my nerves on edge a bit. Orvil motioned me to join him.

“It’s him, for sure.”

I nodded again.

Orvil moved closer and when we were standing next to the bed, he raised the pistol and aimed the barrel at Stark’s chest. His hand held steady at first, but right away began to shake slightly. I wondered why Orvil didn’t just go ahead and pull the trigger. I watched as the shaking grew worse and a few seconds later he lowered the pistol to his side. It was my turn to give him a nudge and he raised his hand again and placed his finger on the trigger. He was more steady this time and I pulled in a deep breath and half closed my eyes, getting ready for the sound of the shot. But it didn’t come, and I finally gave him another little nudge. His response was to hand it to me. He nodded that I was to take it. I did, and rather gingerly, too, because the thing was still cocked, ready to fire.

For a brief few seconds my mind was filled with the power this piece of iron gave me. I could indeed kill someone with it, and I was standing next to a man whose vicious deeds deserved it and would likely not be punished any other way.

I raised the pistol and leaned closer until I could level the muzzle about a foot from the side of his head. I couldn’t miss at this distance, and I let my finger lightly touch the trigger. On the count of three, I silently told myself, and commenced counting.

Well, I got to three and I could have stood there all night counting up to a million, but the command to tighten my finger just wouldn’t come.

I lowered my hand when I noticed how bad it was shaking and shoved the pistol at Orvil. He took it, mostly to keep it from falling on the floor, and aimed it at Stark again. I turned and walked back into the kitchen. As I crossed the threshold the rasping snore continued undisturbed. Another creaky floorboard told me Orvil was following me. I could hear the click as he carefully lowered the hammer.

By the time I was through the outside door, he caught up to me and jammed the pistol into his pocket. We walked away in silence, not even glancing at each other.

Back in the camp, we found an isolated spot and sat on the ground. Neither of us said much for a long time. I was still shaking and I thought Orvil was too.

“Whyn’t you shoot him?” Orvil said. “You was close enough, you couldn’ta’ missed.”

I glanced at him, but soon looked away.

“Came down to it, I couldn’t.” I said. “I guess I ain’t made like him.”

Orvil sucked in a big breath and let it out all at once.

“Why didn’t you?” I said. “You were there. You had your hands on the pistol... longer than I did.”

He looked at me and held the gaze and seemed about to say something. He took the pistol out of his pocket and looked at it for a long moment before he put it back.

“Guess I’ll go look for Charlie. He can give it back to his friend.”

“I suppose he’ll be disappointed.”

“Prob’ly will.”

He walked slowly away, leaving me with my own thoughts about why I hadn’t pulled the trigger. One moment I wished I had, the next, I was glad I hadn’t.

I felt more tired than I had been a long time and I leaned back against a tree. In no time at all I was asleep. There’s no telling how much time passed, but when I awoke the aspect of the camp had changed. It was quiet. No murmurs of conversation or laughter at someone’s joke. Orvil was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered where he was. His errand should have taken him no longer than a couple of minutes, but he wasn’t there.