Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1953

Whether it was because he was handsome or because he was rich, the ladies liked Cass. He could pick and choose even when he was a kid. Before he was fifteen there was almost a shooting between the Carrolls and the Bufords over Emily-Sue, the Carroll girl. She was thirteen and she came home one night with her dress torn and her face scratched and said Cass did it. Old man Carroll got a gun and went over to the Buford’s and went around and around the house to get a shot at Cass who was hiding underneath.

Finally old man Buford came out and there were some hot words and old man Carroll threatened to shoot him, too. Then they calmed down and got to talking and everything was settled. Mr. Buford loaned Mr. Carroll his prize Hereford bull which old man Carroll had been trying to borrow ever since it won the blue ribbon at the state fair.

After that, Cass didn’t get into much trouble. Anyway, he was pretty careful.

It wasn’t until he was nineteen that old Doc Marston started hating Cass. It wasn’t over very much, either. It was over a dog that wasn’t worth a cent. The dog’s name was Nero. When people asked Cass what breed Nero was he’d always grin and say it was a cross between a boll weevil and a hook-worm. That always got a laugh.

One day Cass came into the village store laughing. He’d just killed Nero. Something had been killing chickens around the Buford place and Cass decided that it was his dog. So he took him out and killed him.

“I took my twenty-two along,” Cass said, “and I drove out near Willow Branch. I got Nero out of the car and let him have it, right between the eyes.”

He sat on the counter and reached for a bottle of pop.

“Damnedest thing you ever heard of,” he said. “The bullet hit him right between the eyes and he went down like his head’d been chopped off. I started for the car and damned if Nero didn’t get up. I aimed again and then the fun started. Around and around the car he went — him with a bullet in his head — and me after him a-hooting and a-hollering so’s hell wouldn’t have it.”

He laughed, thinking of his chasing a dog that was supposed to be dead.

“Finally,” Cass said, “he jumped into the car — into the front seat where he always rode — and tried to sit up like nothing had happened and he didn’t have a bullet in him.”

Then Cass went on to tell how he dragged Nero out of the car and beat him to death with a rock.

“Damnedest thing you ever heard of,” he said.

Old Doc Marston walked closer and looked at Cass. He looked a long while, as if he’d never seen Cass before. Then he spat as if he were aiming at Cass’ feet.

“Tchew!” he went. “Yes. It is the damnedest thing I ever heard of!” Then he turned and walked off.

After that, Doc Marston would hardly ever speak to Cass, even when he treated Cass for measles or flu or a cut hand.

It was about ten years later that word got around that Cass was seeing Linda Wells once in a while. At first, nobody’d believe it. Linda had never had a fellow, not even when she was in grammar school. The plain truth is that she was just about the sorriest looking girl in the whole county. She was tall for a girl, and big-boned, and her body didn’t have much more shape to it than a hoe handle. Her mouth was too wide and her eyes were too small and even in the summertime her skin was always a dead white, a sort of fish-belly white. And that wasn’t all that was wrong with her. Her teeth weren’t in straight and she had straggly hair that no amount of combing or braiding or silk-ribboning would make look like a girl’s hair should.

Linda’s father was poor and she worked on his farm just the same as a hired hand. She never went to dances and it wasn’t very often that she came to church socials. When she did, she stuck in a corner and nobody paid any attention to her except the preacher and his wife.

So when Cass started going around with her, people couldn’t figure it out.

“Maybe he’s after something,” one of the fellows said.

Another fellow laughed.

“He ain’t that hard up,” he said. “Not that Linda wouldn’t be broadminded about it.”

“How do you know about that?” he was asked.

“One night after a church social I was gassed up,” the fellow said. “I met Linda going home and I started walking along with her. I fooled around a little bit and you shoulda seen how that gal took to it. I bet I was the first guy ever tried anything.”

“What happened?” he was asked.

“Well,” he said, “it was dark and I figured what the hell!”

He made a face.

“Ugh!” he said. “Even in the dark, and gassed up like I was, I couldn’t go it.”

He laughed. “Too bad she isn’t pretty,” he said.

“Well, she ain’t and if what I hear’s true, Cass Buford’s gone off his nut,” another guy said.

Off his nut or not, Cass kept on going with Linda and pretty soon it wasn’t just a rumor. It was a fact. He took her everywhere, to dances and church socials and skating parties and everything. At first the fellows took it as a joke, but they quit laughing to Cass’ face. He beat up a couple of humorists and that ended that. Cass was a powerful man and he had a funny streak in him. When he started fighting it was for keeps, and when he got another man down he’d tear into him and see just how bad he could cut him up with his fists before somebody hauled him off. Sometimes he’d keep hitting another man long after he should have stopped... almost as if he was sort of enjoying it. Guys who’d been in a fight with Cass Buford remembered it a long time.

Nobody believed Cass’d actually marry Linda, though. He was too good-looking and too rich. Every single girl in Cameron County had her cap set for him. He hadn’t gone with any of them steady, but everybody thought that that was because he was choosey.

At first they figured maybe Cass wanted some other Cameron girl and she was holding out and that Cass was lugging Linda around to make her jealous.

The preacher’s wife thought Cass was just trying to be a good Christian.

“The poor girl’s been neglected,” she said, “and Cass is just being charitable.”

Old Doc Marston spat.

“Tchew!” he went. “Whatever that young whelp’s got on his mind, it isn’t charity and you can be sure of that!”

And then Cass ups and marries Linda. It was hard to believe, but all of a sudden there was Cass and Linda standing before the preacher and promising to love, honor and obey. Cass was as solemn as a barnful of owls, but Linda couldn’t hide her excitement. She had on a pretty dress and, for the first time in her life, she had put paint and powder on her face. Her eyes sparkled and she smiled and squeezed Cass’ hand. She was so excited and happy and all that she even looked kind of pretty.

During the ceremony some of the women cried. It was sad and beautiful and wonderful, they said, that such a plain, ordinary, ugly girl as Linda should be made so happy by Cass.

The couple left on a honeymoon and the whole county kept right on talking about the wedding. It was hard to believe, but there it had happened and everything was settled. Nobody in the county ever mentioned that Cass might of got a good wife. It was all Linda and how lucky she was. Everybody figured Cass’d done something noble and fine and generous and everybody liked him a lot more for it.

Everybody but old Doc Marston. He chewed and spat.

“Tchew,” he went. “It’ll come to no good end. Just you wait and see.”

When Linda got off the train from the honeymoon she still had on paint and powder and a pretty dress, but you wouldn’t have thought for a minute that she was pretty. She didn’t seem any too happy either, but she smiled at everyone and said she’d had a wonderful time.