Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

“Very pretty, if you like that sort of thing.”

“The boss and I can do it okay. Strane can’t. Anytime he hits anybody, it’s got to be for keeps.”

Post stood and tried not to look as ill as he felt. He couldn’t get his mind away from what Drake had said about human dignity. He suddenly realized what it was that had made him feel so peculiarly about Drake. The man barely concealed an enormous contempt for everyone around him. The small flame of excitement that had been burning secretly inside of him flared up a little higher. He’d like to show Drake how much dignity there is in being on the wrong end of eager fists. The color of the growing flame turned to red, the color of anger. He wanted to go back and have a few short words with Drake.

He moved over toward the familiar aspen. Frick blocked his way and looked at him peculiarly. “Move over, Sam. I want some more shade.” He stood under the aspen and yawned. He yawned again. Finally he stretched, moving his right hand around until his fingers grasped the familiar handle of the club he had made.

With one convulsive movement he tore it loose from the tree and crashed it across Frick’s head. Frick stood, his eyes half shut, swaying. Post raised the club and slammed him across the temple. The square man spun half around and dropped face down in the dirt. Post grabbed his arm and turned him over. He slapped at his clothes. No bulge of any gun. On a hunch, he slapped the stocky legs. He felt something against the solid calf of the left leg. He pulled the trouser leg up. There was a thin heavy knife in a stained cloth scabbard strapped to Frick’s leg. He ripped it out and threw it off into the brush. He picked up the club and walked quietly back to where he could see across the clearing. He angled off to the side and ran quickly around to the other side of the bunkhouse.

He knew that Benderson must be in the grass almost opposite where he was standing. The club was awkward. He laid it down. He grasped the low edge of the roof and slowly pulled himself up. His arms cracked with the strain. With infinite care, he got his body up over the edge. Then he wriggled slowly up to the peak, up to where he could look down into the open alleyway on the other side.

When he was near the peak he stopped and rested, waiting until his breathing was more regular. He knew that he had made a foolish move, that he had cut himself off from the safety of the lake. It was too late to turn back. He realized vaguely that he was enjoying himself. He tried not to think of the fight in the bar.

At last he could breathe quietly and his arms had stopped quivering. He raised himself slowly until he could look down into the open space. He saw Benderson first. The man was still on his side, but one hand was moving feebly, combing at the thick grass. Then he looked toward the lake. Ten feet from Benderson’s form, Drake lay stretched out on the grass on his face, his arms spread wide. Post couldn’t make any sense out of the scene. Drake didn’t look like a man who was resting. He knew that Benderson couldn’t have come out of it and flattened Drake. And yet it looked as if Drake was injured.

Then, with infinite caution, Benderson began to crawl toward the silent form of Drake. After each few feet he would stop and peer behind himself. He found something in the grass. He picked it up and looked at it. It was a short heavy club. He waved it in the air as though testing it. He carried it in his right hand and continued to creep. At last he was poised over Drake. He sank back onto his buttocks and grasped the club in both hands. Then he raised it high in the air and brought it down on the back of Drake’s head.

Post felt his mouth go dry as the club was lifted. Then, as the blow fell, he relaxed. He knew what had happened in the heart of the old man. There had been the idea of quick and brutal murder. But as his arms swung the club, some gentleness about him that he had almost forgotten softened the blow. It wasn’t a blow that would kill.

He left the club by Drake’s form and crawled over to the far wall. He grabbed it and pulled himself to his feet. He was shaking visibly. He panted and stared at the form on the grass with dull eyes.

Drake came walking around the end of the kitchen. Post almost gasped aloud. Drake was wearing different clothes. He was smiling. Benderson fell back against the wall and slid to the ground. He sobbed aloud. Drake leaned over and carefully hit him again. The old man’s lean form lay stretched out in the angle made by the wall and the ground. Drake turned him so that his face was against the building.

He stepped quickly over and picked up the club that Benderson had dropped. He stood over the form that Post had thought was Drake. He lifted the club and swung it down with the force with which a man would swing a mallet at a country fair. He grunted as he swung. When the noise of the blow hit Post’s ears, he pressed his face against the shingles and his stomach lurched. He felt dizzy. He knew that the man dressed in Drake’s clothes was the little man who had slept in drugged stupor in the top bunk. He knew that Drake had picked him for size as well as unimportance.

Drake whistled a gentle tune as he walked back toward the kitchen. He was back in the yard in a few moments. He fiddled with a small movie camera. He stepped over and took a close-up of the smashed back of the stranger’s head.

Then he walked over and looked down at Benderson. He spoke just loud enough so that Post could hear him. “Beautiful! A half million bucks’ worth of home movies. Just wait till I run it off for you and your haughty daughter, grandpop. Drake, you’re a right smart boy.”

There was a crashing noise in the brush across the clearing. Both Drake and Post looked over. Frick was coming across in a blundering run. He looked white.

“Where’s Post?” Drake snapped.

“I don’t know. I just come to. He slugged me somehow. I didn’t even see him do it. I got two knots on my head.”

“How long ago?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how long I’ve been out. It was maybe five minutes or so after we got up there. Maybe ten.”

“You’re a fool, Frick. Where’d you hide the rifle I brought in?”

“Under the mattress on my bunk.”

“That wasn’t very bright, either. Go on up and get Strane. I’ll get the old guy into the shade and get the rifle. I can’t figure that Post guy out. He should be scared as hell about making me mad.”

Frick hurried off toward the cabins. Drake took the old man by the heels and dragged him around the corner into the shade. Then he darted into the bunkhouse. Post crawled along the roof peak until he was at the end above the door. Quickly he reversed his position so that his legs hung over the edge. He sat on the peak. It was a twelve-foot drop to the ground. He heard Drake’s footsteps hurrying across the board floor toward the door. He dropped, spinning as he dropped so that he’d land facing the door.

He had the punch wound up before his feet touched. Drake’s face was in front of him, at the right distance. He swung a short heavy right and felt the meaty flattening of the proud slim nose under his fist. He dashed through the door. Drake lay on his back, scrabbling with his fingers on the floor.

Post scooped up the rifle and the camera and ran out. He turned to the right as soon as he was outside the door, and pounded off into the thick brush. After he estimated that he had gone a hundred yards he turned to the right again. He tried to gauge the slant of the sun through the leaves to keep his direction right.

The rifle was awkward to carry. The ground slanted steeply upward and he climbed for a time and then struggled along parallel with the slope. He kept looking to the right, trying to catch the glimmer of the lake below him.