James Cain - The Butterfly

“First I heard of it too.”

“She had wanted it in that little church.”

“Until they kicked me out.”

“That’s probably it. So he said all right, he’d come to the cabin, and ride in to the church with her. She said there might not be room. He said he’d go in on the bus. And then, Jess, do you know what she said?”

“I’m listening.”

“She said, ‘Moke, at my wedding I only want friends, though I’ve tried to treat you as decent as I know how on account of my mother. And if you show up, I’m going to ask Jess to do to you exactly what you did to him. Keep you out, if he’s got to take a rifle to do it. Good-by and good luck, but from now on, you keep out of my life.’ ”

“What did he say to that?”

“What could he say?”

“He took it?”

“He turned around and went in his shack. And Jess, maybe you think I’m a yellow quitting dog, but that satisfies me if it does you.”

“It satisfies me.”

“Then to hell with him.”

“Like she said, let’s kick him out of our life.”

We shook hands, and he ran in to hang up the rifle again, before the girls got back and Kady found out what he’d been up to.

“Jess, are you happy?”

“For the first time in my life.”

“Me too, I just can’t believe it. Is it wrong to feel like that, the very same night you buried your mother?”

“Why would it be?”

“Maybe this is how it should be, Jess. That one part of my life should begin just when the other part ends. Because if there’s one part of me I’ve got to fight, like you always told me, it’s no trouble to figure out where it came from. And that part we just buried. And tomorrow, I start a new life. With the other part of me. And it’s no trouble to figure out where that came from, either. You gave in a little bit, Jess. But no more than you had to, to keep me home, and out of the devilment I was sliding into. On the big things, you fought it out, and made me fight it out. If I’m beholden to anybody for anything, it’s to you for that, Jess. I’ll always be.”

She put her hand in mine, with the moon hanging over the woods and making the creek look like silver. “I love you, Kady.”

“And I love you, Jess. And I’m so proud of you.”

“I hate it that you’re going, but I’m glad.”

“I’ve cost you money, Jess.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“That still and all.”

“That still, so far as I’m concerned, it’s not even up there. We took in some money, a lot more than we spent. I blew out a lot of stumps, to put more corn in, and they were on my own land, and now I’ve got the new clearing, and I can grow more on it. I can put in more stock any time I want, and I got the cash to buy it. So stop talking about costing me money, or saying any more about it. We broke the law, but nobody’s the worse off, and it all worked in together to bring us both a whole lot more happiness than we were ever going to have if we’d never met up and did like we did.”

“You like Wash?”

“He’s a fine boy.”

“You coming to see us?”

“Any time I’m asked.”

“You will be, because he loves you.”

“I want Jane with us.”

“Me too.”

We went to the window and called, and Jane slipped on a dress and came out, and that was the first it came to us there was no more home in Blount, now that Belle had died and Moke had left it. And then we decided that Jane should move in and live with me, and that made it wonderful. “And specially with me here, because you can have Kady lend us Danny now and then, when she’s going up to Philadelphia to visit her rich friends, and I can take care of him and you can teach him how to ride.”

She was laughing at me, but I wouldn’t have it that way. “It’s not on account of Danny at all. It’s on account of you, Jane. On account of both of us. We’ll be happy.”

“But we’ll have Danny, sometimes.”

“Then all right.”

Kady got to laughing by then, and we all started laughing, and then we all got some Coca-Cola and drank it, and held hands.

“And I’m glad of one thing.”

“What’s that, Kady?”

“That I’m not going to be married in that church up there, where we held the funeral today. That’s what I’m trying to get away from. The one I picked out, the Methodist Church in Carbon, is pretty. It’s gray stone, with a square tower in front, and it’s what I’m going to.”

“That’s right.”

“And I’ve ordered flowers.”

“What kind?”

Jane was so excited we were going to have regular flowers from a florist she had a flutter in her eyes. And when Kady told us how they were going to put lilies and things all around inside, I was glad too, and it seemed to me that was really the right place for her to go, and it was all going to turn out wonderful.

I was up before dawn, and got all my feeding and milking and cleaning done, and put on my best suit, and we had our breakfast. Then I took a rest while they worked, because they had to get Danny ready and get dressed themselves. Then women began dropping by from all up and down the creek, and they had to have it explained to them all over again, how Wash would come out around noon and take the girls and Danny in, while I would follow along in the truck, so I could take Jane back, while Kady and Wash would go over to the hotel with Danny and change into other clothes, so they could drive off some place. So then there was a lot of talk about the flowers Wash was going to bring, and I had never worn one in my life, but I thought for Kady’s wedding I would put one in my buttonhole. So I knew where some wild roses were, down the creek a way, at the edge of a piece of woods, and started down there. But I didn’t more than get started when up on the mountainside I saw something move. Now so far as I was concerned, that still up there I knew nothing about, had never seen, and never heard of. But that was so far as I was concerned. So far as an officer was concerned maybe I was the fellow that lived closest to it. Or maybe I had left something up there and forgotten about it.Or maybe when I talked to him I’d have got a funny look on my face. I had to know who it was, because there was no regular business anybody could have up there, fifteen feet from the shaft mouth, but nowhere near anything else.

I crossed the creek on some stones, kept under the cliff so I couldn’t be seen, and hit the path that led up to the timbered drift, the one we had used to roll our stuff into after we hauled it up on a block and falls from the road. About a hundred feet inside was a tool chest where I kept extra lamps, water, carbide, canned beans, and some dynamite, in case I had to shoot the tunnel down and get out quick through the shaft. It was the first I had been there since Jane came with Danny, and already I hated it that I had ever had anything to do with the liquor. Because the mash I had left fermenting was so high it turned your stomach to smell it, and the rats that had come in for our grain almost knocked me down jumping off the bins to get out of my way. You don’t kill rats in a mine, because if something’s going to happen they know it before God knows it, and the way they run out with men right on their tail, they’re called the miner’s best friend. Just the same, they turned my stomach worse than the smell.

I watched for a minute, but I didn’t see anything so I started up the ladder, first putting out the light. Then I came down and took off my shoes. Then I went up again, and when I got to the top I raised my head easy, because if a deputy marshal would have me covered, or what would be there, I didn’t exactly know. But it was no officer. It was Moke, and across his knees was the same Winchester Ed Blue had thrown on me the day before, when he wouldn’t let me in the church. And where he was sitting was the one spot on the mountainside where he could cover a sharp bend in the road, where I’d have to come almost to a stop, on my way in to the wedding. I held my breath, because if he ever saw me I’d never make it down the ladder before he stepped over and plugged me. And then my heart stopped beating, and I almost fell down the shaft. Because it was hot, and he had taken off the jumper of his denims, so he was bare from the waist up. And I could see why Belle had fought with him over Danny, why he had kidnapped the boy, why he hated Wash, and all the rest of it, or thought I could.