Джеймс Кейн - Rainbow’s End

I carried Jill to the door and she opened it. When we were out, she pushed it shut. I carried her to my car which was parked beside the house. I opened the door and helped her climb in.

“Well?” she asked when we’d turned onto route 60, headed for town. “Was I all right?”

“Perfect,” I answered. “I was relieved that you left out what was said in the dark, that stuff you thought meant that she meant Shaw should kill you. I don’t think she did, but—”

“I don’t think it — I know it. Don’t you know why I left it out?”

“All right, why did you?”

“It was because of you. She’s your mother, and I—”

“Yes? You what?” I asked as she stopped suddenly.

“Don’t you know?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then it’s not up to me to tell you.”

“Who’s it up to, then?”

She didn’t answer, but hooked her hand in my arm and whispered: “Are we getting somewhere together or not?”

“So far as I’m concerned, we are.”

“Then a woman sticks by her guy whether she likes his mother or not. I couldn’t talk against her.”

“Jill, I love you.”

“And I love you.”

She leaned back, still hanging onto my arm.

We got to the hospital which looks out on the Muskingum but which also commands a view of the Ohio. I parked the car, but when I reached in for her legs to lift her out, she motioned me off and climbed out of the car herself. She caught my arm, limping a little, but turned to the terrace above the river, took a few steps, and stood there looking at it. Then, chugging through the twilight, we heard an engine laboring. There was the top of a tow, moving up the Ohio, its red light shining at us. It’s always a beautiful sight. We stood hand-in-hand looking at it. Then suddenly, in a somewhat different manner, she asked me: “Dave, did York say that money is mine?”

“That’s right, if it’s ever found. If it’s not found, you’re to get a reward anyway. So, I just fell in love with an heiress.”

“Dave, it’s going to be found.”

“Listen, Jill, don’t hold your breath. If you ask me, that money’s in the Muskingum right now, soaking up water to feed the fishes.”

“If you ask me, it’s not.”

She looked up at me with a new glitter in her eye. “That woman, that Mom character, knows where it is and means to keep it. Which mightn’t have meant so much to me so long as it was Russ Morgan’s. I’d want him to get it back, but mightn’t do much about it. Now, though, I intend to do plenty. It’s mine and I’m going to get it. I don’t know how yet, but I know who knows where it is.”

“Mom? How would she know where it is?”

“She knows where she put it, doesn’t she?”

“Listen, how could she have put it anywhere?”

“By picking it up, throwing it in the boat, and rowing off with it. Dave, it’s what that officer thought that was so odd — that Shaw would stand around on that island with me and not say a word about its being gone. And they were right. Dave, he must have had it. He must still have had it slung on his shoulder all the time. And she couldn’t wait to get out there. That means she took it, unstrapped it from his shoulder and went downriver with it. Or upriver. Or crossriver. Somewhere. Could be, it’s on the island. The police didn’t search there.”

“I told them they could. It’s my property. It was part of the farm I bought.”

“Well, they didn’t.”

What that had to do with it, or with anything, I didn’t know, but we kept talking about it, and her eyes kept squinching up. Then: “Dave, since Shaw didn’t kill me — OK, I could try to forget what she meant because I’m in love with her son. But when it’s a hundred thousand dollars, I don’t forget anything. She’s got it, and I mean to have it. If that puts her in Marysville prison, that’s how it has to be. I love you, but if you think I’m giving that money up, I don’t love you that much.”

“OK, then, now I know.”

“I hate to say it, but—”

“You don’t love me that much.”

Suddenly tears were on her cheeks, glittering under the lights. I said, “Suppose it turns out opposite? Suppose she doesn’t have it? Suppose it’s never found?”

“It’s going to be!”

“So you say.”

“I want to go inside.”

I put the car out back and went in the front door. The living room was just as it had been, but Mom was nowhere in sight. I called, but she didn’t answer. I tapped on the door of her room — that is, what had been the dining room. When there was still no answer, I opened the door and went in. By then it was nearly 7:00, almost dark, so I wasn’t sure at first whether she was in there or not. Then I made her out, lying on the bed, still in the same dress, the blanket half pulled over her, face up, staring at nothing. I whispered: “What’s the big idea, not answering when I call?”

Still nothing.

“Hey!”

Still nothing.

I took hold of her arm and shook her. She flung it off and slapped me. I slapped in return, which was where I made my mistake. She whirled to her knees on the bed, so the dress ripped open. Then she began beating me with her fists, in between clawing at my face and grabbing me, to hold me close and bite me. I didn’t yelp and neither did she. It was grunting, gasping fury, with me fighting her off and her fighting back in. At last she flopped back on the bed and started to bawl, so I could go to my room, to the den, to have a look in the mirror and see what she’d done to my face. It was cut up all right. After slapping the Listerine on, I got the bleeding stopped and finally went back to her. Her crying seemed to have stopped, but as soon as I opened the door, it started up again, the old camp-meeting yodel, loud, clear, hopeless, and 100 percent phoney. I said: “OK, knock it off or I’m letting you have it.”

All that got was more of the same, but louder.

I hauled off and slapped her, first on one side of the face, then on the other. She just hollered louder. I got a pitcher of water and started to pour. “Cool it or you’re getting cooled.”

She didn’t quite stop but did ease off, so I knew at last that we could talk. “Now,” I asked her, “what’s this all about? What in the hell is it all about?”

“Oh!” she wailed. “That I should live to see this day!”

“What day?” I wanted to know. “It’s Sunday. What other day is it?”

“After all these years, after all I’ve done, slaving and scrimping and slaving—”

“And don’t forget those fingers,” I reminded her. “Working them to the bone.” Because, of course, I’d heard some of this before, in one connection or another. In fact, I knew most of it by heart. But this time she went on and on, reciting it by the book, leaving nothing out. It wasn’t until all of it had been said two or three times that at last she got around to the night before. “And then to think, that when at last there was hope, when the sun was coming up, when the rainbow had showed in the sky, that I should be stabbed in the back — by my own little boy, and a horrible Jezebel!”

“Where was this creature? I didn’t see any Jezebel.”

“A slut, that slept up with men, then took up with my own little Davey!”

“Hey! Little Davey is me!”

“Just a Jezebel!”

“How you know she slept up with guys?”

“I can tell by looking at her. Anyone can tell. That rotten look on her face.”

“And sleeping up with guys, that makes her a Jezebel?”

“What do you think it makes her?”

“I wouldn’t know what it makes her — maybe nothing. What she is is a very nice girl.”