Джеймс Кейн - Rainbow’s End

I stayed where I was, I promise you, but I kept trying to think what was next on his schedule, as bringing someone in, someone to sneak up behind us, didn’t seem to make sense, unless he wanted help carrying bodies down to the river or something like that. However, all I actually did, with that gun looking at me, was sit there, without moving, as he said. In a moment he turned back to my mother, telling her: “I don’t have to answer you.” And then: “Do I?”

“I guess not,” she whispered.

“Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all.”

“I thought it was.”

He patted the gun, said “Now” as though getting ready to talk, and let a grin spread over his face. But at that she really exploded: “It’s not all, it’s not all! I haven’t even started yet!”

“Oh yes you have — it’s all!”

“Mother,” I couldn’t help saying, “for God’s sake!”

“It’s not all. I’m going to say it and nothing can stop me! You said they’d left for the West, that they’d driven off in their car — but there their car was at your house. So you hid it in the woods and that night drove it here. And next day, when David had gone in to work, you let her show you where, and toppled it into the river. But that left the money, which if found on you could have got you 20 years in prison. And she put it away for you, with you rowing the johnboat, in that place where she hid that bag, in that very selfsame tree you knew she’d use, to hide something in a hurry. So you knew where the poke was, so you took it. Didn’t you ?”

“Myra, for the second and I hope the last time, I don’t have to answer on every crazy thing you dream up.”

“I didn’t dream about your money in that tree. Myra told me.”

“Goddamn it, shut up!”

“Sid, where’s the poke?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

“How? Find out?”

“We’re searching your car, that’s how.”

He got up, motioning at us, with the gun, to head for the front door. I edged toward it, but she didn’t. She got up, turned her back on him, and picked the mink coat up, where it was spread on a chair at the far end of the room. She was slipping it on with a little go-to-hell smile, when suddenly he burst out: “Being a rat to my kin, hey? — and look, just look who’s talking! Myra, you got a gall, you got a nerve, to say what you did, the trick you played on her — on Little Myra, my sister, your cousin, your kin. Having this goddamn bastard, right there in Marietta, and then putting it on her! Saying she was the one, and making her raise him for you! Oh yes you did, and she had to — she couldn’t turn down the money, that clinker she was going to marry, little as he made or ever would make in his life. So, looking you in the eye and meaning every word, I say you’re a whore.”

“I say you’re a thief.”

“Come on!”

It was around 6:30, still daylight, when we went out front, and I looked around for the other car that had driven up in the hope I could yell for help and have them go call the officers. But it wasn’t anywhere in sight. Sid chunked my ribs with the gun and told me to open my car. I did and he looked inside, finding nothing, of course. Then he told Mother to open her car. She did and he looked again. Two dresses were hanging up, in front of the back seat. He used the gun to flip them, but of course saw nothing behind them. Then he said: “OK, kid, I’m going to open my car, and you’re going to search it, see?”

He handed me his keys, and when I hesitated, chunked the gun into my ribs once more. I did as he said, opening the doors. It was a buzzard’s roost inside, full of all kinds of stuff, a case of empty bottles, magazines, a hacksaw, coils of rubber tubing, a bra, anything you could think of — but no bag. He had me open the trunk, and no bag was there, either. He snapped the trunk lid down, locked it, and snarled: “Get in the house, you two! Get in and close the door! Get in there and stay there, or I’m letting you have it!”

“Letting us have it!” she half whispered, “that’s what he thinks! I’m letting him have it, now — if it’s the last thing I do on this earth!” She went out in the hall and back to the kitchen, then at once came whirling back. “What did you do with it?” she half screamed at me. “In God’s name, Dave, where is it?”

“What?”

“That rifle!”

“What the hell? I didn’t do anything with it!”

“It’s not there!”

She went to the front door to look out. A shot came from outside, splintering the lintel over her head. She dropped to the floor while I went to the window to look. By then he was circling the loop, and it suddenly was made clear why he’d parked as he had, ahead of the other cars. He wanted to have a clear track if he had to get out quick. He rolled on, then came to the lane and turned into it. That’s when she grabbed my arm.

Because there from the side of the house, in the gathering dark, came a shadow I didn’t recognize. Then I could see it was Jill, carrying the Springfield. She took a few steps, then stopped. Then she planted herself and raised the rifle. For a long second she didn’t move. Then fire cut the twilight, and there came that sharp little crack a rifle makes when fired outdoors. Then the left rear tire of Sid’s car coughed, wobbled, and went flat. He kept on going, turning from the loop into the lane. He opened up to gain speed, but the car started to buck. Then it yawed, as the front wheels cut left. Then it started to slide, down the gully beside the lane. Then suddenly it toppled, with all four wheels in the air, the front two spinning around. The top of the car had been mashed as flat as the hood and trunk. By that time, my mother and I had run out, and Jill was there in the lane, screaming and weeping, and pointing, at what was under the car — or on top of it, actually, as it stuck there, upside down. “There it is!” she yelped at the top of her lungs. “Oh please! Help me! Before it catches fire and burns up!”

And sure enough, there was the zipper bag, tied by its strap to the intake pipe of the tank and safe from all ordinary search. She began clawing at it, but it was knotted hard, and she kept breaking her fingernails and shaking them and sucking them. I took out my knife and started to open it, to cut the strap loose for her. But I changed my mind as I happened just then to remember what she’d accused me of. I stood there and watched her claw. At last she got the strap loose, grabbed the bag to her chest, and cuddled it as though it was a newborn child or something. She broke down in my mother’s arms, letting go of the rifle. I caught it as it fell, and my mother said: “Dave, stand by while I take her inside and get her calmed down. I’ll call the sheriff’s office. They’ll have to take charge of this. But Sid’s still in that car and he still has that gun. Watch him — watch him every minute.”

She took Jill in the house but not till she’d held her close and whispered in her ear: “I’m proud of you, Jill. You did it just right, our way, the mountain way, the way I wanted to.” And then, to me: “She’s one of us now, Dave.”

“Who is us? ” I heard myself growl. “If you’re talking about me, leave me out.”

“You bet I’m leaving you out!” snapped Jill. “Why didn’t you lend me that knife? I saw you take it out. You had it right in your hand! Why didn’t you pass it to me?”

“Why should I lend you a knife? It’s your money, it’s what you care about — far be it for me to sully it up with my hands or my well-sullied knife.”

“Dave!” screamed my mother.

“Take her inside!” I bellowed, “or you got a job on your hands, getting me calmed down!”