William Gass: Omensetter’s Luck

Take Doc’s pill, Jethro, said Chamlay gently, you're just not well now. Everybody knows it's not in you to lie, whatever else—

With lots of water now — it's like a square one. You need any help to get to the kitchen?

Menger's asleep, that sonofabitch.

Careful, George, you've both the same ma.

I've a fuckin' eye.

I wish l could sleep. I'm dead, but I'm nervous somehow, Hawkins said.

Well put, Puker — dead but nervous — yes. Henry has a lively twitch.

Hawkins swore.

He'll leave, Furber now said earnestly. He promised me. He'll leave.

All those questions you've been asking. Curt: why would he kill himself? why would he choose the middle of a woods? why would he hang himself so high? why would he hold so tight onto that money? why this? why that? well you can ask those questions new again, if you think Omensetter killed him. There are just as many, and the same ones.

So no one would find him. It's simple, Doc. He just hid the body.

That's right, you're no bait, bodiless…

Hey — he's by the baby.

You okay, Furber?

Oaky… I am oaky… Yes, yes, coming…

Anyway, Omensetter found him, Tott said, sitting up. No point to hanging him so high in that case, seems to me.

Throw off suspicion, Curt said.

Didn't throw yours off, did it, Orcutt said.

It threw yours!

Oh, Curt's suspicion's all inside him, Tott said. Past his underwears.

Very good, Bessie. Why you're grow ing! There's no end—

Shit.

You say shit to a preacher? shit?

Anyhow, it would have been lots easier to bury him, seems to me, Knox said. Lots of easy places.

That's it, Jethro — in the kitchen — get some water.

In a fish, Furber said. I also know a man who's buried in his brother. And then I know another…

Menger's asleep, that sonofabitch.

If the ground was frozen, Curt said, then how easy? if the ground was frozen?

… another… here's another, I know — his tablet reads:

Mary was my wife,

and Mary was my mother,

merry was my life,

until I met my brother.

Still, Curt, there are a dozen better places: rocks, brush, river—

He stole from me my wife,

he stole from me my mother;

he stole from me my life,

lest I should love another.

Bravo, Jethro — not a bad tune, boy.

Not with the ground hard as marble.

But Curt, for god's sake, it wasn't, Olus said. We'd had only a few frosts when Henry disappeared, and the ground was easy.

This pill will spell love literally, and sleep my bittering tongue, but should I swallow?

How do we know, though how do we know that Henry was murdered the moment he disappeared.

Come on, Curt — come on.

Okay — so Omensetter waited with the body. He had Henry hid somewhere — a barn, a basement. Or maybe Henry went away — Cincinnati, Columbus — and then when he came back, Omensetter—

… towns beginning in C…

Ah, nah. Straws, Curtis. They won't hold you.

Chamlay flatted the table.

Besides, you cut the knot.

Shit on you Tott.

Furber spoke through his hands. They curtained his face.

The river, the boy, they beckoned him to Gilean — and now he's done — love's out between them like a candle. Curt, you weren't here, I was, I sat in a corner like a sensitive chair, like their daughters, dressed thinly in despair. No — come to Gilean, the child, the river, told him — come to Gilean, the capital of human nature. And now he knows. There's no further injury that we can do them — his wife or the girls. They will live on like we live, most likely… I knew a woman once who fell from a chair and died. We can't keep them anymore in Gilean — question or try them. That will merely injure those of us who've any feelings left — not them. And Curt, we have a trust — as a capital city — we have a responsibility.

Give it up, Curtis. Furber's right this time. They'll soon be leaving, Orcutt said. After they bury their boy as they'll be needing… Omensetter didn't kill Henry, though he may have the child on his conscience. He had no earthly reason.

Reason?

Yes, Orcutt said impatiently, a reason, a reason why.

I've got this fuckin' eye.

Reason, Furber murmured in surprise. He had no earthly reason…

Then Furber's body shook with the spasms of uncontrollable laughter, his mouth gaped and his chest heaved as if he were Brackett Omensetter himself in the deep bend of his luck, though not a sound emerged, only the whistle of his breath, and a few tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes. The seizure passed before anyone could raise a hand, and Furber, giving them a frightened look, threw the doctor's pill in his mouth.

Orcutt rose and went to the window.

Come on. The snow's stopped. It's light. Let's see what we can do to clear ourselves away.

Jethro Furber's illness lingered into February, a kind of joint pneumonia and madness, Doctor Orcutt said; and Mr. Clifford Huffley helped with Christmas and was even now arranging for Good Friday. He was a large ruddy man with sandy hair and he would preach his ordination sermon on the first March Sunday. Lucky thing to get him, everybody said, a boy so near and squarely put together. He hoped to remodel; perhaps he'd add. There was also talk of a new affiiation. Miss Samantha Tott would

have a tea next week, inviting only ladies, and Mr. Huffley, then, would tell them how his father, as a missionary, died in Haiti.

Cancer bleached poor Flack's skin gray. Drunk, the Hatstat brothers had a harmless fight. Then the Bencher hound, to everyone's dismay, dropped through the soft Ohio ice in broad daylight.

The Omensetters had moved down river — children, horse, dog, wife, and wagon — no one knew quite where; and it was Israbestis now, no longer Doctor Orcutt, who claimed it had been Henry's purpose all along, in hanging himself in that tree like a trinket, to throw suspicion on Brackett Omensetter. Nearly everyone agreed that with Chamlay so furious against him, Omensetter had been fortunate indeed to escape the blame. The infant lingered on alive, an outcome altogether outside science, Doctor Orcutt said, and Israbestis swore that Omensetter's luck would be a legend on the river — quite a while, he claimed — perhaps forever.

Mr. Huffley had a busy winter; nevertheless he sat with Reverend Furber often, praying earnestly. Consequently he was at Jethro Furber's elbow, gently steering, when one sunny afternoon, the sick man went out walking. The Reverend Furber's cane poked the crust, and once, when he slipped, he swore like a sailor. Mr. Huffley, smiling vacantly, looked away toward Zion. I wonder what will become of me, H ey, Furber said; but at once he went on hastily: no, that's silly; what's going to become of me, has become. Mr. Huffley, however, was bracing.

Furber's only visit was to Mrs. Lucy Pimber, also convalescing. She had cut her hair and shorn years. He offered her the money that was found on Henry's body, but she refused to touch it, leaning toward his palm and counting. So that's what he was getting for the place, she said, at last radiant.

Doctor Orcutt, who was also treating Brackett Omensetter's frost-eaten feet and fingers, had suggested to Mr. Huffley that he might pay a call of charity upon "that place of desolation," but Mr. Huffley reported that two wild girls had twice flung stones through the woods at him.

Furber chuckled.

Really, he said. Stones, eh? Were they real or virtual?

They didn't hit me but they hurt my feelings.

Ah, well, they were spiritual, then, the worst kind. It was one of that sort that brought darkness to Goliath.

In Furber's opinion the new man had small management of words, little imagination, no gift for preaching, and a narrow chest, but from his bed, Furber heard a boisterous choir, and the lusty voice of his replacement leading. This determined him to slip what he called Henry Pimber's hanging money in one of Mr. Huffley's bright new offertory envelopes before he left.