Charles Williams - Go Home, Stranger

He was against the log now. He shoved backward, inching his shoulders up until he was sitting upright with his back propped against it. Blood ran across his face, getting into his eyes again. He brushed savagely at it with his left hand. I can stop him from here, he thought. I can gut shoot him twice before he can get this far.

She was down in front of him, mopping at his face. He shoved her roughly to one side. “Move back, Pat!” he said savagely. “I’m all right, but stay out of the way.”

Easter was sitting up now. He got slowly to his feet, bleeding from the cut on his head, and his eyes were terrible to look at. I went farther than that and got him, Reno thought, with cold calculation; but he had the gun in his belt. He won’t come—maybe. But if he does, he’ll get here dead.

He checked the safety again, and leveled it. “All right, Easter,” he said. “If you move one foot, come all the way at once.’’

The big man’s chest heaved, and he shook his head a little to clear it. The eyes were cold, weighing the factors.

“I’m not Counsel,” Reno said. “You don’t want me that bad. But if you do, let’s have it now and get it over with.”

“And if I don’t?” The voice was only a whisper.

“You can run. I don’t want you. They’ll get you, because you’re too damn big to hide, but I don’t think they’ll get you for murder. If I have any luck, they’ll know who killed Counsel.”

“And if you don’t?”

“They’re still going to know where he is. I’m going to tell ‘em. But trying to kill me is stupid. I’m the only person in the world who knows enough about this mess now to get it off your back. Get wise to yourself! They can stick you for burying him up here and trying to cover up the murder, but you may beat it when they know the circumstances. Do anything you like, but get this! Don’t try to jump me. I’ve got something to do, and I’ll kill you if I have to.”

Easter stared wickedly at the gun. “You had a lot of luck.”

“I know I did. And I’ve still got it. Now, how’s it going to be?”

For a long moment Easter continued to watch him. Counsel either had a lot of guts or he was crazy, Reno was conscious of thinking, to come back here with that looking for him. Then the big man shrugged slightly, turned around, and walked straight away from them through the timber, going toward the bayou.

“Keep an eye on him, Pat,” Reno whispered. “As far as you can see him.”

She moved over a little and stood watching silently. In a little while she came back. “He’s gone,” she said simply. Then she sat down and took a long, shaky breath.

“I’m sorry I barked at you, Pat,” he said gently. “But it was a near thing there for a few seconds.”

“It’s all right,” she said. She reached over and wiped his face with her handkerchief. “But we’ve got to get you out of here, right now. That needs stitches.”

He pulled up the leg of his trousers. The ankle was swollen and becoming discolored, too painful to touch.

She started to say something; then stopped and listened. He heard it too. It was an outboard motor starting. Easter, he thought. He won’t be back.

He tried to stand, white-faced with the agony of it. The leg would bear no weight at all. He sat down on the log, and looked around. Taking out his knife, he pointed, “See that sapling over there, Pat? Cut it down, just above the ground, and bring it over here.”

She understood, and hurried over to hack away with the knife. When she dragged it over he trimmed it up, took off his, shirt and wrapped it around the fork at the top for padding, and tried the crutch. He could hobble on it.

“I’ll go down and get the boat,” she said. “And bring it straight out there, to the nearest place. You can walk that far, with the crutch, and my helping you.”

“Wait,” he said. “Keep listening for that motor. I want to hear it get clear out of the country before you try it.”

They could still hear it, growing fainter in the distance. Then suddenly it stopped, somewhere near the bend below them. In a moment they heard it start again.

Reno thought of the three miles back to camp and the fact that everything now depended on their being down to the ship channel as soon as it was dark. He swore softly.

“Pete,” she said wonderingly. “What is it?”

“Easter just picked up the boat. We walk.”

Seventeen

“He did it to gain time” she said. “He knew your ankle was hurt. It’ll give him that much longer to run before we could report—” She stopped and gestured mutely toward the tangle of branches.

“Probably,” he agreed. “But we don’t know.”

“Wait, Pete,” she said quickly. “I’ve got it. That boat you left up here the other day— It’d still be along the shore somewhere. I could find it.”

He shook his head. “That’s what I meant. No motor, and only one oar. Take hours to paddle it back. He’d have plenty of time to get his rifle and wait for us.”

She stared. “You think he would?”

“That’s just it. We don’t know. But paddling down that channel in the open would be the hard way to find out. We stick to the timber.”

“It’s three miles,” she said doubtfully. “And we have to get across the bayou down there.”

“I know. But there’s no other way.”

She lit two cigarettes and handed him one. “You have to rest a minute before we start.”

“All right,” he said reluctantly. He was goaded with a wild impatience to be gone, but he was still weak. They could still get down to the ship channel by dark, he told himself. They had to.

She was watching him quietly, with something expectant in her eyes. “Pete, do you really know why Robert Counsel came back?”

He took a deep drag on the cigarette, dreading part of what he had to tell her. “Yes,” he said. “Counsel came back after something out there in the ship channel. Something he brought from Italy.”

She was kneeling in front of him. “What?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “We’ve got to find out. But I began to see it when Easter told me when and where he heard those shots. It’s all there now. In the first place, Counsel wouldn’t change his reservations and fly back from Italy with Mrs. Conway. She couldn’t understand that, but I think I do now. He was bringing back something that could only be brought in on a ship. Remember what that long-winded pilot said about those splashes he heard? He couldn’t remember the name of the ship, but it was the same line, the Silver Line, and it has to be the one Counsel was on.

“And then there’s the dredge. That’s the tip-off. It was something Counsel read in the Waynesport paper, remember, that made him come back. I’ve been going through the paper and beating my brains out for days, trying to figure out what it was. And now I’ve got it. It was that little blurb saying contracts had been let to begin dredging the channel. You see? Whatever he had thrown overboard was still there, and if he didn’t come back and get it the dredge would pick it up and carry it out to sea.”

“But,” she whispered, puzzled, “why did he wait so long? Why didn’t he come back and pick it up after the ship docked, assuming it was contraband he couldn’t take through customs?”

He hesitated, hating to tell her. “Remember what the pilot said, Pat? There were two of those splashes. And the second one was right there above the old Counsel landing, where the cabin cruiser exploded. And remember the explosion came from inside the boat. Right there’s where you run up against the cold-blooded genius of Robert Counsel. All the men who were in that thing with him were supposed to go pick up that second thing he threw overboard. And I think I’ve got it now. One of them was too smart, and didn’t. Counsel had to run.”