Graves' Retreat (14 page)

    
I want a respectable life
, Les thought, and it was a prayer, this thought, a prayer that would allow him to transcend the bitter streets where he’d grown up and to forgive himself for the weak man he’d been in his early days, always going along with T.Z. and Neely no matter what they wanted to do.

    I have not been a good man but I can be, he thought as his eyes rose again to Christ there on His cross.

    And then he heard creaking footsteps on the choir loft steps.

    May was leaving the church.

    He crossed himself and genuflected and then got out of the pew and walked quickly down the wide, shadowy aisle to the gloom of the vestibule.

    In the darkness he smelled her familiar, gentle perfume.

    He saw the crack between the two front doors, a slice of gold moon revealed as she pushed one door open, and then his pace became a half run.

    She was down the steps, hurrying, by the time he had passed through the door.

    “May.”

    But she obviously pretended not to hear him, continued to hurry down First Avenue toward the small white house where she lived with her spinster aunt.

    “May.”

    But she did not respond this time either. Simply kept her small feet moving.

    All he could think of was her eyes this afternoon. The pain in them. The pain he’d
put
in them.

    “May.”

    But his voice was lost this time to the leafy elms lining the street; the fireflies carried his sound off with them into the summer night.

    He moved on instinct, knowing he would have no idea what to say once he actually caught up with her, but knowing he had to take some kind of action or go crazy.

    So he trotted up to her and fell into step with her.

    She had small, pretty features and in profile she always looked very young, like a pretty and sad girl whose face had not quite formed.

    “Please just go on, Les,” she said.

    “I-I need to talk to you, May.”

    “Please, Les.”

    “I need to say I’m sorry if nothing else.”

    She stopped and looked at him. The same look that had been in her eyes this afternoon was there now. Behind her on the street an ancient horse plodded along pulling a wagon with a sleepy driver. From several blocks away you could hear the water rushing over the dam at F Avenue. She folded her hands in front of her, over her prayer book, looking prim in her high-collared yellow dress. May’s sweet slender body always managed to make inexpensive cuts of cloth, which she made into dresses herself, look imposing. Her hat was a wide-brimmed straw affair with a clutch of roses set against the right side of the crown.

    She said, and she said it softly but with a curious strength, “I know you’re sorry, Les. That’s the kind of man you are. You’re sorry for half the things you’ve done in your life.”

    “I’m not going to see her anymore, May.”

    For just a moment he saw a fresh pain and even a hint of jealousy in her eyes, but then he watched as she consciously took hold of herself. “She comes in the store, you know.”

    “Susan Edmonds?”

    “Yes.”

    He didn’t know what to say.

    “She’s very beautiful,” May said.

    He still didn’t know what to say.

    “And you know what the worst thing is?”

    “What?” Les said.

    “She’s very nice.”

    “You really mean that?”

    “Yes. Yes, I do.”

    “Well, I guess she is. Nice.”

    “There are some young women from the better families- Well, they’re not always so nice. But Susan Edmonds. She’s-”

    “-nice,” Les finished for her.

    “Yes-nice.” It was obvious May didn’t know what to say either. She looked at him a moment longer and then she began walking again, down the avenue fragrant with summer flowers and beautiful with a moon all the more golden for the fleecy clouds passing over it.

    He stood and watched her retreat and then he caught up with her again.

    “Susan and I aren’t going to- Well, we’re not going to see each other again.”

    “I’m sorry.”

    “Why are you sorry?”

    “Well, I expect you feel the same way I did when you told me about Susan.”

    “I’ll tell you the truth.”

    “And what would that be?” she said with just a trace of anger in her voice.

    “I don’t know what I feel.”

    “That’s what you said to me four months ago, when you told me you were seeing Susan.”

    “I’m just-confused is all.”

    “Part of it is probably the pressure from the game.”

    “Maybe.”

    At the street comer, she paused and startled him by taking his hand. “Les, I still love you, but right now I can't help you. You’re heartbroken and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

    “I’m not sure it’s that, May. I’m not sure I’m heartbroken. I think it’s-a lot of things.”

    For the first time her gaze seemed to imply that she sensed trouble in him that went beyond Susan Edmonds.

    “My brother’s in town.”

    “Oh, God,” May said. “And with that other man?”

    “Neely? Yes.”

    During their time together, Les had told her many things about himself. He had not told her about helping with that one bank robbery, or about all the minor trouble he’d been in as a youth. But obviously she’d imagined some of the things left unsaid.

    “What do they want?”

    He sighed. “I wish I could tell you. I wish I could tell somebody.” She grabbed him by the elbow. “Don’t give in to them, Les. He’s your brother and I know how much you love him and how much you feel you owe him for helping to raise you-but don’t destroy your life over him.”

    He exhaled raggedly. “I-I’m scared. May. I guess that’s why I looked you up.”

    “Oh.” The single syllable carried a tinge of disappointment. “One of the reasons, I mean. May, I-” He shook his head. "If I said I missed you and that I still loved you, well-I couldn’t be sure of why I was saying those things right now. You understand?”

    “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

    “But I still think about you all the time and I think about all the things we used to do and the places we used to go and-”

    She took his hand again. “Les, don’t give in to them. Don’t go along with them. Please.”

    “He’s my brother.”

    "That’s still no reason to-”

    He blurted it out, unable to stop himself. "And he’s in bad trouble, May. Very bad trouble.”

    Within the past twenty-four hours a certain image had come to play in Les’s mind, one which just came alive with terrible vividness at odd moments. One over which he had no control at all.

    He saw T.Z. being led up to the gallows. The hooded executioner. The dangling noose. The trapdoor being tried, so they’d know it worked for sure. And then the image always became T.Z.’s face. T.Z. would look the way he had the night their father died, T.Z. sobbing and screaming “Don’t close your eyes! Don’t close your eyes!”

    Because T.Z. would know that he himself would be dosing his own eyes. Soon and forever.

    “You can’t let yourself get dragged into-whatever it is,” May said. The control she’d had over herself was going fast. “Promise me, Les.
Promise
me.”

    “I’ve got to help him.”

    “But he’ll destroy you, Les, just the way he’s destroyed himself.”

    “He’s not bad-not inside.”

    “I can’t judge him, Les. That’s not my place. You were raised differently from me. We didn’t have any money, but we did have a strong mother and father and that makes a difference. I know he’s your brother and I know he’s had a terrible life-but so have you, Les, and you haven’t turned out like him.” She clutched at his elbow again. “Oh, please, Les, promise me you won’t let him talk you into anything.”

    He sighed. “All right, I promise.”

    She leaned away and looked at him.

    “I’m afraid, now.”

    “It’ll be all right.”

    “I don’t care if I lose you to Susan. I could get over that. But if I lost you to prison or-something worse-” She shook her head.

    He realized that she had begun to cry, and then she turned away from him and started walking the half block left to her aunt’s place.

    He started to catch up to her but this time she turned around and said, “I need to be alone right now, Les. I’m going to say some prayers for you. Because I’m so scared.”

    And he knew enough to let her go, her prim form disappearing into the darkness lying between the splash of streetlights.

    He stood there for a time thinking mostly of T.Z. and what might happen, and then he thought of the coming baseball game.

    How could he ever pitch it with all these other things on his mind?

    He hurried on his way home to Time Check, hoping that tonight he could get some sleep.

    

    

    After leaving the note for Black Jake Early, Neely left the hotel and started walking north out of Cedar Rapids, along the railroad tracks. He remembered a deep woods in the hills surrounding the town. He also remembered something else.

    It took two hours to find what he was looking for.

    He left the tracks and climbed a steep hill thick with underbrush and burrs that stuck to him like sucking animals.

    Twenty feet back in the trees he saw the cabin. In the days when the railroads were laying rail from coast to coast, they occasionally built cabins for the supervisory crews that would stay behind. The buildings were sort of administrative outposts. But this late in the century, most of the cabins had been deserted, left to wild animals and the elements.

    The doorknob had rusted and was stuck, so Neely had to kick the door in hard.

    Then he went inside and stood amid the smells of mud and mildew, dog turds and a yellowing stack of newspapers.

    There were three cots and a desk and a wall with hooks that had been used to hang clipped papers to.

    He went over to one of the mattresses and sat down on it. Enough dust came up to make him sneeze.

    He stood up. He picked up two of the mattresses and took them outside and began slamming them against a spruce tree. The night was alive with insects and the odors of ginseng and wild ginger.

    Then he took the mattresses back inside and put them on the beds.

    T.Z. would complain at first, of course.

    T.Z. always complained.

    He’d say it was dirty and that the prospect of mean dogs and snakes scared him.

    He’d say he’d only stay out here if Neely stayed with him.

    Neely took out the makings and had a cigarette. The moist tobacco taste was sweet in his mouth. He exhaled, watching the way the moonlight fragmented through the branches of a pine tree.

    Since leaving the note in Black Jake Early’s room, Neely had come to calmly accept what he was doing. T.Z. was wanted-admittedly for a crime that Neely himself had committed-and was known to the law and so their traveling years were over.

    T.Z. was too dangerous to be with.

    And anyway-and this was the most difficult of things to admit to himself-anyway he was tired of T.Z.

    His nightmares.

    His women.

    His fears.

    There had been a time when Neely felt almost paternal to T.Z., but no longer. Now Neely was more like his keeper and the role had become a burden…

    He finished the cigarette and stamped it out in the earth.

    But there was one more thing he needed from T.Z. The combination to the safe at Clinton Edmonds’ bank. Only T.Z. could convince Les to get it for them…

    Neely went in and looked around the cabin once more, at the moonlight tumbling through the hole in the roof and shining on a broken kerosene lantern. He walked back outside, took in a good, deep breath of piney air and then walked back to town.

    

    

    Les was half a block from home when a huge man stepped from the shadows.

    “Evening,” the man said.

    Les, shaken by the man’s sudden appearance, said, “Evening.”

    “Beautiful night.”

    “Yes, yes it is.”

    Les looked around him. The lights were out in most of the houses. Distant down the block he could hear Mr. Waterhouse’s voice telling more tales of Cedar Rapids.

    “You’re Les, aren’t you?”

    Instantly, Les knew something was wrong. “That’s my name.”

    “I guess we need to have a little talk.”

    “About what.”

    “About your brother.”

    “How do you know I’ve even got a brother?”

    “Oh, now, Les, don’t start saying things like that. You know and I know that you’ve got a brother. And you know and I know that his name is T.Z. And you know and I know that he’s wanted for train robbery and murder.”

    “I’ve got a brother named T.Z. But I don’t know anything about him being wanted for train robbery and murder.”

    “There’s a tavern down the block. Why don’t we walk down there?”

    “Don’t think I’d care to.”

    “Hate like hell to have to talk at your boardinghouse. I mean, everybody you live with’s likely to find out.”

    “They’re friends of mine.”

    “Don’t doubt that for a minute, Les. But you know it’s a funny thing. When you’ve got a good friend and you think you know everything about him, but then you find out something secret-say something like his brother being a killer and a train robber-well, you start looking at that friend in a slightly different way. You may not even want to. You may even try to stop yourself from it. But you can’t. Because when you know something about a person, your mind changes. That’s just human nature.”