Death's Sweet Song (17 page)

“That's up to you. Or your wife.” I looked at both of them and knew that it was going to have to be Paula. Not until then did I realize that I was still carrying that tire tool in my hand—but Paula had noticed. She took it from me.

Manley never knew what hit him. Still dazed, he was trying to bring himself to his knees when Paula swung. It was the first time I had ever heard the mushy sound of a skull caving in. It's a sound I won't soon forget. Manley fell on his face, kicked once, and then was completely still. There was very little blood.

Everything in the room seemed to freeze for just a moment. I hadn't been ready for anything as cold-blooded as this, and neither had Sheldon. He lifted himself up in bed for just an instant, staring wide-eyed at Manley, who was dead. There was no doubt about that; he was dead. Then Sheldon made a thin little sound, almost a kittenish sound, and dropped back on the pillow.

Only Paula took it completely in stride. She looked at the tire tool, then wiped it neatly on Manley's shirt and put it to one side. She said, “He came in a car, didn't he?”

I nodded.

“Get it. Bring it back here.” Her breathing came slightly faster than usual, it was the only way her excitement betrayed her. She stood very straight and brushed her hair away from her forehead. “Mr. Manley,” she said, “is going to have a very bad accident.”

An “accident” was the only way. My father had seen Bunt Manley with me just a few minutes before; that fact immediately canceled out any attempt to get rid of the body. Sure as hell the Sheriff would be back asking more questions, and that was the last thing in the world I could allow to happen. I said, “All right. I'll get his car.”

I knew just where it had to happen, and how. I looked at my watch and it was almost eleven o'clock—just about time enough if we worked fast. I carried Manley's body out to his car and dumped him into the front seat. Paula stayed behind long enough to clean up what little blood there was on the floor, and then she came out and said, “I'll follow you in the Buick.”

“All right. We don't have far to go.” My heart was beating like a hammer against my rib cage.

“This part is up to you,” she said. “Do you know exactly what you're going to do?”

“Exactly. Now get in that Buick and follow me. Turn your headlights off when you see mine go out.”

She touched my arm. “You're all right, Joe,” she said huskily. “You're a lot of man.”

“Thanks,” I said flatly.

“I wanted you to know, Joe.”

“You told me. Now get in the Buick.”

She got into the Buick and I got into Manley's car. The body was sprawled all over the floor boards and I had to shove it over in order to get my foot on the brake pedal. I turned on the switch and started the motor.

When I got to the highway I slowed down until the Buick's headlights showed in my rear-view mirror. I looked at my watch again and it was ten minutes after eleven—still enough time. I hit thirty-five on the speedometer and held it there. Take it slow and easy. This is the one time in your life when you can't afford to pick up a highway patrolman, Hooper.

About two miles outside of Creston, just on the other side of the oil-field supply houses, I turned off the highway and eased down to a crawl until I was sure that Paula was still behind me. We followed the graveled road for maybe a mile, until I could see a stand of tall cottonwoods in the headlights. That was the thing I was looking for. Just beyond the cottonwoods I saw the outstretched arms of a railroad-crossing sign and I snapped off my lights. The Buick's lights went out behind me and both of us slowed down to a crawl again. Just before reaching the crossing I stopped the car.

Eleven-twenty, my watch said. It was time. I got out of the car and the country road was completely deserted. Paula, in the Buick, was about fifty yards back, pulled off on the gravel shoulder. I knew that she must have figured it out by now, because she made no move to get— out of the car.

I walked up the slight grade to the crossing and listened until my ears hurt, but there were only the million little sounds that come with the night. I got down on my knees and put an ear to the rail, but I couldn't be sure whether I heard anything or not. My watch said eleven-twenty-five.

The Rock Island Rocket, unless they had changed schedule, hit Creston at eleven-fifteen on the dot, stopping just long enough to take on express. From this crossing to Creston, as well as I could judge, was about eight miles. It shouldn't take a train like the Rocket more than ten minutes to cover eight miles.

Then I heard it. The rasping sound of its horn cut the night like a knife. I hurried back to the car and got it started. I slammed it forward until it exactly straddled the tracks, and then I saw the light. The dazzling brilliance of that single enormous headlight sprang up like a thousand suns on the other side of the cottonwoods. I thought, I've got to get out of here, and fast! I kicked the door open. All I could think of was getting out of there. Then I caught my arm on something, my wrist. I didn't know what was holding me and I was too excited „to find out. That locomotive was crashing around that stand of cottonwoods, the noise filling the night, and then I gave my arm a hard tug and it was free. I ran.

I never ran faster.

Paula had the Buick running by the time I got there. She had the door open and I dived in.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes.”

-"Joe, are you sure?”

“Goddamnit, I said yes!”

Then she slammed the car in gear, and we had traveled maybe fifty feet when all hell broke loose behind us. Fire lit up the sky like worlds colliding, and the locomotive slammed into Manley's car. The engineer didn't have a chance to stop, he didn't see the car until he was on top of it. I heard the nerve-shattering screech of steel on steel, and the racket of coupled coaches slamming together, and then the locomotive crashed headlong into the car, scattering it all over the countryside. I looked back once and that was enough.

Paula and I rode in tense silence until we hit the highway. Then she said, “Joe...” and I stared straight ahead. “Joe, are you sorry?”

“About Manley? It's a little late to be sorry, isn't it?”

She smiled. At a time like that she could smile. After a moment she said quietly, “You're quite a man, Joe, you really are. You're hard and you're tough. You're a lot tougher than you think.”

I said nothing. I was still hearing that locomotive slamming into Manley's car.

She leaned against me for just a moment. “I mean it, Joe. I've been thinking. I know a place in Arkansas,” she said, steering the car through the night, “near Hot Springs. A friend of Karl's lives there. For a price he would take care of Karl for a week or two, however long it takes his arm to get well. Then it will be the two of us, Joe. Just you and me.”

I looked at her. “You just now thought of this place?”

“Not exactly,” she said softly, almost crooned. “I'll tell you the truth, Joe. Until tonight I wasn't absolutely sure about you.”

“Are you sure now?”

“Yes.”

And then we were back at the station. Paula drove off the highway and put the car into the port. When she switched off the ignition I reached out for her, brought her hard against me, and pressed her back against the seat, my mouth on hers.

“Yes,” she said again, “I'm sure.”

She twisted expertly and was out of my arms, but her eyes were glistening with the brightness of excitement. I followed her into the cabin, almost ran over her, for she was standing frozen in the doorway.

“Joe!”

I saw what had stopped her. It was her husband, Karl Sheldon, lying face down on the floor.

I went down on one knee beside him and turned him over. His face was flushed, and the heat of his fever burned my hand as I felt of his forehead. I looked around and saw two suitcases partly packed, and I guessed that, in his eagerness to get away from here, he had tried to pack himself while Paula and I were out disposing of Manley's body. In the middle of the job he must have passed out.

My only emotion was one of anger. Goddamn him, I thought, why didn't he stay in bed? I had a crazy urge to close my fingers around his throat and choke out the little life that was left in him, but instead I lifted him and put him on the bed. Paula felt of his forehead and looked at me.

“Joe, we'll have to get your father.”

I tried to hold onto my anger. “Look,” I said. “It will just take more time, and time is a thing that could kill us. Not more than an hour ago my father was here. He looked at your husband and said he was able to travel.”

“That was an hour ago. He wasn't this sick then. Look at him—does he look in any shape to travel? Do you want him to die?”

“Why not?”

The pressure was being applied and the only thing I could think of was kill. It got to be a fever, a worse fever than the kind Sheldon had. Great God, I thought, what has happened to me in just a few short days? After a moment I took Paula's arm and held it for a moment. “I guess I didn't mean that,” I said.

She was in complete control of herself. “You know how I feel about Karl,” she said evenly. “I'll leave him, but not now, not like this.”

“I said I didn't mean it!” Then I turned for the door and walked out.

There was a night light burning in the station and it felt as bright as those factory floodlights as I lifted the receiver and gave the number. I could hear the ringing. It must have gone on for a full minute before my father answered.

“Dad, can you come out to the station? Right away?”

He didn't say a thing. I could hear his heavy breathing. I could almost feel his weariness. “Dad,” I said, “it's important.”

“All right, Joe.” He hung up. I sat down at the plank desk and tried to tell myself that it was going to be all right. After all, my father didn't know I had anything to do with the robbery and killing. For all he knew, I had just got myself into some kind of fool scrape over a woman. People got into that kind of trouble every day. And Sheriff Miller—if he had anything to throw, he would have hit me with it long before now. Miller meant business. He would have jumped on me good if he'd had any idea I was mixed up in a killing.

He hadn't jumped, so everything was all right. But it didn't feel all right. There was this thing with Manley and my nerves were still raw from that, but I couldn't see how they could possibly tie me up to a train wreck. That part had been foolproof, much better than the lake.

But it didn't feel right. As I sat there I could fed the cold emptiness growing in my guts.

I remembered then how easy it had seemed at first. A pushover robbery, fifteen thousand dollars in my pocket. Easy. What a joke that had been, but I wasn't laughing. Somewhere along the line my future had gone up in a bright, hot flame. It started the day I first looked at Paula Sheldon, and it was sealed the night I eavesdropped at Sheldon's window.

I needed sleep. I got up, went to the far wall of the station, and began moving cases of oil. When I had all the money together I locked the station again and went to my car and stuffed the money under the rear seat. I was just beginning to realize that I was actually preparing to leave Creston, preparing to wipe out in one night the plans that had been half a lifetime in the making. As far back as I could remember I had known just what I wanted—position, respectability, family; the same things, more or less, that every man wants out of life.

And what do you have now, Joe Hooper?

Fifteen thousand dollars. That's a lot of money in any man's language. And Paula Sheldon, if I wanted her on her terms. And I did.

The door to Number 2 opened and Paula said, “Joe, is that you?”

“Yes.”

She came outside and over to where I was standing.

“He seems to be sleeping. Did you call your father?”

“He's on his way.” She leaned against me and it was like a charge of electricity against my bare arm. I grabbed her, pulled her hard against me, and she squirmed like a snake.

“Joe, not now!”

“What's wrong with now?”

She laughed softly, moving her head to one side as I tried to kiss her. “What were you thinking, Joe, when I called to you just now?”

“Nothing.”

She smiled. I felt her hands on my arms, crawling up and down my arms and across my shoulders. Then, deliberately, she gouged her sharp fingernails into the muscles of my shoulders. “You're hard, Joe. I like men who are hard!”

That mouth of hers found mine and everything seemed worth while again. Who gave a damn about the past or the future, as long as there was a present? I held her tight, so tight that I knew I was hurting her, but she made no sound of complaint. My arms and legs felt weak when I finally released her.

“We're getting out of here,” I said. “Tonight.”

“If your father says it's all right.”

“All right or not. It's got to be tonight; I've got to get away from Creston.”

She was silent for a moment, then turned her face up to mine. “You really mean it, don't you, Joe? Don't you have any roots here? Don't you feel just a little sorry to leave this place?”

“No.”

“What about your father?”