High Hunt (36 page)

I
T
was a Thursday morning several weeks after Mother's visit and Clydine had just got up. I was still lying in bed. She stood nude in front of the full-length mirror that was bolted to the bathroom door. She cupped her hands under her breasts.

“Danny,” she said thoughtfully, hefting them a couple times.

“Yes, love?”

“Do you think I ought to start wearing a bra? I'm pretty chesty, and I wouldn't want to start to droop.”

I howled with laughter.

“Well,” she said, “I
wouldn't
! I don't see what's so goddamn funny.”

She was absolutely adorable. Sometimes I'd catch myself laughing for no reason, just being around her. I loved her, not with that grand, aching, tragic passion that I'd pretty well burned out on Susan, but rather with a continual delight in her, a joy just in her presence. Believe me, there's a lot to be said for joy as opposed to tragic passion. For one thing, it's a helluva lot less exhausting in the long run.

Anyhow, nothing would do but our cutting classes and my taking her out immediately so she could buy herself some new bras.

We got back about eleven, and she modeled them for me.

“What do you think?” she said doubtfully.

“It's different,” I said.

“You don't like it.”

“I didn't say that. I just said it's different. How does it feel?”

“Like a darn straitjacket,” she admitted. Then she sighed deeply. “Oh, well, I guess it's just another one of the curses of being a woman.”

“Poor Blossom.” I laughed.

She stuck her tongue out at me. I'd noticed, but hadn't mentioned, the fact that she'd backed way off on the truck-driver vocabulary and hadn't really gotten much involved with
the militants up here. She'd told me that she disagreed ideologically with the main thrust of the university militants, but I suspected that she'd just plain outgrown them. At least I didn't have to worry about her getting her cute little fanny chucked into jail every weekend. That was something anyway.

After lunch she had a couple of classes, so I had a chance to get some concentrated work done. I was tackling the possibility that Melville's
Billy Budd
was not a simple hymn of praise to the natural man, but rather a much more complex parable of the struggle of good and evil—represented by Billy and Claggart—for the soul of Captain Vere. I'd landed on it by way of the chance discovery that Melville had practically camped on the New York Public Library copy of Milton's
Paradise Regained
all during the time he was writing
Billy Budd
.

I was deep in the mystic mumblings of the Old Dansker when Jack showed up.

He looked awful. He hadn't shaved for several days, and his eyes looked like the proverbial two burned holes in a blanket.

“Jesus, man,” I said, holding the door open for him, “what the hell happened to you?”

“I just got out of jail,” he said.

“
Jail?
”

He nodded grimly and collapsed into the armchair by the door. “You got anything to drink?”

I got him a water glass and poured it half-full of whiskey. His hands were shaking so badly that it was all he could do to get a good solid slug of bourbon down.

“What the hell happened, Jack?” I demanded.

“You know that .45 I bought from Sloane?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Sandy stuck the damn thing in her mouth and blew her brains all over the ceiling of my bathroom.”

“Oh, Jesus!”

“The cops held me on suspicion of murder for three days in the Tacoma jail until they finally decided that she did it herself. They had the inquest this morning.”

“Christ, man, why didn't you get in touch with me?”

“I thought you knew. It's been in all the newspapers and on the radio and TV.”

“We've been pretty busy, and I just haven't paid any atten
tion to the news for a while. God, Jack, I'm sorry as hell. I should have been there.”

“Nothin' you coulda done.” He shrugged. “They were just playin' games is all. Who the hell ever murders anybody by stickin' a gun in their mouth?”

“When did it happen?”

“Monday night. I'd been out—just kinda pokin' up and down the Avenue, you know. Anyhow, when I got back, there she was all sprawled out over the toilet stool with blood and hair and all that other gunk splattered all over the ceiling. Christ, Dan, I can still see it.” He covered his eyes with one trembling hand.

“Finish your drink,” I said, holding out the bottle to refill his glass.

He nodded and drank off the whiskey, shuddering as it went down. I filled his glass again.

“Look at that,” he said, holding out his hands. They were trembling violently. “I can't stop
shakin'
. I been shakin' ever since I found her. My hands shake all the time.”

“Come on, Jack, settle down,” I said. He was in tough shape. I should have warned him about it. God damn it, I should have warned him!

“Christ, Dan, I can't. My nerves are all shot. I feel like somebody just kicked all my guts out.”

“Was she acting funny or anything before it happened? I mean, did she give you any kind of warning at all?”

“Hell no,” he said. “She always was kinda strange—you know, kinda quiet—but she wasn't any different at all. Christ, the last thing she said when I left was, ‘See you when you get back.' God, Dan, that sure as hell don't sound like somebody who's gonna kill theirself, does it?”

“No way,” I said.

“We was gettin' along just fine. Hell, no beefs, no trouble, nothin'. And then she just ups and kills herself.”

“Did she leave a note or anything?”

“Nothin'. I think that's why the cops put the arm on me. She even cleaned the place all up before she did it.”

“They got it all straightened out at the inquest, didn't they? I mean, they didn't leave the case open or anything?”

“No. It's all settled. They had a lotta medical experts in and all. Angle of the bullet and all that shit. I was there because I found the body and called the cops. I got to hear the whole thing. Couple guys she'd gone with before I met her got called
in, and they both said she'd talked about it when they knew her. Anyway, they finally ruled it 'death by suicide,' and the cops had to let me go. The bastards sure as hell didn't
want
to, I'll tell you that. Once those motherfuckers get their hands on you, they hate like hell to have to turn you loose.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“God,” he said, “I couldn't even go back inside my trailer.”

“What'd they do, padlock it all up?”

“No, nothin' like that. I just couldn't make myself do it. I went on out there, but I just couldn't go inside. Ain't that a helluva note?”

“You want to bunk in here for a few days?” It wouldn't set too well with the Little Flower, but this was an emergency.

“No, Dan, thanks anyway, but I gotta get outa the area for a while. I'm goin' down to Portland. Maybe stay with the Old Lady or something.”

“You're welcome to stay here,” I said.

“It's too close, man. I gotta get away. I was just wonderin' if you could maybe come back down with me and get some of my clothes and stuff out of the trailer for me. I can't make myself go back in there. I just can't do it.” He sat hunched over, holding both hands around his glass.

“Sure, Jack,” I said, “I'll leave a note for my roommate.”

“How is she?” he asked.

“She's fine,” I said. I scribbled a quick note to her and we took off. I followed his Plymouth on down to Tacoma and on out toward Madrona. It was cloudy and calm that day, and the trailer court seemed kind of shadowy, tucked back in under a bunch of big old pine trees.

I got out and went over to where he'd parked his car. “What do you need, Jack?” I asked him.

“Grab my clothes and some shoes and stuff,” he said, not looking at the trailer. “Oh, get my transistor radio, too, huh? It's in the bedroom.”

“Sure, Jack.”

“Don't go in the bathroom, man. It's awful.”

“I'll have to,” I said. “You'll need your razor and all.”

“Oh,” he said.

“It'll be OK,” I told him. I went on into the trailer. It took me about twenty minutes to pack up all his clothes. I didn't go into the bathroom until I'd got everything else squared away.

Actually, it wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Most of the mess was in a dried pool between the toilet and the tub. I gathered
up Jack's stuff and took it on out to the living room. I tucked it all in various places in his suitcases and then hauled them on out to his car. On my last trip I carried out his radio and his shotgun.

“No, man,” he said, his face turning a kind of pasty color, “leave that fuckin' gun here!”

“You can't leave it here,” I told him. “Somebody might swipe it.”

“
You
keep it then. I can't stand to look at the goddamn thing. I told you, Danny, my nerves are all shot.”

I took the gun over and put it in my car.

“Did you lock up?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “I'll slip the latch when I leave. I'll clean up that mess in there.”

“You don't have to do that.”

I shrugged. “Somebody has to.”

“Thanks, Danny,” he said in a shaking voice. “I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to go in there again.”

“You probably ought to sell it,” I told him.

He nodded. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “I think there's some beer in the refrig. Why don't we sit out here and have a couple? I need something.”

“Sure, Jack.” I went on back in and carted out the six-pack.

“I'll make arrangements with Clem to pick up the trailer,” he said as I got into the front seat with him. He started the car.

“Where we going?” I asked him.

“Just down the road a ways. I can't stand to look at that damn trailer is all.”

“OK.”

We drove on out to the highway and then pulled off into a little roadside park.

“God, man,” he said, opening a can of beer, “I'm just completely wiped out. It was all I could do to keep from tossin' my cookies when you hauled out my shotgun.”

“It'll probably take you a while to get over this,” I told him, popping open a can for myself.

“I don't know if I
ever
will,” he said. “Danny, my
hands
shake all the time. I'm
afraid
, and I don't know what the hell it is I'm afraid of—maybe everything. Shit, I'm afraid of guns, the trailer, bathrooms, blood—Christ, anything at all, and I just come all apart.”

“You'll be all right, Jack. It's just going to take you some time, that's all.”

He sat at the wheel, staring moodily out at the murky day. “I don't know if you remember or not, but I had an argument with the Old Man once when I was a kid. I said that when a guy grew up, he wasn't afraid of anything anymore.”

“I remember,” I said.

“He tried to tell me I was all wet, but I wouldn't listen to him. I know what he meant now.”

We sat drinking beer and not saying much.

“You fixed OK for money?” I asked him.

“Christ, I don't know. I don't think Old Clem'll spring loose with my check until Saturday. I hadn't thought about that.”

“I can give you twenty,” I said.

“Hell,” he said, “I could always tap Sloane.”

“I'd rather give it to you myself,” I said.

“Shit,” he said, “you already done more than enough.”

I shrugged. “You're my brother, Jack. That's what it's all about.” I gave him a twenty.

“Thanks, Kid,” he said. “I'll get it back to you.”

“No rush,” I said.

“I suppose I ought to get goin',” he said. “I'd like to make it to Portland before too late.”

“Sure, Jack. Just drop me at the gate of the trailer court, OK?”

“Right.”

We drove on back and stopped outside the court.

He held out his hand and we shook.

“I probably won't see you for a while,” he said, “but I'll keep in touch.”

“Sure, Jack.”

“It's been a wild six months or so, hasn't it?”

“Far out,” I said.

“At least we got to go huntin' together,” he said. “That's somethin' anyway.”

“It was the best of it,” I told him.

He nodded and I opened the door.

“You know somethin', Danny? What I was sayin' about a guy bein' afraid of things—that argument me and the Old Man had?”

“Yeah?”

“He was right, you know that?”

“He usually was, Jack.”

“Yeah. Well, I'll tell you somethin', and this is the straight stuff. Maybe I hide it pretty good, but to tell you the honest-
to-God truth, I been afraid all my life. It just took somethin' like this to make me realize it.”

“Everybody's afraid, Jack, not just you. That's what Dad was trying to tell you. You've just got to learn to live with it.”

He nodded. “Well,” he said, “take care now.”

“You too, Jack.”

We shook hands again, and I got out.

I stood at the side of the road watching his battered Plymouth until it disappeared around a corner about a half mile down the highway.

That evening I told Clydine about it.

“I told you a long time ago that it was going to happen,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “How did you know, anyhow?”

“I just knew, that's all.”

“That sure isn't much help,” I said. “I mean, if I were to suddenly go into the business of suicide prevention, it wouldn't give me much to go on, would it?”

“I don't know,” she said thoughtfully, “the girl just seemed to think of herself in the past tense somehow. Even that creepy Helen talked about what she planned to do next week or next year. Sandy just never did. She didn't have any future. A woman
always
thinks about the future—always. When you find one who doesn't, watch out.”