The Transgressors (15 page)

A
s Lord had predicted, the problems of tomorrow were not the same as they had been today. A day’s acceptance of them, a day’s gain in strength, did much to reduce their awesomeness. She could smile at them—a little. She could hold them at an arm’s length, studying them from all angles, assaying their weight as she tested her own strength. Since she was one and they were many, they did get out of hand. Inevitably, usually around nightfall, they threatened to take over. But when that happened, well, so much for them! Off they went into the clothes closet of another day.

It was surprising how much there was to do in a place so isolated. Baths at a tiny spring. Sunsets and sunrises to be examined. Standing, simply standing, while you slowly turned this way and that, letting the wind bathe you endlessly as you drank in the unprimped beauty of a world in its infancy. It seemed that nothing had changed here since the beginning of time. Civilization had passed it by, and the evidence was all around you. Here, in their fetal stage, were garden-variety plants. Here were animals, unaware of man’s existence, ignorant of his killing proclivities. The birds could almost be fed from your hand. The huge jackrabbits reared up in your path, watched your approach with childlike curiosity. Even the cowardly coyotes were relatively brave; not relishing company, of course, but by no means panicked by it.

There was much to do, much to see, much to learn. Particularly, there was much to learn, most of it revolving around one’s obligations to the Stranger. He might be a contemporary, or he might come along sometime in the future. But you must always be aware of him; whatever you did was as much for him as it was yourself. The Stranger might need your discarded tire or piece of clothing, so you draped it over a fencepost or shrub. The Stranger might step into a hidden hole or gully, so you marked the danger with a pile of rock.

Because birds were necessary to the Stranger, you lifted the fallen nest from the ground and placed it back on its perch. For the Stranger, you killed rattlesnakes; and then, because the fangs could still kill if stepped upon, you slung the carcasses over a bush. You protected the carrion-eating buzzards: the Stranger must be left with no mess. For the same reason you did not tread on the scavenger tumble-bugs, the tiny black beetles who swarmed over offal as soon as it appeared, busily forming it into balls which they rolled away to their holes. The Stranger’s welfare was always your concern. Always and in all ways.

Donna approved of the philosophy of the Stranger; generally, that is, she approved of it. She thought it would be a wonderful thing if everyone put it into practice, and she would eagerly join in when everyone did. Until that improbable day came, however, one had better confine the practice to a place like this, some place where its obligations were not too onerous, and where one could be reasonably sure of eventual repayment. You just couldn’t do more than that, no matter how much you might want to. Help those who help you—that’s what Aaron had always said. God helps those who help themselves. The meek shall inherit the earth—after the strong have taken what they want.

The last was a little joke of Aaron’s, the only one he knew apparently, judging by the number of times he repeated it. But it had certainly been no joke to her, regardless of her obligation to laugh at it. She’d used to think that if she heard it just once more, if she had to laugh at it one more time—! But never mind. Aaron had been a good man, a wonderful man. And what he said was absolutely true.

No one had helped her when she needed it (except Tom, of course). No, by golly! Not unless they were darned sure of getting it back with interest, and they didn’t always then! What had she got out of slaving for her father’s brats? A chance for more slavery, that was all! Mrs. McBride had needed a combination maid and nurse, so she’d been given the job for her board and room, and—

No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t true. She’d received much more than that: good clothes, schooling, the best medical care, spending money, everything a girl could want within reason. No one could have been kinder or more thoughtful than Aaron, even taking her part against his own wife. And—
You just bet he had!
Because his wife was dying, and he was already grooming an attractive young girl to take her place. Putting her under so many obligations, that she’d probably have kissed his—his foot if he’d asked her to. And it was a wonder that he hadn’t done that, in view of all the other nasty.…

Oh, no! No, no, no, no! She shouldn’t think such things! She didn’t think them. Aaron had given her safety and security, the most important things in the world. He’d asked nothing at all, in return. She didn’t have to marry him; he’d told her that repeatedly. She was perfectly free to do as she pleased. And starve to death while she was doing…

The days flowed together, all different, all alike. Time stood still; it raced forward; it ran backward. Time was a vehicle in an old movie, speeding ahead while its wheels spun in reverse. Today was tomorrow, and tomorrow, today. Her problems lessened, and went away. But they did not go far; she could still see their threatening shadows. But they
were
gone. And they would stay gone, unless something happened to divert her from the bright goal which was almost within her grasp. In the prim periphery of her conscious thinking, she could not admit, of course, that she had such a goal. But she
did
have it, and subconsciously, she
did
think about it. And she knew it could be managed, that she could manage it, if nothing happened. Things needed only to go on as they were for a while, and eventually she would have back all that she had lost, plus so much, much more. Everything that she had lacked in her first marriage, and that she had hardly been aware of until now. All the security of married life, plus the magic that made it worth living.

She could have it all. If nothing went wrong.

And something did.

The murder of Joyce Lakewood.

Her brutally beaten body was discovered by her landlord when he called to collect the rent. Since days had elapsed since her murder, the exact time of death—or even a close approximation thereof—could not be established. But it would be positively stated that she had died between ten o’clock one night and six o’clock the following morning.

Tom Lord had no alibi for that time.

He had an excellent motive for killing her.

D
eputy Sheriff Buck Harris and his family lived in a five room and lean-to cottage near the railroad tracks. It was, in fact, on the railroad right of way, a circumstance which had aroused no end of joshing around the sheriff’s office. Deputy Nate Hosmer claimed that you couldn’t get in the door without showing a ticket. Deputy Dill Estes declared that Buck could sit in his privy and snatch striking paper from passing trains. Deputy Hank Massey stated (as gospel truth) that he had started to bed down at Buck’s one night and climbed into a carload of Brahman steers. Massey went on to relate that he’d really been in trouble when he hit the Fort Worth stockyards. The suspicious pen wranglers declared that they’d heard stories like this before; they was always gettin’ in a Big Sands beef that claimed to be an innercent visitor at Buck’s house. And if he really wasn’t a steer, how come he was hung like one? How come he had the business portion of a Bull Durham sign? Well, they had him there, o’ course; didn’t see no way of talkin’ hisself out of
that
one. “Reckon I’d be canner beef right now, if a Association detective hadn’t come along. He seen I wasn’t branded proper, so he made ’em send me back.”

Buck took the joshing good-naturedly, chuckling and grinning behind his hand. Maybe he felt like his pa had, that you should never mention rope in the hangman’s house, but you couldn’t tell it if he did. There fellas were his friends. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be joking with him.

He hadn’t invited any of them to the house in years, but that had nothing to do with hurt feelings. It was just that he and Miss Mamie were awful short of money, and what with so many kids in the house, there wasn’t much room for outsiders.

Buck stopped on the corner above his cottage, studying it covertly while he rolled himself a cigarette. It didn’t look too bad, he decided. Not bad at all for a former section-crew house. He’d bought it from the railroad for a couple hundred dollars, and then practically rebuilt it. The land wasn’t his, of course; couldn’t own a chunk of the right of way. But there was an understanding that he would kind of keep an eye on the railroad’s property, so the rent was practically nothing.

He sealed the cigarette with his tongue, closed the end with a deft twist, and tipped it into his mouth. He flicked the head from a kitchen match and touched it to the cigarette; spewed blue smoke from his nostrils.

Tilting the hat back from his forehead—a high, sensitive forehead—he reassessed the house with his fine gray eyes:

Not bad looking at all. Couldn’t hardly tell what it had used to be. Look better if it was a different color, but a light paint wouldn’t be very practical so close to the tracks. And the railroad had its own ideas about paint. He’d had a choice of red or mucklededung yaller, so he’d taken the yellow.

Naturally that started another round of joshing. Deputy Hank Massey said the house was in the pre-zack location where the train crews cleaned out the shitters, and the mucklededung yellow was the inevitable result. “That’s gospel fact,” asserted Hank solemnly. “I leave to the boys here, if it ain’t.”

“I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles,” said Dill Estes. “Why the year afore you settled down there, Buck, they was sixteen gandy dancers killed by flying turds.”

“You laugh if you want to, Buck,” said Nate Hosmer severely. “People laughed at Noah when he told ’em the flood was comin’, and this is per-zackly the same proposition.”

Buck grinned and chuckled, a hand held over his deformed mouth. These fellas were his friends, and there was no reason to get riled. Repaint the house red? Well, that probably wouldn’t change nothin’. The boys would just say that the engineer had the nose bleed, or that the conductor had the bloody piles, or—or somethin’. Seemed like they always had something to say, and he never did. He could think of plenty—he had the words up there in his head—but he couldn’t say ’em. Almost seemed like they got as fouled up as them teeth of his.

It was late in the season, late afternoon of a fall day. But the weather was only pleasantly cool, and Buck’s children were out in the yard. There were four of them, all girls, rocking sedately in the homemade lawn swing. The oldest was thirteen, and the youngest was six. All wore white anklets and strapped patent-leather sandals. All wore crisp calico dresses of the same pattern. Miss Mamie bought cloth by the bolt, and made the dresses up in batches. The shoes were passed on from one child to another, Buck repairing them himself. Even from this distance their mouths reflected an occasional golden glint; sparkled with the elaborate handiwork of the orthodontist. And the sight made Buck’s heart swell with pride. The job was just about done for two of the girls, and in a few years more they’d all be sitting jake. Even now, even with those gold frames on ’em, they had just about the prettiest teeth you ever saw. Why those girls were so pretty, Buck thought proudly, you’d never guess they were his kids!

One of them saw him and spoke to the others. Arising from the swing, they came to meet him. They walked two abreast, since the dirt path was narrow, the youngest girls in front and the oldest in the rear. They came to a stop, beaming at him shyly, and dipped their knees in a semicurtsy.

Buck had never decided whether he should tip his hat to them, so he just kind of fumbled it around on his head. They said, “Good evening, sir,” to him, and he said, “Evenin’, girls,” to them. (Afternoon is always evening in the South and Southwest.) They regarded one another for a moment; the girls gravely shy, Buck squirming with an excruciating mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. Then the girls curtsied again and went back up the path; the youngest in the front, the oldest in the rear, the little belts of their dresses spanking them in decorous unison.

“Dawgonnit!”
yelled Buck, in silent exuberance.
“Now, ain’t that somethin’!”
And mentally he slapped his thigh with his hat.

Buck had worked for Old Man Billy Boy Bentley’s 3-B Ranch before he became a deputy. His pa had been the ranch’s smith and crumb-boss [
bunkhouse custodian
], and when Pa got drunk and burned himself up in his own forge, Old Man Billy Boy took charge of Buck. Buck was ten years old at the time; he’d only been to school one three-month term. But Billy Boy took him into the ranch-house parlor, sort of banging and poking him along with his cane, and handed him a book from the rows of glass-sheltered cases. “Now, start readin’,” he commanded. “Start in right there where I’m pointin’.”

Well, Buck couldn’t read, of course; he didn’t even know his A-B-C’s. But Old Man Billy Boy whanged him with his cane and yelled that he was just being stubborn. So Buck began rattlin’ off the first stuff that came into his mind; mixed up snatches of stuff he remembered from school.

“C-A-T spells man; G-O-D, dawg; six and nine is eleventy-three—”

“Yeow!” yelled the old man. “Hul-ly Jeez-ass!” He hit Buck over the head so hard that he practically drove him through the floor. Then, word by word, he read the passage aloud, while Buck followed the course of his pointing finger.

Billy Boy interpreted the passage as meaning that a fella had better do his grabbin’ and gettin’ while he was still of an age to do it. Elsewise, when he became old and porely, he’d have to go around suckin’ other folks’ eggs (and thus be false to ’em). There was no time or no sense to crawling before you walked, or walking before you ran. You had to start running right off, without no fartin’ or snortin’. “We just got this world, then the fireworks, boy. Just this world, then the fireworks, and we ain’t long for this world.”

By a process of memorizing, Buck learned to read before he could spell, before he had any real notion of what he was reading. He became familiar with the appearance of the words, learning to recognize them when he saw them again. And in no time at all, he was reading. Similarly, he learned practical arithmetic and the other essentials of a basic education. He was never allowed to slack up. The slightest sign of doing so brought a whanging from Billy Boy.

According to Billy Boy’s own story, he’d started ranching with nothing but a satchel and a six-shooter. He’d stuffed the satchel with one hand and warded off objectors with the other; and he hadn’t stopped until the satchel was full and no complainants were left. The story was approximately true, in a figurative sense. Many of the great cattle dynasties had been founded by downright banditry. Now a very old man, he frequently regretted his one-time high-handedness, and suspected its wisdom. But he still didn’t spare Buck. Buck must learn to accept himself as he was, and make the best of it; and no self-pity.

“Hul-ly Jeez-ass!” he yelled, when Buck dribbled and splashed his food. “You look like a cow farted bran in your face!” And when Buck’s eyes moisted a little, and his big Adam’s apple gulpily traversed his throat, Billy Boy whanged him and cursed him. “Don’t you pucker up on me, boy! Wouldn’t look like a tit-suckin’ mule if you didn’t want to! Doin’ it just to spite people!”

Buck understood—mostly. The old man was helping him all he could in the only way he knew how. There was no proper dentist in Big Sands at the time—certainly nothing in the way of an oral surgeon. Anyway, the ranch was almost a half-county out of town, and months sometimes passed before anyone drove or rode in.

Miss Mamie had been raised on a small and perpetually profitless spread adjoining the 3-B. And being neither needed nor wanted there, she hired on as a kitchen flunky for Billy Boy. Buck took a shine to her right away, and she took one to him. She seemed oblivious of his mule’s mouth. He seemed unaware of her one milk-eye and her slightly withered left arm. Briefly, all the elements of a romance were present, but it never came to a natural fruition. Billy Boy watched its slow blooming, and impatiently took charge. They was just about the two ugliest people in the world, wasn’t they? They didn’t think no one else was going to marry them, did they? Well, what the hell was they waitin’ for, then?

They were married. Long before the children began to come along, Buck was making plans to move into town. But Billy Boy was prodding him, jumping in ahead of him, before he could act. He’d spoken to the sheriff about Buck; the 3-B swung a lot of weight in the county. So Buck had himself a deputy’s job.

Billy Boy tried to give him a cow to take with him, but Buck declined. His neighbors might object to a cow, he pointed out, and he didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot.

During his first several months in town, Billy Boy frequently called at the house, always with some gift from the ranch. Once he’d brought a hind-quarter of beef, and another time it was two huge home-smoked hams, and another time it was something else. All this was highly acceptable to a man with a modest salary and bills that stretched into infinity. Buck acknowledged the gifts with gifts of his own: an expensive bridle, two quarts of rare whisky, and so on. And abruptly the old man stopped coming to the house.

Buck hoped he hadn’t made him angry. He hoped and believed that Billy Boy had simply been giving him a final lesson, and that he’d passed with colors flying:

When anything was done for him or given to him, he must repay it in kind. He must, because he was completely without good looks and personality, without any of the traits and attributes which attract the consideration of others and serve as their own reward.

That was what the old man had always taught him: That he was as ugly as sin and as bright as hell with the fires put out. In himself, he had nothing to offer but a strong back and a weak mind.

Thus, Old Billy Boy’s lesson…or what Buck thought of as a lesson. He never forgot it until Tom Lord came along.

Tom never joshed him like the other fellas did. Instead, Tom
talked
to him, and he talked to Tom. Without constraint, without putting his hand to his mouth, he could talk to another human being. And the wonder of it was almost too much for his inhibited hide to hold.

The fellas were always kind of hanging around Tom; a grin or a few words from him and they seemed kind of set up for the day. Yet, when he could do it tactfully, Tom would pass by the others and cotton up to him.

Buck thought it might be a mistake at first. He thought maybe Tom was just a hell of a nice guy who couldn’t feel easy unless everyone else did. He thought of every possible reason why Tom couldn’t really want any truck with him. And then, joyously, he at last conceded the incredible truth. Tom liked him. Tom wanted him for a friend. Tom, the doctors’ son, the chief deputy—one of the smartest men in town and the best-lookin’ to boot—Tom had chosen him for a friend! And why would Tom do that unless he and Buck had something in common? Unless Buck had at least a little of what he had in himself.

There was a mutual worship between Buck and his family. But it was, in the main, silent. Buck and his wife could hardly pass a “good evening” with each other without blushing. The girls conversed with one another when they were alone, but they had little to say at other times. Then Buck became Tom’s friend, and the situation changed. At last there was talk. And the voice most frequently heard was that of Buck himself.

“Had a long talk with Tom Lord today,” he would announce casually, as he sipped his supper coffee. “Tom wanted to know what I thought about…” And the girls would listen, awesome-eyed, prompting him with shy questions, as he told what Tom had said to him and what he’d said to Tom. And Miss Mamie’s withered arm would twitch and squirm with pleasure at her husband’s happiness.

Buck had seen the need for an R & I bureau as soon as Tom had, but he felt it would be presumptuous of him to mention it before Tom. After all, Tom was the chief deputy, and it was up to him to have the first say in such matters. Meanwhile, he could be preparing himself for the time when the topic was raised, and Tom would want his opinions and help.

When it became apparent that Tom wanted nothing from him, as regarded the Bureau, except noninterference, Buck was naturally let down. But he was by no means angry with his friend. The sheriff was constantly riding Tom lately. Tom was nervous about getting everything right, and you couldn’t blame him if he got a little short.