Thomas Wolfe, page 426
Well, sir, he just threw back his head and hah-hahed. “Why, yes!” he said, “I reckon that was a long time ago, sure enough. Well, maybe you’d better say no more,” he said; says, “but I’ll bet you if there was anything I did want to know,” he said, “you’d remember it.” “Why, yes,” I said, “of course, I don’t believe in any one braggin’ on themselves, but I’ve always been considered to have a pretty good memory,” I said. “Well, I should say you have,” he said, “I was tellin’ my wife the other day,” he says, “that it was remarkable to find a person who took as keen an interest in all that’s goin’ on as you do. Why,” he says, “I said to her I believe you remember everything that ever happened to you.” “Well, no,” I said, “I wouldn’t go so far as that. There may be a few things that I don’t remember very well before I was two years old, but there hasn’t been much I’ve missed out on since then.” “Well, I just bet there’s not,” he said, laughin’, you know, as big as you please. But, of course, then, I said to him—you know I didn’t want to do the man an injury, I thought I would give him credit for his good points—said, “Well, Mr. Bryan, there are things we could say against any one,” I said, “for there is no one alive that hasn’t got his faults. Judge not lest ye be judged,” I said. “That is certainly true,” he said. “We must all be charitable.” “And I suppose if I wanted to,” I said, “that I coul tell you things about Dock Hensley that might not be exactly to his credit, but,” I said, “you may rest assured on one score: he has certainly been a home-lovin’ man and he has stuck to his wife and childern: no matter what else he has done he has never been guilty of no immorality or licentiousness, no one has ever been able to say that about him,” and of course, that was true: they tried to prove something like that on him in that trial in order to discredit his character, they tried to show that he’d gone running around after other women besides his wife, but they couldn’t do it, sir—they had to give the devil his due—his morals were pure.
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“Why, Dock,” your papa said, “you’ve been good friends with those men for twenty years,” says, “I don’t see how you’ve got the heart to do it.” “Yes, I know,” he says, “it’s an awful thing, but some one’s got to do it. That’s part of my job, that’s what the people elected me for,” he says, “and besides I believe Ed and Lawrence would rather have me do it anyway. I’ve talked it all over with ’em,” he says—of course, they told it that he’d been goin’ down there to the jail to see them, and that they were all as thick as thieves, sir, laughin’ and carryin’ on together—says, “they’d rather have me do it than some stranger.” “Yes,” Mr. Hawke said, “but I should think it would trouble your conscience. I don’t see how you’d be able to sleep at night after doin’ such a thing.” “Why, pshaw! Mr. Hawke,” he said, “it wouldn’t bother me at all. I’ve done it many a time,” he said, “all I’ve got to do is spring the trap. Why, I think no more of it than I would of wringin’ a chicken’s neck,” he said. “What about it!” your papa says to me, “did you ever hear of such a man? Why it seems that all human feeling and mercy has been left out of him,” he says.
Well, we never could find out if Dock Hensley was in on it or not—if he knew they were goin’ to make that break—but if he did it looked mighty funny that—“I tell you what,” says Mr. Hawke a day or two after it happened, “I believe we misjudged Dock Hensley,” he says, “I believe he knew they were goin’ to make that break all along and that’s the reason,” he says, “he was takin’ it so easy.” “Well, now,” I said, “there’s something mighty funny about it somewhere. If he knew about it why did he come to your office with those passes? Why was he so anxious to have us come and see it?” “Well,” he says, “I reckon he did it in order to turn suspicion away from him.” “No, sir,” I said, “I don’t believe a word of it. He was just waitin’ his chance to hang ’em—yes, and gloatin’ about it.” Well, of course, Mr. Hawke didn’t want to believe it of him, said he didn’t like to think that any man could be so callous.
Of course, they said later that the whole thing had been arranged for weeks: that was the story, you know, that John Rand, the jailer, had been fixed, as the sayin’ goes, to let them make their getaway. Now they weren’t able to prove anything on the man and he may have been an honest all-right sort of feller—but there was something mighty queer about it somewhere: here they found him, you know, in Ed’s cell all trussed up as slick as a whistle and without a mark upon him, sir, to indicate he’d ever made the least resistance. Well, the story he told was that he’d gone in there to take Ed and Lawrence their supper and that they overpowered him and tied him up as soon as he came in, said they took his keys and unlocked the other three and skipped right out. Of course, those other three had nothing to do with Ed and Lawrence, they were just plain ordinary murderers, mountain grills, as your papa called them, down there waitin’ to be hanged, and the story goes that Ed said to Lawrence, “well, we’ll just turn them loose, too, while we are about it.”
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Well, there was something funny about John Rand’s story. People didn’t like the look of it. And then, within six months’ time John Rand goes into business for himself, opens up a great big plumbing shop on South Main street with a stock that must have cost him thousands of dollars. “Look here,” your papa said, “do you know what they’re saying? They’re saying that John Rand was bribed to let those men escape.” “Well,” I said, “they may be right. It’s mighty funny,” I said, “that a man who never earned over fifty dollars a month in his life gets money enough all of a sudden to start up a big business of his own. Now where did all that money come from: you’ve got to admit it looks fishy.” “Yes,” your daddy says, “but who bribed him? Where did the money come from?” he said. “Why,” I said, “it came from Yancey County where all their kinfolk and relations live—that’s exactly where it came from.” “Why,” he says, “are their people well-to-do?” “They’ve got plenty,” I said, “plenty—and they’d a spent every last penny they had to see those men go free.” Of course, I knew what I was talkin’ about, “Look here,” I said, “I’ve lived here all my life and I know those people better than you do. I grew up among them,” I said, “and I want to tell you they’d a stopped at nothing.” Why, they said the money poured in there like water, said thousands of dollars were spent in their defense, why, yes! didn’t they tell it that old Judge Truman alone—the brother of this same Perfessor Truman, of course, Ed Mears and Lawrence Wayne married Perfessor Truman’s daughters, they both married sisters—didn’t they tell it that Judge Truman alone, one of the biggest lawyers that they had in Yancey, spent over ten thousand dollars in defendin’ them, “and you can rest assured,” I told your papa, “that that wasn’t a drop in the bucket. Wherever they are today they’re well provided for,” I said, “and you needn’t waste your pity on them.” “Well,” he said, “I’m glad they got away. There’s been enough blood shed already. I don’t see any use in adding to it.”
I shook my head, “No,” I said, “you’re wrong. They should have been hanged and I’m sorry they didn’t get what was comin’ to them, but,” I said, “I’m glad we acted as we did. I shouldn’t have cared if they’d been caught, but I don’t want the blood of any man, guilty or innocent, on my conscience.” “No,” he said, “nor do I.” “But you know,” I said, “you know as well as you’re standin’ there that those men were guilty as hell”—that’s just the way I put it—why, murder, of course, as deliberate and cold-blooded murder as any one was ever guilty of. Here they told it at the trial that both of them walked in to that mica mine on Saturday afternoon when they were payin’ off, and they were spoilin’ for a fight—that’s all in the world it was. Why! I said to your papa at the time, if it had been money they were after, if they’d wanted to hold up the place, you might have seen some reason for it—but no! they were out to start a row, and they’d come ready for it. Of course, they’d both been drinkin’ and when they drank they were always up to devilment. And here, of course, they began to abuse that paymaster—a decent law-abidin’ man, they said—and to hinder him from payin’ off and, of course, that was when John Burgin stepped into the office. “Now, boys,” he said, “I don’t like to see you act like this. Why don’t you go on off now,” he says, tryin’ to reason with them, you know, “before you get yourselves in trouble?” “Why, damn you,” says Lawrence Wayne, “what business is it of yours what we do?” “Why, it’s no business at all,” John Burgin says, “only I don’t like to see you act this way. I don’t want to see you get into any trouble,” he said, “and I know when you wake up tomorrow morning you’re goin’ to regret this thing.” “Well, now,” says Lawrence Wayne, “don’t you worry how we’re goin’ to feel tomorrow morning. You worry about yourself. It’s people like you,” he says, “who don’t wake up at all. Why, damn you,” he says, “I never did like your face noway. Now you’d better go on,” he says, “while you’re still able to walk.” “All right,” John said, “I’ll go. I don’t want to have no trouble with you. I was just tryin’ to reason with you to behave yourselves for the sake of your wives and childern, but if that’s the way you feel about it, I’ll go on.” And they said he turned his back on them and was walkin’ away when Ed Mears shot him, turned to Lawrence, they said, with a kind of a drunken grin, says, “Lawrence, do you reckon I can hit him?” and he shot that man down that never did him no harm through the back of his head—and then, of course, they both cut loose on the paymaster and that man he had assistin’ him—killed them all, and then skipped out. “But to think of it!” I said to your papa, “there was no excuse, no provocation as far as I can see—they were simply out to kill,” I said, “and hangin’s the only treatment they deserve.” “Yes,” he said, “but I’m glad we acted as we did.”
Now, boy, I want to tell you:
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“Two . . . Two,” the first voice said, and “Twenty . . . Twenty,” said the other.
I know exactly when it was—I’m goin’ to tell you now: it was on the twenty-seventh day of September, sir, at twenty minutes to ten o’clock in the evening. The reason I know is—well, that’s what I’m goin’ to tell you—but it was just two days before that on the twenty-fifth day of the month, sir—that I’d had that talk with Ambrose Radiker in his saloon, that’s exactly when it was. That was just after Mr. Hawke had been off on that spree and they’d had to send for us to get him and bring him home. Now, I thought, I’ve had as much as I can stand, I won’t put up with it any longer, and I marched right in there by myself to have it out with him.
Well, I could see that Ambrose was telling me the truth—that was the time of course he told me how your daddy raved and carried on in his delirium against the Chinese and how much trouble they’d had with him—give the devil his due, of course—saloon keeper though he may have been, I believe he told the truth and was being honest with me. “Now,” he said, “I’ve done everything I can but if there’s anything more I can do to persuade him to stop drinkin’ you tell me what it is and,” he says, “I’ll do it!”—and yes! didn’t he stop in to see us that very evening on his way home, we were sitting there after supper, you know, your daddy reading the paper to me, and all, and says, “Will, I want you to promise me that you’ll try to cut out drinkin’. I hate to see you do it,” he said, “a man with your mind and your command of language and all—why there’s nothing you couldn’t accomplish if you set yourself to it!” “Why, yes,” I said, “he’s smart enough, all right. I don’t believe there’s a man in the community with half his natural ability,” I said, “and he could go far if it wasn’t for that accursed cravin’ for licker. There’s one thing sure,” I said, “he never learned it from any of my people—you know, my father, Major Woodsend,” I said, “never touched a drop in his life and never allowed any one to come inside his house if he thought he drank.” “Yes, I know,” says Ambrose, “he is certainly a fine man and a credit to the community,” he says, “and, Will,” he says, “here you are with everything it takes to make a man happy—with a fine wife and a family of childern and a good business and, Will, for their sakes,” he said, “you oughtn’t to do it, you ought to cut out drinkin’.” Well, your papa admitted he was right and he promised, you know, said he’d never touch another drop and Ambrose went on then—that was the very night it was, all right, the twenty-seventh of September.
Well, then, I heard it! “Two . . . Two,” said one, and “Twenty . . . Twenty,” said the other. “Why, Lord, woman!” says Mr. Hawke, “there’s no one there!”—went to the window and looked out, you know, says, “It’s something you imagined. You don’t hear anything,” he said.
“Oh, yes, I do!” I said—of course, I was as sure of it as I was sitting there—“there it is again!” I said, and of course I heard it just as plain, “Two . . . Two,” the first one over by the window said, and “Twenty . . . Twenty,” the other one kept whispering in my ear.
And that was the time the bell began to ring—that court-house bell, you know, banging it out as hard and fast as it could go. “Oh, Lord!” I said, “something’s happened. What do you reckon it can be?” You could hear them the whole way to the square shoutin’ and hollerin’ and smashing in the windows of Curtis Black’s hardware store to get the guns, that’s what they did, all right, and then man-like, of course, your papa wanted to be up and gone, grabs his hat, you know, says “I think I’ll go and see!”
“Oh, don’t go!” I said, “don’t go! I wish you wouldn’t go. You oughtn’t to leave me while I’m in this condition,” I said. “Why, Lord,” he said, “I’ll be back in half an hour. Why you’re all right,” he said, “there’s nothing can happen to you.” I shook my head—I had a premonition, I don’t know what else you’d call it—but something awful, awful, some approachin’ calamity. “I wish you wouldn’t go,” I said—but he was up and gone.
—
I looked at the clock as he went out the door and the minute hand stood just exactly at twenty minutes to ten o’clock.
So I waited. I felt it, you know, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it was comin’, and I listened to that old wooden clock there on the mantel—tock-tock, tock-tock, it said, ticking the minutes off, and let me tell you: that was the longest time I ever waited, each of those minutes seemed an hour. The clock struck ten.
And then I heard it—creepin’ along the alley-way above our house, and then I heard the fence-wires creak outside the window, and then it dropped down on the flower beds outside the house—and then it crept up soft and easy and began to crawl along the porch outside the sitting room door. “Oh, Lord!” I said—it flashed over me all at once, the meaning of it—“They’ve come! they’re here! What shall I do,” I said, “left all alone here with the childern to face them, these bloody men?”
Of course, I saw it then—the meaning of that warning—“Two . . . Two,” and “Twenty . . . Twenty”—they’d tried to warn me and your papa that they’d be there in twenty minutes. “He should have waited, he should have listened,” I said, “that was what they were trying to tell him.”
I went to the door—how on earth I ever mustered strength and courage in my condition, I don’t know how I ever did it, but child! child! I must have been given strength and courage to face them by some higher power—and I flung it open. It was a pitch-black night along towards the beginning of autumn. It had been raining but the rain had stopped and Lord! it seemed that you could cut the darkness with an axe, everything still and heavy, frosty-like—that was the reason we could hear them all so plain up on the square, but not a sound, sir! not a word now!
“All right!” I sang right out into the dark, you know, like I wasn’t afraid of anything. “I know you’re there, Ed! You can come on in.” He didn’t speak. I listened. I could hear him breathing, heavy-like. “Now, surely,” I said, “you’re not going to be afraid of me. I’m all alone,” I said, “I’m nothing but a defenseless woman, and you’ve got nothing to be afraid of”—of course, I knew that that would aggervate him.
Well, it stung his pride, he got right up and walked into the room: “I’m not afraid of any one,” he said, “man nor woman.” “Well, no,” I said, “I reckon you’re not. At least they all said you weren’t afraid of John Burgin when you shot him in the back when he was walkin’ away from you and surely,” I said, “a man who’s killed as many people as you have is not going to be afraid of one lone woman who’s been left alone in the house without pertection. Now I know better than that,” I said, “I know you’re not afraid of me.”
“No, Delia,” he said, “I’m not and that’s the reason that I’m here,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to fear from me,” he said, “I came here because I knew that I could trust you and you wouldn’t give me away. I need your help,” he said. Well, I reckon the look of the feller was too much for me, he looked like a hunted animal and let me tell you, I never want to see no such look in any one’s eyes as I saw in his that night: if he’d been to hell and back it couldn’t have been worse. It was too much for me, I couldn’t have told on him then no matter what he’d done. “It’s all right, Ed. You’ve nothing to fear from me, I won’t give you away. And you can tell Lawrence,” I said, “to come on in. I know he’s out there.”
