The old man searched the pale gray eyes of the third intruder, who sat patiently before him, his fingers toying absently with the slide of his braided leather lanyard. Why had these men pushed their way into his snug little house? Who were they?
"Oh, come on now, Mr. Ballard," the gray-eyed one said. "Think back! I cannot believe you don't remember me, 'cause I remember you. Oh, I remember you very well indeed. I even remember those fancy waistcoats you always wore." He reached over and felt the silky lapel of the old man's green-and-gold brocade waistcoat between the pads of his fingertips. "I am sorely pained to see you so crippled up, Mr. Ballard. May I have that, please?" He took the old man's cane from between his knees. "For weeks now me and my followers have been hiding in ditches and barns, while men with guns searched everywhere for us. And all that time I dreamed of catching up with you in your schoolhouse, after everyone had gone home. Just you and me, all alone. Like when you used to keep me after school."
"You were one of my pupils?" Mr. Ballard asked, his numb lip making the p's puffy.
"There you go! Now let's see if you can come up with my name. Think back. Think back."
But over the years, Mr. Ballard had taught so many children in his one-room school in Tie Siding, a town that had sprung from the red dirt of the Wyoming/Colorado border to provide the Union Pacific railroad with the pitch-soaked ties it needed in its land-grabbing race against the Central Pacific. It wasn't long before ancient high plateau pine forests were plundered to extinction, and the town rapidly declined from its zenith when it had boasted two general stores, three hotels, a post office, the biggest saloon south of Laramie, and a stone jail, the only stone building in this town of wood. Of all this, there remained only one store whose keeper doubled as postmistress. By the time Mr. Ballard had his stroke, only a dozen students were left at the school, so few that his place could be taken by a recent widow who had once been his pet student, and who now combined her teaching duties with the task of bringing him meals and keeping his clothes clean and tidy. Mr. Ballard frowned and pressed his fingers to his lips in an effort to envision which of the half-forgotten parade of little boys that had passed through his school could have grown into this man with the dead, ice-gray eyes. His fingertips felt the drool that his lips were unable to feel, and he wiped it away with a little shudder of disgust. He had always been meticulous about his dress and his diction, and the effects of his stroke on both these carefully cultivated social attainments caused him intense embarrassment. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't remember you."
"Oh, now, please try real hard to think, Mr. Ballard," the pale-eyed intruder implored. Then he suddenly smashed the tabletop with the cane. "Think back, goddamn it!"
This eruption of violence brought a sudden epiphany of recognition, and Mr. Ballard's left eye widened in terror.
Lieder grinned. "Ah, now you remember! I can see it in your eyes. Well… in the one eye, anyway. Yes, it's that no-account Lieder kid, back like a biblical scourge! You thought you'd seen the last of me when you had me dragged off to that home for wayward boys, didn't you? Didn't you, Mr. Ballard? But you didn't reckon on this force I read about in a book. Karma. And what Karma means is this: As you dish it out, so will you get it crammed down your own throat, sooner or later! And you sure could dish it out, Mr. Ballard. Oh, Lord how you could dish it out! For some reason, you set yourself against me from the first day I came to your school."
"I doubt that I set-"
"You set yourself against me! I was a smart kid, and I had questions to ask. But you set yourself against me. Do you remember that first day?"
"I've had so many pupils. I can't remember any one particular-"
"Oh, you're going to remember. Don't you worry about that, Mr. Ballard. I've risked my neck just to jolt your memory. I've come back to this one-dog town, when I knew they might be waiting to drag me back to prison."
"… I really don't-"
"The first day I came to school, I tried to let you know that I was smart and worthy of your attention and praise. I raised my hand time after time, but you only called on your pets. Then when you were telling the class about Indians, I leant over and whispered to a boy about how I'd once seen a Indian with a patent medicine huckster, and I described how he'd done the Rain Dance right there in front of the Price Hotel. You slammed that switch of yours down on your desk and snarled at me to shut up. I tried to explain that I was just telling this boy about Indian dancing-but you said if I knew all that much about dancing, then I'd better come up to the front and dance for everybody. Are you telling me you don't remember that?"
"I don't remember! I swear to God I don't." There was a whimper in his voice, and the drool flowed freely.
"You don't remember, huh? Well, let me paint the picture for you. I was eight years old. Skinny little barefoot kid in short pants. You told me to dance for the class, but I told you I didn't want to. I was dying of shame, but you got me by the hair and you started hitting the backs of my legs with your willow switch, and I started dancing. Dancing and whooping. And the harder you hit, the higher I danced and the louder I whooped!" Hard tears filled Lieder's eyes, and his jaw muscles rippled. "And you said: 'Well, well, it seems our little Indian can sing as well as dance.' And everyone laughed. And that willow switch of yours came down across my bare legs again and again and again! And I danced for you, Mr. Ballard! And I sang for you!"
Both the followers stood, their mouths open with rapt attention. They were entranced by the way their leader could flow words out like that!
"I assure you, young man, that I never meant to-"
"And your pet, that Polish girl with the yellow curls? The one that was always dressed up in pink and white? She laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks! And there we were, that girl and me, both of us with tears running down our cheeks!"
"I don't remember any of that. But if I did what you say, it was wrong. I admit that. But please don't — "
Lieder brought the cane down across the side of the teacher's head with such force that it tore the top of his ear. The old man's eyes rolled up as he slipped toward unconsciousness from shock, but Lieder grasped his hair and snatched his head up.
The big bullet-headed man stopped eating and looked on, grinning, as the honey dripped from his bread and made a little puddle on the table. The small barrel-chested man at the window stepped over to where he could see better.
"And from that day on, Mr. Ballard!" Lieder thrust his rage-contorted face to within inches of the old man's half-paralyzed one. "From that day on it was war between you and me. You'd beat me every chance you got, and I used to raise hell in the back of the class, and hurt kids during recess. I even snuck over to your house one night and shit in your well. You been drinking my shit ever since! But our war wasn't a fair contest, Mr. Ballard, because you were a man and I was only a kid. And you had the stick. You always had the stick! Then one day you dragged me up to the front of the class and whipped me so hard that you broke your stick on my ass. Broke the goddamn stick! You wanted me to beg for mercy, but I wouldn't! I wouldn't, 'cause I was all through singing and dancing for you, Mr. Ballard! I clamped my jaw so tight to keep from crying that I broke this tooth. Look! You see? You see? All the kids laughed. They never did like me 'cause I was smarter'n they were and I used to make them play games my way. That little pink-and-white polack pet of yours, she laughed hardest of them all! And do you wonder if I was humiliated, Mr. Ballard? I was humiliated! Well, guess whose turn it is to be humiliated now, Mr. Ballard. Bobby-My-Boy? Grab this old turd and bend him over the table."