I looked over at him, lying on his carpet bag, staring with his eyes shut.
“The whole idea about Lake Charles is pretty slim,” I said. It puzzled me. Someone back at the berry farm had told the kid he knew of a man that fit the description Fair gave of his father, with a kraut wife and all, and the kid had taken off like a big bird.
It didn’t matter to me. One way was as good as another, but the way that kid shifted direction with the rumors was a strange thing.
He mumbled something in answer, but I didn’t catch it.
“It probably isn’t your old man,” I continued. I could tell he wasn’t listening.
All the time in that freight he’d just laid there with his head on that carpet bag, part of the time staring up at the stars through the slats, part of the time like he was asleep. I couldn’t tell if he was or not.
Funny thing. I didn’t try to talk him out of killing his old man. That was his business, and it seemed right that he do it, if he wanted to. The kid had built his life around it, that was easy to see, and if you took that away from him, well, hell, he’d of had nothing.
It was a kind of distant thing, really, that’s why I didn’t worry about it too much. It was like someone that says I’m going to China some day, but you know they’ll never quite make it. It was like that with his killing his father. I didn’t think he was going to find his old man. The United States is a big place. I was sure we’d never run into the father. I was pretty much sold on sticking with the kid, by this time. We got along, and it was a good deal.
All but the father business.
He was okay aside from that.
And then, I was sure we wouldn’t find the old man.
I was wrong.
First night in town, that kid made like a bloodhound, and the trouble started brewing.
We got into Lake Charles and the kid said we’d better split up for a while. He said he had to check at some store or other for something, and we’d meet back in the center of town in an hour.
I didn’t see no reason for splitting like that and I told him I’d come along.
“Look, Harry, you go where you want, and I’ll meet you. I want to go someplace by myself.” He was starting to catamount me, so I agreed. I went off looking for a greasy spoon to get some grub. That train ride had hungered me good.
In an hour, I was back sitting on a bench in the square where we’d parted. After a cop had told me to move on three times and I’d shifted benches three times, Fair came back.
His lips was drawn so tight against his face they looked like two lines of topsoil down a field. I knew he had something.
“He’s here,” was all he said, and started past me. He probably hadn’t even come back through the square to meet me, that was most likely just the way to get where he was goin’.
I grabbed his arm. He was only a bit smaller than me, and he shook me off quick. “Don’t be doing anything crazy now, Fair,” I said, waving my hands around without any purpose.
He just looked at me like I’d told him to stop breathing. “Harry, don’t you understand? That man’s in this town. I have to kill him. Don’t you understand?” It was so queer, to hear them words coming out of that young boy’s mouth, in that kid’s voice —but them words!
He started off, then, and I knew I couldn’t say nothing. I still didn’t believe it was his father, and I was hoping he’d stop when he saw that. I decided to just go along with him. You don’t try and stop a person when they want to live their life that way. This was his problem — I was just along to see he didn’t do anything crazy.
We walked out of town, and down a dirt road. We kept walking and every once in a while the kid would stop someone on the road or yell at a man in a field and ask him where Ernest Luber’s farm was.
How did the kid know this Luber was old man Holloway with a new name? I couldn’t understand it.
“How do you know it’s your old man?” I asked him, trotting alongside.
“I know.”
“But how do you know? You can’t just take a poor description! You got to know! ” I pleaded with him.
“I know!”
“Fair, watch yourself. You can’t do something to this man, even if he is your father. That’s for the law to handle.” I was getting desperate. What if it was his father?
“The law didn’t help my maw. Go look at her. Then come back an’ tell me the law. Go ahead!” He snapped it out, and I knew I couldn’t talk to him. He was set to go after this Luber.
It was all real queer. I liked that boy, and I had to stay with him, but I felt futile, and helpless, like I couldn’t do nothing.
Every now and then I’d tell him to forget it.
He didn’t even listen.
By the time we’d been walkin’ a half-hour, the bandanna round his throat had been soaked to sogginess with sweat. He was on a kill day. His eyes showed it.
Finally we got to this Luber’s farm. The mailbox out front said so in red, and the kid walked down the driveway, past a battered station wagon, and into the yard. There was a stubby blond woman peeling potatoes on the back steps, and a man chopping wood by a pile near the well.
The woman started to get up off the steps. “Hello. Can I help — ” she started to say, but the kid was looking at the man, and his eyes had suddenly got real narrow catamounty. “Paw!” he screamed, real loud, and the man turned around sudden.
“Paw!” the kid yelled again, and the man looked at the woman in confusion.
“Who are you? What do you want?” said the man, and he must of seen something in that boy’s eyes, because he backed up a step. He was a fairly short fellow, with thatchy hair, and dirty overalls on. His face was wide, and fat, and plumpy.
He didn’t look nothing like what Fair had said his old man resembled.
The kid screamed something frightful, and the woman dropped her bowl of spuds. The man got a real angry look on his face and started toward the kid. The ax was buried in a cord of wood: he didn’t have nothing in his hands, and that’s what choked me up when I saw the kid pick up the scythe.
It had been laying near some tall grass. Someone’d left it there, and the kid stumbled forward with it, half-rusted and curvy in his hand.
“Stop, Fair!” I screamed. “That ain’t your — ” but I knew he couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t hear anything. I yelled to the pudgy man. “Take the ax! Take the — ” but he didn’t hear me either.
The man was pudgy, but taller than the kid, and he must have thought he could stop him, cause he came at the kid with a growl.
“Get off this farm, you — ” the man started, and then that kid was on him.
God, I’ve seen ’em bad, but this was too much!
That kid was down on him for a good five minutes and I couldn’t do a thing but watch. The woman screamed and screamed and screamed, but she couldn’t do nothing, either.
We just watched, and the rust and blood made a funny look all mixed together.
The kid got up off the leftovers, and dropped the scythe. He stumbled toward me, all coated with it, like I wanted to vomit, and he stopped right in front of me.
“Paw. I killed Paw! I killed him, my paw.” he said, staring at me real cool. He didn’t seem to think anything about it.
“Paw,” he said again, this time real low.
I hit him flush in the mouth with my fist, hard as I could.
They came and got him about half an hour later. They put him in the town jail and had Ernest Luber, his wife, and me come along to find out why this kid had killed a stupid hired hand by the name of Goeblick. Then somebody said hey didn’t the kid fit the description of something or other and yeah, didn’t he, so they sent out a wire, and got one back, and word to hold him, and me.
I didn’t get much sleep in the jail that night. They wouldn’t let me near the kid, and I couldn’t hear him, and all I kept thinking about was my God, that poor Goeblick!