"Since when?" Rose said. "Now, come on and stop arguing with me. Just lean on me and we'll go real slow."
I did what she said. There just wasn't anything else I could do.
We got to the house. She helped me back into the bedroom, made me lay down on the bed and started taking off my clothes. I told her she didn't need to take them all off, because the pain was just in the part that my pants covered. She said it wasn't any trouble at all, and I could relax better if I was all undressed instead of partways, and to stop butting into her business.
I said that it was my business that got hurt, and she said, well, my business was her business, and right now she was running the store.
She leaned down over the place where I was hurt, or supposed to be hurt, turning the lamp this way and that so that she could make a proper inspection.
"Hmmm," she said. "I don't see any bruises, honey. No breaks in the skin."
I said, well, it sure hurt, that's all I knew. "Of course a fella don't have to get hit very hard in that area to make him hurt to beat heck."
She said, "Let's see, now, you tell me here it hurts. Does it hurt there, or here, or here…"
She was awful gentle, so gentle that it wouldn't have hurt me in any of the places even if I had been hurt. I told her that maybe she'd better be a little more firm about it so I could make sure of where the pain was. So she pushed and pressed a little harder, asking if it hurt there or here and so on. And I let out an "Ooh" or an "Aah" now and then. But what I was feeling wasn't pain.
It didn't matter any more about Amy; me being with her that night, I mean. I was as ready and rarin' as I'd ever been, and, of course, Rose wasn't long in noticing the fact.
"Hey, now!" she said. "Just what's going on here, mister?"
"What does it look like?" I said.
"It looks to me like a big business recovery."
"Well, god-dang, gee-whillikins!" I said. "And right after a severe blow to the economy! You reckon we ought to celebrate the occasion?"
"What the hell you think?" she said. "Just let me get these goddam clothes off!"
I snoozed a little while afterwards. No more than fifteen minutes, probably, because I'd rested quite a bit that day and wasn't really tired.
I came awake with Rose's hand biting into my arm, her voice a scary whisper. "Nick!, Nick, wake up! Someone's outside!"
"What?" I mumbled, starting to roll over on my side again. "Well, leave 'em out there. Sure don't want 'em in here."
"Nick! They're on the porch, Nick! What-who do you suppose it-"
"I don't hear nothin'," I said. "Maybe it's just the wind".
"No, it-listen! There it is again!"
I heard it then; faint, careful footsteps, like someone moving on tiptoe. And along with them, a dull draggy sound, as if something heavy was being dragged upon the stoop.
"N-Nick. What do you think we'd better do, Nick?"
I swung my legs off the bed, and said I'd get my gun and have a look. She started to nod, and then she put out her hand and stopped me.
"No, honey, it won't look right your being here this time of night. Not with the lights all off and your horse put away."
"But I'll just take a little peek out," I said. "I won't show myself to no one."
"You might have to. You just stay here and keep quiet, and I'll go."
She slid quietly out of bed, and trotted into the other room, making no more noise than a shadow. I was pretty nervy, naturally, wondering who or what was upon the porch and what it might have to do with me and Rose. But the way she was taking things, sort of keeping out in front and leaving me in the background, was a big comfort. I thought about Myra's idea of Rose as someone meek and mild and ready to jump at her own shadow, and I almost laughed out loud. Rose could whip her weight in bobcats if she took a notion. She'd maybe let Tom get the best of her, but that just wasn't no way a fair match.
I heard the click of the key in the outside door.
I sat up, kind of poised on the edge of the bed, ready to move if she called to me.
I waited, holding my breath for quiet. There was another click, as Rose unlatched the screen, and then a rusty squeak as she pushed it open. Then…
It was a small house, like I've said. But from where I was to where she was was still quite a piece-maybe thirty feet or more. Yet that far away, I heard it. The gasp; the scared-crazy sound of her breath sucking in.
And then she screamed. Screamed and cussed in a way I don't ever want to hear again.
"N-Nick! Nick! The son-of-a-bitch is back! That goddam Tom's back!"
14
I grabbed for my pants, but the legs were twisted and the way Rose was carrying on, I didn't have no time to fool with 'em. Pants weren't what I needed anyway, with that god-danged Tom back. So I snatched up my gun, which I sure as heck did need, and ran for the door.
I tripped over a chair in the kitchen, almost taking a header against the wall. I righted myself, and dashed out to the porch. Then, I saw how things were-and they sure weren't good, all right, but they were a lot better than I'd expected 'em to be.
It was Tom's body that was there, not Tom. It had been left on the porch, face up, with the shotgun placed at the side. The beard had grown out some, because hair does go on growing for a while on dead people. He was all covered over with mud, and the middle of his body was just a big gutsy hole. His eyes were wide open and staring. The meanness was gone from them, but the fear that had taken its place was worse. Whatever death looked like, it sure didn't look good to him.
All in all, you might say he wasn't a very pretty sight. Nothing that would take first prize in a bestlookin'-fella contest. Old man Death had painted Tom Hauck in his true colors, and it wasn't an even halfway flattering portrait.
I couldn't really blame Rose for carrying on like she was. Almost any woman would have done the same, if her husband had come home in the middle of the night looking like Tom did. Rose had a right to raise a ruckus, but it wasn't helping things, particularly helping me to think. Which I was obviously in need of doing and fast. So I got an arm around her and tried to calm her down.
"Easy, now, honey, easy. This don't look so good, but-"
"Goddam you, why didn't you kill him?" She tore away from me. "You told me you killed the son-of -a-bitch!"
"I did, baby. He sure don't look like no live man, now does he? He couldn't be no more dead if-"
"Then who brought him back here? What goddam dirty bastard did it? If I get my hands on the son-of-a-bitch-"
She broke off and whirled around wild.-eyed seeming to listen for something. I started to say I wanted to get my hands on the fella, too, because just why the heck had he done this anyway? Rose told me to shut my goddam mouth.