I guess that stuff she'd brought to me when I was sick wasn't really crap. It was as good as she knew how to fix. I guess that dog of theirs didn't have to chase horses unless'n he wanted the exercise. I- Why the hell didn't he come? Hell, she hadn't had a real breath now in almost thirty minutes, and it was hard as hell on her. I knew how hard it was and I held my own breath for a while because we'd always done things together, and…
He came.
I'd locked the front screen, so that he couldn't just walk in, and I heard him tugging at it.
I gave her two hard kicks in the head and she rose off the floor, her skirt falling down off of her face, and I knew there wouldn't be any doubt about her. She was dead on the night of-Then I went and opened the door and let him in.
I pushed the roll of marked twenties on him and said, "Stick this in your pocket. I've got the rest back in the kitchen," and I started back there.
I knew he would put the money in his pocket, and you do too if you can remember back when you were a kid. You'd walk up to a guy and say, "Here, hold this," and probably he'd pulled the same gag himself; he'd know you were handing him a horse turd or a prickly pear or a dead mouse. But if you pulled it fast enough, he'd do just what you told him.
I pulled it fast, and headed right back toward the kitchen. And he was right on my heels, because he didn't want me to get too far away from him.
There was just a little light, like I've said. I was between him and her. He was right behind me, watching me instead of anything else, and we went into the kitchen and I stepped aside quickly.
He almost stepped on her stomach. I guess his foot did touch it for a split second.
He pulled it back, staring down at her like his eyes were steel and she was a magnet. He tried to tug them away, and they'd just roll, going all-white in his head, and finally he got them away.
He looked at me and his lips shook as though he'd been playing a juice-harp, and he said:
"Yeeeeeeee!"
It was a hell of a funny sound, like a siren with a slippy chain that can't quite get started. "Yeeeeee!" he said. "Yeeeeee!" It sounded funny as hell, and he looked funny as hell.
Did you ever see one of these two-bit jazz singers? You know, trying to put something across with their bodies that they haven't got the voice to do? They lean back from the waist a little with their heads hanging forward and their hands held up about even with their ribs and swinging limp. And they sort of wobble and roll on their hips.
That's the way he looked, and he kept making that damned funny noise, his lips quivering ninety to the minute and his eyes rolling all-white.
I laughed and laughed, he looked and sounded so funny I couldn't help it. Then, I remembered what he'd done and I stopped laughing, and got mad-sore all over.
"You son-of-a-bitch," I said. "I was going to marry that poor little girl. We were going to elope and she caught you going through the house and you tried to…"
I stopped, because he hadn't done it at all. But he could have done it. He could've done it just as easy as not. The son-of-a-bitch could have, but he was just like everyone else. He was too nicey-nice and pretendsy to do anything really hard. But he'd stand back and crack the whip over me, keep moving around me every way I turned so that I couldn't get away no matter what I did, and it was always now-don't-you-do-nothin'-bud; but they kept cracking that old whip all the time they were sayin' it. And they- he'd done it all right; and I wasn't going to take the blame. I could be just as tricky and pretendsy as they were.
I could…
I went blind ma-angry seeing him so pretendsy shocked, "Yeeing!" and shivering and doing that screwy dance with his hands-hell, he hadn't had to watch her hands! — and white-rolling his eyes. What right did he have to act like that? I was the one that should have been acting that way, but, oh, no, I couldn't. That was their-his right to act that way, and I had to hold in and do all the dirty work.
I was as mad as all hell.
I snatched the butcher knife from under the newspaper, and made for him.
And my foot slipped where she'd been lying.
I went sprawling, almost knocking him over backwards if he hadn't moved, and the knife flew out of my hands.
I couldn't have moved a finger for a minute. I was laid out flat, helpless, without any weapon. And I could have maybe rolled a little and put my arms around her, and we'd have been together like we'd always been.
But do you think he'd do it? Do you think he'd pick up that knife and use it, just a little thing like that that wouldn't have been a bit of trouble? Oh, hell, no, oh, God, no, oh, Christ and Mary and all the Saints…?
No.
All he could do was beat it, just like they always did.
I grabbed up the knife and took off after the heartless son-of-a-bitch.
He was out to the street sidewalk by the time I got to the front door; the dirty bastard had sneaked a head start on me. When I got out to the walk, he was better'n a half-block away, heading toward the center of town. I took after him as fast as I could go.
That wasn't very fast on account of the boots. I've seen plenty of men out here that never walked fifty miles altogether in their lives. But he wasn't moving very fast either. He was sort of skipping, jerky, rather than running or walking. He was skipping and tossing his head, and his hair was flying. And he still had his elbows held in at his sides, with his hands doing that funny floppy dance, and he kept saying-it was louder now-that old siren was warming up-he kept saying, kind of screaming:
"Yeeeee! Yeeeeee! Yeeeeeeeeee…!"
He was skipping and flopping his hands and tossing his head like one of those holy roller preachers at a brushwood's revival meeting. "Yeeeing!" and gone-to-Jesus and all you miserable sinners get right with Gawd like I went and done.
The dirty son-of-a-bitch! How low down can you get?
"MUR-DER!" I yelled. "Stop him, stop him! He killed Amy Stanton! MUR-DER…!"
I yelled at the top of my lungs and I kept yelling. And windows started banging up and doors slammed. And people ran down off their porches. And that snapped him out of that crap-some of it.
He skipped out into the middle of the street, and started moving faster. But I moved faster, too, because it was still dirt in this block, just one short of the business district, and boots are meant for dirt.
He saw that I was gaining a little on him, and he tried to come out of that floppy skippy stuff, but it didn't look like he could quite make it. Maybe he was using too much steam with that "Yeeeeing!"
"MURDER!" I yelled. "MUR-DER! Stop him! He killed Amy Stanton…!"
And everything was happening awful fast. It just sounds like it was a long time, because I'm not leaving out anything. I'm trying to tell you exactly how it was, so's you'll be sure to understand.
Looking up ahead, into the business district, it looked like a whole army of automobiles was bearing down on us. Then, suddenly, it was like a big plow had come down the street, pushing all those cars into the curb.
That's the way people are here in this section. That's the way they get. You don't see them rushing into the middle of a commotion to find out what's happening. There's men that are paid to do that and they do it prompt, without any fuss or feathers. And the folks know that no one's going to feel sorry for 'em if they get in the way of a gun or a bullet.
"Yeeeeee! Yeeeeee! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" he screamed, skipping and flopping.
"MUR-DER! He killed Amy Stanton…"
And up ahead a little old roadster swung crossways with the intersection and stopped, and Jeff Plummer climbed out.
He reached down on the floor and took out a Winchester. Taking his time, easy-like. He leaned back against the fender, one boot heel hooked through the wheel spokes, and brought the gun up to his shoulder.