“Go ahead and shoot me. It would fix you at least.”
“I warn you, you can press me so far and no farther.”
Damis laughed. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, old man.”
These things were being said as I climbed out of my car and walked toward them, slowly. I was afraid of jarring the precarious balance of the scene. It was very still on the hilltop. I could hear the sound of their breathing and other things besides: my feet crunching in the gravel, the low call of a mourning dove from the television antenna on the roof.
Neither Blackwell nor Damis looked at me as I came up beside them. They weren’t in physical contact, but their faces were contorted as though their hands had death grips on each other. The double muzzle of the shotgun dominated the scene like a pair of empty insane eyes.
“There’s a dove on the roof,” I said conversationally. “If you feel like shooting something, Colonel, why don’t you take a shot at it? Or is there a law against it in these parts? I seem to remember something about a law.”
He turned to me with a grimace of rage stamped in the muscles of his face. The gun swung with his movement. I took hold of the double barrel and forced it up toward the unoffending sky. I lifted it out of Blackwell’s hands, and broke open the breach. There was a shell in each chamber. I tore a fingernail unloading them.
“Give me back my shotgun,” he said.
I gave it to him empty. “Shooting never solved a thing. Didn’t you learn that in the war?”
“The fellow insulted me.”
“The way I heard it, insults were traveling in both directions.”
“But you didn’t hear what he said. He made a filthy accusation.”
“So you want big black filthy headlines, and a nice long filthy trial in Superior Court.”
“The filthier the better,” Damis said.
I turned on him. “Shut up.”
His eyes were somber and steady. “You can’t shut me up. Neither can he.”
“He almost did, boy. Twelve-gauge shotgun wounds at this range ruin you for keeps.”
“Tell him. I couldn’t care less.”
Damis looked as though he didn’t care, for himself or anyone. But he seemed to feel exposed under my eyes. He got into the passenger’s seat of Harriet’s car and pulled the door shut. The action, all his actions, had something bold about them and something secretive.
Blackwell turned toward the house and I went along. The veranda was brilliant with fuchsias growing out of hanging redwood tubs. To my slightly jittered vision, they resembled overflowing buckets of blood.
“You came near committing murder, Colonel. You should keep your guns unloaded and locked up.”
“I do.”
“Maybe you ought to throw the key away.”
He looked down at the gun in his hands as if he didn’t remember how it had got there. Sudden pockets had formed under his eyes.
“What led up to this?” I said.
“You know the long-term part of it. He’s been moving in on me and my household, robbing me of my most precious possession–”
“A daughter isn’t exactly a possession.”
“I have to look out for her. Someone has to. She announced a few minutes ago that she was going away to marry the fellow. I tried to reason with her. She accused me of being a little Hitler who had hired a private Gestapo. That accusation hurt, from my own daughter, but the fellow–” he shot an angry glance toward the car “–the fellow made a worse one.”
“What did he say?”
“I wouldn’t repeat it, to anyone. He made a filthy allegation about me. Of course there’s nothing to it. I’ve always been upright in my dealings with others, especially my own daughter.”
“I don’t doubt that. I’m trying to find out what kind of thinking goes on in Damis’s head.”
“He’s a mixed-up young man,” Blackwell said. “I believe he’s dangerous.”
That made two of them, in my opinion.
A screen door slammed, and Harriet appeared behind the hanging red and purple fuchsias. She had changed to a light sharkskin suit and a hat with a little grey veil fluttering from it. The little veil bothered me, perhaps because it short-circuited the distance between brides and widows. She was carrying a blue hatbox and a heavy blue case.
Her father met her on the steps and reached for the blue case. “Let me help with that, dear.”
She swung it away from him. “I can handle it myself, thank you.”
“Is that all you have to say to me?”
“Everything’s been said. We know what you think of us. Burke and I are going away where you won’t be tempted to – harass us.” Her cold young eyes rested on me, and then on the shotgun in her father’s hand. “I don’t even feel physically safe.”
“The gun’s empty,” I said. “Nobody got hurt and nobody’s going to. I wish you’d reconsider this move, Miss Blackwell. Give it a day’s thought, anyway.”
She wouldn’t speak directly to me. “Call off your dogs,” she said to Blackwell. “Burke and I are going to be married and you have no right to stop us. There must be legal limits to what even a father can do.”
“But won’t you listen to me, dear? I have no desire to do anything–”
“Stop doing it then.”
I’d been surprised by his quiet reasonableness. He didn’t have the self-control to sustain it. The sudden yelling demon took possession of him again. “You’ve made your choice, I wash my hands of you. Go off with your filthy little miracle man and roll in the mire with him. I won’t lift a finger to rescue you.”
She said from the height of her pale cold anger: “You’re talking foolishly, Father. What is the matter with you?”
She strode on to the car, swinging her bags like clumsy weapons. Damis took them from her and put them in the trunk, beside his own suitcase.
Isobel Blackwell had come out of the house and down the veranda steps. As she passed between me and her husband, she pressed his shoulder in sympathy and perhaps in admonition. She went up to Harriet.
“I wish you wouldn’t do this to your father.”
“I’m not doing anything to him.”
“He feels it that way. He loves you, you know.”
“I don’t love him.”
“I’m sure you’ll regret saying that, Harriet. When you do, please let him know.”
“Why should I bother? He has you.”
Isobel shrugged, as though the possession of herself was no great boon to anyone. “You’re more important to him than I am. You could break his heart.”
“He’s going to have to get over it then. I’m sorry if you feel badly.” In a quick uprush of feeling, Harriet embraced the older woman. “You’ve been the best to me – better than I deserve.”
Isobel patted her back, looking past her at Damis. He had been watching the two of them like a spectator at a game on which he had placed a moderate bet.
“I hope you’ll take good care of her, Mr. Damis.”
“I can try.”
“Where are you taking her?”
“Away from here.”
“That isn’t very informative.”
“It wasn’t intended to be. This is a big country, also a free one. Let’s go, Harriet.”
She disengaged herself from her stepmother and got into the driver’s seat of her car. Damis climbed in beside her. I made a note of the license number as they drove away. Neither of them looked back.
Blackwell approached us, walking rather uncertainly in the gravel. His body seemed to have shrunk some more in his clothes, while his large face had grown larger.
“You let them go,” he said accusingly.
“I had nothing to stop them with. I can’t use force.”
“You should have followed them.”
“What for? You said you’d washed your hands of them.”
His wife spoke up: “Perhaps it would be better if you did that, Mark. You can’t go on in this fashion, letting the situation drive you crazy. You might as well accept it.”