Cornered! Page 5

  She walked inside and saw Dr. Hugh Stewart. When they exchanged smiles, something warm and strange happened to her. It was a feeling of having seen someone truly familiar again, as though suddenly everyone in this community including Ted had become strangers—everyone except herself and Hugh Stewart.

  She walked down the length of the counter, noticing Charlie Bacon, then Bob Saywell as he came around the end of the counter.

  At that moment George Herbert had burst into the store and announced what had happened in Corly Adams’s service station that morning. Ann could not be certain. But it seemed exactly what she had been waiting for—a positive sign that death was approaching on the run.

  The trouble in Graintown could have been the result of any two hoodlums, any pair of bandits. But the premonition in Ann Burley, as she fainted, had become an engulfing terror.

  chapter eight

  When Dr. Hugh Stewart drove Ann Burley home at midday, Bob Saywell immediately prepared to make his trip through the storm to Graintown and the public library. As Bob Saywell passed the Burley farmhouse and noted the automobile of Dr. Hugh Stewart parked in the farmyard, Billy Quirter was on his way to the railroad yards.

  Billy was cold. But he moved with a deadly determination. He ran from the back of a woodshed through a grove of elms and oaks. The wind whipped at him, slicing through with its cold to the inside of his bones. The snow now was like fine white sand, granular, stinging when it struck Billy’s freezing face. But Billy darted relentlessly from cover to cover.

  The railroad yards were on the northeast edge of Graintown. At the east end was the train depot. Outside the depot, the tracks moved westward a short distance to the switch-offs for the cattle and hog pens on the tip-end of Graintown’s small stockyards. At that point lay two alternate tracks that carried the stock cars to the loading chutes. Two boxcars stood here in unused snowy solitude waiting for some future loading of beef or pork.

  Billy Quirter made it to one of those boxcars, shoved a door open with hands grown numb with cold, and crawled inside. The cold had frozen out the smell of livestock and had, in fact, sterilized the interior with the freezing temperature. This was fortunate for Billy, because Billy hated filth desperately. Billy closed the door. From a corner he picked up a ragged blanket left by a previous transient, shook it, then wrapped himself and crouched in one corner out of the raging wind and snow to wait until he heard the sound of a train on the main tracks.

  He did not know it, but he would have to wait most of the afternoon. Besides the snow-clearing engine, there were but two trains going through Graintown; the 7:30 in the morning going west, and the 4:07 in the afternoon heading east in the direction of Arrow Junction.

  Despite his discomfort Billy was patient. The blanket stopped most of his shaking. He actually felt a kind of pleasure in this silent waiting, with a good view of the boxcar’s sliding door. His gun was warm in his hand beneath the blanket. He could easily kill the first thing that came through that door.

  Ann Burley, that afternoon, found herself in a deeper emotional crisis than she had ever dreamed she would be in when she’d started that particular day.

  She had awakened from her fainting late that morning, looking up at the face of Dr. Hugh Stewart. The fact that she had known Hugh Stewart only slightly did not diminish the feeling that his was the single face she cared to see at that moment.

  He drove her home. Alone with him in the small farmhouse, despite her efforts to avoid it, there was an unsaid but strong attraction between them. She tried very hard to avoid that. But then her mind turned back to her fear. She had to find refuge somewhere. She ceased to fight the attraction.

  She sat up on the sofa now. Hugh Stewart walked across the room, turned, smiled. “You look better.”

  “I feel better,” she said weakly. Then she lied, “I don’t know why it happened.”

  “Could have been several things. It’s possible, you know that—” He shrugged. “Pregnancy?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you can’t always be sure. Perhaps—”

  “No.”

  He nodded finally. “Maybe we ought to check you over more thoroughly. Drop into my office. I’ll—” He paused. “Maybe you have your own doctor in Graintown.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I haven’t had any reason to go to him. But Ted—it’s more or less family with him.”

  “Certainly,” he said, and she was sure she saw a flicker in his eyes. “But I suggest you see him. Several things, you know, could cause fainting like that. It’s always worth checking.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  She met his eyes for a moment, then she could look at him no longer. She knew nothing about him, and yet it was as though he were someone long familiar to her and that they had always known about this feeling.

  He seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “I’ll be going. Your car’s still in the village—”

  “I’ll drive in with Ted when he gets home.” She stood up. “Thank you so much, Doctor.”

  “My pleasure. Give my regards to your husband, won’t you?”

  She nodded and moved toward the door just as he did. He reached out and took her in his arms roughly. She met his hunger with hers, digging her fingers into his back.

  She broke free and turned away abruptly, trembling…

  He left quickly. She heard the sound of his car moving through the farmyard. Still trembling she felt as though she had just smashed everything she’d tried to be with Ted Burley. That was a little past noon.

  At four o’clock that afternoon, Bob Saywell knocked on her door.

  The unexpected sound had given her a moment of terror, until she looked out and saw his car. Then she opened the door, unusually annoyed by the sight of his fat smiling face.

  “Just wanted to see how you were, Mrs. Burley.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Well, that’s why I stopped. To find out.” He smiled. His jowls seemed to quiver faintly. There was peculiar brightness in his eyes. “May I come in? A little cold standing out here.”

  “Yes,” she said, covering her annoyance. “Come in, Mr. Saywell.”

  He stepped inside briskly, slapping his gloved hands together. He removed his gloves and wiped his shoes carefully on the throw rug in front of the door. “Take it Ted’s not around. Knew he was going on over to Webster. Take it he’s not back.”

  “No, he’s not back.”

  “Now this is a real pretty little house you’ve got here, Mrs. Burley. Twice as pretty as Ted kept it before he married up with you. Just about as pretty, I’d say, as his ma kept it before she died!”

  Ann watched him walk around the room, looking at the furniture, touching things; there was an odd jauntiness to his manner; some of his perpetual obsequiousness was gone. He stopped finally, his face wreathed in good humor, eyes steadily bright. “Sit down, Mrs. Burley. I want to talk to you. Sit down over there in that chair of Ted’s ma. The light’s real good there. I can see you better.”

  Ann was surprised by the commanding tone in his voice. “You want to talk to me, Mr. Saywell?”

  “We can cut the monkey business. Just sit down, Mrs. Burley. Or should I say Ann?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “Or should I say Ann Brown? That was your name before you married Ted, wasn’t it? Or should I just say Ann Rodick?”

  She stared at him disbelievingly. Rodick, her own name! The name she’d changed to Brown when she’d gone to Omaha. He nodded, jowls jiggling. “Oh, I struck a nerve there, didn’t I? Oh, you’d better sit down now, Mrs. Burley. I do believe you might faint again.”

  She did sit down now, weakly, still staring at him. “How did you find out?”

  “Now you never want to think old Bob Saywell hasn’t got a good brain, you know. Didn’t build that business I’ve got by being dumb. I’ll bet you never thought it took brains to build that kind of business, did you? I’ll bet you thought Bob Saywell was just somebody cutting up the chops for you? Yo
u think maybe it doesn’t take any brains to get to be a leader of a little community like this?”

  “Mr. Saywell, please! You’ve found out my real name. I want to know how and why!”

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” he said, grinning wickedly. “I’ve got a good memory, Mrs. Burley. There was a trial out there on the West Coast. Made good reading. Some of the newspapers even around in this state printed it up. Seems one fellow shot another. Seems a girl saw it happen. That was you, wasn’t it? I checked that, you see? I had a clipping, but the picture of you wasn’t good. So I just drove on over to Graintown and had them dig out some old newspapers out of their files. And there it was, a real good picture. What I thought was true, wasn’t it, Ann Rodick?”

  “I don’t deny it! So you know then why I changed my name and the color of my hair. You read about Tony Fearon’s threat!” She said it desperately, thinking that surely the tone Bob Saywell was using was not abusive. What reason would he have to be anything but sympathetic?

  “Oh, yes. I read all about that. Yes, indeed. And I wonder—does Ted know about this?”

  He’d come nearer, standing with his paunchy belly just in front of her, pink cheeks rosy in the light from the windows.

  She shook her head, completely confused. “No, of course not. There’s been no need—”

  “I just wonder what he’d think about this. You take Ted. He’s thin-skinned, that lad. Oh, not a lad now. But he always was real sensitive. I know people hereabouts. I know Ted, and I knew his ma and his pa. Ted is what you might call a mamma’s boy. Most people might not think that just to look at him, but that’s what he is. I wonder how it’d be if he knew you’d married him and all the time using the wrong name?”

  “Mr. Saywell,” Ann said, standing up, “I don’t like the tone of your voice. You’ve found out something. But it has nothing to do with Ted. I’ve deceived him about nothing more than my name. I had a reason for that—my safety.”

  Bob Saywell suddenly laughed. “You’re a tricky one, aren’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I mean that way of yours. That kind of angel-like way. That’s a good way to put it, isn’t it? Angel-like. All blond and wide-eyed and kind of like a baby stare you’ve got. Only the hair isn’t really that color, and you aren’t any angel, are you, Mrs. Burley?”

  She shook her head, unbelieving.

  “No,” he said, “you aren’t that at all. Otherwise, why did you faint away there in my store, Mrs. Burley? I wonder if you’d tell me that?”

  “You come in here? Insult me? Insinuate things? Question me? In my own home? You have no right whatever to—”

  “You didn’t tell me why it was you fainted!” he said, leaning closer to her. “Now why don’t you? Why don’t you tell me it was because of all that bad business in Graintown this morning. Huh? Yes, sir! This gangster, this Mr. Tony Fearon, he threatened to get you killed before he was executed, didn’t he? Now just maybe that was it. Now maybe you thought those fellows doing that shooting in Corly Adams’s station was fellows maybe this Mr. Tony Fearon sent out to get you. Was that it, Mrs. Burley?”

  She stared at him in shock. “What are you after, Mr. Saywell?”

  “Did I say I was after something? Now maybe I am. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if maybe I am. But I haven’t said anything about it, have I? I’m just trying to get everything straight. Ann Rodick, the girl mixed up with those San Francisco gangsters! I just wonder what Ted would think of all that? I wonder what the whole community would think of that? Mrs. Burley turning out to be mixed up with a dirty group of California gangsters—’specially now that Corly’s gone and been killed and Sheriff Joe Bingham likeways? Now that’s a shame. People liked Corly and Joe a lot around here. I wouldn’t wonder if they might just get up and want to maybe use the tar and feathers once they found it was all your fault!”

  “Mr. Saywell, I’m beginning to think you’re crazy! What kind of warped mind could you have to accuse me of being mixed up with them? I had nothing to do with anything but accidentally being in a certain place at a certain time. God knows I wish I hadn’t been! But I was and I can’t help that. What right have you to say anything is my fault?”

  He was closer to her now, so close she could see the texture of his rosy skin. On close inspection it lost its cherubic look. You could see the wrinkling and the blemishing and the drying pores.

  “Now I’m going to tell you something,” he said. “Something I just heard on the car radio, loud and clear, while I was driving from Graintown back here. This fellow they’re looking for, this Billy Quirter, he’s this Tony Fearon’s brother. What do you think of that!”

  Hearing that was like a hard blow to the pit of Ann’s stomach. There was first the sharp pain, then a spreading dull sickness. Tony Fearon’s brother! So it was true!

  “You see?” he said, smiling with his mouth but chilling her with his eyes. “I know exactly who you are.” She realized, looking into those eyes, that he was honestly condemning her—that, in reality, he thought her no different than Tony Fearon! It was a warped mind behind those eyes, she knew; warped by the narrowness of the world in which it had been spawned and aged, warped by a false sanctimony, made worse by long years of dulling his conscience until he had become a stupid hypocrite, and dangerous because of it.

  If he released his knowledge, it would be like pulling the world down on her head. The newspapermen would descend. Everybody would descend. And Billy Quirter, brother of Tony Fearon, would know exactly where she was. She would again have to depend on the police to protect her. But could they protect her for a lifetime?

  “I think you’d better get out of here!”

  He tipped his head, gazing at her with absolute confidence. “You’re fooling me. You’re trying to bluff me. I don’t bluff, Mrs. Burley. Not Bob Saywell. No, sir. You’re scared, Mrs. Burley. I can see that. You don’t fool me at all.”

  “I told you,” she said, voice tightening. “Get out!”

  “Yes,” he said, “I will—when I’ve said my piece. And I think you’d better listen to that, Mrs. Burley.”

  It was his sureness that frightened her.

  “Go ahead then,” she said. “Say it.”

  “Now that’s better,” he smiled, shifting his feet to bring himself an inch closer to her. “Now that’s a whole lot better! Yes, I’ll say it. I’ll say that you’ve brought an evil to this community of ours…”

  He talked on, and the drone of his voice, now wheedling, now sharpening with viciousness, amazed her with its self-righteous conviction. And somehow his words, his face, the turning of his brain seemed to merge with the identity of Ted Burley, her husband. Somehow the personalities fused. And that was because, she realized, it was really a single mind speaking, the mind of a community with a single attitude of narrowness and backwardness.

  “… so you see, Mrs. Burley, Bob Saywell, if he were a gambling man, which he’s not, would hold the cards, if he played cards, which he does not. Do you get my point? I mean this escaped gunman, this Tony Fearon’s brother, is prowling around somewhere. Now I know that. And you know that. Everybody around here knows that. But my point is that it seems nobody but you and me and him knows just why. Now we, all three, know, don’t we? But now that gangster, maybe he don’t know just exactly where you are, so he can do what we know he’s trying to do. How about that, Mrs. Burley? That’s about right, isn’t it? That’s maybe what you’re counting on, isn’t it? With your hair colored different and your name changed and living out here on this little farm of Ted’s, why, who’d think it was really Ann Rodick here, just the person this fellow’s after? Am I right?”

  She did not answer, so he went on.

  “You’re not going to let the word out so this fellow can come and do what he’s after, are you? Not by a long shot! So it won’t be you telling. And that leaves matters pretty much in the hands of Bob Saywell, doesn’t it, Mrs. Burley?”

  She blinked, in one sense disbelieving, but in a
nother realizing with frightening clarity the extent of his viciousness.

  “You’re threatening me,” she whispered. “In God’s name, why?”

  “You ask me why. Now I’m getting to that. Because this community doesn’t deserve this kind of blight you’ve brought into it. This community stands for something—it stands for the word of the Bible, the Good Word. And it doesn’t deserve any of the dirtiness like you’re mixed up in—”

  “You filthy—!”

  “Oh, no! Don’t you talk to me that way! The devil calling the angel evil, is that it? No, that’s no good, and you know it. You’re the evil here, and hereabouts we live by the Good Word, do you hear that? I take pride in this little community of ours. I take pride in doing what I can to lead this little community of ours over the rough rocks and see that nobody gets hurt too bad. Some of us were picked by the Lord to see their fellow man gets a straight chance at things. No, sir. I take pride and care with this community. I got a responsibility to it, I’ll tell you!”

  Almost subconsciously, Ann realized that Saywell’s left hand had drifted up, touching her arm now, fingers opening, closing again, around her bare flesh, lightly, like the test of a python. It was a detached realization because her mind was still confused by this blather of words flowing at her, like the parody of some outlandish sermon performed by a revivalist fanatic.

  And Bob Saywell, having rationalized his position sufficiently, revealed the single motive behind his entire strategy.

  “Don’t you see?” he whispered, eyes blazing. “I can protect you! I can keep you safe! I won’t tell. No, sir! You can count on that!”

  Ann, now with his hand on her, knew exactly what he wanted. There was no mistaking it in his eyes, the quiver of his face. “And why won’t you tell?” she asked, her voice going cold, despite the rising fear she felt of him.

  “Why?” he breathed. “Because I’ll be nice to you and not tell. You see? And the reason I’ll be nice to you, is because you’ll be nice to me—”

  Both hands now were on her, squeezing tighter—the fat, blubberlike face coming closer to hers.