Cornered! Read online

  “I married him, Hugh.”

  “You married him for protection.”

  “Was that remotely honest?”

  “It was human, wasn’t it? Is it impossible for you to admit that you’re human like the rest of us? That you can get scared like every other man, woman and child in the world? What’s so indecent about that?”

  She shook her head, and he knew she wanted to give in now; but he knew the habit had grown deep-rooted. He stood up, moving toward her. “Ann—”

  “No,” she said. “Don’t touch me again, Hugh. I can’t think when you do. I’ve got to think.”

  “All right,” he said at last. “But remember one thing—you can’t keep on running. You’ve got to stop sometime. Your life’s in danger. Your marriage to Ted Burley is a sham. And it’s a sham primarily because of the fact that if you told him what you’ve told me about who you really are, the marriage would come apart on that and that alone. That’s no real marriage, Ann. If you’re going to think, please think about that. I’m selfish. I’ll admit that. I want you. Do you understand that?”

  She looked up at him. Then she said, “Please. Not now, Hugh.”

  He nodded. “I’ll leave you alone—you’d better stay here tonight. Lock the door when I leave, and don’t open it to anyone but me. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Hugh—”

  He opened and closed a hand. “I love you, Ann,” he said simply. Then he was gone.

  From the window of the office just darkened, she watched him make his way to his car parked at the curb below. The wide main street of Arrow Junction was now simply a straight white mark between store buildings, like a wide strip of adhesive tape.

  Hugh Stewart’s car coughed, spurting gray exhaust clouds into the snowy wind. Then it moved slowly down the street and turned left at the near intersection. She watched the car disappear from the shifting circle of light created by the swinging street lamp hung in the very center of the intersection. Then she watched his lone car lights moving along the small off-street. The lights disappeared then, shut out by the invisible but real framework of cottonwoods and elms clustered thickly at the next intersection.

  Still, Ann continued to look out, beyond the wind-swaying street lamp, hung like a metal dish above the intersection, beyond the dark shaft of the small street and the invisible leaf-stripped cottonwoods and elms, beyond to the black of the night and the snow and the wind and the deepening cold. It was, now, an unseeing look—while her thoughts turned slowly. But if that look had been properly focused, capable of X-ray vision and telescopic power, it would have, at that moment, stared straight into the black cold eyes of Billy Quirter as he lay, gun tucked against belly, in that silent barn.

  chapter ten

  Shortly before dawn the next morning, Sam Dickens swung his legs over the mattress and sat up on the edge of the bed in his section of the motel. He sat that way for a moment, feeling the soreness in his back created by the sag in the mattress. It seemed that ever since he and Gloria had left home, they had yet to find a room that did not have a sag in the mattress. He tried to shake the sleep from his mind, staring at the closed door leading to Gloria’s room, thinking it certainly wasn’t anything else but a sagging mattress that had made his back sore this morning.

  He stood up, shivering with cold, and walked over to look at the thermostat. Mouth set grimly, he yanked it over to full temperature, then disappeared into the bathroom.

  Presently, shaved and showered, dressed and warm now with the finally heated room, he was feeling normal again. Normal and faintly sardonic—and, if he would admit it, scared all over again. He’d been thinking again about that upcoming business with Johnny Masters. He lit a cigarette and looked at Gloria’s closed door. He’d purposely made some noise getting dressed and repacking his bag, in the hope that it would awaken her, fresh and restimulated. Now there was the faint rustle of her movement in the other room.

  He smiled, feeling a lot better all of a sudden. He had not realized, until this trip, just how much he really felt for Gloria. If it hadn’t done anything else, coming out here had taught him that.

  He sat down, listening to the activity on the other side of the door, finally hearing the snap of her suitcase going shut. He grinned and stood up hopefully, thinking now that everything would be all right.

  The door swung open, and Gloria paused, not wearing slacks now, but one of her good dresses and the mink coat he’d given her. Her hair was sleekly done up, her makeup expertly applied. Her beauty was like a vision. He had not, he was certain, ever seen a more lovely creature in his life.

  “Glory,” he said softly, smiling.

  She looked at him coldly. The momentary softness of last night was, he realized, totally gone in the cold light of the morning. “Do you want to get the bags into the car? I want to get to Cheyenne and on a plane and out of this country! I’ve had it!”

  “Glory—” But now he was angry again himself.

  She walked to the door, the calves of her shapely legs swelling with each movement. She swung the door open, and fierce cold and powdered snow blew in with the wind still raging from off the prairie beyond.

  “What a beautiful, gorgeous, stinking morning!” she said, striding toward the car. Sam followed, his mouth set grimly.

  As Gloria and Sam Dickens stepped through the unrelenting storm toward the new Chrysler, Billy Quirter climbed from the hayloft. In the raw, open cold once again, his arm hurt like the blazes of hell. But nothing in this rotten world was going to stop him…

  And still coming east, pushing his ageing sedan through the snow drifting across the ribbon of Route 7, the good Reverend John Andrews fought fatigue doggedly, while Lottie had, hours ago, given up, and now slept.

  Just before Graintown and the waiting roadblock, Reverend Andrews too had almost given in to his fatigue and swung off to the right, with the idea that he might impose himself and Lottie on the good people of the Harry Harkins farm. The swing took him on a detour around the south edge of Graintown, a road so bad that when Reverend Andrews had finally decided against the intrusion, he kept going and picked up the main road again, missing the roadblock. Now he was just a mile and a half away from Arrow Junction.

  He had almost dislodged that bitterness he’d fought earlier—the bitterness caused by his feelings about Maynard Styles—that prod of the Devil’s pitchfork—and pretty soon he would be home in Arrow Junction. Within another half mile, he was feeling the warmth of the totally unselfish, grateful only for the chance to be alive and in the Good Lord’s calling. He was a mile out of Arrow Junction now. And it was just there that he saw the figure of the small topcoated man stumbling onto the highway.

  Reverend Andrews brought his old sedan to a lurching halts, feeling a quick compassion for this soul caught in the storm.

  He swung open his door, as Lottie, awakening, straightened in her seat.

  “Hello, there, neighbor!” Reverend Andrews called. “Here, get in the car! You’re going to freeze to death out there!”

  The man came toward the car, a frail-looking figure, whipped by the savage wind. All the pity in Reverend Andrews’s heart went to him. He pulled his seat forward to allow the man, gripping his left arm tightly, to get inside to the back seat. Under the dome light, he caught a glimpse of the man’s face. He saw the cold, frosty look of it, and the pity rose even more fully within him.

  “You look frozen,” Reverend Andrews said. He turned, as did Lottie, looking at the unfortunate man now seated in the back seat.

  “Frozen, yeah,” the man said, shaking visibly.

  “Car break down?” Reverend Andrews asked worriedly.

  “Car broke down, yeah,” the man said, twisting his head a little.

  “If there’s anything we can do right now—you look absolutely frozen,” Reverend Andrews said. “Otherwise, we’ll—”

  “Yeah.” The man released his grip on his left arm. His right hand disappeared inside his coat. When it reapp
eared, it was gripping the handle of his gun. Billy Quirter said, “Here’s exactly what you do. You knock off the chatter and kick the engine over. We’re going to Arrow Junction. Now move!”

  It was a morning of early rising for everyone except Ted Burley. At that moment he lay snoring, blindly drunk for the first time in his life. Beside him lay Greta Blummer, snoring in equal tempo. Her large and bare breasts rested against Ted Burley’s muscular arm, her right hand lay absently across the inside of his naked right thigh. How Ted Burley got to be in the unclothed company of Greta Blummer in her lonely farmhouse four miles south of Arrow Junction, Ted Burley, at this moment, did not know nor care. But when he awoke later that morning, he would know, and the knowledge would frighten and shame him. But right now he was oblivious to all.

  Bob Saywell was up and moving.

  His conversation with Ann had not been, to him, entirely unsuccessful. The results of it had been, in essence, very similar to some very typical results he’d had with customers in his store. There were a few people in and around Arrow Junction who did not buy as much as they could from Bob Saywell, going, instead, to Graintown and using the three larger groceries there. This saved them money, because Bob Saywell was up a cent or two on most canned goods and a bit more on meats.

  However, Bob Saywell knew how to keep at it. He took a variety of approaches. With some he emphasized service. With others he emphasized quality. With a few he emphasized the point that trading with him was the best loyalty you could show to your own home town of Arrow Junction, because where would you be if you didn’t have his general store to come to in case of emergency when you couldn’t get to Graintown? With some few others he was required to resort to veiled threat—a cutting-out approach, designed to make the subject feel guilty, threatening him (indirectly but effectively) with possible deletion from the close Arrow Junction circle of society of which nobody doubted Bob Saywell was the hub. It all depended. But the main thing was you didn’t get discouraged. You kept at it. And the undeniable fact was that there was little buying potential in Arrow Junction that did not, finally, give in to Bob Saywell.

  Ann Burley, then, was hardly any different from a lagging customer of his store. He’d scored as well as he’d expected to score in that first inning. There were plenty of innings coming up to score harder. It was this positivism that had started Bob Saywell’s brain turning on an axis created out of pure and absolute lubricity.

  It had started the night before, when, after climbing into bed with Martha, Bob Saywell’s mind switched back to his encounter with Ann. The proximity to Martha at once started the sharp pangs of desire—not because Martha was desirable, but because she was so undesirable that the contrast between Ann and her, even though Ann remained but a mental picture at the moment, became all the more urgent in its effect.

  Martha did the cooking, the dishwashing (at store and home), the housework, the sewing, and the going-to-meetings required to attune one’s spirit to the whole of Arrow Junction’s. Martha, in effect, worked like a horse. But she never questioned it, would never rise up against it. This was all in the world that Martha knew about marriage, and it was all Bob Saywell cared for her to know.

  That she was a flop in the department of physical love as well as incapable of procreation did not, of course, deny the fundamental fact that she was a woman. And when Bob Saywell reached close proximity in their large bed, he had often enough reached desire, but seldom these latter years had he taken advantage of his marital opportunity. Martha was submissive, but she really did prefer the obligations of cooking and cleaning the house a good bit more. Of course, Martha could not help an inability to conceive. But Bob Saywell had never been disappointed that they’d had no children. Who, if Martha were busy being pregnant and wiping children’s noses, would do the work?

  So, despite certain lacks, Martha was nevertheless a woman and Bob Saywell liked to waste no opportunities available to him. But on this evening, Bob Saywell was not even concerned with getting his due from Martha.

  Most of the time Bob Saywell spent in saving his emotion for fairer pastures—his trips to Chicago, for instance. Now there was the mental image of good-looking, clean-formed Ann.

  So Bob Saywell suddenly decided he could stand no more of this proximity. He decided to get up and get dressed and out of the house and into the store, where he could entertain his thoughts for another hour or two in total privacy—it was Martha’s day off from the store anyway, her day to get things at home in order.

  “’S matter?” Martha murmured.

  “Snoring,” Bob Saywell said.

  “Sorry,” Martha mumbled, rolling on her side.

  “Think I’ll get up,” Bob Saywell grumbled. “Go down to the store. I’ll get my own breakfast.”

  “Mmmm,” Martha uttered.

  Thirty minutes later Bob Saywell unlocked the back door of the store. He turned on the thermostat, the grill, and started up the coffee, and in another twenty minutes was comfortably ensconced at the counter of his own store, warm, a cup of fresh coffee tantalizing his sense of taste and smell, the thought of moments to come with Ann Burley teasing his libido. It was a nice moment, exciting, pleasantly introspective for a man used to facing the public almost every hour. He was shut now behind the pulled shades of the broad windows and the glass-paned door.

  The storm roared outside, the wind blew, the snow came down, the temperature stayed at its freezing level. Bob Saywell barely heard the old sedan of Reverend John Andrews cough its way down the main street and come to a stop directly in front of his store.

  chapter eleven

  One going east, one going west, Reverend Andrews and Sam Dickens had arrived at Arrow Junction almost precisely at the same time. Both drivers had something in common: the controllers in each car (Billy Quirter in one, Gloria in the other) were hungry. The sign denoting food served in the Arrow Junction General Store performed the beacon.

  Gloria was the first to step outside, running lightly and easily through the snow with a dancer’s grace. She rapped quickly on the glass pane of the door. Sam Dickens came up behind her saying, “Honey, they’re not open—” But Gloria paid no attention to him.

  Sam Dickens sighed, and turned to look disinterestedly at Reverend Andrews’s old car. Gloria’s knocking was insistent. Finally, face perturbed, Bob Saywell jerked up the shade, preparing to shake his head. He looked at Gloria in her mink. Quite suddenly he unlocked the door and swung it open.

  “Why, you folks come right on in!” Fat cheeks puffing roundly with a smile, Bob Saywell motioned Gloria inside. Then his eyes flickered to Sam Dickens, on to Sam’s new Chrysler, then to Reverend Andrews’s car as the good reverend, face set, climbed out.

  “Yes, sir,” Bob Saywell said, his nostrils twitching faintly with the scent of Gloria’s expensive perfume. “Come in!” Then Bob Saywell boomed to Reverend Andrews. “Come on out of the cold, Reverend! Tell Lottie to hurry up and get herself warm with a cup of Bob Saywell’s good coffee!”

  Bob Saywell laughed, glancing at Gloria, who was now seating herself at the counter, checking her reaction to his good nature and generosity in opening for them.

  By now Lottie Andrews had gotten stiffly out of the old sedan. And Bob Saywell saw that a third party had gotten from the car, a small man in a dark coat who carried his left arm peculiarly. Reverend and Mrs. Andrews moved rigidly toward the store, eyes looking at Bob Saywell in an odd, fixed manner. Bob Saywell was puzzled. He stared at the stranger, trying to fix the man’s identity. He could not.

  But again his cheeks puffed with a smile. “Got someone with you, Reverend? Why, that’s fine. I’ll get things going in here, and we’ll all be cozy, eh?”

  The reverend and his wife had gone past Bob Saywell. Now Billy Quirter stepped inside. Bob Saywell slammed the door shut.

  “Yeah,” Billy Quirter said to a suddenly paling Bob Saywell. Billy’s gun was out and pointing straight at Bob Saywell’s ponderous belly. “Cozy. Right. A nice, cozy little party! Lock th
e door, fat boy. Pull the shade!”

  Billy Quirter’s eyes flickered over the room. His mouth twisted faintly with a smile, as he sized up the beauty of Gloria. Then he looked back at Bob Saywell.

  “Don’t stand there and quiver, jelly roll. Do what I say, huh?”

  Bob Saywell, at last, moved into fast and frightened action. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled. “Yes, sir!”

  The door locked, the shade drawn, Billy Quirter’s smile widened. “Now this is real nice. Now let’s keep it nice. I got an arm here that’s busted. But that don’t hurt my shooting arm at all.”

  He grinned. He slipped his finger from the trigger of his gun and let it slide expertly back in his palm, holding the gun out for everyone to see. It was a German P-38, and Billy loved the pistol; the serial numbers had been filed from each part where they appeared, but it was otherwise in perfect condition. To Billy, it was a symbol, and so he, in effect, worshiped the gun. He liked every part of it: the black look of it, the short snout of it, the front sight that could cut a man’s face like the tip of a beer-can opener, the heavy trigger guard, the curving and ridged grip of the butt. He could remember the first time he’d fired it, shooting holes in pasteboard boxes with targets pasted over their sides out in the country. He remembered the sweet kick of the gun in his hand, the sharp report, the faint orange flare of the muzzle blast, the neat holes it had left in the pasteboard; perhaps others would remember a first baby or a first lover, but Billy remembered the first shooting of his gun.

  He knew everything there was to know about that gun now. He knew the combinations of safeties, the tension of the magazine catch and thumb safety and hammer and trigger, the weight of it in his hand. He knew how to care for it, how to disassemble it with lightning speed, how to rub the oil on the steel and look down the shining and spiraling grooves of the bore to detect the faintest foreign particle. He knew, as well as he knew anything about it, its balance.