Arbie came on tiptoe in a small dancing kind of crouch, making a singsong noise through his nose. His knife was held low against his side for a thrust. Buck felt out again for room to move on either side, but the clerk and the attorney were frozen in their chairs, hands gripping the desk, half rising and half sitting.
Buck saw Tobe over Arbie's head. He watched Tobe's big hand come out from under his coat with a gun gripped in his fist, then he saw Tobe suddenly shove the gun back into his holster and he knew that Tobe couldn't shoot because of him.He looked back at Arbie. Arbie was coming closer. Buck suddenly put one foot on the desk and pushed up on top of it. Arbie was too close, his lips handing loosely, and Buck jumped, throwing both feet into Arbie's chest. Arbie was flung straight backwards, but he turned like a cat to land on all fours. Buck struck the floor flat on his back. Then he turned over slowly and saw Arbie scrambling from the floor, but he couldn't move of breathe. He saw Tobe again, coming in three long strides from the side of the room. Tobe kicked Jonus Killebrew in the face as he passed. Jonus fell backwards from a sitting position, and Tobe grabbed Arbie by the shoulder from behind. He swung Arbie around, with his left hand, his right drawn back. Arbie jerked as he turned, ducking into a low crouch and his right hand stabbed forward, towards Tobe's stomach. Tobe bent over slightly, quickly, as Arbie's knife came away, and his left arm grabbed his stomach. He pushed Arbie off with his right hand, then he backed away, reaching under his coat, still holding his stomach with his left hand. He backed slowly and Arbie followed close. Blood welled from between Tobe's fingers. His right hand came out from under his coat with a heavy short-barreled gun, and he braced it against his hip. He was turning to bring Arbie into line, when Buck dimly saw Jonus get up off the floor.
Buck fought the weaknesses in his legs, trying to get up, and tried to yell to Tobe, but he couldn't draw breath into his lungs. He was all fours, gasping, and white in the face, when Jonus took a short stop towards Tobe's back.
Jonus reached over Tobe's shoulder with his knife blade choked by his thumb and hooked it across Tobe's throat. He jerked it fast, and blood spurted from a long curving slash. Tobe fell backwards, still holding his gun against his hipbone.
Buck shook his head again hard. He slowly pushed himself onto his knees, and was struggling to get to his feet as the Killebrews started towards him, one on each side, with their faces working. He stood up, finally, weaving and bent over and started towards him. He saw Tobe between and behind the Killebrews.
Tobe rose slowly on his left elbow and blood spurted faster, pouring down his chest. He raised his gun slowly, not bracing it this time, and he shot Jonus between the shoulder blades. Carefully, then, as the heavy slug knocked Jonus face forwards at Buck's feet,
Tobe sighted at Arbie. Arbie turned quickly as Jonus fell & Tobe shot him high in the chest. Arbie twisted, falling into a small knot of a body with his knees curling up towards his chest. Tobe held himself up for a moment longer. He shot twice more into the shapeless bundle of Arbie, then straining to hold his sights in line, he emptied his gun into Jonus' body. Slowly, as if he hated to let go of something, Tobe fell backwards. The hammer of his gun clicked three more times on empty chambers.
Buck stumbled forward, holding his arm across his chest low down, and he fell on his hands and knees by Tobe. He caught him by the shoulders and tried to pull him upright, but his hands slipped in the blood and Tobe slid back down. Buck saw the gaping slash in Tobe's throat and automatically pushed the heel of his palm into the cut. He held his hand hard against it, pressing down against the collarbone, and fought for his breath.
Then he heard the crowd again, high-pitched voices, and feet shuffling, then stopping, and shuffling again slowly towards him. He looked up and focused his eyes, shaking his head, and suddenly he could breathe again. And talk.
"Get a doctor," he croaked, trying to yell. "Goddammit, do you think a man can bleed forever?"
His head dropped back down and he knelt there, waiting, with his eyes blurring on Tobe's white face, and his hand sliding in the cut in Tobe's throat, trying to hold back the gush of blood. He tried to breathe slowly, evenly, watching for movement in Tobe's face. Gradually, his eyes cleared, and he saw the lips move, mouthing, but not making any sound, then he saw a tiny crack of white and Tobe's eyes were opening into slits. Buck bent lower, turning his head sideways to listen, watching out of the corners of his eyes for movement of the lips.
They moved and he couldn't hear. He came closer and didn't try to listen, he watched, and he saw Tobe's eyes slowly open wider. The the lips again. They struggled to shape a word.
"Money," they formed, and then again, "money."
Buck nodded. "Money," he said, out loud.
The lips moved again, working slowly.
"Ever' month," they said. "'Send-"
Buck bent closer, quickly, and put his mouth close to Tobe's ear.
"I know," he said. "I know. I'll send it ever' month, same place."
The lips closed then, loosely, and the breath that came through them fought out in quick gasps. Buck saw Tobe's eyes beginning to close.
"Ever' month till you're well again," he said, softly.
(page 256- First Edition)
Buck thought it was quiet until he spoke.
"I reckon I died a little, too," he said, and then the quick little grass birds stopped bickering in the vacant lots. Buck stood very still, missing the sounds, and waiting with his ear cocked, while his eyes ran the darker slant of shadow cast by a telephone pole, so new that the sour smell of fresh-cut timber still hung in the air.
Then, suddenly, a rain crow begged up into the night and the birds started again, clicking their pointed wings against the dead stalks of high weeds. Abruptly, Buck began to walk, trying to hurry, but hating to reach home where there were people and loud voices, or worse, maybe voices that knew how he felt and hushed when he came near. He began to think, again.
"Got to be a reason," he thought, "for Tobe to die- not just to die like a man would die in bed-
but to die like Tobe, with his throat cut trying to save me.
Couldn't be just to get rid of Tobe. Or the Killebrew boys. It'd be easier some other way-better all the way round to let them die in their beds-
unless there's a reason outside of them just dying.
So that leaves me. The whole thing hinged on me. They came for me. Tobe came to help me.
Then they killed Tobe and he killed them. It started with me and it ended with me.
Maybe it was just to make me die an inch or two. But that'd be mighty wasteful. It would be better business to let me die all over instead of killing three men to whittle me down a little bit."
Buck stopped walking without meaning to, hardly knowing that he leaned his shoulder against the bole of a sycamore, and stood there a moment, pressing hard against the big silvery scales of bark. His mind picked at the thought.
"Maybe it wouldn't be wasted, or wasn't supposed to be, anyhow. Maybe it was done to make me do better, or different. But, if it was, what have I done wrong?
Now, how in the world can I just tell myself to change?
I'm like I was made and it don't seem right for me to set about remaking a man, even if it is me.
And how would I start?
Godamighty, it's just like I furnished a farmer- gave him land to work, seed to plant, and mules and tools. He'd do the best he could, I reckon. Looks like I got furnished with whatever I am, and it's up to me to do the best I can with what I got. I don't go behind and look up a farmer tryin' to furnish him with some more. After I've set him up, the rest is up to him."
Slowly, Buck started walking again, unconsciously holding his hands out far from his sides,
still feeling somehow the stickiness that he had washed off after holding Tobe. He didn't say anything out loud, but he mumbled as he walked, looking down at the ground.
He was facing his home, looking into the lighted hall from the front yard, when his mind fastened solidly on a new thought.
"If God had figured for a man to know what God was doing, He'd have made it that way.
I reckon He's able to do it, but He don't.
He just sticks them here, looks like, and tell them to work it out the best they can.
So that's what I'll do.
I'll go along, using what tools He gave me the best I know how, and if I manage better'n some, or worse'n some, it'll be my own crop.
Hell, I ain't a man to change."
He went up the steps then, slowly, still holding his hands out by his sides, but feeling in his legs as if he wanted to push his knees to help.
Out loud he said,"I talk like a damned circuit rider."
Jeanie Bannon was at the door when he opened it. She was just standing there waiting, fumbling with the curtains that hung over the glass panels on either side of the doorway.
Buck stopped before he closed the door behind him and tried to look at her eyes.
There was too much pity in them. He shook his head and looked down at her hands on the curtain, and didn't say anything.
She cleared her throat and looked away, too.
"I got all the young'uns to bed early," she said, " so they wouldn't-"
Buck shook his head.
"No use," he said, "it'll come sooner or later. Questions and no answers."
She looked at him, then, biting her lip, and started to say something.
She stopped and sighed, then her jaw set slightly.
"It wasn't your fault," she said, defensively.
"An' besides, Tobe wanted to do it. He'd rather have died that way."
Buck's head came slowly up and he stared at his mother's eyes for a second.
He seemed to be trying to find something in them.
Then, as he were puzzled, his head dropped back down, shaking from side to side.
There was a bitter look about his mouth as he spoke.
"Maybe," he said, " but it puts too big a burden on the man that's left alive."
INTERLUDE
The two mules ahead of them looked as if they were walking up a long slim blade of moon, the light was so nearly the color of the dust on the Clayhatchie road. Jake and Bass had ridden in almost total silence until the little gleams that meant Aven were hidden behind them by a rim of the shallow dimple in the land where the town was built. Dimly, far ahead of them a small light blinked once, then was lost to view again behind the bole of a large tree.
"That's the house up ahead," Jake said in a low voice.
"I wish-" Bass started whispering fiercely, then broke off and spoke again in a louder tone," I wish to the Lord, Buck was the kind of man you could either hate all the time or like all the time."
"I'll shore go with you on that," Jake said, fervently," You an' me both know who burnt that preacher out, an' I could a'stomped him a dozen times for that, then here he goes an'-"
"Damn that preacher," Bass interrupted. " I'd ruther need a preacher than have that'n."
Jake shook his head.
"Ought not to burn anybody out," he said, firmly, then his face twisted up, puzzled.
"How he can do that, then turn around an' send this stuff back, durned if I can figure."
"I can't understand 'im." Bass shook his head. "That junk in the wagon bed ain't worth no more'n the cost o' sendin' it back."
Jake laid the reins over in Bass's lap and started fumbling in his pocket.
"All I know is, he sent me down to foreclose this afternoon."
He scrubbed his palm over the ragged edge of a plug of tobacco.
"Then, when I come back with the stuff, I just chanced to mention how the old man had died a couple of days ago."
He bit off a small chew and rolled it with his tongue until it was comfortable, then held the plug out to Bass.
"He cussed me for a widow robber," he went on, somehow proudly, "an' mand me load it again an' start right back."
Bass bit off the plug of tobacco.
"Well, sir," he said," you cain't never tell about Buck. I didn't figure he'd ever get over Tobe Parody gettin' killed. Looked like for a long time it's softened him, an' I guess maybe it has in the long run."
"Hell, he's always been soft 'bout women an' kids, but God help anybody like us."
Bass frowned and shook his head.
"I don't know," he said, thoughtfully, "wasn't long after them Killibrews got Tobe that Buck drifted up to the yards an' got to talkin' to me. He knowed close to the day when I'd retire from the road an' he come out an' offered to set me up in some little cafe' or somethin'."
He wiped his mouth.
"Durndest thing."
How ironic that on the first day of September of 2023, the first day of the month that stands as the 75th anniversary of the publication of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, I discover that newspapers-dot-com now includes DOTHAN newspapers more current than 1963!
from the January 22, 1986 DOTHAN PROGRESS
from the August 29, 1948 DOTHAN EAGLE
posted by robertoreg at 9:19 PM
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