“How are you?” Charles asked.
“Fine. Did you get the book?”
“No.”
“I wonder what happened to it? It had pictures.”
“Going to stay?”
“I guess so. I’ll tell you about that country.”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” said Charles.
“Christ, you’re mean,” said Adam.
“I can just see it all over again. You’ll stay around a year or so and then you’ll get restless and you’ll make me restless. We’ll get mad at each other and then we’ll get polite to each other—and that’s worse. Then we’ll blow up and you’ll go away again, and then you’ll come back and we’ll do it all over again.”
Adam asked, “Don’t you want me to stay?”
“Hell, yes,” said Charles. “I miss you when you’re not here. But I can see how it’s going to be just the same.”
And it was just that way. For a while they reviewed old times, for a while they recounted the times when they were apart, and finally they relapsed into the long ugly silences, the hours of speechless work, the guarded courtesy, the flashes of anger. There were no boundaries to time so that it seemed endless passing.
On an evening Adam said, “You know, I’m going to be thirty-seven. That’s half a life.”
“Here it comes,” said Charles. “Wasting your life. Look, Adam, could we not have a fight this time?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, if we run true to form we’ll fight for three or four weeks, getting you ready to go away. If you’re getting restless, couldn’t you just go away and save all the trouble?”
Adam laughed and the tension went out of the room. “I’ve got a pretty smart brother.” he said. “Sure, when I get the itch bad enough I’ll go without fighting. Yes, I like that. You’re getting rich, aren’t you, Charles?”
“I’m doing all right. I wouldn’t say rich.”
“You wouldn’t say you bought four buildings and the inn in the village?”
“No, I wouldn’t say it.”
“But you did. Charles, you’ve made this about the prettiest farm anywhere about. Why don’t we build a new house—bathtub and running water and a water closet? We’re not poor people any more. Why, they say you’re nearly the richest man in this section.”
“We don’t need a new house,” Charles said gruffly. “You take your fancy ideas away.”
“It would be nice to go to the toilet without going outside.”
“You take your fancy ideas away.”
Adam was amused. “Maybe I’ll build a pretty little house right over by the woodlot. Say, how would that be? Then we wouldn’t get on each other’s nerves.”
“I don’t want it on the place.”
“The place is half mine.”
“I’ll buy you out.”
“But I don’t have to sell.”
Charles’ eyes blazed. “I’ll burn your goddam house down.”
“I believe you would,” Adam said, suddenly sobered. “I believe you really would. What are you looking like that for?”
Charles said slowly, “I’ve thought about it a lot. And I’ve wanted for you to bring it up. I guess you aren’t ever going to.”
“What do you mean?”
“You remember when you sent me a telegram for a hundred dollars?”
“You bet I do. Saved my life, I guess. Why?”
“You never paid it back.”
“I must have.”
“You didn’t.”
Adam looked down at the old table where Cyrus had sat, knocking on his wooden leg with a stick. And the old oil lamp was hanging over the center of the table, shedding its unstable yellow light from the round Rochester wick.
Adam said slowly, “I’ll pay you in the morning.”
“I gave you plenty of time to offer.”
“Sure you did, Charles. I should have remembered.” He paused, considering, and at last he said, “You don’t know why I needed the money.”
“I never asked.”
“And I never told. Maybe I was ashamed. I was a prisoner, Charles. I broke jail—I escaped.”
Charles’ mouth was open. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to tell you. I was a tramp and I got taken up for vagrancy and put on a road gang—leg irons at night. Got out in six months and picked right up again. That’s how they get their roads built. I served three days less than the second six months and then I escaped—got over the Georgia line, robbed a store for clothes, and sent you the telegram.”
“I don’t believe you,” Charles said. “Yes, I do. You don’t tell lies. Of course I believe you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Maybe I was ashamed. But I’m more ashamed that I didn’t pay you.”
“Oh, forget it,” said Charles. “I don’t know why I mentioned it.”
“Good God, no. I’ll pay you in the morning.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Charles. “My brother a jailbird!”
“You don’t have to look so happy.”
“I don’t know why,” said Charles, “but it makes me kind of proud. My brother a jailbird! Tell me this, Adam—why did you wait till just three days before they let you go to make your break?”
Adam smiled. “Two or three reasons,” he said. “I was afraid if I served out my time, why, they’d pick me up again. And I figured if I waited till the end they wouldn’t expect me to run away.”
“That makes sense,” said Charles. “But you said there was one more reason.”
“I guess the other was the most important,” Adam said, “and it’s the hardest to explain. I figured I owed the state six months. That was the sentence. I didn’t feel right about cheating. I only cheated three days.”
Charles exploded with laughter. “You’re a crazy son of a bitch,” he said with affection. “But you say you robbed a store.”
“I sent the money back with ten per cent interest,” Adam said.
Charles leaned forward. “Tell me about the road gang, Adam.”
“Sure I will, Charles. Sure I will.”
Chapter 11
1
Charles had more respect for Adam after he knew about the prison. He felt the warmth for his brother you can feel only for one who is not perfect and therefore no target for your hatred. Adam took some advantage of it too. He tempted Charles.
“Did you ever think, Charles, that we’ve got enough money to do anything we want to do?”
“All right, what do we want?”
“We could go to Europe, we could walk around Paris.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“I thought I heard someone on the stoop.”
“Probably a cat.”
“I guess so. Have to kill off some of them pretty soon.”
“Charles, we could go to Egypt and walk around the Sphinx.”
“We could stay right here and make some good use of our money. And we could get the hell out to work and make some use of the day. Those goddam cats!” Charles jumped to the door and yanked it open and said, “Get!” Then he was silent, and Adam saw him staring at the steps. He moved beside him.
A dirty bundle of rags and mud was trying to worm its way up the steps. One skinny hand clawed slowly at the stairs. The other dragged helplessly. There was a caked face with cracked lips and eyes peering out of swollen, blackened lids. The forehead was laid open, oozing blood back into the matted hair.
Adam went down the stairs and kneeled beside the figure. “Give me a hand,” he said. “Come on, let’s get her in. Here—look out for that arm. It looks broken.”
She fainted when they carried her in.
“Put her in my bed,” Adam said. “Now I think you better go for the doctor.”
“Don’t you think we better hitch up and take her in?”
“Move her? No. Are you crazy?”
“Maybe not as crazy as you. Think about it a minute.”
“For God’s sake, think about what?”
“Two men living alone and they’ve got this in their house.”
Adam was shocked. “You don’t mean it.”
“I mean it all right. I think we better take her in. It’ll be all over the county in two hours. How do you know what she is? How’d she get here? What happened to her? Adam, you’re taking an awful chance.”
Adam said coldly, “If you don’t go now, I’ll go and leave you here.”
“I think you’re making a mistake. I’ll go, but I tell you we’ll suffer for it.”
“I’ll do the suffering,” said Adam. “You go.”
After Charles left, Adam went to the kitchen and poured hoi water from the teakettle into a basin. In his bedroom he dampened a handkerchief in the water and loosened the caked blood and dirt on the girl’s face. She reeled up to consciousness and her blue eyes glinted at him. His mind went back—it was this room, this bed. His stepmother was standing over him with a damp cloth in her hand, and he could feel the little running pains as the water cut through. And she had said something over and over. He heard it but he could not remember what it was.