The night was thick on them again. Ahead, they could hear a heavy sigh, and then it rode up to them—a warm wind out of the valley. It whisked gently in the dry grass.
Joseph muttered uneasily, “There’s an enemy out tonight. The air’s unfriendly.”
“What do you say, dear?”
“I say there’s a change of weather coming. The storms will be here soon.”
The wind strengthened and bore to them the long deep howling of a dog. Joseph sat forward angrily. “Benjy has gone to town. I told him not to go while I was gone. That’s his dog howling. It howls all night every time he goes away.” He lifted the lines and clucked the horses up. For a moment they plodded, but then their necks arched and their ears pivoted forward. Joseph and Elizabeth could hear it now, the even clattering of a galloping horse. “Someone coming,” Joseph said. “Maybe it’s Benjy on his way to town. I’ll head him off if I can.”
The running horse came near, and suddenly its rider pulled it down almost to its haunches. A shrill voice cried, “Señor, is it you, Don Joseph?”
“Yes, Juanito, what’s the matter? What do you want?” The saddled horse was passing now, and the shrill voice cried, “You will want me in a little while, my friend. I’ll be waiting for you at the rock in the pines. I did not know, señor. I swear I did not know.”
They could hear the thud as the spurs drove in. The horse coughed and leaped ahead. They heard it running wildly over the hill. Joseph took the whip from its socket and flicked the horses to a trot.
Elizabeth tried to see into his face. “What’s the matter, dear? What did he mean?”
His hands were rising and falling as he kept tight rein on the horses and yet urged them on. The tires cried on the rocks. “I don’t know what it is,” Joseph said. “I knew this night was bad.”
Now they were in the level plain and the horses tried to slow to a walk, but Joseph whipped them sharply until they broke into a ragged run The wagon lurched and pitched over the uneven road so that Elizabeth braced her feet and grasped the arm handle with both her hands.
They could see the buildings now. A lantern was standing on the manure pile and its light reflected outward from the new whitewash on the barn. Two of the houses were lighted, and as the wagon drew near, Joseph could see people moving about restlessly behind the windows. Thomas came out and stood by the lantern as they drove up. He took the horses by the bits and rubbed their necks with his palm. He wore a set smile that did not change. “You’ve been coming fast,” he said.
Joseph jumped down from the wagon. “What has happened here? I met Juanito on the road.”
Thomas unhooked the check reins and went back to loosen the tugs. “Why we knew it would happen some time. We spoke about it once.”
Out of the darkness Rama appeared beside the wagon. “Elizabeth, I think you’d better come with me.”
“What’s the matter?” Elizabeth cried.
“Come with me, dear, I’ll tell you.”
Elizabeth looked questioningly at Joseph. “Yes, go with her,” he said. “Go to the house with her.”
The pole dropped and Thomas skinned the harness from the horses’ wet backs. “I’ll leave them here for a little,” he apologized, and he threw the harness over the corral fence. “Now come with me.”
Joseph had been staring woodenly at the lantern. He picked it up and turned. “It’s Benjy, of course,” he said. “Is he badly hurt?”
“He’s dead,” said Thomas. “He’s been dead a good two hours.”
They went into Benjy’s little house, through the dark living-room and into the bedroom, where a lamp was burning. Joseph looked down into Benjy’s twisted face, caught in a moment of ecstatic pain. The lips grinned off the teeth, the nose was flared and spread. Half-dollars lying on his eyes shone dully.
“His face will settle some after a while,” Thomas said.
Joseph’s eyes wandered slowly to a blood-stained knife which lay on a table beside the bed. He seemed to be looking down from a high place, and he was filled with a strange powerful calmness, and with a curious sense of omniscience. “Juanito did this?” he said with a half-question.
Thomas picked up the knife and held it to his brother. And when Joseph refused to take it, he set it back on the table. “In the back,” Thomas said. “Juanito rode to Nuestra Señora to borrow a dehorner for that long-horned bull that’s been raising so much Hell. And Juanito made the trip too quickly.”
Joseph looked up from the bed. “Let’s cover him up. Let’s spread something over him. I met Juanito on the road. He said he didn’t know.”
Thomas laughed brutally. “How could he know? He couldn’t see his face. He just saw, and stabbed. He wanted to give himself up, but I told him to wait for you. Why,” Thomas said, “the only punishment of a trial would be on us.”
Joseph turned away. “Do you suppose we’ll have to have a coroner out? Have you changed anything, Tom?”
“Well, we brought him home. And we pulled up his pants.”
Joseph’s hand rose to his beard and he stroked it down and turned the ends under. “Where is Jennie now?” he asked.
“Oh, Burton took her home with him. Burton’s praying with her. She was crying when she left. She must be nearly hysterical by now.”
“We’ll send her home to the East,” Joseph said. “She’ll never do, out here.” He turned to the door. “You’ll have to ride in and report it, Tom. Make it an accident. Maybe they’ll never question. And it was an accident.” He turned quickly back to the bed and patted Benjy’s hand before he went out of the house.
He walked slowly across the yard toward where he could see the black tree against the sky. When he was come to it, he leaned his back against the trunk and looked upward, where a few pale misty stars glittered among the branches. His hands caressed the bark. “Benjamin is dead,” he reported softly. For a moment he breathed deeply, and then turning, he climbed into the tree and sat between the great anus and laid his cheek against the cool rough bark. He knew his thought would be heard when he said in his mind, “Now I know what the blessing was. I know what I’ve taken upon me. Thomas and Burton are allowed their likes and dislikes, only I am cut off. I am cut off. I can have neither good luck nor bad luck. I can have no knowledge of any good or bad. Even a pure true feeling of the difference between pleasure and pain is denied me. All things are one, and all a part of me.” He looked toward the house from which he had come. The light from the window alternately flashed and was cut off. Benjy’s dog howled again, and in the distance the coyotes heard the howl and took it up with their maniac giggling. Joseph put his anus around the tree and hugged it tight against him. “Benjy is dead, and I am neither glad nor sorry. There is no reason for it to me. It is just so. I know now, my father, what you were—lonely beyond feeling loneliness, calm because you had no contact.” He climbed down from the tree and once more reported, “Benjamin is dead, sir. I wouldn’t have stopped it if I could. Nothing is required in satisfaction.” And he walked toward the barn, for he must saddle a horse to ride toward the great rock where Juanito was awaiting him.
12
RAMA took Elizabeth by the hand and led her across the farm yard. “No crying, now,” she said. “There’s no call for it. You didn’t know the man that’s dead, so you can’t miss him. And I’ll promise you won’t ever see him, so there’s no call for fear.” She led the way up the steps and into her comfortable sitting-room where rocking-chairs were fitted with quilted pads and where the Rochester lamps wore china shades with roses painted on them. Even the braided rag rugs on the floor were made of the brightest underskirts.
“You have a comfortable place,” Elizabeth said, and she looked up at the wide face of Rama, a full span between the cheekbones; the black brows nearly met over the nose, the heavy hair grew far down on her forehead in a widow’s peak.
“I make it comfortable,” Rama said. “I hope you can do as well.
Rama had dressed for the occasion in a tight-bodiced, full-skirted black taffeta which whispered sharply when she moved. Around her neck, upon a silver chain, she wore an amulet of ivory brought by some sailor ancestor from an island in the Indian Ocean. She seated herself in a rocking chair of which the seat and back were covered with little flowers in petit point. Rama stretched her white strong fingers on her knees like a pianist sounding a practice chord. “Sit down,” she said. “You’ll have a time to wait.”