There Was a Time

“We uns don’t want trouble,” said Jeremiah savagely. “You don’t know the code o’ the hills, Parson. You be just Mormons. We bin good to you, and let you stay, even if you-all ain’t Christians, you and yore brother. We don’t aim to let you pizen our kids’ minds no more, if you make things bad for us. So git along and mind yore own business.”

  Frank’s fingers grasped Peter’s hand. Peter did not turn to him, nor did he look away from the mountaineers. But his fingers were like iron on his revolver and resisted Frank’s frantic efforts.

  Wade, so pale now that he was livid, said: “If you kill this man, I’ll see to it personally that you all hang. I warn you. You’ll hang.”

  Jeremiah lifted his rifle and swung it upon the young Mormon minister. But Eli raised his hand and dashed down the muzzle. He did it abstractedly. “Hold yore hosses, Jeremiah. We ain’t got no quarrel with the Parson. He cain’t do nothin’ to us. We got the sheriff with we uns. Sheriff’s own boy’s down in the town jail.”

  Then Bob Gratwick spoke with contempt: “Wade, don’t get into this. They want to kill me. If you try to stop them, they’ll kill you and Peter too. I’m not worth it. Why don’t you and Peter go on into the hospital and shut the door? Look here, you,” and he looked at the mountaineers over the O’Learys’ heads, “I’ll go into the hills with you, far into the hills, and you can do your dirty work there.”

  The mountaineers stared at him, then Eli spat. “Suits us,” he said. “Let’s git a-goin’.”

  “No!” cried Wade, and he and Peter backed closer to Bob. “There’ll be no murder today. I’ll give you men five minutes to clear out of here, or it’ll be the worse for you.”

  Frank became aware, for the first time, that a group of blowzy women and dirty men had emerged from the church and were standing at a safe and craven distance from the hospital, watching avidly like wolves. He lifted his arm to them and beckoned frantically. Some saw him; they averted their heads and slunk behind their comrades. Then they all stood in silence, vultures who awaited the kill.

  The horsemen studied the group of three valiant men below them. Bob Gratwick was shorter than his friends. They could not shoot over the heads of the O’Learys without injuring them. They glanced at one another. They looked tired but resolute. “Parson,” said Eli wearily, “we didn’t aim to do this, but yore as orn’ry as a mule.” And then, with heavy deliberation, he raised his rifle and pointed it at Wade. There was a spurt of blue flame, blinding, then a roar.

  Instantaneously, it seemed, a crashing volley followed, and the mountains threw back a series of resounding echoes. Frank staggered back, wild with terror, stunned by the flashes and the deafening noise, choking on the acrid gunpowder. His ears rang; his eyes were filled with a blue and floating cloud. He thought: They’re going to shoot us all down.

  Then the cloud thinned; he heard the beating of hoofs and a cry. The sun struck his streaming eyes. As in a dream, he saw the mountaineers galloping off towards the hills. He saw the sunlight on the store windows, the huddling group of men and women across the road. He was alive. He had not been hurt. He looked about him for the O’Learys, and then he cried aloud.

  Wade and Bob Gratwick sprawled side by side in the yellow dust near the hospital. Bob’s face had been completely obliterated; where his features had been was a smashed and bloody pulp, surmounted by his pale mass of hair. Wade lay in deathly silence, his eyes closed, his face gray and wizened. Peter knelt beside him, his hands pressed against his brother’s chest, blood oozing through his fingers. He was saying over and over, in quiet urgency: “Wade. Wade. Speak to me—”

  Frank saw the death that lay at his feet. His eyes, sickened and aghast, turned away from Bob Gratwick. He looked at Wade, saw a trickle of blood creeping from between the stern and livid lips. Then he sprang at Peter. He tore the revolver from its holster. He swung about, panting, clenching his teeth on his nausea and mad rage. The mountaineers were some distance from him now, approaching the steep slope to the hills. He had never held a revolver in his hand before, but he felt the trigger against his sweating finger. He lifted the gun, and instinctively sighted along it, as though it were a rifle. The backs of the fleeing mountaineers danced before him, like the horrible figures in a grotesque dream. His knees shook, and he tightened them, made them rigid. He pulled the trigger, and felt the powerful recoil of the gun all through his body as he staggered sideways. He heard nothing of the roar in this nightmare of horror and madness, but he tasted the burning powder on his lips, felt it fill his eyes.

  Thoughts rushed through his dazed mind: It isn’t real. It’s a dream. It hasn’t happened. His nausea was a huge salty mass in his throat and chest. He shook his head, and peered about him, stunned and incredulous. It seemed to him that a thousand long years had passed, that an era had come and gone, that he would awake on a roar of blinding sound, and daylight, and awareness.

  Yet, only a moment or two had vanished into nothingness. He shook his heavy head over and over, and in the shifting and tilting nightmare he saw that the horsemen had stopped abruptly. Eli, who was riding between his two companions, had fallen over his saddle, and in that clear and dazzling light Frank could see that the back of his blue shirt was running with a red stream. Hank and Jeremiah were holding his horse, supporting him so that he did not fall from his saddle. Hank looked back, and eursed aloud, his voice echoing from the hills. But neither he nor Jeremiah responded to Frank’s shot with a volley. They held Eli tenderly, and slowly rode off with him up the side of the mountain. The gaping crowd of men and women drifted off, vanishing as quietly and furtively as animals do. The sunlight poured down, and in the hospital there arose a few calls and querulous demands from the patients.

  Peter had lifted his brother upon his bent knee, one big hand still pressed urgently against the shattered chest. Frank ran to him, knelt beside him, and sobbed. Peter, white as a ghost, threw him a brief glance. It was as if he had seen or heard nothing at all. He said very quietly: “Help me carry him inside, Frank.”

  Benton was very quiet. No one walked down that road of death that day. Only the gander, the goose and the gosling paraded in single file towards the “branch.” Even the church and the stores had a subdued and furtive look, as if they had withdrawn themselves.

  Evening came, and the mountains floated in a tender lilac mist, and a soft wind blew up from the fields. From somewhere came the clanking of a cowbell. The hospital lay in a long and shadowy pool of silence. But no Bentonite came to inquire whether Wade had survived the murderous attack upon him. Someone had removed Bob Gratwick’s body. Frank suspected that it lay in the brush beyond the hospital, covered decently with a blanket, awaiting its recall by the older Gratwick.

  Frank sat on the steps of the hospital, his elbows on his knees, one clenched fist pressed savagely against his mouth. He must have sat there for hours, staring blindly before him, conscious only of a great hollow pain in his chest. There had been no doctor to see Wade, no help. Only his brother had sat beside his bed, which was hidden from the rest of the hospital by an improvised screen of sheets and up-ended tables. Each time that Frank had gone into the hospital, Peter had waved him away almost fiercely. “Not yet, not yet,” he had whispered. And Frank had exhaustedly returned to the steps and to his contemplation of the deserted road and village.

  No one had come to tell him whether Eli had died from his shot. He wanted to know. He wanted to hear that he had done this depraved monster to death. He wanted to look at his hand, and know that it had avenged Wade O’Leary. He sat with his fist against his mouth, and his teeth entered the side of his hand. He sat as rigid as stone and stared before him at the discolored dust where Wade and Bob Gratwick had fallen.

  He did not know that from time to time tears ran down his duststained cheeks and made furrows in them. Vaguely, he was sometimes aware that he tasted salt on his parched lips. Finally, in his stony exhaustion, he could not have moved even if he had wished to do so. His body was one vast pain, his mind one flame of hate, one sick s
urge of grief and rage.

  The twilight ran down the hills like water, and now stars began to glimmer in a darkening sky. Frank did not know that Peter had come to him, until the young man sat heavily beside him on the wooden step. Then, with a start, he became aware of him. He grasped Peter’s arm, tried to speak. But his dry throat cut off all sound.

  Peter shook his head, bowed it upon the backs of his hands. His whole big body expressed his abject misery and sorrow. His blond hair stirred in the evening wind.

  Frank’s hand fell from Peter’s arm, as if it had touched fire. He swallowed drily, over and over, and felt a sinking darkness in him. He finally whispered: “He’s—he’s—”

  Peter’s head fell lower, until it was almost on his knees. Lassitude and exhaustion overpowered him. A faint groaning struggled from his throat. But when he finally lifted his head and turned his haggard face toward Frank, his eyes were feverishly bright, unmoistened by tears.

  He spoke steadily and hoarsely: “Frank, you’ve got to get out of here now. Now. Right this minute. If—if Eli dies——if he’s dead now, they’ll come back and kill you. If—if I had shot Eli, it would have been—all right. I’m Wade’s—‘kin.’ They’d expect it of me, and let me alone. But you—you aren’t ‘kin.’ If he’s dead, they’ll murder you. I—I should have thought of it before. Any minute, now, someone’ll tell them that it wasn’t I who fired that shot.”

  Stunned, turning cold and completely numb, Frank could only sit without the power to move. Then he whispered: “I hope he’s dead.”

  A mist covered his eyes, and again his grief twisted him in anguish. “Wade,” he said aloud, and the word was like a stone. “They killed Wade.”

  Peter sat upright, and again he was very quiet and self-possessed, proud in his sorrow, composed and dignified. “You’ve got two hundred dollars, Frank. Take my horse. Ride—ride like hell. Not for Paintsville. They’d expect you to go to the nearest town. Go to Charlottestown, thirty miles to the west. You know how to get there. And don’t stop, not for a moment.” He stood up, and his face was a white blur in the deepening darkness. “I’ll get you some food. You need it. There’s no time for coffee or anything else.” He paused. His hand fell heavily on Frank’s shoulder. He tried to say something, and then was silent. But the pressure of his hand seemed to reach down into Frank’s heart, and he put his own hand over Peter’s fingers.

  PART III

  What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight,

  Though nothing can bring back the hour

  Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flowers;

  We will grieve not, rather find

  Strength in what remains behind;

  In the primal sympathy

  Which having been must ever be;

  In the soothing thoughts that spring

  Out of human suffering;

  In the faith that looks through death,

  In years that bring the philosophic mind.

  —Wordsworth

  CHAPTER 56

  There are the years which are faceless, a blur of gray shapes, a long drag of footsteps through lightless tunnels. These are the years which leave no trace in the heart, no mark or scar on the mind, no pool of brightness in the gloom. Is it spring? Yesterday it was autumn. Is it morning? Why, it was midnight only an hour ago. Is it summer? It is impossible; last night it was winter. Have I eaten, slept, drunk, walked, spoken, worked? When? A moment ago I ate my dinner. Yet my stomach is empty. I shaved only a moment ago, yet my chin is bristling. When did I bathe? I do not remember. I do not remember. I never remember. Who spoke to me then as if he knew me? I never saw him before, but he called me by name. This street seems familiar. When did I last walk down it? I saw it this morning—yesterday—two weeks ago, but the sun did not stare at me like this, red and fiery between these houses. It must have been this dawn when I saw it over my other shoulder, yet here it is now, peering down this street. But what has happened to the morning, to the hours between the morning and this minute? Where have they gone? I never experienced them.

  I am twenty-nine years old, but, between the year when I was twenty, and now, there must have been time and space, morning, noon and night, all the seasons of the year, all the holidays, the winds, the snows, the rains, the suns. I must have known illness, the sound of the city at night, cold, hunger, work, defeat. I must have known hope. But I know, now, that I never knew hope. It is hope which shines upon the years, measures them, marks them off, records them in time. It is hope which says: Last year, I believed I might have love, or success, or satisfaction. If not this year, then the next. Lying, deceitful, treacherous, inspiring, lovely hope! It is not laughter which distinguishes man from the other animals; it is hope, hope dividing time, projecting the hills which must be climbed, the rivers which must be crossed, creating the morning, creating the soul, setting the eyes beyond the horizon, leaping beyond space, moving the stars, striking upon the heart. Without hope, there is no awareness; there is no time, being, moments, hours, no coming or receding footsteps, no expected face, no shadow falling either to the east or to the west, no promise, no life, no death.

  There was a time when each tree changed with the sun, with the dawn, the noon, the evening, when it was a fluid being with a thousand aspects, when it turned white in the wind, folded its arms and bowed its head under the stars, flung itself upwards in the storm, and danced in the bright summer light. But never was it the same, never for even a single minute. Never was there a sunset when this tree cast the same shadow upon the grass or the snow; never were its branches in the same posture as yesterday. So it was with everything. Each day was distinct and vivid in time, cleft from its sisters. The stars never shone with the identical lustre with which they had shone last night, or ten years ago. Even the houses, the streets, the sides of buildings, the gutters, the shops, the sidewalks, were freshly created each morning, glimmering with magic, enchantment, wonder. And the sky, forever, hour by hour, moved with excitement and glory and beauty, whether it was a study in a thousand shades of stormy gray, or streaming with magenta fire in the dawn, or brooding over the earth at twilight in one long cold arch of limitless green.

  But somewhere, sometime, a hand lifted, and the change and the color and the motion paused, became fixed, static, changeless. Yesterday was tomorrow; tomorrow was a year ago, five years ago. The light never moves with a breathless, shining hurry; it darkens or fades, becomes pale or diffused, but it is always the same, and there is no line of demarcation, no intensity. I see shadows, but they have been standing there for eternity, immobile, fixed. I see the sun at noon, but he has never changed his place. If there is a hell, then it is a place where there is no tomorrow, or yesterday, or today, but everything stands still in time, unbreathing, familiar, immutable, a dull painted landscape hanging on the wall of forever.

  I am twenty-nine, and I shall soon be thirty. Where are the years of my youth, the golden youth of the poets and the singers and the sentimentalists? Where is the love, the hope, the ambition, the joy, the laughter and the anticipation? I have never known them. I am no longer twenty, as I was yesterday. A decade has passed, but it has passed in silence, in the dark of the moon, and if I have been twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven, I do not remember it.

  If I could only feel something, anything, again! If I could only feel despair! If I could only hate! But I feel nothing at all. A man is dead if he no longer is desperate, or hopeful, or even sick to death or full of pain. I look at my hand, and it is unreal to me. It has no substance. I see my face in the mirror, but it is only the shadow of a face that does not exist. Are these my legs, my flesh? They do not belong to me. They never knew me, as I never knew them. My name is Frank Clair, but when I say it, it means nothing to me. I died a long time ago.

  CHAPTER 57

  The winter twilight darkened over Bison. Long gray shadows plunged themselves deep into the snow, merged with it. The bitter green lake in the western sky had flowed to the east
, a depthless sea with a cold and static light. The scattered lamps along River Road began to flicker in the falling darkness.

  The big wooden clock on the plaster wall pointed to two minutes of five. Now the great office room of the Dumont Tire and Rubber Company appeared to brighten with the expectation of release. Only half an hour ago, the dank winter air had pervaded the room, dimmed the lights, blurred the tops of the long lines of desks. But now there was expectation in the room; a voice or two spoke easily; someone laughed. The typewriters and the comptometers clattered vivaciously, and papers rustled loudly. It was Friday night, and tomorrow was only a half day. The week-end lay ahead, and the fifty or more young or old, male or female, drab or bright faces, quickened with anticipation. Some of the younger men lighted cigarettes; some of the older men comfortably filled pipes. Some of the younger women opened compacts, dabbed powder on noses, heightened the color of their lips. They were all happy. In these dark and evil days of the Great Depression, they still had jobs.

  A blizzard suddenly blew up, with warning flakes of sharp snow, and the big lighted windows rattled. Everyone now stared at the clock, like racers. One minute more, and there would be the wild dash for coats and hats, for purses and gloves and arctics, then the noisy rush down the stairs to the road, where busses awaited them. They could see the busses parked below, lighted and empty. In a few minutes they would be filled to the very doors, and go rumbling and swaying and crunching into the city. Tomorrow was Saturday. Some of the girls were already putting on their tight little felt hats.

  Frank closed his typewriter desk, put away his shorthand book, crushed the carbon paper in his hand, threw it into the wastebasket. He returned the unfinished pile of invoices and railroad f.o.b’s. to the wire basket on his desk. Now everything was piled up neatly. A shallow wooden box on the right was filled with a high straight stack of completed work. It would be collected in the morning. He put away his pencils and his pen, screwed the top on his ink bottle.