Bright Flows the River

  “What this world needs, Jerry, is a few heroes.”

  Guy moved to his chair and sat down. He smoked slowly, looking into space.

  “What this world needs, Jerry, is a few heroes,” said Tom. “And we ain’t got any now.”

  “You’re always ridiculing that war in Europe, Pa.”

  “As everybody should.”

  Guy was seventeen and he was already resenting his father, afraid to face the wisdom the older man spoke. Tom said, “In my way I was just a little hero. Face to face with a very powerful organization, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which is very busy lately, gathering up all the cash it can, in a fever, so we can go to war, too. And help bring America into the circle of Fascistic Communism.”

  “But you haven’t any money, you never make money.”

  “What do they care about that? They just want it. Let me tell you.”

  It had been a summer day, a month ago, full of bees and flowers and the conversation of birds. The distant mountains were a soft lavender against a radiating sky pulsing with sun. Tom had just finished inspecting his burgeoning corn, and harrowing the rows. He sat on the steps of his old house, smoking his pipe, drinking a cold glass of beer. He was content. His current woman was a friendly and dimpled wench, who never stopped talking and giggling. But she was amiable, and a practical cook, and Tom asked no more of a woman.

  He heard a car coming up his narrow private road and he turned his head. It was a new car, and gleaming. A visitor. But he rarely had visitors. Idly he watched a youngish man detach himself from the interior of the car. He took out a white handkerchief and wiped his sweating face. It was a hot day. Now Tom was curious. The man was fairly young and had a tight humorless face, and he wore a city summer suit of brown gabardine and his shoes shone from merciless polishing. He closed the car door and sent his narrow eyes slowly over the land, as if measuring every acre. He looked at his car. It was dusty, and he was displeased. He came towards the house and Tom.

  “Hello,” said Tom. “Who are you, son, and what do you want?”

  The man carried a briefcase. He also produced a card, which he gave to Tom. Tom squinted at it. He stroked his beard. “What can I do for you, Mr. Henderson?”

  “It’s about your taxes, Mr. Jerald.”

  “Now, is it? I pay my land taxes, and it breaks me. But I pay them. Real patriotic, ain’t I?

  The man refused to smile. He stood before Tom, and Tom, with amusement, saw that he was trying to look very formidable. “I’m not impressed,” Tom said, and laughed.

  “By what, sir?”

  “By you, and what you represent. Sit down, boy, and have a glass of cold beer and try to be human and not one of those fucking tax gatherers whom the good Lord hated above all other evildoers. I believe He forgave one, when the bastard repented. But he had to repent first. Doing any penance lately, Mr. Henderson?”

  “I’m doing my duty, Mr. Jerald.”

  “Are you?”

  “We have to have money for the running of the government, and for social services.”

  “Never cared about either, son. I suppose you don’t know, but this country became strong and rich, the envy of the world, its currency backed by gold, before we ever had a federal income tax. Now our money ain’t worth more than wiping your ass with it. Nineteen thirteen. So the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, so we could engage ourselves in Europe’s war. The first one. And I suppose you’re scraping the barrel now to finance getting into this one.” Tom shook his head and pulled his beard and grinned. “I’m not going to be part of it. I got a conscience, I have.”

  The man sighed loud and disgustedly. “Your taxes,” he said.

  “I don’t believe in ’em.”

  “There’s a penalty for not paying them, Mr. Jerald.”

  “So I heard. And where the hell is the spirit of American men now? Seems to me this country was founded by brave men who refused to pay taxes. They established a free nation. We need some more Boston Tea Parties, and we’d have ’em if American men, these days, weren’t so scared of the damned government that at the mention of you they shit in their pants. Well, sir, I’m not scared. I’m an American. And my pants are sanitary, which is more than most men can say these days.”

  The man’s face became very pale and much tighter. He put on his glasses. He stood and opened his briefcase. He brought out a sheaf of papers and studied them, frowning a white frown. Tom watched him, lightly humming a bawdy song.

  “You file, each year, a tax return, Mr. Jerald.”

  “So I do. That’s the stupid law, ain’t it, and I’m a law-abiding citizen of this great You-Ess-Ay.”

  The man’s thin face became grimmer. “Last year you reported no profit on this big farm. Nine hundred acres. You alleged you had an income of only eight hundred dollars, with expenses and real estate taxes of five hundred dollars.”

  “Correct.”

  “So you netted only three hundred dollars.”

  “Correct, again. Seems to me I heard that in view of my income I didn’t need to file any return at all. Correct?”

  “And you have only six hundred dollars in the bank. You say.”

  “And I said it right. By the way, ain’t there a law or something which says I have the right of privacy?”

  “If you aren’t a felon, Mr. Jerald.”

  “Oh, I’m a felon, all right, according to my neighbors. But ain’t been arrested yet. I know the Chief of Police. All of my crimes are minor and happy ones, such as loving women. Or have you got a law outlawing that too? Shouldn’t wonder.” Tom stood up, and spat in the man’s vicinity, and laughed. “Sorry, son. When I see fellas like you my mouth sort of drools, like a cat seeing a rat.”

  “Insults won’t get you anywhere, Mr. Jerald.”

  “I wasn’t insulting you. I just spoke the truth, and the truth is something bureaucrats can’t tolerate. What made you get into this foul business, anyway? Ain’t you ashamed of yourself? Couldn’t you find an honest job?”

  The man was breathing loudly and his thin cheeks flushed scarlet. He said, “This is a big farm. Are you trying to say you don’t make any profits on it?”

  “I’m not ‘trying to say.’ I’m saying it.”

  “Why don’t you make a profit?”

  “Simple. I like the way I live, and I don’t like to pay taxes. If I worked very hard I’d have no fun, which is the only thing worth living for. And I’d have to pay taxes, and my conscience as an American prohibits that. Sure, for defending our country, it’s worth it. Lincoln had a federal income tax, but after the War between the States the U. S. Supreme Court declared such a tax was unconstitutional. Right. The matter came up time after time, and the Court, every time, said it was unconstitutional. Still is, in spite of that amendment. Then came the Spanish-American War, and war taxes, and for the last time, unfortunately, a federal tax was said to be against the Constitution. By the Court. Or, don’t you know your history, son?”

  “Mr. Jerald, let’s not be facetious.”

  “Well, well,” said Tom, with admiration, “a real educated fella. You never can tell, can you?”

  The harsh scarlet deepened on the man’s face. He looked again at his papers. “You list only one employee, a Miss Grace Schultz.”

  “Correct. She’s my housekeeper and helps with the chores. Not a lot of them. And my son, who’s seventeen, helps out every weekend, and in the summer, and I don’t pay him anything.”

  “You haven’t been withholding income tax on Miss Schultz’s income.”

  “What? On eight dollars a week, which is all I can afford to pay? She don’t get enough money to pay taxes. I pay her Social Security, though, you’ll see.”

  “Eight dollars a week?”

  “Right. She ain’t really worth that, but I’m a generous fella.”

  “And you’re letting this land just lie, without cultivating all of it?”

  “True. Just cultivate enough to keep me in fruit and vegetables and raise corn and hay for the stock.
”

  “If you cultivated it you’d make a lot of money.”

  “Which I don’t need or want. And, I’d be paying taxes.”

  “You’ve listed Miss Schultz as housekeeper-assistant.”

  “And fifty percent of that eight dollars a week is tax-deductible, as a farm employee. That is, if I needed tax deductions, which I don’t.”

  “Mr. Jerald, I don’t believe a word you’ve told me. Now, there’s a matter of net worth. You’re subjected to that.”

  Tom chuckled. “I paid a dollar an acre for this farm, and it’s still worth only nine hundred dollars. I pay taxes on the land. I listed the taxes. Still ain’t worth more than nine hundred dollars. Make a net worth of that, son.”

  “Nine hundred dollars, for all this?”

  “That’s all.”

  “No other source of income?”

  “No.” Tom was enjoying himself.

  “We’ll send someone out to appraise this farm.”

  Tom stopped smiling. “No, you won’t. I know the law, too. And that reminds me. You’re trespassing. I never asked you to come. I didn’t invite you. So haul ass out of here before you get a dose of lead poisoning.”

  “Are you trying to threaten me?”

  “No, I’m not trying to. I just am.”

  “That’s a crime.”

  “So’s your trespassing. We’re even! Now, get out of here. I’ve had my fun with you.”

  Mr. Henderson backed away and put the tax returns in his briefcase. He said, in an ominous voice, “You’ll be hearing from us.”

  “I hope not. Can’t stand the sight of you. Now, get out. Come again, and they’ll haul you away in a meat wagon.”

  Tom had finished his story. When Guy could stop laughing, he said, “Did they arrest you, or something?”

  “No. When a bureaucrat comes up against an American—I mean an American—not the simpering slobs they call men now—he runs. He just can’t stand the sight of a man. But there are fewer men in America now than ever. So, we got an oppressive government. That’s the price we pay for our sins. Oh, they did some snooping around, I heard. But it came to nothing. Kind of regretted it. Wanted to blow that fella’s belly out with my shotgun, for trespassing. Chief of Police mentioned something about ‘threatening.’ I said I never showed that fella a gun. And I got a license for the gun I have. To shoot rabbits. All farmers have guns. Wonder why they don’t start using them, as they did at Bunker Hill.”

  “‘The shot heard round the world.’”

  Tom sighed. “You’ll hear shots all right, son. But they won’t be for freedom. They’ll be to enslave mankind, and maybe that’s all it’s worth now.”

  James was watching Guy closely. Then to his great astonishment and pleasure he saw that Guy was not only smiling, but laughing. It was a rough laugh, and reluctant, but it was surely a laugh.

  “My father was right,” he said. “There aren’t any heroes anymore. And, God, do we need them now!”

  “I thought you didn’t like ‘heroics.’”

  “I don’t. I just like heroes. My father was one, a genuine one.”

  “So was my own father.”

  “I’m no hero,” said Guy.

  “Neither was I. Until today.”

  “Congratulations. You’re too fat to be a hero, Jim.”

  “And you’re too thin.”

  They actually shook hands. And Guy laughed again.

  That night James said to Emil, “I think a few more days will do it.”

  “If he doesn’t have a relapse.”

  “Yes, he might. Let’s hope not. He’s just about made up his mind, tenuously though. He’s rocking back and forth. A little more time. I wish I knew what it was that made him laugh today.”

  James called at the desk for any word from Emma, but there was none. Tomorrow would be Wednesday. She was probably home now, packing. At nine o’clock James, with increasing impatience, called her. Simon, the chef, answered.

  “Sir James?” His voice was suddenly cautious and careful. “Yes. Her ladyship, you know, is in Torquay.”

  It was the elderly man’s tone of voice which alerted James, and not his words. His heart began its painful throbbing.

  “But she is supposed to be in America on Friday, Simon.”

  “Yes, indeed. I know, Sir James. She’ll probably be home tomorrow.”

  “To pack?”

  The man hesitated. Then he said, “Yes, to pack, Sir James. She did say she would be away for a long time.”

  When he had completed the call James sat down abruptly on his bed. He found he was breathing hard and too fast, and there was a sudden sharp pain in his chest. He tried to calm himself. Simon had assured him that Lady Emma would be in America Friday. Why, then, was he so agitated? “It’s just that I want and need her so desperately,” he said. “Desperately.”

  He reassured himself by saying aloud, “Friday. I only have to wait for Friday. On Thursday, she promised me she’d call to tell me her flight number.”

  But when he went to bed he could not sleep.

  24

  The next morning, at breakfast, Emil looked at James with gloom. “Bad news, I’m afraid. Our friend has gone back into the silences—a pseudo-catatonic state. He showed as much response to his nurse, and food, as a statue seated in his chair. I got the impression from the later nurse that you seemed to have precipitated this new crisis.” Emil’s eyes were sharp.

  “Not true,” said James, dismayed. “We even laughed together and shook hands when we parted. I heard that he was showing some appetite. We joked with each other—yes, joked. I was very encouraged and started to plan on leaving in a few days at the most.”

  “Then,” said Emil, “in some way he brought this on himself. He’s in retreat, I surmise, a deliberate retreat, because he understood where he was being led and he’s not up to it yet, or he wants more time. I’d advise you not to visit him today. He’s got to get his breath.”

  “Will you see him, Emil?”

  “I’ll look in on him, and decide if he needs more medication. But I won’t question him or talk to him.” He stood up, then seeing how downcast James was, he pressed the other man’s shoulder. “I half expected this, you’ll remember. He was coming along too fast. A man doesn’t descend so low as he did and then snap out of it in two or three weeks, remember. It takes much more time.”

  James, by himself, ordered more coffee. He began to read the morning newspaper Emil had left behind for him. He saw, through the tall windows of the room, that it was snowing again, determined and silent, and the air was dark gray. It was a cold disheartening winter day and though the big old-fashioned room was very warm James shivered, as a nameless premonition came prowling through his mind. He could not focus on the depressed foreboding and did not know what had provoked it. In forty-eight hours Emma would be here, he reminded himself. Though even his closest friends thought of him as a healthily cheerful man, stable and always self-disciplined, never emotional or volatile and never out of perfect control over himself, he was secretly fanciful at times, and he felt high peaks and low depths more strongly than other men. Manic-depressive, he had laughingly diagnosed himself. He was now at low ebb and sickeningly despondent. He had felt this way before meeting Emil at breakfast, but it was not because of Guy Jerald, he knew. It was that mistily vague conversation with old Simon, Emma’s chef. He reminded himself that he had slept badly, and that he had been frightened to the very heart, though he did not know what had affrighted him. Emma would be here on Friday. On Thursday she would tell him her flight number, BOAC, and the time of her arrival. He would hear from her tomorrow at the latest. Again he shivered. What would he do with himself today? He did not feel inclined to take a walk. He had ordered some new books, all murder mysteries, to which he was addicted. After all, he would think, some of the best writing of today was done by writers of mystery and suspense novels. They were clear-cut, interesting, exciting, absorbing, with few if any signs of the universal malaise. They had mor
e insight into human nature than the modern straight novel. So he would inspect the new delivery and rest and enjoy himself, if he could, in some suspenseful novel, and would drink quietly, alone, until it was time to receive Hugh Lippincott and Mrs. Kleinhorst and take them to dinner.

  He followed this schedule with determination. After lunch, he felt sleepy, and went back to his room for a nap. After all, he had slept very little last night. He awoke about five, discovered it was very dark outside and that the gentle snow had turned into a blizzard. The window ledges were heaped with snow and the glass vibrated in the storm. His guests and he would have dinner here tonight. He thought of Beth Turner. He called her at her house and when her warm voice answered him some of his amorphous misery lifted. He invited her to dine with him tonight, in the company of new friends, and she happily consented. He felt certain that she would enjoy the company of himself and Mrs. Kleinhorst, if not Hugh’s company. He delicately neglected mentioning names, because he was somewhat apprehensive about her acceptance had she known. After all, the encounter with Guy’s family had not been a pleasant occasion for her.

  He took a nice hot bath, and reclined in the water, read more of the book he had started, and smoked his cigar. He began to feel soothed and drowsy again. In a little while he reluctantly left the tub, and shaved and dressed. It was now seven o’clock and his guests would be here in half an hour. He went down to the dining room to reserve a table and inspect the evening menu. Knockwurst and pickled hot cabbage, or fried chicken, or roast beef, or calves’ liver. Very provincial and hearty, and satisfying. Nothing sophisticated or continental, thank God. He reserved another table in the bar. He went to the lobby to wait for his guests. Beth was the first to arrive, her cheeks rosy from the cold, her tawny eyes shining like a girl’s. “I was feeling very blue, James,” she said. “Thank you for calling me.” Her hand was warm in his and he gave her a smiling look of deep affection. She was wearing, tonight, an obviously new dress of brownish-gold soft wool and she wore a gold chain about her long white throat, and the gold and diamond bracelet and gold earrings. Her red hair was braided about her small head, which was regal.