Karen tried to push between her father and Shar, but her father held her still. “I ain’t leaving here until I get done,” Shar said. He was wiping his face viciously with his hand. “She was dying to come out with me! Dying for it! I ain’t leaving till I see to him back there—And my car, look what she did to it! And she never got hurt either, the little bitch! Little bitch! It’s all downhill, how am I to get it up again—how am I to get out of this country without it?”
Before Shar’s frenzy father and daughter stepped back. Karen could feel her father’s trembling. She wanted to embrace him, protect him—against Shar’s violence, against the shame of what she had done, if only in her father’s imagination. “And I never asked her to come along,” Shar said. “Damn her! All her fault for this! Her fault if I lay into you and kill you all! Look at my car, and me here by myself, and that son of a bitch back there laying dead—You ain’t ordering me off of here. Herz, you try to tell me what to do, you try to tell me a thing, I swear I’ll kill you! I’ll wring your buzzardly neck till your eyes pop out!”
Specks of blood flew off Shar and onto Karen and her father. Shar continued shouting, and Karen felt her father’s hesitation—she felt the rapport between them, still, in spite of what he thought had happened. She believed he was about to turn to her, his eyes about to meet hers, accept hers, they would be unified against the insanity of this man’s passion. . . . “You ask her! Ask her!” Shar cried.
When Karen’s father did look at her it was not as she had hoped. He looked at her as if she were a stranger who had touched his arm in a crowd. “I’ll have this out with you later,” he said to her. She could see some of his gold fillings as he spoke, and his words so stunned her, so chilled her, that she felt once more a creature trapped within a dream, waiting for release. The unreal violence of the past few minutes rushed to a climax and exploded in her brain as she felt the impact of her father’s disgust.
“No, please,” she cried senselessly, “please, please. . . .”
As if infuriated by Karen’s voice, Shar rushed upon her and grabbed her away from her father. He yanked her around, almost throwing her onto the ground. “Bitch! Bitch!” he yelled. Before Karen’s father could do anything Shar had brought his bleeding hand down hard on Karen’s head and face, and then he shoved her back to her father. “Don’t you touch me,” Shar said, pointing one finger at Herz. “I mean it. I’m going to take care of him before I leave; I ain’t leaving now; I ain’t leaving till I’m done. If you touch me I swear I’ll kill you. I’ll do it right here.” He addressed the hired man, who stood with his feet apart and hands vaguely upraised. “I mean it,” he said. “I don’t care anything about killing all of you.”
Karen’s father said nothing. He pushed past Shar and started for the hill. The hired man awoke to movement and followed him: “You going back, Mr. Herz? What do you want me to do?”
Shar and Karen watched them leave, stumbling up the hill through the grass. The hired man scurried after Herz, craning his neck. At the top Herz turned briefly and said, “This is my personal business!”
Shar was sucking at his hand. He watched Herz and the man until they were out of sight, then he went over to the car and forced the door open. Karen stood, dazed, and watched him with a vacant stare. Her face was damp from the blood he had smeared on it. “Buzzardly old bastards!” Shar muttered. He straightened away from the car and tossed an empty paper bag over his shoulder. He was carrying a metal container and fumbling with its top, and he glanced at Karen, oddly enough, as if they were conspirators. “You better go up with them,” he said.
He started back along the creek bank to Rule’s shed. “What are you doing?” Karen said softly. If he heard her he gave no sign. She hesitated and then followed him. This was a path along which they had run as children: Karen and her brothers and sisters. Now it was grown over and sharp stinging branches fell against her, whipped back by Shar. “You get back with them,” Shar said, looking around. “I told you to get back with them.”
Karen ran after him. “He went to get his shotgun,” she said. The rapids made a harsh, thunderous sound here, so loud it seemed to suck her words away. Shar, however, heard: he stopped as if petrified.
“His shotgun?” he said.
He picked Karen’s hysterical fingers off his arm. She saw this with surprise; she had not known she was so close to him. “Don’t let him kill you,” she said. “Don’t let him.”
Shar hesitated. His expression was calm now, though blood from the scratches on his face gave him a bizarre, demented look, like a creature conceived in a nightmare. “The old bastard would do it too,” he said. “He killed a nigger once like that. A nigger.”
Karen could see the lightning rods glinting up at the big house. She waited for Shar to say something. But he said nothing—only waited another second—and turned back along the path to Rule’s shed.
WHEN KAREN’S FATHER APPEARED AT the end of the lane Shar had already set the cabin on fire. The mismatched boards and tar-paper roof, the junk cluttered so jealously around it, were dissolving into themselves and upward, belling out, expanding and shrinking, smoke black, clamorous, huge clouds of it drifting up through the trees to the pale sky. Beyond the swelling flames Herz appeared, seeming to materialize out of the fire itself. He carried the shotgun proudly before him.
Karen had meant to run to him, but something in his look stopped her. He was unfamiliar and savage—a giant of a man in oil-smeared boots and rancher’s clothing, a stranger. As Shar moved out to meet him, his eyes took on a furious, stone-like rigidity. The kerosene-fed flames glowed warmly on his face and hair and on the stock of the shotgun. He did not look at the fire but inched toward Shar, his feet seeming to take hold in the ground, not gracefully, but firmly, firmly, feeling his way along while Shar waited. Karen wanted to cry out—she wanted their eyes to jerk to her, to leave each other, for she saw that they were killers; she could absorb their wrath, drown shuddering in their fury. She wanted her father to freeze suddenly, to think of something—anything—From where he stood now he could see much: the rushing creek and the plowed land on the other side, rich black land notched against the sky. But the men stared hungrily at each other.
They waited. Karen’s father was nearly upon him. From so close the shotgun blast would tear Shar in two. With the barrel of the gun, now, Karen’s father began to do an odd thing: he made a series of rapid, jerked motions toward the burning cabin, as if he wanted Shar to go into it. Shar stepped backward. He put his hand out slowly as if to ward off the shot. His face was blank and without passion, as if drained of life. He began shaking his head and saying something—it must have been “no.”
He stopped and would go no farther. Herz motioned with the gun again, but Shar did not move. The wind blew flames lapping over the collapsed shanty. Karen whispered aloud, “Never the same again!” She clasped her hands as if in prayer as her father raised the gun to shoot.
Shar moved suddenly; the shot exploded, jarring Karen, and Shar had hold of the gun at the stock and was wrestling savagely with Herz. Had her father meant to miss? Karen could not tell. “Four more shots!” she cried to no one. “Four more! Four more!”
Shar seized the shotgun and swung it around, in almost the same movement. The gun blurred in an arc about his shoulders as he struck Karen’s father with it, knocking him back and onto the ground. Karen began to scream. Shar turned and fired the shotgun into the cabin: the gun made a thunderous roar. Karen ran to her father as Shar turned and came at him. The old man was on his hands and knees, looking at Shar with a queer, surprised look, as if someone had played a joke on him. With a savage and impersonal energy Shar struck him again on the side of the head, and, crouching over him, he slashed at him again with the stock of the gun as if he were counting the blows. “No, no!” Karen screamed. Shar pushed her away and struck her father once more, his legs jerking with the effort. Then he turned and lifted the gun over his head and threw it into the fire.
He looked down a
t Karen’s father and slowly drew his arm across his face. Without a glance at Karen he went by to the path and out of sight.
Karen knelt beside her father. He lay flat on his back, and in this position his chest looked queer and stuffed, as if only his breath had kept it strong. His face was bleeding and the blood was illuminated garishly by the firelight. Karen heard shouts somewhere: the hired men coming. They had heard the shots. She knelt and pressed her face against her father’s. She could not cry. His breath rasped and bubbled in her ear. “Father,” she said. “Father. . . .”
One of his heavy fists came up. She took hold of it and stared at him. His eyes looked bluish under the lids, half closed; then they opened, fixed themselves upon her. She saw the clarity of his recognition at once. “I’m all right,” he said. His face was distorted suddenly by pain; it must have run through him like a current of electricity. “You—Karen—” he said, swallowing, “Karen—”
“I’ll take care of you,” she said. “I’m here with you. I have you.”
“Karen—Get him.” He closed his eyes and Karen leaned to him as if to follow him into unconsciousness. Behind them the men hurried, stomping through the grass. They cried: “Mr. Herz! Mr. Herz!” He opened his eyes and stared at her again; she leaned over him, waiting. “Don’t come to me until you get him. Kill him. Kill him.”
“Father—”
“Kill him,” he said.
Then someone pulled her away, helped her up. Blinded by tears and terror, Karen could not see who. “Not me! Not me!” she cried. “Let me alone!” She pushed past the men. One of them stopped her, hesitating; then he let her go. She ran back along the path to the lane.
6
In spite of the chaos of the land about her and the surface buzzing of her mind, Karen felt that, deep inside, secretly inside her, she was able to think clearly and sanely. The fault did indeed lie in her, was of her doing: but it originated not in the decision to go with Shar but in her deliberately resisting sleep that morning. That was so—she had pushed against sleep, pushing herself up out of it as though she were moving slowly up through water to the clean air above. She had wanted that clean, clear air; she insisted upon it; she had wanted to breathe. Nothing else could explain her behavior. Now, as she ran feverishly across fields, sucking at air, her mind was able to function simply and damningly, as accurate as a clock ticking. Perhaps she had even understood the price of forcing herself up from sleep and, in going down to the men, the price of violating her role. Perhaps she had understood, without really being able to know, that the rejection of her child’s bed would lead, after a series of insane, vivid scenes, to the picture of her father lying in the cold mud, bleeding, staring up at her—how right he was to judge her, to find her guilty! She understood his judgment and accepted it.
Though her thoughts arranged themselves in order and seemed to indicate that she was in control of herself, she ran through the fields like one possessed—her thoughts had nothing to do with her action, but ticked on mechanically. Once, hearing one of the men behind her—“Karen!” he had called, making her name forlorn and unfamiliar—she had ducked down into an irrigation ditch and lay flat against the cold ground. “Can’t find me! I’ll lie flat—flat—” she murmured, gloating; in the next instant she congratulated herself on her cunning. There was no sound. Her body was still and heavy, like a stranger’s. She felt her heart beat, and pulses in her body, little throbbings in her fingertips.
“Karen!” the man cried, fainter now. “Ka-ren!” The word sounded ghostly.
She waited for a while. When she stood, all the blood seemed to rush out of her head, leaving her gasping and dizzy. She remembered then that she had been in an automobile accident, that she was probably hurt somewhere—somehow—she did not know. She examined the palms of her hands, as if that might mean something. They were dirty and smeared with dried blood. Staring at the blood, she thought again of her father’s face.
Then she ran. Once she felt something cutting at her legs: looking down, pulling at her skirt, she saw a thin white streak that swelled gently with blood as she watched. She forgot about it in the next instant, for she had come now to the field where she believed Shar was. She did not exactly know how she knew this, but she felt no doubt. The field was unworked and choked with grass and bushes. The bushes were skeletal, edged with long thin expanses of dirty snow; everything was silent. Only Karen’s breath disturbed the quiet, but she could not help it. She walked now, hugging herself against the cold, looking around and waiting to see Shar. She could not remember what he looked like. She walked stiffly and mechanically, her eyes fastened upon the colorless shapes and lines of winter, bush, grass, yearling tree, until they disappeared into a dark wood.
Out of the woods, or out of nowhere, Shar appeared and waited for her. “What do you want?” he cried at once. She saw him without surprise. “What do you want?” His face, smeared and crisscrossed with blood, looked as it had looked when he tried to wave the shotgun away: had she not suspected her reason, she might have believed she saw anguish there.
Karen came to him. He stared at her. It was with difficulty that she kept her eyes fastened on him—sometimes she stumbled and found herself looking at the dull sky or the horizon; she could not quite control herself. “What’s wrong? What do you want?” Shar said. “Is he dead? Did I kill him?” He seemed to be breathing as loudly as she. “I seen you coming all the way,” he said. Karen stopped before him and tried to focus her eyes upon him. “I watched you. What are you trying to do? What do you want? I told him to leave me alone,” he said slowly, “I told him myself I would kill him. I did. He was trying for me. . . . Is he dead?” Karen, watching him, could think of nothing to say. All her strength was consumed in fighting away unconsciousness, in forcing herself to stand. “What do you want with me?” Shar said slowly.
They stood quietly. Shar wiped his face. He was perspiring, though the air was still cold. He moved in a jerky, brutal way that seemed to her clumsily disturbing, and his voice, when it came, was disturbing too: “What do you want?” he said. Karen read the evidence of her own madness in this stranger’s perplexed eyes. “You turn back,” he said.
As if she felt she must do something, Karen lowered her gaze. Her hands, clasping each other fervently, were chalk white.
“Go back home,” Shar said angrily.
There was a short silence. Then she could see Shar’s teeth, before he spoke. “Go back home! Go take care of him! What the hell do you—” He bent suddenly and picked something up—an old rotted stick. He raised it. “Do you hear me? You go back home!” Incredibly—she had not planned to do it—Karen took a step forward. She saw Shar’s fingers tighten about the stick and his elbow jerk inward, and something change about his face. She closed her eyes to wait for the blow. But nothing happened; she looked up to see him turn and toss the stick away. He walked quickly away and into the woods.
On the summit of the plain stretching off to their right, into which the woods slowly dissolved, fir trees stood in ranked clumps and stretches, their tops forming a saw-notched line brilliantly black against the sky. Karen, following Shar, could see birds among the branches—snatches of gray, fluttering wings—and for some reason her heart went out to these birds. They darted and sank in the cold air, their cries pierced the air, liquid and sharp and meaningless. She nodded as if in agreement with them.
Birds fluttered in the trees above her. Only when she caught sight of Shar again did she forget about them. She saw him just when he turned to glance back at her. His hair was black: blacker than the woods behind him. He was saying something to her. It occurred to Karen that if this was not a dream it was related closely to a dream—surely she had dreamed of a man in this wood, a man in any of the woods, awaiting her? He rushed toward her as if someone had given him a shove. “All right, you little bitch,” he said, “do you know what I’m going to do to you? You know what I’m all ready for?”
His breath seemed to have control of him, to be shaking and jerk
ing his chest. He rubbed his palms against each other, and against his thighs, as if they itched him. “Goddam little bitch,” he said softly, “got me into this. You ought to pay for this somehow. Got your father chopped down too, didn’t you!” he said with a grin. But the grin faded almost at once. He said, “What do you want?”
He spoke softly; before she even looked up at him Karen knew he was leaning a little forward, the way one speaks to a child. “What do you want?” he said.
Karen spoke clearly and with more strength than she thought she had. “I want you,” she said.
Shar stared. He licked his lips, licking at the dried blood. For a moment his eyes blurred past her, and about her, and Karen waited, dizzy, within the abrupt shock of the man’s gaze: it was as if she had said something so indecent Shar would not acknowledge having understood. Then he said, lapsing into his previous tone, “Go back home. I told you to go back home.” His eyes avoided her face. Above them the somber winter birds cried out in brief, confused notes, as if they were lost. “Go back home. Go back home,” Shar said, nearly whispering, and again he wiped his palms against his thighs. “Don’t follow me.”
He turned and left her. Karen began automatically to follow. For a while her eyes were fixed upon his back, then she lost sight of him. From time to time she stopped to steady herself and to listen to the silence about her. She half expected to hear someone crying, “Karen! Karen!” behind her; but there was nothing except the birds. In winter the wood was empty. She saw tracks of deer in the hardened mud, and other tracks—rabbits, probably—but none of the animals themselves. In spots the ground was covered with ice that glinted slowly, reflecting the white sky: the wood was so thin at this time of year that the heavy glare of the sky could not be kept out, as it would be in spring and summer.