Short Fiction · Dearest (2/3)

Myra was silent, and Colonel Hampton found himself watching her with interest. Her mouth had twisted into a wry grimace, and she was clutching the arms of her chair until her knuckles whitened. She seemed to be in some intense pain. Colonel Hampton hoped she were; preferably with something slightly fatal.

Sergeant Williamson’s suspicion that he might be getting religion became a reality, for a time, that winter, after The Miracle.

It had been a blustery day in mid-January, with a high wind driving swirls of snow across the fields, and Colonel Hampton, fretting indoors for several days, decided to go out and fill his lungs with fresh air. Bundled warmly, swinging his blackthorn cane, he had set out, accompanied by Dearest, to tramp cross-country to the village, three miles from Greyrock. They had enjoyed the walk through the white windswept desolation, the old man and his invisible companion, until the accident had happened.

A sheet of glassy ice had lain treacherously hidden under a skift of snow; when he stepped upon it, his feet shot from under him, the stick flew from his hand, and he went down. When he tried to rise, he found that he could not. Dearest had been almost frantic.

“Oh, Popsy, you must get up!” she cried. “You’ll freeze if you don’t. Come on, Popsy; try again!”

He tried, in vain. His old body would not obey his will.

“It’s no use, Dearest; I can’t. Maybe it’s just as well,” he said. “Freezing’s an easy death, and you say people live on as spirits, after they die. Maybe we can always be together, now.”

“I don’t know. I don’t want you to die yet, Popsy. I never was able to get through to a spirit, and I’m afraid.⁠ ⁠… Wait! Can you crawl a little? Enough to get over under those young pines?”

“I think so.” His left leg was numb, and he believed that it was broken. “I can try.”

He managed to roll onto his back, with his head toward the clump of pine seedlings. Using both hands and his right heel, he was able to propel himself slowly through the snow until he was out of the worst of the wind.

“That’s good; now try to cover yourself,” Dearest advised. “Put your hands in your coat pockets. And wait here; I’ll try to get help.”

Then she left him. For what seemed a long time, he lay motionless in the scant protection of the young pines, suffering miserably. He began to grow drowsy. As soon as he realized what was happening, he was frightened, and the fright pulled him awake again. Soon he felt himself drowsing again. By shifting his position, he caused a jab of pain from his broken leg, which brought him back to wakefulness. Then the deadly drowsiness returned.

This time, he was wakened by a sharp voice, mingled with a throbbing sound that seemed part of a dream of the cannonading in the Argonne.

“Dah! Look-a dah!” It was, he realized, Sergeant Williamson’s voice. “Gittin’ soft in de haid, is Ah, yo’ ol’ wuthless no-’count?”

He turned his face, to see the battered jeep from Greyrock, driven by Arthur, the stableman and gardener, with Sergeant Williamson beside him. The older Negro jumped to the ground and ran toward him. At the same time, he felt Dearest with him again.

“We made it, Popsy! We made it!” she was exulting. “I was afraid I’d never make him understand, but I did. And you should have seen him bully that other man into driving the jeep. Are you all right, Popsy?”

“Is yo’ all right, Cunnel?” Sergeant Williamson was asking.

“My leg’s broken, I think, but outside of that I’m all right,” he answered both of them. “How did you happen to find me, Sergeant?”

The old Negro soldier rolled his eyes upward. “Cunnel, hit war a mi’acle of de blessed Lawd!” he replied, solemnly. “An angel of de Lawd done appeahed unto me.” He shook his head slowly. “Ah’s a sinful man, Cunnel; Ah couldn’t see de angel face to face, but de glory of de angel was befoh me, an’ guided me.”

They used his cane and a broken-off bough to splint the leg; they wrapped him in a horse-blanket and hauled him back to Greyrock and put him to bed, with Dearest clinging solicitously to him. The fractured leg knit slowly, though the physician was amazed at the speed with which, considering his age, he made recovery, and with his unfailing cheerfulness. He did not know, of course, that he was being assisted by an invisible nurse. For all that, however, the leaves on the oaks around Greyrock were green again before Colonel Hampton could leave his bed and hobble about the house on a cane.

Arthur, the young Negro who had driven the jeep, had become one of the most solid pillars of the little A.M.E. church beyond the village, as a result. Sergeant Williamson had also become an attendant at church for a while, and then stopped. Without being able to define, or spell, or even pronounce the term, Sergeant Williamson was a strict pragmatist. Most Africans are, even five generations removed from the slave-ship that brought their forefathers from the Dark Continent. And Sergeant Williamson could not find the blessedness at the church. Instead, it seemed to center about the room where his employer and former regiment commander lay. That, to his mind, was quite reasonable. If an Angel of the Lord was going to tarry upon earth, the celestial being would naturally prefer the society of a retired U.S.A. colonel to that of a passel of triflin’, no-’counts at an ol’ clapboard church house. Be that as it may, he could always find the blessedness in Colonel Hampton’s room, and sometimes, when the Colonel would be asleep, the blessedness would follow him out and linger with him for a while.

Colonel Hampton wondered, anxiously, where Dearest was, now. He had not felt her presence since his nephew had brought his lawyer and the psychiatrist into the house. He wondered if she had voluntarily separated herself from him for fear he might give her some sign of recognition that these harpies would fasten upon as an evidence of unsound mind. He could not believe that she had deserted him entirely, now when he needed her most.⁠ ⁠…

“Well, what can I do?” Doctor Vehrner was complaining. “You bring me here to interview him, and he just sits there and does nothing.⁠ ⁠… Will you consent to my giving him an injection of sodium pentathol?”

“Well, I don’t know, now,” T. Barnwell Powell objected. “I’ve heard of that drug⁠—one of the so-called ‘truth-serum’ drugs. I doubt if testimony taken under its influence would be admissible in a court.⁠ ⁠…”

“This is not a court, Mr. Powell,” the doctor explained patiently. “And I am not taking testimony; I am making a diagnosis. Pentathol is a recognized diagnostic agent.”

“Go ahead,” Stephen Hampton said. “Anything to get this over with.⁠ ⁠… You agree, Myra?”

Myra said nothing. She simply sat, with staring eyes, and clutched the arms of her chair as though to keep from slipping into some dreadful abyss. Once a low moan escaped from her lips.

“My wife is naturally overwrought by this painful business,” Stephen said. “I trust that you gentlemen will excuse her.⁠ ⁠… Hadn’t you better go and lie down somewhere, Myra?”

She shook her head violently, moaning again. Both the doctor and the attorney were looking at her curiously.

“Well, I object to being drugged,” Colonel Hampton said, rising. “And what’s more, I won’t submit to it.”

“Albert!” Doctor Vehrner said sharply, nodding toward the Colonel. The pithecanthropoid attendant in the white jacket hastened forward, pinned his arms behind him and dragged him down into the chair. For an instant, the old man tried to resist, then, realizing the futility and undignity of struggling, subsided. The psychiatrist had taken a leather case from his pocket and was selecting a hypodermic needle.

Then Myra Hampton leaped to her feet, her face working hideously.

“No! Stop! Stop!” she cried.

Everybody looked at her in surprise, Colonel Hampton no less than the others. Stephen Hampton called out her name sharply.

“No! You shan’t do this to me! You shan’t! You’re torturing me! you are all devils!” she screamed. “Devils! Devils!”

“Myra!” her husband barked, stepping forward.

With a twist, she eluded him, dashing around the desk and pulling open a drawer.

For an instant, she fumbled inside it, and when she brought her hand up, she had Colonel Hampton’s .45 automatic in it. She drew back the slide and released it, loading the chamber.

Doctor Vehrner, the hypodermic in his hand, turned. Stephen Hampton sprang at her, dropping his drink. And Albert, the prognathous attendant, released Colonel Hampton and leaped at the woman with the pistol, with the unthinking promptness of a dog whose master is in danger.

Stephen Hampton was the closest to her; she shot him first, point-blank in the chest. The heavy bullet knocked him backward against a small table; he and it fell over together. While he was falling, the woman turned, dipped the muzzle of her pistol slightly and fired again; Doctor Vehrner’s leg gave way under him and he went down, the hypodermic flying from his hand and landing at Colonel Hampton’s feet. At the same time, the attendant, Albert, was almost upon her. Quickly, she reversed the heavy Colt, pressed the muzzle against her heart, and fired a third shot.

T. Barnwell Powell had let the briefcase slip to the floor; he was staring, slack-jawed, at the tableau of violence which had been enacted before him. The attendant, having reached Myra, was looking down at her stupidly. Then he stooped, and straightened.

“She’s dead!” he said, unbelievingly.

Colonel Hampton rose, putting his heel on the hypodermic and crushing it.

“Of course she’s dead!” he barked. “You have any first-aid training? Then look after these other people. Doctor Vehrner first; the other man’s unconscious; he’ll wait.”

“No; look after the other man first,” Doctor Vehrner said.

Albert gaped back and forth between them.

“Goddammit, you heard me!” Colonel Hampton roared. It was Slaughterhouse Hampton, whose service-ribbons started with the Indian campaigns, speaking; an officer who never for an instant imagined that his orders would not be obeyed. “Get a tourniquet on that man’s leg, you!” He moderated his voice and manner about half a degree and spoke to Vehrner. “You are not the doctor, you’re the patient, now. You’ll do as you’re told. Don’t you know that a man shot in the leg with a .45 can bleed to death without half trying?”

“Yo’-all do like de Cunnel says, ’r foh Gawd, yo’-all gwine wish yo’ had,” Sergeant Williamson said, entering the room. “Git a move on.”

He stood just inside the doorway, holding a silver-banded malacca walking-stick that he had taken from the hall-stand. He was grasping it in his left hand, below the band, with the crook out, holding it at his side as though it were a sword in a scabbard, which was exactly what that walking-stick was. Albert looked at him, and then back at Colonel Hampton. Then, whipping off his necktie, he went down on his knees beside Doctor Vehrner, skillfully applying the improvised tourniquet, twisting it tight with an eighteen-inch ruler the Colonel took from the desk and handed to him.

“Go get the first-aid kit, Sergeant,” the Colonel said. “And hurry. Mr. Stephen’s been shot, too.”

“Yessuh!” Sergeant Williamson executed an automatic salute and about-face and raced from the room. The Colonel picked up the telephone on the desk.

The County Hospital was three miles from Greyrock; the State Police substation a good five. He dialed the State Police number first.

“Sergeant Mallard? Colonel Hampton, at Greyrock. We’ve had a little trouble here. My nephew’s wife just went juramentado with one of my pistols, shot and wounded her husband and another man, and then shot and killed herself.⁠ ⁠… Yes, indeed it is, Sergeant. I wish you’d send somebody over here, as soon as possible, to take charge.⁠ ⁠… Oh, you will? That’s good.⁠ ⁠… No, it’s all over, and nobody to arrest; just the formalities.⁠ ⁠… Well, thank you, Sergeant.”

The old Negro cavalryman reentered the room, without the sword-cane and carrying a heavy leather box on a strap over his shoulder. He set this on the floor and opened it, then knelt beside Stephen Hampton. The Colonel was calling the hospital.

“… gunshot wounds,” he was saying. “One man in the chest and the other in the leg, both with a .45 pistol. And you’d better send a doctor who’s qualified to write a death certificate; there was a woman killed, too.⁠ ⁠… Yes, certainly; the State Police have been notified.”

“Dis ain’ so bad, Cunnel,” Sergeant Williamson raised his head to say. “Ah’s seen men shot wuss’n dis dat was ma’ked ‘Duty’ inside a month, suh.”

Colonel Hampton nodded. “Well, get him fixed up as best you can, till the ambulance gets here. And there’s whiskey and glasses on that table, over there. Better give Doctor Vehrner a drink.” He looked at T. Barnwell Powell, still frozen to his chair, aghast at the carnage around him. “And give Mr. Powell a drink, too. He needs one.”

He did, indeed. Colonel Hampton could have used a drink, too; the library looked like beef-day at an Indian agency. But he was still Slaughterhouse Hampton, and consequently could not afford to exhibit queasiness.

It was then, for the first time since the business had started that he felt the presence of Dearest.

“Oh, Popsy, are you all right?” the voice inside his head was asking. “It’s all over, now; you won’t have anything to worry about, any more. But, oh, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it!”

“My God, Dearest!” He almost spoke aloud. “Did you make her do that?”

“Popsy!” The voice in his mind was grief-stricken. “You.⁠ ⁠… You’re afraid of me! Never be afraid of Dearest, Popsy! And don’t hate me for this. It was the only thing I could do. If he’d given you that injection, he could have made you tell him all about us, and then he’d have been sure you were crazy, and they’d have taken you away. And they treat people dreadfully at that place of his. You’d have been driven really crazy before long, and then your mind would have been closed to me, so that I wouldn’t have been able to get through to you, any more. What I did was the only thing I could do.”

“I don’t hate you, Dearest,” he replied, mentally. “And I don’t blame you. It was a little disconcerting, though, to discover the extent of your capabilities.⁠ ⁠… How did you manage it?”

“You remember how I made the Sergeant see an angel, the time you were down in the snow?” Colonel Hampton nodded. “Well, I made her see⁠ ⁠… things that weren’t angels,” Dearest continued. “After I’d driven her almost to distraction, I was able to get into her mind and take control of her.” Colonel Hampton felt a shudder inside of him. “That was horrible; that woman had a mind like a sewer; I still feel dirty from it! But I made her get the pistol⁠—I knew where you kept it⁠—and I knew how to use it, even if she didn’t. Remember when we were shooting muskrats, that time, along the river?”

“Uhuh. I wondered how she knew enough to unlock the action and load the chamber.” He turned and faced the others.

Doctor Vehrner was sitting on the floor, with his back to the chair Colonel Hampton had occupied, his injured leg stretched out in front of him. Albert was hovering over him with mother-hen solicitude. T. Barnwell Powell was finishing his whiskey and recovering a fraction of his normal poise.

“Well, I suppose you gentlemen see, now, who was really crazy around here?” Colonel Hampton addressed them bitingly. “That woman has been dangerously close to the borderline of sanity for as long as she’s been here. I think my precious nephew trumped up this ridiculous insanity complaint against me as much to discredit any testimony I might ever give about his wife’s mental condition as because he wanted to get control of my estate. I also suppose that the tension she was under here, this afternoon, was too much for her, and the scheme boomeranged on its originators. Curious case of poetic justice, but I’m sorry you had to be included in it, Doctor.”