Go Home, Stranger by Charles Williams 1954(6)

“Well, we both get lined out on the ranges and we’re only about six
hundred yards apart and closing fast and the Old Man and I are
hanging over the port wing of the bridge trying to see enough of the
Go Home, Stranger — 117
tanker’s running-lights through the rain to tell whether we’re lined up
red-to-red or whether we’re about to run between ‘em, when right
here about a hundred yards south of this Number Fourteen buoy
there is the damnedest ker-splash you ever heard, right under us.
Sounds like at least two men have fallen overboard.
“So of course the same thought hits everybody right at the same
time. It’s them two chowder-headed messboys at it again.
“Well, Captain Wilbur starts to wave his arms and foam out orders
like a soda fire-extinguisher.
“ ‘Cap,’ I says, ‘if you think I’m going to lose steerage-way on this
bucket with a hundred and fifty thousand barrels of high-test gas
booming down on us just because your pot-wallopers are throwing
each other over the side, you’re as nutty as I am. Steady as she goes.’

“So, by God, when we get out of the bind he sends somebody down
to see which one threw the other over the side, and I’m damned if
they’re not both still there.”
Griffin looked back over his shoulder at them. “What ship did you
say that was, Cap?” he asked casually.
“Hell, I can’t remember, Hutch. Silver Line, anyway.”
Reno had started to light a cigarette. He held the match now, and
stared thoughtfully out across the water, conscious of something that
had disturbed his thoughts. Then he shrugged. Whatever it was had
gone now. Windy old character, he thought amiably, looking at
Shevlin again.
“But what was the splash?” Patricia asked.
“Miss, you’ve got me. But you haven’t heard all of it yet. About
twenty minutes later, just about a half mile above the old Counsel
landing, there’s some lousy puddle-jumping motorboat right in the
middle of the channel. He can’t seem to make up his mind where he
wants to go, and I’m trying to ease past him without tearing down all
the timber along the bank, when all of a sudden I’m damned if there
ain’t another ker-splash there under us in the same place!”
Griffin whooped with laughter. “Skipper,” he called back, “some day
you’re going to start believing those stories yourself. Then you’ll be
tough to live with.”
“It’s the Gospel, Hutch—”
“I’ll bet it is! But listen. I want you to check something for me. I
keep thinking I’ve got some kind of phony vibration period here. As if
the wheel was off balance. You feel it? Wait’ll I rev her up .”
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He advanced the throttle. Captain Shevlin listened, his head cocked
to one side. “Sounds as smooth as an eel to me.”
Griffin shook his head, frowning. “Maybe so. But I’ll have the yard
put her through the vibration test again.” He glanced suddenly
around. “Hello. We’re off Seabreeze. We got to duck in here and
unload your audience, you sea-going Uncle Remus.”
Go Home, Stranger — 119
Fifteen
Reno cut the outboard motor and let the boat drift silently. They were
nearly up to the second fork in the channel, where he had first heard
the explosions the day before.
“We’ll take it the rest of the way on the oars,” he said. “No use
advertising any more than we have to.”
She nodded, and they exchanged seats. It was midday now, hushed
and stifling out in the dimness of the timber and glaring with
malevolent brassiness along the channel where there was no
protection from the sun. As the forward motion of the boat died, and
with it the artificial breeze, they felt the heat close in on them with its
weight.
Back at camp she had changed into darker slacks and shirt, at his
insistence. “You can see white a mile through that timber,” he said.
“And we don’t know what’s up there. Or who.”
He pulled with long, even strokes of the oars, skirting the brush
along the bank, and when they spoke at all it was in lowered voices.
They were tense, as if the very stillness of the place were somehow
deceptive and they expected something to break it at any instant.
“You always have the feeling you’re being watched,” she said
quietly.
Or about to be shot at, he thought without putting it into words.
With a cold stirring of anger he remembered the shooting of the day
before and the mysterious explosions he had heard. But there might
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be nothing at all up here now, he reminded himself. That was
yesterday.
When they came up to the place where she had hidden the boat
before, he pulled it in under the branches and tied it up. He helped
her out, and they remained for a moment in the concealment of the
foliage along the bank, staring out across the timbered bottom. It was
as peaceful as eden. Yesterday’s violence was only a bad dream.
He walked ahead. They circled the bend of the channel and came
out near the water again at the point where she had pulled him from
the entangling limbs of the windfall. He looked out at it, thinking that
but for her his body would be lying there now below the dark surface
of the water.
“What is it?” she asked softly, behind him.
“I was thinking of something I read about the Chinese once. If you
save somebody’s life he belongs to you and you have to take care of
him as long as he lives.”
Just for a moment her eyes were very soft; then he saw the old
faintly bantering smile come into them, and she said, “Aren’t you
lucky this isn’t China? Think of having to live on a school teacher’s
salary.”
Then, before he could reply, she went on, “The place where I found
the lighter is just another hundred yards or so. Hadn’t we better go
on?”
“Yes,” he said. She took the lead, and they moved ahead through
the trees and low hanging underbrush along the bank, going toward
the bend of the bayou above them. That was where the first shots had
come from, and he was certain the explosions had been just beyond it.
She slowed in a moment, searching the ground.
“It was right here,” she said. They stood in a small opening in the
underbrush some twenty feet back from the bank. There was no trail,
however, and the hard earth showed no tracks.
“You’re sure this is it?” he asked, gazing around.
“Yes.” She pointed. “The lighter was lying right there by that clump
of grass. And I remember that dead tree, the one that’s leaning over
and caught in that oak.”
He walked over and squatted down, examining the ground closely.
Then he could see it, the faint outline where something had lain. It
had rained since the lighter had been dropped there. But there was
nothing else. He went over all the ground carefully. Then he walked
out to the bank and examined the edge of the water for some
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distance, looking for any indication a boat had been pulled up there.
He could see none.
He walked back to where she was standing, and shook his head at
her questioning glance. Conscious of bitter disappointment, he
wondered if this lead would evaporate into nothing the way all the
others had. Counsel must have been here, but there was absolutely
nothing to indicate why, or where he had been going. He took out two
cigarettes and lit them. She sat down on a log and he squatted on his
heels in front of her, watching as she took off the long-vizored cap and
ran her fingers through her hair.
“I looked all around when I came back the next day,”
she said dispiritedly. “I couldn’t find anything either. Except that
tree—the one somebody had cut down.”
“Oh.” He had forgotten about the tree. Again he was faintly puzzled;
it was a stupid place to cut wood, this far from a road. “Which way
was it?”
“Over there.” She turned and pointed away from the bayou. “You
can’t see it from here.”
“O.K. We’ll have a look at it before we go back,” he said without
much interest. “But right now let’s go up beyond that bend. Maybe we
can find out what they were trying to blow up.”
It was only a short distance, cutting across the point. Almost
unconsciously they began to hurry as they caught glimpses of open
water through the trees ahead. They came out onto the bank at an
opening in the trees and looked out across the flat and glaring
expanse of water. Nothing moved anywhere; it was as desolate and
uninhabited as all the other bayous.
They looked at each other, and he shook his head. “It’s crazy,” he
said, baffled. “This whole country is crazy. I know this is where that
dynamite was set off. But what in the name of God could they have
been blowing here?”
She turned suddenly, and pointed toward the water close to shore.
“What’s that white thing floating there? In the edge of those weeds.”
He walked over and looked. “Just a dead fish,” he called back. It
was floating belly up.
“There’s another one,” she said, pointing off to the left. She was
walking up the bank now. “And two more.”
He looked down the other way and in a moment had counted a half
dozen. Picking up a long stick, he raked two of them ashore and
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turned them over. They were carp, not yet beginning to decompose,
and there were no marks on them.
She came over and stood behind him. “That’s odd, isn’t it?” she
said, puzzled. “Why do you suppose they all died?”
“Concussion,” he said succinctly.
“Oh. You mean the dynamite?”
“Right. We can quit wondering where those explosions were. They
were right here, under water.”
She looked helplessly out across the desolate reach of the bayou.
“But what for, Pete? What could anybody blow up here?”
He remembered something then, and he was beginning to
understand. He stood up, feeling bitter disappointment again. “We’re
wasting time, Pat,” he said wearily. “This hasn’t got anything to do
with what we’re looking for.”
“What do you mean?” she asked wonderingly.
“Something that Talley girl told me about Max Easter’s being such a
good fisherman. That’s all this is. He and some other man were
dynamiting fish for the market. They shot at me to scare me off.”
“Well,” she said dispiritedly, “I guess we’d might as well go.”
“Yes. We’ve hit another dead end.”
When they reached the place she had found the lighter, she paused.
“Do you want to look at that tree, anyway?”
He shrugged. They’d probably find nothing there either. It could
have been coon hunters . . . “All right,” he said without interest. “It’ll
only take a minute.”
She led the way. It was nearer a quarter mile than a hundred yards,
but she went unerringly to it through the dense timber. The tree was
a large red oak, and it had broken the tops out of two smaller ones as
it crashed down. It had been felled with a saw, but no attempt had
been made to cut it up.
“What do you suppose it was, Pete?” she asked.
Reno walked around the welter of limbs. It had been cut down
sometime in the past month or two, for while the leaves were dead
now none of them had fallen from the boughs. The trunk appeared to
be sound, and had not been cut into anywhere, which ruled out the
possibility of its having been a bee tree robbed of its wild honey.
“I don’t know,” he said curiously. “Doesn’t seem to be much point to
it, does there?”
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He had started to move on around to the other side when he halted
suddenly, peering down into the screen of leaves. He dropped to his
knees and pulled a few smaller branches aside, staring at the ground,
his face puzzled.
“What is it, Pete?” she asked suddenly, standing behind him.
He reached in and scooped up something, and held his hand out.
“Loose soil,” he said. “Not fresh, because it’s been rained on since it
was dug up, but look.”
She saw it then. One clod of the heavy, black earth still bore the
unmistakable flat mark of the spade.
She bent down beside him, excited again. “Then something, has
been dug up here.”
“Dug up,” he said tersely. “Or planted.”
“What?”
“You’d better stand back, Pat. I’m going to see if I can break off
some of these limbs.”
She stepped back and watched curiously as he began a furious
assault on the brush. It was near the crown of the tree, and he was
able to snap off most of the limbs by bending back on them with
terrific bursts of energy. The ones that were too large to break had
their smaller limbs broken off. He was sweating, and he began to pant
with exertion.
In a few minutes he had a considerable area cleared. He could see it
now, the thing he was looking for. It was a long, narrow, and just
faintly outlined depression where the earth had settled. It ran back
under the main stem of the tree, but some of it extended out into the
area he had cleared.
Maybe I shouldn’t, with her here, he thought. Then he remembered
the trailer. Evidence had a way of disappearing in this country. He
stood up and took out his cigarettes. He gave her one and led her
back to where she could sit on the log.
“I think you’d better stay here,” he said. “This may not be pretty.”
“I can stand it if you can,” she protested. He knew then he wasn’t
fooling her any more. She was as aware as he was of what was under
there.
He picked up one of the limbs he had broken off, cut a section about
two feet long, and whittled the end of it flat. It wasn’t much, but it
would do.
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She remained where she was, but forgot to smoke the cigarette. It
dropped, unnoticed from her fingers. He attacked the ground with his
improvised digging instrument. The ground was soft, and came up
easily. He threw it behind him with his hands, like a furiously digging
terrier. In a few minutes the hole was a foot deep. Sweat ran off his
face. Now he was nearly two feet down, bent forward with his hands
in the hole, almost suffocated with the heat. He ran the stick into the
soft earth again, pried up, and suddenly stopped. He backed away,
feeling the sickness in his stomach.
Maybe she didn’t get the odor, he thought. There was no breeze at
all. But she would soon. He had to get her away.
The thing to do was send her to camp to call the Sheriff’s office.
Whatever was in here was going to be a job for identification experts
anyway; he knew that now. It had to be done correctly, by men who
knew what they were doing. And men with good stomachs too.
He turned and had started to rise out of the encircling brush when
he heard her sudden, choked-off cry of terror. He swung fast, starting.
She had her hand up over her mouth, and her eyes were wide with
fear.
It was Max Easter. He had emerged from the brush twenty feet
away and was watching them coldly, his thumbs hooked in the
waistband of his trousers. And stuck in the same waistband, just in
front of his right hand, was the black butt of a .45 automatic.
He removed the gun, caught the action in his other hand, slid it
back and then forward, jacking a shell into the chamber, then shoved
it back in his waistband.
“Just couldn’t leave things alone, could you?” he asked, without any
emotion whatever. “Suppose you get over there with your lady friend
and sit down. And throw away that stick.”
Reno had seen deadliness before, and he knew he was looking at it
now. He let the stick slide from his fingers, and walked slowly over to
Patricia. Easter watched them with the unwinking stare of a cat,
saying nothing.
He could feel the sweat on his face and the tightness in his chest.
Without looking around, he groped for one of her hands, and
squeezed it. He could hear the shaky intake of her breath.
“All right,” he said at last. “Who is it?”
“Just have to know, do you?”
“That’s right,” Reno said. “And we will, as soon as they get him
out.”
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“No,” Easter said softly. “I don’t think anybody’s going to dig him
up. But since there’s not much chance you’ll blab it around, I’ll tell
you. His name was Robert Counsel.”
Go Home, Stranger — 126
Sixteen
There was too much of it to take hold of all at once. At first Reno
could grasp nothing except the incredible fact that he had finally
caught up with Robert Counsel. The elusive phantom he had pursued
so long was buried under the tangled branches of that tree. The
questions were answered. Robert Counsel had been dead all the time,
and this big, cold-eyed man with the gun in his belt was the one who
had killed McHugh.
“You got away with it for a long time, didn’t you?” he asked.
“That’s right,” Easter said coolly. “I thought you’d get wise to
yourself and mind your own business after that trailer disappeared,
and you got conked that night.”
“Well, isn’t that too bad?” Reno asked. “So we could just go ahead
and let my sister take the rap for killing McHugh.”
“McHugh?” Easter looked puzzled for an instant. “Oh, you mean the
guy that actress shot. What’s he got to do with it?”
Reno stared. Was he dealing with a lunatic as well as a murderer?
“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Except you killed him because he found
out you killed Counsel.”
“You seem to be a little mixed up, friend,” Easter remarked calmly.
“I haven’t killed anybody—yet.”
“So I suppose the pixies buried Counsel there, and wrote you a
letter?”
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“No. I buried him. And I enjoyed every bit of it, even spitting in his
face. There’s only one thing I’d have enjoyed more, and that’s killing
him. Somebody beat me to the honor.”
“You expect anybody to believe that?”
“Of course not,” Easter said simply. “That’s the reason I buried
him.”
Reno stared. “You put him in there—but you don’t have any idea
who killed him?”
“Now you’re catching on,” Easter said. “A little late, but you finally
got it. You see what I mean about nobody digging him up? And they
won’t dig you up, either.”
Reno shot a sidewise glance at Patricia. She was silently watching,
her eyes big with horror. She knows it, too, he thought; Easter’s a
maniac, and any minute now he’ll pull out that .45 and let us have it.
“Listen,” he said desperately, “if you didn’t kill Counsel, what have
you got to worry about?”
Easter regarded him with cool contempt. “Why, not a thing. Except
the jury wouldn’t be out five minutes. Everybody in this county knows
Counsel ran off with my wife in 1942. And a few of them even know
what happened after that.” He paused, and for a moment his eyes
were the most terrible Reno had ever seen.
“He left her after three weeks, and she committed suicide in a
crumby, fourth-class hotel in New Orleans. She hanged herself.”
The awful silence dragged out for a full minute before Reno said,
“But, damn it, that still doesn’t mean—”
“Oh, of course not,” Easter broke in coldly. “Especially the way it
happened. They’d never think I had anything to do with it.”
“How did it happen?”
“It was one night a little over a month ago. I was bringing a load of
fish down to the highway in my boat. I guess you know why it was at
night. Anyway, I tied up in the brush close to that old camp ground a
little after dark and was waiting for Malone to bring the truck. And
just about that time I heard three shots a long way off, over on the
ship channel. About twenty minutes later some car lights showed up,
and I thought it was Malone, until it was too late and the guy had
spotted me in the road. It was the game warden. To make it worse, I
had this gun in my belt, and he saw it. He wanted to know what I was
doing, and just about that time we both saw the other car in his
headlights. It was a Cadillac, parked there in the camp ground, and
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there was an empty boat trailer over by the water. I hadn’t noticed
‘em before.
“I had to get him out of there some way before Malone showed up
with the truck, so I told him I was guiding for the fishermen who
owned the Cadillac. That seemed to satisfy him, so he left.
“About thirty minutes later Malone showed up, we loaded the fish,
and he left. I started back to my boat, which wasn’t far from that
trailer, and right there in the road by the Cadillac I stumbled over
something. I switched on the flashlight and looked. It was a man,
lying there as if he had been trying to crawl back to the car.
His clothes were wet, and when I turned him over I saw blood on
his shirt, mixed with the water. He’d been shot in the belly. I turned
the light on his face then, and knew that if I didn’t think of something
real good and think of it fast I was going to hang. It was Robert
Counsel.”
Reno could only stare. The horrible part of it, he thought, is that
he’s telling the truth. The whole thing was beginning to fall into place
in his mind now, and he knew why Counsel had come back, but there
wasn’t anything he could do. Easter was backed into a corner, and he
had to kill them.
“Listen,” he said desperately, “Counsel was shot over there on the
ship channel, and I know why. It can be proved. Didn’t you ever stop
to wonder why he came back here when he knew you’d kill him if you
saw him?”
“I’ve never tried to figure out why Robert Counsel did things,”
Easter said coldly.
“Well, I have,” Reno snapped. “I’ve done nothing else since the first
time I heard the name. And now I know. He came back after
something over there in the ship channel, and I know where it is. If
we can get our hands on it, I think it’ll prove you didn’t have anything
to do with killing him.”
“How stupid do you think I can get?” Easter asked bitterly. “Prove I
didn’t kill him when a witness saw me right there that night, with a
gun? When I ran the trailer out in the bayou, brought him up here and
buried him, and drove his car into town and left it? Cut it out.”
Reno knew it was hopeless. Easter was entangled in a web of
circumstantial evidence grown more damning with every move he had
made to extricate himself, until now he had reached the point where
he had to kill. And it was hopeless the other way. Easter was a giant
of a man, in superb physical condition.
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There was no chance for either of them if they sat and waited, for it,
but if he could give Pat a few precious seconds it might save her. And
Vickie, he thought. Slowly, still talking, he gathered his feet back
under him, shifting his weight a little forward. He wanted to look
around at her just once more, but didn’t dare. He still had her hand in
his, and now he squeezed it, twice. All right, he thought. Now.
He went in low, hard, and driving. He heard Pat scream, and saw
Easter’s hand come down for the gun, all of it in slow motion.
Everything was focused on the hot, oily shine of the gun, coming
clear, turning ... It went off, the sound crashing against his ears, as he
slammed shoulder first and hurtling with all his weight into Easter’s
stomach. They went down and rolled. His face plowed into dirt and
leaves. He groped for the arm that had the gun, found it, and felt the
awful strength as it jerked free. Something crashed against his head,
and blood ran down into his eyes.
They rolled again, neither of them uttering a sound except the
hoarse, animal noises of their breathing. He had both hands on
Easter’s gun arm now, fighting with all his strength to hold onto it.
Then, through all the violence, he was conscious of something else.
Patricia was leaning over them, swinging a stick, and he could hear it
beating against Easter’s hand and wrist.
He got his mouth open, found breath somewhere, and screamed,
“Run! Get away.” Then the gun went off again. He felt Easter’s arm
thresh wildly. The gun had kicked out of his hand and was lost
somewhere under them. His own hand bumped it; he felt it slide, and
it was lost again. He groped frenziedly. He had it now, and was
scrambling to get out of reach of those terrible arms. He was up to his
knees, moving backward, when Easter swarmed off the ground and
smothered him. He fell back, under the tremendous weight, and felt
pain stab into his ankle. Just for an instant the big head was in front
of his face and his right arm was free. Biting his jaws together against
the pain, he shifted; the gun over to his right hand, and swung. There
was a crunching impact, and he lifted and swung again. Easter jerked
and went limp. Reno pushed him off and slid backward across the
ground to get his own weight off the twisted ankle.
He struggled to his feet, tried to put his weight on the leg—the left
one—and collapsed. Easter was writhing on the ground, only
momentarily stunned, and trying to get up. Through the roaring in his
head, Reno thought: I’ve got to get away from him. I can’t take any
more of that guy. I’ve got to get far enough away so I can stop him
with the gun.
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He suddenly realized he was speaking aloud, and wondered if the
blow on his head had made him wild. He rolled; then rolled again. Pat
was bending over him. “Pete! Pete! Are you all right?” She was
crying.
He was against the log now. He shoved backward, inching his
shoulders up until he was sitting upright with his back propped
against it. Blood ran across his face, getting into his eyes again. He
brushed savagely at it with his left hand. I can stop him from here, he
thought. I can gut shoot him twice before he can get this far.
She was down in front of him, mopping at his face. He shoved her
roughly to one side. “Move back, Pat!” he said savagely. “I’m all right,
but stay out of the way.”
Easter was sitting up now. He got slowly to his feet, bleeding from
the cut on his head, and his eyes were terrible to look at. I went
farther than that and got him, Reno thought, with cold calculation;
but he had the gun in his belt. He won’t come—maybe. But if he does,
he’ll get here dead.
He checked the safety again, and leveled it. “All right, Easter,” he
said. “If you move one foot, come all the way at once.’’
The big man’s chest heaved, and he shook his head a little to clear
it. The eyes were cold, weighing the factors.
“I’m not Counsel,” Reno said. “You don’t want me that bad. But if
you do, let’s have it now and get it over with.”
“And if I don’t?” The voice was only a whisper.
“You can run. I don’t want you. They’ll get you, because you’re too
damn big to hide, but I don’t think they’ll get you for murder. If I have
any luck, they’ll know who killed Counsel.”
“And if you don’t?”
“They’re still going to know where he is. I’m going to tell ‘em. But
trying to kill me is stupid. I’m the only person in the world who knows
enough about this mess now to get it off your back. Get wise to
yourself! They can stick you for burying him up here and trying to
cover up the murder, but you may beat it when they know the
circumstances. Do anything you like, but get this! Don’t try to jump
me. I’ve got something to do, and I’ll kill you if I have to.”
Easter stared wickedly at the gun. “You had a lot of luck.”
“I know I did. And I’ve still got it. Now, how’s it going to be?”
For a long moment Easter continued to watch him. Counsel either
had a lot of guts or he was crazy, Reno was conscious of thinking, to
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come back here with that looking for him. Then the big man shrugged
slightly, turned around, and walked straight away from them through
the timber, going toward the bayou.
“Keep an eye on him, Pat,” Reno whispered. “As far as you can see
him.”
She moved over a little and stood watching silently. In a little while
she came back. “He’s gone,” she said simply. Then she sat down and
took a long, shaky breath.
“I’m sorry I barked at you, Pat,” he said gently. “But it was a near
thing there for a few seconds.”
“It’s all right,” she said. She reached over and wiped his face with
her handkerchief. “But we’ve got to get you out of here, right now.
That needs stitches.”
He pulled up the leg of his trousers. The ankle was swollen and
becoming discolored, too painful to touch.
She started to say something; then stopped and listened. He heard
it too. It was an outboard motor starting. Easter, he thought. He won’t
be back.
He tried to stand, white-faced with the agony of it. The leg would
bear no weight at all. He sat down on the log, and looked around.
Taking out his knife, he pointed, “See that sapling over there, Pat?
Cut it down, just above the ground, and bring it over here.”
She understood, and hurried over to hack away with the knife.
When she dragged it over he trimmed it up, took off his, shirt and
wrapped it around the fork at the top for padding, and tried the
crutch. He could hobble on it.
“I’ll go down and get the boat,” she said. “And bring it straight out
there, to the nearest place. You can walk that far, with the crutch, and
my helping you.”
“Wait,” he said. “Keep listening for that motor. I want to hear it get
clear out of the country before you try it.”
They could still hear it, growing fainter in the distance. Then
suddenly it stopped, somewhere near the bend below them. In a
moment they heard it start again.
Reno thought of the three miles back to camp and the fact that
everything now depended on their being down to the ship channel as
soon as it was dark. He swore softly.
“Pete,” she said wonderingly. “What is it?”
“Easter just picked up the boat. We walk.”
Go Home, Stranger — 132
Seventeen
“He did it to gain time” she said. “He knew your ankle was hurt. It’ll
give him that much longer to run before we could report—” She
stopped and gestured mutely toward the tangle of branches.
“Probably,” he agreed. “But we don’t know.”
“Wait, Pete,” she said quickly. “I’ve got it. That boat you left up here
the other day— It’d still be along the shore somewhere. I could find
it.”
He shook his head. “That’s what I meant. No motor, and only one
oar. Take hours to paddle it back. He’d have plenty of time to get his
rifle and wait for us.”
She stared. “You think he would?”
“That’s just it. We don’t know. But paddling down that channel in
the open would be the hard way to find out. We stick to the timber.”
“It’s three miles,” she said doubtfully. “And we have to get across
the bayou down there.”
“I know. But there’s no other way.”
She lit two cigarettes and handed him one. “You have to rest a
minute before we start.”
“All right,” he said reluctantly. He was goaded with a wild
impatience to be gone, but he was still weak. They could still get
down to the ship channel by dark, he told himself. They had to.
She was watching him quietly, with something expectant in her
eyes. “Pete, do you really know why Robert Counsel came back?”
Go Home, Stranger — 133
He took a deep drag on the cigarette, dreading part of what he had
to tell her. “Yes,” he said. “Counsel came back after something out
there in the ship channel. Something he brought from Italy.”
She was kneeling in front of him. “What?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “We’ve got to find out. But I began to
see it when Easter told me when and where he heard those shots. It’s
all there now. In the first place, Counsel wouldn’t change his
reservations and fly back from Italy with Mrs. Conway. She couldn’t
understand that, but I think I do now. He was bringing back
something that could only be brought in on a ship. Remember what
that long-winded pilot said about those splashes he heard? He
couldn’t remember the name of the ship, but it was the same line, the
Silver Line, and it has to be the one Counsel was on.
“And then there’s the dredge. That’s the tip-off. It was something
Counsel read in the Waynesport paper, remember, that made him
come back. I’ve been going through the paper and beating my brains
out for days, trying to figure out what it was. And now I’ve got it. It
was that little blurb saying contracts had been let to begin dredging
the channel. You see? Whatever he had thrown overboard was still
there, and if he didn’t come back and get it the dredge would pick it
up and carry it out to sea.”
“But,” she whispered, puzzled, “why did he wait so long? Why didn’t
he come back and pick it up after the ship docked, assuming it was
contraband he couldn’t take through customs?”
He hesitated, hating to tell her. “Remember what the pilot said,
Pat? There were two of those splashes. And the second one was right
there above the old Counsel landing, where the cabin cruiser
exploded. And remember the explosion came from inside the boat.
Right there’s where you run up against the cold-blooded genius of
Robert Counsel. All the men who were in that thing with him were
supposed to go pick up that second thing he threw overboard. And I
think I’ve got it now. One of them was too smart, and didn’t. Counsel
had to run.”
He could see the awful unhappiness in her face. But she’s suspected
it all along, he thought, taking her hand in his. She knew it even if she
didn’t want to admit it. Her brother and Morton were mixed up in
those Army thefts along with Counsel.
“But,” she said softly, “who was the other one? The one who didn’t
go out to pick it up?”
“Griffin,” he said simply. “It was Griffin who killed Counsel and then
killed Mac.”
Go Home, Stranger — 134
She gasped, and looked at him incredulously. “But—I don’t see,
Pete . . . How do you know it’s Griffin?”
“Remember how he cut that pilot off with some phony excuse about
listening to the motor? You see, Griffin didn’t know until then where
the real drop had been thrown overboard. He realized just at that
moment what the pilot had been talking about, and he shut him up
before we could get wise. The next thing Captain Shevlin was about to
say was that the night all this happened was the same night that
explosion took place. You see it now, Pat?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice low and choked with emotion. “We’ve got
to get word to the police.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Pat. We can’t prove a word of it.”
“What are we going to do?”
He caught the improvised crutch and pulled himself upright, whitefaced
with pain. “We’ve got to get down to that Number Fourteen
buoy by the time it’s dark. If it is Griffin, he’ll be there.”
“But hadn’t we better get the police too?”
“No. They might scare him off.” He paused; then went on softly. “I
want Griffin, Pat. The police can have him after I get through with
him.”
It was dusk when they came out at last on the main arm of the
bayou, near the camp, and he sank down, exhausted and drenched
with sweat. It had been agonizing, and maddeningly slow, with long
stops to rest every two or three hundred yards. The crutch kept
sticking into the ground, and he had had to cut off his trouser legs
and bind them around the end of it to form a cushion. The ankle
throbbed with pain whenever he stood upright, even with no weight
on it. And every weary step of it had been goaded by the refrain going
around in his head. We’ll be too late. We’ll be too late.
They squatted down now in the screen of shrubbery and looked out
across the bayou in the deepening twilight. “We still have to get
across,” she whispered.
“I have to get across,” he corrected. “You wait here, Pat.”
“But how are you going to do it? If you leave your crutch here you
won’t be able to walk when you get over there.”
“I’m going to take it,” he replied. He stood up again and limped
painfully along the bank. In a moment he found what he sought, a
piece of dried-out timber left by the high water of some long-past
Go Home, Stranger — 135
flood. Getting down onto his hands and knees, he rolled and tugged it
into the water. She helped him.
“Let me go, Pete,” she begged.
“No,” he said shortly. He was working fast now. He sat down on the
edge of the bank, placed the crutch lengthwise along the piece of
driftwood, took off his shoes, tied the laces together, and set them
across it. Then he removed his belt, strapped it around the whole
thing, and fastened his wrist watch on the belt.
It was growing dark now. Time was running out. He could scarcely
see her in the dense shadow along the shore. Taking the gun out of
the waistband of his trousers, he handed it to her.
“Wait for me right here,” he said quietly. “Sit still, and don’t smoke.
When somebody comes along in a boat it’ll probably be me, but don’t
believe it until you hear me speak and recognize my voice. If Easter
shows up, don’t try to bluff him with this gun. Shoot him.”
He moved slowly, kicking with only one foot, but he could stop and
rest by holding onto the timber. When he climbed out on the other
side he could not get his left shoe back on because of the swelling and
pain in his ankle. He threw it away and began groping his way along
the bank. It was black under the trees. He bumped into them and
floundered in vines and underbrush. Several times he banged the
ankle, and cursed the sickening pain.
Griffin would be there now. He had an insane desire to throw the
crutch away and try to run. If Griffin found what he sought, and got
away, they’d never prove a thing. There was no evidence except
whatever it was lying there on the bottom of the channel. He lost
track of time; there was no knowing how long it was before he began
to see the lights of the store and restaurant ahead.
He kept on along the bank, coming in behind the cabins. There was
no one around as he hobbled onto the float and felt his way along
toward the skiffs. He groped around in three of them before he found
one with oars. Getting in was awkward; he had to crawl off the dock
onto the seat on his hands and knees. His head was aching again.
When he was sitting up on the seat at last with his legs stretched out,
the ankle didn’t hurt so badly. He picked up the oars and shoved away
from the landing.
A low overcast was pushing in from the Gulf, blotting out the stars.
He could just make out the dark loom of the timber on both sides of
him as he swung the oars with long, hard strokes. When he had
rounded the bend and passed the branching channel he pulled in
close to shore and began calling her name softly.
Go Home, Stranger — 136
“Here, Pete,” she said, quite near. He came up against the bank
stern first. She stepped in and sat down, and gingerly handed him the
gun.
“I’ll drop you off at the boat landing,” he said. “And go on out under
that first highway bridge, by the Counselor.”
“No,” she said flatly. “I’m going with you.”
“You can’t. It may be dangerous.”
“Please, Pete,” she whispered. “Can’t you understand? I have to go.
I can’t let you do it alone. We’re in this together.”
Delay was agony. Time ran past them while they talked. Against his
better judgment he relented. “O.K., Pat,” he said. He dug in the oars
and went straight up the bayou past the old camp ground. Sweat ran
down his naked shoulders. He felt his way around the bend and under
the highway bridge. A few cars slipped past on the highway. He
looked away from the lights to avoid cutting down his vision even
more. Patricia was quiet in the stern seat, and he could see only the
pale blur of her face. It was intensely still except for the creak of the
oarlocks.
Maybe I’m wrong, he thought. Maybe Counsel had already found it
and hauled it up before Griffin shot him. But, no. There hadn’t been
time. Easter had said it was just after dark when he heard the shots.
Griffin had been waiting for him. Shooting him before Counsel could
lead him to the place where it had been thrown overboard was stupid
of Griffin, but it almost had to be that way.
That was the thing that had made it so nearly impossible to figure
out. One man had shot Counsel and another had buried him, and
neither knew about the other. Counsel had probably fallen out of his
boat and had swum ashore to try to get back to his car and a doctor,
and Griffin didn’t know he was dead until he had already approached
McHugh. He thought Mac was working for Counsel until it was too
late and he’d already exposed himself. He’d killed Mac, and then tried
to kill Mrs. Conway because he knew that if she’d put one man on the
trail there’d be others unless he stopped her.
They were nearing the ship channel. “Not a sound from now on,
Pat,” he whispered. “Don’t talk, and don’t move around. If he’s down
here he’ll be working without lights and we’ve got to get close enough
to board him.”
“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she pleaded.
He thought of everything that depended on them now. If they
failed . . . He pushed the thought of failure out of his mind and felt the
Go Home, Stranger — 137
hard weight of the gun against his waist. “I’ll be careful,” he said
grimly.
They were out in the ship channel now and he could see the lighted
buoy winking on and off below them. Swinging wide, against the
opposite shore, they slipped past in the impenetrable darkness
beyond the range of its flashes. He rowed softly now, guarding
against every sound.
When they were a hundred yards or more beyond the light he
stopped pulling on the oars and held his breath to listen. There was
no sound except an occasional faint rumble from the dredge working
below them. The darkness of the water and of the sky seemed to run
together, as if they were suspended in a black void and cut off from
all contact with the world except the intermittent flashing of the buoy
just visible out of the corner of his eye.
He felt cold and hollow inside. There was nothing here, no one at
all. He’d been wrong, or they were too late. Griffin would have been
here as soon as darkness fell, dragging for whatever it was that was
so valuable and had cost so many lives. They had missed him. Or, he
thought, there never was anything. I added it up wrong. It was a pipe
dream.
The boat was swinging a little. They were drifting on the sluggish
current, and the buoy light was coming around in front of his eyes. He
started to swing his head to keep from looking at it; then he stopped,
feeling the quick surge of excitement along his nerves.
Something had blocked the light. And there it was again.
Somewhere between them and the buoy another boat was drifting, as
silently as their own. He leaned forward and tapped Patricia on the
knee, uttering no sound. Catching her hand, he gestured toward the
buoy, and could feel her grow tense as she caught his meaning. He
heard her sharp intake of breath. She had seen the boat too.
He dipped the oars, very softly, and stopped the boat’s swinging.
They lay astern toward the buoy as he backed water on them again
and, eased it up against the current. Below them, in salt water, the
tide was ebbing and water was running slowly out of the channel. If
the other boat was Griffin’s, he was letting it drift on the current as
he dragged for what he sought.
Easy, he thought; take it easy. The slightest noise now would ruin it
all. He pushed on the oars again. They were drawing nearer. He could
see a pale blur ahead of them now and knew it was the cabin cruiser
with its new white paint.
Go Home, Stranger — 138
Then he stopped, listening. They were some fifteen yards from the
larger boat now and he was conscious of a peculiar rasping sound and
a trickle of water. It puzzled him for an instant; then he knew what it
was. A line was being hauled in over the stern of the cruiser, coming
up out of the water and dripping a little as it sawed across the
transom. The sound stopped, and was replaced by another, a heavy
thud as something was lifted and deposited in the bottom of the
cockpit. Reno pushed hard at the oars. He knew Griffin had found
what he was dragging for. In another instant he would press the
starter and be gone.
They were closing—ten yards, five. Reno swung the skiff to come up
alongside where he could reach the cockpit. His heart was
hammering with excitement. He shipped the oars, quickly, silently,
and prepared to grab as the cruiser loomed above them. Then haste
was their undoing. He came up off the seat, forgetting the numb and
useless ankle, and lost his balance. He fell to his knees in the bottom
of the skiff, and the gun clattered against the wooden grating.
Glaring and pitiless light broke over them, and a jocular voice hailed
them from behind it.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the stump-jumper navy,” the voice said. “Relax,
boys and girls, and just hold that pose.”
Go Home, Stranger — 139
Eighteen
Patricia gasped. Reno tried to sit up, his hand involuntarily reaching
for the gun in front of him; then he froze. It was hopeless; he could
see nothing at all except that malevolent light.
“Friends,” Griffin’s amused voice continued, “on your right you’re
looking into the wrong end of a Luger, so let’s don’t have any old
college try. Just maintain the attitude, Reno. And, honey, you can
reach over and take that roscoe in your warm little hand and drop it
over the side.”
She stared at Reno helplessly. “Go ahead,” he said quietly. She
lifted it from the grating and let it fall into the water.
The end of a line fell across the boat. “Come alongside,” Griffin said.
Reno stared wickedly at the light for an instant; then he thought of
Patricia. He caught the line and pulled. The skiff bumped against the
side of the cruiser.
“All right, get aboard,” Griffin said crisply. “We haven’t got all
night.”
Patricia climbed onto the stern. Reno made it with difficulty, the
ankle throbbing. They still stood in the glare of the light, which had
retreated to the forward end of the cockpit.
“Now,” Griffin went on, the disembodied voice issuing from
somewhere behind the light, “tip that skiff up. Let it fill with water,
then turn it upside down.” The voice chuckled. “Let ‘em drag for you
down here. It’ll keep ‘em happy.”
Go Home, Stranger — 140
Reno turned and faced the light, his face savage. “Why the delay?
Why not there in the skiff, the way you did Counsel? Or in the back of
the head, like McHugh?”
Griffin laughed easily. “Friend Robert got a little trigger-happy. And
he thought I wouldn’t shoot because I still didn’t know where the stuff
was. Only time I ever knew Marse Bob to make a bum decision.” He
paused, then went on briskly. “But get with it. Dump that boat. I
picked you up because I can use you, but if you want to commit
suicide your lady friend can do the job.”
Reno stared with cold deadliness; then he sat down on the stern. He
pushed down on the edge of the skiff until it began to fill with water.
When it was awash he caught the other edge and heaved it over.
He faced the light again. “What job?” he asked.
“Just a minute, pal. Got to get these running lights on.”
A switch clicked. In a moment the powerful light went out, but it
was replaced at the same instant with a lesser one, still shining in
Reno’s eyes.