Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams 1953(9)

The bed, I thought—it’s just inside the door, on the
right. All I have to do is step inside and turn and
reach down, and before he gets his hand on that gun
I’ll have mine on his throat and turn the
blackmailing bastard off like a leaky faucet. I moved
the other foot, easing it down like a cat. I was in the
doorway, and then inside, and turning.
Everything fell apart at once and the night erupted
into wildness. There was a sudden, brilliant flash of
lightning which lit “up the inside of the shack like a
flash-bulb going off, and then it was gone and the
thunder crashed at the same time. It shook the
house, and through the roar and rattle of it I heard
the sharp report of the gun as he fired. I was
turning, and diving towards the floor, and as the
blackness rolled back over us I saw the orange spurt
of flame as he shot again, and then I was conscious
that woven into all this madness of sound there was
one more and that it was a woman screaming
without beginning or end or drawing breath or
changing pitch, going on and on through the dying
roll of thunder and the crashing echo of the gun and
the meaty impact as we slammed into each other
and fell to the floor together and then the sound of
the gun again. He was under me and I was trying to
locate the flailing hand which had the gun and get


Hell Hath No Fury — 168
hold of it before he could put it against me
somewhere and shoot, and then the scream did
change at last as she put her feet out of the bed and
on top of us and fell beyond us on the floor. He
shifted under me and whirled me over until we were
both lying on our sides, and I felt something under
my ribs and knew he didn’t have the gun any more.
He had let it slip out of his hand when I’d crashed
into him, and now we were fighting on top of a
loaded automatic with the safety off.
The scream was gone now, and I could hear the
desperate sucking sound as she fought to get her
breath, and the scrambling as she got up off the
floor and ran out the back door into the timber just
as the first drumming roar of the rain began, and
then the two of us were alone, fighting silently on
the floor near the edge of the bed. I located his face
with my left hand and swung the right and felt the
shock go up my arm as I landed on his jaw. He was
clawing wildly for me and I hit him again, and this
time he jerked a little and lay still. I shifted my
hands down to his throat and began to tighten them
to shut off the blackmail forever, right at its source,
and then there was a voice somewhere inside me
screaming over and over that something was wrong
and I had to stop before it was too late. I didn’t get it
for a moment, and then when I did the strength went
out of me and I turned him loose, cursing with a
futile sort of rage. I couldn’t do it now. Of course I
couldn’t. How could I, with a witness to it before it
even happened?
I got to my knees, and felt around on the floor until
I found the gun. Moving my hand across it until I
located the safety, I clicked it off, and put it in my
pocket, and then got up with the breath roaring in
my throat, still raging, knowing I couldn’t do it now
and that I’d never get another chance, and that we
were ruined, all on account of that crazy bitch of a
woman, whoever she was, running around out there
through the timber in the rain. She had seen me in
the lightning flash, the same as he had, and if I killed
him she could send me to the chair for it.
Hell Hath No Fury — 169
Because it made no difference at all now, I struck
a match and looked around for the lamp. Then I
remembered I’d broken it the last time I was out
here, and was about to give up the idea when I
suddenly saw it over on the kitchen table. He had
bought a new one. I went over and lifted off the
chimney and lighted it.
He hadn’t moved. He was lying on his back with
nothing on but a pair of zebra-striped shorts, and he
could have been merely asleep because he was
snoring. He’d whipped me. He’d ruined me. And he
was lying on the floor sleeping like a baby. All
because his girl friend was running around out there
somewhere in the rain and I couldn’t touch him.
Who was she? But what difference did it make? I
jerked my head around and saw the wisp of pink
tangled up with the kicked-back sheets on the bed
and the shoes on the floor near the foot of it, and the
purse lying open on the table. Well, I thought, she
still has a dress to go home in, but it’s going to get a
little wet—And then I stopped. The shoes. I swung
back, staring.

They weren’t shoes; they were wedgies. They were
wedgies with grass straps. I stood there raking my
hand across my face. So I had thought I was free of
her! The dirty, lousy, rotten, sneaking, useless,
trouble-making little tramp! So now I could wear
Sutton round my neck for the rest of my life knowing
she was the one who’d saved him.
I was suddenly tired, and wanted to sit down. I
pulled a chair up alongside the table and collapsed
into it, groping wearily for a cigarette. We were
finished. There was no hope now. And all because of
that I cursed futilely, hopelessly, listening to the wild
drumming of the rain. I lighted the cigarette after a
while and leaned over from force of habit to put the
match in an ash-tray. I didn’t see it there on the
table, and idly caught hold of the purse to look
behind it. It was open, and as it swung around I was
looking into it. There was the usual hodge-podge of
junk all mixed up in it, lipstick, comb, bobby pins
and so on, but it was something shiny lying just
Hell Hath No Fury — 170
behind it which caught my eye. Only a corner of it
was sticking out in view. Hardly even knowing why I
did it, I reached out and picked it up. I stared at it,
blankly at first, and then unbelievingly, and at last
with a cold and terrible deadliness that made the
hair stand up along my neck. It was a money clasp, a
silver money clasp in the shape of a dollar sign.
No! It was crazy. There must be more than one of
them in the world. It was a coincidence. But even as
I was telling myself it was, I knew it wasn’t. I was
beginning to see it. I was remembering the day
Spunky was lost and I’d carried her shoes back to
leave them on the sand-bank for him, thinking at the
time they were the same as Dolores Harshaw’s.
Through the red mist in front of my eyes I could see
it all now: the strange, unhappy way she’d acted
tonight, the headache, wanting to go to bed early I
cursed and jumped to my feet. His blue serge
trousers were hanging on the wall. I grabbed them
down, and rammed my hands into the pockets. There
was nothing. I tried the overalls hanging beside
them, without success. I looked wildly around.
Maybe ... I lunged for the bed, stepping over him,
and snatched up the pillow. The wallet was under it.
I spread it open, and there it was, a thick sheaf of
bills. My hands were shaking as I counted them. It
came to a little over five hundred dollars.
So that was it. She had brought him the money he
had asked for, but with that cynical brutality of his
he wasn’t shaking her down for money alone But
why had she done it? I knew her better than that.
She would have let him kill her first. And then,
slowly and quite terribly, it began to dawn on me.
He had told her about me, and about the bank, when
he went to see her yesterday morning. She had
begged me to let her give him the money, and I
wouldn’t. And even then, before I knew it myself, she
was afraid I was going to kill him. She’d come out
here and brought it, begging him to take it and go
away. She hadn’t been trying to save herself. It was
me she was thinking of.
I was as cold as ice all over, and I could hardly get
Hell Hath No Fury — 171
my breath. I thought of her out there trying to find
her way back to her car through the rain and
darkness, half petrified with terror and running into
trees, and barefoot. I got up slowly and took the
little automatic out of my pocket and stood there
looking at him. When his head turned a little and he
tried to move I squatted down beside him.
“Wake up,” I said, my voice thick and
unrecognizable. “Wake up and see what I’ve got for
you.”
He stirred and tried to raise up. When he saw me
his eyes went wide and he tried to slide backwards,
away from me. I got him by the throat with my left
hand and put my knee in his belly and grinned at
him. His mouth opened, wider and wider as he tried
to scream, but no sound came out of it. His eyes
were terrible to look at, and I laughed at him.
“Don’t go away,” I said, and raised the gun a little
and shot him just over the left eye.
When the sound of the shot had died away there
was nothing but the rain. I stood there looking down
at all that was left of Sutton, still holding the gun in
my hand, and some of the crazy wildness began to
drain away. She would know it now, I thought. That
seemed to be the only thing my mind would take
hold of in that first minute or two. I hadn’t wanted
her to, but now she would.
I shook my head impatiently, trying to think. Why
was I wasting time with some stupid thing like that?
Sure, she’d know, but she was the only one. There
wasn’t any witness. This wasn’t the way I’d planned
to do it, but it was all right. It was all right if I got
hold of myself and did something besides standing
here the rest of the night muttering to myself.
I had to get started, and I had to work fast. There
was a lot to be done, and time was running out on
me. I looked swiftly around the room as my head
began to clear, thinking of my original plan. I’d
intended to use the shotgun on him to cover it up,
setting it up to look like an accident while he was
cleaning the gun. The shotgun was out now, but the
Hell Hath No Fury — 172
idea was still good.
I grabbed his overalls off the wall and hauled at
him until I got them on him. Then I put on his shoes
and laced them up. I looked at him. A little blood had
come out of the place where the bullet had gone in,
but none of it had run on to the floor. It was on his
face. I pulled a chair up by the table, hoisted him up,
and shoved him into it, and then let him slump
forward with his face on the table.
I was all right now. My head was clear and I was
working very efficiently. He didn’t bother me. I
didn’t have any feeling about him at all. I had other
things to think about— such as fingerprints.
I grabbed one of his shirts off the wall and had just
started to clean off the lamp where I’d carried it,
when I heard the car. It was somewhere across the
clearing. I heard it start up, the motor racing, and
then it started up the hill. She had made it. She was
all right. That worry was off my mind now. I finished
cleaning the lamp, then rubbed the shirt along the
table and chair and the other things I’d touched. I
went over to the gun racks and lifted down the
shotgun, using the shirt so I wouldn’t leave any
prints on it. I worked the slide action until the
magazine was emptied, picked the shells off the floor
and placed them on the table, still being careful
about touching anything with my bare fingers.
Leaving the action open, I held it around to the light
and looked down the barrel. It was clean. That was
fine. I placed the gun across the table on his right,
as if he’d just finished cleaning it and had started
work on the little automatic when the accident
happened. A man who has several guns never cleans
and oils just one when he has the cleaning gear out.
It would be like eating one peanut.
I straightened up, looking around. Where would he
keep it? There was a locker nailed on the front wall
near the gun racks. That looked like a good place. I
opened it, using the shirt on the glass knob, and
found what I was looking for, a can of gun oil, the
rod he used for cleaning the shotgun, some oily rags
and cut patches, and a can of solvent. I carried it all
Hell Hath No Fury — 173

over and put it on the table.
I rubbed the automatic very carefully with the
shirt to get my prints off. Then I wiped both his
hands with one of the oily rags—because he’d
already cleaned the shotgun—and pressed his
fingers to the barrel and the imitation mother-ofpearl
butt-plates in several places, flipped the safety
off again, and put it down pointing off at an angle
away from him on the other side of the table. If he’d
been holding it by the barrel with oily fingers, when
it went off its recoil would have kicked it over there.
I had a hunch that Sheriff was a hard man to fool
about guns, and I had to make it look right. I stood
back and examined it.
There was one more thing, and then I was
through. How many times had he shot? I stood still,
trying to remember. He’d shot twice at me after the
lightning flash, and then the gun had gone off when
it hit the floor. So altogether there should be four
cartridge cases around here on the floor. I got down
on my knees and started looking. When I’d found all
four, I put three of them in my pocket and stood
beside the table where he was and tossed the other
one in the general direction it would have gone and
let it roll where it would. That left only the question
of where the bullets had gone. I walked over by the
bed and looked towards where I’d been when he
shot. There was an open window beyond. I walked
over to it. Rain was coming in. It didn’t matter. If
he’d shot himself in the afternoon while he was
cleaning a gun he would hardly be getting up to
close the windows when it started to rain in the
middle of the night. I looked around the window
frame and couldn’t find any bullet hole, so probably
they’d both gone out. The other one, when he’d
dropped the gun, wasn’t going to be so easy. But I
was lucky. I found it in less than five minutes. It was
in the baseplank next to the bed, right down by the
floor. There were two thicknesses of plank here, and
it hadn’t gone through, so it was all right. They’d
never see it.
I stood up, got the pants off the bed, put them in
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the purse and closed it, picked up the shoes, and
stood looking at it. It was all right. It was as good as
I had planned it. There was a dead man, who’d never
blackmail anybody again. There was the gun he’d
killed himself with because he’d forgotten a simple
thing lots of others have before him but which very
few people have ever forgotten twice—to check the
chamber of a gun before you try to clean it.
I looked at my watch. It was two-thirty. I had
plenty of time to get back to town. I hadn’t forgotten
anything, and I wasn’t scared any more. I leaned
over a little and blew out the lamp.
And then the calmness left me. I jerked my head
around, listening, feeling my skin tighten up in
goose-flesh. I could hear it quite plainly now, and
there wasn’t any doubt as to what it was.
It was an automobile horn. It went on blowing, on
and on, above the monotonous sound of the rain.
Hell Hath No Fury — 175
19
I lost my head for a minute. I ran out the front door
and leaped off the porch, feeling the rain come
pouring on to me, and then I was swallowed up in a
world in which there was nothing anywhere except
darkness, and water, and that unstoppable sound. It
was laughing at me. It was accusing. It was pointing.
Everybody on earth would hear it, and people would
come from miles around to find out what was
causing it and to stare at me— It wasn’t loud,
because it was coming from away up on the hill, but
it was like all the automobile horns in the biggest
traffic jam in the world all rolled into one. I ran on
blindly, unable to listen or pay any attention to the
warning inside my head which was screaming for me
to stop. It was insane. I had to find the road. I was
running away from the house, and once I lost
contact with that I’d have no place to start from. And
then I tripped and fell, and that was the only thing
that saved me.
It knocked a little sense into me. I lay there in the
mud with the rain pouring over me, fighting to shut
out that sound so I could think. Let it blow. Nobody
could hear it. There wasn’t another human being
within miles. There wasn’t anything to be afraid of in
Hell Hath No Fury — 176
the noise itself; that was just senseless terror. The
danger was in something else entirely, and if I didn’t
hang on to my senses and find the road I was done
for.
I got up to my feet and looked behind me. I could
see nothing at all. The shack could have been fifty
feet back there, or it could have been a hundred
miles. I tried to think, to see the whole clearing in
my mind. I had run straight out the front door, so
the road had to be somewhere to my left. I turned
that way and started walking, feeling my way
through the stumps and bushes of the clearing and
fighting down that terrible yearning to run. Unless I
got back on the road I didn’t have a chance.
Then I felt the ruts under my feet. I had found the
road. I turned right, and started running again,
trying to keep between them. My breath burned in
my throat, and I was cursing in a monotonous kind
of frenzy. Of all the cars on the lot, I’d had to pick
that one. Why in the name of God hadn’t I at least
asked Gulick which one it was when it cut loose on
the lot Saturday afternoon? Why hadn’t I had sense
enough to see the warning in the way the motor had
turned over when I’d started it?
I was soaked now. Water ran out of my hair and
down my neck. With every step it sloshed in my
shoes. Suddenly, I felt the road swerve left, and then
I was out of the clearing and starting uphill through
the timber. The horn didn’t seem any louder as I got
nearer to it. Was it getting weaker? I listened,
holding my breath, but I couldn’t tell. That insane
urgency pulled at me, starting me running again. I
missed a turn in the road and stumbled into the
trees, and tripped over something and fell. The
purse slipped out of my hands. I squatted on my
knees and groped blindly in the mud with my free
hand, afraid to let go of the shoes with the other.
The sound of the horn was growing weaker. There
wasn’t any doubt of it. I could hear it dying. And
then I could hear myself, cursing endlessly in a sort
of lost and hopeless madness as I swung my hand
around in the mud and water and drowned leaves,
Hell Hath No Fury — 177
feeling for the purse. It never occurred to me I could
leave it; nobody would ever find it, and there was
nothing in it to identify her anyway. I had the money
clasp in my pocket. I had to find it. And then my
hand brushed it and it slid. I reached over and
grabbed it and floundered back into the road. The
pitch of the horn was changing.
I don’t know how I made the last hundred yards. I
was gasping, and wind was burning in my throat. I
kept falling. And all the time I could hear the horn
growing weaker and weaker, like an alarm clock
running down. Then I was up to it. It was off to my
left. I plunged off the road, feeling ahead of me with
my hands to get around the tree trunks. I bumped
into the car, felt my way along it to the door and
opened it, and tossed the shoes and purse inside.
The horn was still groaning faintly. I yanked the
hood up and groped around under it, jerking at
wires I came in contact with and pounding on the
firewall. It stopped. I collapsed weakly on the
fender. In the sudden silence the rain sounded
louder, falling through the trees and drumming on
top of the car.
Getting off the fender with an effort, I closed the
hood, and went back to the door and got in. Water
ran off me on to the seat. I switched on the ignition
with shaky fingers and reached for the starter
button, weak with the unbearable suspense of it and
wishing I knew how to pray. I pushed it and the
starter groaned once, coming around until it
engaged the motor, and then it stopped. I tried once
more, and there was nothing at all. The battery was
dead.
I sat there for a minute slumped over the wheel
listening to the mournful sound of the rain and
feeling the sick emptiness of fear inside me. It was
the thing which had been goading me down there in
the clearing and while I was beating my brains out
trying to get up the hill in the darkness. There was
no way to get the car started, and I was at least
twenty miles from town. Daybreak would catch me
long before I could walk it. And if I left the car down
Hell Hath No Fury — 178
here I might as well leave my card, with a note to
the Sheriff.
I could see him getting his teeth into it—a man
down there who’d accidentally shot himself through
the head while I was parked here in the timber in my
car because I thought it was a drive-in movie. Now
wasn’t that a strange coincidence— I cursed, and
tried to shut it off. There must be some way out.
How long would it take me to walk it? But I knew
the answer to that. It’d take at least five hours. It’d
be after eight o’clock before I got to town. A dozen
people, or twenty, or even more, would see me, and
they’d remember it. I knew how I must look,
drowned and water-soaked, covered with mud, and
my clothes torn where I’d fallen. Maybe I could push
the car back on the road, and get it started downhill
to crank it. I got out and felt around in the blackness
to locate the trees behind it, cramped the wheels
around, and went around in front. I put my shoulder
against the grill, and heaved. My feet slid out from
under me and I fell against the front of the car. I
braced them and tried again, putting all my weight
and the desperation and fear into it, and the car
rolled back three or four inches, poised there, and
then came back towards me. It was impossible. Four
men couldn’t do it. It was slightly upgrade to the
road, and I couldn’t do it if I tried for a week.
I’d been so near to winning. Right up to the time
I’d leaned over to blow out that light I’d had the
game in my hand, and now it was gone. I was done.
No, I wasn’t. The idea hit me with the suddenness
of light, and I straightened up, feeling the hope
surge through me. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
There was Sutton’s car. I could drive to town in it—
No. That wouldn’t do.
That would still leave this one here. And how could
they swallow an accidental death if his car had
disappeared and turned up in town? But I was on the
trail of it, and then I had it. Sutton’s car was the
same make. I could change batteries with him.
But how about tools? Was there anything in the
Hell Hath No Fury — 179
car I could use to disconnect the terminals? I
grabbed the keys and ran around and opened the
trunk enough to get my head and shoulders under it,
and began pawing wildly around inside it with my
hands. There was no use even reaching for a match.
They were drowned long ago. I wondered if there
was any light left in the world. Maybe I had gone
blind and didn’t even know it. My hands bumped
into something and I felt it over. It was a jack
handle. And then I found the jack itself. Oh, God, I
thought, there must be a pair of pliers, at least.
There has to be.
Then I bumped into something and heard it rattle
against the side. I groped for it and got it under my
hand. My heart leaped. It was a pair of pliers. I let
the door of the trunk down and went around to the
battery. That terrible urgency had hold of me again,
now that I could see a way out. How much longer
did I have before daylight? There was no way to tell
what time it was— Sure there was.
There’d be enough power in the battery to operate
the lights for a few minutes. I pulled out the switch
and the headlights came on very yellow and dim, and
growing fainter as I looked at them. I ran around in
front and looked at the watch. It was three-ten. I had
to get this battery loose, walk back to the shack, get
that one disconnected, and carry it back up the hill.
Was there enough time?
I located the terminals. They were so covered with
corrosion I couldn’t even tell where the bolt nuts
were. I banged savagely on them with the pliers to
break it loose and twisted at them with my hands.
Oh, hell, I thought in agony, if I could only see! I
opened the pliers and ground them harshly around
the side of the connector. And then I could feel the
nut. I put the pliers on it, tightened up, and turned.
Nothing gave except the pliers slipped a little,
chewing up the nut. I bore down again. It came that
time. The bolt broke.
It’s all right, I thought crazily. It’s all right. They’re
a press fit, and it’ll work without the bolt. All I have
to do is drive it on. I started gouging frenziedly at
Hell Hath No Fury — 180

the other one. The nut turned on it, and in a few
minutes I had it off. I started to lift the battery out.
No, I thought. Why carry it down there? When I get
the other battery I can drive down with it.
I was ready to go. I put the pliers in my pocket and
groped my way through the trees to the road. I hit it
and started to run when the same thought occurred
to me again. I wouldn’t be able to find the car when I
came back. I wouldn’t have the horn to guide me,
and I couldn’t see the handkerchief. It had probably
washed away. I had to mark the place somehow. But
how? Geez, I thought, I can’t stand here all night.
I’ve got to do something. I leaped to the side of the
road and started sweeping my arms around. I found
a small pine and broke off a limb six or seven feet
long, and threw it across the ruts. I’d run into it with
my feet when I came back.
I turned then and started running downhill
through the downpour, feeling the water slosh in my
shoes. I lost track of the number of times I fell and
how many times I blundered off the road. When I got
down in the clearing and groped and stumbled my
way into the yard in front of the shack, breathing
was an agony, I wanted to lie down and rest. I felt
my way to the car and when I got the door open I
turned on the lights and held my watch under the
dash. It said twelve minutes until four. I wanted to
scream at it. It was lying. It hadn’t taken that long.
I ground savagely at the bolts through the battery
connectors, trying to work too fast and fumbling. I
dropped the pliers and had to grope around for them
in the darkness. Suddenly I was conscious that I was
whispering to myself. I was saying, “Hurry, hurry,
hurry—” in a kind of chant that had been going on
forever like the rain. I got both connectors loose at
last and lifted the battery out. I had to be careful
about falling now. If I dropped the battery on
anything solid it would break open like an over-ripe
squash.
It was nothing now but sheer nightmare. I wasn’t
going forward any more. I was just moving my feet
up and down in the same place with the same weight
Hell Hath No Fury — 181
on my shoulders and the same rain coming down
while time ran past me like a river around a snag. I
couldn’t remember the turns in the road. I didn’t
know how far I’d come, or how far I had to go. I
must have passed the car. It couldn’t have been this
far. Maybe I’d brushed past that limb and hadn’t
noticed it. I’d never make it now.
And then I felt the limb against my leg. It was
there. I swung off the road and started pushing my
way through the trees in a frenzy to get it done, to
be able to see again, and to get out of here before it
was too late. And then it happened. My shoulder
brushed hard against a tree trunk and it threw me
off balance. The battery slipped out of my grasp and
fell somewhere into the darkness ahead of me as I
crashed to the ground. I heard it slam into a tree.
This was the end. It had just been teasing me all
the time, and now I was really done. The battery was
broken. I couldn’t even find it. I lay on my stomach
in the water and wet pine needles and swept my
arms around, trying to locate it and still afraid of
what I’d find. My fingertips brushed it and I slid
forward and got my hands on it. It was lying on its
side. I rolled it upright and ran my hands around it
to find out if the case was broken. I couldn’t tell for
sure, but it seemed to be all right. There was a hole
broken in the top of the middle cell, but both of the
terminals felt solid. Maybe it was still all right.
I picked it up and located the car. I set it on the
fender, and lifted the other battery out. It wasn’t
until then that I remembered I had to get the
polarity right. There wasn’t any way I could tell
which was the positive and which the negative
terminal. I ran my fingers across the tops of them,
trying to feel the plus and minus markings, but I
couldn’t tell because they were corroded over. There
wasn’t any way on earth— Wait, I thought. Sure
there was. The positive terminal was always larger,
and the connectors would be the same. I felt both,
and I could tell which was which. I set it in and
drove the connectors down on the terminals with the
pliers, and ran around to turn on the lights. They
Hell Hath No Fury — 182
came up bright and strong. I looked at the watch. It
was twenty minutes after four.
I threw the other battery in, and backed out on to
the road. It was only a miracle I stayed on it at the
pace I went down the hill into the clearing. I put the
battery in his car and connected it up, working fast
now with the headlights for illumination, and as I got
back in the car and turned around the lights swept
once across the bleak and lonely cabin sitting there
in the rain. I thought of him inside, alone in the dark
with his face on the table, and then I gunned the car
out of the yard, fast, and started up the hill. I went
down the other side and across the river bottom like
a man running away from hell, while the rain
washed out my tracks behind me. When I got out on
the highway there was no traffic and I rode the
throttle down to the floorboards all the way to town.
Swinging left at the cotton gin, I circled around
the way I had before. It was still dark, but this was
the dangerous part of it now. I came up the side
street and just before I swung on to the lot I cut the
headlights. I came up alongside the last car in line
and stopped and sat there for a minute before I got
out. Main Street was empty in the rain.
The inside of the car was a mess from the water
that had run out of my clothes, but there wasn’t
anything I could do about it now. I’d have to get off
the lot and over to the garage the first thing when
we opened, before Gulick had a chance to see it. I
grabbed the purse and the shoes and got out,
slipping down the street in the shadows. When I got
in the alley behind the rooming house I eased
through the gate and into the yard without a sound
except the pounding of my heart. I hadn’t seen
anyone at all.
I stopped on the little porch outside my door and
took off my trousers and sports shirt and wrung the
water out of them, and then squeezed all I could out
of the purse. Then I carried everything inside and
without turning on a light felt around in the closet
for my flannel robe and rolled all of it up in that. I
took off the shorts and threw them in the laundry
Hell Hath No Fury — 183
bag, and dried myself off with a towel. Using the
same towel and feeling around on the floor in the
dark, I mopped up what water I’d brought in with
me. Then I put on some dry shorts, got a package of
cigarettes out of the dresser drawer, and lay down
on the bed. I looked at my watch as I lighted the
cigarette. It was nearly six. It would be growing light
in a few minutes. I had made it.
A little after seven I got up and shaved and
dressed. It was still raining, so I got a raincoat out of
the closet, picked up the bundle of stuff in the
flannel robe, and carried it out to the car. I drove
down and parked on the lot, and took the bundle out
of the rear seat and locked it in the trunk.
As I started up the street to the restaurant I looked
back under the line of cars. That was something
which had been worrying me. But it was all right.
The water had run, and it was just as wet under the
ones that’d been there all night as under the one I’d
been using.
I went on over to the restaurant. There were
several people there already and they were all
talking about it. It was all over town.
Harshaw was dead. He’d died a little after three
that morning of another heart attack.
Hell Hath No Fury — 184
20

I couldn’t take hold of it at first. Why three o’clock in
the morning? I ordered some breakfast and couldn’t
eat it. It was a rotten shame. And then I wondered
why I felt so sorry about it. After all it hadn’t been
six hours since I’d killed a man; why should the
natural death of another one bother me? I walked
back to the office and just sat there looking out at
the dark, miserable day. When Gulick showed up I
told him he could go home. We’d close the lot and
the loan office for the day, and also the day of the
funeral.
Gloria came along a few minutes later. Robinson
dropped her off on this side of the street and she
hurried into the office. She had on a blue plastic
raincoat with a hood, which made her look very
pretty and young, but her face was pale and she was
tired. She had already heard about Harshaw.
“Don’t you think we ought to close up, Harry?” she
asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve already told Gulick.”
She was in the doorway, and she turned a little
away from me and looked out into the street. “It’s so
terrible,” she said quietly. She had thought the
world of Harshaw.
Hell Hath No Fury — 185
And then I wondered if she meant Harshaw. I
wanted to tell her I had her purse and shoes in the
car, that there was nothing to worry about, and I
couldn’t. I ran right into a wall. I couldn’t say a
thing.
I locked the office and we went out and got in the
car. I drove down the highway very slowly and we
were both silent, just watching the rain. When we
got to the long bridge I parked the car near the end
of it and we sat there looking at the water. It was
brown, and we could see the river was rising a little.
They might not find him for days, I thought. If there
was much more rain the road through the bottom
would be impassable. Once, when there were no
cars in sight in either direction, I kissed her. She
drew back a little.
“It just doesn’t seem right, I guess.” She turned
and looked out of the window.
We stayed there a half hour or longer, and I could
feel the wall of silence growing up between us. I
knew now why I hadn’t been able to say anything
back there at the office. If she couldn’t talk about it,
how could I? And then I suddenly realized she wasn’t
thinking about the shoes and purse at all, because
she didn’t know yet that I’d killed him. And when
she did find out he was dead she would know I
hadn’t left them there to incriminate her. I wanted to
cry out and tell her it was all right, that I knew why
she’d done it and it didn’t mean a thing, but how
could I? I thought of the shame and the loathing she
must feel, and how having to talk about it right out
in the open—even to me—would crucify her, and I
couldn’t open my mouth. Maybe she could stand it if
we didn’t mention it, if we pretended it hadn’t
happened.
And then I thought of something else. What would
it be like when they found him? Could we ever talk
about it? Everything would tell her that I’d done it,
but in her heart there’d always be that hope, that
slim chance I hadn’t as long as we didn’t insist on
dragging it out into the open. The whole thing was
an ugly mess, and maybe the only way we’d ever be
Hell Hath No Fury — 186
able to live with it was by ignoring it.
After a while I drove back to town. The stuff in the
back of the car was still weighing on my mind, but I
knew I’d have to wait until after dark to get rid of it.
“Don’t you think we ought to see Mrs. Harshaw,
Harry?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We’d better go now.”
I stopped in the driveway by the side porch, and
the Negro girl let us in. She said yes, Mrs. Harshaw
was in and she’d see us. We went in, and she was in
the living room, pale and red-eyed and dressed in a
housecoat and slippers. I thought she was overdoing
it a little with the weeping until I noticed she
had a bad head cold. That helped her to look like the
grief-stricken widow.
They had already taken him to the mortuary, and
the funeral was to be on Wednesday. We expressed
our sympathy and said what a fine man he’d been,
and between sessions of sniffles she told us how it
had happened. Apparently he had got up for
something, because she had heard him out in the
hall and just as she was about to call out to him and
ask if anything was wrong she heard him fall. He
rolled all the way down the stairs in the living room.
“Oh, it was horrible,” she said pitifully, and I’d
have felt sorry for her if I hadn’t known better.
“Going down the steps in the dark, trying to get to
him, I fell myself before I got to the bottom.” She
slipped the housecoat down a little and showed us
the bruise on her shoulder. “Somehow I got to the
phone and called the doctor, but when he got here it
was too late.” She started crying again. She made
me sick.
Well, she finally outlasted him, I thought. The
whole works is hers now—probably a hundred
thousand or more. I wondered if she’d sell out and
leave. Probably, I thought. She could keep a whole
stable of boy friends now, like a riding academy or a
stud farm, and it’d work out better in a city.
Her sniffling got Gloria started. We left in a little
while and I drove her home. I went back to the
Hell Hath No Fury — 187
rooming house and tried to sleep in the afternoon,
but it wasn’t any good. I kept having a nightmare
about trying to run uphill out of a river bottom with
a dead man shackled to my leg. I’d wake up covered
with sweat and shaking.
When would they find him? That was beginning to
get me now. I hadn’t thought about that part until
now that I was getting a taste of it. What about the
waiting? I thought everything was all right, and that
they’d go for it, but how did I know? What if I’d
forgotten something? I wouldn’t know until they
found him and held the inquest. Every time I thought
of that cold-eyed Sheriff I’d get scared. It was going
to be great. I could see that. And if it went on very
long I’d be crazy.
After it was dark I drove downtown and tried to
eat. My mouth was dry and everything tasted like
straw. I got in the car and drove out to the
abandoned sawmill, stopping on the road for a while
to be sure I wasn’t followed. The rain had stopped
during the afternoon and now the stars were out. I
parked beside the sawdust pile and got the bundle of
clothes out of the trunk, went over all of it with the
flashlight looking for laundry marks and cutting
them out, and then carried the stuff down to the
bottom of the ravine. Scooping out a hole in the
bottom of the sawdust slide, I shoved them in,
clothes, purse, shoes, everything, and covered them
up. Then I went up a little way and started another
slide. They were well buried, and as time went by
more and more would fall down on them. Maybe, I
thought if she stayed around here, she’d keep it
sliding down. The place made me think of her, and
remembering that night made me uncomfortable.
Hating her didn’t make any difference.