Manhunt. Volume 4, Number 6, June, 1956

The editors of Manhunt predict that this novel, because of its bestial realism, its brutality of man toward man... and its literary excellence... is a story you will never forget.

Lucille screamed as the man’s head hit the floor. Johnny grabbed her arm. “You’re going with me,” he said.

1

This morning he would do it. This morning he would take Johnny’s parole request in to Carl Hoffman, the new warden. For the past three weeks, ever since Hoffman had taken over, Walker had intended to do it, but always when he thought of it Hoffman would be in conference, or Walker himself would be snowed under with the red tape involved in his own shift from educational director to assistant warden. But things had begun to settle now, and Walker didn’t want to wait any longer. Of course, he had warned Johnny Graves that it was not a sure thing; nothing at Larkin was a sure thing. But the new warden was going to be a far cry from old Henry Myers, with his bay stallion and his nineteenth-century plantation system of camps and iron-handed sergeants. And Johnny’s case was clear-cut, not to speak of being eighteen months overdue. Howard Walker didn’t see how he could miss.

He parked the Ford pickup in the loose asphalt drive. Cold, conditioned air came out like an odor when he opened the heavy glass door of the administration building, but it mingled quickly with the already sultry heat of the morning and lost its body. Inside the dark lobby several sergeants, bosses of the twenty-three camps on the farm, were grouped around the long mahogany conference table. It was the morning scuttlebutt session while they waited for the mail of their various camps to be sorted out.

Walker recognized Thompson from Camp Six and Stubbs from Twelve; he had thought to drop by and speak to them, but then he saw Hiram Gwin and decided against it. His enmity with Gwin, Sergeant of Camp Eight, was notorious on the farm, and in a group like that Gwin would feel obligated to live up to expectations. Walker was not in the mood for a scene this morning; besides, it wouldn’t be wise to antagonize Gwin, particularly now when Walker was putting up Johnny Grave’s parole request. Gwin was Johnny’s sergeant. Briefly it occurred to Walker that it was strange Hiram Gwin was still here, considering all those who had been fired from the old Myer’s regime.

Carl Hoffman had just come out to his secretary’s office when Walker entered. He had some correspondence in his hands.

“Well!” he said brightly, “good morning, Mr. Walker!” It was one of the things about Carl Hoffman, one of the few things that Walker had discovered he didn’t like. Carl was a boomer, a bit too brisk, a bit too jovial, a bit tiresome after a time. But it was a minor fault, almost a virtue compared to old Myer’s sullenness, and Walker had determined to get used to it.

He grinned back at Hoffman’s radiant smile. “Good morning,” he said. “Are you busy?”

“Not at all! Not at all!” Hoffman said, beaming at his assistant.

Hoffman was not a big man, was probably several inches under Walker’s six-two, but he walked and stood very erectly, giving the impression of height. He was in his early forties, Walker judged, from the slight flaccid paunchiness of his body and the scattering of gray in his fine brown hair. But his face, with its bright smile, good blue eyes and full mouth, was much more youthful than forty.

“Well!” he said. “What’s on Mr. Walker’s mind this morning?”

Walker returned his smile. “A little hangover from the Myers’ regime,” he said, lifting the folder and handing it across the desk.

Hoffman’s brown, arched brows shot up. “Oh?” he said. “Let me see.” He took the folder and, leaning back in his chair, opened it.

“I can tell you most of it,” Walker said, “if you want to save time. Then you can check me later.”

Hoffman nodded, scanning the report; he flicked rapidly to the second page. Walker didn’t think he was listening, but started in anyway.

“It’s really fairly simple,” he said. “Except for two minor fights right after he got here, the boy’s record is spotless. He was a little sensitive at first and covered up for it by arrogance. It got him into trouble. But I was working with him on some correspondence courses, and managed to get to him, talk him out of it, mainly by reminding him of this parole. Hiram Gwin was his sergeant, though, and he took a dislike to him. You know Gwin, of course. He...”

Hoffman’s face was definitely clouded now, whether in displeasure or confusion Walker wasn’t sure, but Walker broke off. Hoffman flipped back to the first page of the record and looked at it, frowning slightly. “This is a parole request, isn’t it?” he said.

Walker wasn’t sure for a moment that he was serious. The report was on the standard form for paroles, with the phrase, “Request for parole of—” and so on lettered in caps across the top of the first page. But Hoffman seemed genuinely surprised, and Walker supposed it was possible. “I’m sorry,” he said “I thought you would see it. It is a request, yes, for a long-overdue parole.”

“Yes,” Hoffman said, smiling a bit thinly. “I see that now. But why are you showing it to me? This is Kurt’s department, isn’t it?”

Again Walker was puzzled. Surely, he thought, John Kurt and Chaplain Thompson and he had explained this to Hoffman. During some of the day-long conferences they had held, he felt they had said everything twice. “We must have overlooked this item,” he said. “Here at Larkin even paroles are your business. Myers always insisted on the right to approve or reject them. The law is still on the books in the legislature.”

“I see,” Hoffman said. “But it’s still Kurt’s department, isn’t it?” He continued to smile thinly. “Does he know about it?”

He was concerned with that point, Walker noticed, and of course he would be, not only to keep the chain of command straight, and maybe not for that reason at all, but chiefly because John Kurt was responsible for his appointment as well as Walker’s. It was John, after all, who had met Hoffman at a prison convention, had talked him into coming to Beauregard for an interview with Governor Hollis Graham, and persuaded Graham, through influential friends, to appoint Hoffman to the position. Walker realized that he would have done better to bring John with him this morning.

“John prepared this himself,” he said. “He and I took it to Myers together, twice in fact. And as parole officer, he’ll have to put it through officially, of course, if you approve. But I was sure how he felt and I didn’t think it would be necessary to bring him with me. I just remembered the case this morning, and I wanted to get it through as soon as possible.”

“Oh,” Hoffman said. “Oh, I see. The prisoner is a friend of yours, is he?”

Something about the way he said it, some implication of favoritism, needled Walker. He had begun to feel dissatisfied with the whole conversation, in fact.

“No,” Walker said, “not especially.”

This was not precisely true. But it was not like Hoffman implied, not simply a matter of having let the boy, in the prison slang for it, “get on his hip.”

Of course he did like him, had from that first day Johnny came into his office, not much over twenty then, his beard not even fully patterned, and stood looking at him across the desk with his clear, proud, not quite defiant but completely self-sufficient gray gaze. He had reminded Walker of himself at that age, too large physically, too sure of himself; and the similarity had been more real when Walker discovered that Johnny was actually from Tucker County, his own home section. There were other things too: the way the boy told his story simply, unashamedly, not pleading innocence or apologizing for his guilt, admitting it as a matter of fact, willing to take whatever penalty was coming for it but at the same time fighting desperately against a general humiliation, the humiliation of simply being there, of having been herded into the office by two guards, of having been thrust into the stiff black and white striped denim jacket and pants with their timeless, universal stigma. It was that, his sensitiveness to the humiliation and his stubborn attempt to conceal it, which aroused Walker’s sympathy more than anything else.

Moreover, Johnny and Walker had seemed to grow together on the farm; circumstances seemed to throw them in each other’s way, from that first interview when they had both been so sensitive to the strange, alien environment, to the correspondence courses which Johnny took and which enabled Walker to talk to him, get to know him and dissuade him from the seeming arrogance which was getting him into trouble; finally to the long-sustained fight during the last eighteen months for the parole. And it was the parole which aroused Walker most of all. Johnny had been wronged, completely and callously wronged; no special favoritism was required to see that, which was why he was so irritated by Carl Hoffman’s insinuation now.

But Hoffman had seen Walker’s irritation; his blue eyes had swept coolly and rapidly over Walker’s face, gauging it with a smooth canniness which Walker would never have guessed was in him. “Of course, of course, Howard,” he said. “I simply meant that you were interested; nothing unpleasant intended.” He smiled again, evasively. “Well, tell me more about it,” he said, leaning forward on the desk. “What are the real issues involved?”

It was the natural thing to say, but there was something wrong, Walker felt. “What kind of issues do you mean?” Walker said. “I’ve told you the setup; you’ve read the request.”

“Yes, but Howard,” Hoffman said, smiling reluctantly, “you say the only reason the boy was held up was Hiram Gwin’s prejudice — that Hiram just didn’t like him.”

“That’s right,” Walker said.

“But, Howard,” Hoffman said, raising his shoulders and lifting his hands slightly, “surely it was more than that. Surely not even Myers would have held the boy eighteen months on no more than that.”

Now Walker became really angry, and even more puzzled. “Look,” he said, holding his voice down carefully, “I said you could check me later. You don’t have to take my word for it. All I want to know is will you grant the parole if you find the facts back me up?”

Hoffman’s blue eyes, clouded now and vague, met Walker’s and bounced off quickly to the side. “Well, of course I want to do the right thing, Howard,” he said, “and if the case were clear-cut I’d certainly free the boy immediately. But these things are sometimes involved. I’d want to talk to Gwin, get his reaction. If he objects strongly I—”

Walker stared at him incredulously. “If he objects!” he said. “If Gwin objects? Of course he’ll object. That’s the whole point.”

Hoffman’s face was pink now; he avoided Walker’s eyes. “Well, if he does, Howard,” he said, “I’m sure he must have a reason. And I wouldn’t want to parole an inmate about whom there was still some question.”

“Some question!” Walker said. “Gwin’s question?” Because Hoffman surely knew Gwin by now; you only had to see Hiram Gwin once to know him — ignorant, bigoted, autocratic.

“Well, after all, Howard, Gwin could be right,” Hoffman said. “He’s closer to him; he should know him better than we.”

This simply wasn’t happening! This couldn’t be the Hoffman who had turned Larkin upside down the first day he was there; who had begun his official duties by issuing a list of unprecedented directives, including one absolutely prohibiting the use of the leather lash, the sergeants’ favorite and almost sole disciplinary method, and another forbidding any sergeant to force an inmate who complained of illness to work in the fields without first being checked by a doctor; who had assembled the entire staff the first night and served unequivocal notice that Larkin was now a rehabilitative institution instead of simply a farm, and that the sergeants were no longer mere farm bosses, responsible only for crop quotas; and who in the first five days of his administration had summoned and fired eight officials, including five sergeants, who refused to follow the directives.

And yet it was happening, like a blurred, bewildering nightmare. There was something, Walker thought, he still hadn’t grasped.

“Look, Carl,” he said finally, controlling himself carefully, “this kid we’re talking about is real, flesh and blood, breath and hope, and you ought to know as well as I do that the parole can make all the difference to him. He’s been due it a year and a half, a whole year and a half, and for almost three years before that he was sweating it out, holding himself in and taking crap off of Hiram Gwin — every form of petty sadism you can imagine, even down to humiliating nicknames. What’s more, he has to have this parole, has to get out of here. He’s married and his wife has quit coming, quit writing too, I think. And she’s the kind of girl — I saw her once, a little blonde, soft blue eyes; I don’t think he can forget her.”

He stopped but Hoffman didn’t look up. “Howard,” he said, “I’m sorry. I know you like this boy, and I’d like to help you—”

“Not me,” Walker said, “not help me.” There was the insinuation of favoritism again, too, though not accusingly this time.

“All right,” Hoffman said, “help the boy. But Gwin is, after all, the boy’s sergeant, and if he says he isn’t ready—” he spread his hands, very clean, very slender hands, Walker noticed — “I’d hate to interfere; I don’t think we should go over our sergeants’ heads.”

“Over their heads!” Walker said. “Over our sergeants’ heads?”

The implications of the warden’s words astounded him. Practically the whole purpose of bringing Hoffman here was to break the long-entrenched power of the sergeants. Under Myers, Larkin had been operated solely as an extremely lucrative business, a huge plantation operated by slave labor and paying into the state treasury almost half a million dollars every year. Myers himself had been oblivious to rehabilitation, had run the prison for his own convenience, and he found it most convenient to produce high revenue for the constantly watching legislature.

“Howard,” Hoffman said finally, “I wish you would understand. I can go too far with this shake-up. And there’s Gwin’s brother...”

Walker stared at him, speechless; now shocked partly at least by his own naiveté.

“Carl,” he said, “surely you haven’t let Gwin bluff you just because his brother’s a member of the legislature. You knew about Frank Gwin before you took over.”

“It’s more than that, Howard,” Hoffman said. “There’s been considerable grumbling from all the camps, I find. I... I could lose right off all the... all I’ve started. I... don’t want to go too far.”

And then Walker did understand. Sitting across the long mahogany desk (and there was a picture of the wife — very young wife, really, and very pretty — and two blond grinning kids), looking at Hoffman’s clean, slender, energetic fingers, and well-groomed half-averted face, he thought of breadwinners and successful husbands, and careers and triumphs; he thought of his own wife and children and his recent promotion, and of the pleasure it had given to them both. And he understood then that Carl Hoffman might be a rehabilitation expert, and he might be an ardent reformer, and he might be a penitentiary warden; but that before and beneath all of these he was something else, something quite different.

For a long time he stared at Hoffman who avoided his eyes, tracing the pattern of the grain in his desk.

“You... understand, don’t you, Howard?” Hoffman said finally.

“Yes,” Walker said, “I think I do. But I don’t like it.”

“I know how you feel, Howard,” Hoffman said. “But you know how the legislature is watching us. You know how skeptical they were of our program. And our crop production is bound to fall off with all this turnover in personnel. All we need now is to have Frank Gwin accusing us of pampering the prisoners, of paroling trouble-makers and overruling long-experienced sergeants.”

“Would it really be so bad?” Walker said. “Could it hurt all that much? Myers was attacked for fifteen years before he had to go.”

Hoffman dropped his eyes again. “We... I don’t want to take that risk,” he said. “I don’t want to weaken our position, endanger the program.”

“But you are willing to sacrifice this kid,” Walker said, his anger almost uncontrollable.

Hoffman’s face grew suddenly tight. His eyes were pale blue and angry meeting Walker’s. “I think we’d best stop the discussion, Howard.”

“Then you’re turning it down? You’re actually turning it down?”

“I’m afraid so,” Hoffman said, crisp again now, the contained executive. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

Walker got slowly to his feet. “Yes,” he said, “I’m sorry too, and I imagine Johnny Graves will be even sorrier.”

He turned and went back into the outer office. He opened the door and stood for a moment looking blankly at the wall of the corridor. Had it actually happened? Could this be Larkin’s new administration?

Moving down the corridor he passed John Kurt’s office, and he suddenly wondered if Kurt had discovered the unexpected side of Carl Hoffman. He decided to drop in and see. Kurt had been behind the parole before and, with his political backing, he should be able to do a little persuading if he were willing to. Walker didn’t like that sort of thing, but he thought again of Johnny. He was frightened at what this might do to Johnny, of what Johnny might do about it. He couldn’t take the boy another refusal if there was any way around it. He retraced his steps to Kurt’s office.

But Kurt was not in. Mrs. Williams, his secretary, was sorry but he was out of town. He was investigating a parole case in Alabama, she believed. No, she didn’t know when he would be back, she believed it would be several days.

Walker thanked her and went back down the corridor toward his own office. It was all his. He couldn’t keep Johnny waiting, of course; it had already been more than three weeks. Besides, there was not only no assurance as to when Kurt would get back, but none that he could, or would, do anything once he did. No, Walker thought, he would have to go tell the kid something.

2

He waited until nearly dusk before he drove out to Camp Eight. There was no need to go earlier; he knew that Johnny would be with the Long Line in the fields, hoeing cotton.

Larkin was a huge, twenty-thousand-acre ellipse set in a deep bend of the Mississippi River. On its west side was the long swelling green line of the levee, like a gigantic caterpillar which had burrowed in a semi-circle under the thick river grass and the cypresses. On its east was the narrow-gauged, special railroad and the straight flat ribbon of black-topped highway, a state road which bordered the river a safe distance inside the flood area for the entire length of the state. On its north and south were huge ditches which marked the boundary between the prison, or Inside World, and the civilian plantations, or Free World, which extended in long rows of cotton or corn to the edges of the ditches.

There were twenty-three camps spread over the area of Larkin, each a separate, virtually self-sustaining unit. The heart of the camps were what was known as the cage buildings, where the prisoners stayed when not in the fields. These buildings, usually big, one-story edifices, contained the actual cages, long barracks-like twin wings where the prisoners were kept behind bars and padlocks during the night.

The prisoners worked during the day in the fields or in the dairies and hog units, or in various capacities around the buildings. Their work day extended from sunrise until sunset every day except Saturday, when they were let off at mid-afternoon, and Sunday, when they were allowed to rest and have visitors. At night they were locked in the cages, but on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and on some rainy days when they weren’t able to work, they were allowed to move about freely within the fenced enclosure. There were over twenty-seven hundred prisoners in all, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty in each camp.

Bugger, a trusty, opened the big padlocked gate. “Evening, Mr. Walker,” he said, removing his cap and ducking his head quickly, his big round face vacantly eager.

“Evening, Bugger,” Walker said. “It it hot enough for you?”

Bugger chuckled quick appreciation of the standard question. “Just about, Mr. Walker,” he crooned. The fawning and servility was something Walker had rebelled against when he first came to Larkin. It made him wince every time a prisoner snatched for his cap in the fearful, automatic gesture. It was one of the saddest problems of Larkin, Walker thought, that most of the men so quickly accepted the standards of the camps — the brutality, the coarseness, not to speak of the downright corruption: the perversion and graft. So he had accepted the custom of caps-off along with a hundred other little “traditions,” like that of “taking five,” a means of settling disputes between prisoners by removing weapons from them and giving them five minutes to fight with no holds barred. It was a neat system, a sergeant had explained to Walker; in five minutes they hardly had time to kill each other, but they could come so close to it that neither of them would want to fight again soon.

Hiram Gwin sat tilted against the wall in a straight-backed chair. He was a tall, painfully thin man with narrow, sloping, high shoulders. His neck protruded forward, long and drooping, giving him with his hooked nose the look of a vulture. Walker wondered if his irascible nature might not be largely due to some illness, or glandular defect. His skin was an unhealthy sallow color even with his heavy tan, and his pale blue eyes were invariably yellow-whited. But illness, Walker thought, could never completely account for Hiram Gwin, or excuse him.

Gwin did not speak immediately. He sat, still propped in the chair and stared past Walker as though he wasn’t there. Finally he said, “Hello, Walker.”

“How are you?” Walker said. He was not disturbed by the coolness; this was standard procedure.

Gwin let him stand for a moment; then he said, “What for you?”

“Just dropping by,” Walker said. “Want to see one of the men.”

“Which one?” Gwin said. “I got a lot of men here.”

“Johnny Graves,” Walker said.

Gwin didn’t answer. He might not even have heard, Walker took out a cigarette and lit it. Behind the building the drivers, civilian guards in charge of the Long Lines, were shouting formation orders. The prisoners would come before the long porch to be checked in.

When Gwin finally spoke he did not look at Walker; his face was turned down the porch toward the men. “Did you get that parole for the purty boy?” he said.

Walker drew on the cigarette, drew hard until the smoke became hot. He should have remembered that Gwin would undoubtedly know about his session with Hoffman, would know something about it if not the details. The grapevine was one of the sergeant’s most important weapons on Larkin.

“What happened to your man?” Gwin said. “What happened to them new ideas?”

Walker drew again on the cigarette; it burned his fingers and he snapped it irritably out into the yard.

Gwin was grinning and shaking his head elaborately. “That boy’s no good,” he said. “No good! There’s a mean streak running clear through him.” He swung quickly around and went out to the walk. The prisoners were marching up in double files. “All right,” he said. “Step it up! Goddamn! Yall wanta take all night?”

The drivers lined them in two’s and counted them.

“A hundred and three,” McCrory said; he was the lead driver. “How many in the kitchen?”

“I’ve got that,” Gwin said. “There’s nine. Where’s Graves? Where’s Purty Boy?”

There was a moment’s silence, with murmuring from the line.

“Graves!” McCrory bellowed. “Goddamn it, where are you?”

Johnny stepped out from the end of the line and stood before Gwin. He had a baseball cap on his head and, when Gwin continued to look at him, he removed it slowly with his big brown, oversized hands. He had thick hair, dark brown and matted low on his short, square forehead. His eyes were wide and gray in a square, high-cheeked face. He was not heavily built, but his chest and shoulders in a tight sweat-stained T-shirt were broad and muscular. He held the cap in those big hands before him and looked at Gwin. He did not smile.

“Since when,” Gwin said, “did you forget your name?”

Johnny didn’t answer; he just looked at him.

“Didn’t you hear me call Purty Boy?” Gwin said.

“Your name’s Purty Boy! why didn’t you answer?”

McCrory was grinning broadly now, and Gwin grinned too.

“My name is Graves,” Johnny said. “Johnny Graves.”

Gwin put his hands on his hips and rocked back and forth. He opened his thin mouth wide, laughing. McCrory laughed too, even louder. Finally Gwin controlled himself with an effort, and bent again to face Johnny.

“Your name’s Purty Boy,” he said, still having trouble with his mirth, “just plain Purty Boy.”

He turned and started toward the door. “Mr. Walker wants to advise with you,” he said. “You won’t mind, will you, Mr. Walker, if I send a trusty out to watch this boy? I’ll tell him to stand way off.”

So here it was, and it wasn’t the best possible time for it, Walker thought. He got up as Johnny moved toward him, his big hands dangling awkwardly. He saw the something in Johnny that antagonized Gwin: a composure, a self-containment, that made him stand a little too straight, that made him forget to remove his cap and do it a little too slowly when he did, that made him always a little too erect and a little too level of eye.

So he stood before Walker now, expressionless, waiting, in the faint light from the hall, and Walker thought of several ways to put it off, to hedge a little until the memory of Gwin’s stupid laughter was less keen, but he gave them up before the level eyes and said it flat.

“I’m sorry, Johnny, not this time either.”

Still there was no expression except a quick widening of the gray eyes in the shadow and a tightness that came about the mouth.

“But I’m not through yet,” Walker said quickly. “I’m going to see Mr. Kurt. I... think maybe he can help us.” Still the boy did not speak, and a hardness was growing now in his face.

Walker said, “I think I can still get it; I know I can get it somehow. But it will take time.” And then he realized that those were the words he had used a year before, a year and a half before — and they sounded stale even to him.

“Look, Johnny,” he said. “You’re not a kid any longer. You’re twenty-five, and you’ve been here a while. Suppose I can’t get it. It’s one of those things. You got off to a bad start; you were unlucky maybe in drawing Gwin, but you made things worse by... by your attitude. Oh, I know you had to take a lot of... things, but that’s something else: you’re old enough now to understand that just being right, just deserving something doesn’t give it to you. A lot of right people have come out short.”

He stopped but the boy didn’t answer. One big hand raised and pushed at his cheek.

“And that’s the point,” Walker said; “that’s what I’m trying to say. You’ve served five years, and that doesn’t seem right; that isn’t right. But it’s still a fact, and if you get into trouble now, with just two years left — just two years now, less than half of five! — that wouldn’t make sense, would it?”

He waited but still there was nothing except the white, expressionless hardness of Johnny’s impassive face.

“Would it?” he said, wondering to himself if Johnny had even heard anything he had said.

“I don’t know,” Johnny said. His big hands shifted and grappled on his cap. “I don’t know any more what makes sense. Is that all?” he said. “Are you through?”

Walker took out a cigarette and tapped it slowly on his thumb. He had begun to sweat in the thick June night, and his shirt was sticking to his arms. He lit the cigarette and drew on it deeply.

“Yes,” he said finally, looking up at the boy, at his white, still face. “Yes, I guess that’s all. But, Johnny, don’t do anything foolish.”

3

Johnny didn’t decide; it was like he had decided a long time before and was just waiting for Mr. Walker to tell him he hadn’t gotten the parole. And he didn’t hear the words at first, just the voice, the tight reluctant sound in the voice. By then the coldness had already started in his fingers and he was thinking, or not thinking, just feeling, knowing, “I’ve got to plan it, plan it! Without ever really thinking, I’ll escape.”

But he couldn’t plan it. He would see the road and the spot where he had thought before, You could go in there; you could hit Miller with a shoulder block and if you were fast enough you could be in the corn before they could shoot. But it was not really planning; it was just seeing it, seeing exactly as he had seen it so many times, with the tall Johnson grass on the bank and the ragged little gully in the middle that might trip you if you didn’t pace it right, and with the others there too, behind him and beside him and in front of him, and Miller, the shooter, with the .30–30 in both hands like he was required to have it.

And it was like that, just seeing it, feeling it almost, but then jumping to another place, and Mr. Walker’s voice coming in too, reluctant still, but arguing now, and his steady blue eyes looking at Johnny like it was him that didn’t get a pardon, like he knew what it meant. And Johnny wanted to tell him, You’d do something else; there’s something else you could do if it was you. Even the governor — you would even see him if it was you; and if he is crooked, there’s the president. But he didn’t say it because it didn’t matter now; he had already decided now, so it didn’t matter.

Then Mr. Walker was winding up his little speech. He was a good man; he tried to help and he always gave it to you straight. But Walker — anybody — had to go through it to understand. And anyway that didn’t matter either. All that mattered was getting Mr. Walker to stop talking now so he could plan.

And finally he did; finally he left. But then it was even worse because, standing there in the dusk by himself, Johnny began to get Lucille into it too. Twice! Twice was all she came, and for over three years she hadn’t even written!

The trusty was standing at the door. Johnny had forgotten him until he said, “You coming?” He was holding the door open.

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “Yeah.”

He stepped into the yellow light of the hall, and Gwin was looking at him. He told himself he’d better watch it, better put it away till later, when he was safe in the cage, but the coldness stayed in his fingers and it was hard to breathe.

He walked across the concrete floor of the wide lobby office, feeling Gwin’s eyes still on him. He went into the long chow hall at the back and took his seat, telling himself to eat, to take the spoon and keep it moving, but he couldn’t remember; his hand kept stopping and he would be sitting there staring, and suddenly he would look up and Gwin would be watching.

When they started to count in — shuffling in single-file into the long barred cage, chanting their numbers — Gwin called him out.

“You didn’t get it,” he said, “the parole.”

“No,” Johnny said, “I didn’t get it.”

Gwin looked at him thoughtfully. And after a moment his thin lips twisted. “Don’t try any crap,” he said softly. “You hear me?”

Johnny waited a moment, watching him. “Is that all?” he said.

“That’s all,” Gwin said. “Just remember.”

But it was not all, and it was just as well that, back on his bunk in the far end of the long barracks cage, with the sound of the guitars tinny and mournful in the thick yellow light, Johnny couldn’t plan. And later too, when the lights flickered, reminding him that he hadn’t showered or even undressed, flickered three times warningly and after a minute went out — he could have saved the long black sleepless hours when he could see her, was with her again... And he would tremble until he pulled himself away frantically, sweating cold in the darkness and telling himself that he never would get there, never would find out — why! why! had she stopped coming?

5

Walker heard how disastrously Johnny’s attempt at a break had failed shortly after it happened. But he did not go over immediately. He knew Bob Johnson, the prison doctor, would be working on Johnny and even after Bob finished, the kid would still be under anesthetic. Besides, Walker was in no mood then to face anyone, especially the kid. He decided to wait until that night. By then, maybe Johnny would be feeling better, and maybe he himself could straighten out his thoughts.

After supper, though, nothing had changed. He ate gloomily, trying to keep up the chatter with Susan, their three-year-old, and Billy, who was going on twelve. He always tried to keep from bringing the prison in on Nita and the children. But this time he failed miserably, he knew, and it was a relief when they finished at last and Billy and Susan hurried away to the TV. Nita sat watching him across the table; he was dimly aware of it, and he knew she wanted to talk, but he couldn’t shake himself loose from the empty anger and depression that seemed to be pushing him down. He kept thinking of Johnny running and running, that the kid had no more alternative than the man who had shot him down.

Finally Ledrew, the colored trusty houseboy, brought their coffee, and Nita said, “Darling, Ledrew is late, and I’m going to help him with the dishes. Why don’t you take your coffee to the porch?”

He got up gratefully and went through the living room to the front porch. He pulled a small table close to him, put his coffee on it and lit a cigarette. Ledrew had mowed the lawn that afternoon, and the sharp odor of wild onions mingled with the wisteria which bordered the porch.

A boy who should have been gone eighteen months before, he thought, had had his leg shattered by a steel-jacket slug in a cotton field. He had to accept it, Walker supposed, as he had come to accept many things that four years before would have appalled him.

It was the war, he thought, that had brought him here. But for the war, he might now be a football coach and history teacher in some high school, or perhaps the principal of a grammar school. His life had been laid out that way.

Before the war, he had been attending a small denominational college near his home. He was majoring in history and education, according to his parents’ plan (his father was the superintendent of schools in Olive, county seat of Tucker County), he was making his grades without studying, and he was regular left-half on the football squad. Also, he had met Nita. There was little else that he desired. When he came back from the war, though, everything had been changed; or rather, nothing had changed at all except himself. He did not care to finish his preparation to teach. What would he teach? He asked his parents when they mentioned it to him. He even found himself talking in grandiloquent terms of “truth.” A teacher was supposed to know the truth, and he didn’t know anything.

But he had gone on with his original program because he did not want to hurt his parents. And there was Nita who had waited. They were married four months after his return.

Actually that had been another big reason for his coming to Larkin, Walker thought. And he was not only a husband, but a father when the Larkin offer came. In that situation, one had to be somewhat practical.

He had been at the university, then, on a graduate scholarship. He had already taught four years in one high school and one in another; he had even tried one year as an adjustor with an insurance company. He had just completed his thesis for his masters in school administration and was waiting for his orals, when the head of the university’s placement bureau called him in and told him that the job was open. It was a good salary, he said, $4,800 with home and most of the food and incidentals furnished. His friend and former colleague, John Kurt, had asked him to recommend a young man who could set up a modern program (though that part of it must be kept quiet until he had the job) and he would be happy to recommend Walker, who, he thought, had done a fine job in the graduate school there.

Walker remembered, wryly, that he almost hadn’t applied for the job. The very name of Larkin had always oppressed him, although he had never been there then. He recalled now the ridiculous mental image he had had of the place — high stone walls, pallid men with clanking balls and chains.

Where would he be now, Walker wondered, if he had followed his first impulse that day and told Dr. Gholson he wasn’t interested. He might possibly even have his—

Nita came out and sat down on a small stool beside him. “Do you know,” he said, finishing his thought aloud, “that I’ll probably never get a doctorate now?”

She looked at him, startled for only a moment; they had long since passed the need for preliminary explanations. Then she dismissed the statement with a slight, deprecating movement of her head, at the same time leaning over to take a cigarette from his shirt.

“Do you have to go to see him?” she asked. “These things are always so bad for you.”

“This time especially I have to,” he said. “This kid seems to have been dealt to me.”

“But what about the others?” Nita asked. “The chaplain and Mr. Hoffman and John Kurt?”

“Kurt’s still gone,” he said. “Hoffman and Chaplain Thompson went over this afternoon, but I don’t think they did much good. Hoffman is too new here and of course he had turned the parole down. And you know Chaplain Thompson: he just has God to offer, and he’s lined Him up with the administration—”

“Howard!” Nita said sharply.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He knew it frightened her for him to speak bluntly about religion. But it was the truth, he thought bitterly.

“How do you think the boy will be?” Nita asked.

Remembering Johnny’s face the night before, when he had told him about the parole, Walker dreaded to think how he probably would be. “This thing has been growing on him,” he said, “and the way he’s natured, the way he sees things, he’ll be bad, I think.”

“Then he really is bad, like they say?” Nita asked.

“What is bad?” he said savagely. “I guess he is. I guess any real man is ‘bad’ now; if he doesn’t ‘adjust’ and give up, he’s bad. A man with courage is outdated; we don’t understand that kind of ‘extreme behavior’ these days.”

Nita shook her head slowly. “You’re just upset,” she said. “You just feel bad for the boy.”

“All right,” Walker said, “take Hoffman. I saw him this afternoon just after he had been to see Johnny. We couldn’t even talk. I tried to explain it to him. And when I talked about manhood, he just laughed, as though he couldn’t believe me. ‘Manhood?’ he said. ‘When a prisoner goes wild and attacks his sergeant with a stick so that he can run off. Howard, you don’t really mean you think that is manhood!’ I told him, ‘Yes, when a kid fights to get what he’s due. When the whole world he knows has turned crooked on him, it’s manhood to stand up and fight it!”

He saw by the sudden slight wrinkle between her brows that he shouldn’t have told her. The family was her first, and almost her last consideration, and endangering his job was the same as endangering her family. Walker understood that, and did not really blame her. But, watching her eyes cloud now and the protest start on her lips, he became angry anyway.

“I know,” he said. “I know. You don’t think I should have said that. You think I should have been more careful. You don’t think there was any need for me to make Mr. Hoffman mad.”

“I don’t want you to yes him,” she said, “and lick his boots. I was just thinking of the children,” she said. “After all—”

“I know that,” he said. “I knew it even when I said it. I don’t know why I said it. I... I just...”

She reached over and took his hand, pressing it tightly, smiled at him. “You were worried,” she said, “and frustrated. I know how helpless you feel, darling. I hope you can help the boy.”

“I hope so too,” he said. “God, I hope so too.”

Walker paused at the hospital desk, inquired of the trusty on duty where Johnny was, and went down the long west corridor.

Johnny was in the west ward, a huge rectangle with a terrace behind sliding doors at the far end. It was nearly empty, though Walker glimpsed several men in wheel chairs on the terrace. Johnny was at the near end; Walker had heard that he asked to be bunked away from the others. Even before he entered the ward Walker saw him, the leg first, slung above the bed in a huge white cast, then the pale motionless face turned toward the wall. He moved slowly across towards the bunk.

Johnny didn’t turn his head, even when Walker went around the bed and stood beside it.

Finally the boy turned his head slowly and glanced at him, reluctantly, for just an instant. Then he lay motionless as before, looking at his wide square hands.

Hesitantly Walker cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “I... hoped you wouldn’t do it.”

For a moment Johnny ignored him, but then he shifted slightly under the sheet and one big hand moved awkwardly and restlessly over his chest, smoothing at his bed-gown. It was a form of reply at least, Walker thought, and more than he had hoped for at that.

“It... was a good try,” Walker said lamely. “It took guts.” It had been a good try, and he was a little ashamed at his feeling of regret that it hadn’t worked. One trusty, Reece, not even from Johnny’s own camp, had seen him crossing the cotton field and dropped him from a kneeling free-arm position at almost a quarter of a mile — an outrageously lucky shot.

Johnny stirred quickly for the first time, his big right hand coming up to his cheek in the familiar gesture, pushing at it, pawing it. “No,” he said tightly, his voice hardly audible. “Mr. Hoffman and the chaplain have already told me about it. It was a criminal act and mighty close to a sin. Now you tell me how it didn’t make sense.”

What was there to say? That he understood? That he sympathized? That the boy was right, and the prison wrong? Walker had never gotten his own consent to risk that. There was too much possibility of being misinterpreted, of affording some desperate and confused boy a justification. Besides, he himself was confused on that point.

Finally he said, “No, I didn’t come for that. I guess it made sense to you; I’m sure it did, or you wouldn’t have done it. I think I do understand this, your situation now. That’s why I’ve come. We need to discuss it.”

Johnny’s big right hand rose slowly and pushed at his cheek. “We’ve been discussing it,” he said. “Almost four years now. I’m getting tired of discussing.”

For a moment Walker stared at the sheet, neat and white and meaningless over the boy’s good leg. His anger was now a kind of exasperation, cumulative and crucial. Myers was gone, but nothing was really changed at Larkin. And he wouldn’t just stand by and look on.

“Johnny,” he said, moving closer to the bunk, meeting the boy’s gray eyes directly now for the first time, “I didn’t mean to get started like this. I didn’t come over to argue with you, or criticize you. What I should have said, what I mean, is this: I’m sorry as hell this happened; the whole thing is a damned mess and you know it and I know it, and now it’s even worse.”

Johnny had dropped his eyes, and he didn’t look up or even appear to be listening.

“But there’s another thing you ought to know too,” Walker said. “You aren’t going to help yourself by getting ugly now, by hating and snarling and snapping at everything that comes in your way. I think you’ve started that now.”

Johnny still didn’t look up, but after a moment he spoke, almost inaudibly. “I’m not trying to get ugly. I’ve just had enough.”

“Is that it, Johnny?” Walker said quietly. “Have you had enough? Or have you gotten sorry for yourself? I didn’t think you were the kind to want pity — not even your own.”

Johnny’s face was uncertain for a brief moment; then it hardened scornfully. “You’re talking again, Mr. Walker,” he said, “twisting the words around.”

“Am I?” Walker said. “Am I really? Think about it a minute, Johnny, because self-pity is dangerous; it’s like a disease. It will twist you and poison you until you’re like an animal, a stark, savage animal, unable to think or understand or control yourself, meeting every threat with teeth bared.”

Johnny was looking at the sheet now; he heaved himself restlessly onto his side, wrenching the big cast. “I don’t want to hear it, Mr. Walker,” he said. “It’s just words, just talk. I’m tired of it!”

“Look, Johnny,” Walker said, “I’m going to tell you some truth, all the truth I know. I don’t give a damn whether it makes sense or not, whether you like it or not.”

The taut face was still turned from him rigidly. Walker stared at the back of the boy’s neck, feeling hesitant, helpless. But he took a deep breath and continued.

“In the first place, Johnny,” he said, “let’s look at your situation. You broke a law and you were sent to prison because that’s the customary way to deal with lawbreakers. Now maybe you don’t think you did wrong. I know your brother broke the same law before you, and you thought your brother was fine; and people in Tucker County, most of them, didn’t treat bootlegging as though it was a crime. Maybe you still want to argue that.” He paused.

“I did wrong,” Johnny said. “I never said I didn’t.”

“Good,” Walker said. “All right, so you were sent to Larkin to serve a penalty for a crime, and you were ready to serve it and according to the rules you should have been allowed to serve it and go back home. But that’s just according to the rules; that leaves out the way things are.”

The side of Johnny’s face twisted, and he laughed shortly in his throat. “That’s right,” he muttered. “That much is right.”

“Which brings us to what Larkin really is,” Walker said. “Has it ever occurred to you that Larkin may not be at all what it seems to a prisoner, that Gwin, McCrory, Camp Eight, Mr. Hoffman, the chaplain, myself — all of it, all of us — may not be at all what we seem?”

Johnny didn’t respond. It had begun to seem words to him again, Walker suspected, and he tried to grasp something more concrete.

“What is Larkin really, Johnny?” he said. “It’s a place the people of this state set up in a desperate attempt to take care of problems they couldn’t cope with in any other way. Men and women did things that couldn’t be allowed, and the only way the people knew to stop them was to close them up somewhere. By then they ran into another problem. If there was to be Larkin, there had to be officials to run it, and the people had to choose those officials.”

Walker broke off suddenly and paused. “How would you choose prison officials, Johnny?” he asked. “If it were left up to you?”

Johnny didn’t answer for a moment; then, “I wouldn’t choose them,” he said. “I’d do without.”

Walker grinned in spite of himself, and he was glad the boy’s face was averted. “Maybe you have a point,” he said, “but seriously, how would you choose them? The best way you knew how, wouldn’t you? And would you know how, very well? That’s the important point.”

Johnny didn’t answer and Walker went on quickly. “I don’t think you would. I certainly know I wouldn’t. And the people of the state don’t either. They just close their eyes for the most part, listen to friends, read newspaper articles by people they don’t even know, and then make a choice — not, you understand, choosing the people who will run the penitentiary, but the people to choose the people.”

He stopped again, and looked at the averted, expressionless face. “You see what we have?” he said. “Poorly chosen people to choose other people to run a penitentiary.”

He paused. Johnny was following him, he thought. The taut, high-cheeked face was half-turned now, staring at the ceiling.

“So what do we have at Larkin?” Walker said. “I’m going to tell you, Johnny; maybe it will help. We have Mr. Hoffman, a nice man, and even a trained man-which is rare — but just a man after all, who wants to hold his job or get a better job, who wants to impress his superiors and control his subordinates, a man who believes in leniency and sympathy and understanding for prisoners, I think, but who has to work with too many people who don’t. Or we have me — I can tell you more about me. Howard Walker who has stayed on at Larkin four years, almost five, without ever understanding anything completely, except that maybe I never will understand. Of course, I can argue for myself — I want to argue for myself-that at least I do some good, that occasionally I can reach someone like you, help him to understand-what? Himself? The situation here? Something — a little better and save himself. But that’s pleading my case, and that’s not what I want to do now.”

Johnny had turned his head. His square Indian face was still stiff, expressionless, but he was listening. There wasn’t the mockery in his eyes any more.

Walker shrugged his shoulders. “Is that enough, Johnny?” he said. “Do you see what I mean?”

Walker started to reach for a cigarette and discovered that he was still holding the one he had taken out when he first came in.

Johnny watched him steadily, his face still unyielding. “And what does it mean?” he said finally. “Where does all that leave me?”

Walker lit his cigarette slowly, then met the boy’s eyes. “I don’t know, Johnny,” he said. “I guess it just leaves you with all the rest of us, confused and trying and failing and suffering for it.”

“But is that all?” Johnny said. “It doesn’t mean anything?”

“The rest seems to be up to each man,” Walker said. “I’ll leave that up to you. Personally, I prefer it like I told you at the start: that a man doesn’t sit down and cry over himself, and he doesn’t go ugly either just because the rest of the world seems to be. It just seems to me that it’s better to keep on trying; that a real man will keep on trying.”

For a moment, then, he stood and watched. He was almost ready to turn away, but the boy pushed himself up on one elbow, meeting his eyes directly.

“I... are you coming back?”

“If you want me to, Johnny, I will,” Walker said.

“I...” the big right hand came up clumsily to the cheek. “Yes sir,” Johnny said. “I wish you would.”

Walker walked briskly up the hospital hall, relieved for the first time in two days. It wasn’t a complete victory, of course; he would have to follow it up to make it stick. He decided he would talk to Hoffman the next morning, see if under the circumstances he would go light on extending the kid’s time. If Kurt was back, maybe he would go in too. Together they should be able to swing it. If he could take Johnny a promise of leniency, he thought, he should have a chance with him even yet.

It was a fine, bright morning. A still better one when in the parking lane before the administration building he saw John Kurt’s gray Ford. That would be in his favor. He wondered again what John would think of Hoffman’s giving over to Gwin. There could be some trouble over that, he thought. John had opposed the sergeants even longer and more bitterly than Walker had (John had been at Larkin eight years), and with his new power and his almost fanatical determination to reform Larkin, he could be a bitter adversary; he had demonstrated that in scalping Myers. Even Walker had almost felt sorry for old Myers before that business had been finished. Kurt had overlooked nothing.

Mrs. Williams, Kurt’s secretary, smiled apologetically when he stopped by and looked inquiringly toward Kurt’s office. “I’m sorry, Mr. Walker,” she said. “He is back, but he’s gone down to see Mr. Hoffman right now.”

He should have tried to see Kurt before he talked to Hoffman, he thought, hurrying down the hall. If Hoffman presented it first, he might be able to twist it, swing Kurt over. But somehow Walker couldn’t imagine anyone persuading Kurt to something he was against. He decided he needn’t worry about that.

The door to Hoffman’s inner office was closed when he entered the suite. Hoffman’s secretary, Miss Higgins, smiled at him warmly.

“He’s talking to Mr. Kurt,” she said. “I think they’ll be through in a minute.”

“Will you tell him I’m here,” Walker said, “and that when they are through I want to see Mr. Kurt with him?”

“Of course, Mr. Walker,” she said rising. She knocked timidly on the door, opened it. “Mr. Walker is here and says he’ll wait. But he wants to see Mr. Kurt too, when you are through.”

“Oh,” he could hear Hoffman say. “Oh. Yes. Of course. We’re finishing up right away. Tell him we won’t be a minute.”

He wasn’t kept waiting long before he heard Hoffman’s brisk steps crossing the room, and the door was swung open beside him. Hoffman stepped halfway through and turned to beam at him. “Well!” he said. “And how is Mr. Walker this morning!” He clapped Walker on the shoulder, pushing him into the office. “What can we do for you? You wanted to see us both?”

Kurt was standing in front of his chair before the long desk. He too looked questioningly at Walker. “Hello, Howard,” he said.

Kurt was a little man, slightly stooped. His face was soft and white against jet-black hair, and he wore a thin, clipped mustache. His voice was mild, almost apologetic, and his general stooped smallness gave the impression of insignificance.

“Hello, John,” Walker said. “Good trip?”

John lifted his shoulders, sinking again into his chair. “A trip,” he said. “It served its purpose.”

Hoffman had skidded a chair briskly toward Walker. “Sit down, and tell us what’s on your mind.” He went back around to his desk.

“Well,” Walker said, moving the chair to face them both, “it’s about Johnny Graves again.”

He paused deliberately, looking at Kurt, who sat sideways in his chair, one small leg draped loosely over the other. “Oh, yes,” Kurt said. “Carl was just telling me about it.”

“Oh?” Walker said. He waited but Kurt didn’t go on.

It was Hoffman who explained, breaking in a little nervously, Walker thought. “Yes,” he said, “we were just talking about Johnny. I was telling John of his... misfortune.”

Walker looked from one to the other. There was another brief awkward silence. “Did you tell him what caused it?”

“I’m not sure that we know just what caused it.”

“Did you tell him about the parole?” Walker said, “about turning it down?”

Kurt moved slightly, shifting his chin in his hand. “Yes, Howard,” he said, “he told me. It was a very unfortunate thing.”

“Yes?” Walker said. “Go on.”

Kurt shrugged very slightly. “There’s little else to say, Howard,” he said. “It seems that the thing has been done.”

“John agrees with me,” Hoffman said, “that under the circumstances there was nothing else I could have done. I explained to him how I saw it, that we had taken things as far as we could at the moment, and that we might simply lose ground, maybe defeat our purpose altogether if we tried to ram the entire program through at once. We both are very sorry, of course, that the Graves boy had to be... involved.”

Walker was not looking at him; he was watching John Kurt. “Is that right, John?” he said. “Is that your reaction?”

John gestured helplessly with one small hand. “Yes, Howard,” he said, “I think Carl’s right. He’s hit everybody pretty hard in these first few weeks, and he’s already being criticized harshly. I was through Beauregard yesterday, and Hollis tells me the legislature is in a turmoil: they’re predicting — Frank Gwin is predicting — that we’ll go in the hole this year, that we’ll do well to get a crop out at all.”

Walker stared at him. “Get a crop out?” he said. “John, are we still talking crops? You are worrying about crops? I thought we were through with that. I thought that went out with Myers. What was it Carl told us in his speech the first night? ‘Larkin is no longer primarily a farm, and its officials no longer simply farm bosses.’ I did hear that, didn’t I? I didn’t just dream it!”

“Of course, Howard,” Kurt said, “and he meant every word of it. But we have to go slowly, don’t you see? I’m sure if you’d calm down you’d see that.”

Walker tried to calm down.

“All right,” he said, after a moment. “All right, let the crop issue go. But don’t you see, John, that this is more than the crop issue, that it’s old Myers again, everything we thought we got rid of: the sergeant’s right back in the saddle, tying your hands and mine?”

John moved his large head impatiently. “Oh really, Howard,” he said. “Aren’t you generalizing rather hastily? We have to make concessions, of course. But we three are still in charge here.” He included them both in an expansive, self-confident glance. “I think he’s insulting all three of us, don’t you, Carl?” he smiled. “Implying we can’t run this prison?”

Hoffman laughed, but became quickly sober again, looking at Walker. “No, I understand how Howard feels,” he said. “This boy meant a lot to him, as he should, of course. And he hated to see him suffer. Isn’t that right, Howard?”

He might as well compromise too, Walker thought bitterly, and try at least to get Johnny’s time shortened. He raised his shoulders yieldingly. “I guess so,” he said. “I frankly don’t quite see it, but I guess you’re right. It’s not just the boy; it’s... I don’t want to argue.”

Hoffman seemed genuinely, even childishly, pleased. Walker was amazed and unpleasantly puzzled at the contradictions in the man — blustering, callous career man, and simple, almost transparent human being. Kurt, of course, was impassive. It was, after all, such a small thing, just one boy out of so many, and boys, in fact people, as far as Walker could tell, didn’t interest Kurt — except in a general sense.

But Hoffman was speaking, his brisk self again. “Howard, believe me, I’m as sorry for that boy as you are. We both are, aren’t we, John?”

“Of course,” John said. “And I think Howard is to be commended for his attitude, for his genuine interest and effort on the boy’s behalf. It’s one of the things I’ve always admired in Howard.”

“Thanks,” Walker said. “I appreciate it. Now I have something else to bring up.

It’s simply this: The penalty for trying a break is usually an added two years, and I suppose that’s what you plan for Johnny Graves.”

Hoffman held up his hand, his pink face stricken, clouding. “Wait, Howard,” he said. “Is this another request for that boy?”

“Not the same kind,” Walker said. “I told you, I’ll forget the parole. But I went to see the boy last night. You know how he was; you saw him yourself. But after talking to him I managed, I think, to bring him around a little.”

Hoffman wasn’t listening. He was looking at Kurt, and his face had become very uncertain.

“What is it?” Walker said. “What’s happened now?” He looked from one to the other.

“I think you’d better tell him, Carl,” Kurt said.

“What? Tell me that?” Walker said.

Hoffman lifted a sheet of lined tablet paper from the file box at his left. He leaned over and handed it to Walker. “I got this yesterday afternoon,” he said, “right after I talked with you.”

For a moment Walker stared bewildered at the cheap pulp paper with the thick clumsy pencil scrawl. “Mr. Hoffman, this is to officially request permission to whip the inmate John Graves for his assault on me and trying to break April 22. I and a lot of other sergeants feel that if this is not done you will have a lot more of that on your hands soon...”

Walker stopped reading and sat staring at the limp yellowed paper. He didn’t need to glance to the end to see Hiram Gwin’s heavily flourished signature.

“I’m waiting now to see him,” Hoffman said slowly. “I asked him to come in and discuss it.”

Walker stared at him incredulously. “Discuss it!” he said.

“Of course, Howard,” Kurt said, “he has to discuss it with him. He can’t just ignore him.”

“Why not?” Walker said. “Why not, in the name of God! The lash has been permanently abolished. The order has been issued three weeks!” He too was rising. “And a request like this!” he said, hurling the letter on the desk. “My God, Carl!”

“Howard,” Hoffman said, “we’ll discuss it later. I know how you feel, of course, and I agree; but Gwin will be here any minute, and I’d rather he didn’t see you and John with me.”

“But you are going to turn it down?” Walker said.

“Of course, of course, Howard,” Hoffman said. “Please go now; use the side door.”

“He’s right, Howard,” Kurt said. “Let’s go.” He was already crossing the room. Walker followed him reluctantly.

Kurt had opened the door and Walker was preceding him through it, when Hoffman spoke again. “By the way, John, will you explain to Howard about the committee?”

Walker turned in the door. “Committee?” he said. “What committee? Carl, I’d like to be taken in on these discussions.” He was losing the last of his control.

“John will explain it to you, Howard,” Hoffman said. “I’m sorry I don’t have time.”

Kurt was nudging Walker gently through the door. “Yes, Howard,” he said. “Come on.”

The door opened on the cast lawn of the building. Walker stepped off the walk onto the grass and took out a cigarette. He found that his hands were shaking, and this made him angrier. “Goddam it, John, what is this?” he said, turning to face the little man. “What’s this committee about?”

“Carl thought we might appoint one,” Kurt said, “if Gwin gave him trouble this morning.”

Walker stared at him. “If Gwin gave him trouble!” he said.

“If he protested too strongly,” Kurt said. “Carl thought we might use a committee to decide. It would seem less dictatorial, of course, and take some of the burden off Carl.”

For a moment Walker was unable to find words. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said finally, under his breath. “Well, I’ll be damned. By the way, John, who’s going to be on this committee? Did you and Carl decide that?”

John pursed his small lips in irritation. “That wasn’t definite,” he said. “You and I, of course, and the chaplain perhaps — one or two others. We—”

“What others?” Walker said. “Exactly what others?”

“I told you that wasn’t definite, Howard!” Kurt said sharply. Then his face relaxed again. “Of course Gwin will have to be on it, I suppose, and one or two other sergeants,” he smiled thinly.

But Walker ignored it; he was in no mood for sarcasm. “I see,” he said, “a representative group. And what will be the group’s decision? Did you decide that too?”

He thought Kurt was genuinely angry then. His pale eyes widened momentarily, and his thin little mustache flattened and twitched. But in a moment he was composed again, avoiding Walker’s eyes. “Of course we didn’t, Howard,” he said. “But Carl will appoint the committee, naturally, and we will be in the majority; we should be able to control the decision.”

Five weeks passed before the committee meeting was finally called. Johnny had made rapid strides; Walker visited him when his own crowded schedule permitted and soon had him reading magazines and books. Johnny even mentioned his wife once or twice, though he never talked about her at length since, as Walker knew, he still hadn’t heard from her.

The committee consisted of eight: Hoffman, Kurt, Walker, the Chaplain, Gwin and two other sergeants named Eugene Ball and Clyde Parker, (whom Kurt had contemptuously called “Gwin’s peers”) and Mims Corley who had become Walker’s replacement as education director — Howard insisted Mims could not be left out. Mims and he had taken courses together at the university; and come to know and like each other. It had been on Walker’s recommendation that Kurt had asked Hollis Graham to appoint Mims to the position.

The way Howard saw it, Hoffman was question-mark; also Eugene Ball. Ball, however, for all his squat, frog-like appearance, the assistant warden knew to be a fair man, and fearless. Fearless enough not to be dominated by Gwin, or anyone. Kurt, the Chaplain, himself and either Ball or Mims — that would do it. The three sergeants were at the one table when he entered the board room, a large rectangle with white-plaster walls and long venetian-shaded windows around the right side and the back. As Walker greeted them he heard Hoffman and Kurt and Mims Corley entering the lobby.

Old Chaplain Thompson — bald head tilted and glistening in the light, teeth clamped on his ever-present cigar — was he opposed to the whipping? Walker had assumed that the chaplain would be opposed to the lash on general principle; it occured to him now that he had never heard the old man express himself on this. Suddenly anxious, he decided to ask.

Except for the incongruous cigar, Chaplain Thompson looked like a chaplain should. His lined, full-jawed ivory face was calmly thoughtful, almost serene; his small faded gray eyes were direct and kindly. He sat and carried himself with the ease and authority of one accustomed for forty years or more to being not only admired and respected but actually set apart. “Hello, Chaplain, how are you tonight,” he said, as Walker slid into a chair beside him.

“Hello, Howard,” he said. “Isn’t this a ridiculous bunch of nonsense, getting us all up here for a thing like this?”

“How do you mean, Chaplain?”

“I mean this whole thing is unnecessary,” the old man said. “Asking us up here to decide a thing like this. It’s an administrative problem; Mr. Hoffman should have decided it the minute it came up.”

“I guess so,” Walker said, smiling. “By the way, how do you feel about the question?”

“About Gwin’s request?” the old man said. “About whipping this boy? I’m for it! I’m absolutely for it!”

Even though he half-expected it, Walker was stunned. “You’re for it?” he said finally. “Do you mean that, Chaplain?”

The old man was smiling at him cheerfully, kindly, from his keen but faded gray eyes. “Why, yes, Howard,” he said. “Of course I’m for it. Aren’t you?”

Walker avoided his eyes. “But why, Chaplain? This thing is wrong. This boy doesn’t deserve to be whipped.”

The old man was still smiling knowingly, even with pleasure, it seemed to Walker. “No, Howard,” he said, “it isn’t wrong. I know it may seem that way; often things are confused on the surface. It may seem that Hiram Gwin and the others are vindictive and cruel, and sometimes I think they are; but God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes he can even use evil to bring about his will.”

“Yes, Chaplain,” Walker said, seized with impatience, “that may be so. I wouldn’t know about that. But in this case, how is any evil going to bring about God’s will?”

The chaplain lifted the fat brown cigar in his thin ivory hands, stroking it lovingly into his lips. “Howard,” he said, “it’s like I told Mr. Hoffman. This boy has got the devil in him...”

But Walker had stopped listening. “Like you told Hoffman?” he said abruptly. “You’ve talked to Hoffman?”

The chaplain looked at him, puzzled. “Of course, Howard,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“I’m sorry, Chaplain,” Walker said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but this is pretty important to me. Would you mind telling me when you talked to Hoffman?”

The chaplain eyed him uncertainly. “Why, right after the boy tried to run off.”

“Then Hoffman knows how you feel about this?” he said.

“Why, yes,” the old man said. “He asked me specifically.”

Walker saw Hoffman and Mims sliding into the chairs; Kurt had not as yet come in. He got abruptly to his feet; caught Kurt at the door.

Walker turned him out into the hall. “What is it, Howard?” Kurt said. “Can’t it wait?”

“Not this,” Walker said. “Not any longer. John,” he faced the little man squarely, “what are you and Carl trying to pull?” His voice quivered, almost out of control.

John Kurt looked at him, startled, irritated. “What do you mean ‘trying to puli’?”

“I’ve just talked to the chaplain,” Walker told him. “I know which way he’s voting.”

“Oh?” Kurt said levelly. “Is that right?”

“I also know,” Walker said, “that Hoffman knew it five weeks ago. I’m guessing that you did too.”

“Yes,” Kurt said smoothly, “didn’t you?”

“Then you’re really going to do it, John?” Walker said. “You’re actually going to sell the boy to Gwin?”

Kurt’s eyes widened, anger touching him just enough to sharpen the soft, burring voice. “No,” he said evenly, “we’re doing nothing even faintly resembling that. That lurid description is purely your own concoction, Howard. You seem to have a weakness for melodrama.”

“But you are letting Gwin whip Johnny Graves,” Walker said, “whatever description you give it.” “We’re fighting a very close battle, Howard,” Kurt said, “for important stakes. Unfortunately, but wholly incidentally, the boy is involved.”

“For what stakes?” Walker said. “What are these stakes exactly?”

Kurt drew in his breath deeply. “The program, Howard,” he said. “Our rehabilitation program.”

10

“Afternoon, Mr. Walker,” the trusty said as he met Walker at the hospital gate. “Going to see Johnny Graves?”

“Yes, Jack,” Walker said. “I thought I’d look in on him.”

In the building, as Walker was turning down the hall toward the ward, Bob Johnson, the medical officer, called him. His broad, fleshy shoulders stooped in the white short-sleeved jacket. Johnson said, when he was facing Walker, “Howard, he isn’t in the ward. Something’s happened.” His long hands, with shiny black hairs glistening on the olive skin, caressed a clipboard nervously.

“Happened?” Walker said, “What do you mean?”

“He jumped a trusty, one of the ward boys.”

Walker heard it and at the same time saw it — Johnny leaping, his big brown hands extended. “No, Bob,” he heard himself pleading. “No, Bob, he didn’t.”

Johnson nodded his big head heavily. “It was terrible, Howard,” he said. “It happened on the terrace. He knocked the trusty over the wall, down into the shrubbery, and went over after him. I was out there,” Johnson went on, still looking back at the scene, reliving it. “We had taken off the cast, and I was out there, so of course I had to try to stop it. And the way he looked at me — I believe he was going for me too, but the others got there in time.” He sighed. “I hate these things,” he said.

“But what happened? What caused it?” Walker said. “Surely the trusty did something.”

“It was one of those things, Howard,” Johnson said. “I had thought of warning Johnny, but I honestly believed we had fixed it. There was plenty of bone.”

“Fixed it?” Walker said. “The leg? What’s the matter with it? Didn’t it heal?”

“Oh yes, it healed,” Johnson said. “I don’t understand it myself. As I said, there was plenty of bone. I didn’t have the slightest doubt—”

“It’s short!” Walker said. “It healed short!” And even before Johnson nodded sorrowfully he knew it was so.

Johnson went on explaining, his weary, outraged voice remembering the scene. “It was the leg that caused it, of course,” he said. “The trusty mentioned it, you see. We all knew it. We took the cast off at the bed, and we knew the leg was short the instant he stood up. I did anyway, and Johnny did. I wish you could have seen his eyes when he looked up—”

Walker was shaking his head. “No, Bob,” he said woodenly, “no.”

“He was watching the leg, you see,” Johnson said, “watching it as he slid it down from the bed to the floor. He wasn’t smiling — you know how he is: he never smiles — but you could tell how much it meant; you knew that if he was the kind to smile he would have been smiling. And then he stood up slowly and it gave — just a little; it’s not more than half an inch — and he had to catch himself, balance himself with his arm; and he looked up at me — I wish you could have seen it, just for a second there before he caught it, the surprise and the—”

“Damn!” Walker said. “Damn, damn, damn!”

Johnson nodded. “I guess I should have expected what happened,” he said, “but I never dreamed the trusty would be stupid enough to say it. And yet it was the most natural thing in the world, watching him limp down the corridor — not used to the jerk yet, of course, and trying to hide it, trying to hold himself up just by will, and so awkward and stiff — it was the uppermost thing in our minds. But he didn’t say anything, just went on out to the terrace and stood there leaning on the wall, and I guess the trusty thought he hadn’t cared much; he was so quiet, you know, and still. And the trusty probably thought he could help. Anyway, he went up behind the kid and slapped him on the back and said, ‘That’s all right, boy. You’ll get used to it. It’s just awkward right at first. The thing to do is let go, lean with it. It won’t hardly be noticeable, no shorter than it is—’”

Johnson broke off and raised his big fleshy shoulders in the white jacket. “I think it was that word — shorter — that did it,” he said. “Anyway, that was when he whirled around. You should have seen his face; it was just flat; white and flat, and his eyes—”

“Where is he?” Walker said. “You said he isn’t in the ward. Where is he?” He turned and started back up the hall.

“He’s in one of the quiet rooms,” Johnson said. “I had them move him. He’s... he’s dangerous, Howard.”

“Which room is he in?”

“The last one on the left,” Johnson said, “and I don’t know, Howard, if you ought to see him now.”

The door was closed. Walker knocked softly. The voice that answered, too quickly, a little too loud and high-pitched, startled him.

“Come in!” it said.

Johnny sat on the bed with one hand braced behind him and his legs hanging down from the side.

“Hello, Johnny,” Walker said. His own voice in his shock was husky and unfamiliar to him. He moved to the foot of the bed.

“Hello, Mr. Walker,” Johnny said. “How are you today? You feeling good?”

It wasn’t a question; it was a mockery, and Walker did not reply.

“Have you heard any news?” Johnny said. “Anything that shocked you? Disappointed you?”

Walker hesitated a moment before he answered. “Yes,” he said finally, “I have.”

There was a quick movement in the glittering gray eyes. “Well, that’s too bad,” Johnny said. “I’m sorry to make you feel bad.”

It was mockery too, and Walker did not answer.

“Have you heard anything else?” he asked Walker. “Anything from those ‘pretty nice men’ who run this place?”

Walker took a step forward, raising his hand pleading. “Johnny—”

“What about the committee meeting?” Johnny said, refusing to acknowledge the movement. “Isn’t there something you can tell me about that? Y’all did the best you could, didn’t you? Y’all ‘pretty nice men’ who the ‘pretty nice’ people picked to run this place?” Walker dropped his hands and stared at the bed, at the oddly raised right foot hanging down from it. “You’ve heard,” he said finally.

“Oh, yes,” Johnny said. “You know the grapevine. But don’t worry, Mr. Walker. You did your part. You’ve been real nice, real sympathetic. And you’re sorry for me now, aren’t you? You’re real sorry for me now.”

“Johnny—”

“Oh no,” he broke in, “I’m wrong, ain’t I? It’s me that’s sorry, ain’t it? I’m sorry for myself.”

“Johnny,” Walker said, “I wish you’d stop this. I wish you’d let me—”

“Talk?” The big right hand came up, twitching, and jabbed against his cheek. He jerked it down again impatiently. “You wish I’d let you talk, Mr. Walker?”

Unable to speak or to look at the boy, Walker moved slowly toward the door.

“Don’t hurry,” Johnny said. “They don’t come after me till tomorrow. There’s plenty of time to talk. I want to hear what a ‘real man’ would do at a time like this.”

Walker turned to him. “Johnny, you don’t have much left. You don’t even know how little you have left. Don’t turn on me too.”

He stood hopefully for a moment, waiting. “All right,” Walker said. “But I’ll... be seeing you, Johnny.”

“Sure,” Johnny said. “I’ll be around.”

“Yes...” Walker said lamely. He stepped into the hall and closed the door. This was just the beginning, he thought. After the whipping, after he was in Gwin’s hands, what would he be like?

11

Sometimes, when the throbbing stopped and he lay motionless on the bed with his eyes shut and his mind emptied for a moment, he could almost believe that it hadn’t happened, that he had simply dreamed it, and that he was as whole as ever, the ugly ham-colored gash not there, the bone smooth and white and unshattered. And he would think of the times before, of high school and the football shoes fitting smooth and strong about his ankles, of the white wool socks coming up snug just below his calves — and running then, with the cleats under him, his feet light, almost feelingless, picking their way, his knees rising evenly.

But soon the throbbing would come back, dull and constant and sickening, and it was not just a dream, of course: he would feel the numbing lurch as he put the foot to the floor.

And, of course, Lucille. Always, there was the thought of her — in the hotel that night, on their honeymoon, lying in the faint light from the window, her legs silver-slender beside his, her hands moving over his body and her breath (not even a whisper, just breath): “So smooth, so smooth. I’m glad you have a nice body, Johnny...”

And it was like that all day until dinner and then supper had passed, and Buchanan and the two trusties came. Johnny heard their steps and got to the bed before they opened the door.

Buchanan was the Long-chain sergeant who transported inmates from camp to camp. He was tall and sad-faced; his shoulders were wide and stooped as though too heavy to hold erect. He stood in the door a minute, looking at Johnny. The trusties were behind him, looking too.

“All right,” Buchanan said, “let’s go.” He moved aside and motioned toward the door.

Johnny didn’t move.

“Come on, kid,” he said. “We got no fight. They sent me to get you. That’s all.”

Johnny slid from the bed and walked beside him up the long hall, hearing the rhythm of his stride bouncing back to him from the high white walls — long step, short step; long step, short step; crip, crip, crip!

At the camp Gwin sat in his straight chair, tilted against the wall of the cage building. Johnny and Buchanan went up the long brick walk and stopped at the edge of the porch. The hall inside was empty. One bare bulb spread yellow light silently out to them.

Gwin kept his chair tilted. “Well, well, well!” he said. “So you decided to come back, Purty Boy?”

Johnny didn’t answer.

Gwin cracked the front legs of his chair down sharply on the concrete and stood up. “Let’s get it started,” he said. “Bring him in, Buck.” He opened the screen and stood aside, holding it. Buchanan nudged Johnny forward.

The cages on either side were silent. The men sat on their bunks or stood in the aisles, watching. In the thick yellow silence, the odor of greasy cabbage drifted up from the kitchen. The shuffling sound of footsteps on the concrete floor echoed in the high-ceilinged hall as Gwin and McCrory followed them in.

McCrory went over to the cages and called the men up to watch. They lined up three deep along the bars that separated the cages from the hall. Gwin called for trusties and four of them came out of the bunkroom.

The lash was seven feet long and ten inches across. It had a reinforced handgrip at one end; the other was square. Gwin crossed the hall and took it from a cabinet that stood against the back wall. It slithered from the shelf of the cabinet and fell heavily to the floor. It was thick and black and glistening in the yellow light.

Gwin smiled thinly and, lifting it over his shoulders, moved back to the center of the hall. The trusties — Bugger and Willis and Eddie and Harvey — moved forward to flank him.

Gwin stopped and looked at the cages again. He was still smiling a little. “Tonight,” he said, “we got a little treat for you men. I guess all of y’all remember Purty Boy here, and remember how he got a little restless a couple of months ago. Well, Purty Boy has come back to us; seems he decided he might have been wrong after all. But just in case he ain’t sure and just in case some of the rest of you are getting restless too, we’re gonna put on a little show here, with Purty Boy playing the main part. It’s a mighty fine little show, one of my favorites.”

He smiled again and looked around at the white still faces. Then he turned to Johnny, his thin face sobering slowly. “All right, Purty Boy. I believe we’re ready.”

Johnny didn’t move and Gwin looked at him. “All right,” he said again, “come on and get it.”

Still Johnny didn’t move and Gwin glanced at the trusties. “I guess you’ll have to bring him, boys. I don’t believe he’s so tough after all.”

The trusties came forward slowly; Johnny stepped out and fell in beside them, two on each side, as he moved across the room.

Directly in front of Gwin he stopped and stood waiting. “That’s better,” Gwin said, smiling at him. “Now drop your pants.”

“What?” Johnny said, before he could catch it back. He had forgotten that part of it.

Gwin grinned more broadly. “Drop your pants,” he said clearly. “Undo your pants and drop ’em.”

Johnny looked at him; he didn’t move or answer.

“Did you hear me?” Gwin said. “Drop those goddamn pants.”

Still Johnny stared at him.

Gwin looked at the trusties. “All right, boys, drop ’em for him.”

Willis and Bugger were the closest, one on each side. They looked at Johnny hesitantly.

“Drop ’em, goddamn it!” Gwin said. “All four of you scared of him?”

Johnny saw the nod, but he didn’t resist when they grabbed his arms; he gave them up limply.

They pulled his pants and shorts down to his ankles. Two of them knelt there holding his feet. They stretched his arms out to his sides, one of them holding each wrist. His buttocks were white in the yellow light. The scar below his knee was long and jagged.

Gwin stepped back to the length of the lash. He did not smile. The lash swung out behind him and rose over his head. At the top of its arc it caught the air and cut down through it, whistling.

When it landed, Johnny’s buttocks spread and flattened. His hips and stomach flattened too, against the concrete. When the lash lifted, the buttocks stuck to it and the hips rose and bounced on the concrete.

Gwin swung rhythmically. As the lash landed he let out his breath in a little whispered, “Hah!” Red paralleled welts appeared on Johnny’s buttocks. Then the skin on them broke and blood came through.

Gwin was not smiling, but his eyes were very bright. He continued to swing rhythmically; the lash whistled in the echoing lobby.

12

The paper work began to pile up on Walker and, with a slight feeling of guilt, he was glad for it. When he was busy, he had no time to think; and when he had no time to think, he did not remember Johnny Graves.

During the first few days after Johnny’s whipping, Walker was constantly occupied with supply requests and representatives. The monthly meeting of the board of commissioners was scheduled for the following Monday, and at that meeting Walker would have to present requisitions for the entire camp’s supplies and equipment for the following quarter.

The days passed, and it was only at night that Walker had time to try to see Johnny. On a Wednesday night he drove into the double garage at the back of his house and saw the kitchen darkened. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearly eight o’clock, which made this the third time in the week-and-a-half since Johnny’s whipping that he had overlooked the hour and come in after supper was already cold. He knew Nita would be irritated, and he didn’t blame her. She would say that it wasn’t necessary for him to keep going back, and she would be right, he supposed. Certainly he hadn’t accomplished anything.

When he entered the kitchen he heard the TV in the living room and knew that Nita and the kids would be there. He was tempted to get his plate, which he knew would be in the oven, and eat before going in; but he thought he should try to make amends to Nita, and he knew that Susan would be going to bed before he finished. So he went through the kitchen and dining room.

Susan, according to their custom, made a flying run at him when she saw him, and he caught her up, swinging her high in his arms. Billy, galvanized on belly and elbows before the TV, rolled sideways and smiled sheepishly as Walker bent and tousled his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said when Nita didn’t look at him.

“That’s all right,” she said, still keeping her eyes straight ahead. “Your supper is cold, that’s all. You’ll find it in the oven.”

“I’m really not very hungry,” he said.

He swung Susan to his shoulder and took her with him to the kitchen.

As he had known she would, Nita came before he had Susan well settled on the high metal stool.

“It’s Susan’s bedtime,” she said, looking at Susan to avoid his eyes. “Why don’t you get her ready and I’ll warm your supper.”

When he had put Susan’s nightgown on her and finally bedded her down, he went back to the kitchen to find Nita sitting across from the place she had prepared for him at the small white table.

“Did you get to see him?” she asked.

He hadn’t told her that he had been to Camp Eight again, but of course she knew. Twice before he had gone and sent in for Johnny, but Johnny had refused even to see him, even to come out. Now Walker nodded wearily. “Yes. I hardly knew him; his cheek was bruised and his mouth was swollen, and standing there one-legged like he does, not even putting the short one all the way down...”

He heard himself pleading, trying to keep Gwin and the others from hearing. “It’s happening, Johnny. Isn’t it happening like I told you? Is this what you want? Every day going further and further down? More and more a reputation that they have to challenge so that you have to fight them.”... Then grasping desperately at anything that might break through, even using the girl — his wife — for the first time, asking how she would feel about a thug, a criminal tough — which was too strong even in desperation and he wished he hadn’t said it, not only because he knew it hurt but because it angered the boy, turned him away abruptly, limping stiffly across the lobby to the cage...

“Howard,” Nita said, “eat. You’re going to make yourself sick.” And he brought himself back to the food on his plate, discovering that he really wasn’t hungry.

“He did have another fight today?” Nita asked.

He nodded.

“But can’t they stop it?” Nita said. “Can’t they isolate him like they do sometimes?”

“They’ll stop him,” Walker said grimly, “when they’re ready. But Gwin doesn’t care right now. It’s sport to him, he’s waiting for Johnny to meet his match. He would gladly referee that one.”

“But what is Mr. Hoffman doing?” Nita said. “Have you talked to him about it?” she asked. “He might actually not know what’s going on.”

“He knows about it, darling,” he told Nita, “he and Kurt both know about it. But unofficially.”

“Howard,” she said, “I have never really understood why you’ve been so upset about Mr. Hoffman. After all, he’s certainly no worse than Mr. Myers, and after the first while here, you never got mad with him, not really mad, I mean, not like you’ve been lately. There’ve been boys here who were treated even worse than this one, boys that you knew and worked for. I know this one is special to you, but even so—”

“Yes, he’s special,” Walker said. “I’ll admit it. But you’re wrong about my blaming Carl. I don’t like him, and he did disappoint me — I’ll admit that. I was disappointed like a kid, because I had expected him to be different. But I don’t really blame him, any more than I blame myself, I suppose, because I was here; I let it happen.”

She set the coffee pot down. “You did not, Howard!” she said. “You did everything you possibly could to save that boy. You argued, you pled, you’ve worried until I think you’re getting sick, and I’m tired of hearing you repeat yourself by saying you let it happen.”

“I argued,” Walker said, “I talked. But still I let it happen. I didn’t do anything to stop it. And that’s the real trouble. It’s much safer just to string along, to ‘adjust.’ But what I wonder is where do you draw the line? Isn’t there somewhere that a man should get upset? Aren’t there some things he shouldn’t tolerate?” Nita poured the coffee. Then she sat down across from him again, leaning forward on the table. “Howard,” she said, “do you really think you should do more than you’ve done for this boy? Do you honestly think you owe it to him?”

“In the everyday sense, I don’t guess so. In terms of my job, my pay check, I guess I’ve done more than I needed to.”

“But you do think you ought to do something else,” she persisted. “I don’t understand all your reasons for the way you feel. I sometimes think you’re just stubborn. But if you really think you have to do something, if you really believe you’d be dishonest not to, I want you to go on and do it. I’m talking about your going on to Hollis Graham, or the Eddlemans, or whoever you’re thinking of; and I’m saying if you must, do it. I don’t want you miserable because of me.”

“Honey,” he said, “I haven’t been miserable because of you. You came into it, of course, but not because of anything you’ve ever said, not because of you personally. I’m a married man! I have a responsibility, that’s all.”

She looked at him uncertainly. He had given her cause, he knew, to feel this way; he had actually accused her of being selfish, of clinging to security at any price in the old days when they had argued hotly about Myers.

“I mean it, Howard. I don’t understand all of it, and I’ll admit that I wish you wouldn’t. This is a good job for you; it’s almost twice as much salary as you can probably get teaching, and we’re just beginning to be able to save.” She was frightened, he saw, because she meant every word of it, and she believed almost without doubt that he had been holding back only because of her. “But if you can’t be happy at it,” she said, “if you can’t feel right, honest, I want you to resign, or make them fire you, or whatever you need to do.”

“Honey,” he said, getting up and going around the table to her. “You’re getting way ahead of me. I don’t even know yet if I can do anything, if anything I might try would do any good — for Johnny or anybody else. If I went to Hollis Graham, the first thing he would do probably would be to call Kurt, and everything, including me, would stop right there. If I went to the Eddlemans it would doubtless be the same process. Even a public appeal — speeches, independent article — would seem like nothing more than a disgruntled employee who had lost his job.”

He had reached for her hands to pull her up to him, but she moved them impatiently. “But if you know that, Howard,” she said, “if you see there’s nothing you can do, why can’t you just... forget it and be... normal again?”

That was a good question too, he thought, and one he had not answered for himself. Deliberate, futile self-destruction was stupid, wasn’t it?

“I don’t know, Nita,” he said. “I honestly don’t know. All I know is I can’t give this thing up. I’ve waited so long — ever since I’ve been here, sometimes I feel all my life — to do something all the way, the right way! with no compromise, with no reservations, and feel cleanly and wholly behind it. Is that wrong, is that asking too much?”

“I don’t know. Just hurry up and do something, so we can start living again.” There was a sob in her voice as she rose abruptly and ran from the kitchen. He got up and started after her, but at the door he stopped and turned back. What could he say? What comfort could he possibly give her?

13

For three weeks they picked cotton. At first Johnny had tried to plan again, to think out a way, and watch for a chance. The heat gave him an idea, the heat and the men falling out with sunstroke. You could fake a sunstroke, he thought; you could watch those who had them and study how they looked, what the symptoms were. And when it happened in the fields, you were sent in with a trusty; it was at least a way of getting off from the others. But what to do then? He couldn’t even run now, and he couldn’t try that again anyway. Because even if you got free from your own camp there was still eight miles any way you went, and camps spread out all the way. And even if you got off the farm, what then? There was the whole state, and you couldn’t steal that many cars; they would put the dragnet out, and even if you outguessed one or two — or even four or five — there were too many. Maybe the river; you could get a boat and travel at night...

But he soon quit watching or even trying to think. They were in the fields at five o’clock and by six the sun was hot and coppery above the cypress trees. At noon the long flat V’s of the rows were dancing in a white, blinding light and the fumes from the earth came up dry and suffocating under his cap...

Besides, things weren’t clear any more. Even before he had left the hospital, it had all begun to run together — day, night, the heat, the fighting, his dreams, all of it, even Lucille. He wasn’t even sure sometimes that he was Johnny Graves, that he was part of Camp Eight; and then sometimes he could see it, could get it straight.

There was Puddin Welch and Arnold Foley. Then there was Tommy Wilson, and two nights ago Don Harrison. Four fights in less than three weeks, and if he hadn’t picked all of them, he had at least done his part; he had wanted them. And why? (what was it Walker had asked: “A thug, a criminal tough; how will she feel about a criminal tough?”)

He didn’t know why, really. It was just with everything running together like it did, the heat and the pain and Lucille, wondering about her, getting it confused and wondering if she was still out there even, wondering if she had ever been out there, or if he had just dreamed her too. Because sometimes it seemed that there wasn’t any outside at all, that the bunk and the cage and the camp and the cotton fields were all there ever was. He would shut his eyes and try to remember her, how she had looked, and he couldn’t see her. Except when she wasn’t with him. He could see her then. He had thought of every boy in town, everyone he could remember to decide who it was with her, but whoever it was had his hands on her shoulders, and she was leaning forward to him, her mouth half-parted and smiling strangely, her mysterious, slanted eyes laughing...

14

It was convenient for Walker that Salena was scarcely a half-day’s drive from Larkin, and that he could be sure, after talking by phone with her father, of finding her at the school. He decided to go down on Monday.

Walker arrived in the afternoon, just before school was out. The secretary in the school’s office directed him to room twenty-three.

Lucille Tinsley-Graves was what he half-expected, half-remembered from her visits to Larkin two years before, except that now she was no longer the pretty soft-eyed girl; she was the lovely, soft-eyed woman, whose slender arms and legs and faintly thin cheeks had rounded, firmed, without seeming heavier at all. He watched her for a moment through the small glass window in the door before he knocked.

She was probably, he decided, a fine teacher, patient, energetic, quite happily at home in that third grade classroom. She should be single now; she should be planning her wedding to a well-appointed young doctor or lawyer whom she had met at Baylor. She should have remained with her middle-class sisters in Olive, driving downtown in the late afternoons, fresh and groomed and beautifully poised in their pastel Pontiacs and Buicks. But her middle-class pattern had twisted in one early mistake. And whose mistake was it? Hers? Johnny’s? Her parents’? The blood?

He shut his mind to the questions and knocked reluctantly. When she came she didn’t recognize him at first, and she stood there framed in the door, smiling.

“Yes?” she said softly. “Can I help you?”

Her eyes were a clear, deep blue, almost violet, very direct and guileless under thick dark lashes. Her blond hair, which had been long and heavy over her shoulders when she came to Larkin, was pulled back now in a sleek pony tail. She wore a white short-sleeved blouse and a blue, tailored skirt.

“I’m Howard Walker. I... met you some time ago. You may not remember me, but...”

Then she did remember him. Her eyes flickered suddenly, darkening and widening. “Oh,” she said faintly. “Oh yes. I remember...”

Walker waited but she did not go on. Her eyes searched vaguely past him in the hall.

“I... wanted to see you,” Walker said, “talk to you. I—”

Her face came up quickly, her eyes almost black in her strained white face. “Is there anything wrong?” she said. “Has there been any trouble?”

“No,” Walker said. “There hasn’t been any trouble, no... accident, I mean.”

“Thank goodness,” she breathed.

“He needs help. He’s been growing bitter lately, and we — somebody has to help him.”

Again she glanced up quickly, her eyes frightened. “Help him? What has he done? How does he need help?”

There wasn’t time and this corridor was not the place. “May I see you?” he said. “Could we talk somewhere? I can wait. Your school will be out soon, won’t it?”

She glanced at her watch, rather slowly, he thought. “Three-thirty,” she said. “In about five minutes.”

“Can we meet then?” he said. “I have my car. Could I take you home?”

“Yes—”

“My car’s in the drive out front. I’ll wait for you there.”

“We can drive out of town,” he said when she arrived, guessing that she would prefer it, “and then I can bring you back.”

“Yes,” she said faintly, “that would be fine.”

Walker swung the car north on the highway and pushed it up to sixty, so that the wind came whipping the heat away. He did not talk or look at her. He leaned his face forward, into the windstream from his vent, and watched the white concrete float toward him. He could not think of a beginning, was not sure yet where she stood.

“Is he... how is he?” she said at last. Her voice was small, almost inaudible in the whipping wind.

“He’s miserable and confused and bitter.”

There was a little roadside park up ahead, under a grove of pines. Walker slowed the car and pulled off the highway into it. He switched the engine off and turned to her.

She dropped her eyes. “He may not think of me at all. He... he’s stopped writing. He may have forgotten me.”

“Do you want him to forget you?” he said.

“I... no, I don’t want that,” she said. “But I... it may be that he has. He... hasn’t written.”

Walker was tempted to ask if she had written to him, but he knew the answer, and that wasn’t important now. “He hasn’t forgotten you,” he said. “And I think I can guess why you didn’t come. I don’t blame you. It isn’t... pleasant.”

She looked up. The tears were real — very, very real. “It was awful,” she said. “All those ugly staring men with their shaved heads and their nasty grinning faces. He looked like them,” she dropped her head, “that same look, staring at me with his face so pale and still and his eyes...”

She continued to cry, and Walker let her. He took out a cigarette and lit it. Finally when her shoulders had stopped shaking and she sat back against the seat, she said, “I want to forget it.” Her voice was almost fierce. “I want to forget it forever!”

“And maybe you can,” Walker said, “maybe you can forget it — but not him! He needs you, and you are his—”

“How does he need me?” she said. “You never have said how he needs me.”

“He’s had a bad time,” Walker said. “When his parole fell through, he got excited — tried to escape. He was shot, in his right leg, and the bone was shattered.” Her face twisted for a moment. “It healed short,” Walker said, “and he went bitter. He’s sullen and belligerent-fighting everybody who crosses him — and he’s getting steadily worse.”

“Poor Johnny,” she said dully, “poor Johnny.”

“But it doesn’t have to be,” Walker said. “I think if you would come, if you’d talk to him, tell him you’re waiting—”

She put her hands up over her face, rocking her head back and forth slowly. “No, no, no!” she moaned, her voice thickly muffled under her hands. “I’ll never go back. I can’t! Don’t you see? I can’t talk to him; I can’t write to him: I don’t love him!”

Walker sat back. Now, Scholar, he thought, what is Love? Because she honestly believed it; he didn’t doubt that. And her grief was genuine too. She had “loved” the boy, and now she no longer did. She couldn’t help it if she simply no longer “loved” Johnny. And if she later started “loving” someone else, she probably wouldn’t be able to help that either.

“I’ll take you home,” he said gently. “Tell me where to turn.”

So this left it completely up to him, he reflected, and now there was even less time. He would see Kurt and Hoffman tomorrow. He had to make his own play.

At the administration building the sergeants were gathered in the lobby as usual when Walker entered. The morning mail sessions were the old riotous confabs of the Myers’ regime. And Walker had even begun to hear the familiar, grumbling objections against the music school (which took men out of the fields on Tuesday afternoon) and the chaplain’s Bible study courses (which met at night and kept sergeants and drivers on duty too late). Gwin himself had become almost patronizing toward Walker, pushing his old insolence even further.

Walker nodded in the general direction of the group and went hurriedly past, toward Hoffman’s office. If both Hoffman and Kurt were in, he wanted to get the thing over immediately, not only to settle his anxiety but so that he could start for Beauregard immediately if necessary.

Miss Higgins was not around, so Walker knocked on Hoffman’s door.

Hoffman’s voice, muffled but very brisk and pleasant, sang out, “Come!” Walker came.

Glancing up from his desk, Carl Hoffman was clearly surprised and clearly a bit concerned, but also quite glad to see him. It occurred to Walker suddenly that the man was probably very lonely. Could he ever relax completely with anyone? he wondered.

“Howard!” he said. “How are you today?”

“Hello, Carl,” Walker said. He smiled, too thinly he felt, still standing in the door. “I’d like to see you.”

“Of course,” Hoffman said. “Come in.”

“I’d like to get John in too, May I send for him?”

Hoffman nodded but his smile was strained, uncertain.

Walker addressed Miss Higgins who was seated beside the desk. “Would you mind very much?” he asked, as he walked in.

“Well, how are you?” Hoffman asked. “How have things been?”

“All right, I guess,” Walker said.

There was a brief, awkward pause, during which Hoffman frowned at his desk. Finally he looked at Walker again, his face bland, almost but not quite casual.

“Ah, you sent for John. Is it... is it something important?”

“It’s about Johnny Graves,” Walker said. “I imagine you guessed.”

Hoffman’s face contracted slightly. “Why, no,” he said slowly, “that hadn’t occurred to me...” He hesitated a moment, then resumed in another sentence. “But as a matter of fact,” looking up again, “I’m glad you’ve brought it up. I’ve wanted to talk to you about Johnny.”

Walker looked at him. “Really?” he said.

“Yes,” Hoffman said, smiling, “I’ve never felt quite right about our decision concerning Johnny’s... punishment. I’ve felt that you were... dissatisfied with it, perhaps even a little angry at us.” He frowned anxiously.

“Is that the only reason you felt wrong?” Walker asked. “You weren’t dissatisfied too?”

Hoffman cleared his throat. “Oh, well of course, Howard!” he said. “I regretted it terribly. But I... I somehow felt that you resented us — me personally, that is, and I certainly wouldn’t want that to happen.” He looked up at Walker.

“I was angry, Carl,” Walker said finally, “and I still am. But that’s not what I’m here for.”

“What are you here for?” John Kurt said burringly, smilingly. He nodded at them and turned to close the door.

“Hello, John,” Walker said. “Carl and I were talking about Johnny Graves.”

Kurt raised his eyebrows. “Again?” he said.

“Yes,” Walker said, “he is still here.”

“Howard—” Hoffman began remonstratingly.

“No, wait,” Walker said. “I know all that, and I’m not here to accuse you and argue with you. I’m here to ask you one more time to help me save this boy.”

John Kurt had taken a seat, crossing one small knee over the other. “Howard,” he said, “I’m afraid Johnny Graves has gone too far to be helped now, that is, with the facilities we have.”

“Facilities?” Walker said. “We don’t need facilities, John, and you know it as well as I — unless you consider honesty a facility.”

Both Kurt and Hoffman were very still for a moment. Finally Kurt said, “What do you mean, Howard?”

“You know what I mean,” Walker said. “A gesture of some sort, a guarantee of shortened time, of even an eventual parole. I think he would respond to that. He understands honesty; he always has; and I think that now he will probably understand people making mistakes, even prison officials. If you would get him out of the camp, bring him to The Front, make him a trusty — an office boy, or a shooter: the position wouldn’t matter too much, as long as it—”

Kurt raised his hand beseechingly. “Wait, Howard, wait,” he said. “Are we to understand,” he said, “that you’re asking us to make this boy a trusty, to remove him from the camps, and grant him a parole? Don’t you realize, Howard, that you’re asking special privileges for one of the worst prisoners on the farm at this time? Surely you must know—”

“Yes, I know. You and I know — John, you and Carl and I — that we drove this boy into his blind alley, that we set up every act of violence he’s committed. I’m asking you to help me stop him before he is killed or commits a murder which we’ll have to execute him for.”

“But, Howard—” John started.

“I know, John, that most of the sergeants would howl that every man who wanted a parole or even just to get out of field work would simply start raising holy hell. All right, think of some other way. I don’t care about the way as long as it’s something definite, which will work and save one inmate bent on his own destruction.”

Kurt turned and looked at Hoffman. The warden was very quiet, very white and tense. He avoided Kurt’s glance quickly.

Kurt turned back to Walker. “Howard,” he said, “Larkin is a large and very complex situation, a practical, and even a grim situation. It isn’t pleasant, and it can frequently be very upsetting, especially if a man is sensitive, if he has trouble controlling his emotions...”

This was it; it was actually happening, and it seemed so incredibly, so outrageously natural. For a moment Walker felt a panic, an actual fear — the holdover, he thought, of the long years of caution — and a deep pang of regret for Nita, who would be crushed, humiliated. But then he was relieved, almost amused at Kurt’s smooth approach. “Is that right, John?” he said evenly.

“Yes,” Kurt said, “and Carl and I have been thinking about you, Howard, wondering if you wouldn’t be—”

“Happier somewhere else?” Walker said. “If you hadn’t better fire me so that I can find peace and contentment in a happier ‘adjustment’?”

Kurt smiled thinly, inclining his large head. “You always put things so bluntly, Howard,” he said.

“Forgive me,” Walker said. “I suppose it’s my primitive coarseness. But there’s one thing I wonder if you and Carl considered when you were thinking. I might not be able to forget Johnny Graves, or Larkin either, just by leaving here. My emotional condition might continue, and it might be necessary, in order to cure it completely, for me to expiate my conscience. That’s an unfortunate weakness, I guess, of sensitive people.”

Hoffman moved quickly, leaning forward across the desk. “Howard—” he began, but Kurt interrupted, chuckling.

“Oh, I’m sure Howard doesn’t mean that, Carl,” he said. “I know that he isn’t vindictive, that in spite of any disagreements he wouldn’t harbor a grudge.”

“No,” Walker said. “I’d hate to think I was vindictive. But the thing is so complicated, John. In spite of my reluctance to hurt you, I feel I would have to do something. It’s somewhat like the case of Johnny Graves, you see: one can’t always be guided by sentiment.”

Kurt still smiled, white-faced. “But what would you do, Howard?” he said. “What could you do? Hollis Graham wouldn’t be disposed to take action for a confirmed troublemaker, I’m sure, and short of his help, I don’t see how you could gain anything.”

“Possibly not,” Walker said, much more confidently than he felt, of course, because this actually was the big question in his own mind, “but it will be interesting to find out, and as I said, a relief to my conscience. Also, who knows? There are others in Beauregard besides Hollis: the Eddlemans, for instance, and even Lucius Mills.”

He had deliberately dropped in the name of Lucius Mills, the rival editor with the Eddlemans in Beauregard. Old Lucius, the publisher of a notoriously irresponsible paper, was linked with Myers and the Gwins, and he had fought Kurt and the Eddlemans viciously when they were campaigning to elect Hollis Graham and oust Myers. Walker knew that Mills would snap at the chance to discredit Hoffman’s administration, and he was sure that Kurt and Hoffman knew it too.

Now Kurt stopped smiling altogether, and his face was a motionless, questioning mask. “Howard,” he said, after a long tense silence, “you couldn’t consider such a thing; you wouldn’t think of... of betraying us.”

“Now you’re being blunt, John, and melodramatic. I wouldn’t consider it as ‘betraying,’ but more as ‘coping with a practical situation as best I could.’ As I said, this thing is so complex.”

Kurt stared at him, his face completely blank, his large pale eyes a study in calculation. “Howard,” he said quietly, “if you want your job, don’t betray us to Lucius Mills.”

“My job,” Walker said. “Keep it.” He turned and went out of the office.

16

Johnny realized that this afternoon he was actually going to do it, and he knew he wasn’t ready. There were so many details he still wasn’t sure of, and he didn’t even have a watch. He had been checking the sun and listening when the others mentioned the time, so maybe he could guess closely, but he really needed a watch.

It was after the fight with Myrick, three days ago, that he knew he had to try it, and try it right away if he was going to see her like he wanted to, or maybe even see her at all. Because he knew then that Walker had been right, maybe righter than even he knew. He’d kill somebody or he would be like Walker said: a thug, just a thug, and with the leg that way too, how could she stand him?

So he had already started planning it, had even thought of using Corley, the new man that had taken Walker’s place; and when they put him on Front Bunk again Monday morning he knew he couldn’t stand it another week, so it would have to be Tuesday because Corley only came on Tuesday afternoons. That was when he started setting it up, slowly at first, just a couple of times yesterday afternoon and three times, spaced out, this morning. He had to be careful, to keep from making it too bad and having them keep him at the camp at dinner.

They took their rows again. The sun was almost overhead still, and the gumbo earth between the purple stalks was blue-white and shimmering. The shooters slouched outside the group, seeming to doze under their wide straw hats; and Delo, the imbecile water boy, sat in the small shade cast by the little wagon.

Johnny waited until they came back on their second row, when he guessed it was about one o’clock; then he got up and went slowly to the water wagon. It was a small hooded cart, with a barrel of water on its bed. A donkey-like mule dozed in its shafts, now and then dropping his head to crop at the long thin grass which grew on the turn row. Delo grinned at Johnny. Delo always grinned. His face was a greasy copper, and his eyes seemed to be all pupil. “You back?” he said cheerfully. “This is the fourth time already.”

Johnny leaned against the wheel of the cart, resting his forehead on his arms. “I don’t feel good,” he said. “How about some salt.”

“Already?” Delo said, grinning. “You gonna eat all my salt. You took four pills yesterday afternoon.”

“I don’t feel good,” Johnny said. He put his hand to his stomach. “My stomach feels like something hit me.”

McCrory came to the door of the cotton house. “Purty Boy!” he bellowed. “You camping out there or something?”

Johnny raised his head slowly. “I don’t feel good,” he said. He still held his hand at his stomach. “I feel kind of sick at my stomach.”

McCrory looked at him a moment, his hands in the hip pockets of his low-slung khaki trousers. Then he snorted. “Get back to your row,” he said. “Feel sick when we go in to supper.”

Johnny went slowly back to his row. He figured that was about one o’clock.

Two rows later, at probably one-thirty, he went back again. He was bent over then, with both hands holding his stomach.

Delo grinned at him pleasantly. “You ain’t no better?” he asked. “It still hurtchu?”

Johnny sank to one knee and rested his head on his arm. “I feel funny,” he said. “I don’t know how I feel.”

McCrory came out of the cotton house and strode to the wagon. “I told you to stay on your row,” he said. “What the hell you trying to do?”

“He says he feels funny,” Delo said. “He says he feels sick at his stomach.”

“I heard what he said,” McCrory roared. “You tend to your own goddamn business.” He watched Johnny for a moment. “It’s just your stomach?” he asked. “You ain’t feeling cold or anything?”

“That’s right,” Johnny said, “but it makes me weak. It feels like—”

“All right,” McCrory said. “Get out there. You just ate something wrong, that’s all.”

Johnny hesitated, then went slowly back to his row. And that was about one-thirty.

Two rows later, twenty yards or so out from the turn row, Johnny got up unsteadily and started for the wagon. He bent low, holding his stomach tightly, and he weaved and stumbled as he walked. At the edge of the turn row he bent sharply, groaning between clenched teeth, and fell on his face in the grass. Delo saw it and started toward him. He called to McCrory as he ran, but McCrory was already out of the cotton house.

Johnny continued to writhe, lying on his side and holding his stomach. Delo stood over him, hesitant. “He fell,” he told McCrory as McCrory came up to them. “He was coming to the wagon and he—”

“I saw him!” McCrory said. “I saw him! Move over; get out of the way.” He pushed Delo aside and knelt above Johnny.

Johnny breathed heavily; he shook his shoulders violently.

“You crapping out?” McCrory said. “You trying to crap out on me?”

Johnny didn’t open his eyes. He fumbled his lips when he spoke. “It’s my stomach,” he said “I... I don’t know what it is—” He broke off in a sudden convulsion, making a choking sound in his throat.

McCrory sat back on his heels and looked at him.

“What you gonna do, Cap?” Delo said. “You’re gonna send him in, ain’t you?”

McCrory still stared at Johnny. He didn’t answer.

“Ain’t that what the sergeant said?” Delo asked him. “To send ’em in if they started falling out? It’s the sunstroke, ain’t it, Cap?”

McCrory still didn’t answer; He leaned over and looked at Johnny. “Is he crapping out on me, Delo?” he said. “Do you know if he’s trying to rat?” He turned and looked at Delo.

“I... I don’t think so, Cap,” Delo said. “He don’t look to me like he’s ratting. He started acting funny yesterday. It looks like to me he’s real sick.”

McCrory continued to stare at Johnny, then got slowly to his feet. “All right, get up, Purty Boy,” he said finally. “Get up and I’ll let you go in.”

Johnny didn’t move for a moment; then he began slowly to push himself up. He got almost to his feet, then grabbed his stomach again and sank forward. “I — don’t know if I can, Mr. Mac,” he said. “It hurts my stomach to walk.”

“You can’t walk?” McCrory said. “You can’t walk? Then how the hell am I gonna send you in?”

Johnny didn’t answer for a moment; he continued to crouch on his knees, his forehead in the grass.

“You could let a shooter carry him, Cap,” Delo said. “I don’t think he could do anything. He looks too sick to me to try any—”

“I don’t care what you think,” McCrory said. “It’s a rule. A shooter don’t touch a convict in the field. Pick him up and take him to the wagon.”

Johnny pushed himself slowly up again, standing there crouching. “I’ll make it, Mr. Mac,” he said. “I may have to go slow, but I’ll make it.” He hoped he hadn’t played it too far.

Through slitted eyes he saw McCrory staring at him; Delo, beside him, was grinning his curious concern.

“That’s better,” McCrory said finally, turning around to the field. “All right,” he bellowed, “a shooter! Beaumont, you’ll do. Get in here.”

Beaumont, large and lumbering, broke grudgingly into a trot toward the turn row.

“All right,” McCrory said, when he reached them. “Take Purty Boy in to bed.”

“Yes, sir,” Beaumont said, looking at Johnny and jerking the 30–30 toward the camp. “Okay, let’s go.”

So it had worked, or at least that much of it had worked; and, stumbling past McCrory and Delo, trying to remember to crouch staggering like all the others had done, sensing McCrory’s eyes still on him as he passed the water wagon and moved on toward the cotton house, he felt the coldness in his hands. Beaumont was big, and they said he was strong. Johnny had never seen him fight, but they said he could pick a plow up with one hand. Johnny had hoped he would get Geiger or Jones, but it was Beaumont and he’d just have to risk it with him.

A hundred yards or so down the turn row, the corn began on each side. It was dying already, a thick yellow-green forest on either side of them. Johnny had counted on it; it had made the whole plan possible. Over the tops of the stalks he could see the road far away toward the east, but nothing was on it yet. What time was it? he wondered frantically, feeling the coldness growing moist now on his fingertips. Was he too late already, or had they changed the schedule maybe? Sometimes they did.

He suddenly wanted to see Beaumont, where he was, how he looked. He tried to get a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eyes, but he couldn’t. Finally, he made an excuse of another convulsion. He needed to do it anyway, to set up the big one. But Beaumont still didn’t show, and finally Johnny half-turned, pretending to look behind them.

Beaumont was about five yards back, the gun swung loosely over one heavy, black-haired forearm. He was big, Johnny thought, not fat but thickset. His face was brown, large-boned, and his forehead sloped square from black, coarse eyebrows. He looked at Johnny disinterestedly, lazily, with his large hazel eyes. Behind him there were only the corn stalks; the curve in the turn row had already hidden McCrory.

“You feeling worse?” Beaumont said. His voice didn’t sound as if he cared.

“I think I can make it,” Johnny said, gasping. “I wondered how far we had come.”

Beaumont had stopped, just looking at him. If he did that when the time came! Johnny thought. And that was just what he might do: stand back and look at him and wait for him to get up.

“The road’s just ahead,” he said. “You want to rest?”

Johnny turned forward again, moving on slowly. “No,” he said, “I think I can make it.”

But the brightness was worse, now, thick, almost smothering. Looking at Beaumont, at the sure, easy way he carried the gun, at the big thickset hands, he didn’t believe he could do it. But in a moment now, somewhere here, he would have to do it. They had rounded the curve completely, and the road was in sight, growing larger with every step, its white shimmering belly flat and drowsing in the sun. It was empty still; above the corn stalks he saw its long lazy curve between the thin telephone poles away to the east. But already Corley might be on it; at any moment the dust might boil off the horizon, pushing the pickup small and black and soundless too quickly before it. So it had to be done...

The road grew larger and larger, and suddenly he knew he would have to do it, that he was going to do it. His mouth was dry, coppery, and his neck was clamped rigidly forward, aching against the impulse to turn. Then, stopping suddenly in the middle of the turn row, seeing the sunlight shafted in dry, yellow pools between the thin blades of grass, he clutched his stomach again, knifing forward violently, tightening his throat and letting the breath rasp out savagely, and tumbled forward on his face.

For a moment Beaumont was silent, and Johnny continued to writhe, setting his shoulders to shaking violently, hardly having to force them now because of the excitement. Then he heard Beaumont’s voice gruff, mumbled, seemingly very distant, “Now what the hell!” and his steps too, moving slowly forward.

At first Johnny couldn’t see him. Then one leg came into view, slowly, heavily, and he writhed again, pulling his body up tightly. The other leg swung forward too, nearer to Johnny, as Beaumont came angling across the row, and Johnny noticed that his pants were old; the perpendicular trusty stripes were almost bleached out so that the legs seemed nearly white.

“You all right?” Beaumont said. “What is it?” calmly, lazily, stopping a full step away. Johnny almost expected that he would poke him over with the barrel of the rifle, like something he had shot and wasn’t sure he wanted. Johnny writhed again, twisting his throat tighter, making the rasping sound even harsher, as he doubled back closer to his feet. He expected to see the bleached white legs move away then, or even feel the gun crack down on his head. But there was nothing: the legs continued to stand there, slightly bowed and wrinkled and bagged at the knees, and Beaumont’s voice came again, too, still lazy, though a bit more concerned: “Come on now. What are you doing?” Johnny thought Now! Now while he’s talking. And he charged, ramming his head into Beaumont’s middle, Beaumont bent suddenly, bent and said, “Hoo!” His huge hands were extended, slipping from the gun. And he reeled backwards before sitting down, his big hands crossed now on his stomach, his head sunk low between his shoulders. He pulled at his stomach, his mouth open and distended, and made a low, crowing sound in his throat.

Johnny slipped the safety off the rifle and lowered it at Beaumont even as he reeled backward. When he was sure that the big man wouldn’t be moving, he glanced quickly over the corn at the road and saw that it was still empty. Then he checked the chamber of the gun, just to be sure, and went over and patted through Beaumont’s pockets. There was a switchblade pocket knife and he took it, forcing Beaumont to hand it to him. He also took Beaumont’s wrist watch, and when Beaumont shook his head in protest, told him, “I’ll send it back to you, or you can claim it off my body.”

Beaumont still hadn’t got his breath fully, but it was a quarter till three, and they still had more than a hundred yards to go; besides, the turn row was open to the road and anybody passing could see them. Johnny jerked the gun at Beaumont. “Come on,” he said.

Beaumont shook his head and pointed to his stomach, scowling. Johnny cocked the rifle and Beaumont pushed himself to his feet. “You’re crazy,” he gasped. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I don’t know,” Johnny said. “Into the corn; go on.” He motioned the general direction with his head.

Beaumont looked at him hesitantly, then started for the corn.

“Take a row and stay on it,” Johnny said. “I’ll tell you when to change.” They would be angling across the rows, and he didn’t want Beaumont to get an idea about running.

The corn was thick and over their heads. The drying leaves cut and stung, so he had to carry the gun in one hand and push a path for his face with the other. After they had gone a few yards he told Beaumont to step over two rows and stop.

Beaumont was getting his wind back, and he turned around to argue. “Graves,” he said. “You can’t do this. Where can you get from here?”

“Don’t talk,” Johnny said. “I haven’t got time to talk. Just cross over two rows and stop.”

When he had done it, Johnny moved down until he was directly behind him, so that the evenly spaced corn made an alley at right angles to the rows. “Go straight ahead,” he told Beaumont then, “and don’t talk.” He followed two rows behind.

At last they came to the edge of the corn, to the corner made by the crossroads. “Move up to the point,” he told Beaumont, “and stop.” He himself moved up close behind him and crouched, peering up the road. Still it lay dancing and white and empty in the sunlight, and he thought, If Corley doesn’t come I’ll take anybody; there’ll have to be somebody soon.

17

Walker’s first news of the break was a maddening radio warning which gave only Johnny’s name and description and warned residents in the area southwest of Larkin that he was believed to be in that vicinity. It was at eight o’clock Tuesday night, and Walker was driving back from Beauregard. He was listless and morose because his visit to Beauregard had been merely an extension of the talk with Hoffman and Kurt: Hollis Graham was very agreeable. He assured Walker that he would do all that was possible for the unfortunate boy. Which meant, Walker knew, that he would call John Kurt. So Walker had gone to the Eddlemans. He drew a disappointing blank there. In anger, he had started out for Lucius’ Chronicle, but uncertainty as to what good he could do by this means, especially for Johnny, made him back down. So he started for Larkin to face Nita with his complete, bungling failure.

It was after ten o’clock when he saw the floodlights picking out the white front of the administration building. He swung recklessly over the railroad tracks, and cut straight around to the back entrance where the communications office was located.

Ernest Beard, the operator, was propped before the long table of receivers, a set of headphones held loosely to one ear. He was munching a sandwich, and he grinned at Walker as Walker came in.

“When did he break?” Walker said. “Where?”

“About three this afternoon. He jumped Mims Corley in his truck.”

“He jumped Mims! Where is Mims? Have you found him?”

“A couple of hours ago,” Beard said. At the hospital he found Peg Corley, Mim’s wife, and Nita and Hoffman. They were talking with Bob Johnson in the waiting room of the civilian wing. From all of them he gathered that Mims had been tied up by Johnny, left in a swamp, and it had been the mosquitoes that had done the damage.

Walker said to Johnson, “Can I talk to him?”

“Well, he’s got a bit of fever from the bites,” Johnson said. “But I don’t think it would hurt him, if you didn’t stay too long.”

“I won’t,” Walker said.

As he stood in the doorway and looked at Mims Corley swathed in gauze, his fat baby-soft flesh showing tight and burningly inflamed, he himself felt almost guilty and apologetic. Mims had always sympathized with Johnny, had even tried to help defend him.

“I just got back, Mims,” Walker said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” Mims said. “Bob has me doped, and I’m beginning to float. The pain wasn’t so bad. It was just the idea of those mosquitoes swarming over me.”

“Do you feel like talking about it, Mims?” Walker said. “How did it happen? What was he like?”

Mim’s red-rimmed eyes moved expressively. “You can guess, Howard; I think you can guess. He was waiting for me at the crossroads near Eight. I was bound for the music school, and I slowed down to check the left road-the corn is high there, you know, and you can’t see. He stepped out just as I turned, and stood there with the gun half-raised to his shoulder and his head back looking at me. He looked like he was wild again, Howard, like he had gone back unconsciously to the jungle, where it was just running and thinking and dodging fast that would save him, and violence — maybe even killing — would be just incidental, something he’d do without thinking and only to help him run again, because by himself, of course, he couldn’t kill enough to do any good.”

“But where did he get the gun? And how did he get out there?”

“Jumped a shooter,” Mims said. “Knocked Beaumont out.”

“Knocked Beaumont out?” Walker said. “Is he hurt?”

“I don’t think so,” Mims said. “Howard, give it up now. You’ve not only done more than you should, but I... doubt if we’ll see him again — not alive, I mean.”

Walker looked up at him slowly, unwillingly, sensing the confirmation of the dread he had suppressed. “You mean he... won’t be taken?”

Mims moved his big head in a nod. “I got the idea that this was for keeps,” he said, “and with Gwin heading the entire posse...”

“You’ll be all right, Mims,” he said. “I’ll check in again tomorrow. I’m — sorry as hell this happened.”

And as he went down the hospital hall, he knew what he was going to do. He’d take Nita home. Then he’d go out with the posse.

It was a blur. The whole thing was a blur.

When Johnny was sure, after hiding out there most of one night, that she was not at her parents’ home, he found Ves. Ves who had been a part in some of Benny’s moonshine deals. Only when he’d taken Ves’ throat in his hands did the man tell him she was in Salena. He’d ripped out the phone in Ves’ store and taken the stubby man’s new tan Plymouth.

Vaguely Johnny remembered now, as he lay here in Mims Corley’s baggy trousers, that Ves would get his car back unharmed, just as he’d promised. He’d stopped two miles outside of Salena and left it there; touching together the ignition wires of a black Buick, he was off again, pausing only at a filling station broiling under the sun. Leaving the engine running he’d slid out on the far side of the car. The directory was chained to the phone booth, so he took chain and all and slid back into the car. Three blocks down he took a side road, pulled off on it to look for her name.

It wasn’t under Graves, but when he looked for Tinsley, feeling the ugliness pushing up in his chest, there it was: “Tinsley Lucille... 310 Oak Drive.”

Oak Drive was a large street. Finally, though, he saw 314 on a corner at the right, and almost at the same time saw the police Pontiac. It was parked under a liveoak, at the corner of the next block, about half the block down from the big white frame house which Johnny figured would have to be 310. He swung immediately to his right, onto the graveled side street, forcing himself to make it smooth and leisurely.

Less than a block behind Oak Drive, actually just the distance of the nice back yards and gardens of the Oak Drive homes, there was a little trail, hardly a road, not even paved, just two sand ruts paralleling Oak Drive and bordering the woods that began immediately to the right of it. Johnny turned down it, switching to parking lights.

Counting from 314 on the corner, he decided that the big house which must be 310 was the third one down, and there was a garden with a big broad gate to let the mules and plows in. He slipped off the loop of barbed wire holding it, squeezed through and closed it again, then made his way carefully across the uneven rows, smelling of cabbage and the familiar damp red clay of Tucker County.

There were no lights and he moved cautiously forward to the hydrangea bush at the corner of the porch. By the luminous hands of Beaumont’s watch he saw that it was ten-fifteen. Could Lucille already have gone to bed? He wasn’t even sure which was her room. Maybe she was out somewhere, and he could locate the room as she came in. The Pontiac was still there...

But, waiting then, with nothing to do but think, and with the fuzziness that had started in his head (from hunger, he thought; he had to get something to eat, should have gotten something at Ves’s) he felt the ugliness and the fear... yes, fear; not of the Pontiac and the posse he knew was behind him, of the bloodhounds which had run men down flatfooted and strung them like a fox; he had gotten used to that now, and he no longer cared. But Lucille! If she was out now, where was she? With whom? Didn’t she know he was trying to reach her, and didn’t she care?

And then he wondered if it were fear or anger he felt; he couldn’t tell any longer. So he waited, trying to remember that he had to be careful even yet. But then a car swung onto the street below him, picking out for a moment two black, visored heads in the Pontiac under the liveoak, swinging slowly up to the house — and he forgot everything. It was her! And some man!

He couldn’t see their faces when they saw him, but he could tell how she looked by the tight choked sound in her own voice. “Johnny!” she said, almost whispering, “Johnny, you — no, Johnny, you—”

He didn’t know what he intended to do, moving toward them and saying, “Lucille, who is he? What are you doing with him?” And the man talking too, all of it blurring because it was so dark and his ears were roaring and the mimosas were stifling him.

“Has he got a gun?” the man was saying. “Stay back, you,” he said. “Have you got a gun?”

“No,” he heard his voice saying, feeling his hands fumbling against the man’s chest, missing the throat the first time and tearing at the shirt as the man reeled backward, “no, I don’t have a gun!” finding the throat then and twisting the man to his knees, not feeling the fists on his face.

Until he heard Lucille screaming. He didn’t know how long it had been. She was standing over him, pulling at his shoulder. And suddenly he heard other shouts and a spotlight went on up the street.

Johnny turned and groped for Lucille as the man’s head hit the floor and he lay still. He grabbed her arm, warm and soft in the darkness. “You’re going with me,” he said. “Stop screaming.”

“No, Johnny!” she said. “No!”

“Yes!” he said. “Yes! Stop screaming.” He put his hand on her mouth and shoved her forward.

The spotlight from the Pontiac found the moonvines on the porch trellis and played about them.

In the darkness they stumbled on the rows and Lucille pulled her mouth free. “No, Johnny,” she said, as he fumbled to cover it. “You’re choking me. Don’t. I won’t scream. I promise.”

“You’re good at promises,” Johnny said. “You’ve made a lot of promises.” He dropped his hand, pulling her after him.

He could hear shouts at the side of the house. The spotlight flashed occasionally toward the garden. They reached the car and he pulled her around to the driver’s side and shoved her under the wheel.

At a crossroads he turned right on a larger road. Further on, he took a left fork. It had been automatic, but it wasn’t until they reached the Goodhope road that he realized where he was going. Then he knew he’d been going there all along; that was where he could stop for a while — and maybe even think.

19

The Old Place, his mother had called it, a little two-room, shotgun shack on a hill at the back of the farm. His father had built it when he bought the place, and Johnny himself had been born there. He had known it would be empty still just as he had known that the New Place would have a tenant in it; and now he stood in the kitchen door, staring across the bottom, strange and removed in the first gray clearing of the morning.

He went into the front room. She was sitting on the floor beside the window, looking out.

“Lucille!” he heard his voice grating, thick and savage so that her shoulders jerked, though she didn’t turn around. “Who is he, Lucille? Who was he?”

Finally, she turned slowly. Even swollen with the crying and not sleeping, her eyes were clear and as blue as the flowers on her white dress. Briefly her eyes met his, then went quickly to the floor. “Johnny,” she said woodenly, “I’ve told you. I told you in the car.”

“Then why are you afraid?”

“I... I’m not afraid, Johnny,” she lied. “I... he was just Mr. Boise, my principal; he brought me home — Mr. Boise’s forty-six. He’s married and has three children!”

“Then why didn’t you come?” he said, feeling the hope, tingling fuzzily, breathless in his chest. “Why didn’t you come, or write?”

“I... wanted to, Johnny,” she said, “I... tried to.”

“Who stopped you?” he said. “Four years. Who kept you from coming four years?”

“I... did write you,” she said, “several times.”

“After the first month?” he said. “After Wednesday night of the fourth week?”

“Johnny,” she said, “Johnny, I...” Her throat choked the words out thickly, and she put her face down on her hands.

“There’s somebody else,” he said. “Admit it: there’s somebody else. Maybe not that one last night, but there is one. Tell me! Admit it!”

She was afraid of him, trembling and afraid of him! And repulsed by him — the thug, the crippled convict. But she was still his wife...

She tried to move out of the corner as he knelt to her, and her head shook from side to side.

“Johnny,” she breathed. “No, Johnny!”

“You’re my wife,” he said. “Lucille, you’re my wife.”

For a moment she twisted frantically, her hands pushing at him, her head bent, her breath savage gasps in the silence. Then suddenly her arms went limp. “All right, Johnny,” not looking at him, the tears welling silently in her eyes, “all right, but I don’t want you to. I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to.”

Her whole body was limp, and her face was bloodless, frightening, in the pallid light from the window. He hesitated. “But you’re my wife,” he said brusquely, “and you love me. You said yourself there’s no one else.”

Her body began to shake then with racking, animal sobs. She gave herself up to them, lying limply, her eyes still open. “I know it, Johnny,” she said, “and I’ll — if you want to, I’ll...” Her voice choked, broke in an anguished wail, “but I can’t help it, Johnny; I don’t love you.”

She wrenched over on her side then, covering her face with her arms, and he rose numbly and stood for a moment watching her. Then he turned slowly and moved across the room. He went into the kitchen and stood at the window. The sun was burnished gold now, and above the pines on the hillsides. He stared at it blankly, until his eyes began to smart and he closed them.

When he no longer heard her sobs, he turned and went back into the front room.

She was lying as he had left her, unmoving, even unbreathing, it seemed. Her shoulders and the back of the flowered dress were smudged with the dust from the floor. Her arms were still over her face, and the sun struck the top of her head. He touched her arm.

“Lucille,” he said. “Lucille, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t mean to do it — not any of it, last night with that man either. I... I really am sorry.”

He looked at the top of her head, reddish instead of white in the light from the sun. She didn’t move.

“Lucille,” he said then. “You... you’ve just forgotten. Don’t you remember how it used to be, how we were? Couldn’t you — couldn’t it be like that again? I’m still the same, Lucille, except for... a few things, and I...”

Her voice rose sharply, hysterically. “Johnny,” she said, sobbing. “I don’t love you. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

He felt the emptiness cold in his stomach. He again crossed to the kitchen. He opened the door and looked out.

After a long time she came and stood in the door behind him.

He turned and looked at her. Her face was swollen. She was still barefooted. “Go get your shoes and stockings,” he said.

She looked at him. “I... where are we going? I thought you—”

“Get your shoes,” he said, “and go on back.”

“But...” she said; he had already turned around, though.

When she returned, she came down the steps and stood beside him, holding the shoes, with the stockings hanging out of them, in her arms. “I... aren’t you going with me?” she said lamely.

He laughed, just a dry sound in his throat. She dropped her eyes.

“What are you going to do?” she said slowly. “Are you really just going to stay here?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I might. I don’t know any place else to go. Besides, I’m tired.

“Go on. Go on,” he said. “We’ll just say you meant well.”

She turned slowly and started across the yard.

“Take the car,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll need it.”

She didn’t look back.

20

Gwin and the trusties piled out ahead of Walker and went hurriedly up the trail.

“He’s gone crazy,” Hugh Roland the sheriff, said. “He’s holed up in that shack, and he ain’t coming out. He wants a one-man pitched battle with us all.”

“Won’t come out?” Walker said. “How do you know? Has he said so? Have you talked to him?”

“Talked hell! He’s shot one of my men already. He ain’t in the mood to talk.”

An electric shock tingled in Walker’s fingers. “Shot one?” he said. “Where? Is he badly hurt?”

“Just his leg,” Roland said. “It looks like it’s just the flesh of his leg. But we can’t be sure.”

Gwin came up. “You gonna start it?” he asked Roland. “What the hell you waiting for?”

“All right!” Roland shouted, rising and cupping his fat hands around his mouth, looking out across the woods, “everybody ready? I’m giving him one more chance, and if he don’t come out—”

“No!” Walker said. “Wait! He isn’t — you can’t do that. He’s under pressure. You can’t expect him just to walk out immediately.”

“Under pressure!” Gwin snorted. “We’ll put his ass under some pressure.”

“I can’t wait, Howard,” Roland said. “Jim Otis may bleed to death. And it’s been half an hour already. If he dies lying because we don’t...” He didn’t finish the sentence, turning toward the clearing. “Johnny!” he shouted. “You’re making it hard on yourself. Come on now. We’re home folks; we don’t want to hurt you.”

There was a brief unreal silence, then Johnny’s voice, flatly, tonelessly, “Is that right?”

“We’ve got the house surrounded,” Roland shouted. “There’s forty-five men out here with guns. We’ll have to start shooting; we can’t wait any longer.”

There was another silence, then Johnny’s voice: “Go ahead.”

Hugh Roland stood for a moment with his white hands still cupped to his mouth. His little eyes went over the cabin and around him to the pines on either side. Walker watched him. This was it, the end, the ultimate and irrevocable chance; and still he had not tried everything, still he had held back, playing it cautiously like the others. The sense of guilt and equivocation gnawed in him stronger than ever. He had thrown up a job, yes, and bearded a governor and several other influential people who had promised to look into prisoner Grave’s case “considerately.” But what had he really risked?

Hugh Roland took his breath in shakily. “All right,” he began, “let’s go get—”

“No,” Walker said thickly, “no, wait! I... let me— Give me a minute. One minute.” And then he felt himself moving forward, toward the shack. He tried to fill his lungs, tried to stop the loose, empty feeling in his chest. He reached the last big pine and put his hand on it. There were huge cracks in the silver-brown bark.

“Johnny?” he called. “Johnny? Do you hear me? I want to talk to you.”

Nothing. “Johnny — what are you trying to do?” Walker said. “What will this help?”

“I’m not trying to do anything,” the voice finally answered. “Does it make any difference?”

“Yes!” Walker said. “It does make some difference. It has to! Because... you’re a man, Johnny, a human being.”

He looked at the bush before him outside the cover of the big pine. What was he doing? he thought. Why was he there, anyway?

And as he stood there, knowing all the while that he would do it, not for the doubtful good that it might do Johnny or the world; but simply for himself, for the knowledge that he had of himself, the private knowledge that he had believed he could and would do it. So that now he owed a debt — to the belief and the pride and the confidence, to the pleasure and happiness it had let him have, in short, to his life, his manhood.

He moved away from the tree, past the bush, leaned himself forward and lifted his legs, feeling them numb and uncertain a great distance below him.

“Johnny?” Walker said. His voice cracked and he had to swallow. “Johnny, I’m coming in.”

“No, Howard!” Roland cried from deep behind him, but Walker was already in the clearing then, in front of the bushes.

For a time there was no sound from the house, no sound anywhere as he paused there for a moment. The Jimson weeds danced endlessly before him in the white sunlight.

“Mr. Walker!” Johnny said. “Stop now! You... I don’t want to shoot you.”

Walker didn’t look at the shack; he narrowed his eyes against the bright dancing glare and pushed himself forward. The explosion in the silence seemed to come from inside his head, deafening him, jarring him. Then he heard Johnny’s voice, small and thin in the roaring, “I missed on purpose, Mr. Walker. Go back now; next time I won’t.”

Walker heard the breech of the shotgun broken, the click as it snapped into place again, but he didn’t stop; and he was almost there: in a few steps he would reach the porch.

It was a badly rotted porch; one of the steps was completely gone arid the other two sagged dangerously. Walker climbed them carefully and crossed the swaying boards to the door. It was locked.

“Johnny,” he said, his voice coming hoarse, as though he had been running, “Johnny, let me in.”

“Go on back, Mr. Walker. You... you weren’t like the rest of them. I know you tried to help, wanted to, and I... I don’t want to hurt you.”

Walker had left the door and crossed to the little window. It was paneless and through it he could see the inside of the shack. Johnny stood with his legs widespread, the shotgun leveled chest-high at the window. His gray eyes, wide, haggard, bloodshot, met Walker’s.

Walker leaned against the window, watching him. His breath was coming back then, and he suddenly felt a tremendous weariness. “Johnny,” he said, “put it down. You don’t want it this way, do you?”

Johnny held the gun steady. “Does it matter,” he said fiercely, “what I want?”

Walker knelt on one knee before the window. “Johnny!” he said wearily. “Johnny! Johnny!” He leaned his forehead on his hand and stared at the warped, splintered porch. “It isn’t like you think,” he said. “None of it. Even the girl; it wasn’t her fault.”

“I know that,” Johnny said, “I know that. I haven’t said it was.”

“And Hoffman,” Walker said, “and even Gwin, stupid, cruel old Gwin. Don’t you see that it really isn’t their fault either — any more than hers, or yours last night with John Boise? You almost killed Mr. Boise, Johnny. By mistake, by confusion and blindness — just like Gwin and Hoffman’s.”

“I’m not blaming them. I’m not blaming them any more. I know all that.”

“And as to your record,” Walker said quickly, “if you’re worrying about that, it won’t be so bad. You’re still clear of anything major. Five years added, ten at the most, and you—”

“Five more years,” Johnny said, “ten — and then what? The cotton and the heat and the cages. I could stand that. But what would I have when they’re over? Thirty years — ‘free’ years — to do what with?”

“You... could study,” Walker said slowly, “learn a trade—”

Johnny’s twisted face stopped him. “A trade!” he said. “Yes, and earn a living, make a place for myself in society, maybe even find a woman who would marry me, sleep and eat and raise children with me — for thirty whole years. But I don’t want to, Mr. Walker. I’m through. I’ve had enough!”

Walker stared heavily at the window frame before him for a long moment; then he pulled himself slowly to his feet. There was an answer; there must be an answer. But it wouldn’t come to him. All he could see was the desperate half-crazy kid in front of him, with the problem he himself had never faced.

“I... don’t know, Johnny,” Walker said. “I’d like to tell you there’s something more. I thought I was proving something about integrity and manhood. But I don’t know now. I guess all I proved was that I wanted to and... I did it.”

“Why did you do it?” Johnny said after a long hesitation. “I might have killed you.”

Walker looked at him. “I guess I should say just for you,” Walker said. “But it was just as much for myself. Maybe more, I think, for myself now that it’s over. And now that it’s over I can’t promise you anything at all, Johnny, any reward, any happiness. All I can do is tell you what I’ve said before: I believe a man will keep trying even when there’s nothing to try with or from or for. I think it takes more courage than the other.”

He paused and stared through the window at the kid; he was still standing in the kitchen doorway, his white cheeks glistening above the stubbled beard, his eyes wide, dazed, frantic.

“And Johnny,” he said. “You might consider that you’ve just begun now, that you’ve just found yourself, that you aren’t a man until you can see that it’s ugly and face it.”

Walker turned and went slowly down the steps to where Hugh Roland and Gwin and one of the patrolmen were waiting.

“I think he’ll come out,” Walker said. “Let’s give him some time.”

Gwin’s yellow face was guardedly curious, and suspicious. “How’d you know he wouldn’t shoot you?” he said.

Walker returned his stare for a moment. “I bluffed him, Hiram,” he said finally. “I threatened to put the lash on him.”

Walker went on down the hill to his car. He climbed in and closed his eyes.

Later — he didn’t know how long — he heard feet on the trail and opened his eyes. They were all there, in a congested mob on the narrow trail. Johnny was walking ahead of them, and Gwin and Hugh Roland were close behind.

When they were almost to the car, Walker got out and stood by the door, leaving it open. “I’ll take him,” he said, when they came up. “Get in, Johnny.”

“He’s my prisoner,” Gwin said. “From my camp, and I’m heading the search. He’s going back in the patrol car.”

“I’ll take him,” Walker said. “Get in, Johnny.” Walker half-expected Gwin to pull the authority which he in fact did have, but he simply glared at Walker, and after a moment Johnny stepped into the car. Walker went around and got in on the other side, cranking quickly and backing across the little bridge before turning in the cotton field.

They didn’t talk; they simply rode.

And what would they find at Larkin? Walker wondered. What would he himself find? A job? Dismissal papers? The events of the past week — the final interview with Kurt and Hoffman, the aborted trip to Beauregard — seemed vaguely incredible to him now, as though they had hardly happened. For Nita’s sake he found himself hoping that Hoffman and Kurt had not actually taken his last angry retort as final. And what would Johnny find? For him it was even vaguer.

But for now, it didn’t matter. Now, they were just going back.