The Underground Man

chapter 28

Willie took Ronny with him in the station wagon. I hated to let the boy out of my sight. But I wanted a chance to question Susan before she saw her parents.

She sat inert while I extricated my car. The patrolman who had chased her out the walkway stopped the northbound traffic. He looked relieved to see us go.

She said in some alarm: “Where are you taking me?”

“To Ellen Storm’s house. Isn’t that where you wanted to go?”

“I guess so. My mother and father are there, aren’t they?”

“They arrived just before you did.”

“Don’t tell them I tried to jump, will you?” she said in a low voice.

“You can hardly keep it a secret. Any of it.” I paused to let the fact sink in. “I still don’t understand why you ran away like that.”

“They stopped me at the head of the bridge. They wouldn’t let me through. They started yelling at me and asking me questions. Don’t you ask me any questions, either,” she added breathlessly. “I don’t have to answer.”

“It’s true, you don’t. But if you won’t tell me what happened, I wonder who will.”

“When are we talking about? On the bridge?”

“Yesterday, on the mountain, when you went there with Stanley Broadhurst and Ronny. Why did you go up there?”

“Mr. Broadhurst asked me to. That Sweetner man told him about me – the things I said when I blew my mind.”

“What things?”

“I don’t want to talk about them. I don’t even want to think about them. You can’t make me.”

There was a wild note in her voice which made me slow the car and watch her out of the corner of my eye. “Okay. Why did you go to Mr. Broadhurst’s house on Friday? Did Albert Sweetner send you?”

“No. It was Jerry’s idea. He said I ought to go and talk to Mr. Broadhurst, and I did. Then we went up the mountain Saturday morning.”

“What for?”

“We wanted to see if something was buried there.”

“Something?”

“A little red car. We went up there in a little red car.”

Her voice had changed in pitch and register. It sounded as if her mind had regressed, or shifted to a different level of reality. I said:

“Who’s we?”

“Mommy and me. But I don’t want to talk about what happened then. It was a long time ago when I blew my mind.”

“We’re talking about yesterday morning,” I said. “Was Stanley Broadhurst digging for a car?”

“That’s right – a little red sports car. But he never got down deep enough.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly. Ronny had to go to the john. I got the key from Mr. Broadhurst and took him to the one in the Mountain House. Then I heard Mr. Broadhurst yell. I thought he was calling me, and I went outside. I could see Mr. Broadhurst lying in the dirt. Another man was standing over him – a man with a black beard and long hippie hair. He was hitting Mr. Broadhurst with the pickax. I could see the blood on Mr. Broadhurst’s back. It made a red pattern, and then there was a fire under the trees, and that made an orange pattern. The man dragged Mr. Broadhurst in the hole and shoveled dirt on him.”

“What did you do, Susan?”

“I went back in and got Ronny, and we ran away. We sneaked down the trail into the canyon. The man didn’t see us.”

“Can you describe him? Was he young or old?”

“I couldn’t tell, he was too far away. And he had on big dark glasses – wraparounds – so I couldn’t make out his face. He must have been young, though, with all that hair.”

“Could it have been Albert Sweetner?”

“No. He doesn’t have long hair.”

“What if he was wearing a wig?”

She considered the question. “I still don’t think it was him. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about him. He said if I talked about him he would kill me.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“I said I didn’t want to talk about it. You can’t make me.”

Her face was struck white by the headlights of a passing car. She turned away as if they had been searching out her secrets.

We were approaching the entrance to Haven Road. I pulled off the pavement and stopped under the trees. The girl crouched against the door on the far side.

“You stay away from me,” she said between spasms of shivering. “Don’t you do anything to me.”

“What makes you think I would, Susan?”

“You’re the same as that Sweetner man. He said all he wanted me to do was tell him what I remembered. But he pushed me down onto the dirty old bed.”

“In the loft of the Mountain House?”

“Yes. He hurt me. He made me bleed.” Her eyes looked through me as if I was made of cloud and she was peering into the night behind me. “Something went bang. I could see the blood on his head. It made a red pattern. Mommy ran out the door and didn’t come back. She didn’t come back all night.”

“What night are you talking about?”

“The night they buried him near the sycamore tree.”

“That happened in the daytime, didn’t it?”

“No. It was dark night. I could see the light moving around in the trees. It was some kind of a big machine. It made a noise like a monster. I was afraid it would come and bury me. But it didn’t know I was there,” she said in her regressive fairy-tale voice.

“Where were you?”

“I hid in the loft until my mommy came back. She didn’t come back all night. She told me not to tell anybody, ever.”

“You’ve seen her, then, since it happened?”

“Of course I’ve seen her.”

“When?”

“All my life,” she said.

“I’m talking about the last thirty-six hours. Mr. Broadhurst was buried yesterday.”

“You’re trying to mix me up, like that Sweetner man.” She hugged her hands between her legs, and shuddered. “Don’t tell my mother what he did to me. I’m not supposed to let a man come near me. And I never will again.”

She looked at me with deep distrust. I was overcome by angry pity – pity for her and anger against myself. It was cruel to question her under the circumstances, stirring up the memories and the fears that had driven her almost out of life.

I sat beside her without speaking and considered her answers. They had seemed at first like a flight of ideas which took off from the facts and never returned to them. But as I sorted through the ideas and images, they seemed to refer to several different events which were linked and overlapping in her consciousness.

“How many times have you been in the Mountain House, Susie?”

Her lips moved, silently counting the occasions. “Three times, that I remember. Yesterday, when I took Ronny to the john. And a couple of days ago, when that man Sweetner hurt me in the loft. And once with my mother when I was a little girl, younger than Ronny. The gun went bang and she ran away and I hid in the loft all night.” The girl began to sob dryly and brokenly. “I want my mother.”