Her cheeks tightened and her mouth straightened, as though a net of muscles took control. She raised her head, and her eyes were cold and shallow.
“You talk older than your age,” she said. “But you don’t talk old enough. Maybe you’d better run along and play—and wipe your nose.”
“Sometimes I work my brother over,” he said. “I make him squirm, I’ve made him cry. He doesn’t know how I do it. I’m smarter than he is. I don’t want to do it. It makes me sick.”
Kate picked it up as though it were her own conversation. “They thought they were so smart,” she said. “They looked at me and thought they knew about me. And I fooled them. I fooled every one of them. And when they thought they could tell me what to do—oh! that’s when I fooled them best. Charles, I really fooled them then.”
“My name is Caleb,” Cal said. “Caleb got to the Promised Land. That’s what Lee says, and it’s in the Bible.”
“That’s the Chinaman,” Kate said, and she went on eagerly, “Adam thought he had me. When I was hurt, all broken up, he took me in and he waited on me, cooked for me. He tried to tie me down that way. Most people get tied down that way. They’re grateful, they’re in debt, and that’s the worst kind of handcuffs. But nobody can hold me. I waited and waited until I was strong, and then I broke out. Nobody can trap me,” she said. “I knew what he was doing. I waited.”
The gray room was silent except for her excited wheezing breath.
Cal said, “Why did you shoot him?”
“Because he tried to stop me. I could have killed him but I didn’t. I just wanted him to let me go.”
“Did you ever wish you’d stayed?”
“Christ, no! Even when I was a little girl I could do anything I wanted. They never knew how I did it. Never. They were always so sure they were right. And they never knew—no one ever knew.” A kind of realization came to her. “Sure, you’re my kind. Maybe you’re the same. Why wouldn’t you be?”
Cal stood up and clasped his hands behind his back. He said, “When you were little, did you”—he paused to get the thought straight—”did you ever have the feeling like you were missing something? Like as if the others knew something you didn’t—like a secret they wouldn’t tell you? Did you ever feel that way?”
While he spoke her face began to close against him, and by the time he paused she was cut off and the open way between them was blocked.
She said, “What am I doing, talking to kids!”
Cal unclasped his hands from behind him and shoved them in his pockets.
“Talking to snot-nosed kids,” she said. “I must be crazy.”
Cal’s face was alight with excitement, and his eyes were wide with vision.
Kate said, “What’s the matter with you?”
He stood still, his forehead glistening with sweat, his hands clenched into fists.
Kate, as she had always, drove in the smart but senseless knife of her cruelty. She laughed softly. “I may have given you some interesting things, like this—” She held up her crooked hands. “But if it’s epilepsy—fits—you didn’t get it from me.” She glanced brightly up at him, anticipating the shock and beginning worry in him.
Cal spoke happily. “I’m going,” he said. “I’m going now. It’s all right. What Lee said was true.”
“What did Lee say?”
Cal said, “I was afraid I had you in me.”
“You have,” said Kate.
“No, I haven’t. I’m my own. I don’t have to be you.”
“How do you know that?” she demanded.
“I just know. It just came to me whole. If I’m mean, it’s my own mean.”
“This Chinaman has really fed you some pap. What are you looking at me like that for?”
Cal said, “I don’t think the light hurts your eyes. I think you’re afraid.”
“Get out!” she cried. “Go on, get out!”
“I’m going.” He had his hand on the doorknob. “I don’t hate you,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re afraid.”
She tried to shout “Joe!” but her voice thickened to a croak.
Cal wrenched open the door and slammed it behind him.
Joe was talking to one of the girls in the parlor. They heard the stutter of light quick footsteps. But by the time they looked up a streaking figure had reached the door, opened it, slipped through, and the heavy front door banged. There was only one step on the porch and then a crunch as jumping feet struck earth.
“What in hell was that?” the girl asked.
“God knows,” said Joe. “Sometimes I think I’m seeing things.”
“Me too,” said the girl. “Did I tell you Clara’s got bugs under her skin?”
“I guess she seen-the shadow of the needle,” said Joe. “Well, the way I figure, the less you know, the better off you are.”
“That’s the truth you said there,” the girl agreed.
Chapter 40
1
Kate sat back in her chair against the deep down cushions. Waves of nerves cruised over her body, raising the little hairs and making ridges of icy burn as they went.
She spoke softly to herself. “Steady now,” she said. “Quiet down. Don’t let it hit you. Don’t think for a while. The goddam snot-nose!”
She thought suddenly of the only person who had ever made her feel this panic hatred. It was Samuel Hamilton, with his white beard and his pink cheeks and the laughing eyes that lifted her skin and looked underneath.
With her bandaged forefinger she dug out a slender chain which hung around her neck and pulled the chain’s burden up from her bodice. On the chain were strung two safe-deposit keys, a gold watch with a fleur-de-lis pin, and a little steel tube with a ring on its top. Very carefully she unscrewed the top from the tube and, spreading her knees, shook out a gelatine capsule. She held the capsule under the light and saw the white crystals inside—six grains of morphine, a good, sure margin. Very gently she eased the capsule into its tube, screwed on the cap, and dropped the chain inside her dress.
Cal’s last words had been repeating themselves over and over in her head. “I’m glad you’re afraid.” She said the words aloud to herself to kill the sound. The rhythm stopped, but a strong picture formed in her mind and she let it form so that she could inspect it again.