39

SMILER'S HEAVEN

I was hungrier than I was tired. After about an hour of lying there and coming back to myself, I got up and started along. There wasn't much strength in my knees until I saw the light of a house. Then I remembered that, where there is a house in the country, there is sure to be a lot of chickens.

It didn't take long to find them. I got two fat young roosters off the perch, because I've never been too hungry, I'm proud to say, not to be particular in the sort of chickens that I've swiped. I wrung the necks of those chickens and was back in the woods before you could say Jack Robinson.

One of the things that Lefty had taught me was never to be without matches in a water-tight safe or a little salt done up in a twist of oiled silk. I got outside of one of those chickens, while it was still only about half roasted. Smiler absorbed the other one.

After that I was sleepy, and Smiler could keep only one eye open. Another thing Lefty had taught me was never to sleep wet, if you could help it, and here was I more than half sopping.

Pretty soon I found a barn, and the smell of that sweet, clean hay that I burrowed into—well, it was about the best thing that ever happened in the whole world. I slept and didn't even dream. When I woke up, it was the next afternoon, and there were a lot of pigeons in the loft of the barn, talking and fussing. There's nothing sillier than a pigeon—nor more fun to watch—because they are always doing something. Everything they do is more foolish than the last.

I wanted to get outdoors, but I didn't want to get out bad enough to risk being captured, because I couldn't tell what would happen if they caught me. If they only sent me back to Aunt Claudia, that would be terrible enough. I knew that there was a lot of other things that they could do instead—reform school, for instance.

Half asleep and half awake, I laid up there in that loft, letting the smell of the swamp and the misery of it sort of work out of my brain. There was always in my head, too, like the ringing of a bell, what Jeff had said just before Jake finished murdering him. Lefty was alive!

When the day got thick and shadowy I began to think of getting down from the hay. Just as I started, I heard a couple of men drive some cows into the barns. First they shut their heads into the stanchions. After that they climbed up onto the mow to throw down feed. I heard them coming and rolled into a corner with Smiler, putting my hand over Smiler's nose, which was the sign that always made him keep quiet.

They threw down the hay and climbed down, and, as they started, I felt a terrible sneeze coming over me. There are sneezes that you can swallow, but there are some that give you a stab right between the eyes at the start. That kind you can't handle. That sneeze busted out, and, though I near choked myself, I couldn't swallow more than the half of it.

“Hey, Sam! Was that you that sneezed?” sang out one of them.

And Sam bellowed back: “Look at that fool brindled heifer, if she ain't got her head out of the stanchions again!”

They got so mad and excited about her that they forgot about the sneeze. Just when I thought they were quiet and that I could start down from the loft, I heard milk begin to go humming into buckets down there. They had that whole string to milk. I was mad, and I was getting hungry, too. There was Smiler asleep and that I had to keep from snoring, because he would snore very loud, just exactly like a man.

They were talking about how young Harkness was back in the town and said that he was going to sell off his farm, about what terrible goings on there was between a girl named something and a young gent named Perkins. Then one of them said: “Wouldn't you know those blockheads from Cross-man would let the worst of the two get away?”

You better believe that I heard that, and sat up.

So Jake was loose! I heard the rest through a sort of a trance. The two on the island had surrendered the next morning, and Boston had agreed to confess everything to save his hide. They had started them back toward Crossman this very day. On the way Jake managed to beat over the head the gent who was driving the automobile that he was in. Two others, who were guarding him, were so scared that they jumped right out of the car. Jake with his manacled hands had managed to drive that car right away and get free, though there were a hundred guns shooting at him from first to last.

Well, I believed it! Here he was like a mad dog turned loose—with the money that he had stolen taken from him—with a lot of brand-new murders on his head, maybe heading right for this very same barn that I was in! That was enough for me. I scooted out of that barn the minute those two milkers were gone. South, straight ahead of me, I saw a row of lights, and I knew that the railway was not far off.

I got to it in under an hour of walking, and I rambled right on down the track. On the siding I found a freight train taking things easy until a passenger went by. The passenger train went by with a whoop and a snort. Then the freight began puffing to get the cars started rolling. By the time that happened, Smiler and I were lying on the rods, me with a chilly prickle between my shoulder blades for fear lest Jake might be aboard of the very same train. Nothing could have been more likely, you got to admit.

That train went along pretty good, though loaded. I stuck by the rods for nearly three hours, when it stopped and a fresh brakeman stuck his lantern under the car and ordered me out.

I had to come. When he got me by the collar, he gave me a yell and a shake. “You're Sammy Moore, of Crossman…and I got you and the reward….”

Where he made his mistake was in shaking me. Smiler wasn't bothered caring too much about me, but he had it fixed in the back of his head that I sort of belonged to Lefty, and that meant that he had to take some sort of care of me. Smiler sank his long fighting jaw in the leg of that shack.

The shack let out a yell and grabbed himself. By the time he got himself untangled from his emotions, Smiler and me were in the woods and gone.

We had no plans. We just jogged along for about an hour, and then found another prime hen roost to visit. We finished a rooster apiece. This time it was harder to get the last bits down—for me, not for Smiler. He was just like a boa constrictor. That night was clear and pretty warm; we just slept it out by the fire, staying under cover of those woods until the late afternoon, when we started on.

We kept to the trees until all at once I got a broadside whiff of jam and pies and coffee and bacon and frying beef and everything else that is good to a hungry stomach. In another minute there were the back yards of a village right at my hand. Nothing was ever more crazy, of course—nothing was ever half so crazy! I just couldn't help it. The smell of the cooking was so good that I decided I would sneak out and just get a nearer whiff of it.

I was standing, leaning against the side of the woodshed of a little cottage, when I heard a poor squeak of a violin playing a tune in the village. It was about the worst playing that you ever heard. What made it worse was because that I had heard it played so many times by about the best violinist that ever drew a bow—I mean, by Lefty.

It was the same Irish jig tune that he and I used to open up with usually—I mean that one about Molly who was waiting for you with blue eyes, and all that rot, you know. It made me extremely blue to hear it.

There was nobody around. It was just the sleepy fag end of the day, when you want nothing but your supper and peace. And there was that violin to hurt your nerves. Well, I knew what would happen. I sneaked out between the cottage and the next street to see if I could spy the player.

And there he was! No kid, but a gray-haired man, with bent shoulders, sawing away at a violin—with his hat on the ground. Even though his back was toward me, I could see how hard he was working.

I was sorry for him, mighty sorry. I saw what would happen, and I wasn't wrong. In another minute a door slammed and a man came running out, singing: “What are you trying to do around here? Wake up the dead?”

The beggar made an apologetic gesture and said something. I didn't understand what the words were, but I knew the voice. Yes, I knew the voice; it went through me, sick and sharp and quick!

The tramp moved along and put down his hat at the next corner, not fifty feet from me. He was half facing me, and he started sawing again on the same old tune. I could see what was wrong with his playing now. His left hand that had been so supple and smooth, more flexible than a girl's, was just a twisted-up claw. I remembered how he had grabbed the knife of Jake's.

Here he was, really that which he had pretended to be back in that first town we had worked together. That hair of his was really gray now. Even if his eyes weren't blind, there was no need to make them up—they were so hollow and blackened. No, it wasn't Lefty. It was just the wreck of Lefty. I didn't wonder that Smiler stood there, fifty feet away from his boss, and didn't let on to know him.

There was the violin scraping along very tired through that Molly tune. Another man yelled out from a door: “Shut up that noise, you hobo, and move on before I send for the constable!”

Then something in me opened up, and my eyes were closed with tears. But the song came just busting out and rang and sang up and down that street. The violin staggered, went out, and then came in again on the note—or pretty near the note. Something that was a little more like the ghost of Lefty's old playing was in that music.

There was a crowd gathering when I got up to Lefty. Smiler gave a whine, and in a flash he was there at Lefty's feet. Lefty told him—“Down!”—in a very wobbly voice.

Smiler was mighty hurt. He stood up and begged, which was his way of saying to Lefty that he was sorry if he had done anything wrong and would Lefty please forgive him. Lefty didn't pay any heed to him. He just laid his hands on my shoulders and looked and looked.

“People said that the river had you, Sammy,” he said. “And I had given up the last hope, partner.”

He was so busted up and so shaking that he forgot all about his hat on the sidewalk, where the folks were dropping coins now. I scooped it up, and we broke away for the woods. Every step of the way he was shaking his shoulders back farther and farther and walking with a brisker step. When we were in the trees, he sang out for me to brisk up a fire. I did it while he got out his knapsack with some provisions. I don't know what we cooked or what we ate. I only know that Lefty did, and what he looked like, and what he said. He kept jumping up and looking around him, saying: “Why, this is not so bad, eh, Sammy? All I have to do is to supple up this old hand of mine and we'll be as good moneymakers as ever, eh?”

Then he would start in rubbing that left hand of his that had been so wonderful that it seemed like his whole soul could talk through it. Well, one look at it was enough for me. Lefty could say that he had a hope, but I knew in my heart that he didn't. He was just lying, because that hand was done for, with all the fingers withered up and drawn together. Only he wouldn't give up or admit out loud that he was beaten, that wasn't Lefty's way.

I couldn't stand it any longer after a while, my heart was swelling and aching so bad. I said: “Lefty, won't you give Smiler a word?”

“Aye,” said Lefty, “there's Smiler. And he doesn't see any change in me, do you, boy?”

Smiler was busting to swarm all over Lefty and tell him how he loved him, but all that he dared to do was lie down and brush the leaves with the waggling of his tail, raise his head, and worship Lefty with his eyes, and say with them how grand and wonderful his boss was.

Lefty began to laugh, and it made me jump to hear him, because it was the same rich sounding laughter as ever. It would have made anybody jump to hear such golden young sounds coming out of such an old-looking man.

“I tell you, Sammy,” said Lefty, “Smiler has a better head than any of the doctors. He knows that I'm not so badly off. He knows that I'll change and be my old self some of these days. Why, that dog is a prophet, Sammy. Aren't you a prophet, Smiler?”

Smiler whined, saying as plain as day: “Only give me a chance to die for you. That's all I want to do!”

“A prophet! That's what he is,” said Lefty.

He began to stroke the head of Smiler. It was very rare for him so much as to touch that dog. Every touch made a quiver of joy run from the tip of Smiler's nose to the tip of Smiler's tail.

I saw that Lefty had forgotten what he was doing and what he was saying. The happiness that he had brought up into his face on my account all died out. It left his eyes just dark hollows with no light in them. He didn't see me—or Smiler—of his own will. He was looking at a time to come, and what he saw there I didn't even dare to ask myself. Well, I couldn't stand it. I got up and stretched, saying that I was going to go to sleep. He said that he would do the same.

So I curled up near the fire and closed my eyes. I began to breathe regular and slow, and pretty soon the glare of the fire that I could feel right through my closed eyelids was blocked away by a shadow. I knew that Lefty had put a rock between to shade me from the light. Yes, and I could feel him leaning over me. I only prayed that I could hang on to myself and keep lying still, and not bust out crying like a fool. Nobody could ever know how hard it was.

I lay there I don't know how long. Pretty soon I did go to sleep, right when I was thinking that I didn't care if I never slept again in all my life—and I didn't want to do nothing but die. The last thing that I could remember was the whisper of Lefty, extremely soft, as he talked to Smiler. I remember thinking to myself that Smiler was in heaven—pure heaven. Then I went to sleep.

Right in that sleep I heard a scream that brought me up standing.

There are two most awful sounds. One is the scream of a horse dying with pain. The most terrible of all is the scream of a man, and a real man, when fear has snatched all of his manliness away.