The note Jack had left trembled in V’s fingers as she handed it back. Her other hand was at the side of her face, tugging at a strand of her hair. “But why,” she whispered. “Why, Ben?”
Ben shrugged tiredly. “I guess he didn’t want to stick around to face it.”
She almost screamed it at him, “He didn’t kill Red!”
“He helped. We should never have let Red get up on that cat, so I guess it’s our fault too. But I can see how Jack feels.”
He stood just inside the door of V’s room, V close to him. She turned her face to the wall and slowly hit her fist against the edge of the open door. “What happened?” she said, talking into the wall. “Tell me what happened.”
“Jack didn’t know when to quit hitting him,” Ben said. “Afterwards Red tried to run his rig and he fainted, I guess, and fell back off the seat. The tampers went over him.” He almost said, “Jack was hitting you, V, when he was hitting Red,” but he stopped himself.
“What’s a tamper?” V whispered.
“It’s a kind of drum. A steel drum full of water that rolls on a whole bunch of spikes that’re shaped kind of like feet. There was two of them in tandem.”
She turned to face him, her mouth forming a circle, eyes round. Perspiration shone on her upper lip.
“Each tamper weighs about five tons,” Ben said, and then he watched her silently as she stepped back, slumped into a chair and covered her face with her hands. Her fingers protruded through the blonde hair at the sides of her head. Watching her, he felt nothing. He had felt anger, anger at no one, at nothing in particular, anger only that this thing had happened; he had felt sorrow, sorrow for Red, for Jack, for V, pity for Jack; but now he felt nothing. Whatever was in him capable of feeling, was bruised and overworked and shocked, and he felt as he had when he was in the hospital after Bill Rasmussen and Arlene had been killed.
“Well, he’ll be in the Navy pretty soon,” he said. “I wish I was with him.” And since he had found Jack’s note in their room, Jack gone, he had been wishing desperately he could be in the war. He wanted to participate in something, instead of always being on the outside, caught up only in the ripples, feeling only vicariously, affected only indirectly, for even with Doris he had not felt part of it, feeling that as soon as he was involved with her, some piece of him had dropped out and had stood to one side, watching.
“He must hate me for this,” V said.
Ben nodded abstractedly, staring at her and trying to bring her face, which he loved, into focus, in his eyes. “He must hate me for what I’ve done to him,” V said.
He nodded. “Ben,” V said. “Don’t just stare at me. Help me, Ben.”
He turned his eyes to the window, and he was surprised at the coldness of his voice. “I’ve done enough,” he said. “I should have kept out of it. I…” He frowned as he forgot what he had been going to say, and then he looked at her once more. “I’ll bet he hates you, V,” he said.
She was bent forward, her shoulders hunched like an old woman’s, her hands clenched into fists like a little girl. Her white blouse was stretched tight across her back. “Ben, please, I had to get him back. You saw…Ben, remember what you told me!”
He felt himself nod. She’d had the tools. He’d told her she had the tools, if she only knew how to use them. He said, half to himself, “I didn’t know you’d learn to use them this well.”
“What? Oh, Ben!”
“You didn’t know when to quit hitting him,” he said, and then he went out and gently closed the door because he couldn’t bear to hear her crying.