THE DEATH OF MRS. SHEER

Joyce Carol Oates

One afternoon not long ago, on a red-streaked dirt road in the Eden Valley, two men in an open jalopy were driving along in such a hurry that anyone watching could have guessed they had business ahead. The jalopy was without species: it bore no insignia or features to identify it with other cars or jalopies, but many to distinguish itself in the memory—jingling behind was a battered license plate, last year’s and now five months outdated, hanging dpwn straight from a twist of wire, and other twists of this wire (which was not even chicken fence wire, but new shiny copper wire), professional and concise, held the trunk door nearly closed and both doors permanently closed. Dirty string and clothesline laced important parts of the car together, too, notably the hood and the left front fender, the only fender remaining. Though parts here and there creaked and the lone fender shuddered, everything really moved in harmony, including the men who nodded in agreement with the rapid progression of scrubland. Their nods were solemn, prudent, and innocently calculating. They looked vaguely alike, as if their original faces had been identical and a brush stroke here, a flattening as with a mallet there, had turned them into Jeremiah and Sweet Gum.

Jeremiah, who drove, was about thirty-four. He was a tall thick-chested man, with a dark beard ragged about his face and pleased-looking lips shut tight as if he had a secret he wouldn’t tell, not even to Sweet Gum. His forehead was innocent of wrinkles or thought. It was true that his hair was matted and made him look something like one of the larger land animals—most people were put in mind of a buffalo, even those who had never seen buffaloes but had only looked at pictures of them. But his eyes were clear and alert and looked intelligent, especially when anyone was talking to him. Jeremiah, years ago, had passed up through all grades except seventh, his last, just by gazing at his teacher with that look and sometimes nodding, as he did now. They were approaching an old wooden bridge and Jeremiah nodded as if he had known it was coming.

Sweet Gum’s throat jumped at the sight of that bridge: Sweet Gum was only twenty and had never been this far from home, except to the army and back (he told the story that he had decided against the army, even after they gave him supper there, because he didn’t like all the niggers around). He had a fair roundish face, that of a cherub dashed out of his element and so baffled and sullen for life. His hair, bleached by the sun, grew down shabby and long on his neck, though the ridge where the bowl had been and his mother had stopped cutting was still visible, jutting out two or three inches up his head, so that he looked ruffled and distorted. He had pale eyes, probably blue, and soft-looking eyebrows that were really one eyebrow, grown gently together over his nose. His cheeks were plump, freckled, his lips moist and always parted (at night there was wet anywhere he put his head, after a while). Like his cousin Jeremiah he wore a suit in spite of the heat—it was about ninety-eight—with a colored shirt open at the throat. Sweet Gum’s suit was still too big for him, a hand-down that was wearing out before he grew into it, and Jeremiah’s suit, a pure, dead black, was shiny and smelled like the attic. Ever since Jeremiah had appeared wearing it, Sweet Gum had been glancing at him strangely, as if he weren’t sure whether this was his cousin Jeremiah or some other Jeremiah.

They clattered onto the bridge. “Whooee,” Jeremiah laughed without enthusiasm, as boards clanked and jumped behind them and the old rusted rails jerked up as if caught by surprise. The bridge spanned nothing—just dried-up, cracked ground with dying weeds—and both men stared down at it with all their features run together into one blur of consternation. Then Jeremiah said, “All passed. All passed,” and they were safe again.

“God taken hold of us there,” Sweet Gum said, so frightened by the bridge that he forgot Jeremiah always laughed at remarks like that. But Jeremiah did not seem to notice. “God’s saving us for our promise,” he muttered, so that Jeremiah could hear it or not, just as he wanted. Back in his mind, and even coming out when his lips moved, was the thought: “First promise to do. First promise.” If the Devil himself were to come and take Sweet Gum out into the desert with him, or up on a mountain, or pyramid, or anywhere, and tempt him to break his promise to his uncle Simon, Sweet Gum would shout “No!” at him—“No!” to the Devil himself.

As if to mock Sweet Gum’s thoughts, Jeremiah twitched and rubbed his nose suddenly. “Christ, boy,” he said, “I got a itch—Am I going to kiss a fool all the way out here?”

Sweet Gum turned red. “You keep your goddamn kissing to yourself!” he snarled, as if Jeremiah were no one to be afraid of. Had the duty of fulfilling a promise already begun to change him? He felt Jeremiah’s surprise with pride. “Nobody’s going to kiss me,” Sweet Gum said with venom.

Probably no one on Main Street in Plain Dealing saw Jeremiah and Sweet Gum leave, though many would see them leave for the last time a few days later. By now Sweet Gum sat in a real sweat of anticipation, his suit drenched and his eyes squinting past a haze of sweat as if peering out of a disguise. As soon as the startling sign PLAIN DEALING appeared by the ditch, Jeremiah said quietly, “Now, I don’t want no upstart rambunctiousness ruining our plans. You remember that.” Sweet Gum was embarrassed and angry, yet at the same time he knew Jeremiah was right. Behind Jeremiah his family stretched out of sight: all the Coke family, grandfathers and fathers, sons, cousins, brothers, women all over; it made Sweet Gum and his mother and little brother look like a joke someone had played. Of course maybe someone had played a joke—Sweet Gum’s mother was not married, and through years of furious shame he had gathered that his father, whoever he was, was not even the father of his brother. That bothered Sweet Gum as much as not knowing who his father was.

They drove through town. It was larger than they had expected. The main street was wide and paved; at either side long strips of reddish dirt stretched out to buildings and fields far from the road. There were open-air markets for vegetables and fruit and poultry, a schoolhouse (without a flag on its flagpole), a gas station and general store and post office put together (groups of boys and young men straggled about in front of this building, and Sweet Gum stared at them as if trying to recognize someone), houses (all built up on blocks, perched off the ground), and, even, catching the eye of both men, a movie house—in a Quonset but with a roof painted shiny orange and a bright, poster-covered front. Sweet Gum stared as they drove by.

Jeremiah shortly turned the car into a driveway. Sweet Gum wanted to grab his arm in surprise. “This place is where he stays, you found it so fast?” he said faintly. “Hell, no,” Jeremiah said. “Can’t you read? This is a ‘hotel.’ We got to stay overnight, don’t we?” “Overnight?” said Sweet Gum, looking around. “You mean in a room? Somebody else’s room?” “They fix them for you. You get the key to the door and go in and out all you want,” Jeremiah said. He had parked the car on a bumpy incline before an old, wide-verandaed house—peeling white, with pillars and vines and two old men, like twins, sitting in chairs as if somebody had placed them there. “Why are we staying overnight? That’s what I don’t like,” Sweet Gum said. “It ain’t for you to like, then,” Jeremiah said with a sneer. He had climbed with elastic energy out of the car and now began smoothing his suit and hair and face. Out of his pocket he took a necktie: a precise-striped, urban tie, of a conservative gray color. “You ain’t going to leave me, are you?” Sweet Gum said, climbing awkwardly out of the car.

They went to the counter inside and stood with their hands out on it, as if waiting to be fed. A middle-aged woman with a sour face stared back at them. “No luggage, then pay in advance,” she said. “Pay?” said Sweet Gum. Jeremiah jabbed him in the ribs. “How much is it?” Jeremiah said carefully, making a little bow with his head. “Three for the two of you,” the woman said. Sweet Gum hoped that Jeremiah would roar with laughter at this; but instead he took out of his pocket a billfold and money, and counted it out to the woman. One dollar bill and many coins. “Might’s well sleep in the car as pay all that,” Sweet Gum muttered. No one glanced at him. Jeremiah was staring at the woman strangely—standing at his full height, six foot three or so—so that when the woman turned to give him the key she froze and stared right back at him. Jeremiah smiled, dipped his head as if pleased. The woman withdrew from the counter; little prickly wrinkles had appeared on her face. “Ma’am,” Jeremiah said formally, “maybe I could put to you a little question? As how we’re guests here and everything?” “Maybe,” said the woman. Jeremiah paused and wiggled his short beard, as if he were suddenly shy. Sweet Gum waited in an agony of embarrassment, looking at the floor. But finally Jeremiah said, rushing the words out: “Where’s he live? Where’s his house?”

His words vibrated in the hot musty air. Jeremiah’s face was wet with new perspiration as he listened to them with disbelief. The woman only stared; her lips parted. Sweet Gum, sensing error, wanted to run outside and climb in the car and wait for Jeremiah, but his legs were frozen. Finally the woman whispered, “He? Who do you mean, he? My husband? My husband’s right—” “No, hell!” Jeremiah said. “I mean Motley.” With a clumsy try at secrecy he leaned forward on the counter, craned his neck, and whispered: “Motley. Nathan Motley. Him.” “Why, Nathan Motley,” stammered the woman, “he lives around here somewheres. He—You relatives of his, back country? Why do you want to see him?”

Sweet Gum could bear it no longer. “Who says there’s a why about it?” he snarled. “Why? Why what? What why? You said there was a why about it, we never did! We just drove into town five minutes ago! Where’s there a why about—”

Jeremiah brought his arm around and struck Sweet Gum in the chest. Not with his fist or elbow, but just with his arm; somehow that was degrading, as if Sweet Gum were not worth being hit properly. “That’ll do,” Jeremiah said. The woman was staring at them. “Get outside and get the things,” he whispered to Sweet Gum contemptuously, “while I see to this woman here, you scairt-like-any-goddamn-back-country bastard.”

Outside, four or five young men of Sweet Gum’s age stood around the jalopy. They had hands pushed in their pockets, elbows idle, feet prodding at lumps of dried mud. Sweet Gum, glowering and muttering to himself, walked right down to the car. They made way for him. “How far you come in this thing?” one boy giggled. Sweet Gum leaned over and got the satchel out of the car. He pretended to be checking the lock, as if it had a lock. “Going to lose your license plates back here,” somebody said. “This making way to fall off. Then the cops’ll get you.” Sweet Gum whirled around. “Cops? What the hell do I care about cops?” He lifted his lip. The boys all wore straw hats that looked alike, as if bought in the same store. Sweet Gum had the idea, staring at them, that their deaths—if they should fall over dead right now, one after the other—would mean no more than the random deaths in a woods of skunks and woodchucks and rabbits and squirrels. Somehow this pleased him. “Ain’t worrying my young head over cops,” Sweet Gum said. He knew they were watching as he strode back up to the hotel. Someone yelled out daringly, “Backwoods!” but Sweet Gum did not even glance around.

In a tavern that night Sweet Gum had to keep going back and forth to the outside and stand trembling on the seashell gravel, waiting to get sick; then if he did get sick, good enough, it was over for a while; if not, he went back inside. Each time the fresh air revived him and made him furious at Jeremiah, who sat slouched at the bar talking to a woman, his big knees out in opposite directions. Sweet Gum wanted to grab Jeremiah and say it was time they were about their business. But when he did speak, his voice always came out in a whine: “Ain’t we going to locate him tonight? What about that room they got waiting for us? That woman—” Jeremiah turned away from the conversation he was having—with a strange thick black-haired woman, always smiling—and, with his eyes shut tight, said, “You see to your own bus’ness. I’m finding out about him.” “But—” “Find out some yourself, go over there,” Jeremiah said, his eyes still shut, and waving vaguely behind Sweet Gum. Then he turned away. Sweet Gum drank beer faster and faster. Once in a while he would sniff sadly, wipe his nose, and take out the black cloth change purse in which he had put the money Uncle Simon had given him for “food.” Despair touched him: had he not already betrayed his uncle by drinking instead of eating, by wasting time here, by getting sick so that by now people laughed when he got up to hurry outside? If he did have a father, maybe that man would be ashamed of him; and what then? Sweet Gum sometimes dreamt of this—a strange man revealing himself to be his father, and then saying plainly that he was disappointed in his son. A man back from the navy, or from a ranch farther west. Sweet Gum wanted to begin, to go to Motley, to find him somewhere—where would he be hiding, up in an attic? crawled under a house?—and get it over with and return home, have his uncle proud of him and give him the reward, and turn, in two days, into a man. His chest glowed with the thought: he would become a man. But his inspiration was distracted by Jeremiah’s big, sweating indifferent back and Sweet Gum’s own faint, sickish gasey feeling. “Goin’ outside, ain’t comin’ back,” he muttered, purposely low so that Jeremiah would not hear and would wonder, later, where he was. He stumbled down from the stool and wavered through the crowd. Someone poked him, Sweet Gum looked around expecting to find a friend, found nothing instead—faces—and someone laughed. A woman somewhere laughed. Sweet Gum’s stomach jerked with anger and he had to run to the door.

When Sweet Gum woke, lying flat on his stomach in the gravel, he could tell by the smell of the night that it was late. Everything was quiet: the tavern was closed and looked dark and harmless, like an abandoned house. Sweet Gum spat and got up. A thought touched him, really a recollection; and, with sweet memories of abandoned houses, he groped for a handful of seashells and pebbles and threw them at the window nearest him. It did not break and he threw again, more energetically: this time the window shattered. Sweet Gum nodded and went out to the road.

He went back to the hotel but found the door to the room locked. He could hear Jeremiah snoring inside. Yet instead of being angry, he felt strangely pleased, even pacified, and lay down on the floor outside. As he fell asleep he thought of Jeremiah, one of his many cousins, a Coke rightfully enough—a Coke who had killed a man before he was twenty-five and whose clever talk made all the girls whoop with laughter and look around at one another, as they never did with Sweet Gum.

After breakfast the next morning Jeremiah and Sweet Gum and the black-haired woman drove in Jeremiah’s car through town. The woman sat by the door, where Sweet Gum wanted to sit, and as they drove up and down Main Street she shrieked and waved and roared with laughter at people on the street. “Don’t know ‘ern!” she yelled at someone, a man, and shrugged her shoulders high. “Never seen ‘em before!” Even Jeremiah thought that was funny. But after a while, when they had driven back and forth several times, Jeremiah announced that they had to be about their business: they were on a proposition and their time wasn’t all their own. “Hell, just one more time around,” said the woman loudly. She had a broad, splendid face, so shiny with lipstick and makeup and pencil lines that Sweet Gum’s eye slid around helplessly and could not focus on any single part. “Ain’t got time for it,” Jeremiah said, “we got to be about our business. Which way is it?” “Drive on. Straight,” the woman said sullenly. She had a big head of hair, a big body, and a hard, red, waxen mouth that fascinated Sweet Gum, but whenever he looked at her she was looking at something else; she never noticed him. All she did was push him away with her elbow and thigh, trying to make more room for herself but doing it without glancing at him, as if she didn’t really know he was there. “Keep straight. A mile or two,” she said, yawning.

A few minutes later, out in the country, they stopped in front of a house. It was a small single-story house, covered with ripped brown siding, set up on wobbly blocks. “He don’t do no work that I know of,” the woman said. “He’s got his finger in some backwoods whiskey—y’know, whiskey from the backwoods.” She winked at Jeremiah. Sweet Gum’s heart was pounding; Jeremiah kept jiggling his beard. In the cinder driveway an old brown dog lay as if exhausted and watched them, getting ready to bark. There was a wild field next to the house on the right, and an old decaying orchard—pear trees—on the left. Across the road, a quarter mile away, was a small farm: Sweet Gum could see cows grazing by a creek. “All right, honey,” Jeremiah said, “you can start back now.” “Walk back?” said the woman. “Yes, we got bus’ness here, between men. Ain’t I explained that?” “What kind of bus’ness?” said the woman. “Men’s business,” Jeremiah said, but kindly; and he reached past Sweet Gum and put his big hairy hand on the woman’s arm. “You start walking back and like’s not we’ll catch up in a few minutes and ride you back. Don’t worry Jeremiah now, honey.” The woman hesitated, though Sweet Gum knew she had already made up her mind. “Well,” she said, “all right, if it’s men’s bus’ness. But don’t … maybe don’t tell Nathan it was me put you on him.” “We won’t never do that,” Jeremiah said.

Jeremiah wasted more time by waving at the woman and blowing kisses as she walked away, but finally he calmed down and got out of the car and straightened his clothes and pressed down on his hair; he took out the necktie once more and tied it around his neck. Sweet Gum, carrying the satchel, climbed over the door on Jeremiah’s side and jumped to the ground. The dog’s ears shifted but the dog itself did not move. On the porch of the house sat a child, and behind him were piles of junk—firewood, old boxes, barrels, coils of rusted wire. The screen door opened and another child came out, a boy of about eight. He wore jeans and was barefoot. He and the smaller child and the dog watched Jeremiah and Sweet Gum arrange their clothing, slick down their hair by spitting into their palms and rubbing their heads viciously, and stare straight before them as if each were alone. Finally it was time: they crossed the ditch to the house.

The dog whimpered. “Son,” cried Jeremiah to the older boy, “is your pa anywheres handy?” The boy’s toes twitched on the edge of the steps. He began stepping backward, cautiously, and the other boy scrambled to his feet and backed up, too, retreating behind the piles of junk. “Tell your pa we’re here to see him,” said Jeremiah. He walked ahead; Sweet Gum, hugging the satchel, followed close. Faces appeared at a window, another child or a woman. Then the screen door opened cautiously and a man stepped out.

He was about forty, gone to fat now, with a reddish apologetic face. The way he scratched the underside of his jaw made Sweet Gum know that he was apologetic about something. “You Nathan Motley?” Jeremiah cried. “What’s that to you?” the man said, clearing his throat. Behind the piles of junk the two boys crouched, watching. “Here, boy,” Jeremiah said to Sweet Gum, “open it up.” Sweet Gum opened up the satchel and Jeremiah took out his pistol, an old rust-streaked revolver that had belonged to his father. He aimed it at the man and fired. Someone screamed. But when Sweet Gum could see again, the porch was empty even of children—the screen door had fallen shut. “Goddamn,” said Jeremiah, still holding the pistol aloof, “you spose I missed him?”

Sweet Gum had his pistol now—not his own yet, but it would be when he returned home. “I’m going around here,” Sweet Gum said. He ran around the house. In the driveway the dog had drawn its muddy feet up to its body and lay watching them with wet, alert eyes. Sweet Gum had just rounded the back corner when he saw someone diving into a clump of bushes in the wild field behind the house. Sweet Gum let out a yodel: this was all familiar to him, nothing frightening about it, it was exactly like the games he had played as a child. “Here! Back here!” he yelled. He fired wildly at the clump of bushes. Behind him, in the house, there were screams and shrieks—Jeremiah was stomping through the house, bellowing. When he appeared running out of the back door his tie was thrown back over his shoulder as if someone had playfully pulled it there, and he still looked surprised. “This is hot weather for a hunt,” he said when he caught up to Sweet Gum. They ran through the stiff grass, in brilliant sunshine, and about them birds flew up in terror. The field smelled of sunburned grass. “I’m headed this way, you keep straight,” Jeremiah grunted. Sweet Gum ran on, slashing through bushes, pushing aside tree branches with his gun. “You, Motley!” he cried in despair. “Where you hiding at?” Something stumbled on the far side of a clump of bushes; Sweet Gum fired into it. In a moment Jeremiah appeared, mouth open and sucking for breath, as if he were swimming through the foliage. “Where’s that bastard? He ain’t over on my side, I swear it,” Jeremiah said.

“If he gets away it ain’t my fault,” Sweet Gum cried. He was so angry he wanted to dance around. “He was standing there for you and you missed! Uncle Simon asks me, I got to tell the truth!”

Jeremiah scratched his head. “I got a feeling he’s over this way. Let’s track him over here.” “I never seen him on my side,” Sweet Gum said sullenly. “Nor me on mine,” Jeremiah answered. They walked along, slashing at the tops of weeds with their guns. Birds sang airily about them. After a minute or two they slowed to a stop. Jeremiah scratched his beard with the barrel of the gun. “Spose we went back to the house,” he said suddenly. “He’s got to come back for supper, don’t he? Or to sleep tonight?” Sweet Gum wished he had thought of that, but did not let on. “Hell of a idea,” he grumbled. “First you miss him at that close, then want to quit tracking him.” “You track him, I’ll go back alone,” Jeremiah said. “Naw,” said Sweet Gum, hiding his alarm, “I ain’t staying back here alone.” They turned and followed their paths back through the field.

Then something fortunate happened: Sweet Gum happened to see a hen pheasant start up in a panic. Off to their left, in a big long stretch of high grass. Sweet Gum fired into the grass. “There he is, he’s hiding in there! He’s hiding in there!” Jeremiah started forward, yelling, “Where do you see him? Do you see him?” He pushed past Sweet Gum, who fired again into the weeds. “He’s laid flat,” Sweet Gum said, “crawling around on the ground—” In the silence that followed, however, they heard only the usual country noises, insects and birds. “Motley, are you in there?” Jeremiah asked. His voice had a touch of impatience. “Where are you?” They waited. Then, incredibly, a voice lifted—”What do you want?” Sweet Gum fired at once. Both he and Jeremiah ran forward. “Which way was it? Was it this way?” Sweet Gum cried. He and Jeremiah collided. Jeremiah even swung his gun around and hit Sweet Gum, hard, on the chest. Sweet Gum sobbed with pain and anger. “I found him! I saw the pheasant go up!” he snarled. “Shut your mouth and keep it shut!” Jeremiah said.

“But what do you want?” the voice cried again. It was forlorn, a ghostly voice; it seemed to come out of the air. Sweet Gum was so confused he did not even fire. “Let’s talk. Can’t we talk?” Jeremiah stood, staring furiously into the grass. His face was red. “Ain’t nothing to talk about,” he said sullenly, as if he suspected a joke. “We got a job to do.” “Somebody hired you?” the voice said. Sweet Gum lifted his gun but Jeremiah made a signal for him to wait. “Hired us for sure. What do you think?” Jeremiah said. “Somebody wants me kilt, then?” said the voice. “Somebody paying you for it?” “I just explained that!” Jeremiah said. “You having a joke with me?” And he lifted his pistol and took a step into the high grass. “No, no,” the voice cried, “I’m not joking—I … I want to hire you, too—I got a job for you to do … both of you—I’ll pay—” “How can he pay, if he’s dead?” Sweet Gum yelled furiously. “He’s making fun of us!” “He ain’t either, you goddamn backwoods idiot,” Jeremiah said. “Shut your mouth. Now, mister, what’s this-here job you got for us?”

The patch of weeds stirred. “A job for two men that can shoot straight,” the voice said slowly. It paused. “That take in you two?” “Takes in me,” Jeremiah said. “Me too,” Sweet Gum heard his voice say—with surprise. “How much you paying?” said Jeremiah. “Fifty dollars a man,” the voice said without hesitation. “Hell, that ain’t enough,” Sweet Gum said, raising his pistol. “No, no, a hunnert a man,” the voice cried. Sweet Gum’s arm froze. He and Jeremiah looked at each other. “A hunnert a man,” Jeremiah said solemnly. “Uncle Simon’s giving us fifty both, and a gun for Sweet Gum—that’s him there—and a horse for me that I always liked; spose you can’t thow in no horse, can you?” “And no gun neither!” Sweet Gum said in disgust. “Can’t thow in no gun, and I’m purely fond of this one!” “But you can have the gun,” said the voice, “after he’s dead—and the horse, too—Why couldn’t you keep them, after he’s dead? Didn’t he promise them to you?”

Jeremiah scratched his nose. “Well,” he said.

The patch moved. A man’s head appeared—balding red hair, pop eyes, a mouth that kept opening and closing—and then his shoulders and arms and the rest of him. He looked from Jeremiah to Sweet Gum. “You two are good men, then?” His arms were loose at his sides. What was happening? Sweet Gum stood as if in a dream, a daze; he could not believe he had betrayed his uncle. “Aw, let’s shoot him,” he said suddenly, feverishly. “We come all this ways to do it—”

“Shut your mouth.”

“But Uncle Simon—”

There was silence. The man brushed himself calmly. He knew enough to address Jeremiah when he spoke. “You two are good men, then? Can be trusted?”

“Ain’t you trusting us now?” Jeremiah said with a wink.

The man smiled politely. “What experience you got?”

At this, Sweet Gum looked down; his face went hot. “I got it,” Jeremiah said, but slowly, as if he felt sorry for Sweet Gum. “Got put on trial for killing two men and found Not Guilty.”

“When was this?”

“Few years,” Jeremiah said. “I’m not saying whether I done it or not—was cautioned what to say. I don’t know if the time is up yet. Two state troopers come and arrested me that hadn’t any bus’ness in the Rapids—where we’re from—and I got jailed and put on trial; for killing two storekeepers somewhere and taking seven hundred dollars. Was put on trial,” Jeremiah said with a sigh, “and different people come to talk, one at a time, the jury come back and said Not Guilty for robbery; so it went for the other, too—murder, too. But they didn’t let me keep the seven hundred dollars; they kept that themselves and fixed up the schoolhouse. New windows and the bathrooms cleaned and something else. Makes me proud when I go past—I got lots of cousins in the school.”

“You were Not Guilty? How was that?”

Jeremiah shrugged. “They decided so.”

The man now turned to Sweet Gum. But Sweet Gum, ashamed, could hardly look up. He could see his uncle, with that big wide face and false teeth, watching him and Jeremiah as they stood in this field betraying him. “What about you, son?” the man said gently. “This ain’t your first job, is it?” Sweet Gum nodded without looking up. “Well, I like to see young people given a chance,” the man said—and Sweet Gum, in spite of his shame, did feel a pang of satisfaction at this. “I like to see young ones and experience go together,” the man said.

He turned to Jeremiah and put out his hand. Jeremiah shook hands with him solemnly; both men’s faces looked alike. Sweet Gum stumbled through the grass to get to them and put his hand right in the middle. His eyes stung and he looked from man to man as if he thought they might explain the miracle of why he was acting as he was. But Motley, with color returning unevenly to his face, just grinned and said, “Let’s go back to the house now.”

An hour later Jeremiah and Sweet Gum were heading out of town. Jeremiah drove faster than before and kept twitching and shifting around in the seat, pressing his big belly against the steering wheel. “No one of us mislikes it more than me,” he said finally, “but you know Uncle Simon ain’t much expecting to live too long. Three-four years.” With his mouth open, Sweet Gum stared at the road. There was a small dry hole in the side of his head into which Jeremiah’s words droned, and Sweet Gum had no choice but to accept them. Inside, the words became entangled with the shouting and cursing with which Uncle Simon blessed this ride. The old man sat in his rocking chair on the porch, stains of chewing-tobacco juice etched permanently down the sides of his chin, glaring at Jeremiah and Sweet Gum who, thirty and forty years younger than he, were rushing along hot dirt roads to hurry him out of his life. And his teeth were new: not more than five years old. Sweet Gum remembered when Uncle Simon had got the teeth from a city and had shown the family how they worked, biting into apples and chewing with a malicious look of triumph. Uncle Simon! Sweet Gum felt as if the old man had put his bony hand on his shoulder.

“Boy, what’s wrong with you?” Jeremiah said nervously.

“Sent us out after something and we ain’t preformed it,” Sweet Gum said. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

Jeremiah considered this. Then he said, after a moment, “But kin don’t mean nothing. Being kin to somebody is just a accident; you got to think it through, what other ones mean to you. Uncles or what not. Or brothers, or grandmas, or anything.”

Sweet Gum blinked. “Even a man with his father? If he had a father?”

That was the thing about Sweet Gum: he would always get onto this subject sooner or later. Usually whoever it was he spoke to would shrug his shoulders and look embarrassed—but Jeremiah just glanced over at him as if something had shocked him. “A father’s maybe different,” Jeremiah said, and let Sweet Gum know by the hard set of his jaw that he was finished talking.

They made so many turns, followed so many twisting roads, that the sun leaped back and forth across the sky. Sweet Gum could always tell the time at home, but out on the road it might as well be nine o’clock as three o’clock; nothing stayed still, nothing could be trusted. The old car was covered with dust and it got into their noses and mouths, making them choke. Sweet Gum wondered if his punishment for betraying his uncle had already begun, or if this wouldn’t count because the murder hadn’t taken place yet. “Remember this turn, don’t you?” Jeremiah said, trying to be cheerful. Sweet Gum showed by his empty stare that he did not remember having seen this patch of hot scrubby land before—he recognized nothing on the return trip, as if he were really someone else.

As soon as they crossed the bridge to the Rapids, Sweet Gum gulped, “I can’t do it.”

Some boys were running in the road after the car, shouting and tossing stones. “Hey, you, Jeremiah Coke, you give us a ride!” they yelled. But Jeremiah was so surprised by Sweet Gum that he did not even glance around. “Hell, what’s wrong now? Ain’t we decided what to do?”

Sweet Gum’s lips trembled. “Sent us out and we ain’t preformed it for him,” he said.

“Goddamn it, didn’t you shake hands with Motley? Come loping acrost the weeds to stick your hand in, didn’t you? Hired yourself out for a hunnert dollars. Do you do that much bus’ness every day?”

“No,” said Sweet Gum, wiping his nose.

“Ain’t a man his own bus’ness? Christ Himself was a bus’ness; he was selling stuff. Wasn’t He? He never took money for it, wanted other things instead—more important things—a person’s life, is that cheap? Everybody’s a bus’ness trying for something and you got to farm yourself out to the richest one that wants you. Goddamn it, boy,” Jeremiah said, “are you going back on Motley when you just now gave him your word?”

“Gone back on Uncle Simon,” Sweet Gum said.

“That’ll do on him. I’m asking you something else. The least thing you do after you break one promise is to keep the next one. A man is allowed one change of mind.”

Sweet Gum, already won, liked to keep Jeremiah’s attention so fiercely on him. When Jeremiah looked at him he felt warm, even hot: but it was a good feeling. “Well,” said Sweet Gum, sighing. They were just then turning off onto their uncle’s lane.

There the old house was, back past a clump of weedlike willows, with the old barns and the new aluminum-roofed barn behind it. Sweet Gum was surprised that he didn’t feel frightened: but everything seemed familiar, as it did when he was chasing Motley, and strangely correct—even righteous—along with being familiar.

The car rolled to a stop. Jeremiah took his pistol out of the satchel and shoved it into the top of his trousers, past his big stomach; it looked uncomfortable but Jeremiah wouldn’t admit it by taking it out. Sweet Gum climbed over the door and stood in the lane. The dirt quivered beneath his feet; he felt unreal. He giggled as he followed Jeremiah back the lane. They crossed to a field, half wild grass, half trees. When Jeremiah got down on his hands and knees, Sweet Gum did the same. They crawled along, Sweet Gum with his head hanging limply down, staring at the bottoms of Jeremiah’s boots. If Jeremiah had wanted to crawl back and forth all day in the field Sweet Gum would have followed him.

Jeremiah stopped. “There he is. Sitting there.” He pulled some weeds aside for Sweet Gum to look out, but Sweet Gum nodded immediately; he did not have to be shown. His brain was throbbing. “Here, aim at him,” Jeremiah whispered. He pulled Sweet Gum’s arm up. “I’ll say the word and both fire at once. Then lay low; we can crawl back to the car and drive up and ask them what all went on.” Sweet Gum saw that Jeremiah’s face was mottled, red and gray, like Motley’s had been. Jeremiah aimed through the weeds, waited, and then, queerly, turned back to Sweet Gum. “You ain’t aiming right! Don’t want to shoot, do you? Have me do it all, you little bastard!”

“I ain’t one of them!” Sweet Gum screamed.

The scream was astounding. A mile away, even, a bird must have heard it and now, in the following silence, questioned it three bright notes and a trill. Sweet Gum was so numb he couldn’t think of the name of that bird. Jeremiah was staring at Sweet Gum; their faces were so close that their breathing surely got mixed up. That was why, Sweet Gum thought, he felt dizzy—old dirty air coming out of Jeremiah and getting sucked into him. Rocked in inertia, dazzled by the sunshine and the silence, the two men stared at each other. “No, I ain’t one of them,” Sweet Gum whispered. “Please, I ain’t.” Then a voice sailed over that Sweet Gum recognized at once.

“Who’s over there? Who’s in the field? Goddamn it if I don’t hear somebody there.” There was a furious rapping noise: Uncle Simon slamming the porch floor with his old-fashioned thick-heeled boots, angry enough to break into a jig. Jeremiah and Sweet Gum crouched together, sweating. They heard the old man talking with his wife, then his mutter rising without hesitation into another series of shouts: “Who is it? Stand up. Stand up and face me. Who’s hiding there? I’ll have my gun out in a minute.—Get the hell out of here, Ma, go back inside. I said--”

Jeremiah, sighing mightily, got to his feet. “Hiya, Uncle Simon,” he said, waving the pistol. “It’s Sweet Gum here, and me.” He helped Sweet Gum get to his feet. Across the lane the old man stood on the edge of his porch with one fist in the air. Was that the Uncle Simon who had cursed them all day, hovering over the car like a ghost? The old man looked younger than Sweet Gum remembered. “Just us over here,” Jeremiah said, smiling foolishly.

“What the hell are you up to?” Uncle Simon yelled. At this, the old woman came out again, her hands wiping each other on her apron as always. “Jeremiah himself and Sweet Gum hiding over there, playing at guns with their own Uncle Simon,” the old man said viciously. “A man with three-four years to go and not a month more. See them there?”

The old woman, almost blind, nodded sullenly just the same. Sweet Gum wanted to run over to her and have her embrace him, smell the damp clean odor of her smooth-cracked hands, be told that everything was all right—as she had told him when two cousins of his, boys hardly older than he, had been arrested for killing a government agent one Hallowe’en night. And that had turned out all right, for the judge could not get a jury—everyone liked the boys or were related to them—and so the case was dismissed. “Like niggers in a field! Look at them there, crawling around like niggers in a field!” Uncle Simon yelled.

Jeremiah was the first to break down. Big hot tears exploded out of his eyes, tumbled down his face and were lost in his beard. “He talked us into it,” he said, “me and Sweet Gum was trapped by him. He talked us all kinds of fast words, and long sentences like at church; and explained it to us that he would tell the state police. I had enough trouble with them once, Uncle Simon, didn’t I?—And he tole us it would be a hunnert a man and we could keep the horse and the gun anyways. We got so mixed up hearing it all, and them police at the back of my mind—” Jeremiah’s voice ran down suddenly. Sweet Gum stared at his feet, hoping he would not be expected to continue.

“Who? Motley? A hunnert a man?” What was strange was that Uncle Simon stared at them like that—his rage frozen on his face, and something new taking over. “A hunnert a man?”

“And to keep the horse and the gun anyways,” Jeremiah said in a croaking voice.

The old man put his little finger to his eye and scratched it, just once. Then he yelled: “All right. Get back in that car. Goddamn you both, get in it and turn it around and get back to Plain Dealing! I’ll plain-deal you! I’ll ambush you! Use your brains—tell that Motley bastard you took care of it out here—shot your poor old uncle—and want the reward from him now. Say you want your reward, can you remember that? Jeremiah, you stay back; don’t you come on my lane. You stay back in the field. I don’t want to see your goddamn faces again till you do the job right. Do I have to go all that ways myself, a man sixty-five or more years old, would be retired like they do in the city if I was a regular man? Yes, would be retired with money coming in, a check, every month—Ma, you stay back, this ain’t anything of yours! And say to Motley you want your reward, and let him give it to you—one hunnert a man—then fire at him and that’s that. How much money you make from it?”

Sweet Gum said, so fast he surprised himself, “A hunnert a man.”

“How much?”

Sweet Gum’s brain reeled and clicked. “A hunnert-fifty a man and a gun for me. And a horse for Jeremiah.”

“Put in a horse for you and another one for Jeremiah. That’s that.” The old man spat maliciously toward them. “Now, get the hell back to the car. You got some work to do with Motley.”

“Yes, thank you, that’s right, Uncle Simon,” Jeremiah said. He gulped at air. “We’re on the way to do it. Two horses? Which one is the other? The red mare or what?”

“Your pick,” the old man said. He turned sullenly away as if he had forgotten about them. Sweet Gum wanted to laugh out loud—it had been so easy. He did laugh, he heard himself with alarm, and felt at the same time something begin to twitch in his face. It twitched again: a muscle around his eye. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before, yet he understood that the twitch, and probably the breathless giggle, would be with him for life.

Jeremiah’s jalopy broke down on the return trip, without drama: it just rolled to a stop as if it had died. Jeremiah got out and kicked it in a fury and tore off the fender and part of the bumper; but Sweet Gum just stood quietly and watched, and by and by Jeremiah joined him. They strolled along the road for a while. Sweet Gum noticed how Jeremiah’s fingers kept twitching.

Though they were on a U.S. highway, there was not much traffic—when a car appeared Sweet Gum would stand diffidently by the road and put up his hand, without apparent purpose, as if he were ready to withdraw it at any moment. After an hour or two an automobile stopped, as if by magic; the man said he was driving right through Plain Dealing.

When they arrived in front of Motley’s house it was supper-time. Sweet Gum and Jeremiah went up the driveway; Jeremiah took out his pistol and looked at it, for some reason, and Sweet Gum did the same—he noticed that he had one bullet left. Hiding a yawn, Jeremiah approached the porch and peered in the window: there the family sat, or at least the woman and children, arguing about something so that their faces took on slanted, vicious expressions. Jeremiah stood staring in the window until someone—the oldest boy—happened to see him. The boy’s face jerked, his features blurred together, his bony arm jerked up as if he were accusing Jeremiah of something. Then the woman caught sight of him and, pulling her dress somehow, straightening the skirt, came to the door. “Whatcha got there? He’s in town right now. You them clowns come out here before, ain’t you?” The woman looked ready to laugh. “Nat told me about you; says you were kidding him with play-guns. How come I don’t know you? Nat says—”

“Where is he?” said Jeremiah.

“In town,” the woman said. “He’s at the club, probably. That’s the Five Aces Club, acrost from the bank. He tole me not to wait on him tonight so I didn’t, but he never tole me to expeck some guests for supper. As a fact, he never tells me much,” she laughed. “Bet you tell your wife where you are or whatcha doing or who’s coming out for supper. Bet you—”

“How do you spell that?” Jeremiah said patiently.

“Spell it? Huh? Spell what?”

“The place he’s at.”

“Acrost from the bank, the Five Aces—I don’t know, how do you spell five? It’s a number five, they got it on a sign; you know how five looks? That’s it.” Both Jeremiah and Sweet Gum nodded. “Then ‘Aces,’ that’s out there too—begins with A, A S or A C, then S on the end—it’s more than one. Acrost from the bank. But why don’t you come in and wait, he’ll be—”

“We surely thank you,” Jeremiah said with a faint smile, “but we got bus’ness to attend to. Maybe later on.”

It took them a while to walk back to town. Jeremiah’s fingers were busier than ever. Most of the time they were scratching at his head, then darting into his ears or nose and darting back out again. Sweet Gum walked behind so that his giggling would not annoy Jeremiah. They passed houses, farmers’ markets, a gas station with an old model-T out front filled with tires. They passed a diner that was boarded up, and the movie house, in front of which the boys with straw hats stood around smoking. When Sweet Gum and Jeremiah passed, the boys stared in silence; even the smoke from their cigarettes stiffened in the air.

Town began suddenly: a drug store, an old country store on a corner. In a clapboard shanty, a dentist’s office advertised in bright green paint. There were no sidewalks, so Jeremiah and Sweet Gum walked at the side of the road. “Down there looks like the bank,” Jeremiah said, waving his pistol at something ahead; Sweet Gum did not see it. They walked on. “We come a long way,” Jeremiah said in a strange remote voice, like a man embarking on a speech. “Done a lot this past week or however long it’s been. I never known till now that I was born for this life—did you? Thought it’d be for me like anyone else—a farm and cows maybe and a fambly to raise up and maybe chickens, the wife could take care of them; I mostly had the wife picked out, too. Won’t tell you which one. But now I know different. Now I see it was in me all along, from before I kilt them two men even—I thought I done that by accident, had too much to drink—something in a dream—but no, now I know better; now I got it clear.” A few cars passed them: people out for after-supper rides. A girl of about two, with thin blond hair, leaned out a window and waved sweetly at Sweet Gum. “Now I know,” Jeremiah said, so strangely that Sweet Gum felt embarrassed in spite of his confusion, “that there isn’t a person but wouldn’t like to do that, what I did. Or to set a place afire, say—any place—their own house even. Set it all afire, house and grass and trees alike, all the same. Was there ever a difference between a house people live in and trees outside that they name? Them trees make you name them, think up names for them as soon as you see them, what choice does a man have! Never no choice! Get rid of it all, fire it all up, all the things that bother you, that keep you from yourself, and people, too—and people, too—Sweet Gum, I got to tell you now, with us both coming so far like we did, that I’m your pa here, Iam, Jeremiah your pa after all these years, all the way from the beginning!”

They continued walking. Sweet Gum blinked once or twice. Jeremiah’s words bored through that tiny hole in the side of his head, flipped themselves around right side up to make sense: but Sweet Gum only hid a sudden laugh with his hand, stared at the sweaty back of Jeremiah’s old funeral suit, and thought aloud, “Is that so.” “That so, boy, all the way from the beginning,” Jeremiah said, stifling a yawn. “This-here is your own pa walking right in front of you.”

Sweet Gum should have said something, but he could not think of it and so let it pass. They were approaching the 5 Aces Club now, heading toward it as if it were a magnet. Sweet Gum heard voices behind him and glanced around: the group of boys was following them, idly and at a distance; a man in overalls had joined them, looking sour and disapproving. Sweet Gum forgot them as soon as he turned again. They passed a Laundromat with orange signs: OPEN 24 HOURS EACH DAY WASH 20¢ DRY 10¢. A few people were inside in spite of the heat. In the doorway children kicked at one another and did not even glance up at Jeremiah and Sweet Gum. Then there was a 5¢ IN 25¢ AND $ 1.00 STORE, gold letters on a red background, windows crowded and stuffed with merchandise; but it was closed. Then the club itself, coming so fast Sweet Gum’s eye twitched more than ever and he had to hold onto it with his palm to keep it from jumping out of his head. “Spose he’s in there,” Sweet Gum whimpered, “spose he gets to talking. Don’t let him talk. Please. Don’t let him. Shoot him right off. If I hear talk of horses or gun or twice as much money—”

The club had had a window at one time, a big square window like something in a shoe store, but now it was completely hidden by tin foil. There were advertisements for beer and cigarettes everywhere: beautiful pink-cheeked girls, men with black hair and big chests and clean white gleaming teeth. Long muscular thighs, smooth legs, slender ankles, silver-painted toenails, tatooed arms and backs of hands; and curly-haired chests and dimpled chests, chests bare and bronze in the sun, chests demurely proud in red polka-dot halters—everything mixed together! Faces channeled themselves out of blue skies and rushed at Sweet Gum with their fixed serene smiles. That there is heaven, Sweet Gum thought suddenly, with a certainty he had never before felt about life—as if, about to leave it, he might pass judgment on it. His stomach ached with silent sobs, as much for that lost heaven as for the duties of this familiar, demanding world.

Jeremiah had opened the door to the tavern. “You, Motley, come out here a minute.” Someone answered inside but Jeremiah went on patiently, “Motley. Some bus’ness outside.”

Jeremiah let the door close. Sweet Gum clutched at him. “Is he coming? Is he? Was that him inside?” he said. “Don’t let him talk none. Shoot him first or let me—shoot him—”

“We ain’t going to shoot him yet.”

“But what if he talks of more horses or another gun? What if—”

“He ain’t. Get back, now—”

“I’m going to shoot him—”

“Goddamn you, boy, you stand back,” Jeremiah shouted.

“Why’s it always you at the center of trouble? Any goddamn thing that bothers me these days, you’re in the middle!”

“Don’t let him talk none. If he—”

“We got to talk to him. Got to tell him we come for the reward.”

“Reward?” Sweet Gum’s sobs broke through to the surface. “Reward? I don’t remember none, what reward? What? He’s going to talk, going to—”

Jeremiah pushed him away and opened the door again. “Motley!” he yelled. Sweet Gum’s head was so clamoring with voices that he could not be sure if he heard anyone answer. “He’s coming, guess it’s him,” Jeremiah said vaguely. “Stand back now, boy, and don’t you do no reckless shooting your pa will have to clean up after—”

“I’m going to shoot him,” Sweet Gum cried, “or he’ll talk like before—If he talks and we hear him we got to go back and be in the field again. We got to hide there. And Aunt Clarey, I always loved her so, how it’s for her to see us hiding there? Even if she can’t see much. If he comes out and talks we got to—”

“Boy, I’m telling you!”

“Don’t you call me boy!”

The door opened suddenly, angrily. Sweet Gum raised his pistol, took a giant step backward, and was about to shoot when a stranger appeared in the doorway, a big pot-bellied bald man with a towel used for an apron tucked in his belt. “What the hell—” the man roared.

Sweet Gum, shocked, staggered back. Inside his head the clamoring arose to a mighty scream and, in defense, he turned to Jeremiah. Everything focused on Jeremiah, the sun itself seemed to glare on his bulging eyes. Sweet Gum cried: “You! It was you I been hunting these twenty years!” But somehow in his confusion he had turned around, or half around, and when he fired he did not shoot Jeremiah at all, or any man at all, but instead a woman—a stranger, a stocky woman with a sunburned, pleasant, bossy face, dressed in jeans and a man’s dirty white shirt. She fell right onto the basket of damp laundry she was carrying. Blood burst out of nowhere, onto the clothes, and also out of nowhere appeared two children, shrieking and screaming.

Sweet Gum backed away. A crowd, an untidy circle, was gathering about the fallen woman. Sweet Gum, dazed, put the barrel of the pistol to his lips and stared, still backing away, stumbling. He had been cheated: he could not get things clear: his whole life had flooded up to this moment and now was dammed and could not get past, everything was over. He could have wept for the end of his young life (mistakenly, as it turned out, for in less than three years he would be working downriver at the tomato canning factory, making good money), spilled here on the dirt road, splashing and sucked away, while everyone stood around gawking.