North Dallas Forty (43 page)

Authors: Peter Gent

“Fight, you son of a bitch!” I screamed at the huddled man. I stood over him crying and hitting him with my good fist. “Fight, goddam you.”

I ran into the kitchen to get a knife. My chest started to close and I couldn’t breathe. I started to sob uncontrollably. I sank to the kitchen floor and threw up.

I lay in the kitchen for a long time. Suddenly Beaudreau appeared in the doorway. He was straightening his tie and smoothing out his coat. Blood was still running from the cut over his eye and the shoulder of his coat was caked with blood from the wound behind his ear. The gun was stuck in his belt.

Beaudreau stared at me lying on the floor, then shook his head and walked over to the wall phone.

“Man,” he said, lifting the receiver and starting to dial, “you’re crazy.”

It was dark by the time the sheriff’s deputies had finished their investigation. Beaudreau had been led away, his face still bleeding, and the bodies had been taken to the white and colored funeral homes in Lacota.

After they had finished questioning me and one of the ambulance drivers had taped my finger, I went out and sat in the barn. I didn’t cry, I didn’t even think, I just sat there. The Brangus steer eyed me curiously from a nearby stall.

The sheriff’s car was the only one left in the yard, besides the Riviera, when I returned from the barn. The sheriff was standing, fat and brown, with his alligator-booted foot on the bumper of his Ford.

“That boy a frien’ a yern?”

“Nope.”

“Well, we found a lotta marywana in the gal’s room, and what with him findin’ her with the nigger. If he jest buy hisself a good lawyer he’ll probably be all right.” The sheriff’s face wrinkled into a thoughtful frown. “Pretty girl like that,” he said, shaking his head. “How could she do it?”

The sheriff dropped his foot from the bumper and walked around to the driver’s side of the Ford. “Be seein’ ya,” he said with a short wave.

He wadded himself behind the wheel and started the car. Instantly the night was ablaze with his red and blue flashers. He started to pull away and then stopped, reminded of something. He rolled down his window.

“Hey,” he yelled at me, “good luck next Sunday.”

He roared off down the gravel road. I heard the tires squeal as he hit the main road and stomped on the gas. The whine of his siren hung in the damp night air. When the siren faded, there was no sound at all.

I walked over and leaned against the corner of the corral. I looked out over the silent rolling pasture and waited, listening for sounds of life in the distance.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to quote from the following songs:

cover design by Milan Bozic

978-1-4532-2071-9

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media

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