This Side of Jordan (17 page)

The teenage girl was both fascinated and appalled by the dwarf. It was clear she had never encountered such a creature and found his presence at her supper table intriguing. They sat across from each other, beside Alvin and May Jerome's father, catty-corner to her mother, and Chester Burke. Pork roast and sweet corn, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, rutabaga and biscuits occupied the center of the table.

Rascal talked and ate simultaneously, half a biscuit in one hand, a silver fork in the other. “Well then, after he showed me the medal he won at San Juan Hill, I brought him into my bedroom and took out my collection of Indian arrowheads dug up at camp one summer on the shores of the Belle Fourche River. He was so impressed, he shook my hand and promised me a certificate of merit if I ever visited Washington.”

“How wonderful!” said Mr. Jerome, a big cigar in his hand. “Your family must've been very proud. I hear Teddy cut quite a figure in his day.”

Rascal nodded. “Yes, indeed. In truth, he and I got along famously. Had he lived longer, I'm certain we'd have become great friends. We had so much in common.”

The dwarf took a sip of lemonade and chewed off another piece of biscuit. He smiled at May Jerome, and she blushed. Alvin listened, but he had no appetite of his own. The dwarf didn't know yet what had occurred inside the bank. Alvin did, and it made him sick and desolate, afraid even to speak for fear of revealing his revulsion over what he had witnessed. He had let Chester bully and beat that poor clerk without offering a word in the fellow's defense. He had proven himself gutless and was thoroughly ashamed. If God worsened the consumption for his complicity, Alvin wouldn't kick about it. Even coughing his guts out would be less than he deserved.

“You must tell your Teddy Roosevelt story to our boy when he gets home,” Mr. Jerome said to Rascal. “When Jonathan was growing up, the president was one of his heroes. I remember when he was about six or so, he cut a section of tail off my wife's favorite roan to fashion a mustache, which he glued to his upper lip. Naturally, she did not find it amusing,” he smiled at Mrs. Jerome, “but the rest of us were in hysterics for a week. Jonathan looked so darling.”

Rascal leaned forward and snatched another biscuit off the serving plate and put it on his plate. Buttering it, he offered another anecdote similar to Mrs. Jerome's, substituting Teddy Roosevelt's mustache for Kaiser Wilhelm's. Everybody laughed but Alvin who had already heard the story twice before. Instead, his interest was distracted now by May whose olive-green eyes bored holes in his heart. The late sunlight sparkled in them, and glowed on her pale skin. Even riddled with guilt, he thought he might be falling in love.

“Look here, Buddy,” Mr. Jerome began, looking Alvin in the eye, “I must say, the idea of you working that farm by yourself does my heart good. The pioneer spirit's in some decline today, but a young fellow like yourself taking on that sort of responsibility makes me feel mighty encouraged.”

The farm boy barely mumbled, “Thank you, sir.” His enthusiasm for prolonging Chester's gag had evaporated and he wished Jerome would forget they had ever met. In fact, he'd rather not say another word about that bank business for the rest of his life, however brief that might be.

Mr. Jerome puffed at his cigar. “No, I thank you, young man. Pride's a divisible commodity, isn't it? I like to think that your good fortune's an inspiration we can all share.”

Buttering his biscuit, Rascal added, “A man is more fairly measured by his efforts than his accomplishments.” Then he stuffed the biscuit into his mouth.

“Well spoken,” replied Mr. Jerome, flicking the ash off his cigar onto a small dish beside his dinner plate.

“Actually, Buddy plans on selling if he gets a good price,” Chester said, removing the cloth napkin from his lap and dumping it on his supper plate. “Fact is, the boy's sick of farming, but didn't want his uncle to know it. Now that the old fellow's dead, what Buddy'd like to do is move off the farm to the Big Town while he can still wash the smell of chicken shit off himself. Pardon my French.”

“My goodness,” Mrs. Jerome muttered, clearly shocked at Chester's language. May averted her eyes while suppressing a grin with her napkin. Rascal winked at her and swallowed his fifth biscuit. Staring out into the backyard where a chicken strutted about in the dirt, Alvin considered excusing himself to go outdoors. He needed to piss.

Chester eased his chair back from the table.

“Is that true, Buddy?” said Mr. Jerome, putting his cigar down, “You're planning to sell? Why, I wouldn't advise—”

The doorbell rang.

“Excuse me,” May said, then leaped up and hurried out of the room through the folds of the crimson portière.

“Are we expecting someone, dear?” Mr. Jerome asked his wife.

She shook her head. “No, I don't believe so.”

At the window, a string of crystal prisms suspended in front of the glass clinked lazily together in the draft from the hallway. Rascal grabbed another biscuit and buttered it. Chester took the watch out of his pocket, flipped it open, and checked it against the wall clock. Alvin played nervously with his soupspoon, tapping it softly on his plate. His heart was thumping and he felt vaguely feverish and wanted to lie down. He muffled a rattling cough with the cloth napkin. Maybe he'd die tonight.

The tasseled portière divided and May walked back into the room. “Daddy,” she said, “Mr. Hancock's here to see you. Shall I ask him in?”

“Certainly.”

She left again.

“George Hancock's got an insurance business down the block from your new bank,” Mr. Jerome told Alvin. “He's a swell fellow. I'll introduce you.”

“Why would he come all the way out here so late in the day?” Mrs. Jerome asked her husband. She still looked disturbed by Chester's remark.

“If you'll sit there a moment, dear, I expect we'll find out.”

“These insurance fellows,” Chester chuckled, looking Mrs. Jerome straight in the eye. “You sure got to hand it to 'em. They get their split, all right, though it beats me how they do it. Maybe I'm stepping in too deep, but when I look at their rake-off at the end of the month, sometimes I think I'm in the wrong racket.”

He checked his watch again as May was followed into the dining room by a thin, balding man wearing a striped-brown worsted suit. Mr. Jerome shoved his chair back and stood up. So did Chester. The dwarf whispered something to himself, and set his butter knife down.

“Hancock!” Mr. Jerome said, grabbing the man's hand and shaking it. “What brings you out here tonight?”

“Perhaps you ought to introduce our guests, dear?” his wife suggested. She smiled at Rascal, and sipped from her water glass. The dwarf had sliced his last biscuit into five identically sized triangles and arranged them on his plate in the shape of a star.

“Of course. Hancock, this young man here,” said Mr. Jerome, pointing to Alvin, “is Buddy McCoy, our newest customer, and his business associates Mr. Wells, and, uh,—”

“Name's Rascal,” said the dwarf, bouncing up. He stood on his chair and reached forward across the table to shake hands with Hancock. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise,” replied Hancock, disconcerted somewhat by Rascal's odd choice of clothes and general appearance. He looked back at Mr. Jerome. “Wally, I'm afraid I've got some terrible news.”

“Oh?”

“Your bank was held up this afternoon,” Hancock glanced at the women, then lowered his voice, “and whoever did it killed Howard, shot him in the head.”

“Good God!”

Mrs. Jerome let out a gasp and sank into her chair. May, who'd been whispering with Rascal, went silent. Alvin felt the blood drain out of his face. His eyes watered and he stared down at his plate. He thought he might puke again. Chester lifted a toothpick from a vest pocket.

Hancock said, “The safe was cleaned out of cash. All they left were stocks and bonds.”

Chester jumped up. “Good grief, that's Buddy's inheritance! Five thousand dollars!”

“Now, wait just a minute!” Mr. Jerome said, confusion on his face, “Let me think a minute here. When did this happen?”

“We were there until a quarter past four,” said Chester, “and we didn't see anybody at all. Your fellow locked up after we left.”

“The back door wasn't locked,” Hancock countered. “Edna was supposed to meet Howard outside at four-thirty. When he wasn't there, she tried knocking, then found the back door unlocked and went right in. He was in your office, face down, a pillow covering his head, blood all over the floor.”

“Lord Almighty!”

Alvin felt like choking now. His fingerprints were all over Chester's crime. This was the end of him, for sure, and he deserved it.

Hancock said to Mr. Jerome, “The marshals are driving over from Kelsey. Meanwhile, we're advising folks to stay indoors and keep an eye out for strangers riding around.”

“We're expected in Norman by noon tomorrow,” said Chester, sliding the toothpick into his mouth. “We've got a business appointment at National Bank. A late arrival would put us in a jam.”

“Howard's dead?” asked Mr. Jerome, apparently the fact of it not yet settled in his brain. He looked at Alvin, who lowered his eyes and looked away. The farm boy felt like a snake in the grass.

“Shot in the head,” Hancock affirmed. “Killed like an animal on the floor of the bank.”

Mrs. Jerome excused herself from the table and left the room, her daughter in tow. At the supper table, Chester complained about the lack of security at the bank and the loss of “Buddy's” family's hard-earned funds. Rascal offered to send a telegraph back to New York City for summoning detectives from the Pinkerton Agency, men with whom his family had dealt for years on a variety of secret cases. Then he left the table and disappeared into the rear of the house, presumably to the water closet behind the kitchen.

Alvin slipped away outdoors.

It was almost pleasant now. Along the prairie horizon, twilight darkened the Nebraska sky. A barking Irish setter chased a chicken into the barn and shot away again, on the run elsewhere. May came out onto the porch and sat in a wooden swing, looking west toward the prairie. Alvin walked over toward her and stared across the yard. This ruse was cruel and he felt ashamed to be part of it, but was too afraid to admit his guilt, so he said nothing.

“I'm sorry you lost your money,” May told him as she swayed gently in the swing. Her eyes were soft with tears. “I'm sure my father will do everything he can to get it back for you.”

Alvin nodded and leaned against the porch railing. The sky was a reddish-purple on its western edge, lingering color before the dark. In the distance, a flock of sparrows soared over the prairie toward a grain silo on the next farm.

“I think stealing is awful,” May continued, “particularly when it's from people who've worked their whole lives to save up. My father says those aren't men at all, but mad dogs who ought to be rounded up and hung like horse thieves. He says violence is all their kind understand. Fight fire with fire.”

Alvin nodded again, having no real idea what to say. He watched the dusk-wind flutter in her hair, saw the sunlight at the end of the day glisten in her eyes. The Irish setter barked out back of the barn, howling at drifting shadows in the empty fields.

May got up off the swing and went forward to the railing just away from Alvin. She watched her dog cross under the fence and romp into the wheat. She shouted to him, “Max! Maximilian!” Hunting in the wild fields, the setter ignored her, preferring to run.

“I got a dog at home,” said Alvin, after May stopped calling.

“You do?”

“He's a bloodhound, chases squirrels and rabbits. Or at least, he used to. He can barely shuffle down off the porch nowadays. He's getting on, I guess.”

“What's his name?”

“Red.”

“That's nice.”

“My daddy picked it out, on account of Red's got big old red eyes.”

May nodded and looked back out to the west. “I love animals. Mother and Father do, too. That's why we moved out here from town. I wanted to have a horse, so Father bought me Tillie. She was a Paint. I rode her everywhere—to town and back, over to my friend Nellie's, everywhere. She just died last year. We buried her over there behind the barn.”

“I seen men riding horses across the Mississippi in the dark once.”

“How cruel!”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, those poor animals. They must've been terrified.”

“I don't know.” Alvin shrugged, feeling a strange chill. “It was dark.”

Both May and Alvin put their backs to the wind. When Alvin turned his head again to cough, Rascal was walking out from behind the house with a chicken in his arms. The dwarf was humming to him self while scratching the chicken's beak with his right forefinger. Just outside the barn door, the chicken leaped from the dwarf's grasp and ran for the fence. Rascal gave chase. Scared by his pursuit, the chicken changed direction and flew back into the middle of the yard. Rascal ran hard after it, knees bent almost to the dirt, arms outstretched wide, clucking with his tongue, acting crazy. He dove at the chicken and missed. It scurried across the yard and up onto a fencepost, screeching with fright.

The screen door opened and Chester came out, followed by Han cock and Mr. Jerome. He put his hat on while surveying the yard out front and told the farm boy, “We're leaving.”

Hancock drew a pocketwatch from his vest, checked the hour, and mumbled something to Mr. Jerome that Alvin was unable to hear. Chester turned back to the other men and shook hands with both of them. He flicked the toothpick away and walked down the steps and headed for the Packard.

“I guess I got to get along,” Alvin said to May, reluctant to leave. He decided she was the prettiest girl he had ever met. He tipped his cap. “Pleased to have made your acquaintance.”