Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, the Butterfly (62 page)

Nobody said anything. I said Moke had the same butterfly on his stomach that Danny had, that only the men in his family were born with it, and that Kady didn’t have it but the boy did, and they didn’t even bother to wake Danny up to look, where he was stretched out on the desk, with Jane’s hat over his eyes to keep the light out. I was sunk, and I knew it, and Kady was sunk, and I knew that too. Until, all of a sudden, I happened to look at Ed Blue, and the look on his face told me I wasn’t sunk, that I was going to win, that I’d rip it right out of him, what I had to have to be turned loose. The judge got ready to wind up the case. “Well, Tyler, until you get Moke Blue in court and produce some sort of direct substantiation of what you say, I’m afraid I’ll have to regard it as a farfetched invention to escape the consequences of several serious crimes, so—”

“I can’t get him up here.”

“Why not?”

“He’s afraid to come.”

“What’s he afraid of?”

“That I’ll kill him.”

“Why would he be afraid of that?”

He was looking at me like I was making a fool of myself and didn’t know it but he would give me all the chance I wanted, and that was just how I wanted him to feel. “Because I ordered him off the creek when he tried to kill me, with a rifle that was lent him to do it with by this lying rat that’s come in here to testify against me, that’s his half brother
and that has the same butterfly on his stomach this child has and that he’s not saying anything about because he wants me sent up for something I didn’t do!”

If you think that don’t set off a bombshell in that courtroom,
you don’t know what a judge feels like when he thinks somebody has been trying to put something over on him. He was so sore I thought he’d hit Ed. He had him take off his shirt, and unbuttoned Danny’s little suit himself, so gentle it was like he was his own son. And on Ed, sure enough, was the butterfly, all fixed up with curlicue feelers and red border, from the time he fired on the railroad and a tattoo man in Norfolk had fixed him up, or so he told the court.

“And this half brother of yours, this Moke Blue, has this butterfly too?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Do you want to be charged with perjury too?”

“Yes sir, he has it.”

“And only the men in your family have it?”

“I heard so.”

The judge drummed on the desk with his fingers, then leaned over and whispered with the prosecutor. Then: “Tyler, in the light of this piece of evidence, I’m not at all sure that I’m convinced of your innocence. Morally, it seems to me there was something queer about your failure to tell this girl of her parentage, and let her go on thinking she was guilty of something that must have struck her as utterly loathsome. But I am convinced that if these birthmarks are shown to a jury, whether Moke Blue can be located or not, it is going to be impossible to get them to convict you. So I’m dismissing the charge. But God help you if you’re in trouble, on the basis of new evidence, in connection with this case again.”

“I won’t be. I’m not guilty.”

“That reminds me: Why did you enter your plea of guilty in the first place? That still seems a queer thing to do.”

“I told you, I didn’t want her to know.”

“About Moke Blue being her father?”

“That’s it.”

“You must indeed be in love with her.”

“I might be.”

C H A P T E R

15

For the next week she hardly looked at me, and stayed on in the back room, while I stayed on at the stable. But she kept studying Danny and the butterfly, and you could tell she was trying to get used to it, what it meant. And then one day before the fire, while Jane was out back cooking supper, she picked him up in her arms, and said: “My little boy.” She said it over and over, with tears shining in her eyes and running down her face. After that she began taking care of him, and wouldn’t let Jane do anything at all. Then was when she began to notice me again, and watch me, like she was studying about something. And then one morning, just before daylight, she came down to the stable with a lantern, and I had a wild idea she had come to make up and be my wife. But she wasn’t thinking of that, even a little bit. She hadn’t undressed from the night before, and set the lantern down, and sat on my bunk with it shining up on her face, so I could see it but couldn’t see her eyes. “Jess, ever since that night in the courtroom, I’ve been thinking back, trying to remember how it all was, and specially that’s what I’ve been doing tonight. And there’s one thing I’ve got to know.”

“I’ll tell you anything I can.”

“When did you first know Moke was my father?”

“Before you were born, even.”

“And how did you know?”

“I knew I wasn’t.”

“You mean there had been nothing between you and Belle for some time and that meant somebody else had to be my father and you figured it had to be Moke?”

“That’s it.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Maybe Belle wouldn’t let him.”

“What reason could she have for not letting him?”

“Ashamed, maybe.”

“Or maybe she didn’t know it.”

“If I knew it, she had to.”

“Not if only the men in that family had the butterfly. I haven’t got it. Maybe neither of them knew it until Danny came and they saw the birthmark. Maybe that’s why they began to fight. Maybe that’s why Moke took Danny. Maybe that’s why Bell tried to kill him, to keep him from saying anything to me about it.”

“I tell you, if I knew it—”

“Jess, there’s a simple answer to that.”

“What is it?”

“You might be lying to me. Right now. About knowing it before I was born, about how it was between you and Belle then, and all the rest of it.”

“I might be an Indian, but I’m not.”

She stretched out on top of the blankets and stared up at the harness that was hanging on pegs over our heads, and it was quite a while before she said anything. “Jess, you
are
lying.”

“If you think so, all right.”

“You didn’t know it when we were up there in the mine every day, running liquor, and in town every night, selling it.”

“What makes you think I didn’t?”

“The passes I was making.”

“I fought you off.”

“But why?”

“Didn’t you hear me in court? I was married.”

“Jess, don’t make me laugh.”

“That’s funny to you, being married?”

“Jess, the way you wanted me, being married wouldn’t have meant any more to you than nothing. And what are you trying to tell me? You hadn’t seen Belle for eighteen years, and just because you hadn’t taken the trouble to get a divorce, and she hadn’t, you think I’m going to believe it you were still worrying about being married? But laying up with your own daughter, that would be something else. That would be something you would think you had to fight. That would mean plenty to you on Sunday, when you were going to church and singing the hymns and worrying about hell-fire after you die. Jess, why don’t you own up to it? At that time you thought I was your daughter.”

“I own up to nothing.”

It began to get light, and still she lay there, and after a while she said: “And you didn’t know I wasn’t your daughter that day Belle was dying.”

“You seem to have it all figured out.”

“That detective work you were doing, about why she tried to do something to Moke. If you knew about this, why couldn’t you figure that out? But you never once thought of it.”

“I told you, I thought you already knew it, only you hadn’t said anything to me about it. Later, when I found out you didn’t know it, then I began to get it, why she went out of her head so, on that trip up here.”

“And you didn’t know it my wedding day!”

“Our wedding day.”

“Our wedding day, my eye. I’ve only had one wedding day, and it wasn’t ours. But you, you’re lying to me if you say you knew it that morning. You weren’t married any more, and yet you were willing I should marry Wash, and glad of it. For your daughter, that makes sense. But for Moke’s daughter? A girl that was no relation to you at all, and that you wanted so bad
you couldn’t sleep nights? Oh no, Jess. That day was the day you found it out. I thought then there was some connection between the way you disappeared and Wash not showing up, and now God help me I have the same feeling.”

“No connection I know of.”

“And Moke hasn’t been seen since that day. Maybe there’s some connection there too. If you saw him, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to forget Moke.”

“Why didn’t you tell Ed Blue?”

“I still wanted to forget him.”

“Seems funny you didn’t snap it into Ed Blue’s face about the rifle and how you warned Moke off the creek, like you told the judge.”

“Let him look for his rifle.”

“Where is the rifle?”

“I threw it in the creek.”

“Where’s Moke?”

“How should I know?”

“Jess, you killed Moke, didn’t you?”

The prickle up my back had told me what she was going to say, but for once my mouth went off and left me. I said something. I hollered no, but it was after at least three seconds of trying to act surprised, like I didn’t know what she was talking about. She was already laughing at me not being able to make up my mind when this croak came out of my throat, a cold, hard laugh that had my number, and knew it.

When I went in for breakfast, it was she that gave it to me. When Jane came in she was dressed to go out, with her hat on, and a coat.

“Well, Jess, I’ll say good-by.”

“Where you going?”

“Blount, I guess.”

“You mean you’re leaving me?”

“I’m not really needed any more, now that Kady takes care
of Danny so well, and there’s a fellow over there that’s offered me a job in his café, helping him run it. It’s time I took him up.”

“Kind of sudden, isn’t it?”

“Oh I’ve been thinking about it.”

But she said it all in a queer way, fooling with her bag while she talked, and it seemed to me she was going for some special reason she wasn’t telling me. “Then I’ll run you over there.”

“I’m taking the bus.”

“I’ll run you to the state road.”

“I can walk.”

“You need any money?”

“I’ve got some.”

On account of waking up early I felt tired that afternoon, and how long I slept I don’t know, but Kady was standing there when I woke up, all dressed up, looking at me. “Good-by, Jess.”

“And where are
you
going?”

“To be married.”

“When?”

“Next week some time.”

“You
are
married. Did you forget that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then how can you get married?”

“Next week I’ll be able to.”

“That I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

“And who’s the lucky man?”

“Wash.”

“Changed his mind again, hey?”

“He found out the truth, at last. Jane called him when she got to Blount. In fact, that might be partly why she went over there.”

“I knew she wasn’t telling me the reason.”

“She called him and he came in and was crazy to know what had happened up here, because it was on the radio when you
were arrested but not in the papers when they turned you loose, because if nobody gets convicted they’re afraid. So she told him what you told the judge, and he ran her back over here again. Jess, you told him Moke was Danny’s father. You told me he was
my
father. And both were lies. You’re my father. But you don’t tell any third lie. You got that, Jess? You understand why next week I can get married?”

“You’ll get into plenty trouble that way.”

“We don’t think so.”

“I tell you, the deputies will find out, sure.”

“We’re going to tell them.”

It seemed funny, she was never going to believe the truth, and I had killed the one man that could prove it. And when they heard what she thought was the truth, no jury would hold her for what she meant to do to me.

Outside it had started to rain, and when I peeped through a crack she was running down the road to his car, that had the top up, and inside I could see Jane and the baby. She got in and the car drove off. I went to the cabin for my rifle. It wasn’t there, and neither was the .45. I put on my hat and coat and started down to the barn, to get out the truck and run into Carbon to get sheriffs protection. But when I got to the door a shot cut the air, and splinters ripped off the wood. I started back to the house, and another shot clipped my hat. I slammed down on my face, and when it got darker I crawled. Out in the stable I could hear the stock bellowing, and down the creek the cows were hooking it up, but I was afraid to go outside. Later on, after I had made myself something to eat without stirring up the fire, for fear they were looking through the cracks and could see, I got all my money together and put on my raincoat and started creeping down the road. All over, you could hear bellowing from pigs and mules and chickens and cows that hadn’t been fed or milked or attended to. I got about two hundred yards when something hit my leg and I heard a shot. I crawled back, doused it with liniment, and got the blood stopped.