Part 5 (2/2)
It wasn't the torn arteries, the punctured lungs, the ruptured organs, or the shattered bones that killed Queenie's husband. Carl Strickland drowned in Perdido water.
CHAPTER 34.
The Caskey Conscience
On the night that Carl Strickland fired wantonly into Oscar Caskey's house, the sheriff of Perdido was having a drink with friends across the state line in Florida. By the time that Charley Key returned to Perdido and heard about Carl Strickland's rampage, the Caskeys were surveying the damage. Key entered the house, gave a low whistle, looked at Oscar and said, ”Mr. Strickland did this? You positive?”
”Yes,” replied Oscar grimly.
”Is he still out there?”
”No, he's gone.”
”How you know that for sure?”
Zaddie was on the stairs, sweeping gla.s.s and splinters down, step by step. Elinor came out of the kitchen, holding her bandaged daughter in her arms. Frances, pale and distracted, clung tightly to her mother's neck.
”I know it for sure,” said Oscar, ”because Elinor went out the front and sneaked around to the levee.”
73.”I saw him take his guns and climb over the levee, and get in a boat,” Elinor added with no particular friendliness toward the sheriff. ”But he must have been drunk because the boat turned over in the water.”
”Miz Caskey, you were foolish to go out there! Look at what he did in here. You might have got yourself shot!” cried Sheriff Key.
”I had a gun,” Elinor said coldly. ”And the fact was, we didn't see the law crawling all over the house trying to protect us. Oscar was firing at Carl from our window, and I went out to get him from behind.”
”Did you shoot?”
”I didn't have to. The river got him. Sheriff,” Elinor went on, laying ironic stress upon the t.i.tle, ”Oscar and I appreciate your dropping by-and we're glad you waited till most of the excitement was over, earlier we wouldn't have had much of a chance to speak-but could you excuse us now, please? I've got to finish bandaging my little girl.”
”We're gone drag that river,” said Charley Key importantly. ”We're gone take care of Carl Strickland!” *
”Charley,” Oscar reminded him, ”that's exactly what I asked you to do a few weeks ago, but you couldn't be bothered. You didn't want to do me any favors. Well, right now, Queenie Strickland, still black and blue, is upstairs crying in the bedroom. My little girl here is all cut up with gla.s.s. Our house has every d.a.m.n window in it broken. And Carl Strickland is spinning round and round in the junction. Why don't you just go home and get some sleep?”
Zaddie swept a large pile of splintered wood and shattered gla.s.s between the bal.u.s.ters, and it fell to the hallway below with a musical crash and a cloud of dust.
Frances refused to return to the front room that night. Elinor was about to insist, but Zaddie in- 74.terceded for the child. ”Miss El'nor, she still scairt. Let her sleep with me.”
”You don't have more than a three-quarter bed, Zaddie!”
”I don't care, Mama!” cried Frances desperately, and was reluctantly allowed to sleep in the room behind the kitchen. It was made clear to her, however, that this indulgence was solely on account of Carl Strickland's attack.
Toward dawn, when the house was quiet again, and the children were asleep, Elinor and Oscar lay awake in their bed. A breeze off the river-smelling of both the water and the red clay of the levee-blew through the windows that had been shattered by Carl Strickland's gunfire.
”Can't sleep, Oscar?”
”No, I cain't.”
”Because of the excitement?”
”Yes, partly. I was thinking, Elinor.”
”Thinking what?”
”Thinking that what you told old Charley Key was a lie.”
”Course it was a lie,” returned Elinor quickly. ”You think I'm going to waste the truth on that nincomp.o.o.p?”
”What happened out there with you and Carl?”
Elinor didn't immediately reply. She turned over in the bed and put her arm across Oscar's chest.
”What do you think happened, Oscar?”
Oscar lay still a few moments. The dawn dimly lighted the room now.
”I don't know,” said Oscar. ”What you told Charley Key was a lie-you didn't have a gun. When you came back into the house, your nightgown was dripping river water. Your bare feet had Perdido mud on 'em. I knew you had been in the water, because when you walked back in the house, you brought the smell of that river back here with you. How you're 75.ever gone be able to wear that gown again, I don't know.”
Elinor snuggled closer to Oscar's side in the bed. She wound her arm around him and pressed her foot against his feet.
”Carl is dead,” she said in a low voice. ”I saw him drowned.”
”I believe you,” said Oscar. He lay staring at the ceiling. His arms were crossed behind his head on the pillow. ”I wish,” he went on, ”that when I was shooting out the window here, that I had blown Carl's head off. That's what I wish. He was firing at this house! He could have hit Frances or you or Queenie or any of us. I would have walloped his head off if I could have gotten close enough. Elinor?”
”What?”
”Did you cause Carl Strickland to die?”
She rubbed her thumb against his neck. ”Yes.”
”I thought so,” said Oscar, in a low sad voice. ”How'd you do it? How'd you get close enough to him without him shooting you?”
Elinor drew her leg across Oscar's legs and pressed her foot beneath his ankles. She was wound tightly around him.
”What if I tell you?” she said. ”Will you be mad?”
”Lord, no,” he said softly. ”I just said that 7 would have done it if I could have.”
”It was dark,” said Elinor. Her head was next to his on the pillow, and she spoke softly in his ear. ”He couldn't see me. I swam under the water and overturned his boat as he was going across.”
”Did he fight you?”
”No, he didn't even know I had done it,” said Elinor.
”Were you trying to kill him?”
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