Deliverance - James Dickey [100]
over the place and then several layers of gauze, and then tape, expertly, letting the air come through. When I got up, the wound was not so stiff, and my side bad begun to be a part of me again; though it still hurt, and hurt badly, it was not pulling against me at every move. "Will you follow me over and drive me back?" She nodded. At Drew's house his horned little boy in a cub scout uniform opened the door. I went in with the car keys in my hand while Pope went to get Mrs. Ballinger. I stood there, surrounded by Drew's things, the walls full of tape recorders and record cabinets, the sales awards and company citations. The keys in my hand were jangling. "Mrs. Ballinger," I said, as she came at me, "Drew has been killed." It was as though I had said it to stop her, to keep her from getting at me. It stopped her. One hand came up slowly, almost dreamingly, from her side and went to her mouth, and the other came over it, to hold it down. Behind her fingers her head shook in a small, intense movement of disbelief. "He was drowned," I said. "Lewis broke his leg. Bobby and I were just lucky. We could have all been killed." She held her mouth. The keys jangled and rang. "I brought the car back." "So useless," she said, her voice filled with fingers. "So useless." "Yes, it was useless," I said. "We shouldn't have gone. But we did. We did." "Such a goddamned useless way to die." "I guess every way is useless," I said. "Not this useless." "We stayed as long as they needed us up there, looking for the body. They're still looking. I don't think they'll find it, but they're looking." "Useless." "Drew was the best man we had," I said. "I'm so sorry. I'm so goddamned sorry. Is there anything I can do? I mean that. Can I ..." "You can get out of here, Mr. Gentry. You can get out of here and go find that insane friend of yours, Lewis Medlock, and you can shoot him. That's what you can do." "He's pretty badly hurt, himself. And he's just as sorry as I am. Please understand that. It's not his fault. It's the river's fault. It's our fault for going with him." "All right," she said from far off, from the future, from all the years coming up, and from the first night alone in bed. "All right, Ed. Nobody can do anything. Nobody can ever do anything. It's all so useless. Everything is useless. It always has been." I saw she was becoming speechless, but I tried one more thing. "Can I have Martha come over and stay with you for a couple of days?" "I don't want Martha. I want Drew." She broke, and I started toward her, but she shook her bead violently and I backed off, turned, put the keys on the coffee table beside the company history, and went out. As we drove home I wondered if it would have been any better if I'd been able to tell the truth. Would it be easier for her if I could tell her that Drew was lying in a wild stretch of the Cahulawassee with part of his head bashed in either by a bullet or a rock, sunk down with a stone and a bowstring, eddying a little back and forth, side to side with the motion of the water? I did not see how knowing that would help. The only possibility was that it might spark in her the animal mania for revenge, if he truly had been shot, and nothing more could be done about that than had already been done: no electric chair, no rope or gas chamber could avenge him better, or as well. Back at home I put an easy chair in front of the picture window and got a blanket and a pillow and sat looking out onto the street with the phone beside me all afternoon. I was shaking. Martha sat on the floor and put her head in my lap and held my hand, and then went and got a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses. "Baby," she said. "Tell me what it is. Is somebody after you?" "I don't know," I said. "I don't think so. But I'm not sure. Somebody may be after me. Also, the law may be after me. I've just got to tough it out. If nothing happens for a couple of weeks, I think we'll be all right." "Can't you tell me?" "No, I can't tell you now. Maybe I can't ever tell you." "Who cut you, Ed? Who cut my good man?" "I did it," I said.