The Butterfly - James M. Cain [26]
When I got to the creek I took the empty shell out of my gun, threw it in the water, and put a fresh one in the chamber. Then I cut a switch and peeled it, and rammed a piece of my handkerchief through the bore, to clean it, so it hadn't been fired since it was loaded. Then I went down and pitched it on the truck and started over to Blount, to tell Wash what Moke had told me. I was already halfway over there, before it came to me what it meant, if what he said was true.
She wasn't my daughter any more!
Chapter 11
I cut my lights, ran in behind the old filling station again, and hid the truck like I had before. I crept on up the road without making any noise, and the first thing I did was look in the barn and the stable, and all the stock was inside, but they weren't bellowing or anything, and that meant they'd all been fed and the cows milked. I crept on up to the house and peeped in the front room. I peeped in the back room and Jane was there, with Danny in her lap, but no sign of Kady. Pretty soon Danny began to cry, and when Jane bent over him and began to rock him I saw she was crying too. "Little baby, that's always been treated so bad! Ever since his first day on earth he's been put on and stolen and left all alone and kicked around. Don't cry, little boy. Don't you mind a bit, my little Danny. I'm here. I'll always be here, and I'll always love you no matter what your mother does or your father does or anybody does."
It made a lump come in my throat, but I went down to the truck and got in and drove to town. When I got near the White Horse I parked, and went to a window and looked in. She was there, like I knew she would be, dancing with a man I had never seen, and plenty drunk, by her looks. I rubbed my hands on my coat, to wipe off the sweat, and went inside. I didn't pay any attention to her. I went to a booth and sat down. When a waiter came I ordered a drink and when he brought it I took a sip. Pretty soon I could feel her standing beside me. "Well this is quite a surprise."
"Oh. Hello, Kady."
"What are you doing here, Jess?"
"Just having me a corn and Coca-Cola."
"Since when did you take a drink?"
"Sometimes you need it."
"When, for instance?"
"Like when you expect to give a girl away, at her wedding, and she runs out on you and leaves you holding the bag there at the church and don't even come around to tell you why, then you feel like you could drink quite a little."
"You were at the church?"
"If you were eloping, why couldn't you tell me?"
"I didn't elope."
"All right then, get married somewhere else."
"Does it look like I got married?"
I cut out the thick talk then and really looked at her, and made her sit down across the table from me, and ordered her a drink.
"Kady, we got our lines crossed somehow. I been sick all afternoon, that you would just go off and leave me after all we'd been to each other, but if you didn't get married, it don't square up with what I thought. What happened?"
"We'll begin with what happened to you."
"Nothing happened to me."
"You were to follow us in to town in the truck, and instead of that you just disappeared and I can't get it out of my head that you doing that has some connection with what happened to me."
"Didn't you see me wigwag?"
"I didn't see anything."
"I went down to get myself a flower to put in my buttonhole from the woods across the creek, and I slipped on a stone and got mud on my shoe. If it was some other time I'd have given it a brush and a grease, but for your wedding I wanted a shine. But when I got back to the house Liza Minden was there, and I knew if she ever saw me I'd be an hour getting her to go, so I went inside and went to the window, where I was behind her and you could see me, and wigwagged at you I was going to town now, instead of later."
"If you did, I didn't notice it."
"You were looking right at me, and nodded."
"Why did you take the gun?"
"Just in case."
"Case of what?"
"After what they did yesterday at the funeral how did I know what they might try? It didn't cost