The Butterfly - James M. Cain [31]
"You're what?"
"Going away. To Washington maybe. Some place."
"You mean you're leaving me?"
"I'm leaving you, and I'm taking Jane and Danny."
"But why?"
"You heard what happened this morning, and you saw how Jane carried on about it. I can't have any more of that. Maybe I've gone to hell, Jess, but I won't have her finding it out, and if she stays one more day on this creek she will. Somebody saw us, and somebody's spreading it."
"Maybe I won't let you go."
"I wasn't asking you."
"Maybe you forgot you're my wife."
"For God's sake, be your age."
I climbed down there to tell her the truth, but her eyes were just two slits in her face, and she looked cold. It came to me it wouldn't do any good to tell her. She wouldn't believe me, and there was no way in the world I could prove it.
"We're leaving today."
"You're in quite a hurry."
"I'm taking them away on the six o'clock bus out of Carbon City, and I'll thank you to drive us in there."
"Then all right."
***
Jane came to me just before we started, and she didn't have any idea what was going on, but she was unhappy about leaving me and tried to tell how much she thought of me. I felt that way too, and tried to figure some way I could keep on with Kady and square it up somehow with Jane. So I said maybe if I could sell the place I would go east myself, and she put her arms around me and said that would be wonderful. And whether I meant to take them to town I don't know, but I think I was going to have a breakdown on the state road, to stall it for one night, and in that time I might be able to think of something. But while we were still on the dirt road that runs beside the creek, we met a car coming up. It had two men in it, and when they saw us one of them raised his hand for me to stop.
"Are you Jess Tyler?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Sheriffs deputy."
He showed a badge and I said I wasn't saying who I was and if he wanted to know he had to find out some other way. "Well, there's a simple way to find out, Mr. Tyler. I just look at you and then I remember you from the time I made out papers on you once before. When you pretty near killed a man. Remember?"
"What do you want?"
"Serve a warrant for your arrest."
"What for?"
"Incest, this says."
"That's a lie."
"If it's a lie, then all you got to do is prove it to the court. My job is to serve papers. Is this your daughter Kady?"
"I told you, find out for yourself."
"Miss Tyler, I remember you too, and I have a court order here for your detention as a material witness. Now then, how shall we do about the truck? Mr. Tyler, do you want me to drive in to Carbon with you, or would you and your daughters prefer to ride with the other deputy while I take your truck wherever you want it or have you got some idea of your own?"
"My other daughter will drive it."
"Then we're set."
Kady and I got out and got in the other car and neither of us said anything to Jane at all. But out of the corner of my eye I could see her sitting there in the sun, the baby on her lap staring at us.
Chapter 14
When the deputy brought me to court, Jane was waiting, with Danny on her shoulder, trying to keep him quiet where he was crying because it was away past his bedtime. A whole bunch of people were there, because the Carbon City radio had put out about the arrest on the seven o'clock broadcast, and half the people in town came running over to the courthouse for the hearing. My case hadn't been called yet, and while I was standing in the hall with the deputy, Jane came running over. "How could you do this to her, Jess?"
The deputy cut in to remind her that anything that was said could be used against me, but she didn't pay any attention to him.
"You knew all along what it had done to her, Wash walking out like he did. You knew she was drinking. You knew she wasn't