Ghost Dance (3 page)

Grawson smiled, and pulled a wet piece of tobacco from his chin with the nail on his right forefinger. "Washington postmark," he said.

"Clare," said Chance, not bitterly.

Clare Henderson had done well for herself. The ruined fortunes of her family had been well recouped by judicious marriage. She was now the wife of a congressman from Virginia.

Beautiful, pale, black-haired Clare.

"Most likely," said Grawson.

Chance watched the smoke from Grawson's cigar, and the massive movements of the heavy jaw.

Grawson leaned to the table again, and sent another ball gliding smoothly across the felt and into the darkness of the pocket.

Again and again he shot, not missing.

Chance admired skill. He himself had skilled hands. He admired the work of carpenters, of ironworkers, carvers, saloon painters, the men who could handle ten-horse teams, the men who could use a rifle or a handgun well, and he admired Grawson, and the game was slowly taken from him, shot by shot.

Grawson stood up.

He replaced his cue in the rack.

"You've lost," said Grawson.

Chance put his own cue back in the rack.

"You're taking me back to Charleston to stand trial?" said Chance.

Grawson's left eye trembled, and the lid flickered.

"Yes," he said.

"May I see the warrant for my arrest?" asked Chance.

"It's in the hotel," said Grawson. "The warrant is my business."

Grawson reached into his wallet again and placed a silver star on the green felt.

"This is warrant enough," said Grawson.

Chance looked at the badge, the silver detective's star, Charleston of the Sovereign State of South Carolina. Grawson replaced the star in his wallet.

"I don't mind if you make trouble," he said, smiling, dabbing the ashes from the cigar on the felt on the table, "but I would not advise it."

"I don't want any trouble," said Chance, and he had spoken truly, for he was tired and now overcome with the shock, numb with the shock of being found. And now medicine, and himself, everything was finished, everything but the ride on the train, the formalities that would satisfy justice and the last climb, thirteen steps to the scaffold.

Chance felt as he had when he had resolved to die like a gentleman, as Clare had wanted, as Frank and Lester Grawson had expected, as he himself had expected. But that was before the moment the handkerchief had fluttered to the grass, the moment before he had raised his weapon with a gesture that now seemed incomprehensible to him, a gesture that was incredibly swift and sure and that terminated with a crack of a shot and a moon of blood on the shirt of a man twenty-four paces away. It the last instant, moody Edward Chance, the gentleman, or something within him deeper than the gentleman, deeper than his training and the proprieties of his tradition, had decided that he would live. That he did not want to die, and that thusly he must, and would, kill.

He saw the body of Frank Grawson in the white silk shirt, the scarlet sash, face down in the wet grass of Barlow's meadow. He shook his head.

"You can get your coat and bag," said Grawson. "I'll wait."

Chance looked at him quickly.

"You won't run," said Grawson. "If you did, I'd find you again."

Those blunt eyes like shovels seemed to burn for a moment, With pleasure.

He would like that, thought Chance, he would like for me to run–to run once more–as I did from Charleston, after the killing, when I didn't want more, when I wanted to get away, when I had to leave, when I cried and ran because there was nothing else to do, nothing else.

"Wait here," said Chance.

"All right," said Grawson, starting to light another cigar. "Take your time."

Chance disappeared.

Grawson's hands trembled for a moment on the cigar, and then he managed to get the tiny sheet of flame to the tobacco.

Grawson walked over to the window and looked down to the corner of 45th Street and Madison Avenue, at the gas lamps and the people in the street. A cab clicked by, drawn by two horses.

So it was coming to an end, thought Grawson. Five years was a long time to wait, but I could have waited more, plenty more.

He took the badge out of his wallet and looked at it, small in the fat palm of his huge hand, and then put it back again.

His letter of resignation to the Charleston Force had been tendered the day he had received the envelope from Washington. He had taken his savings and boarded the train for New York. The death in Barlow's meadow had been a duel, in a sense self-defense. It would not be murder, at best. No formal charges had ever been filed, nor would they be. Grawson had not filed them, nor would he. His brother had had a pistol, had asked for the duel. And Clare, she would not file charges, for the scandal would be improper, and what was Frank Grawson, or indeed, Edward Chance, to her? And the state would not make charges. It was as Lester Grawson had wanted. It left him alone with Chance.

It was right, wasn't it, to kill the man who had killed your brother? Especially when the law wouldn't do it. There was a higher law wasn't there, blood-law? I am the law, thought Grawson, the law that you can't write down but you know, the law before the books, the right before there was the earth or people or animals or Adam or Abel or Cain.

Grawson looked down through the window and saw the men in the cold meadow, and saw Barlow's oak in the background, the two white shirts.

"He won't fire," Grawson had said.

And Frank had smiled and said, "I know," and didn't run from that field but stayed there, and was going to shoot a man that wouldn't fire!

Grawson pressed his forehead to the window. He blinked and all he saw below was the dark street, and the pools of light on the sidewalk, spilled by the burning lamps.

 

* * *

 

Chance made his way to the cloakroom, moving without feeling the floor, seeming to move through a dark corridor. The lamps seemed dim, the conversation of groups he passed as meaningless as the click of the cues and spheres of the room behind him.

He wondered idly if he should have spent the last years differently, and decided he should not have.

He was more now than he had been and he felt that it might have been somehow worth it, and wondered whether they used the black hood still in Charleston, and if the knot were tied so as to break the neck when one pitched to the end of the rope. Faster. More merciful. Or if it would be suffocation, twisting at the end of the rope, bound, his tongue inside the hood thrusting out of the mouth, the eyes moving from their sockets.

He hoped the knot would be thick and tied below the right ear.

He wondered if he could ask the hangman for that favor.

His coat and bag were placed on the counter before him, and pushed towards him.

He took his coat and drew it on, and lifted the bag, heavier than a general practitioner's bag, from the weight of the pistol.

He placed a silver quarter in the shallow wooden bowl. He noticed the arrows in the claws of the eagle, and then the coin was gone.

"Good-night, Sir," he heard.

"Yes," said Chance. "Good-night."

Edward Chance, physician, returned to the gaming salon, where he was joined by a large, red-mustached man who accompanied him down the three flights of stairs until they emerged together on brick-paved Madison Avenue.

 

* * *

 

"Cigar?" asked Grawson.

"No," said Chance.

A cab clattered past, like a high black box on four wheels, the cabby sitting behind with a long whip, touching the flanks of his team.

Grawson made no move to light himself a cigar. Chance had expected that he would, and was surprised when he did not. Grawson folded his arms, holding each in the hand of the other. Chance noted that the fingers of his right hand had trembled a bit. Then Grawson was calm. Grawson unfolded his arms.

"You'll want to stop by your rooms, or whatever," said Grawson, "pick up some things–maybe settle the bill with your landlady."

"Yes," said Chance, absently. "Thank you."

Somewhere across the street a girl was laughing.

"Then," said Grawson, "we'll stop by the hotel for my things–and then go to the station."

"Tomorrow night at this time," said Chance, not really thinking about it, "I'll be in Charleston again."

Grawson said nothing. His left eye and the left side of his face moved once, uncontrollably.

"I'll hail a cab," said Chance.

"No," said Grawson. "We'll walk."

It would be a long walk, but not more than two or three miles. Chance did not care. Let that walk be as long as it could. Let it last as long as it might.

Grawson looked up and down the street, which was not crowded now, the hour being well past midnight. Yet there were couples here and there. And an occasional cab.

The left side of his face twitched again.

"This way," said Chance, turning left and crossing 45th Street.

They walked on in silence.

To Chance it seemed their footsteps were very loud.

Inadvertently he noticed that Grawson's hands moved against the sides of his trousers, wiping sweat from the palms.

"Hot," said Chance.

Grawson said nothing.

 

* * *

 

I am the law, Lester Grawson told himself, I am the law, and I do not swerve, I do not yield.

He looked at the slighter man beside him, the pale, rather homely face, the deep eyes, the shoulders that seemed somehow crushed with whatever weight it was they bore.

How could he, Grawson asked himself, have managed to fire before Frank?

Dashing, swift Frank, splendid figure on a horse, laughing, supple as a whip, booted, debonair, gallant Frank–my brother. Frank is my choice, had said Clare. I have always watched out for Frank, said Lester Grawson to himself. He was what I should have been. I loved Frank, said Grawson. I loved Frank. Grawson's fists clenched and unclenched. I love him! Grawson could feel the side of his face move. He didn't like that. His face did that sometimes. And I loved Clare, said Grawson. So I must do this. For Frank, who would have wanted it. For Clare, who wants it. For–and Grawson looked at the slender, solemn Edward Chance, young but old–and he wants it, said Grawson to himself. He wants it! He won't run. A lamb. Blood on the hoofs. This lamb who shot my brother dead. He wants it

"Are you all right?"

The voice came from far away.

It was Chance's voice.

"It's damn hot tonight," said Grawson.

"Yes," said Chance.

They had walked for some time when Chance turned left again.

Halfway down the street, between two four-story brick buildings, Grawson saw the alley. The yellow light of a street lamp flickered like a moth's wing on the bricks.

There, said Grawson to himself, there.

Like an avenging eagle with arrows in its claws.

As they passed the alley Grawson's hands seized the collar of Chance's coat and hurled him into the darkness against the bricks, and Chance struck the wall and reeled along the wall, turning twice, kicking over a garbage can and sending a startled cat screeching down the dark corridor.

Grawson cursed at the noise.

Chance moaned, his hands going to his head, and slipped to the surface of the alley, and Grawson sent a kick into the stomach of the huddled coat slumped at his feet; then he jerked it to a sitting position and hand in its hair struck the head once against the bricks. Then again. Chance shook his head, his hands groping out.

"I am the law," whispered Grawson. "The law!"

Grawson's heavy hands closed on the throat of the stunned man. Chance's fingers tried to pry apart the massive hands that clutched his throat.

Chance tried to slip down, his hands grasping for a weapon, a brick, stone, piece of glass, and closed on the handle of his bag.

The light of the street lamp became only a pinpoint in surging blackness.

Chance's hand thrust into the bag and closed on the handle of the weapon.

Grawson, drunk with the kill as he might have been, heard the hammer click and felt the pressure of the steel barrel on his Adam's apple.

Sweat sprang out of every pore on the large man's body and his hands released Chance's throat. Chance struggled to his feet, not moving the pistol. His eyes were wild, bewildered.

"There is no warrant for my arrest," said Chance.

Grawson held his hands out from his body, and backed away a step.

"No warrant," said Chance. "No arrest." Chance's voice was no more than a tight whisper. His neck could still feel the talons of Grawson locked on it. The hangman's noose, thought Chance. The hangman's noose. "No arrest," said Chance.

"You're under arrest for murder," said Grawson.

Chance shook his head. "No," he said. "No."

Grawson's shovel-steel eyes glowed with pleasure. "Shoot," he said.

Chance noticed that Grawson's face seemed strangely quiet. His gaze was level. The face did not move. The movement was gone.

Chance shook his head. The pistol wavered in his grasp. "I can't," he said.

Grawson's left eye suddenly jerked shut and opened and his face seemed contorted with rage.

"You're a murderer," he said. "Shoot." Grawson's fists clenched. "You killed once–you're a killer–shoot."

Chance backed away.

Grawson advanced a step.

"I can't," said Chance.

With a cry of rage, almost a berserk fury, the huge body of Lester Grawson lunged at Chance, those great hands opened like the clawed paws of the grizzly he was, but Chance shoved the barrel of the pistol sharply, deeply into the diaphragm of the lunging figure, and Grawson doubled up in agony, his hands moving out to clutch at nothing. With the butt of the pistol Chance struck Grawson across the back of the neck, and then, carefully, holding the dazed man by the collar, he struck the man again, a dangerous blow, but with a physician's skill, not to open nor injure the skull, and the body of Lester Grawson lay on the stones of the alley.

Chance stood over the man, his own head a terrifying whirl of images. Chance stood over the man, scared. He held the muzzle of the pistol to the back of the man's neck, where the bullet would sever the vertebrae, but he did not fire, he could not, nor did he want to.