He heard the grinding of brakes and the train began to slacken its speed, groaning and clanking the heavy couplings of the cars. Looking out the window Grawson saw briefly the white faces of two gandy dancers, watching the train come in.
Irish, thought Grawson.
Grawson was a large man, short of neck, thick of shoulder, with a square, flattish face. Large hands, red knuckles. His teeth were yellowed by tobacco. His left eye moved peculiarly at times, flinching. But it was a strong face, between a pig and a bear, a face with heavy teeth, a wide nose, eyes as flat and expressionless, as heavy and blunt, as the blade of a shovel.
Grawson looked at himself in the reflection in the window, from the small kerosene lamp above his head. He twisted the screw, extinguishing the lamp. He did not want to look at himself. He had few mannerisms, few things, unimportant things, he worried about, but one was looking into a mirror. Grawson chuckled to himself. It was foolish, he chuckled. He knew it. But he did not care to look into mirrors. He was not sure what might, someday, look back at him. Maybe it would not be him. Maybe it would be something else. His left eye flinched twice, and he squinted out at the lights.
The train was passing now between freight tracks, passing coal sheds, passing piles of ties, passing other cars, drawing into the station.
It was a hot night.
Grawson wiped a roll of sweat and dirt from the inside of his high, stiff collar. He twiddled it for a moment between his thumb and forefinger and then mashed it with his thumb into a crack in the cane seat.
It was a damn hot night.
Grawson stood up and pulled his wicker suitcase from the rack, and his coat and newspaper. He put the suitcase between his feet and the coat and newspaper on his lap.
He closed his eyes and listened to the rolling of the wheels on the steel track. Five minutes, he thought.
Yes, she had been pretty, thought Grawson.
Clare Henderson had been a damn fine figure of a woman, the bitch.
God how I loved her, said Grawson to himself.
Grawson opened his eyes and saw the couple in the seat across the way staring at him. When he scowled at them they turned away. His left eye blinked, and then he closed his eyes again.
Now the wind came across Barlows meadow some eight miles north of Charleston, a chilly wind in that gray time of day. It had rained the night before, that five years ago.
He could make them out now, Edward Chance and someone, alighting from the carriage, making their way through the high wet grass toward him and his brother, Frank.
“He won’t fire, Frank,” Grawson had said.
“I know,” said Frank.
In the cane seat Grawson shook as though twisted with pain and groaned.
He opened his eyes and saw that the couple across the aisle had gathered their baggage and pressed to the head of the car, joining with others. Grawson looked out. The train was in the station now, the platform crowded. Redcaps scurried here and there. Relatives, spouses stood on the cement lanes under the lights, here and there one waving and running beside the train.
Grawson closed his eyes again. There was time. There was plenty of time. He had his whole life and how long did it take to pull a trigger?
Not long, Grawson remembered.
He had watched the two men, gallant Frank and the moody Edward Chance, back to back, with their white shirts, open at the throat, the red sashes, the long-barreled single-shot weapons held before them.
Damn Clare Henderson, cursed Grawson, not opening his eyes, pressing his forehead against the cold of the window.
Chance was to die. That had been understood. What had Clare told Frank, who wanted her and her house, and her people, so bad he would kill for them? What had Chance done to her? Grawson rubbed his nose with one pawlike hand. Not a goddam thing, I’d guess, he said, but crazy Frank, he’d do anything for her. And I would too, said Grawson to himself. I would, too. Amusing, swift, graceful Frank-a rider, a sportsman, a marksman-my brother, my brother.
“He won’t fire,” Grawson had told Frank.
And Frank had agreed.
It was the thing to do, not to fire. That was Edward Chance’s job. He could not kill the man Clare Henderson wanted. In honor he could not refuse to meet him. Had he not been engaged to Clare himself?
Chance had wanted medicine, a profession. It would mean waiting years. He had no feeling for the cotton, for the land, for the tradition.
Chance was no better than a Yankee.
So he wouldn’t marry her. So he couldn’t. So he had to wait. But she would not. And how would she understand him?
I wonder, mused Grawson, what she told Frank.
He could imagine her twisting that scented, lavender handkerchief, the white face, the long black hair-the wringing hands, the tears. No one would protect her. No one would stand up for her. Her fathers and brothers were dead, honor-ably. If they had been there Chance would have been horsewhipped.
And so Frank Grawson had begun to take target practice, walking a dozen paces, turning, waiting for the handkerchief to drop, lifting his weapon, firing a single shot at a playing card tacked to a tree now some twenty-four paces away.
Why not me? Grawson asked himself. Why not me? And Grawson’s lips twisted. Him, with his face like a grizzly, his teeth, those hands like clubs!
“He won’t fire,” Grawson had told Frank.
“I know,” Frank had said, and smiled.
Grawson had gone to Clare, had begged her. “My choice is Frank,” she said.
“He won’t fire!” said Grawson, sitting up on the cane seat.
“We’re in the station, Sir,” said the porter. The man made no move with his whisk broom.
Grawson looked out.
He reached into his pocket and took out a liberty quarter and turned it over. He looked at the eagle on the reverse, with arrows in his talons.
“Like an avenging eagle,” said Grawson looking at the man, “I come like an avenging eagle with arrows in my claws.”
“Sir?” asked the man.
“Here,” said Grawson, holding out the quarter and dropping it into the black palm.
The man lifted the whisk broom.
“No,” said Grawson. “Don’t touch me.” And he left the car.
He heard the quarter drop to the floor behind him, but he did not turn.
“Like an avenging eagle,” muttered Grawson, bundling up the platform, carrying his coat, the newspaper under one arm, his wicker suitcase in his left hand. “With arrows,” he added. “With arrows.”