Where You Once Belonged(47)

“What?”

“Yeah. That’s what I hear. I hear you been seeing my wife. I hear you been seeing Jessie.”

“She isn’t your wife. Not anymore.”

“Oh, yeah. Jessie and me—we’re still married.”

“You ruined all of that a long time ago. She doesn’t want to see you again.”

“Sure. We’re still married.”

“Listen, goddamn it. You leave her alone.”

“And I still got my kids here.”

“You haven’t got anything here. You don’t have a goddamn thing in Holt anymore.”

“Yes,” he said. “I still got my family here. I can count on that much. And this is still my hometown.”

“Listen. You must be crazy. You listen to me, goddamn you.”

But he didn’t listen; instead he began to laugh again. He lay back on the cot with his feet hanging over the end. He was pleased with himself. His heavy sick-looking face smiled out at me from behind the bars. “Anything else you want to know, Arbuckle? Did you get what you needed for your paper?”

“Go to hell,” I said.

And that amused him too. It was all amusing. It seemed pointless talking to him anymore. Finally I left.

Then on Tuesday, Arch Withers paid him a call. Over the years Arch Withers had become an embittered man.

After Burdette had disappeared at the end of December in 1976, Withers had gone on serving as president of the Farmer’s Co-op Elevator’s board of directors and he had finished his term of office, but when he had run for reelection two years later people who owned shares in the elevator had not reelected him. In fact he had been defeated by a large margin, and the loss had affected him deeply. He still farmed north of Holt, but now he didn’t come into town very often; instead he sent his wife when he needed something and he never sat drinking coffee at Bradbury’s Bakery. He was lonely and isolated, living in a place where he had always felt accepted and admired.

That afternoon when he arrived at the courthouse some of the old men who had been there the day before were there again, standing in the shade, looking out at Burdette’s red Cadillac, still talking and gesturing. They watched Withers park his black pickup in the parking lot, then he approached and passed without saying anything to any one of them. When he entered the sheriff’s office he demanded that he be allowed to see Jack Burdette. “Let me talk to him,” he said.

“Now, Arch,” Sealy said. “He don’t have any of it left. You know that. Hell, would he of come back if he did?”

“Just let me see him.”

“But I can’t let you into his cell.”

“I don’t plan on going into his cell.”

“Sure, but if I let you see him, you better not try anything. You hear me? I’ll be watching.”

“All right. Now where is he?”

So Sealy agreed to let Withers see Jack Burdette. He led Withers back into the jail and then stood guard in the doorway while he began to talk. And it was merely quiet and semirational talk at first, a kind of review of things. But Burdette must have seemed even less interested in what Withers had to say than he had the day before when I had talked to him, and evidently he was considerably less amused. Again he lay stretched out on the sunken too-small cot, lying there heavy and dull, yellow-faced, smoking cigarettes, barely listening while Withers talked on and on. By this time he must have been tired of it all. It was as if he were merely waiting for something. Withers’ talk must have seemed to him to involve only some minor misunderstanding between them, an old dispute of no particular significance. Except that it was more than that to Withers, of course. He kept talking, trying to push Burdette into some kind of response. There wasn’t any response, though. Burdette simply lay waiting for Withers to cease talking.

So in time Withers grew hot. He began to shout, to curse: “Goddamn you, Burdette. Goddamn you.”

And Jack Burdette still seemed utterly uninterested, as if he couldn’t be bothered by any of this. Finally he did manage to rouse himself a little, however. He raised his head. “Withers,” he said. “I wish you’d shut your goddamn mouth.”

“By god—” Withers said.

“I never came back here to hear about your goddamn elevator. Leave me alone. You’re starting to get on my nerves.”

Arch Withers went a little crazy then. He began to shake the bars, shouting for Sealy to come forward and unlock the cell so he could go inside. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch,” he shouted. “I’ll kill him.”

“Sealy,” Burdette called. “Get him out of here. I heard enough of this.”

“I’ll kill him.”

“I don’t have to listen to this, Sealy.”

“Unlock this thing.”

“Sealy, you hear me?”

It went on in that way, a violent refrain, until at last Bud Sealy moved down the alleyway toward Withers and tried to lead him away. “Come on, Arch,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll kill him.”

“No. You had your say.”

“By god—”

“Let’s go. Come on now.”

Suddenly Withers began to struggle. He fought Bud Sealy in the alleyway of the jail, shouting still, swinging his arms. Sealy shoved him against the bars of the cell, pinning him there, his heavy forearm under Withers’ chin, and then he pushed him out of the jail back into the office. Withers stood before him, panting.