Page 45 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. V #3

“Benson looked down at the
pistol in his right hand, as if he were surprised to discover it there. ”
“Stayed in the Orange County pen there, up in Chelsea. Farmhouse with bars on the windows was all it twas back then. May be still, I don’t know.” He paused as if to ponder this last point.
mirror as they moved off.
“That’s your farm, huh?” the kid asked. “Ay-uh.”
“Had a killer in with me,” Farnham went on as if he hadn’t heard a word the kid said. “Name of Joe LaHoe, local fella, killed his wife and weren’t too remorseful about it, I’d say. Leastways, not at first. Bragged the whole tale to me that night. Sobered me up something quick, doncha know. Din’t sleep much on account of it.”
“The Farnham Farm. Don’t look too thriving, if you ask me.”
He chuckled again, this time as dryly as dead leaves rattling in a rain gutter.
Farnham didn’t answer. They rode in silence for a while. The kid’s heart was beating fast, but he felt feathery high and in complete command of the situation.
“Not that I minded the being there. Tell the truth, I was more ascared of my wife than I was of ol’ Joe LaHoe. She had the morning milking to do with
a baby’ern strapped to her back, and weren’t too happy about it, I’d guess.”
Then the old man started to chuckled to himself. It was a low, throaty, papery sound. It kind of gave the kid the creeps.
He chuckled some more and coughed, a deep, dank smoker’s hack that put him out of commis- sion for a mile or more. Then he went on in that weird, husky, high-pitched voice:
“Been in the pen myself once, ay-yuh,” the old man began. His voice was high and reedy. “Drunk and disorderly, it twas. On account of a pint of liquor, don’t rightly recall the what. I din’t deny it, not to the sheriff who brung me in nor the judge. Jest paid my fine the next day and that was all there was to it.”
“Heard lately the Sheriff, name of Beaulieau, spelled the way them frogs do, got sent himself to the pen for robbing the county till.” He paused, then added: “Guess they don’t pay them fellas near enough.”
Despite his exalted mood, Benson found himself straining his ears to catch these words and those that might follow. But Farnham just expelled a breath and didn’t go on for a full three minutes. It was like he’d fallen into a slumber.
Benson stared indignantly at the old man after this last. Then he remembered to look back over his shoulder through the fly-smeared rear win- dow. Three vehicles were in line behind them,
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“Yeah, so what?” the kid said finally.
36
“Yeah, so? That ain’t nothin’. I been in Sing Sing and Dannemora. They wanted to send me to Leav- enworth, only I escaped just in time.” He looked over at the old man piteously. “I betcha you ain’t even been to New York in your whole life.”