Charlie Martz and Other Stories (23 page)

Worrel waited until she stepped back with the Dragoon revolver in her hand. “Now get up and get out of here,” he said to McLean.

McLean looked at Virginia. “You didn't need him. I told you I was going. With your help or without it.”

Worrel pointed the derringer threateningly. “I'm warning you. Leave her alone now. She's not about to risk her life for you or anybody like you. If it was me, I'd turn you over to the Yankees in a minute. That's the truth and it would be for your own good whether you know it or not. But Virginia's against that, so I'm giving you one chance to get out of here and never show yourself again. Neither one of us is obligated to help you, and if your being here endangers our lives then you have to get out and that's all there is to it.”

Walk away,
Virginia thought.
Walk away right now and it will be over, something behind you that Olin did, that Olin was responsible for.
But she thought then, watching Olin and feeling McLean's eyes still on her:
You would have to run. You would have to run and keep running as long as you lived, and the wind would have to be loud, howling loud to keep out the sound of his voice, and if you stopped for one moment, McLean would be with you. No,
she thought.
You couldn't close your eyes tight enough not to see him, or sing or scream loud enough not to hear yourself saying over and over again the things he said. You realize that, don't you? If you don't, try to look at him.

And try telling yourself you're still going to marry Olin. Try that even without looking at McLean.
She thought:
You don't know his first name. You don't even know that much about him. But you still can't run fast enough, can you?

“Olin, put down that gun.” She raised McLean's revolver, pointed it at Worrel, and felt the tension, the tight heaviness, beginning to leave her body. And she remembered McLean saying that it would be easy once she made up her mind.

“Virginia.” Worrel's mouth hung open dumbly.

Her left hand came under the barrel to steady it. “Olin, Mr. McLean has to go through the Union lines to the Tombigbee, and we're going to help him.”

Worrel watched her closely, trying to understand this sudden change in her. He said then, cautiously, “You're taking advantage of me, Virginia. You know I wouldn't even point this gun at you. Just like I'm sure you wouldn't think of pulling that trigger in my direction. Not even to scare me.” He moved toward her, but stopped abruptly as Virginia cocked the revolver.

“You're going to help by giving him your clothes, Olin. That's all you have to do, but it will be something.”

“Virginia, just this afternoon you didn't want to have a thing to do with him.”

“Olin, take off your clothes or I swear to heaven I'll shoot!”

Worrel hesitated, staring at her in silence; then his arm dropped heavily and he let the derringer fall.

“Virginia,” he said tiredly, “I've been a practical man all my life. I apply common sense to everything I do and it's made me a success in business. You know that. Common sense says you don't risk your life without a reason. I mean a good reason. All right, you ask yourself, is this a good reason? You answer, of course not. The Yankees'll be back. You know it and he knows it—look at him. Ask him. All right, even if you're lucky and don't get caught; even if he gets through and even if he's ever well enough to fight again, what's the sense of it? We've lost the war. It's a matter of time now.

“Virginia, I'd gamble my life savings on it, the Yankees'll be back here before you know it and General Forrest will be dead or
scattered so thin he'd never find his men again. This could be the last night of the war, Virginia. The last hour. Four years of fighting gone up in smoke and you can almost hear the quietness coming.”

Virginia's eyes went to McLean. “Would you risk your life knowing it was the last day of the war?”

McLean shrugged. “The day isn't important. You do what you feel you have to do.”

“Olin,” Virginia asked, “have you ever believed in anything that strongly?”

“He's a soldier,” Worrel said earnestly. “A soldier with an exaggerated sense of duty. But you didn't take an oath. I'm talking about you, Virginia. You haven't even told me why you're helping the man!”

“I'm not sure I can explain it,” she said. “And if I could, I doubt if you'd understand.”

Worrel closed and opened his eyes wearily. “Virginia, that's a line from a play. But this is real life. There're Yankees outside, all over, and their Springfields are as real as they are. You have to have a reason—and I mean a
reason
—to do what you're talking about. Not just a feeling.”

“I have a reason.”

“I want to know what it is.”

“Though it's a feeling too.”

“Virginia, for God's sake—”

Tell him,
she thought, and felt a quick excitement through her body.
Tell both of them. Get it out and over with.
And she did, deliberately now, quietly, “I'm helping him because I want to help him, Olin. Not because I feel obligated or feel sorry for him.

“You won't understand it, Olin, because it doesn't sound reasonable. But . . . I'm helping him because he's a man. Because he's so much a man even the house feels different with him inside of it.” She almost smiled. “You'd have to be a woman to understand that, Olin.” She said then, “I tried closing my eyes to him. I tried closing them
so tight that all the things he told me would be squeezed right out of my memory. Then when you came back this evening I thought,
Ah, Olin will do something. Now you don't have to think about him anymore.

“But I'm thinking about him right this minute, Olin. Because he's something I can believe in, and that's what you don't understand—having a feeling about something so strongly that you believe in it almost the same way you believe in God even without seeing Him.”

Virginia's eyes remained on Worrel. “I'll wait for him, too, if he wants. I don't even know his first name; but I think I would wait a very long time just on the chance he might come back.”

She waited for the sound of McLean's voice, still not looking at him, afraid to take her eyes from Worrel. McLean was staring at her, sitting on the edge of the sofa with his hands placed ready to push himself up; but he didn't move. He sat with his full attention on her for a long moment before he spoke.

“Virginia,” he said finally. “I feel we're going to have a long talk. I feel we're going to learn middle names and nicknames and Confirmation names, and everything there is to know about each other. I've got a feeling as soon as this war is over I'll be back. No matter where I am, I'll come straight here. That's the kind of feeling I have.”

Slowly, Virginia let her breath out, as if making the sudden feeling of relief last as long as she could, and she wanted to smile and go into McLean's arms. But there would be time for that. Right now—

“Olin,” she said patiently, “take your clothes off.”

ELMORE LEONARD
wrote more than forty books during his long career, including the bestsellers
Raylan, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty,
and
Rum Punch,
as well as the acclaimed collection
When the Women Come Out to Dance,
which was a
New York Times
Notable Book. Many of his books have been made into movies, including
Get Shorty
and
Out of Sight.
The short story “Fire in the Hole,” and three books, including
Raylan,
were the basis for the FX hit show
Justified.
Leonard received the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN USA and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He died in 2013.

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FICTION

Raylan

Djibouti

Road Dogs

Up in Honey's Room

The Hot Kid

The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard

Mr. Paradise

When the Women Come Out to Dance

Tishomingo Blues

Pagan Babies

Be Cool

The Tonto Woman & Other Wetern Stories

Cuba Libre

Out of Sight

Riding the Rap

Pronto

Rum Punch

Maximum Bob

Get Shorty

Killshot

Freaky Deaky

Touch

Bandits

Glitz

LaBrava

Stick

Cat Chaser

Split Images

City Primeval

Gold Coast

Gunsights

The Switch

The Hunted

Unknown Man #89

Swag

52 Pickup

Mr. Majestyk

Forty Lashes Less One

Valdez Is Coming

The Moonshine War

The Big Bounce

Hombre

Last Stand at Saber River

Escape from Five Shadows

The Law at Randado

The Bounty Hunters

NONFICTION

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

COVER DESIGN BY ADAM JOHNSON

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CHARLIE MARTZ AND OTHER STORIES
. Copyright © 2015 by Elmore Leonard, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

EPub Edition June 2015 ISBN 9780062364944

ISBN 978-0-06-236492-0

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