Reflections in a Golden Eye (8 page)

How long this mad ride lasted the Captain would never know. Toward the end he knew that
they had come out from the woods and were galloping through an open plain. It seemed to
him that from the corner of his eye he saw a man lying on a rock in the sun and a horse
grazing. This did not surprise him and in an instant was forgotten. The only thing which
concerned the Captain now was the fact that when they entered the forest again the horse
was giving out. In an agony of dread the Captain thought: 'When this ends, all will be
over for me.'

The horse slowed to an exhausted trot and at last stopped altogether. The Captain raised
himself in the saddle and looked about him. When he struck the horse in the face with the
reins, they stumbled on a few paces farther. Then the Captain could make him go no
farther. Trembling, he dismounted. Slowly and methodically he tied the horse to a tree. He
broke off a long switch, and with the last of his spent strength he began to beat the
horse savagely. Breathing in great gasps, his coat dark and curled with sweat, the horse
at first moved restively about the tree. The Captain kept on beating him. Then at last the
horse stood motionless and gave a broken sigh. A pool of sweat darkened the pine straw
beneath him and his head hung down. The Captain threw the whip away. He was smeared with
blood, and a rash caused by rubbing against the horse's bristly hair had come out on his
face and neck. His anger was unappeased and he could hardly stand from exhaustion. He sank
down on the ground and lay in a curious position with his head in his arms. Out in the
forest there, the Captain looked like a broken doll that has been thrown away. He was
sobbing aloud.

For a brief time the Captain lost consciousness. Then, as he came out of his faint, he
had a vision of the past. He looked back at the years behind him as one stares at a
shaking image at the bottom of a well. He remembered his boyhood. He had been brought up
by five old maid aunts. His aunts were not bitter except when alone; they laughed a great
deal and were constantly arranging picnics, fussy excursions, and Sunday dinners to which
they invited other old maids. Nevertheless, they had used the little boy as a sort of
fulcrum to lift the weight of their own heavy crosses. The Captain had never known real
love. His aunts gushed over him with sentimental effulgence and knowing no better he
repaid them with the same counterfeit coin. In addition, the Captain was a Southerner and
was never allowed by his aunts to forget it On his mother's side he was descended from
Huguenots who left France in the seventeenth century, lived in Haiti until the great
uprising, and then were planters in Georgia before the Civil War. Behind him was a history
of barbarous splendor, ruined poverty, and family hauteur. But the present generation had
not come to much; the Captain's only male first cousin was a policeman in the city of
Nashville. Being a great snob, and with no real pride in him, the Captain set exaggerated
store by the lost past.

The Captain lacked his feet on the pine straw and sobbed with a high wail that echoed
thinly in the woods. Then abruptly he lay still and quiet. A strange feeling that had
lingered in him for some time took sudden shape. He was sure that there was someone near
him. Painfully he turned himself over on his back.

At first the Captain did not believe what he saw. Two yards from him, leaning against an
oak tree, the young soldier whose face the Captain hated looked down at him. He was
completely naked. His slim body glistened in the late sun. He stared at the Captain with
vague, impersonal eyes as though looking at some insect he had never seen before. The
Captain was too paralyzed by surprise to move. He tried to speak, but only a dry rattle
came from his throat. As he watched him, the soldier turned his gaze to the horse.
Firebird was still soaked with sweat and there were welts on his rump. In one afternoon
the horse seemed to have changed from a thoroughbred to a plug fit for the plow.

The Captain lay between the soldier and the horse. The naked man did not bother to walk
around his outstretched body. He left his place by the tree and lightly stepped over the
officer. The Captain had a close swift view of the young soldier's bare foot; it was slim
and delicately built, with a high instep marked by blue veins. The soldier untied the
horse and put his hand to his muzzle in a caressing gesture. Then, without a glance at the
Captain, he led the horse off into the dense woods.

It had happened so quickly that the Captain had not found a chance to sit up or to utter
a word. At first he could feel only astonishment. He dwelt on the pure cut lines of the
young man's body. He called out something inarticulate and received no reply. A rage came
in him. He felt a rush of hatred for the soldier that was as exorbitant as the joy he had
experienced on runaway Firebird. All the humiliations, the envies, and the fears of his
life found vent in this great anger. The Captain stumbled to his feet and started blindly
through the darkening woods.

He did not know where he was, or how far he had come from the post His mind swarmed with
a dozen cunning schemes by which he could make the soldier suffer. In his heart the
Captain knew that this hatred, passionate as love, would be with him all the remaining
days of his life.

After walking for a long time, when it was almost night, he found himself on a path
familiar to him.

The Pendertons' party began at seven, and half an hour later the front rooms were
crowded. Leonora, stately in a gown of cream colored velvet, received her guests alone.
When replying to inquiries about the absence of the host, she said that, devil take him,
she didn't know he might have run away from home. Everyone laughed and repeated this
they pictured the Captain trudging off with a stick over his shoulder and his notebooks
wrapped in a red bandanna. He had planned to drive into town after his ride and perhaps he
was having car trouble.

The long table in the dining room was more than lavishly laid and replenished. The air
was so thick with the odors of ham, spareribs, and whiskey that it seemed one might almost
eat it with a spoon. From the sitting room came the sound of the accordion, augmented from
time to time by bits of spurious part singing. The sideboard was perhaps the gayest spot.
Anacleto, with an imposed on expression, ladled stingy half cups of punch and took his
time about it After he spotted Lieutenant Weincheck, standing alone near the front door,
he was engaged for fifteen minutes in fishing out every cherry and piece of pineapple,
then he left a dozen officers waiting in order to present this choice cup to the old
Lieutenant There was so much lively conversation that it was impossible to follow any one
line of thought There was talk of the new army appropriation by the Government and gossip
about a recent suicide. Below the general hubbub, and with cautious glances to ascertain
the whereabouts of Major Langdon, a joke sneaked its way through the party a story to
the effect that the little Filipino thoughtfully scented Alison Langdon's specimen of wee
wee with perfume before taking it to the hospital for a urinalysis. The congestion was
beginning to be disastrous. Already a tart had fallen from a plate and, unnoticed, had
been tracked halfway up the stairs.

Leonora was in the highest spirits. She had a gay cliche for everyone, and she patted the
Quartermaster Colonel, an old favorite of hers, on top of his bald head. Once she left the
hall personally to carry a drink to the young entertainer from town who played the
accordion. 'My God! the talent this boy has!' she said. 'Why, he can play anything at all
you hum to him! “Oh Pretty Red Wing” anything!'

'Really wonderful,' Major Langdon agreed, and looked at the group clustered around. 'Now
my wife goes in for classical stuff Bach, you know all that But to me it's like
swallowing a bunch of angleworms. Now take “The Merry Widows' Waltz” that's the sort of
thing I love. Tuneful music!'

The gliding waltz, together with the arrival of the General, quieted some of the racket
Leonora was enjoying her party so much that it was not until after eight o'clock that she
began to be concerned about her husband. Already most of the guests were bewildered by the
protracted absence of their host. There was even the lively feeling that some accident
might have occurred, or that an unexpected scandal was afoot. Consequently, even the
earliest arrivals tended to stay on long past the customary time for such a coming and
going affair; the house was so crowded that it took a keen sense of strategy to get from
one room to the next.

Meanwhile, Captain Penderton waited at the entrance of the bridle path with a hurricane
lamp and the Sergeant in charge of the stables. He had reached the post well after dark
and his story was that the horse had thrown him and run away. They were hopping that
Firebird would find his way back. The Captain had bathed his wounded, rash red face, and
then had driven to the hospital and had three stitches put in his cheek. But he could not
go home. Not only did he lack the daring to face Leonora until the horse was in his stall
the real reason was that he was in wait for the man he hated. The night was mild, bright,
and the moon was in its third quarter.

At nine o'clock they heard in the distance the sound of horses' hoofs, coming in very
slowly. Soon the weary, shadowy figures of Private Williams and the two horses could be
seen. The soldier led them both by the bridle. Blinking a little, he came up to the
hurricane lamp. He looked into the Captain's face with such a long strange stare that the
Sergeant felt a sudden shock. He did not know what to make of this, and he left it with
the Captain to deal with the situation. The Captain was silent, but his eyelids twitched
and his hard mouth trembled.

The Captain followed Private Williams into the stable. The young soldier fed the horses
mash and gave them a rubdown. He did not speak, and the Captain stood outside the stall
and watched him. He looked at the fine, skillful hands and the tender roundness of the
soldier's neck. The Captain was overcome by a feeling that both repelled and fascinated
him it was as though he and the young soldier were wrestling together naked, body to
body, in a fight to death. The Captain's strained loin muscles were so weak that he could
hardly stand. His eyes, beneath his twitching eyelids, were like blue burning flames. The
soldier quietly finished his work and left the stable. The Captain followed and stood
watching as he walked off into the night. They had not spoken a word.

It was only when he got into his automobile that the Captain remembered the party at his
house.

Anacleto did not come home until late in the evening. He stood in the doorway of Alison's
room looking rather green and jaded, as crowds exhausted him. 'Ah,' he said
philosophically, 'the world is choked up with too many people.'

Alison saw, however, from a swift little snap of his eyes, that something had happened.
He went into her bathroom and rolled up the sleeves of his yellow linen shirt to wash his
hands. 'Did Lieutenant Weincheck come over to see you?'

'Yes, he visited with me quite a while.'

The Lieutenant had been depressed. She sent him downstairs for a bottle of sherry. Then
after they had drunk the wine he sat by the bed with the chessboard on his knees and they
played a game of Russian bank. She had not realized until too late that it was very
tactless of her to suggest the game, as the Lieutenant could hardly make out the cards and
tried to hide this failing from her.

'He has just heard that the medical board did not pass him,' she said. 'He will get his
retirement papers shortly.'

'Tssk! What a pity!' Then Anacleto added, 'At the same time I should be glad about it if
I were he.'

The doctor had left her a new prescription that afternoon and from the bathroom mirror
she saw Anacleto examine the bottle carefully and then take a taste of it before measuring
it out for her. Judging by the look on his face, he did not much like the flavor. But he
smiled brightly when he came back into the room.

'You have never been to such a party,' he said. 'What a great constellation!'

'Consternation, Anacleto.'

'At any rate, havoc. Captain Penderton was two hours late to his own party. Then, when he
came in, I thought he had been half eaten by a lion. The horse threw him in a blackberry
bush and ran away. You have never seen such a face.'

'Did he break any bones?'

'He looked to me as though he had broken his back,' said Anacleto, with some
satisfaction. 'But he carried it off fairly well went upstairs and put on his evening
clothes and tried to pretend that he wasn't upset. Now everybody has left except the Major
and the Colonel with the red hair whose wife looks like a woery woman.'

'Anacleto,' she warned him softly. Anacleto had used the term 'woery woman' several times
before she caught on to the meaning. At first she had thought it might be a native term,
and then it had come to her finally that he meant 'whore.'

Anacleto shrugged his shoulders and then turned suddenly to her, his face flushed. 'I
hate people!' he said vehemently. 'At the party someone told this joke, not knowing that I
was near. And it was vulgar and insulting and not true!'

'What do you mean?'

'I wouldn't repeat it to you.'

'Well, forget it,' she said, 'Go on to bed and have a good night's sleep.'

Alison was troubled over Anacleto's outburst. It seemed to her that she also loathed
people. Everyone she had known in the past five years was somehow wrong that is,
everyone except Weincheck and of course Anacleto and little Catherine. Morris Langdon in
his blunt way was as stupid and heartless as a man could be. Leonora was nothing but an
animal And thieving Weldon Penderton was at bottom hopelessly corrupt. What a gang! Even
she herself she loathed. If it were not for sordid procrastination and if she had a rag of
pride, she and Anacleto would not be in this house tonight.