Free The Angry Dream by Gil Brewer Page A

to be reminded of what Cy Harper did to us. He was an evil man, and we’ve been making out all right in the town since he died. It’s taken time. We’ve been getting on our feet again. We’ve pulled together.”
    “How you lie.”
    “Maybe you think it’s all right, coming back and living there in that house. But you remind us all of something we want to forget. Hardly a man in our town went untouched by your father. People hold it against you, Al. They can’t help it. Pine Springs is a small place and that makes you loom very large, you see? It makes the whole thing a big thing. So you’re going away now.”
    His voice was very level, explanatory. He moved down a few steps, clutching at saplings. The sky was clotted with snow now, violent and giddy. I could hear him breathing, his breath rasping.
    I said, “I’m not going away. For a long time I’ve been coming home, and now I’m here. I should have come before this, but I didn’t. Now I’m here, I’m staying.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong.”
    “Where are they?”
    “Who?”
    “Your bloody apes?”
    “They’ve gone away, Al.”
    He came down the slope and clutched at a slim white birch.
    “Listen, Al,” he said. “Listen carefully. You are going away, tonight. You’re not coming back. If you try to get help, it’s not going to work.”
    “I can go to the law outside.”
    “Go. See what happens.”
    I said nothing.
    “You’ve been warned in every possible way,” he went on. “I regret the death of your dog. He wasn’t really your dog, though—just a stray hound.”
    I got to my knees, hunched against the tree. He did not move. I took hold of the tree and finally rose to my feet, leaning against the tree.
    “You said something back there,” I said. “Poking around, you said.”
    “We don’t like you poking around.”
    I laughed.
    “Listen, Al,” he said. “Your father stole our money from the vault of the town bank. It was all the savings of the people in this valley. All they had. Everything.”
    “Two hundred thousand is a lot of money here,” I said.
    “That’s right. Your family ran that bank ever since God only knows when, Al. Your father’s father before him.”
    “You’re talked out,” I said.
    “Yes?” he said. “That was our money and it’s gone.”
    I watched him.
    “Good night, Al,” he said. He made his way up the slope, then he strode off.
    I started up the slope. I was a sheath of bright pain.
    Weaving through the fields, I plowed back toward the highway. I stepped on a white mound that turned out to be my topcoat. It was dry. I put it on and in a moment began shivering again, trembling in every bone.
    There was no sign of Gunther.
    The Maples. That was where they had spotted me and planned the waiting, the ambush. It was ridiculous, yet it was probably true.
    I climbed a tight wire fence and tripped and got hung up, one foot jammed in the wire, head down.
    Finally I managed to free my foot. I staggered across a cornfield, across a ditch and stood on the hard-packed, windy snow and ice of the highway.
    There was no sign of my car.
    I had no idea what time it was. The car had to be around here somewhere. If Gunther was so set on my leaving, he wouldn’t go off and take my transportation with him. That was why they hadn’t wrecked the car when they smashed the house.
    My legs didn’t act right, and the pain was bad all over. I started down the road toward Pine Springs. I knew I would never make it, walking.
    There was a clump of willows at the side of the road by a small frozen spring. I wandered over there and saw the top of the car behind the willows. They had hidden it from passing motorists, knowing I would find it. I got the door open and climbed in, started it and drove out onto the highway.
    I remembered nothing on the way back to the house, just gripping the wheel, guiding the car, trying not to black out again.
    Warmth from the cookstove began to bring me around. I was on the mattresses,