He went back into the other room, and tried the ladder. It was heavily built, and seemed firm. Cautiously, he climbed up. He stretched himself out on the rough floor. The beams were solid. After a little while, he fell asleep. He roused in the early afternoon, ate almost all of the food he had left, and went to the branch for a drink. Then he came back, and lay down until almost dusk.

  Just after full dark, he came to a crossroads store. He looked in, and saw that it was empty, except for an old man sitting in a chair propped against the wall. A lamp in a bracket with a tin reflector burned above him. Mr. Munn went in, and bought a package of crackers and a piece of cheese. He put these objects into the pockets of his coat, and went on.

  The next morning, looking southward from the brow of a little rise, he saw familiar country. A railroad track bisected the wide, shallow valley, the rails glittering in the light. On each side of the track the clean fields of corn and tobacco lay, the plants standing in long rows of geometrical precision. Cattle were motionless in the distant pastures. The barns and houses, and the groves around them, looked fresh and washed in the limpidity of early morning. He knew that a few miles up the track, east, was Monclair. He left the lane down which he had been traveling, and hid himself in the woods. Twice during the course of the morning he heard trains whistle, and looking down, saw them drawing easily down across the valley, flecking the air only with a little steam and wisping smoke.

  In the evening he came down, and began to walk eastward along the tracks.

  The house stood back from a rutty dirt road. He knew it was the place, because leaning over close to the mailbox he had been able to make out the name, ‘Edmund Tolliver.’ It was a new mailbox. The metal was clean and slick to the touch of his fingers, and the black lettering distinct upon it. A stone wall separated the yard from the road, where a fringe of leafy brush ran. The gate was gone, and stones had fallen from the wall beside a broken post. There were no trees in the yard, but the black bulk of woods showed on the rise beyond the house.

  At first he thought the house was deserted; then, upon nearer approach, he saw that a very dim light showed around a curtain at one window, or a cloth which had been hung there. His knees tense and crooking beneath him, he stepped upon the loose boards of the porch floor, and laid his hand to the latch. The door gave easily, with only a slight sound.

  At the instant of his entering, he made out, by the unsure light of the turned-down lamp, the figure on the bed, covered only by a sheet, the face averted. He closed the door behind him, as with the scrupulous care of someone entering a sick-room. He stood there watching, leaning forward a little, solicitously; and very slowly, almost weakly, while he stood there, the figure moved on the bed and the face turned toward him. He saw the eyes, faintly shining in the light, widen, and saw the lips twitch, preparatory to speech.

  ‘What do you want?’ the man on the bed said.

  Not answering, he took two long, bent-kneed strides toward the bed. He laid his left hand on the footboard, and inclined his body a little forward, staring.

  ‘What do you want here?’ the man on the bed said.

  He leaned, and looked searchingly, peeringly, at that long, sunken face above the crumpled sheet.

  ‘Why,’ the man on the bed exclaimed — ‘why, you are Percy Munn!’

  But for a moment he made no response, leaning there over the footboard. ‘I hadn’t thought of you in a long time,’ he said then, almost whispering, still staring. He added, ‘I’d almost forgot what you looked like.’

  The man on the bed raised himself a little, as though painfully, and propped himself on one elbow. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d almost forgot what you looked like. You’d gone out of my mind’ — the words came slowly, meditatively. ‘Then something happened and brought you back to my mind, Tolliver.’

  ‘What do you want?’ the man on the bed demanded, almost mechanically now.

  ‘To kill you,’ he said, not moving. Then he added, ‘I’m going to kill you, Tolliver.’ He stopped, as though searching within himself. ‘In a minute,’ he said, ‘when I’ve looked at you.’

  The long, bony fingers of the free hand of the man on the bed shifted aimlessly, closed and unclosed. ‘You might kill me,’ he said softly. ‘You might be the man to do it, Perse.’

  ‘I am,’ Mr. Munn answered. ‘You know, I killed a man once. At least, I think I did. I was one of them did it. I shot first, I guess. I pulled the trigger, and then, there was blood on him. You know,’ he continued, leaning, his voice sinking as in a confidence, ‘you pull the trigger. You pull the trigger, and there it is.’

  The fingers stopped moving on the sheet.

  ‘You don’t notice the noise,’ Mr. Munn said; ‘not then.’ Then he added, ‘That comes after.’

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ the man on the bed replied.

  ‘The noise,’ he repeated, ‘that comes after. You, you probably won’t notice it at all.’

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ the man on the bed said again, as though to himself.

  ‘No’ — and Mr. Munn shook his head slightly, like a man trying, puzzledly, to recall something — ‘you’re not afraid. I thought you’d be afraid.’

  ‘I was almost afraid when I knew you, standing there. But I’m not — not now. A time back, a month ago, maybe, I’d have been afraid. But not now, Perse. Things change, Perse. You don’t know how it is, Perse.’ He studied the face of the man leaning there toward him. ‘Why don’t you go on and do it, Perse? Perse, why don’t you? You came here to do it, Perse?’ And the voice went on softly, almost cajolingly, pronouncing the name.

  He took the revolver from his pocket and looked at it.

  ‘I’m going to kill you,’ he declared. ‘It’ll be a favor to kill you. A favor to you. If I didn’t kill you, you’d lie here, in this house, and be nothing. Nothing; and you thought you were something. You still think so. You’ve got a new mailbox, out there on the road, but’ — and he leaned closer, shaking his head as in pity — ‘but there won’t be anything in it. Ever. You’d be nothing. But you know’ — and he leaned again, shaking his head — ‘you were always nothing. Nothing. Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing,’ the voice echoed questioningly. ‘A man never knows what he is, Perse. You don’t know what you are, Perse. You thought you knew, one time, Perse. When we were friends, Perse.’ He lay back, not closing his eyes, but letting the lids droop a little so that no gleam showed. He said, tiredly: ‘I liked you, Perse. I like you now. I don’t know what you are, but I like you. And you don’t know.’

  ‘I do know. I’m nothing,’ he uttered distantly, and cocked the revolver, but did not point it. ‘But when I do it, I won’t be nothing. It came to me, Do it, do it, and you’ll not be nothing. Like that, like words, it came into my head, and I came here. To kill you.’ He pointed the revolver. He remained motionless for a moment, then said, ‘Not because you are filthy, but for myself.’

  Tolliver shut his eyes. The hand on the sheet clenched. The skin over the knuckles was white, like the sheet, which sagged to show the outline of the body. Leaning over the footboard, Mr. Munn held the revolver at arm’s length, pointed at the body, high up. The faint rays of the lamp fell palely across the man’s face, shadowing the sunken sockets of the closed eyes. The wrinkles and tiny veining on the eyelids showed a little, like the veining of leaves. The man’s lips were slightly parted, as though in thirst.

  ‘I’m going to,’ Mr. Munn said.

  Somewhere in the room a clock was ticking with an unhurried, metallic sound.

  ‘I’m going to,’ he repeated, ‘in a minute. When I’ve looked at you.’

  He waited, the revolver unwavering.

  Then he commanded suddenly, ‘Open your eyes.’

  The man on the bed gave no sign.

  ‘Open your eyes.’

  ‘Why don’t you, Perse?’ the voice whispered dryly. But the man’s eyes were closed.

  The revolver sank a few inches, uncertainly.

  ‘I thought,’ Mr. Munn murmured, as in reverie, ‘I could do it.’

  The man on the bed opened his eyes. ‘You couldn’t do it,’ the voice said croakingly.

  The hand holding the revolver sank until it rested against the footboard of the bed. The contact of the metal on wood made a single, small sound. Then Tolliver shifted his head on the pillow, weakly, like a sick man. ‘Give me a little water,’ he said.

  Mr. Munn looked toward the bureau, where a pitcher and glass stood near the lamp. He transferred the revolver to his left hand and took a step toward the bureau. At a slight creaking sound behind him, he wheeled abruptly.

  The door from the next room had opened. There, in the opening, one hand still resting on the latch and the other suspended in the air before her breast, Matilda Tolliver stood. ‘Ah,’ she said, as in a retarded, weary exhalation. Her eyes, gleaming under the brows of her rough-cut, ravaged face, fixed upon him.

  He retreated one step, letting his lifted hands subside.

  ‘Matilda,’ the man on the bed called, but she apparently did not hear him.

  ‘Matilda,’ he repeated.

  She stirred, shifting her gaze to him.

  ‘This is Percy Munn,’ he said. ‘You remember Percy Munn?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered.

  ‘He’s come to see me,’ Tolliver explained. ‘He was just getting ready to give me a glass of water.’

  ‘How do you do?’ she asked.

  Mr. Munn, wetting his lips, managed to speak, saying, ‘I just came in.’ He turned, and while he lifted the pitcher with his right hand, with the other dropped the revolver into his pocket. She watched him the whole time. The water made a muted, gurgling noise, spilling into the glass.

  He handed the glass to the man on the bed, who accepted it and drank while the others watched him. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and when Mr. Munn took the glass, he let his head sink back upon the pillow. ‘Matilda,’ he added, ‘why don’t you fix Perse something to eat? He must be hungry by now, coming a long way.’

  ‘I was thinking that,’ she replied.

  ‘No,’ Mr. Munn said, almost violently, ‘no. I’m going. I just wanted to see the Senator. I’ve seen him now. I’m going.’

  She crossed the room toward him, and laid her hand upon his arm. ‘Sit down, Mr. Munn,’ she urged. ‘Sit down and rest, and I’ll fix you something.’

  ‘I’m going,’ he replied, seeming to shiver under her touch.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said again.

  He jerked from her, taking a full pace backward. The empty glass fell from his hand, splintering on the floor. ‘I’m going,’ he cried, and flung a sudden, wide gaze about the room, like an animal.

  ‘No ——’ she began, and stopped. Her hand, which was in the act of reaching again toward him, paused in the air. ‘Listen,’ she ordered. ‘I heard something.’

  They waited, then Tolliver said, ‘It’s nothing, Matilda.’

  ‘It was,’ she insisted. ‘Listen.’ She went to the outside door, and stood against it, with her hand on the latch, listening. ‘It is,’ she said. She opened the door a little, and leaned, staring out.

  Mr. Munn moved quickly to the other side of the room.

  ‘It is,’ she repeated, turning again. ‘On the road, horses.’

  ‘The soldiers,’ Mr. Munn said steadily. He opened the door behind him, gathering himself.

  ‘A door’ — Matilda was saying — ‘to the side, the side porch ——’

  He found the door in the dark, and opened it. He heard a movement down toward the road. He could make out nothing at the moment, except the lighter space of the open fields beyond the yard, and high, to his left, the darker mass of the woods. Half-crouching, he ran across the yard, stumbling. He ran into the wall, and fell, and got over. Sylvestus, he thought; Sylvestus, he told them. Then: He waited till today, he didn’t have nerve till today, all this time, weeks, and didn’t have the nerve till today. He ran on across the rough ground, and fell, and ran. ‘The bastard, the bastard,’ he breathed aloud.

  Ahead of him, across the field, were the woods. Down the slope, there were the voices calling, sharply, hollowly, like the voices of boys. At that sound, so empty in the darkness, an astonishing delight sprang up in him, a wild and intoxicating contempt. He scarcely felt the ground beneath him, under his plunging stride.

  He fell again, and, rising, saw to one side and above him on the slope, vaguely against the field and paler sky, the standing form of a man. But there — there, beyond that form — would be the woods, the absorbing darkness, the safety, the swift and secret foot. As he lifted the revolver, he was certain. He was certain. But without thought — he did not know why — at the long instant before his finger drew the trigger to the guard and the blunt, frayed flame leaped from the muzzle, he had lifted his arm a little toward the paleness of the sky. He saw the answering bursts ahead of him, and reeled with the impact. Lying on the ground, he fired once more, almost spasmodically, without concern for direction. He tried to pull the trigger again, but could not. Lying there, while the solid ground lurched and heaved beneath him in a long swell, he drowsily heard the voices down the slope calling emptily, like the voices of boys at a game in the dark.

  THE END

  ROBERT PENN WARREN (1905–1989) was born in Guthrie, Kentucky. After graduation from Vanderbilt University and graduate study at the University of California and at Yale, he attended Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar. He pursued an academic career, teaching at Southwestern College, Vanderbilt, Louisiana State University, where he was a founder and editor of The Southern Review, Minnesota and Yale. Night Rider, his first novel (1939), was followed by At Heaven’s Gate (1948) and All the King’s Men (1946), which won the Pulitzer Prize. Other novels include World Enough and Time (1950), Band of Angels (1955) and A Place to Come To (1977). He also published a collection of short stories, Circus in the Attic, and many critical studies and textbooks. A winner of numerous distinguished literary awards, he published several collections of his poetry, and was named the first Poet Laureate of the United States.

  GEORGE CORE, who grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, has edited The Sewanee Review (which is now celebrating its centennial) since 1973. He has edited several books about American literature, and co-edited Writing from the Inside (1983) and the Selected Letters of John Crowe Ransom (1985). He contributes regularly to the periodical press.

 

 

  Robert Penn Warren, Night Rider

 

 

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