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tried to explain how it was, as a doctor had explained it to me. I said: “Seems to be a question of adrenalin. What gives you the strength to hit. Some fighters have it as needed, and they can hit for money. I didn’t have it at all—no killer instinct, the sports writers called it. Except, unfortunately, I found out, if I got sore enough, I did have it—maybe a little too much. I broke a champion’s jaw, and—”
    “Then you were light-heavyweight champion?”
    “This was in training camp.”
    “Why would you do it there?”
    “He gypped me out of some dough.”
    “I don’t get this at all, Duke.”
    “I was working for him. If you can’t hit you’re just a punk and help train guys that can. I was his sparring partner, at Ojai, California, and I stretched him out on the grass. I also broke his jaw. And, with the smart money that was back of him, I had to get out of the state. I hopped a truck, at Ventura, and kept moving, headed east. Then I went a little bit haywire, and pulled this stick-up, last week. And then didn’t have the adrenalin to scram. I just lay there, on the bed in that little hotel.”
    “Wait a minute, Duke.”
    “That’s all. Then the officer came.”
    “Wait. Smart money?”
    “Gunsels.”
    “Duke, will you forget about adrenalin, punks, gunsels, and all such irrelevant things and give me a straight answer on a simple question of morals, so—”
    “He did give it!”
    She was standing there, in the light dress she had put on, like some pink blimp with electric lights for eyes. She said: “Are you deaf, Val? Or stupid? Or what? He’s been trying to tell you, he couldn’t hit for money, but he could hit for the right. Isn’t that straight enough? And is it so terrible? I tell you right now I wouldn’t have him here if it was the other way around. Sometimes, Val, I don’t understand you at all. All Bill needed was just one look, and he knew Duke had been in the ring, that he was decent, and—”
    “ Bill saw Duke?”
    “I told you he was here.”
    “That’s all I want to know.”
    They had it some more, he giving ground fast, and why Bill should settle it I couldn’t quite figure out, as there seemed to be more to it than a favorite brother-in-law. But at last they calmed down, and he said we’d look at the stump. As he led the way outside, she said to me very quiet she’d fallen into the barbwire, at her father’s sawmill in St. Mary’s—“which of course you couldn’t know.” That seemed to cover that, and at the tree I made them stand back while I chunked it with a bar, to knock the red charcoal off and break it down to embers. Then we walked around, and he looked at the house, as it shone in the night, the shells sparkling in front. I looked at the moon, which looked so beautiful now, with no bars between. What she looked at I couldn’t tell, but it seemed the farthest of all.
    But after a while we went in, and when I said goodnight, they walked with me to the cottage, to make sure I had enough blankets. As they stepped out on the porch, he said: “Wilkes Booth knocked on that door.”
    “Val!”
    “Well, he did.”
    “It’s not a nice thing to say!”
    She was sharp, but he kind of grinned about it, and as to who Wilkes Booth might be, or when he knocked on my door, I had no idea at that time. But later, when I’d gone to bed, prayed up my thanks to God and even I think slept, I sat up in bed quite suddenly. Outside was the sound of a bell, the tiny bell people use to put on a cat. It came to me that while most of the plumbing here drained into the septic tank, the shower water ran out in an open gutter that led to a little ravine, so maybe, if drops of blood were still there, an animal could smell it. But even that didn’t seem to account for a feeling of evil out there.
    I suddenly knew who Booth was.
    It came to me, I’d prayed up plenty of thanks, for being out from the bars, but hadn’t asked forgiveness for what I’d done to put me behind them