the Onion Field (1973) (25 page)

Jimmy handed Greg the automatic and sat in the driver's side of the car and Greg began the confounding job of reloading the weapons that had been fired. Jimmy handed Greg six rounds and the automatic, and Greg began fumbling and dropping shells and finally he got one revolver loaded and gave back two rounds to Jimmy Smith.

Jimmy sat in the dark and bullets and guns were clumsily exchanged by the two frantic men in the darkness, and finally Jimmy Smith said, "I'm gonna drive down the road and stop and wait for you and work back."

Greg decided to use the automatic since Jimmy could never be trusted to know how to fire it alone in the darkness and excitement. So Greg took only Karl's flashlight and the .32 automatic. "All you gotta do is fire the .38, Jimmy. Just pull the trigger. And don't waste bullets."

And Jimmy Smith drove north on the dirt road while Greg ran to the fence line choked by tumbleweeds and swept the beam across the field, back and forth. As Jimmy was driving off, he called for his last order from Gregory Powell: "Do you want me to go down this way? And turn around?"

"Yeah," said Greg.

While Greg passed the beam over the field, Karl Hettinger ran south and west and finally north, ran through the black night, falling often in the plowed ground, catching glimpses of light to the east and then of moving light to the south. He ran toward the ridge away from the lights.

Karl was afraid of the farmhouse to the north, the one which Gregory Powell had pointed to. He began running westerly, toward some other lights twinkling in the distance, another farmhouse. But distances were deceiving in the solitary blackness and his breath was ripping through his lungs and he was exhausted long before he began getting close to the lights. Then he heard a sound and for a moment he doubted his ears. He listened and reached for his glasses in his pocket but they were gone, lost. He peered through the darkness and saw it. A Caterpillar tractor!

Emmanuel McFadden had been working an especially long shift. He was supposed to work twelve hours from noon to midnight with a forty-five minute break at 6:00 p. M. It was a hard day and his khakis were sweat soaked. But somehow he was preoccupied when midnight came, and it was twenty past midnight when he unhooked the disc and drove the tractor back toward the barn so that it could be gassed up and taken over by his brother James. Sometimes he got caught up in the sound of the Cat's engine, and the hiss of the disc slicing furrows, and he would dream that it was his farm, and he would plow his earth gladly at midnight.

He thought of the little Arkansas farm, the forty acres his grandfather owned, and how it would be if he and James owned this farm here in the San Joaquin Valley, of how he would plant onions and garlic and cotton and cantaloupe and it wouldn't matter then, the twelve hours on the big Cat, nor the cold wet feet from placing the sprinklers, nor even the poor drafty barn where farm workers slept. None of it would matter if it was their land.

He was not a big man but he was young, twenty-five, and Mr. Archie, the overseer, said he was a good worker, better than men twice his size. When he heard this, Emmanuel's mahogany face broke in two, in a prideful grin. His nose was scarred across the bridge and under the ball just over the lip, and it was off center, so that the face broke into two off-centered sections when he smiled. The dream had kept him working that night, past the hour when he could stop. He had thought several minutes before that he saw lights off to the east, and that was passing strange because who would be out there in those fields at this time of night except himself? When he looked at his watch and saw it was twenty past twelve he unhooked the disc, and was riding home, feeling the ache, feeling the exhaustion. Then he saw the apparition in the beam from the rear light. In the distance he saw it, and it was coming toward him, tottering crazily, ghostly weird, falling and crawling like an animal.

By now Karl had covered more than two miles at top speed, in the darkness, through the fields, with a body drained of energy from two hours of sustained fear and twenty-five minutes of overwhelming horror and shock. It was a terrible apparition to the tractor driver who saw Karl clearly now, struggling through the darkness like a drowning man, mouth agape, eyes round with terror, hands outstretched, lunging at the air as he staggered forward to catch the tractor.

"I was so scared. At first I thought it was a animal comin like that and I picked up a shovel I carried on the Cat and I was gettin ready to hit it when he come up on me and I see it was a white man with his clothes half tore off. He's puffin and sayin, 'Help me, help me.' And I see a empty gun holster there whappin against him and I thought, Lord, he's fixin to shoot me off the Cat. And at first I jist try to ignore him. Pretend like I didn't see him. And he say, 'Help me. I'm a PO-lice. Help me! They killed my partner and two men is comin to kill me!' I got scared. I jist can't hardly tell it, and I stopped and I took him on back of the Cat and turned it around and headed for the house at the Coberly West farmin camp, to those clapboard shacks where there was a phone. And he's tellin me, puffin and tellin me that he was kidnapped, and about the killin, and the two men.

"And when we get close to the farm I saw a light and I say, 'It's them. It's them!'

"And the officer say, 'Is there a car?' and I don't know if they was in a car, but I think they was on foot there. So I turn and I look and the lights is a ways off in the distance, but the lights is gettin closer and closer and the Cat can't go fast as we can run, so I say, 'Let's go!' And we jumps off the Cat and leaves the motor goin and starts to run. Through the fields we runs. And it's dark and we jist runs. And runs. . . ."

And at that time, running for his life, Emmanuel McFadden turned back and saw that the policeman could not possibly keep up. That he was caving in, staggering like a drunken man, hardly able to breathe, falling. Emmanuel McFadden became angry. White men! This was white man's trouble. Police trouble. It had nothing to do with him. Nothing. And yet they were drawing him into it. Drawing him into a thing he could not understand. They were going to kill him now, those men, those two killers who had already murdered a policeman. And why should he die? He'd done nothing. Why should he die with this white man behind him, lurching across broken ground and falling in the dirt, fingers digging into the earth, retching. So Emmanuel McFadden ran away, far ahead, until he could no longer hear the wheezing rattling breath of the policeman behind him. Hoping he could outrun them. All of them. The policeman and the killers.

But when he got closer to the highway, to the Robert Mettler ranch, he stopped and looked at the house, so still and foreboding in the moonlight. He stopped and reconsidered, and lay down in the fields. It was bad. It was very bad. Because those lights he had seen near the place where he abandoned the tractor, those lights had circled the tractor and the killers now knew the policeman had a helper, and if they were car lights, it would mean the killers could easily have reached this same farmhouse by now. In fact, it was the logical place for them to come. There by the highway. This is where they would have to come. And there was an open field and a dirt road to cross before getting to the house. And if the killers were lurking in the dark . . .

So Emmanuel McFadden realized that he could not escape this policeman. That if he were to survive this night he would himself need a helper, one to watch and warn while the other one crept close to the house. But not this house. This looked like a trap. So he returned angry and scared to Karl Hettinger, who was still stumbling across the plowed ground.

"Look, man," said Emmanuel McFadden, "we gotta change directions. This ain't no good here. They could easy be there in the dark waitin. This is where I would wait if I was them. It jist ain't no good."

"Whatever you say," Karl gasped, sawing at the air, mouth hanging slack, eyes rolling back every few seconds, down on one knee, willing to follow anyone who could lead him away from his pursuers.

The farmhand made the decision and they headed due west toward the Opal Fry ranch. Once they saw a flashlight off to the east, far off, and the farmhand thought they were safe and he could slow down and rest. Then he saw car lights coming north toward the dirt road where they could almost reach the Cat. "Oh my Lord!" said Emmanuel McFadden. "My Lord!" And they were up and running as hard as they were able. The car lights continued north and disappeared.

"I ain't never gonna forget that car. Never. It was a li'l ol round car. I heard that one killer say in court he never came lookin for us in the car, but it's a lie. I seen that car, li'l ol roundy car it was. I ain't never gonna forget that ol roundy car."

They had to stop again for Karl to rest. It was so quiet, so still, that Karl's ragged breathing was panicking Emmanuel McFadden.

"You jist got to stop that loud breathin," he said. "They gonna hear you a mile away!"

"I ... I ... I .. . can't," Karl gasped, waves of pain breaking over him, and sounds in his ears like the memory of Ian Campbell's death moan. Karl's breathing actually got louder, and the farmhand looked fearfully through the darkness, knowing the sound would draw them in. He knew how they would come: like a brace of coyotes, quartering, circling a fleeing jack until they wear him down, trap him, and then walk in calmly, the jack fear-frozen.

"Man, I'm gonna run off and leave you if you don't stop makin so much noise."

"I'm catch . . . catching my breath now. I'm catching . . ."

"You gotta go a little faster, too. You jist gotta."

"What's your . . . what's your name?"

"Emmanuel."

"My names Karl"

"Can you get up now, Karl?"

"Yes."

"We gotta do it together, Karl. We gotta stay together."

"Let's go," said Karl, and they were up and running again, running west, and then off fifty yards in front of them, a beam of light flashed slowly and they dived to the ground. Emmanuel McFadden wanted to put his hand over the white man's mouth. Now they were close. Now they were close to death!

"I can't . . . can't go much more," Karl whispered.

"Don't talk. Save it, man."

"They're going to kill us."

"Oh, no. Don't you be talkin like that. I don't wanna die. Don't be talkin crazy now. You jist lay down there. Lay in the furrows, Karl. Lay behind the tumbleweeds. We gotta stay together or we ain't got no chance. Neither one of us."

And so they stayed together, the white man and the black man, strangers, but for a moment more dependent than either had ever been on another man. Hunted by a white man and a black man, each for the moment more dependent upon the other than either had ever been.

"And they was movin about," Emmanuel McFadden would say. "Movin about. I was layin on the ground. I saw the lights movin around the Cat. And I knew you could drive a car across those fields cause the gas company do it all the time. I saw the car, the same car. One car went into the mountains way back at midnight and one car came out. It was the same car. The lights went off the car when they went in and the lights came back on goin to the highway."

And by this time, Karl Hettinger had run almost four miles, through plowed and unplowed ground, in the black of night, in shock.

They had another mile to go, and they ran it together this time, together through the darkness, their fear-filled sweat dropping to the earth, and finally, there in the distance, was the Opal Fry ranch.

Karl fell to his knees, dropped to all fours, head hung, not breathing now but rattling dangerously. "I can't. . . can't. . . make it."

"You can make it, Karl. You gotta make it. "Cause if you don't make it, I won't make it."

"They . . . k-killed . . ."

"Never mind about him, Karl. Jist try to quiet down and rest. Jist try to stop that loud buzzsaw in your chest. If you don't quiet down I'm gonna have to run off and leave you."

"Go ahead, Emmanuel. I'm too . . . too ... I can't go on."

"Damn, Karl. I can't. We needs each other. But if you could jist breathe a little softer. You're gettin on my nerves real bad. Real bad, Karl."

"I'm . . . trying to ... be quiet, but. . . I . . . just keep thinking . . . about . . . about . . ."

"Karl!" Emmanuel whispered suddenly. "What?"

"It's the car! See it to the north? The lights? It's comin down this way. Karl, it's comin!"

And they were up again and running full tilt to the patch of tumbleweeds fifty yards ahead. It was a pathetic sprint and at the end of it they fell to the earth and lay in the furrow and burrowed in. Karl sunk his knuckles deep into the ground, digging, holding on to the very earth itself, to keep from fainting.

They watched the car go south toward Wheeler Ridge.

Then after three interminable minutes Karl raised up on his knees and said, "I'm gonna try for the ranch, Emmanuel."

"Okay, Karl. Okay. I'm gonna watch. And if you hear me yell, man, you come runnin back here, back to me in the dark."

"If I make it across the fields. If I get in the house. If you see me in there, you come on in. You call my name. You call me. And then you say your name and I'll know4 it's safe to open the door. Okay, Emmanuel?"

"Okay, Karl, you go on now. Jist don't hurry across this last field. Jist watch. Hear?"

"So long, Emmanuel."

"See you later, Karl," he said.

And less than a minute after Karl left him, Emmanuel McFadden felt it as he had not before. The fear. But now it was mingled with a dreadful awesome loneliness. Here in the night, in the fields, straining his eyes in the darkness, he felt like the last man on earth. Then he knew he was not. He gasped and felt his body go weak and he was not sure if he could get up and run. It was the car! It was coming south! Coming for him!