Alfred Hitchcock’s A Hangman’s Dozen

She nodded.

“Here,” I said. “Take it and try. It’s unloaded.”

Her eyes went wide as if I had thrust a poisonous snake at her. “Oh, no, Sam. I can’t make myself touch one.”

“Then how are you going to learn to shoot?”

“Give me time. Will you do that? When I’m alone tomorrow I’ll try. You’ll leave it unloaded, won’t you? I’ll try when I’m alone so no one will make fun of me. I know it’s silly to be like this but that’s the way I am. I so much want to learn to shoot a gun — for Elroy. You’ll teach me, won’t you?”

I knew a moment of a strange, new loneliness and a hopeless yearning. “Okay, Mrs. Endicott,” I said. “I’ll teach you.”

The deer came out of the thicket and stood still a moment. I caught him in the sights and then I hesitated, thinking, if he’ll go over that rise he’ll be set up just right for Endicott. After all, that’s what he’s paying me for. I could drop it for him but there’s no thrill like shooting your own.

The deer was a big buck with a large rack of antlers but he was far enough away so that I couldn’t count the points. Probably as tough eating as an old inner tube, but he’d make a fine trophy. I tightened my finger around the trigger. If he wasn’t going to move soon I’d shoot.

Just then the buck stirred and started up the slope. He moved without hurry, ambling up the hill. A moment he was silhouetted against the gray sky. Then he was gone.

I waited. The shot cracked out loud and sharp in all that stillness. The echoes rolled past me and beyond me, far into the evergreens and into silence. Then came another shot and on the heels of that a third one. These echoes, too, rolled and faded and died.

A strange reluctance gripped me as I started up the slope. I could not understand it. All I knew was that it unnerved me. Was it the temper of the day, the low, dismal clouds, the first hush of winter like the deep, eternal silence of the tomb? Then her image crossed my memory and I knew what it was.

I stopped on the crest of the hill. He was there below, sitting on a stump with his back to me. I stood there and watched. And I felt it begin in me, mildly at first, just swirling around in the dark depths of me and I didn’t know what it was, then something nurtured it and it grew and I felt it rise overwhelmingly in me and at the last moment I caught myself and forced it back to whatever depths had spawned it. I lowered the rifle from my shoulder, aware that I was trembling all over.

When I had myself in hand again I went down to him. He heard me coming and he rose to his feet and picked up his rifle. His face wore a disgusted look.

“Missed him,” he said bitterly. “Three shots and every one a miss. I suppose you heard?”

I said nothing.

“He came over that rise,” Endicott went on, “walking slow and easy. I couldn’t have asked for a better target. But I missed and he really took off. I tried two more on the run but what can you expect when I can’t even hit a walking target?” He peered at me. “You listening, Ludlow?”

I hauled myself out of it, out of the black thoughts and the fear, the numbing fear of the great and dark evil that I had never known existed m me until a few minutes ago.

“I heard you shoot,” I said woodenly. “Tough. But you’ll get another chance. Better luck then.”

He was still peering at me. “You don’t look so good.”

I stared off at the green ring the balsams and spruces and hemlocks made around this clearing. “I’m all right.”

“You look all in,” he said. “I’m pretty well bushed myself. How about calling it a day?”

I didn’t like the thought of going back to the cottage and seeing her move around and hearing her voice and feeling her eyes on me every now and then. I didn’t like that at all but there was no way to run from it.

So I said, “Okay, Endicott. Let’s start back...”

That evening I didn’t even try to read. I lay on my blankets with my hands under my head and my eyes closed and straining everything in me to keep from remembering the incident of that day and trying not to pay attention to their voices beyond the curtain.

They were playing cribbage and she squealed delightedly every time she won and he grumbled but you could tell it was good-natured grousing and that he was really glad she had won. Maybe he had even let her win. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do for her.

I didn’t hear her come in. My eyes were closed and it was the fragrance first of all, and then an awareness of her and I opened my eyes and there she was, staring at me with that grave, faintly wistful look in her eyes, the lamplight turning the ends of her dark hair to golden brown.

Endicott was moving about in the next room and the radio began to blare, loudly, and though I’ve always hated loud radios somehow I liked it loud right then.

“Aren’t you feeling well, Sam?” she asked, and I thought there was something special in her voice for me, something like concern, but then I told myself it was just my imagination.

I sat up on the edge of the bed. “I’m all right.”

“You hardly ate anything tonight.”

“I wasn’t very hungry.”

“Could I make something for you?”

“I’m all right. You needn’t bother.”

“I’d like to fix you something.”

To change the subject I said, “How about the carbine? Did you try it today? It would be just right for you, a light gun like that.”

She shuddered. “I tried. I tried real hard, Sam. I actually picked it up once but that’s all. I put it down right away. Guns make my skin crawl. They always have. I don’t think I could ever force myself to shoot one.”

“There’s really nothing to it,” I said. “I don’t know why you should be so afraid.”

“But I am,” she said, and shuddered again and hugged herself with her arms. Her eyes widened and stared off into that secret, sad somewhere that only she could see. “Call it a phobia. Maybe something that happened when I was a child and which I can’t remember.” She uttered a small, nervous laugh, her lips twitching stiffly. “Maybe I should go see a psychiatrist. Are you sure you don’t want me to fix you something?”

“I’m very sure. Thanks anyway.”

“Well, good night, Sam.”

“Good night, Mrs. Endicott...”