The Feud by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page B

led as a prisoner through her house, but he was not embarrassed by this prospect, because it certainly was not his own idea or fault.
    But she was not in the dining room, nor was anyone else who could be called young. The table held a number of cakes, but the people who stood around it were talking and not eating. One tall, skinny woman with a faint mustache said, “Oh; hi there, Cousin Reverton,” and to Tony, whom she assumed was a legitimate member of the party, “Hi there, sonny. Now which one are you?” But Reverton pulled him onward.
    In the kitchen a friendly, motherly-looking woman was tending to the enamel percolator on the stove. She gave Tony a warm smile.
    But Reverton forestalled her. “He’s a bad-un, Frieda. He’s a Beeler!”
    She acquired the same blank expression as had been displayed by those in the front room. Tony assumed she was Eva’s mother. There was a certain resemblance in the shape of the face and also the plump bosom.
    Reverton opened a door next to the kitchen cabinet, and with a push directed Tony to go down the rough wooden stairs. Stacks of newspapers and magazines, neatly tied, sat on the concrete floor near the bottom of the steps, no doubt awaiting collection by the Boy Scouts. There was a toilet in the Bullard basement, with a crude door of wood slats, wide open at the moment: the seat was in the raised position and looked split. Beyond this were the stationary washtubs of soapy-textured galvanized metal, and then one entire corner was filled with a workbench and its attendant tools, the smaller ones hung neatly on wall hooks and the largest, a wood-turning lathe, mounted at one end of the long bench top. Toward the other extremity was a vise of the under-table type. Everything was very clean, but it looked as if it had seen use enough: the blades of the edged tools had that subdued sheen of veteran steel, and the wooden handles were darkened and polished with the natural oils of the hand.
    Reverton said, “Yessir, Bud, this pretty well settles it for my money, when it comes to who set the fire.”
    Tony looked around to see whom he was talking to. In the shadows beyond the furnace was a man’s figure, standing in the doorway to the coal bin. He mumbled something.
    Reverton said impatiently, “I tell you I found this here monkey hanging around out front. He’s a Beeler! He never come here for our own good, I’ll tell you that.” He elbowed Tony. “You tell ‘im, boy: what’s your name?”
    “Anton Beeler.”
    “How do you like that moniker?” Reverton asked. “That’s some Hunky for you! … What are you doing over here onna peaceful Sunday, boy? How come you ain’t with your own kind, eating a nice dinner if you can steal one?”
    Bud came out of the coal bin. He looked as if he had been crying and then had wiped his face with hands that were dirty from coal dust.
    “Just what is this, Rev?”
    Reverton said to Tony, “You tell the truth, or by God I won’t be responsible for your health.”
    Tony shrugged and addressed the man who must be Eva’s father, and because of that he could not tell all the truth, for trafficking with a girl who was too young was a good deal more shameful than setting a fire. “I was just taking a walk,” said he.
    “That’s rich!” jeered Reverton. “There’s a whole town of his own to walk in, and even if he would want to come over here, it’s full of plenty other streets.”
    Bud addressed him sternly but not unkindly. “Is that right? Did you come over here to start some trouble?”
    “No sir.”
    “Did you start that fire?”
    “No sir.”
    Bud asked, “Who did?”
    “I didn’t even know anything about it till just now when I was coming over—”
    “I guess you think it’s pretty funny, though?” Bud said this in melancholy irony, but Reverton made a strangling sound of rage.
    “I just wish I’d been there when you struck the match,” he said. “I’d of blown your goddam hand off at the wrist, you dirty