The Hunter and Other Stories Part 30

Michael said hastily, "If you'll only listen to me a minute, Felix. If you'll only let me talk."

Felix turned around. "Sure, I'll let you talk."

"And you won't fly off the handle till I've-"

"You'll have to take your chances on that. I don't like you. I never liked you." He slapped Michael's face again.

The big man hung his head and mumbled, "I know."

The woman laughed. "C'est incroyable," she told Felix, "but in his pocket he has a pistol."

The big man, blushing, said, "Well I can't shoot my own brother."

MY BROTHER FELIX.

"September 20, 1938"

My brother Felix came over from the mainland in Rev Youngling's boat early in the morning. I didn't know him at first. I hadn't seen him for five years and he was smaller and darker than I remembered. But when, as I came out on the pier, he turned from paying Rev and grinned up at me with his lips flattening against his teeth I knew him.

"How are you, Morgan?" he said, watching me come down to the float. He grinned again. "A horse. Papa ought to be satisfied."

Rev pushed his boat away, said, "His ears are too long, ha, ha, ha," waved his arm and headed back for the mainland.

I told Felix I was all right and was glad to see him and we shook with all four hands. He had got two scars on his face, thin straight lines-white against his sunburn-running from his left ear to the bridge of his nose and there were other scars like them on the backs of his hands.

"How is Papa?" he asked.

"All right." I picked up two of his bags, he took the other one and his newspapers. "Everybody's all right except Ines and she's a lot better now."

"Was she really very sick?"

"I guess she was, but she's better now. Did you know they got married?"

He said a little carefully as we climbed up to the pier, "I knew they were thinking about it."

"Are you going to stay a while this time?"

"I don't know. It depends on-" The dogs-we had two brown poodles then-crashed through the bushes and came racing out on the pier to meet us. "They're beauts." He put his bag down to play with them. "Where's old Cap?"

"Dead. So we got these."

Papa came through the bushes behind the dogs. When he saw Felix he took his pipe out of his mouth and said, "That's odd. I dreamed about you last night."

Felix stepped over the dogs to go to Papa, who bent down a little to let Felix kiss him on the cheek. I thought as I had thought before how funny it was that of all Papa's children only Felix didn't look anything like him. I suppose Felix took after his mother. I never saw her. My mother was Papa's second wife.

Papa spoke to me over Felix's head. "Take his things up to the house, son. He'll want to look around a little before breakfast." He led Felix off toward the orchard.

I tucked the newspapers and the third bag under my arm and went up to the house with the dogs romping ahead of me. Viv was on the porch steps eating grapes. Cocoa stood up on her hind legs and was given a grape. Jummie tried to stand up on his hind legs, fell over on his side, and was given a grape. Then Viv saw the bags, pointed the grapes at them, and asked, "Who's come?"

"Felix."

"Oh, good." She stuffed the rest of the grapes into her mouth and asked through them, "Where is he?"

"Papa's talking to him."

"Oh," she said. "I bet he'll be surprised how much I've grown."

"He told me that's what he came back to see about."

She made a face at me. "Do you think he'll have some more stories?"

"Maybe you won't like them now that you're grown up."

She frowned. "You liked them and you were sixteen."

"I know, but at sixteen I wasn't as mature as you are at twelve."

"Twelve and a half," she said as I went on into the house.

In the living-room Christina in a white bathing suit was tucking her yellow hair inside a yellow rubber cap. "How about that swim before breakfast?" she asked.

"Felix is here."

She stopped poking at her hair. "Did you talk to him?"

"Only until Papa came along and carried him off."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing special. Why?"

Her face flushed a little. "Nothing. We'll put him in Saint George's room."

"You're awfully pretty, Christina."

She laughed and said, "You're an awfully nice boy."

When I dropped the newspapers on a chair they fell open to show the Times front page headlines: CZECHS DELAY DECISION ON PARt.i.tION;.

ASK FRENCH ATt.i.tUDE IF THEY REFUSE;.

BRITAIN SEEKS A GESTURE FROM HITLER.

The Herald Tribune's read: CZECHS DEBATE SURRENDER TO HITLER.

AS LONDON AND PARIS RATIFY DEAL;.

RUSSIA INDICATES SHE WILL NOT AID.

I tried to make myself think I didn't have to believe them and took Felix's bags up to the bedroom that got its name from a two-foot wooden statue of a man in full armor-except that he wore no helmet to hide his carefully curled long hair-shoving a spear down the throat of a small inoffensive-looking dragon.

When I came downstairs again Jim and Wally were with Christina. She had put on a white terry robe and was looking at the Herald Tribune. "The hurricane missed Florida," she said.

"How about us?" Wally asked. He was sitting over by a window cleaning a pistol.

She shrugged and read, "'Should it continue on this course, it likely would be centered off Great Abaco Island about seven a.m. tomorrow.' That's today," she said and went on reading, "'This, said the observatory, definitely diminishes danger to the Florida channel, the south tip of Florida, and Cuba. "It is in the process of turning now and no one can tell just what course it finally will take," he added.' I don't know who he is," she said. "He just popped up in here. Anyhow he says, 'I can't even say where it would go if the direction of the moment is continued because the curve is continuing.' Does anybody make anything out of that?"

Wally said, "Not guilty. Where's Great Abaco?"

"One of the Bahamas," Jim told him. "It'd take a day or two to get up here-if it's coming." He turned to me. "So the wanderer has returned?" Jim was the oldest of us and the largest. He was almost as tall as Papa-who was six feet seven-and heavier. "How does he look?"

"All right, only he's black as an Indian."

"That country'll burn you." He ran a hand over his own sunburned face and chuckled. "Is he just back from there?"

"He didn't say. How's Ines?"

"Pretty good this morning."

Felix came in from the porch with an arm around Viv's shoulders. She was telling him about the new school she was going to.

Christina said, "Felix," and held out her hands with the newspaper dangling from one. He crossed the room to kiss her.

Jim clapped him on the back and said, "Welcome home, boy."

Felix shook Jim's hand briefly and went over to Wally, who put down his pistol and stood up wiping his hands on his pants legs. Felix took his hands and said, "You boys are doing a nice piece of growing." Wally at fourteen was less than an inch under six feet. "This is good being back here." He looked around the room. "That's a new picture over the radio, isn't it?"

Wally said, "Morgan painted it. Swell, huh?"

Felix said, "Swell," and looked at me as if he were about to wink, so I knew he liked it even if he didn't think it was as swell as Wally made it sound.

Jim moved toward him saying, "Ines will be mighty glad to see you. She often talks about you."

Felix said carefully again, as when he had spoken of their marriage coming up from the float to the pier, "I'll be glad to see her. How is she?"

"She's been a pretty sick girl, but she's on the mend now." Jim put a hand on Felix's arm, a habit of his: he was a little muscle-crazy and was never comfortable until he knew what kind of biceps the men around him had. "What's new down south?"

Felix's lips flattened against his teeth in a small smile and he spoke softly, but as if he enjoyed what he was saying. "Quite a bit, Jim, quite a bit."

"Yes? I've seen things in the papers once in a while."

Felix, still speaking softly, said, "Only the army can keep Aguirre from going in and this time I don't think they'll want to. Your friends von Marees and Ibanez are in the coop, I suppose praying that they won't get anything worse than exile. That's what's new down south, Jim."

"My friends?" Jim's face had reddened through his sunburn and his voice came out angry from deep in his throat. "Look here, Felix, you can't-"

Felix took his arm out of Jim's hand and turned his back on him. "We're a long way from Chile now. What's happening is happening down there." He asked Christina, "Where's the rest of the family?"

"Ellen's not up yet, Sue and Alice are getting breakfast, Bob lives in the city now, you know, and I guess my three are down overfeeding the rabbits as usual. You haven't seen my youngest."

"Nice?"

She had taken off the rubber cap. When she nodded, her blonde hair slid back and forth over her cheeks. "Nice."

Viv, who had been staring at Felix, pointed a finger at his cheek and asked, "How did you get that?"

He put a hand up to the scars. "I'll tell you, but you'll have to give me time to think up a fancy story."

She looked frightened. "Weren't those stories you used to tell us the truth?"

"Yes, the truth, but fancy."

"Oh," she said thoughtfully, then, "Did it hurt?"

"Most things that leave marks don't tickle."

"Was that down in Chile?"

He nodded. "I'll tell you all about it, but you've got to give me time to gaudy it up." He rumpled her hair, she laughed and put an arm around his waist.

Jim, his voice no longer angry, asked, "Did you come straight up from there?"

"Pretty straight."

Christina's children came in jabbering all together about one of the rabbits being dead.

"This is my brood," Christina said and pointed them out to Felix. "This is Ted. He's eight. And Olive's six. She wasn't walking when you saw her. And this is the fairly new one you've never seen-Humboldt. He's three." She told the children, "This is your brother Felix."

Felix held out his hand and they took turns putting their hands in it, Ted first, then Olive, and then Humboldt. Ted made them do everything in that order. There were so many of us-twelve of us-older than he that seniority rights had become very important to him down at his end of the list.

Felix held on to Humboldt's hand and squatted down to ask, "So one of the rabbits died?"

Humboldt, staring at him with wide blue eyes in a flat pink placid face, said, "Rabbit died."

"Do you like rabbits?"

Humboldt said, "Like rabbits."

"Do you like to play with them or eat them?"

"Play with them, eat them."