"What's he mad at?"
"Me. I go to fix the freezer and he say, 'Get out of there, you crazy
Scandahoovian! From now on you work only outside and joost three days a
week!"
"For Pete's sake! Why?"
"He's mad."
"Why don't you get a different job, Nels? One you can depend on?"
"Yah, I like to. I do not like Mr. Thornton no more."
"Why not?"
"He gets mad. You hear from your pa, Ted?"
"No."
"I'm awful sorry," Nels said gravely. "I do not believe your pa, he
shoot this man like they say he did. If I could help him, I would."
"Thanks, Nels. Be seeing you."
"So long, Ted."
Ted drove on, wondering. He'd had only two personal contacts with Carl
Thornton--the day he was hired and the day he was fired. He couldn't
really say that Thornton was not an unpredictable individual, given to
sudden rages, because he didn't know him that well. He had impressed Ted
as somewhat cold and carefully calculating. The boy shrugged. Nels was a
nice person. But an idea soaked into his head about as easily as
sunbeams penetrate mud. Probably he'd broken some rule which he had not
understood and still didn't understand, and Thornton was punishing him.
But putting him on halftime, and Nels with five children to support,
seemed like extreme punishment.
Ted drove on to Lorton, where, even though most of the town's residents
were his friends, he could not help feeling self-conscious. Smoky
Delbert's shooting had brought Lorton more fame, or notoriety, than it
had known since its founding. The story had been in most of the State's
papers and gained wide distribution through a couple of news services.
Parking in front of the First National Bank, Ted left Tammie in the
truck, dropped his stamped letters in a mailbox and walked up the dimly
lighted stairs that led to the law offices of John McLean. Edith
Brewman, McLean's ageless secretary, had not yet come in but John McLean
was rummaging through her desk.