The Night of the Hunter Read Online Free PDF

right one, the one the Lord had meant for him all along—he
knew.
Then they arrested him for stealing that Essex in Parkersburg and sent him to the state penitentiary for a year and the fools never even knew that the pair of cheap cotton gloves in the glove compartment had belonged to the one that everyone had made such a fuss about because it was in all the papers: that Stone woman in Canton, Ohio—the fool with the two children that had been so much trouble because the girl had been so fat and hard to manage on the stairs that night. But the Lord sure knew what he was doing, all right. He had sent him to the state penitentiary to this very cell because a man named Ben Harper was going to die. A man with a widow in the making and ten thousand dollars hidden somewhere down-river. Maybe this would be the end of it, then. Maybe after this one the Lord would say: Well, that’s enough, Harry Powell. Rest now, faithful servant. Build thou a temple to praise my Holy Name.
    He was tired. Sometimes he cried in his sleep he was so tired. It was the killing that made him tired. Sometimes he wondered if God really understood. Not that the Lord minded about the killings. Why, His Book was full of killings. But there
were
things God did hate—perfume-smelling things—lacy things—things with curly hair—whore things. Preacher would think of these and his hands at night would go crawling down under the blankets till the fingers named Love closed around the bone hasp of the knife and his soul rose up in flaming glorious fury. He was the dark angel with the sword of a Vengeful God. Paul is choking misogynistic wrath upon Damascus Road.
    The day they came and took Ben Harper up to the death house Preacher stood screaming after him, his knuckles white around the shaking bars of the cell.
    Ben! Ben, boy! It ain’t too late, boy! Where, Ben? Where, boy?
    But Ben Harper did not call back. The game was over.
    —
    Bart the hangman lighted his pipe. He stood puffing and waited as the footsteps of his comrade rang closer down the cold, wet bricks of the prison courtyard. The other said nothing while Bart stamped his feet and shivered. They looked at one another for a moment and then moved through the prison gate into the deserted street. They walked in silence under the winter trees.
    Any trouble?
    No.
    He was a cool one—that Harper, said the man in the old brown army coat. Never broke—game to the end.
    He carried on some, said Bart the hangman. Kicked.
    But he never told, did he? said the other.
    No.
    What do you figure he done with it?
    I never talked with him, said Bart. But I figure he was a feller that wasn’t used to killin’—a good sort at heart, what I mean to say. I figure he done it and what with being shot in the shoulder and half scared to death at what he had done he just went to pieces and throwed it all in the river.
    Ten thousand dollars! In the river? In times like this, Bart? Aw, come off it! Ain’t no man ever got that scared!
    Well maybe not. But whatever he done with it he took the secret with him up there tonight when we dropped him.
    It began to rain suddenly, like tears: a soft, thick river rain that blew in gusts from the dark hills around the valley. Bart the hangman and the other prison guard hurried up Jefferson Avenue toward their homes at the edge of the town.
    They say he left a woman and two kids, said the man in the army coat.
    I never heard, said the hangman, bitterly. My old woman’s sister knowed the girl’s mother, continued the other. She was a Bailey from Upshur County. Good country folks, Mabel says. And for that matter I never heard nothin’ ornery about his folks. Lived in Marshall County for three generations. River folks.
    The hangman hurried on a little, uncomfortable at this discussion of the family and affairs of the man he had just killed. And yet he knew of no reasonable way of silencing the man in the army coat.
    Wonder what gets into a feller to make him do such a thing. I