He was spared that; we all knew it couldn’t last much longer. The question was, which would happen first: if Tom Tom would catch Turl, or if Mr Snopes would catch Turl, or if Mr Harker really would burst a blood vessel. Mr Snopes won. He was standing in the office door that evening when Mr Harker, Turl and Gowan came on duty; once more he crooked his finger at Turl and once more they stood facing each other in the office. “Did you find it this time?” Mr Snopes said.
“Find it which time?” Turl said.
“Just before dark tonight,” Mr Snopes said. “I was standing at the corner of the crib when you crawled out of that corn patch and climbed in that back window.” And now indeed Turl was looking everywhere fast at nothing. “Maybe you are still looking in the wrong place,” Mr Snopes said. “If Tom Tom had hid that iron in his bed, you ought to found it three weeks ago. You take one more look. If you dont find it this time, maybe I better tell Tom Tom to help you.” Turl was looking fast at nothing now.
“I’m gonter have to have three or four extra hours off tomorrow night,” he said. “And Tom Tom gonter have to be held right here unto I gets back.”
“I’ll see to it,” Snopes said.
“I mean held right here unto I walks in and touches him,” Turl said. “I dont care how late it is.”
“I’ll see to that,” Snopes said.
Except that it had already quit lasting any longer at all; Gowan and Mr Harker had barely reached the plant the next evening when Mr Harker took one quick glance around. But before he could even speak Mr Snopes was standing in the office door, saying, “Where’s Tom Tom?” Because it wasn’t Tom Tom waiting to turn over to the night crew: it was Tom Tom’s substitute, who fired the boilers on Sunday while Tom Tom was taking his new young wife to church; Gowan said Mr Harker said,
“Hell fire,” already moving, running past Mr Snopes into the office and scrabbling at the telephone. Then he was out of the office again, not even stopping while he hollered at Gowan: “All right, Otis”—his nephew or cousin or something who had inherited the saw mill, who would come in and take over when Mr Harker wanted a night off—“Otis’ll be here in fifteen minutes. Jest do the best you can until then.”
“Hold up,” Gowan said. “I’m going too.”
“Durn that,” Mr Harker said, still running, “I seen it first:” on out the back where the spur track for the coal cars led back to the main line where Tom Tom would walk every morning and evening between his home and his job, running (Mr Harker) in the moonlight now because the moon was almost full. In fact, the whole thing was full of moonlight when Mr Harker and Turl appeared peacefully at the regular hour to relieve Tom Tom’s substitute the next evening:
“Yes sir,” Mr Harker told Gowan, “I was jest in time. It was Turl’s desperation, you see. This would be his last go-round. This time he was going to have to find that brass, or come back and tell Mr Snopes he couldn’t; in either case that country picnic was going to be over. So I was jest in time to see him creep up out of that corn patch and cross the moonlight to that back window and tomcat through it; jest exactly time enough for him to creep across the room to the bed and likely fling the quilt back and lay his hand on meat and say, ‘Honey-bunch, lay calm. Papa’s done arrived.’ ” And Gowan said how even twenty-four hours afterward he partook for the instant of Turl’s horrid surprise, who believed that at that moment Tom Tom was two miles away at the power plant waiting for him (Turi) to appear and relieve him of the coa scoop—Tom Tom lying fully dressed beneath the quilt with a naked butcher knife in his hand when Turl flung it back.
“Jest exactly time enough,” Mr Harker said. “Jest exactly as on time as two engines switching freight cars. Tom Tom must a made his jump jest exactly when Turl whirled to run, Turl jumping out of the house into the moonlight again with Tom Tom and the butcher knife riding on his back so that they looked jest like—what do you call them double-jointed half-horse fellers in the old picture books?”
“Centaur,” Gowan said.
“—looking jest like a centawyer running on its hind legs and trying to ketch up with itself with a butcher knife about a yard long in one of its extry front hoofs until they run out of the moonlight again into the woods. Yes sir, Turl aint even half as big as Tom Tom, but he sho toted him. If you’d a ever bobbled once, that butcher knife would a caught you whether Tom Tom did or not, wouldn’t it?”