"Bart, you haven't said five words all morning."
I couldn't argue with Dandy, he was right. I wasn't fit company for man nor beast, and Dandy surely must have qualified as one of those. "Dandy . . . "
"That's six."
We were sitting in the study, drinking coffee and smoking cigars. I'd joined Jim at ten o'clock for breakfast, as agreed, but I still had no resolution to the dilemma I found myself in. Forgive what still weighed so heavily on my mind after all these years, or have my say with the man that used to be a good friend? I felt tied in knots, unable to make a decision.
"There's been something on your mind ever since you first got here. What is it?"
At that moment I made a choice. I was never gonna be able to live the rest of my life without telling him what I felt, how betrayed I felt, when it all happened. How the recollection of that pain lingered all these years later, and how I resented that every good memory I had of Jim Buckley was tinged with regret over the way our friendship ended. I got up from the chair at the back of the room and wandered around the study, trying to get the words out.
"Remember when I'd been shot, and you showed up in Little Bend flat broke?" Jim said nothing, just sat in his wheelchair and stared at me. "You do remember that you came to me literally begging for a job, don't you?" I asked, finally.
"I remember," he replied. "And you went out of your way to help."
"To help. I bought you clothes. I moved you to the hotel and out of McGinley's. I got you a job at Maude's. And all I asked . . . all I asked, was that you treat Maude's fair and square. No cheating, no stealing, no doing anything illegal or immoral. And you swore. You swore to me that you'd behave." I walked towards the desk and turned my back on the man I'd called friend. I couldn't bear to look at him just then. "You lied, Jim. You lied to my face. I was trying to heal, getting well so that Doralice and me could get married. You made me a promise and then you showed me exactly what you thought of that promise. And it wasn't much."
There was no response, and I turned around so that I could see his face. It was impassive. I know mine wasn't. I'd waited years to tell Dandy how he'd made me feel, how disappointed and hurt I'd been that our friendship and his word meant so little that he could ignore both. I tried to hold onto my temper and lay everything out for him the way I'd gone over it in my mind so many times. I didn't do a good job. The only thing I managed was to keep the volume of my voice at normal levels. The last thing I wanted or needed was to bring Mrs. Murtaw running in, wondering if I was hurting her employer.
"You didn't even hide it well. It was easy for me to find, once I started looking for discrepancies in the books. Fourteen hundred dollars, and how much more would you have skimmed if I hadn't put an end to it?" I'd stopped pacing and stood stock still, waiting for some kind of a response; any kind. There was none. "Why, Jim? Why did you do it? If you wanted a stake so you could leave, why didn't you ask me? Giving it to you would have been preferable to finding out you'd stolen it. I almost could have understood if you'd taken it from Bret; but it was me, Jim. Me."
I found myself at his desk and set my coffee cup down. I took a breath; I had more to say. "And all the time since then. Never a word, a hint that you even remembered. Everything that happened with Jack, all the years since then. Nothing from you. Nothing. Just like it never happened.
"Is that what you think; is that your truth? That if you ignore it and wait long enough it'll all just disappear? Like it never happened? It did happen, Jim, and I want to know why? I need to know why. I thought . . . there was a time I thought we were closer than me and Bret . . . how could you just throw that all away?"
I couldn't see his face anymore; he'd turned the wheelchair to face the wall. But I could hear his voice, and I heard regret and sadness, and I couldn't help but wonder why it had taken so long for him to let me know that it pained him, too. "Don't you see? I had to do it. You expected it, and I couldn't disappoint you. You were my best friend, Bart . . . hell, you were my only friend . . . and you expected me to betray you. Because that's what I did. I cheated and lied, and sooner or later I played every rotten trick in the book on people, no matter who they were. Especially if it made me money.
"I tried not to. I resisted for a long time . . . and then your health started to improve. I knew I had to go, and I needed money to leave. Not that paltry little salary I was making . . . real money. There was only one way to get it. So I did what I always do. And I knew it would cost me the only real friend I had.
"That's why I've stayed away all this time . . . because you were never going to forgive me . . . and I couldn't stand the disappointment in your eyes when you looked at me. It was there when you took care of Jack . . .
"When I met Janet in Denver, I knew she was someone special. Sweet and kind, attractive and educated, she was as lonely as I was. We were kindred spirits, and we felt happier, more peaceful together. I didn't have to be alone anymore . . . so I married her and tried my best to make her happy. And I did, for a while. Then she decided we needed a baby, and she wasn't going to be satisfied until we had one, whether it was what I wanted or not . . . and eventually, I lost both of them. Here I am again. Now I have all this to contend with." He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "And you still hate me."
If all that was true . . . I had two choices. Believe him or not believe him. I thought about the opinion that almost everyone in this town had of Jim. Could they all be wrong? Or had he really changed over the years? Was this Jim Buckley the braver, kinder, more trustworthy version of Dandy Jim, the man that existed so long ago?
I finally broke the silence. "I don't hate you."
"You don't?"
"No, I don't. I never did, Jim. I just wanted . . . just wanted you to say . . . I wanted you to say you were sorry."
"Bart, old man?"
"What is it, Jim?"
"I'm sorry."