By the middle of the month Gant had a desperate attack; for four days now he was confined to bed, he began to bleed out of the bowels, he spent four sleepless days and nights of agony, and with the old terror of death awake again and urgent, Helen telegraphed to Luke, who was in Atlanta, frantically imploring him to come home at once.
With the arrival of his son and under the stimulation of Luke’s vital and hopeful nature, the old man revived somewhat: they got him out of bed and into a new wheel-chair which they had bought for the purpose, and the day of his arrival Luke wheeled his father out into the bright June sunshine and through the streets of the town, where he again saw friends, and renewed acquaintances he had not known in years.
The next day Gant seemed better. He ate a good breakfast, by ten o’clock he was up and Luke had dressed him, got him into the new wheelchair and was wheeling him out on the streets again in the bright sunshine. All along the streets of the town people stopped and greeted the old man and his son, and in Gant’s weary old brain there may perhaps have been a flicker of an old hope, a feeling that he had come to life again.
“Wy-wy-wy-wy, he’s f-f-f-fine as silk!” Luke would sing out in answer to the question of some old friend or acquaintance, before his father had a chance to answer. “Aren’t you, C-C-C-Colonel? Wy-wy-wy-wy Lord God! Mr. P-p-p-p-parker, you couldn’t k-k-k-kill him with a wy-wy-wy-wy-wy with a b-b-butcher’s cleaver. He’ll be here when you and I bofe are p-p-p-pushing daisies.” And Gant, pleased, would smile feebly, puffing from time to time at a cigar in the unaccustomed, clumsy, and pitifully hopeful way sick men have.
Towards one o’clock Gant began to moan with pain again and to entreat his son to make haste and take him home. When they got back before the house, Luke brought the wheel chair to a stop and helped his father to get up. His stammering solicitude and over-extravagant offers of help served only to exasperate and annoy the old man who, still moaning feebly, and sniffling with trembling lip, said petulantly:
“No, no, no. Just leave me alone to try to get a moment’s peace, I beg of you, I ask you, for Jesus’ sake.”
“Wy-wy-wy-wy, all right, P-p-p-papa,” Luke stammered with earnest cheerfulness. “Wy-wy-wy, you’re the d-d-d-doctor. Wy-wy, I’ll just wheel the chair up on the porch and then I’ll c-c-come back to your room and f-f-f-fix you up in a j-j-j-j-jiffy.”
“Oh, Jesus, I don’t care what you do. . . . Do what you like,” Gant moaned. “I’m in agony. . . . O Jesus!” he wept. “It’s fearful, it’s awful, it’s cruel — just leave me alone, I beg of you,” he sniffled.
“Wy-wy-wy, yes, sir, P-p-p-papa — wy, you’re the doctor,” Luke said. “Can you make it by yourself all right?” he said anxiously, as his father, leaning heavily upon his cane, started up the stone steps toward the walk that led up to the house.
“Why, yes, now, son,” Eliza, who had heard their voices and come out on the porch, now said diplomatically, seeing that Luke’s well-meant but stammering solicitude had begun to irritate his father. “Mr. Gant doesn’t want any help — you put the car up, son, and leave him alone, he’s able to manage all right by himself.”
And Luke, muttering respectfully, “Wy-wy-wy, yes, sir, P-p-p-papa, you’re the d-d-doctor,” stopped then, lifted the chair up to the walk, and began to push it toward the house, not, however, without a troubled glance at the old man who was walking slowly and feebly toward the porch steps. And for a moment, Eliza stood surveying them and then turned, to stand looking at her house reflectively before she entered it again, her hands clasped loosely at her waist, her lips pursed in a strong reflective expression in which the whole pride of possession, her living and inseparable unity with this gaunt old house, was powerfully evident.
It was at this moment, while she stood planted there upon the sidewalk looking at the house, that the thing happened. Gant, still moaning feebly to himself, had almost reached the bottom of the steps when suddenly he staggered, a scream of pain and horror was torn from him; in that instant, the walking cane fell with a clatter to the concrete walk, his two great hands went down to his groin in a pitiable clutching gesture and crying out loudly: “O Jesus! Save me! Save me!” he fell to his knees, still clutching at his entrails with his mighty hands.
Even before Eliza got to him her flesh turned goosey at the sight. Blood was pouring from him; the bright arterial blood was already running out upon the concrete walk, the heavy black cloth of Gant’s trousers was already sodden, turning purplish with the blood; the blood streamed through his fingers, covering his great hands. He was bleeding to death through the genital organs.
Eliza rushed toward him at a strong clumsy gait; she tried to lift him; he was too big for her to handle, and she screamed to Luke for help. He came at once, running at top speed across the yard and, scarcely pausing in his stride, he picked up Gant’s great figure in his arms — it felt as light and fleshless as a bundle of dry sticks — and turning to his mother, said curtly:
“Call Helen! Quick! I’ll take him to his room and get his clothes off.”
And holding the old man as if he were a child, he fairly raced up the steps and down the hall, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he went.
Eliza, scarcely conscious of what she did, paused just long enough to pick up Gant’s black felt hat and walking-stick which had fallen to the walk. Then, her face white and set as a block of marble, she rushed up the steps and down the hall toward the telephone. Now that the end had come, after all the years of agony and waiting, the knowledge filled her with an unbelievable, an incredulous horror. In another moment she was talking to her daughter.
“Oh, child, child,” she said in a low tone of utter terror, “come quick! . . . You father’s bleeding to death!”
There was a gasp, a sob of anguish and surprise, half broken in the throat, the receiver was banged on the hook without an answer: within four minutes Helen had arrived, Barton, usually a deliberate and cautious driver, having taken the dangerous hills and curves between at murderous speed.
As she entered the hall, her mother had just finished phoning to McGuire. Without a word of greeting the two women rushed back through the rear hall towards Gant’s room; when they got there Luke had already finished undressing him. Gant lay half propped on pillows, still holding his great hands clutched around his genitals, the sheet beneath him was already soaked with blood, a red wet blot that spread horribly, sickeningly even as they looked. Gant’s cold-grey eyes were bright with terror. As his daughter entered the room, he looked at her with the pitiable entreaty of a child, a look that tore at her heart, that begged her — the only one on earth who could, the only one who through black years of horror actually had — by some miracle of strength and grace to save him. And even as he looked at her with pitiable entreaty, she saw that he was gone, that he was dying, and that he knew it. Cold terror drank her heart; without a word she seized a towel, pulled his great hands away from that fount of jetting blood and covered him. By the time McGuire arrived they had got a fresh sheet under him; but the spreading horror of the great red blot could not be checked, the sheet was soaking in bright blood the moment that they got it down.
McGuire came in and took one look, then turned toward the window, fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette. Helen came to him and seized him by his burly arms, unconsciously shaking him in the desperation of her entreaty.
“You’ve got to make it stop,” she said hoarsely. “You’ve got to! You’ve got to!”
He stared at her for a moment, then stuck the cigarette in the corner of his thick lip, and barked coarsely:
“Stop what? What the hell do you think I am-Jehovah?”
“You’ve got to! You’ve got to!” she muttered again, her large gaunt face strained with hysteria — and then, suddenly, abruptly, quietly:
“What’s to be done?”
He did not answer for a moment: he stared out of the window, his coarse, bloated and brutally good face patched and mottled in late western light.
“You’d better wire the others,” he grunted. “That is, if you want them here. Tell Steve and Daisy to come on. They may make it. Where’s Eugene?”
“Boston.”
He shrugged his burly shoulders and said nothing for a moment.
“All right. Tell him to come on.”
“How long?” she whispered.
Again he shrugged his burly shoulders, but made no answer. He lit his cigarette, and turned toward the bed: nothing could be heard except Luke’s heavy and excited breathing. Both towel and sheet were red and wet again. Gant remained motionless, his great hands clasped upon the towel, his eyes bright with terror and pitiable entreaty. McGuire opened his old leather case, squinted at the needle, and loaded it. Then, the cigarette still plastered on his fat lip, coiling smoke, he walked over to the bed and even as Gant raised his fear-bright eyes to him, he took him by his stringy arm, and grunting “All right, W. O.,” he plunged the needle in above the elbow. Gant moaned a little, and relaxed insensibly after the needle had gone in: in a few minutes his eyes grew dull, and his great hands loosened in their clutch.