After Eli

by Terry Kay

  “Rachel, Rachel,” he said gently. “You’re a good woman, Rachel. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened. I’m the bastard of bastards. It’s a weakness in me. A curse. It runs in the men of my family. Blarney, they call it in Ireland. A curse of the blarney. I—I didn’t mean it with Sarah. Sweet Sarah. Wantin’ to be a woman and me around, and weak like I am. I’m askin’ your forgiveness.”

  Rachel lifted her face to him. She kissed him on the corner of his mouth.

  “No need explainin’ it, Michael,” she told him. “I’m a woman. I understand a woman’s needs. I talked it out with Sarah. No reason to forgive what’s easy enough to understand.”

  Michael studied her face. He could see nothing hidden in it. He kissed her on the eyes.

  “I been achin’ all night to come back and take you up close like this, like we was last night,” he said. “Up in the woods there, tryin’ to decide about leavin’ before seein’ you again—before apologizin’—I kept tellin’ myself to go, but I couldn’t do it, and then I saw Sarah leave on the mule and Dora after her, carryin’ the gun. And I knew what she was wantin’ to do, and I couldn’t blame her. But I knew I’d not have another chance to see you.”

  “It’s all right, Michael. I just sent Sarah off to visit, just to let her get away for a while. Dora got scared and went after her.”

  Michael held her tight. His hands rubbed over her back and shoulders, searching for the surprise, the lie, that his mind failed to hear. He thought of his audience, wondered if their faces could tell him anything, but he could not call them out of his deep senses where they rested.

  “But I have to be goin’, Rachel,” he said at last. “You know that. And the pain of it crushes me. Just when I was beginnin’ to feel like I belonged, like there was a chance of takin’ Eli’s place.” He laughed quietly. “You won’t believe it, but I was makin’ plans. Yes, it’s true as the day’s long: I was thinkin’ about hirin’ on with Teague and the sawmill gang after I finish the fence. Me, Michael O’Rear, workin’ out wages, because I knew we’d be needin’ the money.”

  She said it very easily, very casually: “You needn’t be worryin’ about money, Michael.”

  The words struck him like a slap. He would not have to force her, he thought. She was about to tell him. He cupped her face in his hands and let his eyes draw her into him.

  “You’re a lovely woman, Rachel,” he said. “I swear I’ve never met better. You’d give me the last cent you had. You’ve proved that. But I know you live from day to day, and—”

  “No,” she protested, interrupting him. “It’s not my money, Michael.” She paused. “It’s Eli’s,” she added. “Like we talked about, but I never told nobody about it. Never. Not even Dora or Sarah. That’s why I told you it was a lie.”

  “Do you mean it?” Michael asked eagerly. “There was money? It’s not just a story?”

  She shook her head and touched his lips with her fingers.

  “No, it’s not just a story,” she answered. “There’s money. It was stole and I never touched it. Never. I always saved up the quilt money. But I helped Eli hide it. I know where it is.”

  “Why, Rachel? Why not spend it? It’d take you places you’ve never seen, buy you things you’ve never thought about havin’.”

  “Because,” she answered hesitantly, “it was stole, and it wouldn’t matter where it took me; this is where I’d come back, and nothin’ else ever seemed to matter, knowin’ that.”

  “Why?”

  “It was somethin’ my daddy said when I was little,” she replied. “I heard somebody callin’ us hill people one time and I asked him what they was sayin’, and he told me to be proud of that. I think I learned what he meant.”

  “What?” Michael asked patiently.

  “It’s like when Mama Ada died,” she told him. “The preacher said he’d shuddered when he heard about it. And that’s what it’s like, livin’ here. You die, somebody shudders a little bit. I guess we all know that.”

  Michael nodded seriously. He pulled her to him again and put his face against her face. She could feel the energy racing in him. She kissed him on the cheek and he nuzzled her neck. Suddenly, she felt the presence of Eli anxiously watching her. She closed her eyes. Eli, she thought. She smiled easily.

  “And comin’ back’s what I’d be doin’, given the chance,” Michael whispered. “That’s the Hell of leavin’, Rachel. Knowin’ I’ll be wantin’ to come back every day I’m gone.”

  “Take it with you,” she said. “The money. If it’ll help to bring you back, I want you to have it.”

  Michael stepped from her. His face burned with excitement.

  “It would,” he whispered. “Yes, it would. As soon as things calm down a bit, when Sarah has time to get over it, I’ll be back. I’ll use the money to get started in somethin’, so I can come back a full man, not a beggar.”

  “Eli—” Rachel began.

  “No,” interrupted Michael. “Eli’s gone. He’s gone. After Eli, there’s just me, Rachel. And I’ve got to be goin’, before Dora comes back with her shotgun.”

  Rachel stared at him, her eyes searching his face. She knew that he had murdered and that it had been easy for him, but she was not afraid. Was it because of Eli? she wondered. She had never felt Eli in such a way, standing off, watching her, awed by her. She was not afraid.

  “It’s in the well,” she said easily. “About halfway down. There’s a rock shelf Eli cut out when he was diggin’ the well. It’s like a little cave. He put the money there, in a heavy box. He said nobody’d ever think of lookin’ in the side of the well.”

  Michael laughed and his eyes brightened. He lifted Rachel and whirled her.

  “In the well?” he exclaimed. “Now, that’s as good a hidin’ place as a man could find. Eli was right. Nobody would think of it.”

  “You’ll need a rope,” Rachel told him. “That thick rope in the barn. And a crowbar to take off the top of the wellbox and a trace chain to put around the box. That’s how Eli got it down. It’s got a handle on the side for hookin’ the chain on.”

  “Why the rope?” Michael asked.

  “To get down in the well. That’s how he did it. Tied big knots in it to hold on to, then lowered himself down and I dropped the box to him on the well pulley.”

  “I’ll get them,” Michael said. He stepped to the door. “It’ll bring me back, Rachel. I promise that. I promise it.” He opened the door and jogged across the yard to the barn.

  “Yes,” Rachel whispered to herself. “Yes.”

  * * *

  The rope was heavy and strong and Michael tied knots into it at two-foot intervals and then he tied the end of the rope securely to a support post holding up the roof of the shelter and tested it against his weight.

  “Strong as steel,” he announced. “Now all I’ll have to do is manage to hold on, or I’ll be swimmin’ my way to China. Give me the crowbar and I’ll take off the top.”

  Rachel handed the crowbar to him and watched as he pried loose the oak shelving of the wellbox and slipped it to the side. He then dropped the rope into the well and peered into the black tunnel.

  “Good enough,” he judged. He looked across the field in front of the house. He sensed the need to rush.

  “The trace chain,” he said. “Do I tie it to the well rope?”

  “Yes,” answered Rachel. “Take off the bucket.”

  “Best to cut it off,” he said. “It’s wet.” He pulled his knife from the sheath tied to his leg and sliced through the rope and tossed the bucket aside. Rachel stared at the knife.

  “Better let me hold the knife,” she said quickly. “You might drop it.”

  Michael handed her the knife and slipped the end of the rope through a link of the trace chain and tied the rope into a double knot, pulling it tight.

  “Ready,” he announced eagerly.

  “I’ll take it,” Rachel said, reaching for the trace chain. “I’ll hand it to you when you get on the rope.”
r />   “You’d better,” he laughed. “I’ll have a devil of a time just keepin’ my balance.”

  He climbed onto the wellbox and lowered himself into the well on the rope.

  “It’s a bit shaky,” he said, laughing nervously. “Hand me the chain.”

  “Not yet,” Rachel replied. “You have to get used to bein’ in the well. You lose sense of where you are. Eli told me that. Said you could look up in the sky in the middle of day and see stars, like it was night.”

  “I’ll take the advice,” Michael said. He slipped lower on the rope. “It’s strange enough, all right,” he added. His voice echoed. “Drop the chain.”

  “Just a minute,” Rachel told him. “Let me get it untangled. I’ll loop it so it can fit over your arm.”

  Rachel lifted the chain and slipped the line of links through the latch loop and pulled it. She caught the handle of the winch and turned it until the rope tightened on the chain. Then she locked the winch and stepped to the wellbox, beside the rope ladder.

  She looked into the well. He was two feet below her, holding on to the rope. One foot was braced against the opposite side of the well. He smiled up at her.

  “Come up a little piece,” she said. “Give me your hand and I’ll slip the chain over your arm.”

  He pulled up on the rope, climbing with his feet against the clay wall of the well. Rachel picked up his knife and placed it on the stone of the wellbox, near the rope. She held the chain loop open, above him.

  “Close enough?” he asked, looking up.

  “Close enough,” she said. She stared at him and did not move.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Why’re you starin’ at me like that?” His left arm was extended toward her.

  She grabbed the rope ladder suddenly and began to shake it and Michael caught it with both hands and struggled to hold. He cried in surprise and his eyes flared in shock as he saw the wide noose of the chain slipping over his head. He shook against it and it fell around his neck. He clawed at it with one hand and began to pull up on the rope.

  Rachel turned the handle of the winch until she could feel it tighten and then she locked it. She turned quickly and grabbed the knife and began to slice across the rope ladder. The knife was sharp and it cut quickly.

  “No,” Michael shouted desperately. “No.”

  The rope severed and as Michael fell the chain clattered tight around his neck.

  Rachel pushed away from the wellbox. She could see the chain quiver, and she grabbed the winch handle and pushed against it with her shoulder. The wedge lock clanked sharply and held and the pulley beam creaked and sagged. She heard a short, hollow sputtering, like air escaping from a ruptured lung, and she turned and looked down into the well at Michael. His hands clutched weakly at his neck. His legs danced frantically and his head bowed forward, and then his body slumped against the chain and she heard a dull snap. His head jerked twice and dropped to his left shoulder and his arms fell limp at his sides and he began to turn slowly around on the chain, like a toy on a string.

  Rachel stepped away from the well. She walked across the yard to the fig bush Eli had planted for her. She looked back at the well. She could hear the squeak of the pulley as the chain turned lazily.

  She could feel Eli watching her, smiling his approval. Eli was dead, she knew that. She wondered where he had died, and how.

  22

  RACHEL SAT on the front porch and snapped the beans she and Dora and Sarah had picked from the garden. It was late in the morning, nearing noon. The August sun had warmed the northwest air that flowed like a silver river along the trough of the mountain valley. The smell of the earth was in the air—soil and plants and trees and wild flowers and the crops of Floyd Crider’s fields. And the pollen from the ripening of those growing things floated in a translucent cloud of dust, and swarms of tiny black bugs—their whole complicated bodies no larger than pencil dots—swam through the haze like schools of feeding fish. Everywhere there were birds.

  Rachel felt suspended in the cool, green day and in the earth’s perfume and in the festive music of the birds. She liked the work of her hands, cupping the beans, breaking them into links by the feel of her fingers. It was the same as holding a needle and working at the quilting frame. Her hands performed their tasks from memory. Her hands did not ask questions of her mind and her mind was free to dream. She did not think of what she had done, or what she must do. She had only to watch the road and wait.

  * * *

  She saw the wagon as it topped the hill a quarter of a mile away. Even from the distance, she knew that Dora sat beside Floyd on the driver’s seat. Sarah was behind them, in the body of the wagon. Jack sat at the back, legs dangling, as he always did. The mule Sarah had ridden was tethered to the wagon by a rope. She placed the pan of beans on the porch floor and stood and smoothed her apron with the palms of her hands. She thought of Floyd. He had been patient and faithful. She did not like lying to him, but she knew she must, and she knew Floyd would believe her and do as she asked. She stepped from the porch and walked slowly to the turnoff into the main road, watching the wagon. She saw Dora nudge Floyd and the flip of Floyd’s arm as he rippled the rope rein across the back of the drag mule hitched to the right side of the wagon. Floyd would be afraid, she thought, but he would not show his fear; he would show nothing she had not seen in the years of their Wednesday conversations. He would listen and nod and roll his cigarette and look away.

  * * *

  The wagon pulled to a stop at the turnoff.

  “Rachel,” Floyd said in greeting.

  “I’m glad you could come, Floyd,” Rachel replied.

  And then she told Floyd about the knife, that she had remembered Michael having it before Owen was killed. She told him that Michael had searched her quilts and she knew it was for the money that people believed Eli had hidden. She told him of the visit from the sheriff, which had worried Michael.

  “I don’t know what was said,” she explained. “I just know he got up and left in the night.” She paused and looked at Sarah. “I wouldn’t be worryin’, except for the knife,” she added.

  Floyd rolled his cigarette. His face was furrowed and he nodded in a slow, rocking motion.

  “Can’t never tell about a man,” he said gravely.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d go on into town and get the sheriff,” Rachel told him. “I think he ought to know.”

  “Uh-huh,” Floyd mumbled in agreement. He looked at Rachel, then quickly dropped his eyes back to his cigarette. “I’ll leave the boy,” he said.

  “No,” Rachel insisted. “We’ve got the gun. But I wish you’d take Sarah with you.”

  “Mama—”

  “No, Sarah, I’d feel better about it if you’d stay with Mr. Crider,” Rachel said firmly.

  “Your mama’s right,” Dora agreed. “Not likely he’ll be comin’ back, but if he does, it’d be easier if you’d go on with Floyd.”

  Sarah said nothing. She settled against the wagon body. She could sense a secret in her mother.

  “You’re sure you don’t want Jack to stay?” asked Floyd.

  “No,” Rachel told him. “We’ll be all right.”

  Floyd nodded and lit his cigarette. He would not argue with Rachel. He knew he could not dissuade her.

  “It’ll be a while before we get in,” he warned. “May take some time to find the sheriff, if he’s out somewhere. Be best to stay in the house and keep the doors locked.”

  “We will,” Rachel promised.

  Dora climbed from the wagon and handed the shotgun to Rachel. She then untied the tethered mule and led it away.

  “I don’t like askin’ you to do this, Floyd,” Rachel said. “Takin’ you away from work. But I thought it was best.”

  “Ain’t no bother,” Floyd said quietly. He clucked to the mules and the wagon pulled away.

  * * *

  Rachel and Dora watched the wagon until it disappeared around the road above Deepstep Creek, and then they be
gan walking toward the house.

  “Why’d you tell him about the knife?” Dora asked.

  “There’s no need to worry about anythin’,” Rachel answered simply. “Not any more. I got somethin’ to show you.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Rachel led Dora to the well. Michael’s body still dangled from the chain. Dora stared at it without emotion.

  “I had to do it,” Rachel explained quietly. “He would’ve killed us, if it was needed.”

  Dora touched the chain with her hand. The body swayed slightly.

  “What’ll we do with him?” she asked. “Leave him for the sheriff?”

  Rachel shook her head.

  “No,” she answered. “We’ll bury him. I been waitin’ for you to come back with the mule, to drag him off. We’ll just keep sayin’ he left and never came back.”

  “I’m glad Sarah didn’t see him,” Dora said. “What was he after?” she asked after a pause.

  “The money,” Rachel replied calmly. “Eli’s money.”

  “There ain’t no money,” Dora said.

  Rachel looked into the well. She smiled slightly and stared at the dark side of the well below Michael’s feet.

  “There ain’t no money,” Dora said again.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon when Curtis Hill arrived with Garnett and Tolly. They sat at the kitchen table and listened intently to the rehearsed story told by Rachel.

  “We figured he was lying,” Garnett said when Rachel had finished. “The knife’s only part of it. Curtis told me about something that Tolly had seen, but damned if I believed him when he said it.” He paused and drew a deep breath and fanned his face with his hat. Then he added, “It could be the Irishman was the man who killed the Caufields. Tolly thinks so.”

  Dora’s body stiffened. She looked at Rachel.

  “And the Benton boy?” Rachel asked. “What about him?”

  “It was just Frank,” Curtis said. “Him seein’ things about those children. The boy talked some about Lester, and Frank started seein’ things. The boy couldn’t’ve done it. I never thought he did.”

  “Dear God,” Dora whimpered. “Him dead and did nothin’.”