After Eli

by Terry Kay

  “The Irishman had to have planned it all,” Garnett said. “He took the town, everybody in it, including me. Had us all believing he was the boy’s friend, and our friend. Damned if he didn’t. I still believed him even after Curtis told me what Tolly had seen.” He placed his hat on the table and tapped the top of it with his finger in disgust. “I think it’s time you told that he wasn’t a cousin of Eli,” he said to Rachel.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Rachel admitted. “I thought it was best at the time. He’d helped Sarah—or I thought he had.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Garnett replied. “People’ll get over it. Hell, we’ll say he lied about it.” He looked at the sheriff and Tolly, and the two men nodded agreement.

  There was a silence in the room. Curtis cleared his throat. Tolly sat erect and stared out the kitchen window. Garnett tapped at his hat. Rachel looked through the door leading into the living room, to Michael’s unmade bed. She thought of him sleeping, and then standing over her with his knife, and then cradling her and tipping his face like air against her breasts.

  “He’s gone,” Rachel said evenly. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Maybe,” Curtis said, “but we’ll look around.” He stood and looked through the window. “Not much of daylight left,” he added. “Tolly can start now, if he wants. I’ll take the doctor back and get some more men.” He pulled his hat on his head. “Floyd’ll be by soon with Sarah,” he told Rachel. “I didn’t think about bringin’ her with us until I was almost here. Slipped my mind when I went to get Tolly. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Rachel replied.

  “There’ll be some men around tonight,” Garnett said, “but it might be best if you go spend the night with Floyd’s family.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Rachel promised solemnly.

  Tolly saw the tracks immediately. They began at the edge of the yard, in the field grass. The mule’s step was deep and the runners of the woodsled had plowed into the soft ground. He scanned the yard casually and saw the fanned pattern of a brush broom on the white sand, leading from the well to the field, erasing the tracks. He knelt to pick up a twig. He knew he was being watched from the house, but he did not need to examine the tracks closely; they were too clean, too fresh, too obvious. He stood and turned deliberately, pretending to study the landscape above him. Then he moved quickly away from the direction of the tracks. He knew they would be easy to find again, when he could no longer be seen from the house.

  He walked in a steady, climbing gait along the beach of sand that had been sifted by rains from beneath the bed of needles and leaves that spread in a skirt from the woods into the cleared field. Halfway up the mountain, he turned left into the woods and disappeared behind a knoll that ran like a spine above the house. He then turned right and followed the knoll until it dropped and crossed into the field and dipped sharply into the bottomlands of Deepstep Creek. He knew he was covered from the house, and he stepped from the woods into the field and walked slowly, peering at the ground. He quickly found the tracks, where he imagined they would be. They led from the field into the woods, down a narrow logging trail, and he followed them to the stand of blackgum trees Michael had cut for fence posts. And then the ruts of the runners stopped and he could see where the mule had stood, pawing at the ground, stepping at the bite of horseflies. His eyes circled the ground, following the turnaround of the sled, where the runners had skimmed lightly across the ground. He knew the weight that had been on the sled had been removed.

  He picked up a limb cut away from one of the blackgums and then pulled his knife from his pocket and whittled the tip of the limb into a point. He began to circle cautiously over the area, probing at the thick bed of leaves and needles covering the ground. The light was failing and he could not read the signs he knew were there. He moved closer to the soft clay bed near the creek line, jabbing the ground with his stick. And then he stopped and stood erect. A log had been rolled, with its decaying side turned up. He circled the log, studying it. The worms that had fed from its decaying heart still crawled over it, their white membrane bodies stretched full by their slow feast. He caught the log and lifted it and pulled it aside and then he dropped to his knees and began to dig into the dirt with his hands.

  Two feet down, his hands touched the body and he pushed the dirt back over it and packed it. He stood and lifted the log back into place. He had found Michael O’Rear. He kicked easily against the log, then turned and walked away.

  * * *

  Tolly could not see the sun in the west. He could see only the color that spread its feathered fan across the bowl of the horizon. It was the color of fire, with flames licking high above the ball of heat. He stood on the hill above the house, among the trees, and watched the women at work in the garden, in the last hour of day.

  They were strong people, he thought. He remembered Eli. Eli. Laughing Eli. Off all these years, chasing after a ghost that teased him with promises of immortality. And the women, left to wait, pinned to their place by the days and the years, enduring the mutterings of pity that had followed them like a disgrace. They had stayed and waited because it was expected of them. It was their duty. And all of that time had been lost, because they had done what was expected of them.

  Tolly wondered if they knew he would find Michael. Perhaps they even wanted him to. It would then be a shared secret—known but never spoken. It was their way; his way.

  He looked across the field to the fence the Irishman had almost finished. There was only one span left unconnected. One span, a gap, like an unkept promise. His eyes wandered back to the women, then over the house and to the road. He saw the dust from the sheriff’s car boiling in the same rust-red as the flames of the sun. He raised his hands above his head and laced his fingers behind his neck and pulled hard. It felt good, being in the woods. He looked again at the women in the garden. They stood still, watching the funnel of dust from the sheriff’s car. And then they drifted from the garden into the house.