The Amulet

by Michael McDowell

  Sarah was displeased—with herself and with the situa­tion—but there was nothing that she could do. She remem­bered then that she had heard that Malcolm Sims was going to return the following week and it might well be easier to talk to him anyway; he seemed a good-natured, well-meaning man and certainly more approachable than his wife. Sarah resolved, with some small easing of her conscience, that she must simply wait until the following Saturday. But how would she feel if something terrible happened to Dorothy Sims during the week? Sarah shook her head and shuddered. Was she going crazy to have such thoughts? They didn’t make sense; nobody else—not even Becca—would believe them. Jo might well know more than she was telling, but who could say what Jo really thought about anything at all?

  Margaret Blair knocked softly on the back door. When Sarah approached, the girl whispered conspiratorially, “Mama said to ask you if you want to drive around town—get out of the house for a while.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” Sarah smiled. It would do her good, she knew. Margaret’s secretiveness only meant that Becca didn’t want to have Jo come along; the trip to the drive-in the night before had taxed her tolerance ex­cessively.

  Sarah went into the bedroom and told Jo where she would be for the next hour or so and Jo began to complain immediately that Sarah was never there to take care of Dean. “Away at the plant all week long, and you come home for fifteen minutes on the weekend, just long enough to change your clothes before you’re off gallivanting again with Becca Blair, and that little hellion of hers. Won’t nothing good come of that one, and—”

  “Jo,” said Sarah. “I’m gone.” And with that, she left the room.

  Becca drove directly to the Nelsons’ to drop off Marga­ret, and for a few minutes Becca and Sarah stared at the devastated lot on which the Coppage house had stood only a few days before. They shook their heads in wonder and sorrow. Next they drove to the Shirleys’ house, for neither of the women had seen the place since they had first heard about the two deaths. The house looked deserted and the driveway was empty.

  “What you suppose happened to their cars?” said Becca.

  “Well,” said Sarah. “James had the cruiser, and I ima­gine the sheriff just had it taken away since it belonged to Pine Cone anyway. I don’t know what happened to Thel­ma’s car.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if Dot Sims made a deal on it with the preacher this afternoon at the cemetery!”

  Sarah laughed despite herself—and despite her fears for Dorothy Sims—and Becca drove on. They rode all over the town, down nearly every street, waving to people on their front porches, and even stopping for a moment to speak to men and women working in their gardens by the side of the road.

  When they were going through the black section of Pine Cone, Sarah suddenly asked Becca to pull up by two black women in conversation on the sidewalk. One of the women was Gussie, and she and her companion stopped their conversation, waiting politely to hear what the two white women had to say.

  Sarah leaned out the window and said, “You worked for the Shirleys, didn’t you? Didn’t we see you at the fu­neral today?”

  Gussie nodded.

  Sarah proceeded hesitantly, for she didn’t like doing this. “I . . . just called up the house . . . wanted to talk to Miz Sims for a few minutes. But there’s nobody there.”

  “They’s already gone,” said Gussie. “They was in that house and out again. Didn’t want to hang around that place, and I don’t blame ’em. They must be halfway back to Montgomery by this time.”

  Sarah sighed and ignored Becca who was tugging at the sleeve of her blouse, wanting to know what all this was about. Sarah pushed her hand away and said, “What’s your name?”

  “Gussie.”

  “I’m Sarah Howell. I work at the plant.”

  “How you, Miz Howell,” said Gussie cautiously. She couldn’t yet figure out what all this was about.

  “And Mr. Sims is coming back through Pine Cone next week?”

  “That’s what they tell me,” said Gussie, after a mo­ment’s hesitation.

  “Well, thank you, Gussie. I’ll see you soon,” said Sarah, nodding both to Gussie and to her companion. She drew her head back inside the car and Becca drove off with alacrity.

  Sarah had turned round to wave good-bye again, and Becca demanded, “What’d you call up the Simses for, Sarah? Right after the funeral? Making the telephone ring in a dead man’s house? Don’t you know that’s bad luck?” Becca was upset.

  “No,” said Sarah wonderingly, “I never heard that.”

  “Well,” said Becca adamantly, “it sure is. You ought to go see people, not call ’em up. Telephone’s for business and making dates, not for telling somebody you’re sorry his mother got run down by a Mack diesel. I wish I would have known you were going to try something like that . . .”

  “Would you have tried to stop me?” asked Sarah.

  “Maybe,” shrugged Becca. “But that wouldn’t have done no good. I’d have driven you over there.” She shud­dered again at the thought of the telephone ringing in the house of mourning. “Those people don’t need any more bad luck. What were you gone call Dorothy Sims about anyway?”

  “The amulet. That necklace. I wanted to find out about it.”

  Becca threw up her hands and nearly lost control of the car. “Oh, honey!” she cried, “leave it alone. There’s nothing to it! I mean if you thought I had it or something, you could ask me about it. If somebody at the factory had it, you could ask them. But you don’t even know Dorothy Sims to spit at, and she’s just been presiding at a double funeral. Leave her alone. Or talk to her husband when he comes back to town next week, but I hope you’ve forgot about it before then.”

  “I hope so too,” said Sarah, and she meant it.

  They returned home shortly after this, and spoke no more of the amulet.

  In what was left of the afternoon, hot and golden, with the leaves on the trees sodden with humidity, Sarah brought out a folding chair into the backyard, and set it up in the shade of the pines on the back part of the prop­erty. Jo had wanted her to give Dean a sponge bath, “ ’cause he’s sweating under them bandages, and he won’t say nothing ’cause he don’t want to bother you, which is all the more reason for you to take care of him.” For once, Sarah did not give in.

  “This funeral has upset me, Jo,” she said, “Dean is just going to have to wait.” She turned her back on the house, and on the mother and son who were still in it, with hate boiling in their mouths like the foam of a rabid dog. Becca had loaned her a stack of Life magazines, and these Sarah leafed through until there was insufficient light to read any longer.

  Chapter 32

  Late on Sunday afternoon, with the dusk gathering in the hollows and creeks of the rolling countryside of central Alabama, Dorothy and Malcolm Sims were finally on their way back to Montgomery. The scenery was familiar to them and they paid little attention to it. The road was not much traveled at this time, so that the drive was easy for Malcolm. The vegetation was lush and cooling; the car ran quick and smooth and quickly lulled little Mary to sleep in the backseat.

  Dorothy had changed her dress, for the black had been too hot, but she had kept the amulet on; it was possible, she considered, that she might wear it all the time. It was a simple stylish piece that was sure to attract attention and admiration. Dorothy glanced into the backseat and looked at her niece a moment turning uneasily on the vinyl up­holstery. She whispered, “I don’t know what we’re going to do about that child, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm spoke low as well. “Terrible thing to have happen, Dot, Mary’s a good little girl.”

  “Well,” said Dorothy, “she eats as much as you do, Malcolm, and I don’t know where the money’s coming from that’s gone keep her in clothes. And there’s books to buy when we put her in school, and I don’t know what all. Next thing you know I’m gone be talking to Mary Edwards down at the welfare office.”

  Malcolm sighed. “We can manage with Mary, Dot. Te
r­rible thing, what happened. James left money for the girl. There’s insurance. There’s no need to set on the child be­cause of money. We won’t go without.”

  Dorothy touched the amulet round her neck, and rubbed it between her fingers. All this had been a great nuisance, one of the greatest nuisances of her life. It wasn’t just that James had gone and got himself killed and left her to tend to the coffins, the services, the plots, the head­stones, the selling of the house, and all the rest; he had also left her his little girl. Dorothy truly had never wanted children, and though she had no particular dislike for them—at least when they were quiet she didn’t mind them much—she simply didn’t want to be bothered. But now there was little Mary, and little Mary was going to be around for at least ten more years—demanding attention. And if she went to college there would be tuition, and if she got married there would be the wedding to pay for, and so on, probably for the rest of her life. That was the greatest nuisance: the child dropping so suddenly into her lap. And it was very bad about James too. He hadn’t de­served to die with an ice pick. He hadn’t deserved to spend his life with a woman like Thelma, and he certainly ought not have been murdered by one. It would have been much better if James had died in the line of duty. Then Thelma would have been around to take care of little Mary and Dorothy wouldn’t have had to bother with either one of them. If that had been the case, she and Malcolm would be driving back to Montgomery now and they would never ever have had to give another thought to Pine Cone.

  It was all Thelma’s fault then. Her fault that James was dead, her fault that Dorothy had had to worry with the funeral, her fault that little Mary was going to cost them umpteen thousand dollars over the next dozen years. Dorothy had never liked Thelma, and now she was furi­ous with her. It’s a good thing she’s in her grave, Dorothy considered, because it’s the only place where she’s safe from me.

  Malcolm had always stood up for Thelma; had stopped a number of quarrels between the two women at various holiday get-togethers and now Dorothy turned and stared at her husband beside her and thought how none of this need have happened if Malcolm had only minded his own business. He had stood up for Thelma more than once, even when directly opposed to Dorothy’s interests; there had been no call for that, no call at all. Maybe, Dorothy considered suddenly, Malcolm had talked Thelma into killing James, so that they could run off together. Thelma was to kill James and then call up Malcolm. Then Malcolm would have killed her and he and Thelma would have run off together. That was probably it. But something slipped up and Thelma died by accident, and since she was dead there wasn’t any need for Malcolm to go through with his part of it. Dorothy shuddered to think how very narrowly she had escaped death that previous Friday.

  She looked at her husband with violent loathing, and wondered how on earth he had thought he was going to get away with so foolish a plan as that. She and James would have been dead and Malcolm and Thelma would have gone to jail and God only knows what would have happened to little Mary. He wanted to kill me, he wanted to kill me, Dorothy repeated to herself, but strangely she was less angry with him for that than for the fact that the plans had been upset in such a way that she was now saddled with the little girl in the backseat. She hated him for it, and could barely keep herself from drawing her fingernails down the great expanse of smooth cheek be­low his melancholy eyes. She continued to twist the amu­let between her fingers.

  The automobile went suddenly up over the crest of a hill and down into the shadowed darkness on the other side. Below, a swift shallow creek was crossed by a flimsy bridge with aluminum railings. Thick forest of oak and pine crowded in on both sides of the road, with borders of red clover in violent bloom. The sky was unmarred dark blue.

  The sudden increase in acceleration as the car moved downhill woke Mary in the backseat and she sat up, puffy-eyed, to see where they were.

  Just as the car reached the bottom of the hill, Mary was very surprised to see her aunt reach over, very calmly, and wrench the steering wheel sharply to the left. Malcolm was so surprised by her action that he allowed the wheel to leave his grasp. When he tried to regain it, Dorothy pushed even harder to the left.

  The automobile slammed into the side of the bridge, shuddered a moment before breaking through the alumi­num cordon, and then plunged into the waters of the creek. In a few seconds, water had broken up through the floor and was pouring in underneath the dashboard. Malcolm had opened his door before the car fell off the bridge, and now he struggled out into the shallow water. In the backseat Mary tried to open her door, but the force of the water kept it closed; she began to scream. The car had settled into the hard bed of the creek at a place where the water ran not more than three feet deep.

  “Let down the window! Let down the window!” Malcolm called out to Mary, and still screaming, the child turned the handle to let the window down. In the mean­time, Dorothy Sims was squeezing across the seat under­neath the steering wheel, to climb out of the car.

  “Dorothy,” said her husband, with great anger, “why in the hell did you want—” He interrupted himself to reach in and pull Mary out of the backseat. She squirmed a little, and drew back from him.

  “They’s snakes in that water!” she gasped.

  “No snakes,” said her uncle. “Come on, Mary, you gone drown in that car, you don’t let me pull you out of there.” It was an empty threat, for the water outside the car was barely breast-high on the child.

  Mary moved back toward her uncle, still whimpering to herself, “Snakes. I know there’s snakes in that water.”

  But before Malcolm could pull Mary through the car window, Dorothy pushed him down into the water. He looked up at the woman in considerable surprise. “Dorothy—” he began, but she kicked at him. He strug­gled out of her way on his hands and knees, scraping himself badly on the sharp rocks on the bed of the creek. All his clothing was wet through, and impeded his move­ment severely.

  Mary stared at her aunt apprehensively. Dorothy Sims pulled out of the water a newly fallen branch of oak that was tumbling downstream. She lifted it high over her head and advanced slowly on her husband. He continued to crawl away, repeating her name softly. “Dorothy. Dorothy. Dorothy . . .”

  Mary reached over into the front seat and got Dorothy’s pocket­book; the child leaned out the window and threw it at her aunt, but it fell several feet short, and dropped into the water.

  Dorothy came nearer her husband, and before he could get out of the way, she brought the branch down against the side of his head. The rough surface of the branch tore open the side of his face, tearing away skin and nearly severing his ear. He paused quivering on all fours, dazed and already bleeding heavily, while the wa­ter of the creek flowed swiftly beneath him. The pebbles under his hands began to give way under the pressure of his weight, and he was about to slip over when Dorothy lifted the branch high above her head and brought it down squarely upon Malcolm’s upturned face. He screamed, flailed briefly, and then collapsed into the wa­ter. The branch had smashed his nose, plunged splinters through his lids deep into the eyesockets, and split open his cheek from the side of his mouth to the dangling ear. He tumbled sideways into the water, unconscious and staining the water with his blood.

  Dorothy dropped the branch into the water. It sub­merged a moment, paused, and then was spun away over a fall of tiny rapids. Mary stared at the branch out the rear window until it was out of sight and imagined some­how that it was more responsible for what had been done to her uncle than was her aunt.

  Dorothy Sims knelt over her husband, took both his arms and dragged him back to the side of the car. Mary crouched on the other side, as far away from her aunt as she could get. Dorothy pushed Malcolm’s uncon­scious form under the car between the wheels. She held tight onto him by his ankles so that he would not be borne away by the rushing water. For a few moments there was a slight struggle and one of Malcolm’s feet es­caped her, but she caught it quickly enough again and held ever more tightly. In a couple of minutes Do
rothy let the body go, assured that her husband had drowned.

  Mary, still inside the car with the water a few inches over the level of the back seat was rigid with fear. She had rolled down the window and was about to crawl out of it into the water despite her fear of the snakes, when Dorothy released her husband’s ankles. The corpse of Malcolm Sims knocked about under the car for a mo­ment, and then emerged on the downstream side. His purple face appeared just beneath the surface of the wa­ter, a halo of blood surrounding it. Mary screamed, dropped down onto the seat, and began to cry. Her uncle was dead, her aunt was doubtless going to kill her next, she was like to drown in the backseat of a car, and the creek was filled with snakes.

  Dorothy Sims, however, ignored her niece and waded to the shore. Bedraggled, she struggled up onto a sand­bar, stepped across a narrow muddy streamlet, and then climbed up a clayey embankment about three feet high. She sat for a moment in a nest of pine needles to catch her breath, then made her way along the creek bank to the bridge; she made slow progress because of the dense­ness of the vegetation. It looked as if she were going to flag down the next vehicle that came along in the dusk.

  She was nearly to the road when a farmer’s pickup truck appeared at the top of the hill. Though the dusk was deepening into night in this small valley, the truck did not yet have its headlamps on.

  Dorothy Sims struggled against the briars, which tore her dress and slip, and leaped out into the road, trying to catch the attention of the driver of the truck. But she tripped on the uneven edge of the pavement, and stum­bled headlong into the highway.

  Her clothes were dark, so that the driver of the truck did not see her before he was almost upon her, and by then it was too late to stop. He swerved to the right, but Dorothy had not the sense to dart backward, and so was caught by the right fender. She was knocked clear across the road and against the concrete piling at one end of the bridge. Her spine was snapped instantly.