When the Wind Blows

by John Saul

  “Soda water?” Diana echoed. By now the group had drifted over to the picnic table, except for Jeff and Christie, who had headed for the barn.

  “Your father drank bourbon and soda. If it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.”

  Diana went back into the kitchen, and Edna lowered herself into a redwood chair that was sheltered from the sun by a large aspen. After she was seated, the Crowleys settled into chairs, and as Matt shifted uncomfortably, Joyce decided to take the bull by the horns.

  “You wanted to have a chat, Miss Edna. What about?”

  Edna waited before answering, and her eyes drifted toward the mountains. The lines in her face, usually so harsh, seemed to soften. “The mine,” she said at last. “I’ve decided it’s time to do something about it.”

  Joyce looked quickly at Matt’s face, but it was carefully blank. She returned her gaze to Edna Amber.

  “If you mean you want to hire someone else to try to reopen it, I don’t think Matt is interested,” Joyce said.

  Diana emerged from the house once more and poured them all drinks. When the glasses had been distributed, Edna spoke again.

  “Reopening it is not what I had in mind,” she said, staring at the golden liquid in her glass. When she looked up again, there was a smile on her face. “I was thinking more in terms of blowing the damned thing up.”

  A shocked silence hung over the little group as the three others stared at her.

  Diana recovered first. She tried not to let her voice reveal the sick feeling that had suddenly developed in the pit of her stomach. “Mother, what are you talking about?”

  “Exactly what I said,” Edna replied calmly, warming to the idea that had come to her at the cemetery. The more she thought about it, the better she liked it. “It seems to me that it’s time we destroyed that place.”

  “Why now?” Matt asked, his voice deliberate. “People have been dying in the mine for generations, Miss Edna. It’s not as if this is anything new.”

  Edna’s gaze drifted to Diana, whose eyes had once more clouded over. As she returned her attention to Matt she was convinced of the wisdom of her idea.

  “I am not a stupid woman, Matthew,” she said at last. “I am aware of what the mine has caused this town in terms of human suffering. I am also aware of the material comfort it has given Amberton. I’d hoped that Elliot Lyons would have been able to find a way for us to enjoy the comfort while avoiding the suffering. Well, he lost his life trying, and since then we’ve lost two more.”

  “Kim Sandler died at the quarry, not the mine,” Matt pointed out.

  Edna brushed his comment aside. “It’s the same thing. As far as I’m concerned, the quarry and the mine are one and the same. You may think I’ve become senile, but I’ve come to think that the mine is evil. I want it destroyed.”

  Diana found herself objecting, but not understanding why. “Can’t we just close it up again?”

  Edna’s eyes shifted to her daughter and when she spoke, her voice was clear and cold. “But we’ve already done that once, haven’t we? It doesn’t work.”

  Joyce Crowley shifted in her chair and shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand. “Doesn’t work, Miss Edna? I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “Perhaps you won’t be able to,” Edna said. “It’s just that over the years I’ve come to feel that there’s something very strange about that mine. It’s as if it demands a price for everything that is taken out of it—a price exacted in human lives. Do you know how Diana’s father died?”

  Joyce frowned. “It was the flood, wasn’t it?”

  Edna nodded grimly. “It happened the day Diana was born. It was a summer like this one—the chinooks were blowing into July, and we’d had a bad year; four men had already been lost in a cave-in. And while I lay up in my room, giving birth to Diana, the mine flooded.”

  “And you’ve never forgiven me for that, have you?” Diana asked, her voice barely audible.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Edna snapped. She turned back to the Crowleys. “Of course, the investigators said the flood was no one’s fault, but I’ve never believed it. I’ve always blamed the mine.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Matt asked.

  “I said I’ve always believed the mine itself killed my husband, and the rest of them, too,” Edna said evenly.

  Matt Crowley’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t get it.”

  “Nor do I,” Edna said. “I’ve no idea, really, if there is anything to ‘get,’ as you put it. But there are the stories—the stories that when the wind blows, you can hear children crying up there. The Indians believe those children are crying for their parents.

  “And the day I lost Amos … well, I thought I heard something. I’ve never been sure, of course, but I thought that for just a moment, there was something.” Suddenly she seemed to come back into the present, and she drained her glass. “Of course, whether I heard something or not doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that no one else must die. Matthew, can you arrange to blow the mine up?”

  “Well, I don’t know—” Matt began.

  “If you can’t,” Edna interrupted before he could finish, “I’ll hire somebody else. But I’d prefer it was you. You know the mine, and you live here. I may be a stupid old woman, but I’ve gotten it into my head that the mine has something against Amberton. Or maybe just the Ambers. But whatever it is, I want someone from this town to destroy it. I want you to do it, Matthew.”

  Diana had sat listening to her mother in silence. As Edna had talked a feeling of desperation had grown in her.

  “Mama,” she said now, “you don’t mean it. You can’t mean it.”

  Edna’s eyes met her daughter’s. “I mean every word of it, and the sooner it’s done, the better.”

  Diana rose to her feet. “No. I won’t let you do it, Mama. How can a mine be evil? It’s only a … a place.”

  “It’s more than that, Diana,” Edna said softly. “It’s much more than that. There are things about that mine that I will never speak of, but you know what they are.” Her eyes held Diana’s for a moment more, then shifted to Matt Crowley. “Well, Matthew?”

  “I’ll have to think about it, Miss Edna,” Matt replied, his voice carefully neutral.

  Edna got slowly to her feet. “You do that. And when you make up your mind, let me know. You may have until after the weekend. If you won’t do it, I’ll call someone in from Pueblo.” She started toward the house, then turned back once more. When she spoke, it was as if Diana weren’t there.

  “Don’t let Diana talk you out of it,” she said. “Diana has as many strange ideas as I do, but mine are based on a long life and wide experience. Diana’s, I’m afraid, stem from being too sheltered. That, of course, is my fault, but there’s nothing I can do about it now, except keep sheltering her. And I intend to do that.”

  Her cane held firmly in her healed right hand, Edna Amber started toward the house. When she was gone, the Crowleys sat silently for a moment, embarrassed by her last words.

  “Does she do that often?” Joyce finally asked, forcing a smile.

  “No,” Diana replied, her voice freighted with sarcasm. “Only when there are people here, or when we’re alone. It hardly ever happens at all.”

  Joyce shook her head sadly. “Why don’t you move out of here? You can’t let her go on treating you like that. You just can’t.”

  “But where would I go?” Diana sighed. “She’s right, you know. I have been overprotected. I couldn’t support myself if I had to, and I have no money of my own. I’m trapped. Besides, Mother won’t let me.”

  “Diana, it isn’t up to your mother,” Joyce protested. “It’s up to you! Why can’t you understand that?”

  “Because it isn’t true!” Diana exclaimed. She twisted a button on her dress as she continued speaking. “I don’t have a life of my own anymore, Joyce. Maybe I never did. But if I did, I gave it up years ago. Mother’s an old woman, and no matter what she says, she needs me. And she won’t
last forever. Someday—” She dropped the sentence, feeling suddenly ashamed of herself.

  Matt poured himself another drink. “What about the mine?” he asked. “Do you think she means what she says?”

  “I haven’t any idea,” Diana replied. “Let me talk to her when we’re alone, all right? I can’t imagine she really means to go through with it.”

  “Yes, she does,” Joyce suddenly said. “I’m not sure why, but I think she means every word of it.”

  Her husband and Diana stared at her, but she only shrugged her shoulders.

  “Let’s not talk about it now,” she said.

  For the rest of the afternoon they carefully avoided any more talk of the mine.

  * * *

  Christie and Jeff climbed up to the hayloft and gazed out over the ranch. In the shimmering heat of the afternoon it appeared that there was a lake in the middle of the valley, but both the children knew it was a mirage. Below them, they could see the three adults talking, but they were too far away to hear what they were saying. Off to the right, Christie could just see the slag heap spilling from the mine. She stared at it for a moment, wondering if she should tell Jeff she had been there with Jay-Jay that night. Then, remembering that Miss Edna had made her promise never to talk about it, she changed her mind.

  “Are all the kids mad at me?” she asked.

  “Nah. Why should they be mad at you? All you did was chicken out like the rest of us. Besides, nobody liked old Jay-Jay anyway. All she ever did was try to get us in trouble.”

  “She never tried to get me in trouble.”

  Jeff made a face at her. “That’s what you think. All she did was tell everyone you killed Kim Sandler.”

  Christie stared at him, her eyes wide. “When did she say that?”

  “The day Kim drowned, when we were over at the Sandlers’. Everyone was saying Juan did it, but Jay-Jay said you did.”

  Christie’s brows knotted in anger. “Nobody believed her, did they?”

  “’Course not. I told you, everyone knows she was a liar. My mom even told everyone that it was Jay-Jay who tattled about going up to the mine. She knew Jay-Jay’d say she didn’t, but no one would believe her.”

  “Who’d your mom tell?”

  “Everyone. Didn’t she call up Miss Diana?”

  Christie shook her head. “Aunt Diana wasn’t home. But if she called Miss Edna, wouldn’t she have told me not to go, or something?”

  “Didn’t she?” Jeff asked. “That’s what everyone else’s mom did.”

  The beginnings of an idea began to form in Christie’s mind. “Maybe Miss Edna wanted me to go,” she said.

  Jeff scowled at her. “Why would she want you to go up there?”

  The idea grew in Christie’s mind. She was almost afraid to tell Jeff about it, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  “Maybe she wanted something to happen to me,” she said slowly.

  Now it was Jeff who became thoughtful. “My mom said Miss Edna wants to have Miss Diana all to herself.”

  Now the idea was growing between the two of them. “Maybe she wanted to get rid of me,” Christie said. “Maybe she wanted me to die.”

  Jeff stared at her, suddenly frightened.

  He looked down and saw Miss Edna coming out of the house. As she crossed the yard she glanced up and, seeing the two children, pointed at them with her cane.

  “Diana,” they heard her say in her rasping voice, “make those children get down from there. One of these days they’re going to wind up dead, and it won’t be my fault.”

  Christie and Jeff looked at each other, and their nine-year-old hearts began pounding.

  20

  The day after the funeral Dan Gurley sat in his office, his feet propped up on his desk, thinking. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the deaths of Kim Sandler and Jay-Jay Jennings out of his mind.

  Something was wrong.

  Perhaps it was the fact that the girls had died in such a short span of time.

  Dan had been the marshal in Amberton for fourteen years, and in all that time there hadn’t been an accidental death of a child.

  Now there were two.

  Try as he would, Dan Gurley could not accept the idea that the deaths had been accidental.

  He dropped his feet to the floor, stood up, and left his office.

  The day was quiet—only a few tourists were wandering in and out of the shops, and here and there a dog lay curled in the dust of the street, sleepily watching the cars going back and forth.

  Dan nodded greetings to the people he knew and smiled at the ones he didn’t, but again and again kept rerunning what had happened; kept coming back to one thing.

  In peaceful little Amberton two children had died, and Dan had had to release his only suspect. Now, without a suspect, he would soon face a large faction of the town, led by the Reverend Jerome Jennings and his wife, who were demanding that something be done.

  No one had said anything to him yet, but Dan could feel it in the air—people were beginning to look at him, then shake their heads as if they thought something were wrong with him. And yet there were others—the Crowleys and their friends—who seemed ready to accept the deaths at face value, as the accidents they appeared to be. The trouble with that, Dan thought, was that none of the “accident faction” had yet lost a child. When one of them did—and Dan had a gut feeling that sooner or later one of them would—everything would change.

  He found himself in front of the little frame house, painted in shades of olive-green and gray, which served as Bill Henry’s office as well as his home.

  Dan paused, then realized that without really thinking about it, he had known he was coming here. His step suddenly purposeful, he strode up the walk and went into the reception room. It was empty.

  He tapped on the office door, and when Bill called for him to come in, he opened it and stepped inside. Bill looked up. Smiling at Dan, he took off his glasses.

  “Thank God,” he said, forcing a lightness into his voice. “I was afraid it might be a patient.”

  “Nope,” Dan said. “Just need to talk to you about something.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Bill replied. “Fire when ready.”

  Without preamble Dan dumped the strange idea that had been building in his mind squarely in Bill’s lap. “What do you think of Diana Amber as a suspect?”

  “A suspect for what?” Bill asked.

  “Kim and Jay-Jay,” Dan replied.

  Now Bill stared at him. “Diana?” His voice was incredulous. “How can you call Diana a suspect?”

  Dan tried to smile, but failed. “By reaching real far,” he said. “She’s a suspect on the basis that she was in the area when Kim drowned, and she was near the mine the night Jay-Jay died. So that makes her a suspect, right?”

  “Oh, come on, Dan. She was at home in bed when Jay-Jay died.”

  “So she says,” Dan agreed. “But she lives near the mine. I told you I was reaching.” He sighed as Bill’s expression failed to soften. “Dammit, I don’t like it any better than you do, but so far she’s all I can come up with. And you must have heard what a lot of people in town have been saying.”

  “Then why talk to me about it?” Bill asked, his voice cold. “I can think of a hundred people—hell, two hundred—who would be more receptive to that idea than I. Why’d you come here?”

  Dan leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “’Cause you’re a doc, and I’ve got a weird idea.”

  “I’m not sure I want to hear it,” Bill said. Then, seeing the unhappy look on Dan’s face, he relented. “Okay, let’s hear it. But I warn you, I’m going to tear it to pieces if I can.”

  “It has to do with the wind,” Dan said. “The wind was blowing the day Kim Sandler drowned, right?”

  “I don’t remember,” Bill said. “It’s been blowing a lot lately.”

  Dan nodded. “That’s what I was thinking about. I know it was blowing the night I found Jay-Jay in th
e mine.”

  “Can’t you get to the point?” Bill asked.

  “I’m not sure there is a point,” Dan replied. “I’m just thinking out loud. Since I don’t have any idea what happened to those kids, I’m trying to figure out what could have happened.”

  “All you’ve said so far is that Diana could have killed them,” Bill retorted. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s not possible. If she had, she’d have been the first person to tell you.”

  “What if she didn’t remember?” Dan suddenly asked.

  Bill felt an icy chill of fear pass through him as he recalled his conversation with Edna Amber. Had she told the same story to Dan Gurley? “What gave you that idea?” he asked as casually as he could.

  “Nothing concrete,” Dan admitted. “It’s just that the wind affects people strangely. Makes them behave funny. And I just got this idea—”

  “Well you can forget it,” Bill said. “There’s nothing wrong with Diana Amber.”

  “Isn’t there?” Dan asked, his voice dangerously quiet. “I know it’s none of my business, but about ten years ago Diana spent a couple of nights in the hospital down in Pueblo. The mental hospital. Do you know what that was all about?”

  “No, I don’t,” Bill said, his voice tight. “And you’re right—it isn’t any of your business, or mine either.”

  Dan chewed his lower lip thoughtfully and scratched at his nose. “If it comes to it, I suppose I could subpoena her medical records,” he said at last.

  “On nothing more than an idea? You know better than that, Dan.”

  “It’s more than an idea, Bill. She was in the area when the kids died, and she was once in a mental institution. That’s exactly the grounds we used to hold Juan Rodriguez. The only difference between the two of them is that Juan’s a poor, retarded half-breed, and Diana’s a rich, well-educated white woman. Now, do you want to tell me whatever you know about Diana, or shall I go up there and arrest her?”

  “You won’t do that,” Bill said.

  The two men’s eyes met, challenging each other, and in the end it was Dan who backed down. “No,” he said at last, “I guess I won’t. But I’ll be keeping my eye on her,” he added. “Particularly when the wind blows.”