The Cypress House

by Michael Koryta

  Let him go.

  It wasn’t Tolliver speaking. A familiar voice, but not Tolliver. Was it Owen Cady? No, it seemed to come from a time much longer ago than that. So familiar, though. So damn familiar. Whose voice was it? How could he—

  Let him go.

  forget a voice like that, so deep and strong and full of command? He knew its source, knew it well, but here in the fog and the hum everything was lost. If he could only remember the—

  Let him go, son.

  Isaac? No. It couldn’t be. How could a man so long dead reach and find Arlen now and tell him…

  The instruction finally registered. He had to let Tolliver go. He dropped his hands from the sheriff’s head and fell back against the car with a gasp as a searing rod of pain drilled through his chest.

  A bullet, he thought. I’ve just been shot.

  But there was no bullet, and the pain passed. He closed his eyes and opened them again and drew in a deep breath, and now the world was steady except for a tingle on his hands where Tolliver’s blood stained his skin. He wiped them on his pants, looking down at the dead man and realizing what had nearly happened—Tolliver had been holding him here. Arlen had opened the contact, maybe, but Tolliver had nearly closed it, and that trancelike state that Arlen had entered with Owen could have turned deadly this time. He’d been unable to see anything around him, unable to hear, would have been utterly unable to defend himself if he hadn’t released the body and stepped back. The longer he’d held on to Tolliver, the longer he’d tried to keep that corridor open, the deeper he’d sunk into the trance. He might have stayed there in the road for a long time.

  That was his father’s voice. He was damn near certain of it, and somehow it chilled him more than any of the others.

  This was a dangerous game. Wasn’t as simple as talking. There was more to it than that, and what Tolliver had said had been the truth—the dead weren’t required to help him. The ability to reach them wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  He stood up now and stepped over the body with the rifle in his hands, scanned the road ahead and the woods and the creek, watching and listening and holding his finger tight against the trigger.

  There was no one in sight, no sound that wasn’t natural. He stepped back to the front of the car and put his hand on the hood. The engine was still running, and it was running hot. Tolliver might have come a longer way than Arlen had initially suspected. It could be that the McGraths remained unaware of his presence here. Or it could be that the engine always idled hot, and Arlen’s time was running dangerously short already.

  He went through the inside of the car quickly, searching for weapons. There were none except the pistol he’d already taken from the sheriff, but he did find two pairs of handcuffs. There was also a length of tow chain in the back, outfitted with a lock. Arlen hung the handcuffs off the other side of his belt, opposite the pistol, and then stepped back and looked down at the body, saw Tolliver’s big hands stretched open in the dirt and remembered the beating the sheriff had given him in the jail while Solomon Wade leaned against the bars and watched wordlessly.

  He’ll be riding close soon enough, Tolliver had said. Wade was on his way.

  Arlen thought about that and then turned and studied the trees that grew thick alongside the road on either side of the bridge. There was one limb that was low enough and stout enough for his purposes. He’d have to hurry, though. He reckoned if the McGraths had held Paul alive for this long, they’d continue to do so until Wade arrived, but he couldn’t afford to be caught on the road like this.

  He backed the sheriff’s car off the bridge and pulled it far enough away that the road was clear for the convertible, which he drove over the bridge and parked behind the sheriff’s car before climbing out again. It took him only two tries to toss one end of the tow chain over the limb, and then he lowered it until both ends were on the road. It was just long enough. He took one set of handcuffs and wrapped them around Tolliver’s ankles, then fastened them together. Dragged the body over and fastened the chain to the cuffs, then pushed Tolliver’s body into the ditch and went back to the convertible and fastened the free end of the chain to the back bumper. When he climbed in this time, he drove very slowly, pulling forward inch by inch. The chain tightened and began to slide over the tree limb, and then Tolliver’s feet were tugged into the air. There was a short hitch as the chain hung up on something, and Arlen pushed harder on the gas pedal, driving the car into the weedy, rutted ditch. The chain slid free again, and Tolliver’s bulk was hoisted into the air.

  He kept the car moving until the sheriff was dangling about four feet over the road, upside down, his body swinging just as Owen Cady’s had. Blood dripped off the corpse and found the muddy road below. It would be the first thing visible for a driver who rounded the bend.

  “Come on down, Wade,” Arlen said softly as he got out of the convertible and went back to the sheriff’s car, positioning himself behind the wheel with the rifle across his lap. “Come on down.”

  He cast one look in the rearview mirror before he drove on, saw the dark sky and the body swinging in the wind, and the smoke—thicker now, darker—in his own eyes.

  He was close.

  51

  THE ROAD RAN DOWNHILL over the bridge, and the ground on either side grew marshy, black puddles lining the ditches and tangled mangrove roots visible farther out, where the creek curled around and followed the road. He went at least another mile without seeing a thing, and the distance reassured him—it was unlikely that the McGraths had heard anything of the gunfire at the bridge.

  Finally the road hooked to the right and narrowed even more, and there he shut off the engine and got out of the car. He couldn’t see a house yet but felt he must be close. For a moment he knelt beside the car and listened and watched. The trees gave him nothing but wind rustle and birdcalls. Water lapped against the shore just through the woods, the creek riding high after the previous day’s downpour. The way the sky looked, another was due soon enough. He wished the rain would begin to fall; it would offer sound cover that he needed. So far, though, the clouds had just continued to build and darken without letting loose. There was occasional thunder, but it was well to the south.

  He started forward on foot. It was awkward moving with a rifle in each hand and the pistol and handcuffs on his belt, but he’d rather have all the weapons if it came to that sort of firefight. Empty one Springfield, drop it and pick up the second, empty that and roll on to the pistol. If he ran that dry, too, he probably wouldn’t have much need to reload one way or another.

  Here the road was so deeply wooded that it was almost dark. The trees pressed close on every side and the wind roused them to a constant rasping sound that unsettled him because the noise was so damn close. It was one of the things he didn’t like about this part of the country; the leaves were right at your side, not well overhead. A rustle in the leaves fifty feet above you was less disturbing than one ten inches to your left.

  He didn’t even consider leaving the road and venturing into the woods. It would slow him down and make him noisier. Even though they likely hadn’t heard the gunfire, the McGraths would be ready for trouble. It was a day of trouble, and they were well aware of that by now.

  To his right the woods opened up, and he could see the creek merging with the mangroves, creating a knee-deep swamp of tangled roots that looked like hundreds of frozen snakes. He came to the bottom of the gentle slope, and then the dirt road rose again and he could see the first building just ahead.

  It was a shed or barn of some sort, with a hide stretched over the wall. A dark gray skin, probably a boar. There was the smell of smoke from that building, but he couldn’t see any. Whatever fire had burned there was extinguished now. Farther on he could see the roof of another building, this one a cabin, long and low. He pushed down into the weeds and dropped to his knees, felt moisture soak through his trousers. He laid one Springfield in the weeds and brought the other up and held it against his thigh.


  There were voices coming from up ahead but not from inside the cabin. He thought they might be at first, but then his sense of the place corrected and he realized they were coming from below the cabin, out of sight to him but close to the creek. He heard the thump of boots on boards and the sound of a splash and realized there must be a dock of some sort down there.

  How many sons did Tate McGrath have? There’d been three with him the night they’d come to the Cypress House. If all of them were with him now, that meant four enemies to contend with. Unless there were others. Neighbors, cousins, collaborators of some sort. Hell, maybe even men from New Orleans by now, maybe the Cubans themselves. Could be a dozen down there.

  He pushed farther down from the road, water bubbling up and soaking his boots and pants. Pointed the rifle at the cabin and squinted down the barrel and liked what he saw. He could pick men off quickly if they’d just walk out there and stand around. It hadn’t been so long since he’d fired a Springfield rapidly that he’d forgotten how it was done.

  First he had to bring them out, though.

  He waited a few more minutes, heard those muffled voices but saw nothing, and then he slid back out of the wet ditch and returned up the edge of the road, walking backward and holding the gun high. He left the second Springfield tucked down in the weeds. He could find it again if he needed it.

  His focus coming up the road was on the sheriff’s car. Particularly the windshield. He wanted to see how close you had to be before the bullet holes were obvious. Here in the shadows, he found it was better than he’d expected. Even knowing they were there, he had to close to within about a hundred feet before they became obvious.

  The sheriff’s car was the only bit of cover he had, the only touch of confusion. He figured there were two ways to approach this: One was to slip right up into the homestead and start shooting. The other was with a bit of a ruse. He knew he could take some bodies down with the first approach, but taking bodies down wasn’t enough. He had to get to Paul, and doing that required finding out where the boy was. Once the shooting started, nobody would be volunteering that information.

  The only time he’d seen the sons at all had been the day they arrived at the Cypress House to avenge their brother’s death, and then it had been Tate who did all the talking. Likewise, it had been Tate who dealt with Wade, Tate who traveled with Wade. He was the decision maker, the leader. He would also, Arlen assumed, be the one who came out to see why Tolliver had returned.

  Maybe not. Maybe they’d all come slinking through the woods with guns. If that were the result, the second of Arlen’s options would blend quickly into the first, and he’d have to open up with the Springfields and hope the old instincts weren’t far gone. But if Tate McGrath came out alone…

  “Love lingers,” Arlen said quietly as he opened the door of the Corridor County sheriff’s car and slipped behind the wheel. They’d been his father’s last words, and he hoped like hell they’d been accurate. What was it Tolliver had said of Tate McGrath? The only human lives he valued were those of his sons. Arlen intended to test the truth of that. If he could bring old Tate out to this car alone, he intended to do something that had probably never been attempted anywhere in this world before—hold hostage the living to gain the help of the dead.

  52

  A FEW DROPS OF RAIN splattered off the windshield as he drove, and he was momentarily hopeful that the sheltering storm would finally appear, but then the sprinkle ceased entirely. The Springfield was in his lap and the pistol on the passenger seat. He could feel warm moisture under his thighs. Tolliver’s blood. The inside of the car reeked of it, a wet copper scent baked by the heat.

  He drove down just short of the point where he’d left the second rifle. Just out of sight of the buildings. Nothing moved around him, but the sound of the approaching car had surely been heard, and his throat felt tight. The moment was here now. Preparations had ceased; battle would begin.

  I’ve come out of worse places, he thought. I was in the Belleau Wood. Will come a time when that doesn’t mean anything to a soul in this country, but for those who were there, it did one of two things: killed you, or changed your perception of fear. This place doesn’t scare me. Not after the Wood.

  He cast a look in the mirror, watched the smoke swirl in his eyes, and thought, I won’t be coming out of this one, though. So I should fear it even less.

  The end was here. There was a certain measure of peace in that. All that remained was a bit of unsettled work.

  It was a good spot, close to the mangroves and where the creek had flooded well over its banks and turned the marshy ground into a shallow pond of shadowed water. Reeds and grasses grew tall and thick in the ditch, offering prime cover. The clouds were a roiling mass, some layers as black as fresh-laid tar, others the color of wine. Beneath them the mangrove trees stretched endlessly and cast shadows on an already dark day, the gloom so deep it seemed to be dusk.

  He turned the headlights on, and their beams cut farther down the road than should have been possible during the day, harsh and white and, he hoped, distracting from the bullet holes in the windshield. They’d also draw focus away from the water and make the area just beside the car seem darker still.

  As soon as the lights were on, Arlen popped open the driver’s door and pushed the Springfield into the driest weeds he could find. When he glanced back up the road, he saw nothing. Tate McGrath had no doubt selected this location for his homestead because of the near impossibility of sneaking up on it, but that worked against him as well; it would be damn hard to sneak away from the cabin. Arlen would hear them when they came.

  When the rifle was hidden, he put Tolliver’s pistol in one hand and took out his pocketknife and opened it with the other. It wasn’t a large knife, but it was a good one. Had a strong handle with a textured grip and a four-inch stainless steel blade that he worked over a whetstone regularly. He held it tight in his left hand as he leaned out of the door, then reached back inside and hit the horn with the butt of the pistol. Two short taps, then one long bleat. He hoped it sounded like a signal. He flashed the lights three times, and then he was out of the car.

  He slipped down into the ditch, moving carefully into a gap between the reeds so that they wouldn’t be trampled and broken down. The water soaked through his clothes and chilled him. He dipped his hand into the soil, took a palmful of thick black mud, and coated his face and neck with it. Insects buzzed over him and one mosquito drank from his forearm, but he didn’t swat it away. Instead he kept his eyes on the road and on the trees.

  He was quickly hidden behind the tall grass as he slid away from the gap and deeper into the water, taking care to avoid crushing the reeds in a way that would be easily spotted. He remembered the paces he’d carefully measured toward the car before he’d seen the bullet holes in the windshield and tried to match that distance. The best place he saw looked to be about eighty feet ahead of the car. He was moving as quickly as possible, keeping to a crouch so that his shoulders were submerged in the water, holding only the pistol up to keep it dry.

  He was now neck-deep in the water, the same water where just a few miles downstream the girl from Cassadaga, Gwen, had been left by these very men. He positioned himself behind a thatch of reeds close to the edge of the road. He laid the pistol in the reeds, then lowered himself until his chin touched the top of the water. He was able to see up the road with his left eye only; the reeds blocked any other field of vision. The glow of the headlights cast long, empty beams into the gloom. No one appeared inside them.

  He was counting on the sheriff’s car, counting on it to a critical level. Tolliver was a friend, not a foe, and he’d left in this same car less than an hour earlier. His return, while unusual, should not necessarily be an indication of true trouble. Arlen’s hope was that Tate would hear the horn and see the flash of the lights and perceive it to be a signal, Tolliver calling for him because something had changed. Perhaps he’d encountered Wade and had new instructions; perhaps he’d see
n something he didn’t like or thought of something he should have said. It might be odd for the sheriff to sit outside the homestead, but on the day he’d driven down to the Cypress House to drop off the money with Owen, he’d parked at the top of the hill and leaned on the horn. It had been pouring rain then, but rain was threatening now as well.

  When he finally heard the first footstep, it crunched on brush, which meant the approaching man was walking on the side of the road and not up the middle of it. The car’s horn and lights had drawn him out, but he didn’t trust them yet either. Not completely.

  This was good. This was as planned.

  He was advancing along Arlen’s side of the road. Also good, also as planned. Whoever was coming now was approaching the driver’s-side door. The footsteps came on and on, and still Arlen could see nothing. He had sunk so low in the ditch that even his chin touched the water, his head buried in the thicket of reeds and painted black with mud. The footsteps were very close when they stopped entirely, and at the cessation of the sound, Arlen felt his heart go cold.

  Seen? Have I been—

  Crunch, crunch, crunch. The feet were on the move again, and no more than twenty paces away. Down in the water, Arlen tightened his fingers around the handle of his knife. He could see the pistol resting in the reeds and knew that he could grab it quickly, but would it be quickly enough?

  You’re a good shot, Tolliver’s ghost had whispered. Tate’s better.

  We’re about to find out, Arlen had said. Yes, they would.

  He didn’t want to shoot. Wanted this—needed this—to be a silent killing.

  There was another step, and another. They seemed to be coming quicker now, with more confidence, as if the sight of the sheriff’s car had proved reassuring to whoever was approaching. Arlen hadn’t so much as glimpsed the man yet, but he was almost sure it would be Tate. There was only one man on the way, and he wouldn’t have sent one of his sons to talk to Tolliver alone. He’d have come himself.