Touched

by Carolyn Haines

  JoHanna ignored her daughter. “Test the waters, John.”

  “Will do.” He strode off, matched step for step by Floyd.

  John came back alone, filthy and concerned. Floyd had decided to stay and help Axim Moses reorder the shop. Elikah’s barber pole, although once securely anchored, had been pulled loose and hurled through the front window of the boot shop. Heavy rains had flooded the shop. Tommy Ladnier’s high-dollar boots, sitting on top of the counter, were undamaged, but the rest of the shop was a mess. Relieved, Floyd had felt a desire to help Axim put things in working order.

  Jexville had escaped with minor damage, a few broken windows, trees down on phone lines, sheds and outbuildings destroyed. With one exception.

  Chas Leatherwood had been killed. The high winds had ripped the roof from the large hay barn beside the feed store, and a wall of hay, soaked with rain, had fallen on him as he was trying to set a new brace.

  JoHanna heated water on the stove for John’s bath as he sat at the kitchen table, hay stuck in his hair and clothes, dirt and mud grimed up to his ears, and gave her the temperament of the town. I took a seat across from him. Duncan, exhausted by her efforts at walking and her frustration at not getting to see the storm damage, napped in her bed with Pecos as guard.

  John ran through the scene at the feed store where Chas was killed. Agnes Leatherwood had been hysterical. Annabelle Lee had been sent to Rachel Carpenter’s while Doc Westfall had calmed Agnes with a dose of laudanum.

  “Did Agnes mention me or Duncan?” JoHanna tried not to sound worried, but I could tell she was. Really worried.

  John sipped the sweet tea she’d given him and looked at me. “She did.”

  JoHanna’s hand dropped to his shoulder as she stood behind him. “How bad was it?”

  “I think you and Duncan should leave. Maybe take Floyd with you.” He pushed some strands of hair out of his face. “There was talk of retribution. Of coming here to confront you.”

  “And Mattie?”

  “Seems to be the thought of the day that Elikah has brought Mattie under control.”

  His words were bitter, and his grip on the tea glass whitened his knuckles. “The prevailing attitude is that Mattie was led astray by your wild and dangerous ways, but that Elikah managed to beat some sense into her. I guess they aren’t aware yet that you have her back in your clutches.”

  “Agnes is upset. Chas was her entire world.” JoHanna fumbled over the words. “They’ll get over—”

  “It wasn’t just Agnes. The others, the men, they were talking crazy, JoHanna. As soon as they got the body out, I came on back. I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

  “And Floyd?” JoHanna looked toward the back door as if she expected to hear his step.

  “He’s okay. He’s with Mr. Moses, and they’re down at the other end of town. He said he was going to stay with them tonight.”

  JoHanna paced to the door. “I’d feel better if he was here with us.”

  “We’re not exactly in the best position. We can’t get away, remember.”

  JoHanna nodded, but she kept her gaze out the window. “And they can’t get here. At least not by car or wagon.”

  “It’s just talk, JoHanna.” I tried to sound like I believed it. I’d heard angry talk about JoHanna before, talk of their dislike for her. What type of retribution did they have in mind? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t really want to know.

  “We need to get to Fitler.” John started to get up, but he glanced at me and didn’t. “I sent Will a telegram. The lines are down, but they’ll be back up.” John lifted his chin a degree. “I told him to come home as fast as he could.”

  JoHanna turned at the door. Her hand moved up between her breasts and rested there. “I suppose that was smart.”

  “No one in town knows anything about me.” He rose slowly, standing at the table. “They asked a few questions, but I told them I was traveling through and got stranded by the storm. Some of the men had heard reports from other places. The storm hit hard. The devastation in Florida is bad. Thousands are dead. And in Mobile there’s damage down along the waterfront. Looks like the storm hit Florida and then went back out in the Gulf to take another swing here. Even if Will gets the message tomorrow or the next day, he might not be able to get back here for four or five days. I thought it best that he got started.”

  JoHanna nodded. “Yes.”

  “You’re right, JoHanna. I can leave here at any time. You need Will. The men in town respect him. Maybe they’re even a little afraid of him.”

  JoHanna shifted so that her back was to us. “Mattie?” Her voice shook.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you keep an eye on Duncan? I, uh, I need to see about some things outside.”

  She was crying.

  “I’ll listen for her when she wakes. I thought I might make some persimmon pudding. There’s a tree just down the road. When Duncan wakes up, we can go down there and pick up the ones the wind blew down.”

  “Thank you.” JoHanna’s long stride moved her across the kitchen and out the back door. The screen slammed hard behind her, and out the window I caught a glimpse of her running toward the path to the creek.

  John shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. He started to speak, then stopped. Worry etched hard lines around his mouth.

  “I’m afraid for her,” he said carefully.

  “From the men in town or from you?”

  “From both.” He strode out of the room, the screen door slamming behind him.

  He caught up with her at the edge of the woods. One hand grasped her shoulder and pulled her around to face him. With a small cry that I barely heard, she stumbled into his arms and cried against his chest.

  Twenty-nine

  DUNCAN awakened in the afternoon and helped me gather the small, firm persimmons that grew in abundance in the wild. We had to be careful. If they were the faintest bit green, they’d draw our mouths together in a pucker that took a while to wear down. But once ripened, the wild fruit made a delicious bread-type pudding. The late afternoon drifted away as we sifted the ingredients for the pudding, pulped the persimmons, and then put it in the oven to bake. The aroma wafted through the kitchen, tantalizing Duncan. But even though JoHanna and John returned by dark, they were not hungry. I had no interest in food. After supper, Duncan and I went to bed, sharing the double bed in her room.

  Heat and darkness settled over the house as if we were in the bottom of a large black cauldron and someone had put on the lid. Duncan had fallen into a sound sleep, but I could not relax. JoHanna and John had stayed up in the living room talking for several hours, but now the bedroom door was firmly closed. No sounds came from within the room.

  The long, dark hours of the night passed, interrupted only by Duncan’s occasional soft murmur, the sound of Pecos shifting about the room, and the hum of mosquitoes at the screened window. And the heat. The oppressive, suffocating heat, which had the sound of my own heartbeat.

  Too warm in the bed, I got up and went to the window. The beautiful peach curtains hung limp. Not even a whisper of breeze fluttered them. I remembered John’s prediction. He’d been too right. It was hotter than August. Nature was not finished with us yet.

  On her side of the bed, Duncan stirred. Her arms pushed out from her body and she twisted.

  “No.” The word was small, strangled sounding.

  She didn’t move again, and I waited. She was dreaming, but perhaps the nightmare had moved on, leaving her in peace.

  She twisted again, her hands coming up as if to ward off a blow. “No. No!” She spoke louder, more clearly.

  I walked to her side of the bed and put a hand on her heated forehead. She didn’t have a fever. She was just hot, like everyone and everything else left a-kilter in the path of the hurricane.

  “Please.” She switched her head from side to side. “Please don’t.”

  “Duncan.” I brushed my hand across her face, hoping to soothe her back into the deep em
ptiness of sleep. “It’s okay. It’s only a dream.”

  “No!” The word was a cry. She sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide open and catching the glow of the moon from the window. Her look was purely insane. “Mother!” She screamed the word. “Mother!”

  I grabbed her by her shoulders and shook lightly, then harder when she didn’t respond. “Duncan, wake up!”

  “Mother!” Her eyes were wide, the whites showing. Foam had gathered in the corner of her mouth. “Mother! No!”

  JoHanna’s bedroom door was flung open with great strength. Wearing only Will’s robe, JoHanna ran into the room. Behind her John Doggett wore only his white cotton drawers.

  “Duncan.” JoHanna pushed up to her daughter’s side. “Duncan, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

  Duncan blinked, the madness leaving her eyes as she looked up at her mother and allowed the tears to fall. “He had me again. Down at the bottom of the river. He had me and he wouldn’t let me go and I was drowning!” The last word was a wail. “There was dirt in the water, and I could feel it in my nose and throat and eyes, all grainy in my eyes! And I looked at him, and an eel came out of his eye socket. I could see his teeth in the white bones of his jaw!” Her face crumpled in upon itself, and she wailed blindly.

  JoHanna crushed Duncan to her, stroking the child’s back as she rocked her gently. “It was only a dream, Duncan. Only a dream. You’re safe. You’re here with me and Mattie and John. It was only a dream.”

  John and I stood at the foot of the bed, helpless to do anything. Duncan’s terror had frightened me. Goosebumps defied the heat and humidity, and I felt a chill shake me like a teasing breeze.

  John excused himself and went to find his pants while JoHanna rocked Duncan and I went to the kitchen to put on the kettle for some tea. There was no milk for cocoa. With the road blocked, there was no way to get into town. Unlike most of the people who lived in the country, JoHanna didn’t keep a cow. Will was gone too much, and JoHanna liked to be able to go to Fitler when the mood struck. A cow was something that just couldn’t be left behind to fend for itself. So I made the chamomile tea Aunt Sadie had taught me to use to calm and soothe.

  JoHanna brought Duncan to the table, where she lit the lamp and we all gathered. After Duncan had sipped the tea and calmed enough to breathe without sobbing, JoHanna took her hand.

  “Tell us the whole dream, Duncan. All of it.”

  Duncan shook her head. “It’s awful. I don’t want to say it.”

  JoHanna kept a firm grip on her hand. “But you must. You told us all the other dreams, about Mary and Red. About the storm. And you’ve told us about this one before. Tell it all to us.”

  Duncan looked into her mother’s eyes. “No.”

  “Duncan, maybe if you talk about it we can try to understand it. We have to be able to figure out why this dream frightens you so much when the others didn’t.”

  “If you had some man with hunks of loose skin hanging off his bones and an alligator gar staring at you from his rib cage, and he was trying to catch hold of you and keep you underwater with him, you’d be upset, too.” The more she talked the angrier she got.

  “That’s a good start, Duncan. Tell us the rest. Do you know who this man is?”

  Duncan’s eyes were black. They snapped with anger. “I want Daddy.”

  JoHanna never faltered. “Will can’t help you out of this, Duncan. This is something you have to confront on your own. We’ll help you. Me and John and Mattie. And Floyd, when he comes back tomorrow. Right now, though, tell me, did you know the man?”

  Duncan hesitated. The fire left her eyes, and they filled with tears again. “I knew him, but I couldn’t figure out who he was.” She took a ragged breath. “I didn’t like him. He tried to hold me under with him.”

  “Was there anything about him that you recognized?” John asked softly.

  Duncan nodded. “The boots.” She whispered the answer.

  JoHanna caught me with her look. “His boots? What about them?”

  “They’re like the pair Floyd is working on.”

  “The ones for Tommy Ladnier?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “The others. With the pretty design. It’s the same design from the boots. That’s how I knew how to draw it, because the man under the water has the design on his boots.” Duncan looked down into her cup of tea, and a small shudder touched her. “He was pointing down at the boots, and his jaw was working, but no words came out. But he was trying to tell me something. Something about the boots.” Duncan looked up suddenly, her eyes wide and glazed with fear. “I’m worried about Floyd, Mama. I’m afraid something’s going to happen to him.”

  Instead of denying the fear, JoHanna kissed Duncan’s hand and pressed it against her cheek. Holding it there she reached with her other hand to stroke Duncan’s face. “I’m worried about him, too. Maybe John will go tomorrow and bring him back here to us. We’ll look out for him.”

  Duncan sighed. “Please, John?”

  “Certainly.” John’s shoulders sagged in relief. I knew then that if Duncan had asked him to leave, he would. I wasn’t certain if she understood what role he played in her mother’s life. Or her father’s. I wasn’t certain of anything, not even my own reaction to it.

  “Tell us the whole dream,” JoHanna coaxed her.

  John pulled his chair closer. “There may be a clue in it, Duncan. Something we need to know. To protect you or Floyd.”

  Duncan sipped her tea with a tiny slup of noise. “Okay,” she finally agreed. “It’s just so awful.” She glanced up at me. “Did I frighten you, Mattie?”

  “You did.” I grinned at her. “But not as bad as you frightened yourself.”

  “I suppose not.” She gave a half chuckle. “It all starts when I’m standing on the banks of the Pascagoula. It’s springtime and the river is running high, just at flood stage. There are all sorts of things floating past me. Rocking chairs with old women in them, bathtubs with strange men taking a bath, chickens floating by on bales of hay.” She shook her head. “It’s all very strange because all of those things would have drowned, sunk to the bottom. But they go by real fast on the current because the river is in a hurry.”

  I watched JoHanna’s face. She was extremely worried, and doing her best to hide it. I remembered her fear—that Duncan was predicting her own drowning, and I felt the finger of death in the room.

  “I think I was a lot older, standing on the bank. Older than Mattie even. I was full grown. Anyway, the water kept rising and coming up until it covered my feet, and then my ankles, and then my knees, and when I tried to move back, the mud had me. I knew I was going under, but it didn’t bother me because I wasn’t afraid of the river.”

  We leaned in closer and closer to Duncan, transfixed by her words and by the lamplight casting strange shadows on her face, now shiny with perspiration. The night was not overcast, but the heat seemed to have thrown up a fog that blocked the starlight and stilled the breezes. Duncan was not afraid of the river in her dream, but I fought the horrible sensation of suffocation that her words generated.

  “The water came up fast, and as soon as I slipped beneath it, the mud let me loose.” Duncan’s hands were clenched into fists, but she held them still on the table. JoHanna’s hand was beside her, but not touching.

  “I saw the man. He was down by the supports of the bridge, watching me. Waiting for me to come down to him. The current was moving very fast around me, but I was still, like a big fish that can hang in the water without seeming to move. I sort of pointed myself toward him and began to go against the current. I remember the feel of the water against my eyes, the pressure. It was murky and I couldn’t see all that good, but I wasn’t afraid. The man was sitting against the support, his back against the stones as if he were taking a break after some hard work. When I got closer, I saw that—” For the first time she faltered. “That he wasn’t all there. Parts of his flesh were missing. Big hunks had fallen away in tatters.”

  John picked up
one of Duncan’s hands and he smoothed out her fist, straightening her fingers in the strength of his own.

  “Tell us the rest, Duncan,” he said softly.

  Duncan lifted her gaze to meet his. Her dark eyes, so much like Will’s, were frightened. “He lifted his hand and motioned to me to come closer. He said, ‘Duncan, you know me. Tell the truth. You’re as guilty as the rest.’ “ She took in a fractured breath. “Then he pointed to the boots. His leg bones were jammed down in them, but they looked new and beautiful, with that pretty vamp. And while I was looking at them, his bony fingers grabbed my wrist.” She was looking at the table now, recounting the dream in a voice almost expressionless. “I looked over at him, and there was an alligator gar staring back at me from inside his rib cage. The fish grinned, then swam away. An eel came out of his eye socket, and his jaw dropped open to show his teeth, and there was the sound of him laughing, only it wasn’t a laugh. It was bubbles of air. That’s when I noticed the chain wrapped around him. It was big and heavy and rusty, and he said soon that the rust would free him and he’d rise up to make all of us pay.” She took a breath that was ragged and weary. “That’s all.”

  “Who do the boots belong to that Floyd is working on?” John asked.

  “Sheriff Grissham,” I answered. I remembered the day I talked to Floyd about them and he told me how Duncan had imagined the design of the vamp. “He’s making them special order for the sheriff.”

  “Are they finished?”

  I couldn’t remember exactly, but he’d been almost done when I last went by the shop. Before my beating. “Probably.”

  John nodded slowly. “Well, I must say, Duncan, that’s some dream.” He still held the hand he’d forced open. He brought it to his lips and kissed it. “I think you’re going to grow up to be an actress. Or maybe a writer. What do you think, JoHanna?”

  JoHanna’s smile was forced, but it was there. “I always thought Duncan would be a dancer. Like her namesake. Someone a little scandalous, but very beautiful.”