Touched

by Carolyn Haines

  She was deep in the spell of the dream and I could not reach her. Her mouth opened and shut, gulping air, as if she were drowning.

  The terror of it galvanized me into action. Without thinking I slapped her right cheek, a crack of noise that startled Pecos into squawking retribution. The rooster flew at me, spurs extended, and I fell across Duncan, landing squarely on her stomach. Knees and elbows gouged at me as I dodged the rooster and tried to get off her. When I finally managed to push away, Duncan suddenly stilled. The change was so sudden that I knew something terrible had happened to her.

  “Duncan!” I was breathless. Scrambling away from her, I looked into her face. Her eyes were wide open, the eyeballs rolled back in her head, her mouth working open and shut, open and shut. She was not breathing. She was drowning in her own room.

  “Duncan!” Her name was a wail as I bent over her, trying to remember how to push air into someone’s lungs. “Duncan!”

  Her hand lashed out so quickly I had no time to avoid it, no time to think. Her fingers clutched my throat, a death grip that locked around my windpipe.

  “Duncan.” Her name was rusty, broken. I could not look away from those blind eye sockets. I could not move. She had me in a grip so tight I knew she was going to choke me to death if she didn’t drown first. I twisted and squirmed, but I could not get away, and I felt my strength ebbing. “Duncan,” I pleaded with her.

  “Mattie.” Her lips formed the word, but it was not Duncan who spoke. The rhythm was different.

  “Mattie?” She spoke again, her lips, her voice, but the nightmare speaking.

  I staggered, losing strength in my legs, but she held me, her arm rigid, her eyes dead. I had to make one last effort to twist free of her grip. Before I could do anything, Pecos flapped past my face and landed on the pillow beside Duncan’s head. He looked into her eyes and squawked once before he began to viciously peck her forehead. The white skin burst into little nicks of blood as he stabbed his sharp beak into the tender white flesh.

  Duncan’s arm trembled, her fingers loosened, and she closed her mouth. With her free hand she fought the bird away from her.

  It was enough for me to wrench free, dragging air into my bruised throat, swallowing the sudden desire to vomit. Pecos easily flapped out of the way of her swinging hands, finding a perch on the bedstead.

  “Duncan!” I ran back to her side keeping a wary eye on her hand. Her eyes had closed and her chest rose and fell in shallow, rapid breaths, as if she had been running.

  “Duncan.” I had to get her out of the dream. I couldn’t risk her slipping back so deeply beneath the spell. I had almost lost her. She had almost drowned. Or worse.

  “Duncan!” Just as I drew back my hand to slap her again, her eyes opened. Confusion simmered in the brown depths and she slowly lifted a hand to her forehead. When she drew it back it was covered in her own blood. The sight seemed to daze her even more.

  “He had me, Mattie.” She whispered the words as she stared into my eyes. “He finally caught hold of me good, and he wasn’t going to let me go.”

  I knew who she was talking about, the dead man under the bridge in the Pascagoula River. The man with a gar grinning out of his ribs. “It’s okay, Duncan. You’re here now.”

  She pushed up on the pillows and gathered Pecos into her lap. “You pecked the fool out of me, Pecos.” She stroked his head. “Pecos was going to drive that dead man right out of my brain.”

  I sank down on the bed, my hand trembling as I reached out to Duncan. “You almost choked me,” I said.

  She saw the red marks around my throat and tentatively lifted a hand to them. “It was him,” she said. “He had me, but when he saw you he let me go. He reached through me to you.”

  The old grandfather clock in the hallway struck noon. We stared at each other through the bongs of the hours, counting, listening.

  “Why would he want you, Mattie?” she asked.

  I did not look at her.

  “He called your name, Mattie.”

  I got up, stopping halfway to the door. “I heard you call my name, Duncan. It was you.”

  When I turned around, Duncan was staring at me with a look on her face that was more adult than I believed her capable of. “Be careful, Mattie,” she said. “The river can be very treacherous.”

  “Duncan, who is that man in the river? How did he drown?”

  Duncan swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid to her feet. “He didn’t drown by himself, Mattie.” She walked past me to the doorway, then turned back. “Not by himself at all.” She turned away again and stared straight ahead. “I’m starving. Let’s fix something for lunch.” She didn’t wait for me. She walked out of the room without even looking back.

  Thirty-nine

  WILL and JoHanna returned late that afternoon. Blood spotted the front of Will’s starched white shirt and the knuckles of his right hand were cut. Both hands were badly bruised. JoHanna said only that Floyd’s funeral was set for the next morning from the Methodist church. The same minister who had preached Red Lassiter’s service was coming back. JoHanna had handled the funeral arrangements while Will took care of other things. JoHanna gave me the broadest outline of Will’s agenda. I picked up the details from what she didn’t say.

  Will’s first stop had been the jail. John Doggett was unharmed, and Will said he was holding up better than could be expected. John had been relieved to hear Will was securing a lawyer for him.

  From the jail, Will had gone into town. The boot shop was closed and the Moseses were gone out of town. Will had not been able to find out where they’d gone or when they would be back. The Odom brothers were gone, and Sheriff Grissham had gone to Ellisville to retrieve “something very special.” Will hadn’t been able to find out what, exactly, but he did learn that it pertained to John Doggett’s inevitable swift and speedy conviction … and execution.

  Only Elikah had elected to remain in town. He didn’t want to lose the business by closing his shop. It was not a smart decision on his part. Doc Westfall had had to pull Will off. Wiping his bleeding hand on a starched linen handkerchief, Will had climbed in the Auburn with JoHanna at the wheel, and they had driven home.

  Neither Duncan nor I mentioned the dream she’d had. The small wounds on her forehead made by Pecos’s beak we explained as scratches. I covered my bruised throat with a high collar. We’d had enough of prophecies and death.

  JoHanna and I peeled vegetables for a pot of soup while Will sat at the table and watched his wife work. We all listened to Duncan talk. Natchez intrigued her. She was captivated by the idea of living on a river with big boats and a town with antebellum mansions. The romance of it had swept Duncan away, though it was clear from JoHanna’s silence that she was not so enthused. Will answered Duncan’s hundreds of questions as a strange peace settled over the kitchen. Events had stilled. The steady march to the brink of confrontation had slowed.

  Floyd’s body was the log in the path.

  The funeral loomed ahead of us, one more immediate hurdle. Then the trial. JoHanna and Duncan would not remain for the trial. For John’s sake and their own. I had decided to wait until JoHanna left town to kill Elikah. I had begun to plan it out. I’d chosen the bedroom as the perfect place. The scene had taken shape in my head without conscious effort. It would require that I go home to Elikah, but after seeing Will’s hands, I didn’t think my husband would prove much of a threat to me. I would draw him a bath, getting the water just at the temperature he liked. Once he was naked and immersed in the tub, I would walk in the room with the gun. The first shot would revenge Floyd. The second shot would put an end to his cruelties forever. And then I would go over to the sheriff’s office and turn myself in. The last laugh would be that I didn’t even have to clean up the mess.

  “Mattie?”

  I whirled at Will’s voice. “Are you okay?”

  My pulse was fast and I could feel the flush of victory on my face as I nodded and swallowed.

  “What were
you daydreaming about?” Duncan asked. Her dark eyes held a knowing look.

  “Natchez,” I answered, the lie slipping easily off my tongue. What was a lie from a woman who could contemplate murdering her own husband with a smile?

  We set the table and ate the soup and cornbread. When we were done, I sent Will and JoHanna for a walk while Duncan and I cleaned the kitchen and packed. By tomorrow afternoon they would be leaving Jexville forever.

  Duncan showed me her mother’s favorite pots and pans and we packed those, leaving most things for the movers she said she’d send for her belongings. It was going to be hard for JoHanna, and I wanted her to have some of her own things with her when she set up her new household in Natchez.

  “You’re not coming with us, are you?” Duncan was wrapping a pitcher with a dishcloth.

  I was stacking the plates back on the shelf. “No. But don’t tell JoHanna or Will.”

  “Will you come and stay with us later?”

  Tears flooded my eyes, and I wasn’t certain if it was the idea of losing JoHanna and Duncan, and Will, or pity for the fate I’d chosen. “I will if I can.”

  That didn’t satisfy Duncan, but she let it go when she heard her parents coming in the front door. JoHanna went in her bedroom and Duncan followed, and Will and I were left in the kitchen.

  We stood and stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. Finally I was the one to speak. “I’m staying in Jexville.”

  Will showed no surprise. “I don’t think Elikah will ever lay a hand on you again. I don’t know that he’ll be able to. I’m afraid most of his fingers are broken.”

  “Elikah sets a great store by his hands.” I remembered how he kept his nails so neat and clean. “Surgeon’s hands,” he’d called them.

  “Well, he should have been more careful what he did with those hands.” He walked over to the kitchen window and looked out into the night. “I’d rather you go with JoHanna and Duncan, but if you’re going to stay, I could use your help with John’s case.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” I wasn’t certain what good I’d be in the cell next to him, but there wasn’t much point in saying that. “Are you staying behind for the trial?”

  “I’m staying behind.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that he might not go with JoHanna ever. I went to him, grabbing his arm before I thought. “You’re not leaving her, are you?”

  He shook his head. “No. I thought about it, but I’m not.” The amusement in his eyes was at his own expense. “Long ago I fell in love with JoHanna and gave her my heart. To demand it back now would be a foolish thing. What’s left wouldn’t be worth having.”

  “Oh, Will.” I had never loved him as much. I reached up to touch his cheek, a gesture of comfort. He put his hand over mine, pressing my palm into the stubble of his beard.

  “If I were a young man, free and unattached, I would love you, Mattie. Stay in Jexville for John’s trial, but then you must leave. You can’t throw yourself away on Elikah Mills.”

  I couldn’t speak for the tears. He knew. He knew how much I loved him. I thought my heart would break when he leaned over and kissed the tears from my cheeks and pulled me into his arms.

  Will, JoHanna, Duncan, and I were the only people in the church for Floyd’s funeral. The minister spoke of innocence lost, of the haven Floyd would find in heaven. The service was short. We all sensed the growing uneasiness outside the church. We followed the casket out into the clear sunshine of October.

  Floyd would lie in the Jexville cemetery, on a small rise beneath a cedar tree. We women walked behind the casket, which was carried by Will and three hired gravediggers. They had prepared the grave, and it took only a few moments to say the necessary words as the coffin was lowered. Duncan sobbed as if her heart was broken as the gravediggers began to return the dirt. I focused on the distant fringe of leafless trees that ringed the cemetery. The day was bright, a perfect fall day, but winter was on the way. Several jays and mockingbirds taunted a small cluster of grackles that patiently waited for us to leave so they could pick through the newly turned earth. Even the birds were mostly silent. Waiting. Except for the small funeral party, it was as if the town were deserted.

  Will paid the minister, and we walked back to the car.

  “Take good care of Pecos,” I whispered to Duncan as I kissed the top of her head and then her tear-stained cheeks.

  “Come with us,” she begged, grabbing hold of my dress. I wore one of JoHanna’s dresses, taken in at the waist with a belt. Her tears soaked the gray flannel.

  “I’ll be along,” I lied, rumpling her hair, which was growing out thick and silky.

  “Mattie?” JoHanna searched my face. “Don’t stay here.”

  I wanted to throw myself into her arms, to bury my face on her shoulder and cry against the pain that burned my chest and throat. Instead I took her hand and held it, squeezing it tight. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to stay and help Will.”

  “Then you’ll come?” she pressed.

  “When John is free.”

  “Maybe I should stay.” She looked at Will. He shook his head and she clutched at the keys in her hand. “Natchez isn’t that far. I can get back in a matter of hours if you need me.”

  Oh, I needed her. I needed Duncan and Will. But only I could do what had to be done. And I had to do it alone. “I love you,” I whispered as I stood tall to kiss her cheek. “I love you all so very much.”

  I turned away, catching sight of the gravediggers as they lifted the red earth and shoveled it into the grave. “I love you,” I said again as I started to walk the short distance back to town.

  If I had looked back once and they had signaled me, I could not have kept walking. So I didn’t turn around. I left Will to say his good-byes to his wife and daughter, and I headed for Redemption Road. At the corner of Mercy and Redemption, I went east, to the boot shop. The window had not been replaced after the storm. A large board had been nailed over the broken glass, but through the door I could see that the interior of the shop had not been cleaned up. I pressed my cheek to the door, cool in the October chill, and tried to remember. Try as I might, though, I could not conjure up the picture of Floyd at work. He was gone. Even his memory had departed. The black riding boots he’d worked on with such love were on the feet of Tommy Ladnier, and the other boots, the ones Duncan had helped him design, were also gone from the shelf in the window. They had taken his handiwork, along with his life.

  I walked along the street, noticing that Mara was in her shop baking. She waved a floury hand at me as I passed, her smile sad and old. Nodding at her, I turned back and retraced my steps, willing myself to confront the other side of the street.

  The barbershop was dark and closed. Elikah had lost a day’s business thanks to Will’s beating. He would lose more than a day. I would see to that.

  I crossed the street and walked by Gordon’s. Olivia saw me, hesitated, and bent to straighten some boxes beneath the counter. I walked on, noticing that several wagons waited a block away at the courthouse. Had Will made it to the jail? How long would it be before Jeb arrived with the lawyer? My footsteps echoed softly in the packed dirt and it seemed that all around me time had stopped. The clock ticked only for me. The beating of my heart marked the seconds.

  If Elikah wasn’t at the shop, he was at home. My feet turned in that direction, but what waited in the back of one of the wagons stopped me with the power of a punch to the stomach. Quincy Grissham was standing beside a wagon that contained a big black box of some type. Two of his henchmen were lifting a chair from the wagon. In the quiet streets, the buckles on the leather straps of the chair clanged and jingled.

  I had never seen anything like it, but even at first glance I knew it was sinister.

  Grissham’s laugh cut through the street as sharp as a slap as he lifted a coil of wire and threw it. The black line snaked out, up to the barred window of a cell, where a hand reached out suddenly and caught it.

  I forced my feet to wal
k, to take the long, sure strides of JoHanna.

  As I passed Jeb Fairley’s house I heard two mockingbirds argue. Jojo came to mind and I realized I had not thought of him in days. My only regret was that I couldn’t kill him when I killed Elikah. It seemed a shame to let him live. Maybe I’d make a desperate getaway and take the train to Meridian to finish my bloody spree.

  I was smiling as I walked across the lawn and up the front steps of my house. The front door was open, and I walked in. Elikah sat at the kitchen table, his hands a swathe of bandages and his face a swollen mass of bruises. The skin at the corners of his mouth whitened when he saw me.

  “Hello, Elikah.” I went to the cabinet and got a glass. From the pitcher on the counter I poured some water and drank half of it before I turned to look at him again.

  “What do you want?” His eyes held suspicion, and something far more satisfying. Fear. He glanced out the kitchen window, alert. He thought Will had come with me.

  “I’ve come home.” I put the glass in the sink and went to the icebox to see what was inside. “Would you like some stew for supper?”

  He didn’t say anything. His eyes darted to the window, then to me, then toward the front door.

  “How about a nice beef pie? With crust just the way you like it? Since the weather has cooled, a hot meat pie might be just the thing.” I got the flour and lard and reached up on the shelf for a mixing bowl.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m home.” I couldn’t look at him. He would see my hatred and know it was a trick. As I reached up the shelf I could feel John Doggett’s derringer pressing against my leg.

  “Where’s that McVay slut?”

  I finally turned, pressing my hands against the counter, holding myself back. “JoHanna’s gone,” I said softly. “They’re moving away.”

  A smile notched up one side of his mustache. “So, they left you.”

  I shrugged and turned back to begin making the crust for the pie.

  “Once they moved along, they wouldn’t take you with them.” Satisfaction oozed from him. “Yeah, they left you behind like an old rag dress. Well, her boyfriend is going to get a big surprise. A historic moment for Jexville and the state of Mississippi.”