As McCoy pondered the possibilities, he realized that slumber would be a long time in coming tonight. Soon enough, though, his fatigue overtook his excitement and his scientific curiosity, and he drifted off. Eventually, with the onset of the REM stage of sleep, his blood pressure rose, his heart rate increased, his respiration sped up and grew erratic, and his voluntary muscles became paralyzed. Suddenly—
The mist enfolded him, promising concealment and a soft embrace, but delivering neither. The living, pulsating cloud held him fast, held him vulnerable, offering him up to the homicidal madness of his pursuers. He tried to run, but could not, and knew with sickening certainty that they would catch up to him, that they would find him and assassinate him.
“I have a daughter,” he said, as though the killers would be moved by his circumstances—and as though he’d ever really lived up to the title of father. He struggled against the shackles keeping him at risk of capture and execution, and against the weight of the years of his failures. How he had failed Joanna…how he had hurt Jocelyn and Nancy, Tonia and Natira.
A shape loomed up out of the dark wisps enveloping him, and he shrank back, fearful not of what it was, but of what it could be. The killers had come for him, he knew, and he could not hide. He watched, unable to move, unable to escape, as the shape emerged from the wisps, becoming more tangible, more real. He waited for death to strike him down, and instead found death that he had himself delivered.
“Dad,” he said, and he saw his father step forward as a younger man, but still old, still aged past his years. It had always been that way. McCoy had never known a day when his father’s heart had not been sick. “Dad,” he said again and got no response. He never did, he never had, not until the end, when his father had begged for mercy. In the beginning, he had destroyed his father’s spirit, had wounded his heart beyond repair, and in the end, he had simply finished the job.
“I am the executioner,” he said. “I am the assassin.” And he had never known a day when that had not been true.
“Dad,” he told the figure that stepped out of the mists of memory and time. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” But his father said nothing, accusing him silently with his solitary existence, his abandoned affections. And then—
“Leonard,” his father said, reaching for his hand. “The pain. Stop the pain.” But McCoy had done everything he could already. He could do nothing more. “I can’t stand the pain,” his father said. “Help me.”
McCoy felt the burning metal across his palm, gripped in his clenched fingers. Here was release, here was the stoppage of pain. He brought the knife down, plunging it into yielding flesh and breaking bone, finding the defeated heart and shattering it for good.
“This too stops the pain,” a voice whispered in McCoy’s ear. “This too is a release: a cure.”
“No!” McCoy screamed, spinning to face this overdue savior. There, he saw the evil of the murderers that pursued him still. He stumbled backward, falling onto—
Onto dirt. He lifted his hands and saw the dark soil falling from them and back into the field. Above, the sun beat down hard, alive and hot, promising and threatening at the same time.
“Picking season,” a woman said, and McCoy looked around. Among the rows of dark green, waist-high plants, he saw the woman, her back to him, a wide, floppy straw hat atop her head. She wore a green-patterned blouse, which covered a slender, fit figure.
McCoy got to his feet. “Can I…can I help you?” he said. The killers would never find him here.
The woman turned, the gaze of her striking blue eyes finding him. “The Oracle says that you can help,” Natira said. “But very much doubts that you ever will.”
“I…I don’t know how,” he admitted.
“You do not promise love and then go,” Natira told him.
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He took a step toward her, but felt his feet sinking into the wet soil. He tried, but could not pull free. “I’m not leaving,” he said. “I can’t even move.”
She walked over to him, stood directly in front of him. “You do not have to leave to abandon me,” Lynn told him.
“What?” McCoy asked. “What are you saying?”
“You can promise love without words,” Lynn said, “and leave without going.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, louder, desperate to be heard, desperate to escape. He felt his feet descending deeper into the earth, trapping him, holding him where he had always been.
Where he had always been. “I’m sorry, mom,” he cried, and—
McCoy started awake in the empty darkness of his cabin, opening his eyes without seeing. The Enterprise hummed about him, the gray cobwebs of sleep clinging to his murky thoughts. In his dreams, he’d thought of his mother, but he did not want to think of her now. He pushed against his bed and rolled over onto his side, flopping hard back down onto the mattress, as though punctuating an end to the dreams he did not wish to have.
He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to take him once more.
Thirty-Four
1937
As he walked up the stone path, Sheriff Dwight Gladdy hiked up his belt below his ever-expanding stomach. Jimmy Bartell followed angrily behind him, and Gladdy only hoped that he would be able to smooth the situation over. When he got to the house, he rapped his thick knuckles on the front door.
While they waited, Gladdy glanced back at Jimmy. The wiry deputy moved back and forth, anxiously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Let me do the talking,” Gladdy said, tapping a finger in the middle of his own chest.
“Yeah, well, you better get him to explain hisself, Dwight,” Jimmy said, “or I swear I’m gonna—”
“You’re gonna do nothing right now,” Gladdy insisted. “Just let me handle it.”
“But Dwight—” Jimmy stopped when they heard the click of the latch, and they both looked over to see the door open. Beyond it stood Doc McCoy, already dressed for the day, despite the early hour. It had been just after sunup when Jimmy had shown up at Gladdy’s house, mad enough to chew nails and spit tacks. Dwight had tried to calm him down some, forcing a cup of coffee on him, but Jimmy had been ready to go before long. It couldn’t be much past eight o’clock right now.
“Morning, Sheriff, Deputy,” McCoy said. “I can’t say I’m surprised to see you. Come on in.” The doc stepped back, waving them inside. Jimmy started forward, but Gladdy put a hand up and made sure he walked in first.
As Doc McCoy closed the door, Gladdy peered around the living room. He probably hadn’t been inside this house in a few years, since he’d come in for a checkup after he’d had that bout with bronchitis. It didn’t look much different now than it had then. To the left, he saw the back of an old, brown sofa, which faced a stone fireplace. A tattered easy chair sat to the right of the sofa, and books lay piled up on shelves all around the room. To the right, a supper table sat in a small room, and Gladdy knew that a doorway there, in the back wall, led across a hall to the room where the doc examined folks.
“Doc, my boy has—” Jimmy said, but Gladdy cut him off.
“Deputy,” he said, “I told you I’d handle this.” He looked at McCoy, who appeared not only unsurprised, but at ease. “So, Doc,” he said, turning and pacing farther into the living room, “you expected us, huh?” Peering over the back of the sofa, Gladdy saw a sheet and blanket spread across it and a pillow at one end, as though somebody had slept there.
“Yup, I did,” McCoy said.
Gladdy turned to face him. “You have a guest here last night?” he asked, indicating the sofa.
“Actually, I slept there,” McCoy said. “My guest slept in my bed.”
“In your bed?” Jimmy said, obviously stunned. “You a nigger lover, Doc?”
“Shut up, Jimmy,” Gladdy said. “I told you I’d take care of this.”
“But Dwight—” Jimmy protested, but Gladdy threw a look his way, letting him know he meant business.
“So, Doc, what can you tell us
about this guest of yours?” Gladdy asked.
McCoy shrugged. “Not much, really,” he said. “He seemed like a nice enough fellow.”
Gladdy nodded. “Look, Doc, you said you’re not surprised we’re here, so obviously you know why we come. Why don’t you just tell me what I need to know?”
“All right,” McCoy said. “Y’all wanna sit down?”
“If it’s all the same, Doc,” Gladdy said, “I’d prefer to get this done with.”
“Well, sure, Sheriff,” McCoy said. “I guess what you need to know most about my guest is that when I found him, four boys were beating him.”
“Four?” Gladdy said. Jimmy hadn’t told him that. Jimmy had said that his son, Bo, had caught a colored man attempting to break into their house, and that he and Billy Fuster had stopped him. “What four?”
“Billy Fuster, Justin and Henry Palmer, and Jordy King,” the doc said.
“Wait,” Gladdy said. “Not Bo Bartell.”
“Not at first,” McCoy said. “When I drove up on ’em all, I didn’t see Bo.”
Gladdy looked to Jimmy, who seemed confused. “So you drove up to the Bartells’ house,” Gladdy said, “and you saw those four boys beating on a colored man.”
“No,” McCoy said. “I didn’t come anywhere near the Bartells’ farm. I was out on Church Street, heading over to Lynn and Phil’s to have supper with them. Before I got to Tindal’s Lane, I saw Jack Fuster’s old heap sitting in the middle of the road, and a truck parked a little farther on. In front of the car, Billy Fuster was going after a man with a tire iron.”
“A man?” Gladdy said. “A colored man?”
“A man,” McCoy said. “His name was Benny. It shouldn’t really matter what color his skin was, now should it?”
Gladdy looked at the doc for a few seconds without saying anything. He knew what McCoy meant, but he wasn’t in the mood for games. “Look, I asked you a question, Doc,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you answered me.”
McCoy stood silently for a moment, and Gladdy wondered if he intended to cooperate. Finally, he did. “Yup,” the doc said. “His skin was brown. Last I knew, that wasn’t a crime.”
“You are a nigger lover,” Jimmy yelped. “I can’t believe it.”
“I told you to be quiet,” Gladdy said, turning on him. “Now, if you’re not gonna let me talk to the doc, then you can just go on back to the station.” Jimmy clenched his jaw and his hands closed into fists, but he said nothing more. Gladdy looked to McCoy once more. “Go ahead, Doc,” he said. “Tell me what you saw.”
“I saw Billy Fuster going after an unarmed man with a tire iron,” McCoy said. “I asked him what he was doing, and he tried to tell me that Benny had wanted to fight all of them. But Lynn told me that wasn’t what happened.”
“Lynn?” Gladdy said, again looking over at Jimmy. The deputy just shrugged, and Gladdy realized that Bo hadn’t told his father that either. “Lynn Dickinson was with you?”
“Not with me,” McCoy said. “She was there already, watching what was going on. She told me that the boys told Benny he couldn’t walk through town, and when he tried to, they beat him. He fought back.”
“And you stopped ’em?” Gladdy asked.
“I did,” McCoy said. “I took the tire iron away from Billy. That was when Bo showed up. He must’ve gone to his truck to get his shotgun. He was gonna shoot Benny.”
“That’s a lie,” Jimmy said. “We might not love niggers like you do, but we don’t go round shooting ’em.”
McCoy moved forward, between Gladdy and Jimmy, and over to the front door. There, he picked up a shotgun leaning against the wall beside it. “This yours, Deputy?” McCoy asked, showing it to Jimmy.
Jimmy took the gun. “My boy…” he said.
“Your boy is an idiot,” Gladdy finished for him. “So what else happened, Doc? Bo claims you broke his hand.”
“I might well have,” McCoy said. “I hit him with the tire iron to get the gun outta his hand.”
Gladdy nodded. “Awright,” he said. “I don’t think I need to hear any more. How about you, Jimmy?”
“Naw,” he said. “I guess I don’t.”
“You tell your boy to come on in and I’ll fix up his hand,” McCoy said.
“Yup,” Jimmy said.
Gladdy walked to the door and opened it, and Jimmy followed him outside. “If you don’t mind, Doc, I’m just gonna confirm all of this with Lynn Dickinson.”
“Please do,” McCoy said from the doorway.
“Thanks for your time,” Gladdy said, and he started back down the stone path toward the street. Before he got there, though, the doc called after him.
“Dwight,” he said. “I talked to this man Benny a lot last night. He wasn’t just a man. He was a good man.”
Gladdy nodded. “I gotcha, Doc,” he said. Then to Jimmy, he said, “C’mon, let’s go.” He didn’t say what he felt: that he wished all the men in Hayden were good men.
Lynn had already finished making supper by the time McCoy got there that evening, and so they sat down to eat just after he walked in the door. In respect for his friends, McCoy bowed his head as Phil said grace. After the prayer, as they dug into the fried chicken, Lynn asked how McCoy felt, clearly referring to what had happened yesterday out on Church Street.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Everything worked out all right, though I did get a visit this morning from Sheriff Gladdy and Deputy Bartell.”
“I know,” Lynn said. “They came out here this morning too. How was Jimmy when you saw him?”
“When he walked into the house, he was mad at me,” McCoy said. “But when he left, after I told him what I saw, I’m not sure who he was mad at.”
“Probably Bo,” Lynn said around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “I told Jimmy what I saw too, and how Bo started it all. I was riding home on Belle Reve when I saw it happen.”
“I know,” McCoy said. “Benny told me the whole story.”
“Benny?” Lynn said. “Was that the colored man’s name?”
The very question troubled McCoy. Like Dwight Gladdy this morning, Lynn seemed to employ the term colored to differentiate Benny from the others not merely on an individual basis, but along some imagined qualitative divide. “Yup,” he told Lynn. “The man those boys were beating out there yesterday was named Benny.”
“Well, when Jimmy left here this morning,” Lynn said, “I think he might’ve been heading home to give Bo a whooping of his own.”
“Maybe that’s why Bo still hasn’t come by to have me take care of his hand,” McCoy speculated. Of course, the way in which everything had transpired yesterday might well have provided reason enough for the younger Bartell to stay away. He might still be angry with McCoy, or embarrassed about what had happened, or feeling any number of other emotions that might prevent him from wanting to see the doctor.
“His hand?” Phil asked, looking up from his meal, and McCoy realized that his friend had been particularly quiet so far this evening. “What’s wrong with Bo’s hand?”
“I won’t know till I check it out,” McCoy said, “but as hard and as squarely as I hit it, it might well be broken.”
“What?” Phil said, evidently surprised. McCoy had simply assumed that Lynn had told him the entire story of yesterday’s events, but perhaps she’d simply left out that detail. “You broke Bo’s hand?”
“As I said, I don’t know yet,” McCoy said. “Maybe so. I guess maybe Lynn didn’t tell you, but I hit Bo with the tire iron that I took from Bully Fuster. I didn’t mean to hit his hand, but I did.”
“Jesus, Len,” Phil said, dropping his chicken leg onto his plate, which jumped on the table.
“Philip Wayne Dickinson,” Lynn said, obviously displeased with his blasphemous language.
“Len,” Phil said, seeming to take no notice of his wife, “how could you hit Bo Bartell in the hand with a tire iron?”
“I had to do something,” McCoy said. “Bo Bartell was aiming a shotgun at Benn
y and was gonna shoot him for no good reason.”
“What I heard,” Phil said, “is that this colored feller was the one wouldn’t listen to reason.”
McCoy felt his brow crease. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard from a man who’d become one of his closest friends. “Phil, just because of the color of Benny’s skin, Bo and Billy and those other boys wanted to force him to walk all the way back down to Merrysville Road, and then over to Upper Piedmont Highway, only because they didn’t want him walking through Hayden.”
“And if he’d have just gone ahead and did it…“Phil said, and then he pushed his chair back from the table and stood up abruptly. With his napkin in hand, he walked to the other side of the kitchen. “If he’d have just gone ahead and did it, it would’ve prevented all this trouble.”
“You think so?” McCoy said, beginning to grow frustrated, even angry. He put his fork down, too hard, and it skittered along the table. He glanced at Lynn and saw a pained expression on her face, though he couldn’t tell its precise cause. “How far south is Merrysville Road?” he asked Phil. “Eight miles? Ten? And then how far to Upper Piedmont Highway? Another five? And then Benny would’ve had to walk eight miles north just to get back even with where he was. That’s more than twenty miles, and it was already six o’clock in the evening. Was Benny supposed to walk through the night? And what do you think was gonna happen when somebody found him sleeping on the side of the road on Church Street or Merrysville Road the next morning? If Bo Bartell found him, he’d might’ve just shot him dead right there.”
Crucible: McCoy Page 48
