"Will that help?"
"No. She's burned over eighty percent of her body. There's not enough of her left to put up a fight. Even if we could have gotten her to a burn center, they'd have lost her. She'll last a few hours, though. The Red Cross is trying to locate her husband. She's been asking for her son." O'Neill's thoughts seemed to wander as he looked down at the child, all but hidden under the sheriff's coat. "Does he know what's happening?"
Spencer looked away. "He's only three. I thought she might want to tell him in her own way."
"Well, you'd better wake him up, Sheriff. I don't know how long she can keep going on reduced morphine. I'll get a gown for you. Should mask you, too, but what the hell does it matter?"
Spencer put his coat back on, and lifted the sleeping child. "Morgan," he murmured. "Wake up, son. I know it's late, but you have to wake up now. It's real important."
The little face burrowed into his shoulder, and blond curls brushed his chin. Morgan Robsart smelled of cocoa and peppermint, traces of an earlier consolation that he was not aware of needing. Over the child's head, he asked the doctor, "Before he wakes up any more, how bad does she look? Is he going to be able to take this?"
"All you will see is her face," said O'Neill. "I'll come in with you. Don't let the boy out of your grasp. He can't hug her or anything. The burned areas of her torso are beginning to harden now into eschar, and— "Okay. Let's go." Spencer repressed a shudder of revulsion. Burning had to be the worst way to go. The only thing he prayed for concerning death was that he not die by fire. He shook the child gently. "Morgan, we're going to see your mama now." He wondered what you could say to a dying woman. Naomi Judd would know.
Tammy Robsart was sitting propped up in bed, an oxygen mask pressed against her face. Her skin looked sunburned, and the top of her head was swathed in bandages, but she was still recognizable: He realized that she had been the woman he'd spoken to at the Christmas train. How old was she? Twenty-one? He hugged the boy tighter, remembering his intention of buying the child a toy at Kmart. He hadn't gotten around to it. He would, though, tomorrow.
When she saw him at the foot of the bed, holding Morgan, the green gown surrounding both of them, she sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. Dr. O'Neill pulled a chair up close to her and asked how she felt. "Take this mask off," she said in a voice just above a whisper.
Her eyes were different now. Not just the lashless intensity of her stare but the expression in them as well. The woman at the railroad tracks had been shy, a little wary of authority figures, and finding it hard to cope with all the demands on a grown-up with a child. This solemn woman who stared right into his eyes had no more time for the niceties of age or social position. She was dead; she outranked them all.
"I'd better talk to you first, Sheriff," she said quietly. "Don't break in on me, though. I'm running out of time."
He nodded, cowed somehow by her calmness. There was no emotion in her voice. She had time only for facts now.
"All right. I got no family except Dale, and he's—Well, he's overseas now, and even if he wasn't, he wouldn't be much good. Not for Morgan. He didn't want a child like I did." She looked up at her son, and her face crumpled. "I can't hold him, can I? No. Okay. Sheriff, my boy is beautiful, and he's as smart as they come. I want him kept safe. Better than safe."
Spencer started to speak, about social services and distant relatives, but a stern look from her silenced him.
"I don't want him living in any trailer from now on. And I don't want him to ever be cold or have to eat brown sugar on bread for breakfast 'cause that's all there is. I want you to give him to somebody smart that can help him do good in school and will send him to college. And buy him toys." Her voice softened. "He just loves them Ninja Turtles."
Spencer shifted the child to his other arm. Morgan was groggily awake now, looking at his mother, but afraid of the strangers, the unfamiliar surroundings. Tammy Robsart glanced at her child, but her gaze was fixed on Spencer Arrowood, willing him to carry out her wishes.
"Well," he hesitated. "You know, your husband is the child's legal guardian, and—"
"You tell Dale what I said. You tell him!" She looked at the telephone on the nightstand. "If they can find him, I'll tell him myself. I want Morgan to be all right. He's losing me. He ought to get something. All the family pictures got burned up, I reckon. Can you get him one of me? High school yearbook—two years back. ..."
"You might pull through—" Spencer began.
"No." She took another breath of oxygen. Dr. O'Neill leaned over and adjusted the catheter. The look he gave the sheriff said, Don't waste her time.
Spencer brought the child closer to the bed, and knelt down so that Tammy could be close to her son. He was wide awake now, but frightened by the adults' solemn faces. When he was close enough to Tammy to whisper, he said, "I had cocoa."
"That's good, son." She almost smiled. "I have to talk to you now about something big. Okay?"
Morgan nodded, but his eyes kept straying to the strange objects around the room.
"I have to go away soon," said Tammy.
"In a spaceship?"
"No, hon. Like the angels in your Christmas book."
"Can I go, too?" He held his arms up like the angels with the wings of eagles hovering over the valley.
"You have to stay here. But I want you to remember me, and to remember that I love you. I don't want to leave you, Morgan, but I have to."
"Uh-huh." He was fascinated by the tubes and bottles, barely listening to her.
"The sheriff will be your friend, and I'll be watching you from—from heaven, I guess."
"Okay." He tried to reach for the oxygen mask, but Spencer leaned away so that it eluded his grasp.
"Can I have your best kiss?" Tammy Robsart whispered.
"Yep." He dangled beside her in the sheriff's arms, and kissed his mother's cheek. "Can I eat now?"
"Yes. You go eat. Anything you want. . . ." Tammy's voice trailed away. "Good-bye, Morgan."
Dr. O'Neill motioned for them to leave the room. "I increased the morphine," he murmured. "She's suffered enough."
On the bedside table the telephone rang.
Spencer carried Morgan out into the hall, and down to the nurses' station. "Can you get this young man some ice cream?" he asked one who didn't seem to be working. "I have some calls to make."
A pretty dark-haired nurse smiled and held out her arms. She looked a little like Naomi. "Why, sure. Come with me, big fella. The cafeteria has three different flavors. Would you like that?"
Spencer smiled and waved until they disappeared around the corner of the hallway. Then he went into a stall in the men's room and cried.
Morgan Robsart was not yet back from his expedition to the hospital cafeteria. It was a slow night at County, evidently. Spencer Arrowood sat at the desk in Peter O'Neill's office, staring thoughtfully at the black telephone. Who do you call in the middle of the night in such an emergency? He had thought of taking the boy home with him, but in the life of a county sheriff, nothing is certain, least of all off-duty time. At any hour he might be summoned to a crime scene (probably wouldn't, but the possibility was always there), and he knew that he could neither take the child along nor leave him unattended. Besides, Morgan might be frightened, and Spencer was mortally afraid of his own inexperience with children. What could he say or do to comfort this motherless child who liked Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters. Who you gonna call?
It was past midnight. Someone in the trailer park? "I don't want him living in any trailer from now on," Tammy Robsart had said. He saw her dead eyes looking at him, willing him the care of her son, and he knew that he would have to do better than that. Cradling the receiver between his ear and shoulder, Spencer punched in his mother's number, and listened to the succession of unanswered rings. Where the hell was she? What was today, anyhow? Then he vaguely remembered something about a trip to Asheville with a couple of her bridge-playing friends. She had told him about the trip—a road-co
mpany theatre production or an antique exposition, something like that; Spen-298
cer had barely heard her, absorbed as he was in the current of his own life.
He put down the receiver, double-checked a number, and tried again. After three rings, he heard Martha's sleepy voice mumble hello.
"It's me," he said. "I'm at the hospital."
"Oh, God," said Martha, jolting to wakefulness. "What is it? You're not hurt, are you?"
"No. There was a fire at the trailer park, and I'm here with a little boy who lost his mother tonight. I need somebody to stay with him. I know there has to be a magistrate's hearing to decide what to do about him, but we've got forty-eight hours to attend to that. Meanwhile, he needs a friend."
Silence. Then he heard Martha sigh. "Oh, Spencer. Don't pick on me. I don't know a thing about kids, and I've got enough on my hands as it is. Joe's here. He's—he's had one of his nightmares."
"Well, I hate to ask you in the middle of the night, but . . ." Spencer waited, hoping that Martha would relent to break the silence, but nearly a full minute passed without a word between them. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry. I'll keep trying." He hung up before Martha could make any well-meaning suggestions. He drew the line at calling strangers in the middle of the night. He sat for a moment listening to the dial tone, and then dialed a new number.
After two rings she picked it up, a little breathless. "Yes? Will, is that you?" She didn't sound like someone just awakened.
"This is Spencer Arrowood," he said. "It 299
seems like I'm always calling you in the dead of night to ask a favor."
Laura Bruce sighed. "I can't go out to a crime scene tonight, Sheriff," she said. Her voice shook a little, with what emotion he could not tell.
"No, that's not it. I have a little boy here that needs a place to go. He's three years old." He explained about the mobile-home fire, and about Tammy Robsart's instructions for the care of her son. Laura Bruce listened without comment. "I tried a couple of other people first," he said. "I'd take him myself, but I wouldn't know what to do with the little feller, and besides, I'll be on duty tomorrow. It's just until there's a formal hearing." He let the silence stretch out again. Finally she said, "Do you know where I live?" "Yes. Can I bring him over now?" "All right. I'll make up the bed in the spare room." She paused for a moment. "I'm glad you called me. It will be nice to have company." "I'll be there in twenty minutes." "Wait! Does he have any clothes? No, of course he doesn't. Never mind, Sheriff. I can see to that tomorrow. He can sleep in one of Will's old Tshirts tonight."
Spencer thanked her and set the receiver back in its cradle. Tomorrow he would have to see the magistrate about a hearing for the orphaned boy. He would also make time to go by Kmart and pick up some clothes for Morgan, who had just lost everything in the world. He 300
hoped the store was well stocked with Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters.
When she hung up the phone, Laura Bruce closed her eyes and tried to think of a prayer. Was this divine compensation, she wondered, or God's idea of a joke? Lose a child, gain a child. She had not yet finished her mourning and here was Spencer Arrowood trying to yank her back into the world. She looked down at the curve of her belly, hard and still beneath the velvet robe "Why couldn't I have my child?" she asked of no one in particular. She had told no one of the loss of her baby. When someone called to say they hadn't seen her about, she said that she was feeling under the weather. What she felt was that she was only part alive. She hugged her grief to herself, unwilling to share it with these mountain strangers, or even with Will, who had his eternal summer and his glorious little war. But they couldn't leave her in peace, even in her sorrow. Spencer Arrowood had found another orphan to foist on her, and she must be strong in deference to the needs of others. When was it her turn to be comforted? Why didn't God find somebody else to do His errands?
Stifling a yawn, she stood up and ambled toward the hall closet. She must make up the bed in the guest room before the little visitor arrived. Then she would make cocoa. She deferred her own grieving for later.
CHAPTER 14
From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.
— SWINBURNE,
"The Garden of Proserpine,"
Tavy Annis sat at his dining-room table, sifting through a stack of white envelopes. "I reckon that about does it," he told Taw, tossing him the most recent addition to the pile. "North Carolina Environmental Protection Agency. I sent them the Little Dove analysis we bought from Carter Biological, and they thanked me for my concern, and said that the matter had been taken under advisement."
"Well, they may do something about it eventually."
"Not within my lifetime," said Tavy.
Taw McBryde looked away, pretending to study the deer in the painting above the stone fireplace. Not in Tavy's lifetime. How long was that? Two weeks? A month? Lately he had seemed to fade like a parchment drawing, until the only thing alive about him was the anger that still smoldered in his eyes. He wouldn't speak about the pain, but the lines at the corners of his mouth deepened, and he was given to long silences that seemed to indicate an inner struggle between himself and the thing inside him, but Taw knew better than to tell him 305
to give up the struggle. Tavy was not ready to let go yet, with nothing accomplished. But now it was hopeless. He had hung all his hopes on the EPA, and they had shunted him off with a form letter. His body was running out of time; even rage could not fuel it indefinitely. In spite of everything, he was weakening. The EPA would have to go into that factory with axes this afternoon to accomplish anything within Tavy's lifetime.
"What now?" asked Taw. "That's about everybody, isn't it? You've tried them all. What else can you do?"
"I'm not quitting. I never was one to do that. Do you remember the time that Doyle Weaver broke my Barlow knife on purpose, and I swore to get even with him?"
"I didn't know you ever did," said Taw.
"It took a while. We were growed up by then, and you were long gone, but I got him. We were fishing from the railroad trestle over the Little Dove, and I noticed the spinning reel was loose on his new fishing rod. Didn't say a word. A couple of casts later, he throws that rod over his shoulder and swings it out over the river, and splat! Off goes the reel into the river, and he's so off balance with the shock of it, that he goes and drops the rod in after it." The memory made him smile. "We never did find it. Course I didn't look too awful hard, myself."
"Well," said Taw. "I guess you can figure that sooner or later, somebody will give that paper company its comeuppance. I reckon I could—"
"That's not good enough. Now I've tried every 306
way that's peaceable and reasonable to get some justice in this. I even wrote them to personally plead with them to clean up their mess—wrote to Roger W. Sheridan, the president of the company. Not a word. Not even a form letter. And now I'm done with being reasonable. I'm out of time."
Taw rubbed his glasses against his sweater and put them back on. "All right," he said. "I'm with you. What are we going to do?"
Tavy Annis tottered to his feet. "There's a gun in the top drawer of that sideboard. You can put that in your coat, while I get us a couple of decent looking neckties out of my chifforobe. And you can drive that new car of yours. We're going to North Carolina."
"Of all the damned days for Spencer to be off!" said Joe LeDonne, helping himself to a peppermint from the jar on Martha's desk.
"What brought that on? The phone call?" said Martha. She switched off the electric typewriter, and leaned back in her chair. "Whatever it was, I'm sure you can handle it by yourself. Don't begrudge Spencer his concert. He can use a break from this place."
LeDonne perched on the edge of her desk, rubbing his chin with a thoughtful frown. "Yeah, bu
t this is weird. You know I hate weird stuff."
"What was it?" Martha smiled indulgently. "The weekend warriors out there on the mountain?"
"No. That call was from a police officer from 307
Johnson City. He's checking on a complaint from a jeweler in town. According to him, two young adults entered a jewelry store with a human jawbone and asked the store owner to read a serial number on a tooth filling."
Martha's eyes widened. "People were toting around a human jawbone in Johnson City? That's about the last thing I'd expect. It sounds like Satanists, doesn't it?"
"I guess," said LeDonne.
"There aren't any Satanists around here, though, are there?"
"Not that I know of. Johnson City hadn't heard of any, either. But they got interested enough to look into it. Then, a couple of days later, somebody there in Records noticed that a parking ticket had been issued to a car registered to the Underhills of Wake County. Thanks to those murders last fall, the Wake County Underhills are notorious all over east Tennessee. They got to talking about it around the station, and this officer who called me— J. D. Lane—thought there might be a link between the couple with the jawbone and the Underhills. Just a hunch, but he asked me to check it out."
Martha's look of skepticism turned to a thoughtful frown. "Young adults? What sex?"
"Male and female. Dark-haired Caucasians."
"The two surviving family members were a teenaged boy and girl."
"Yeah. Lane knew that. He'd looked up the case in the Press-Chronicle. That's why he called us. He could have come over and checked it out 308
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