The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

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The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter Page 25

by Sharyn McCrumb


  "Nothing to tell," said Spencer, shrugging out of his raincoat. He draped it on the back of a chair. "Some fool woman got her car stuck, that's all. I had to put my shoulder to the bumper to get her out." He went over to the sink and washed the mud off his hands and face. "Can you spare a bowl of that soup?"

  "That's what it's here for," said Jane. She handed him a bowl and a teaspoon. "How are things out there?"

  "We haven't lost any lives yet. Not that I know of. But the rescue squad has started getting people out of some of the houses along the creeks." He sat down on one of the benches, and began to eat the soup. "You've got a good crowd here."

  "Yes. They'll have some shoveling out to do tomorrow or the next day, but at least they're safe and warm for now. Barbara has half a dozen little ones in the Sunday school room. She's telling them jack tales. Morgan Robsart is there, Spencer."

  The sheriff's spoon paused in midair. "What's he doing here? The pastor's house is on high ground. Oh, of course. Mrs. Bruce is here helping out. Where is she?"

  "I was hoping you'd seen her. She went to get the Underhill children."

  "How long ago?"

  "An hour, I think. Things have been so hectic here."

  Spencer stood up. "I'll radio in, and see if the rescue squad knows anything about them. If nobody's gone out there, I'll go after her. What did you let her go for?"

  Jane Arrowood sighed. "I hoped she'd have the sense to go for help if the way was blocked."

  "Maybe she has," said Spencer. "I'll call and see."

  The four-wheel drive made it up the hill to the crest of the mountain, and down the other side to within sight of the Underhill farm. Laura parked in a wide clearing on one of the cuts in the mountain. The ground there was too rocky to get stuck in, and she would be able to turn the vehicle around when it was time to leave. She got out of the car, and began to walk slowly down the mountain. She had the waddling gait of late pregnancy, and she had to work at keeping her balance on the slippery slope. "I'm in no shape for heroics," she said aloud. "You should have thought of that, Lord." The cold rain trickled down her neck, and droplets clung to her eyelashes.

  The slope of the hill ended about thirty feet from the back porch of the house. Laura could see that the water covered the backyard, but she wasn't able to tell the depth of it. She was near enough to call out to Mark and Maggie, though. She hoped that they could get across. She cupped her hands around her mouth, and called out Maggie's name. Her voice echoed above the rush of the water. Laura waited. The house looked like a derelict in the bleakness. Its paint was peeling, and there were rust spots on the roof, but it looked sturdy enough to stand against the tide. It would be cold and dark, though. No place for anyone to stay. She called out again. "Maggie! It's Laura Bruce! I've come to get you."

  A minute passed. Perhaps two. Then the back door opened a little way, and finally Maggie Underbill stepped out, looking as gaunt as an old woman. She wore a rumpled black velvet robe, and her dark hair lay in tangles about her face. This is my fault, thought Laura. But there's no time to worry about it now. I mustn't frighten her.

  Aloud she said, "Hello, Maggie! It's time to leave now. Can you tell how deep the water is between us?"

  "I can't leave!" Maggie called out. "Josh is with me."

  "Mark, you mean," said Laura, edging a few feet farther down the slope.

  "No. Mark went out to the shed, and he hasn't come back." Maggie pointed to the side yard.

  Laura looked in the direction she pointed. There was an old tree towering above the water, but no outbuilding. Churning water surged along where the shed had been. Laura closed her eyes for a moment. She mustn't think about that. She must get Maggie out.

  "Please come over here, Maggie," she said, straining to keep her voice loud but calm. "We need to go to the church."

  "I have to stay with Josh. He takes care of me."

  "No, Maggie! He killed everyone else! He's not taking care of you. You have to come with me."

  Maggie smiled. "You don't understand," she said. "He did it for us."

  Spencer Arrowood knew better than to try to reach the Underhills by the low-water bridge in front of the farm. That would have been submerged hours ago. But he had to drive down there, anyway, just in case Laura Bruce had managed to get stuck or go off the road trying to reach the house. He radioed Martha to let her know where he was, but he didn't ask for backup; everyone else was busy enough with their own rescue operations.

  He turned his windshield wipers to a slower speed. Was it his imagination, or was the rain slacking off ? If the downpour would just stop the floodwaters would recede in a matter of hours. If it didn't, they might have to call in National Guard troops to help with the crisis.

  He reached the turnoff to the Underhill farm, and started slowly down the incline, searching the brown water for signs of a submerged vehicle. He saw no sign of Laura Bruce in the current or on the road ahead. Perhaps she had gone to phone for help. But he had to see about the Underhills. That meant taking the steel span farther downstream, and crossing the ridge from the other side. He picked up the radio transmitter to tell Martha that he'd be another hour at least.

  Laura Bruce didn't know how long she could stand on the muddy hillside in the cold rain arguing with a mad girl, but she couldn't think of any alternative. She could not abandon Maggie Underhill. She wiped the rain out of her face with her forearm, and tried to think of something else to say. Maggie was standing on the covered porch stoop, insisting that Josh would take care of her. She was too far away to be reasoned with. They could only shout across thirty feet of floodwaters. If only she could get Maggie to wade over to her. But, thought Laura, who in their right mind would wade out into a flooded, polluted river?

  The idea occurred to her then. It was worth a try, anyhow. After that, the only thing left would be for Laura to try to go across herself, or to turn back and waste an hour or more in summoning help. Laura called out, "Do you still remember your lines from the play? Can you say them now?"

  Maggie Underhill looked puzzled. "Which lines?" She had not expected the conversation to veer in this direction.

  Laura tried to remember the crucial part. "The lines that begin with 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance

  Maggie Underhill nodded. " 'And there is pan-sies, that's for thoughts

  "Good. But can you act it out?"

  She watched as Maggie parodied the giving of the flowers to various members of the court. The words of the speech were indistinct in the sound of the waters, but she could hear the change in cadence when Maggie began to sing. "Hey nonny, nonny," the song she sang as she went to her death.

  "And then what did she do, Maggie?"

  Maggie was already moving forward, though. Down the steps of the porch, and into the water, strewing imaginary flowers as she went. There was a serene smile on her face. It would probably be easier at this point to be the mad Ophelia than to be Maggie Underhill. The losses were fewer and less intense. I'll have to go and get her, though, Laura thought. Ophelia doesn't come out

  She could see that the water was only knee-high on Maggie, and that this far uphill from the swollen river, there was no current, just spillover from the channel. No heavy objects carried along by the flood. All the debris was borne by the current farther down the slope, at the front of the house. Laura held out her hands as she stepped off the bank and inched forward into the chocolate water. Maggie Underhill looked up at her and then beyond her to a spot on the hillside. She stopped strewing imaginary flowers into the tide.

  "Josh!" she said, pointing to the muddy slope. "He's up on the hill."

  Laura turned around. She saw the red four-wheel drive parked in the clearing, muddy to its chassis. She saw bare, wet trees lining the road and clumps of brown grass sticking to the red clay in the hillside. There was no one there. The hillside was as lifeless as the river itself.

  It didn't matter, though. Maggie Underhill was walking toward her now, oblivious to the water surging around her. She
moved steadily forward, smiling happily. Laura stood still and waited for her to come.

  Maggie would have walked past her in her eagerness to reach her vision, but as she drew near, Laura took hold of her, and hugged her. "It's going to be all right now, Maggie," she said. "You're safe."

  Maggie Underhill nodded absently. "Josh always sees to it that I'm safe."

  Laura held on to Maggie, and they waded out of the flooded yard and began to climb the rain-slick slope. Once Laura fell, but Maggie helped her up. "I didn't really think I was Ophelia," she said. "I used to wish I could think so, though. But way back in my head, I'd know different."

  "Good," said Laura. She felt an ache in her abdomen, and she took a gulp of air to counteract the feeling of being pulled inward. Then it was gone. She hadn't done so much, after all. Just a long walk in the rain, and a few minutes in dirty water. Maggie would probably have been all right, anyway, if she had stayed upstairs. But it was over now, and she'd done it. Maybe it hadn't amounted to much, but it was about all she could manage, considering.

  "Mark is dead, I think," said Maggie calmly. She balanced herself on a rock, and held out her hand to Laura Bruce, helping her up. "He went out the front door, where it's deep. I almost went with him, but Josh wouldn't let me."

  They had reached the car by then. Maggie slid in to the passenger seat, and leaned back, wiping the rain from her cheeks. Laura slumped behind the steering wheel, trying to catch her breath before she had to battle the mountain road. "Why do you think Josh is helping you?" she said between gasps. His name called to her mind the sight of bloodstains on the white walls, and gray matter splattered across the living-room floor. Surely he was a monster, and not a savior. "Didn't he kill your family?"

  "Yes," said Maggie. "But he had to. Mark and I understood that. It was the rabbit, really, that made him decide that it had to end. The dead rabbit." Her eyes were glazed, and she looked off into the distance as though she were watching the events take place on a movie screen. "Dad had always beaten us. I never had any short-sleeved outfits, because Mother was always afraid that the bruises might show. But Josh got it worse than the rest of us. He was the oldest, and Dad thought he was a wimp. He wasn't, though. Sometimes he'd take the blame for things that the rest of us did just so Dad wouldn't hurt us."

  "Why didn't you tell someone, Maggie?"

  "I did once. A teacher. She asked my dad about it, and he took his belt to my back until I bled. After that, I never told."

  "What about your mother? Didn't she try to protect you?"

  Maggie shook her head. "No. She'd even tell on us sometimes so that he'd have an excuse to hit us. I think she was afraid he'd get mad at her if he wasn't mad at us. I have scars on my back. ... I used to wear a T-shirt, even when I went swimming, to cover the scars."

  "Why would your brother get so upset about your father killing a rabbit, though?"

  Maggie sobbed. "No. Dad didn't kill the rabbit. Simon did!"

  M Simon?" The littlest Underhill. A little blond boy of seven or eight. Laura remembered his face from the family photograph in the den. He looked restless in the picture, and his mother had her hand on his shoulder, trying to hold him still.

  "That evening, when we were at play practice, Josh went out to the shed and found Simon torturing the rabbit. Then he knew that it had to stop. Simon was going to be just like Daddy. First animals, and then people. If something wasn't done, it was just going to go on and on. So while Mark and I were gone, Josh took Daddy's gun and shot Daddy and Mother because they hurt us so much and because they had turned Simon into one of them."

  "How do you know this, Maggie?" The pain sounded again in Laura's body, but she wouldn't listen. "Was there a note?"

  "Josh told us," said Maggie softly. "He was still alive when we came home. He was waiting for us."

  Laura shivered. She reached out to touch Maggie's arm, but the girl seemed unaffected by the memory. "Did he try to hurt you or Mark?"

  "Of course not!" She was scornful. Such a foolish question. "He protected us. Always. He waited for us so that he could explain why he had to do it. To make sure we understood. He told us about finding Simon and the rabbit, and he said he loved us, and that we would be safe now that Dad was gone. And then he went upstairs and shot himself."

  "You let him?"

  Maggie nodded. "He wanted to. I wanted to think up a lie about burglars, but Josh said that the police would know better, and then the secret would get out. Before he went upstairs, he made us promise not to tell what happened. He told us to call the sheriff, and to say that everyone was dead when we got home."

  "But why? Why would he want people to think he was a crazed killer?"

  Maggie Underhill said, "I don't know, but I think he felt sorry for Daddy."

  Laura put her hand on Maggie's arm, and they sat in silence for a good while, until Spencer Arrowood tapped on the window of the car, and asked if they were all right.

  Laura Bruce looked up at him with a pain-dirnmed smile and said, "You'd better get us both to a hospital."

  CHAPTER 16

  Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain, Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain; Love lives again, that with the dead has been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

  —JOHN MACLEOD CAMPBELL CRUM,

  "Easter"

  On Ashe Mountain the sun was warm, and all the world looked green. It was one of those early April days that might as well be June, filled with birdsong and the scent of flowers carried on the wind. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the trees were in full leaf.

  Nora Bonesteel had taken her needlework and her rocking chair outside, so that she could have good light to sew by and the beauty of the day for company. Across the sprawling green valley, the rock called Hangman shone in the glare of the sun.

  She heard the car when it was still out of sight below the crest of the hill, but she didn't get up. At Nora's age it was best to let things come to you. She did another twenty stitches of her needlework while she waited for company. No need to scurry about. The cookies were baked, and the lemonade sat in the good glass pitcher in the refrigerator. Only when she heard the footsteps on her concrete sidewalk, and the sound of their voices, did Nora get up and wave a welcome to Laura Bruce and the little blond boy at her side.

  "Hello!" said Laura, giving the old woman a hug. "Now that winter is over, I thought I'd come to see you." She was slender again, in jeans and an East Tennessee State T-shirt. Will Bruce's alma mater. Her hair glinted gold in the sun, and she was smiling.

  "You're looking good," said Nora Bonesteel. "Are you feeling all right?"

  "Yes," said Laura. "I guess you heard about the flood. Bet it didn't do any harm up here, though."

  "No," said Nora. "I reckon I'm safe from floods till the Lord revokes the rainbow. I used to think I was safe from everything up here, being so far removed from civilization, but the world has a way of getting smaller. New York reached out with the chestnut blight and got me, and now the river comes into the valley, bringing the taint with it."

  Laura sat down in the grass beside the rocking chair, and looked out across the blue hills. "I lost the baby. I guess you know that. And it may be because of that poisoned river."

  "There's nowhere safe in the world," said Nora. "But we're safer than most."

  "I know. I've accepted it. For a while I was angry, because you didn't tell me, but then I thought, What good would it have done?"

  Nora Bonesteel said, "Knowing is one thing. Changing is another."

  "I know. And I couldn't blame you for keeping it from me. I kept it from Will. After it was over, I called him. He took it really well. He thinks he'll be coming home soon."

  Morgan Robsart was standing patiently beside Nora's chair, looking politely bored. His blond hair was neatly combed to make him presentable for company, and he was wearing a red knitted sweater with a circle of green designs around the collar. It fit him perfectly.

  Nora turned to the child. "Look here,
boy," she said. "On my front porch I've got a basket of dried apples that I've been saving all winter. If you'll go get you one of them, there's a mighty hungry whistle-pig in the field out back who'll eat it right out of your hand."

  "She woke up!" said Laura.

  "Yes. Persey's back. It's spring. And look yonder." She pointed to a tree near the front porch. It was hardly bigger than a fishing pole, but it had sprouted leaves on tiny branches at the top. "The chestnut made it through the winter."

  "Can I go get that apple?" asked Morgan. "Where's that whistle-pig?"

  "Out back, near the pond. Her name is Persey. Short for—Well, never you mind."

  Laura Bruce waved him away. "Just be careful of that groundhog. Make sure she gets apple and not fingers!" She watched him as he ambled off. "He's so wonderful," she said. "Will says we can start the formal adoption procedure when he gets back. That is, if Morgan's real father is willing." She paused for a moment, waiting for Nora Bonesteel's reply.

  "It's likely," the old woman said at last. "So you've got your hands full these days?"

  "Oh, Morgan is no trouble, but I've been to the hospital in Knoxville twice to see Maggie Underhill. She's going to be all right. She's in therapy now, and they think she'll be able to go off to school next year. I've also been getting more involved in community matters."

  "Ladies' Circle?" asked Nora with a trace of a smile.

  Laura made a face. "Not a chance. I tried. Honest I did, but that just isn't me. But this evening there's a meeting of the Little Dove Action Committee down at the church, and I'm going to that. Taw McBryde is getting up petitions to take to our senator in Washington." Laura looked away. "I've been working on a letter to send with the petition, telling the senator that I think the river might have been responsible for my stillborn child."

  "Bring me up a petition, and I'll sign it," said Nora.

  Laura looked at the piece of cloth in the old woman's lap. It was a pillowcase, carefully embroidered with vine leaves and red flowers. She wondered if Nora Bonesteel was making wedding presents, and, if so, did the recipients know yet that they were getting married? She didn't ask, though. She leaned back, enjoying the feeling of warm sunshine and the silence of the mountaintop.

 

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