by Glen Krisch
"Mr. Banyon's a surly sonofa-bee." As Polk walked, he turned the valve to brighten his lamp.
"Sure is. Makes Hank Calder look like a choirboy," Magee said as he watched Polk. "You just don't know what you're doing at all. Give me that." Magee took charge of holding the lamp.
Cooper noticed movement at the top of the slight rise they were cresting. Judging his abrupt halt, Bergman also took note. The field they'd been crossing for the last half hour was transitioning to forest. A green wall of trees provided a backdrop for the movement; two people in the distance, steadily approaching.
For the moment, Magee and Polk seemed more concerned about the oil lamp than finding the boy. Magee played with the lamp's valve as Polk held its handle.
Cooper surged past them, moving toward the others. "Bergman," Cooper whispered. "Sheriff Bergman."
Bergman held a hand up, "Yeah, I see it, Coop," the sheriff said, then blurted in a louder voice, "Everyone get down!" He motioned to the others. The doctor took Ellie's hand and they both kneeled in the grass. Having not heard Bergman's order, Polk and Magee continued walking toward the front of the group. Polk looked like a scolded child as they walked. Magee held the lamp, his chest puffed out like the victor of a great battle.
"Who is it?" Cooper asked, keeping his voice low.
"Don't know, but if something happened to George, I don't want to take a chance."
As Polk and Magee approached, they finally noticed the sheriff motioning for them to get down. They ducked down, continuing to bicker in quieter voices.
The approaching people disappeared into a gully. Cooper was beginning to question his reasoning for joining this search party. If he didn't know this boy at all, why was he putting himself in possible danger?
Ellie's tears were Cooper's answer. Seeing the little girl crouched in the damp grass, the unsettling pain etched into her face, he'd do whatever he could to help find her brother.
Bergman inched over to a mass of bushes, never letting his eyes stray from the approaching people. He pulled his Colt from his belt holster and raised it to firing height. He cocked the weapon, holding his position.
Someone rustled through the underbrush, silencing the chirruping crickets. Someone stumbled, followed by a raspy whisper, "You should've stayed home. I didn't want you out here like this."
While not familiar, the voice carried an unexpected quality. It was feminine.
"Don't move! Stay right where you are!"
After a shocked silence, the woman replied, "It's okay, sheriff, it's just us." She was still not visible behind a blanket of brambles.
"Just do as I say, and I'll say when you can move," Bergman's voice wavered as he approached the newcomers.
The tension eased from Cooper's limbs. He stood slowly, and the others followed suit.
"Larry, you better stop pointing that gun at me and my son!" As the woman's voice rose, its raspy quality smoothed to a light, almost lilting tone.
"Jane Fowler, what in the world are you doing out here in the middle of the night, and with Jacob, too?" Bergman looked exasperated. His face seemed to sag, and the yellow moon made his skin appear pasty and unwashed.
"Larry, the gun?" Jane Fowler said, the frustration in her voice evident.
"I'm sorry, Jane." Bergman lowered his gun.
Jane pushed aside the undergrowth and stood with her son in a small clearing. Mud caked her clothes. A ripped leaf clung to her hair. They both looked wrung through.
Cooper made his way toward Bergman, seeing Jacob at a better angle. He looked like a broomstick with limbs, no more than thirteen or so. His eyes were dark and would probably appear equally dark in the daylight or at night. Without knowing the boy, Cooper figured Jacob's sad expression was nothing new, as if he wore layers of sadness like winter clothing.
"I've known you since I looked after you and your sisters. How dare you point a gun at me and Jacob!"
"Jane, I… well, how was I supposed to know it was you? We got a situation out here and we got to be ready for anything."
"Situation? What situation? You mean you're actually playing policeman! You always loved that game when you were a little one. Or are you playing cowboys and Indians?"
"Come on now, Jane. I'm serious."
"Georgie's missing," Ellie interrupted as she walked to the center of this impromptu gathering.
"Since when?" Jacob asked. His voice was somewhere between being a boy's and being a man's--scratchy and warbled in an effort to find a balance.
"Last night. Real late," Ellie said. The two youngest people in the group had taken over the conversation.
"That makes sense now." Jacob nodded slowly.
"What makes sense, Jacob?" Bergman cut in.
"Well, for starters, Jimmy's gone, too. That's why me and Mom are out here. Jimmy and George must be together."
"You both look a mess," Ellie said, sizing up their muddied clothes and haggard faces. "No offense, Mrs. Fowler."
"None taken, dear. We've been at it all day." Jane sounded heartbroken, but her face held strong. Her fatigue could have been mistaken for stoicism.
"You've been looking for Jimmy all day and didn't bother to get help?" Magee asked. He still held Polk's lamp. Polk stood behind Magee, almost out of view. He looked dejected, and his eyes never left the back of Magee's head. "People would'a come to help you, Jane," Magee added.
"Oh, would they?" she said, an edge to her voice.
"We could've rallied more people than this if we had more time, then maybe by now we'd know where the boys are," Bergman said.
"I don't want any help," Jane said as she shoved by Bergman. "If you don't mind, I'd like to go find my son." She gave Ellie a knowing look and patted her shoulder before exiting the circle. "Come on Jacob, time's wasting. I want both my boys home in time for breakfast." She didn't look back.
Jacob took off in a gangly trot to catch his mother. The others watched as the Fowlers walked away.
"We can't just let them go," Polk said in a small voice.
"No, we can't. I say we go with them. There's safety in numbers," Dr. Thompson said. The lamplight caught and accentuated his every wrinkle. He looked ragged after only a short while searching. "Plus, we can compare notes, see what ground they've covered so far." After a moment's hesitation and silence from the others, he grabbed Ellie's hand. She went without question as he headed in the direction Jane Fowler had gone. Polk was the next to leave.
"I'm in charge here. We can't just split up like this," Bergman said.
Magee followed Polk, taking the oil lamp with him. The ground where Cooper stood darkened with the barber's every step. Cooper wanted to head back to his rented room and sink into the deep and inviting bed. If he decided to head back at this point, he wouldn't make it back to Calder's without getting lost himself. He shrugged at Bergman, then started in the direction the others had gone.
Jane never acknowledged her growing search party. They let her lead and no one said much as they weaved through a heavily wooded area. The group moved slower than when Bergman led and would stop when Jane raised a hand for them to halt. She would strain to hear the slightest sound, her eyes closed, her neck craning. Disappointed, she would motion for them to start again. With Jane and Jacob a few paces ahead of Polk and Magee, the party climbed a steep hill. Cooper walked with Ellie and the doctor. Jane seemed to be a better leader than Bergman. She certainly had more at stake than the sheriff, and was as alert and irritable as a poked badger.
Cooper glanced over his shoulder. Bergman followed thirty paces behind. His glare made Cooper look away. The sheriff was in a foul mood, and Cooper sensed that he shouldn't be in Bergman's way if he felt like taking it out on someone.
At the top of the hill, Cooper had a feeling he knew where they were, at least in relation to the railroad tracks. The raised rail line curved west, disappearing into a thicket. He confirmed his feeling when he saw the sagging farmhouse where he'd made camp the night before. Along the side of the house would be the red wate
r pump that spouted the coldest watered he'd ever tasted. Seeing the rise of the gabled roof, the overgrown bushes, the snarled trees, Cooper had an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. Of course he'd seen the house before, just this morning, but the sensation didn't feel tied to earlier today. This was different.
Cooper asked, "Whose house is that atop the hill?"
"That's the Blankenship place. Or used to be," Dr. Thompson said, the only person to acknowledge Cooper's question. "Now, I guess it's left to the animals, the forest creatures and such. Too bad, too. It used to be a fine house."
"Who was Blankenship?"
"Reverend Horace Blankenship. He and his wife Eunice lived there. At one point the place was filled up with kids and grandkids, but long after the kids had moved on to other locales, the Blankenships left without a word in the middle of the night."
"Why's that Doc?"
"Not sure, really. Some say it was Harvard Square putting pressure on Horace for the mortgage. Don't know. But that was long ago. Decades."
"No one bought out the lot?"
"There was some interest after the bank took possession, but there's plenty of land out this way to build your own house. As time went on, the forest started creeping in on the property. By now, you'd have to put in some major work to re-clear the plot. And the house? A shambles."
Cooper felt drawn to the house. He kept an eye on it, nearly stumbling into Polk's feet.
Thompson was quiet, his information exhausted. The doctor looked down on Ellie, and the poor girl looked too tired to walk. She put up a good front as she trudged on. Cooper nodded his thanks, then picked up his pace to catch the Fowlers.
Jacob was taller than his mother, which made her seem even smaller. Earlier, she had said she use to watch Bergman when he was a child, and with Cooper thinking the sheriff was about thirty, that put her at least thirty-five. Even so, she looked younger than Bergman, and as she walked with Jacob, she looked too young to have two nearly grown sons.
The moon had fallen behind the trees and their only light was Polk's oil lamp still in Magee's possession. As they left the Blankenship property behind and descended the steady downhill, they entered a small valley steeped in damp fog. A surge of cool, earthy air brushed Cooper's face.
"The swamps? Why would the boys head this way?" Bergman asked.
"Because they're boys, and that'd be a boy-thing to do," Jane said.
"It's not too far from either the Fowler's place or the Banyon's," Dr. Thompson added. He moved like a man who didn't often leave his office. His arthritic movements were painful to watch, but he never complained.
"It just seems like where they'd be," Jane said.
"Why's that Miss Fowler?" Polk asked as he absently scratched his beard.
"Christ, I wish I could call it mother's intuition. At first I didn't want to search the swamp, but Jacob and I've searched just about everywhere else imaginable since last night. I want Jimmy to be anywhere else but the swamp. There's just no other place to go."
They walked on in silence and fanned out again to cover more ground. Soon, Jacob was the only person Cooper could see through the thickening fog. The others scuffled through thorny patches and cautiously hopped over marshy ground. As long as Cooper could still hear them, he wouldn't worry about becoming lost.
The ground became spongier with every downward step. Blooming flowers spilled their redolence to the nighttime sky. Stepping over snaking tree roots and small algae-covered pools, Cooper came across a level clearing. Ragged tree stumps speared skyward from the verdant water like shatter bones. The canopy enclosed the boggy glade like a ceiling.
Cooper saw the body for several seconds before his brain registered its import. Its shoes pointed toes up, the legs splayed in the mud. That was all that was visible. Green-scummed water covered the body from the waist up. The tip of its nose bobbed at the surface like an emerging island in a volcanic sea.
Cooper tried yelling for the others, but his voice caught just shy of his teeth. He cleared his throat, then tried again, letting loose a shout that sent birds angrily from their roosts.
Jacob was the first to arrive. The boy sprinted into the clearing, his wire-thin limbs flying wildly about. When he saw the body, he stopped as if struck in the chest. Cooper would've done anything to avoid seeing the look on his face.
Jane Fowler's scream stole Cooper's attention away from her son. She ran across the muddy ground all the way to the body, charging knee-deep into the water. Grabbing the shirt with both hands, she yanked up hard, as if there was still a life to save. She showed astonishing strength as she lifted the body from the water and brought it to rest in her lap as she sat on the muddy shore.
The others arrived as Jane rocked the corpse in her arms. Dr. Thompson attempted to shield Ellie from the awful sight. It didn't look like she wanted to see anyway. She pressed her face to his ribs.
Algae and moldering leaves clung to the body like a second skin. Jane muttered incomprehensible half-syllables. Her fingers trembled as she cleared the debris from the face, revealing swollen dead lips, a bloodless gash running the length of its cheek, and open eyes slathered with pond muck.
"This isn't my boy." The body dropped from her arms to the spongy ground. Standing on shaky legs, she looked at the others as if noticing them for the first time. Her eyes went from her hands to the body, then back to her hands. Realization sunk in.
"THIS IS NOT MY BOY!" Her expression slipped with oily ease from relief to utter revolt and then back again. Her flushed skin quickly blanched. Shock stole all sense from her and her eyes tilted back in her head. She fell to one knee and surprisingly, went no further. Polk went to her side and grabbed her by the armpit to steady her.
Thompson handed Ellie over to Magee, then approached the body. Cooper thought he would examine it, but he simply scowled and shook his head. The doctor didn't need to examine the body. Nothing in his power could change the fact that the boy was dead. He returned to Ellie's side, touching her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Ellie. Someone did something terrible to George. I don't know who, but whoever did will see justice." Pain choked the strength from his voice. "I promise."
When Thompson went to embrace the child, she ran past him to the water's edge, to her brother's brutalized body. Reaching down, she touched the pallid skin of George's hand.
Unaware her nose had started to bleed again, a streak flowed from her nostril, to her lips. Letting loose a heartrending wail of misery, she fell to the muddy ground. She tugged George's damp shirtsleeve as if pleading for him to stand.
8.
Considering Ellie's behavior, Cooper almost wished she'd go back to her hysterics. She stood with Dr. Thompson and Jane as the other townsfolk hoisted the boy's body from the seeping mire to a makeshift stretcher. Ellie's eyes were gummy and vacant. She sucked her thumb like a child half her age. Dr. Thompson hunched over to look into her eyes and take her pulse.
To make the stretcher, they tethered two long branches together with belts and suspenders. Polk gave up his outer shirt to cover the boy's face. When the body was ready for transport, Cooper offered to help, but they shook him away. Bergman hefted the front, while Polk and Magee handled the rear handles. They no longer fought over the oil lamp and had given up its possession to Jacob. The boy held it close to the stretcher, but kept his eyes facing his mother and Ellie.
When the sheriff nodded to Magee and Polk, the three men lifted George from the ground. Water dripped from the muddied clothes as if the body had sprung a leak. Because of his small stature, Polk's side hung lower by quite a bit. The stretcher dipped and a leg slipped off and dangled in the air, throwing the three men off balance. With the rest of the body sitting squarely on the stretcher, they couldn't do anything but stare at one another. When Cooper hurried to right the leg, his fingers skimmed across the cold exposed skin of the boy's calf. Even in the balmy night, a chill danced over his spine. The leg felt too heavy when he lifted it, as if a substance weightier than gravity held the lifel
ess flesh earthbound.
"Let's go," Bergman said, and the procession started back.
Jacob led, followed by the doctor and Ellie, the stretcher, with Cooper and Jane following.
"I liked George. He was a sweet kid," Jane said.
Cooper assumed she'd spoken to him, but he had nothing to say. He had no memories to share, so he remained silent as they snaked through the moonlit groundcover. Cooper had never felt so uncomfortable. These people seemed nice enough, especially Thompson, Jane and Ellie, but he wanted to leave Coal Hollow as soon as possible. Even though he was bone-weary from his long journey, he would gladly take to the rails tomorrow to escape the sadness of this town.
Ahead, Magee and Bergman lowered the stretcher to make it easier on Polk. The sky was beginning to bruise at the horizon with the coming morning. After besting a hill, they parted company with the last vestiges of the night's fog.
Jane stretched her arms over her head and couldn't help yawning. Her brown eyes were her most uncommon feature. They seemed to gleam through the darkness, especially when angered or upset. Now, nearly incoherent from exhaustion, her eyes lost their luster. She noticed Cooper looking at her as she finished her yawn. He felt ashamed for so blatantly taking in her features, as if she had caught him stealing. He looked away.
Quite unexpectedly, at least to Cooper, the group broke through a wooded ravine and were now facing the back of the buildings of downtown Coal Hollow. Just moments ago, Cooper couldn't imagine the end of their walk back. They could've continued for another hour without him beginning to wonder, but now they were nearly home. While the others had a home to return to, Cooper had his inviting mattress in his rented room to think about. He made a mental note to make provisions for paying Thea Calder before he fell asleep. The idea of having Hank Calder rouse him from sleep to kick him to the street for nonpayment didn't sound at all appealing.
Polk and Magee started to turn right, but Bergman stopped. His suddenness almost overturned the body. Bergman righted the stretcher. "Wait. We can't take the body to my office."
