The Angels' Share

by James Markert

  William turned around to find Polly asleep on his bed. Have I bored her so quickly?

  She’d fallen asleep atop the bedcovers, but there was a folded quilt at the foot of the bed, so William covered her up to the waist. She rolled to her side, snoring softly. He tiptoed around the bed, turned off the lamp, and stood in the darkness, contemplating, before he ultimately decided to sit at his desk. He was tired enough to doze off there. He’d done it before.

  He watched her as she slept, watched the roundness of her shoulder rise and fall with each breath, watched her eyebrows twitch as she viewed some secret dream.

  If she truly believes Asher Keating is the second coming of Jesus Christ, why isn’t she with the rest of the followers, sacrificing herself to the cold night?

  He closed his eyes and was on the verge of sleep when her voice carried across the void.

  “There’s room here for two.”

  He hesitated but then walked to the bed. She’d scooted over to make room for him. He lay down beside her, on his back, his head to the side, staring at her red hair splayed outward on his pillow, hair that smelled vaguely of dry leaves. Her back faced him. He hadn’t noticed it before, but in such close proximity it was apparent that she hadn’t had the luxury of clean water for some time. The perfume of the streets wasn’t enough to change his feelings.

  She gripped his arm, felt down to his right hand. She gently pulled his arm across her body and he rolled with it until he was on his side and facing her back, two spoons in a drawer.

  They fell asleep that way, the rise and fall of her back touching his chest with every intake of breath and his hand in hers only inches from her heart.

  The morning began with birdsong.

  William awoke with a smile that quickly melted. Polly was gone.

  His bedroom window was open. Sunlight warmed his pillow. He sat up, put his bare feet on the floor, and rubbed his eyes. His head was heavy from the bourbon he’d had before Polly arrived, but the achy feeling was worth it. Sipping while typing had been magical.

  “It’s a miracle!” Johnny yelled, his voice like a stiff cup of morning coffee. “It’s a miracle!”

  The dog barked. Samantha showed herself in William’s open doorway, tying her nightgown. “What is Johnny going on about?”

  William yawned on the way to the window. Who knows? Why is Johnny always so loud? He leaned forward, hands on the windowsill. He blinked a few times to make sure what he was seeing was real. Samantha stood behind him, looking over his shoulder, and then she gripped his arm to steady herself.

  Giddy, Johnny was running through the sunlit grass. Annie ran through the grass chasing after the dog. Not nearly as fast as Johnny, but running all the same. Her legs no longer looked bowed. They were as straight as any six-year-old girl’s getaway sticks should be.

  William yelled out the window, “Run, Annie, run!” He wiped his eyes.

  It was a miracle. Did Polly have something to do with it? Was this the evidence of Asher Keating’s rising that she’d spoken of: “He won’t rise in the physical sense . . .”?

  It was the morning of the third day.

  EIGHT

  Barley managed to sleep through all of the shouting. When Annie’s shaking didn’t rouse him, Johnny backed up to the front door to get a good lead and then ran at his father.

  “Johnny, this isn’t a good idea,” Samantha said, watching through splayed fingers.

  But it was too late. Johnny was airborne, and he landed full force atop Barley, who awoke, flailing his arms and legs to a sudden upright position.

  “Holy Moses!” Barley looked his family over. “What the hell, Johnny?”

  Annie spun in a circle. “I don’t squeak anymore.”

  Barley stared at his daughter’s legs, and Johnny said, “I did it, Father. I went out to that grave last night. And I prayed.” Johnny pointed out the window toward the potter’s field. “I prayed for Annie’s legs to work.”

  Barley knelt in front of his daughter. He touched Annie’s thighs, knees, calves, and then ankles. “Does that hurt?”

  She shook her head. “No, Father.”

  Barley wiped his right eye. “Come here,” he said to his girl, and she did with open arms.

  Barley didn’t let go for a good minute. Then he stood, placed his hand atop Samantha’s shoulder, and headed out to the porch, without his hat, an unpredictable gleam in his eyes.

  William followed along with the rest of the family. Barley bounded down the porch steps, across the gravel driveway, and took to the bricked sidewalk. It was strange to see him outside without his fedora. His steps only became longer when he reached the potter’s field, his arms swinging like pendulums as he bypassed rows of crosses. Annie ran to catch him and then grabbed his swaying right hand as they closed in on the aging house.

  The door swayed open in the breeze. Barley and Annie stepped inside. William hurried past Johnny and Samantha so he would be the next in, but what he saw made his heart skip.

  “What are we looking at?” Annie asked. “Where’d the people go?”

  Barley let go of her hand and approached the lone bindle in the middle of the floor.

  “They moved on, Sugar Cakes.” William’s tone had lost its luster.

  “But what about Polly? She said she’d be my sister.”

  William felt betrayed. She’d known all along that she would be leaving. Across the airy sunlit room, where dust motes floated and the unwashed smell lingered, Barley nudged the bindle with the toe of his spatted wing tips, as if approaching a Kraut land mine. Beside it was a note, a triangular piece of paper ripped from a magazine—there was an advertisement for what looked like half of a telephone. On the border was writing:

  Thank you for the shelter, William. And for the novel. It’s time for us to move on and spread the word. And yes, I felt it too. Polly.

  William lowered the note, grinning. She felt it too?

  Barley’s harsh voice brought him back to the present. “Open it.”

  The faded red-cloth bindle, bundled by twine and attached to a thick wooden stick, was heavier than it looked. William untied the twine. The sides fell away like wilted rose petals, revealing a toothbrush, a deck of playing cards, and a picture of Asher. But what grabbed his attention were the shoes. Three different pairs—a man’s brown-and-white wing tips, narrow blue women’s heels, and a beige pair of boy’s shoes.

  William recalled Thomas’s picture of Asher and the boots that had hung from his neck. It appeared that Asher wore shoes around his neck as a habit, for whatever reason.

  Barley’s face turned ashen. He fell on both knees. He lifted the child-sized shoes and reeled them in to his chest. Looking as if the life had been sucked from him, he collapsed.

  “Barley!” Samantha ran toward him, touched his back. “Barley!”

  He was breathing, but he was stone faced and unresponsive.

  William slid the shoes out from beneath Barley’s right arm. His mother always wrote their initials on their shoes, in black pen on the heel. At Sunday school the kids took their shoes off, and she didn’t want theirs getting lost. The pair bore the initials HFM. Henry Ford McFee.

  “Henry’s missing shoes.”

  Samantha checked the heel and wept.

  Whoever Asher Keating was, or had been, he’d returned Henry’s missing shoes.

  “Is Henry finally coming back now?” Annie asked.

  “Watch me, Will’m!” Henry slid to his right, clapped his hands, and let loose a flurry of fancy feet. Moonlight found the windows, and the ricks echoed.

  “What is it, Will’m? Why you smilin’?”

  “No reason.” William moved his feet in tempo but he couldn’t keep up, not the way Henry moved and grooved, shuffled and spun. He was smiling, large, and it felt good.

  “Go on then.”

  “Go on where?”

  “Go on gettin’ while the gettin’s good.” Henry never broke stride. “Check for yourself.”

  William walked from the
aging house across the potter’s field. He still heard Henry’s shuffling, even into the house, as if magnified. There it was, resting on the stand right under the window: the closed casket. Henry’s voice again. “Go on.” William did.

  He opened the coffin real slow and found darkness inside.

  William’s eyes snapped open and he sat up in bed, feeling a thread of hope where there should be none.

  NINE

  Henry’s shoes rested in the middle of the table. That was where William put them after they’d returned from the aging house, plopped them next to the salt and pepper shakers like they belonged there. Today he stared at the shoes like a coon would an open garbage can. Samantha cried every time she even glanced at them, and so had taken to staring at the kitchen floor.

  William looked at Barley. “Could he have been there that night?”

  “Who?” asked Annie. “Are you talking about Henry?”

  William looked across the table at his brother. “Johnny, take Annie in the other room.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Johnny said.

  Barley spoke, eyes glued on the shoes. “Johnny, do as your brother says.”

  Samantha stood. “Come on, Annie.”

  “No, Sam,” Barley said to his wife. It had been many months since William had heard Barley refer to Samantha as Sam. “You need to stay.”

  She inched her way back down.

  Johnny didn’t argue. “Annie, let’s go.” He took Annie by the hand and walked with her into the living room, close enough for him to listen in. William could hear Annie saying, “He’s coming home soon, isn’t he?”

  Barley removed a gold-embossed cigarette case from his jacket, pulled out a Lucky, and lit it. He exhaled and then looked at his wife. He closed the case and slid it across the table. Next he slid his lighter. Samantha caught both with hands that trembled less after she inhaled one of Barley’s coffin nails. William had never seen his mother smoke before.

  “We all know the facts of that night,” Barley said.

  “Not all of them,” Samantha said under her breath.

  Barley tapped ashes into his palm and then shook them through his fingers to the tabletop. He didn’t look up.

  William said, “I’ve always questioned how Henry ended up alongside the road. Somebody moved him. And now we know that Asher Keating was possibly there—”

  “No possibly to it.” Barley pointed to the shoes. “He was there.”

  “Did you know?” Samantha asked.

  “No, I didn’t know.” Barley flicked ashes across the table and then reeled them back in with his palm. “If I’d known I would have told you.”

  “You said he had a look of peace,” said Samantha. “When you found our baby alongside the road, you said he had a look of peace on his face.”

  “And that hasn’t changed, Sam. The boy looked of peace.”

  Her expression was one of steely resolve, the hardened exterior the family had seen for the past twelve months. Her cigarette was growing long with ash. “So we’re agreeing he carried our son to the grass?”

  William said, “Preston Wildemere was trapped in his car. It had to be Asher.”

  “Why was Asher Keating even there?”

  Barley said, “He wouldn’t be the first bum to wander along that stretch of road.”

  “But it has to be more than coincidence!” William insisted. “Annie is walking. He brought Henry home to us. Left his shoes in the very spot Henry loved dancing the most.”

  “Those bums left them there, not Asher.” Barley pointed at William with his cigarette. “The ‘why he was there’ doesn’t concern me as much as what could’a been said . . .” Barley trailed off, anxiously took a drag on the cigarette. “Or why he took my boy’s shoes.”

  Samantha stood from the table. She placed a hand on Barley’s shoulder and patted it twice. After she’d gone, Barley took a gander at where his wife had just touched him. Then he focused on William. “We need to find those bums. They’ll have real answers.”

  “If we can find them.”

  “I can find a needle in a haystack.” Barley exhaled toward the ceiling.

  “A minute ago you said you weren’t concerned with why Asher was there . . .”

  “And?”

  “With what’s happened here, with Annie’s legs and Henry’s shoes, I believe why is the only question we should be asking.”

  Before bedtime, William sneaked Annie out to take a couple of pictures with his Kodak Brownie. He’d found a shot from a few months earlier with her leg braces on to compare. He’d also taken pictures of Asher’s grave and inside the aging house, where the Twelve had stayed. Times were dire all over the country. People needed a heartwarming story. They needed hope, and he could write a story that would deliver it.

  William readied his camera, but Annie interrupted him.

  “Do you think those shoes will still fit Henry?”

  “Annie . . .”

  “If Mommy gets Henry a new pair, I hope I get a new pair too.” She twirled just as William was getting ready to snap the picture.

  “Annie, stand still. I’ve got to get this article written.”

  “I can’t wait to show Henry my new legs. I bet I can beat him now in a race. I bet—”

  “Annie, stop!”

  She froze, big eyed.

  “Henry’s—” William caught himself. He took a deep breath, forced a smile. Annie’s face softened and William’s heart melted. “Just smile for the camera, Annie.”

  She smiled wide, then curtsied after he took the shot. “How’d I do?”

  “Did great, Sugar Cakes.” William put his arm around his sister. “Did great.”

  He sat at his bedroom desk. He’d yet to touch the tousled covers or move the pillow that had cradled the side of Polly’s face. His fingers flew effortlessly over the keys. The typewriter clacked so quickly the carriage shook. Warmed by the bourbon he’d stolen from Barley’s bottle, he let the last several days swim back into focus, starting with Barley’s gun discharging in church, moving on to the arrival of Asher’s body to the potter’s field, and ending with Annie’s miraculous recovery. The mystery of Henry’s shoes he left out. It was too personal to share.

  All things happen for a reason . . .

  That’s how his article started. The gunshot finding Mr. Bancroft’s door had been the first sign that something strange was happening in Twisted Tree. He could have been more specific—a random bullet found a specific target—but there was no need to call the town’s attention to his mother and Bancroft. He was hitting on all eight—he’d typed three full pages and needed a worthy closing. If only the dog would shut up barking. He’d been at it for ten minutes. Probably spotted a raccoon, or Black-Tail, or maybe the deer guarding the woods had ventured close to the porch.

  “Stop barking, Cat. Barley will shoot you,” he mumbled. “He’ll put you down for the big one. The dirt nap. He’ll . . .”

  The dog stopped barking.

  But it wasn’t a gradual quieting; it was too sudden for William’s liking, so he stepped out to the hallway. He walked down the steps and peered around the corner toward the living room.

  Barley had moved from his chair to the couch. On the floor beside him lay the dog. Barley’s right fingers were gently combing through the dog’s fur behind the ears.

  The ending to his story came to him.

  Hope can change even the most stubborn of men.

  TEN

  By the time William parked in Louisville—with the front left wheel half tilted on the Liberty Street curb—the sun had risen over the downtown buildings. He sat there and closed his eyes until his headache waned and the uneasiness in his stomach settled. If this was the result of drinking too much bourbon, he promised himself never to do it again. Fighting nausea, he drove slowly, and the short ride left him rattled.

  He braced his hands on the steering wheel, closed his eyes for three deep breaths.

  Standing outside Harper’s Beauty Salon, he took a moment to tuck
the rest of his shirt in and comb his hair with his free hand. This was his big chance and he shouldn’t blow it on appearance. Dozens of cars—beat-up jalopies, Model Ts, Model Bs, a Studebaker truck, and a Rolls-Royce—lined the street at parallel angles outside a dentist’s and a doctor’s office, a loan building, and an advertisement firm. Car horns bleated. Floppy-hatted boys shouted the morning’s news as they waved copies of the Courier-Journal: 35 MILLION ACRES OF FARMLAND DESTROYED BY DRAUGHT. DUST BOWL IN OKLAHOMA RAGES ON! LINDBERGH BABY KIDNAPPER, BRUNO HAUPTMANN, MOVES TOWARD A TRIAL! And her intracity rival, the Post: LOCH NESS MONSTER SPOTTED IN SCOTLAND WATERS. Read all about it!

  William bought two copies of the Journal for six cents and tossed them into the car.

  The sidewalk was crowded. Street vendors sold fresh fruit and vegetables that didn’t appear all that fresh. A man in tattered beige pants and suspenders swept dust from his livery barn. A tall man in a butterscotch suit and matching boater hat hurried along with a briefcase. He entered a bank and waited as a plain-dressed woman stepped outside, crying on her husband’s arm. Miller’s Bakery had its front door propped open and the smell of freshly baked bread wafted out. A loaf for eight cents! The window displayed a meager assortment of pastries and biscuits and jams, and the sight of it made William’s stomach growl.

  He promised himself he’d splurge for a bite on the way back home. If he tried to eat now, he’d get sick—the roiling in his stomach quickened as he moved past Threadbare Theatre and Nice Guy’s Restaurant, which appeared as if it had sold its last Hot Brown. The windows were boarded and a nest of birds was in the doorjamb.