“I don’t really know,” Jasper said.
“You were his companion.”
“Only for a few days and nights. He tried to rob me when I first came upon him.”
“Why did you join up with him?”
“He made me. He wouldn’t let me go. He kept calling me his pro… pro…”
“Protégé?”
“Yes. I tried to get away from him but he caught me and said he’d kill me. He meant it, too. He killed three people that I know of during the time I was with him, maybe others, too. I didn’t have any part of it—” Jasper broke down sobbing again. Barbara gathered him in her arms.
“No one will blame you for his crimes,” she said.
“How do you know?”
The truth was she didn’t know. She knew the law had become a flimsy thing in these new times, but she also knew that people acted in concert in the absence of the law, when they felt strongly enough about something, and that justice and the law were not always the same thing.
“You’re just a child,” she finally said.
They walked silently the rest of the way back to the locust glade in the margin of the woods. Barbara spaded out the top layer of leaves and weeds, and then they took turns digging out the grave with the long-handled shovel. When they had gone down less than three feet, she said, “That’s enough.” They dragged Billy’s body into the hole, where his body deployed itself rigid and twisted, his dead eyes staring blindly up, and his mouth open as if caught in a smart remark. Of course his expression did not change as Barbara dumped the first shovelful of earth on his face. She did the remaining work while Jasper stood by, wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeve. Soon, she had the body covered up.
She took Jasper back to the house and fed him a breakfast of fried potatoes and eggs, resigned to what she knew about his fate, which she did not reveal to him because he would not understand it, and it wouldn’t change anything.
“Do you need help cleaning up the mess?” he asked, when he was finished with his breakfast.
“No. I’ll take care of it.”
“Can I go now, then?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry about what happened here.”
“I know. It’s not your fault.”
“Please don’t tell anybody.”
“I won’t.”
“I don’t think anyone will come looking for him,” Jasper said. “Nobody cared about him.”
“I understand.”
“You’re a very kind lady.”
“Thank you. You’re a good boy. I see the light of love in you.”
Jasper made a pained face, as if he couldn’t imagine such a thing.
“Maybe we’ll meet again some day,” he said.
“I know we will,” she said.
She gave him three hard-boiled eggs, a wedge of cheese, and a slab of corn bread wrapped up in a kerchief, and kissed him on the forehead. He went to fetch his backpack out of the barn and set out to make his way over the highlands toward Glens Falls, with the visage of Robin centered in his mind as a totem to ward off the frightening memories of his recent misadventures and his fears about the journey ahead.
He had gone four miles that gray morning, feeling lighter and less burdened by the mile, imagining his career in the distant town and the friend who waited for him. He was not altogether sure of the way, but he followed a route that took him ever higher through the Gavottes, knowing that eventually he would descend back into the Hudson Valley. On a forgotten byway called Shine Creek Road, he entered into a rocky defile where the road twisted severely in its effort to traverse the ridgeline. He rounded the curve of the road and heard a high-pitched cry, as of a baby stuck with a pin, and ran his eyes up the jutting rocks until, in amazement, they fastened on the sight of a big golden catamount perched down on its haunches ten feet above him, its mouth wide open and fangs in bold display. In the long moment of recognition that this was something apart from anything he had seen in his childhood storybooks, Jasper became a statue. He locked eyes with the creature and saw in their red brilliance the odd apparition of his own death.
SIXTY-SIX
Perry Talisker woke up on the summit of Wilmot Hill, the highest point in the Gavottes, enveloped in a fog bank. The fog reminded him emphatically of his position in the transit between life and death. He greeted the morning with a solemn joy that his final trial was at hand and he was fully prepared for it. He had left the darkness of night and darkness in general behind, along with its agents and principalities, and knew he would never be troubled by them again. The fog that blanketed his bivouac on Wilmot Hill was a vapor of angels, heralding the Great Thing that awaited him on this last day of his life on earth. Even his profound loneliness had become an exultation.
He left his campsite without breakfast—indeed, he had not taken a meal for days—and an animal instinct guided him down from the summit, out of the fog cloud, onto a barren hillside of rocky scree, below which the forest seemed to spread endlessly in a golden tapestry, with no sign of man along the vast panorama. He was beyond the cares of man now. He knew that his destiny lay below, that he was closing on it, and that it would reveal itself shortly. A bright confidence unbounded by the leaden tropes of memory or need lured him down into the golden woods, with the rifle slung over his shoulder, gliding effortlessly through the understory, over blowdown and rill, in pursuit of his own transcendent becoming.
Hours later, he emerged from the rapture of the forest at a place just short of where Shine Creek Road entered the defile over the Gavottes. He stepped lightly uphill on the road with his senses on fire, in thrall to his own animal instinct. His breathing and his heartbeat quickened, and when he rounded a bend where the road cut a cleft between two scarps of ancient uplifted rocks, he was struck more by the beauty of leaves fluttering soundlessly on the breezeless air than the fraught frozen stances of the crouching cat up on the rockpile and the boy below.
Jasper did not hear Perry Talisker come up behind him so much as smell him—a vibrant stink like the rectified essence of the woods itself. Jasper thought it was the cat. The big cat snarled and sank deeper into its haunches. Perry swung the rifle off his back and shouldered it in a single deft movement. But when he pulled the trigger, the only report was a dull metallic click. He shoved down the lever and the next bullet failed to enter the chamber properly. By then, the cat was in the air with all four limbs extended against the sky. In that timeless interval, Perry flung away the rifle, drew a knife from his belt, and turned the eight-inch blade upward so that it entered the cat’s heart at the exact moment the cat closed its jaws on his head. As they fell to the earth, the back of Perry’s skull dashed against a jagged chunk of broken pavement, and the force of the fall drove the shard of asphalt deep into his brain stem. Both the cat and the man quivered a few moments while life struggled out of them.
Jasper, who had recoiled in the event and fallen over, lay goggle-eyed on the road’s dusty shoulder beneath the wall of rock with his own pulse pounding in his ears and the air scintillated with death. He remained motionless for a long time, afraid to do more than breathe while he studied the mute vignette of cat and man a few scant yards away. It was a long while before he was satisfied that the cat was dead, and the man beneath him, as well. A pool of blood had poured out of the cat’s heart and joined with a pool of blood that came out of the man’s brain, and flowed in a single rivulet off the crown of the road into the yellow weeds of the roadside. So absorbed was he in his study of cat and man that he did not register the sound of the wagon struggling up the road from the west until it had crested the ridge.
SIXTY-SEVEN
Coming over the crest of the hill, Brothers Seth and Elam spied Jasper right away and swapped knowing glances. Elam gave heel to Atlas just as Jasper pulled himself up and attempted to run away. Because the defile was walled-in, he could not run into the woods. Elam caught up to him, dismounted fluidly, and seized the boy by his clothing, while Seth followed in the wagon.
/> “You’re the doctor’s boy,” Elam said.
Jasper did not reply. He recognized the men, not so much by their faces as by the costume of the New Faith order and their extraordinary size, like giants out of folklore.
“That’s him,” Seth said, ratcheting up the hand brake and jumping down from the driver’s box. “I’m sure of it.”
“We’ve been looking for you,” Elam said.
“Where all have you been?” Seth asked.
“You know who we are, don’t you?” Elam said, squatting down to the boy’s level.
Jasper’s terror was so overwhelming, he was unable to speak, let alone come up with a credible lie. He nodded his head.
“We’re bound to bring you back to Union Grove,” Elam said. “I’d prefer to not have to tie you up. We’ve got a long road ahead. Maybe two days’ travel. What do you say?”
“Please don’t tie me up,” Jasper croaked.
Meanwhile, Seth’s attention was distracted by what he’d noticed up along the rock wall. He marched fifty yards back up the road to where Perry Talisker lay beneath the body of the dead mountain lion. He squatted down to marvel at them.
“Woo-wee, will you look at this!”
Elam let go of Jasper’s sweatshirt and hitched the mule’s reins to the wagon. He and the boy walked together up to where Seth squatted beside the bodies.
“Lord have mercy,” Elam said as Seth pried the animal’s jaws open to free Perry Talisker’s head. Then he put both hands around the cat’s hindquarters and dragged its body off to the side. Elam kneeled beside the dead man and drew down his eyelids.
“Were you with him?” he asked Jasper.
“No.”
“We had information that you were traveling with someone.”
“Not him.”
“How’d you come to be with him here now?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know?”
“He was just there.”
“Just there?” Seth said. “He come out of nowhere?”
“Yes.” Jasper said. “He saved my life.”
“But you don’t know him?”
“I know him,” Jasper said.
Elam and Seth swapped glances again.
“You’re confusing me, son,” Elam said.
“I know him from town.”
“Who is he?”
“The hermit,” Jasper said. “He lives in a shack by the river.”
“So that’s the hermit,” Seth said. “We heard about him. You weren’t with him all this time, you say?”
“No.”
“He’s a long way from home, isn’t he?”
Just then, Brother Jobe gave out a groan from down in the wagon.
Jasper had been unaware that there was someone lying in the cargo box. Now that he was uphill of it, he could see someone swaddled under a quilt down there. Another groan, this one elongated, brought both the men to their feet.
“Who’s that?” Jasper asked.
“That’s the boss,” Seth said. “Something’s laid him low all of a sudden. Cancer of the guts, he says.”
“We were up this way searching for you, son,” Elam said. “This sickness come over him last night.”
“I’d like to skin out that panther awfully much,” Seth said.
“We’re not toting any stinking pelt all the way home,” Elam said. “You’ll have to come back for it, if you can get leave to do so.”
They dragged the bodies of the man and the cat to the side of the road, arranged them side by side, like sweethearts, and hurriedly covered them with rocks from the loose ones at the base of the scarp. They enlisted Jasper to help. Elam was about to speak a few sparse words over the hermit’s body when Brother Jobe gave out a yet more desperate cry below. The men slapped the dust off their hands and hurried down to him and the wagon. Jasper followed.
“You all right, BJ?” Seth asked.
“No, I ain’t all right.”
“We found what we were looking for,” Elam said. “Lookit here.”
He grasped Jasper around the midsection and hoisted him up like a shoat so that Brother Jobe could inspect him from where he lay.
“I’ll be jiggered.”
“It’s him all right,” Seth said.
“You boys better get me down to his daddy as fast as you can,” Brother Jobe said, gasping between his words. “I need a doctor.”
Seth climbed back in the driver’s box. Elam lifted Jasper into the saddle on Atlas, mounted up behind him, and tossed the boy’s backpack in the wagon box. They rode behind the wagon to keep an eye on Brother Jobe, who seemed to come in and out of consciousness as they made their way down the road from the elevations. After an hour, Seth halted his team and climbed down to take a leak. Brother Jobe lay groaning in the wagon, turning his head from side to side and sweating heavily, though it was fifty-four degrees at two o’clock in the afternoon. Elam and Jasper remained in the saddle while Seth emptied his bladder at the side of the road.
“I think I know what’s wrong with him,” Jasper said.
“How would you know what’s wrong with him?” Elam said.
“My father is the doctor.”
“And you’re but a child.”
“I’m a child who knows doctoring.”
“What do you know of doctoring?”
“I’ve assisted my father with patients since I was eight years old.”
“That so?”
“Including surgeries.”
“He says he’s got the cancer.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What ails him, then?”
“Set me down to examine him and I’ll tell you for sure.”
“Can’t you tell from up here?”
“I’ll know for sure if you set me down.”
“Don’t even think of running off,” Elam said.
Seth had finished relieving himself and was buttoning up as he walked back to the wagon. Elam hoisted Jasper out of the saddle and lowered him down to the road.
“What’s up now?” Seth asked.
“The boy’s going to have a look at BJ.”
Seth made a skeptical face.
“He thinks he knows what’s ailing him,” Elam said.
“How would he know?”
“He says he’s been helping the doc with patients since he was eight.”
“You think we ought to let him?”
Elam hesitated a moment, glanced right and left, and nibbled his lip. “Yes, I do,” he said.
In the meantime, Jasper had climbed up the running board into the cargo box of the wagon. Brother Jobe lay on his mattress in a state of tentative consciousness, muttering fragments of Bible patter, imagined commands to subordinates, and sundry disconnected words. His eyes opened for moments and then closed again as he babbled.
“I’m going to examine you, sir,” Jasper told him.
Brother Jobe did not respond.
Jasper pressed the back of his hand to Brother Jobe’s damp brow, pressed his ear against his chest to listen to his heart and lungs, and took his pulse at both the wrist and the neck.
“Now I’m going to loosen your trousers and touch your abdomen,” Jasper said. He undid several buttons and drew out Brother Jobe’s shirttails so that his generous belly was exposed. With his fingertips overlapping each other, as he had watched his father do many times, he pressed on a spot about one-third of the distance diagonally between the crest of the hip bone and the belly button. Though the pressure was gentle, Brother Jobe gave forth a howl. Satisfied, Jasper lowered the shirttails back over Brother Jobe’s belly but left the trousers unbuttoned to relieve the pressure on his belly. Then he climbed out of the box and stood between Seth and Elam.
“Brother Jobe has got acute appendicitis,” he told them.
“What makes you think that?” Seth said.
“You can tell by pressing on a spot. It’s called McBurney’s point.”
“How do you know that?”
�
��I’ve done it with my father.”
“You sure?”
“Yessir. It’s this spot here.” Jasper showed them on his own abdomen.
“What’s it mean?” Elam said.
“He needs an appendectomy.”
Seth flinched. “You mean, like, an operation?”
“Yessir.”
“Well, we got to get him down there to your father.”
“I don’t think there’s time for that,” Jasper said, looking up at Elam. “Didn’t you say we’re more than a day from Union Grove?”
“Yes,” Elam said.
“Maybe we might hurry it up more,” Seth said.
“We can’t jostle him all to heck—that can’t be good,” Elam said, looking to Jasper.
“That wouldn’t be good,” Jasper said.
“You sure it’s the appendix?” Seth said.
“I’m pretty sure,” Jasper said.
“Are we fools to look to a child for medical advice?” Seth said, drilling his eyes into Jasper’s.
Jasper shrugged.
“One way or another, it’s going to be coming on nightfall in a few hours,” Elam said.
“I say let’s see if we can hurry it up a little,” Seth said.
“All right,” Elam said and extended his hand down to Jasper to hoist him back into the saddle.
Seth climbed aboard his wagon and geed up his team. But trying to drive faster on the broken road, with its fissures, potholes, and loose chunks of pavement, only made the wagon bounce around more violently, which caused Brother Jobe to cry out louder and more frequently. After fifteen minutes of it, Seth brought the team to a halt again. This time Elam dismounted and went over to Seth and had words with him out of earshot of Jasper, who remained in the saddle. Then they both came over and stood at the mule’s withers, looking up at Jasper.
“Just how much time does he have, anyways?” Seth asked.
“Twelve hours, maybe,” Jasper said.
“What’s going on in there?”
“Inside Brother Jobe?”
“Yes. How does this sickness work?”
“It’s an infection. There’s this little sac that comes out of the bowel. It fills with pus and it can burst. Then the infection spreads in the abdominal cavity and that’s generally what will kill a person.”
The Witch of Hebron Page 28
