by Billy Coffey
Most of this is accomplished save for an initial flare of surprise for which Arthur cannot be held guilty. The hand he extends across the desk could be better measured against one of Dumb Willie’s, and the tremble in his fingers is no outward sign of some inward ailment. It is rather awe behind that quiver, which Dorothy takes as a welcome sign. The more reverence Arthur feels, the more apt he will be to take them to the spring.
He draws that hand back before it is fully extended and before Abel can move forward to accept it, shaking his head.
“My apologies, Mister Shifflett. You’re not one I’ll shake a hand with across a trash man’s desk.”
Arthur’s hands move to his sides as though he is about to move his chair back. Instead, the entire chair moves with him. The quiet room is undone by the squeaking of metal and rubber as he navigates the wheelchair he is in around the desk to where Abel stands.
Dorothy looks down at the slackened face of the boy she has walked and ridden with all this way.
“A pleasure,” Arthur says, extending his hand once more. “My name is Arthur Free.”
Dorothy watches as Abel’s tiny hand disappears in the folds of Arthur’s. His eyes are no longer on the man, but on the chair in which he sits and moves.
“I ain’t never met a real live Indian before,” he says.
“And I can say I’ve never met one such as you.” Arthur’s smile is lessened only some at the giant he sees in the doorway.
“You oh. Kay?” Dumb Willie asks him. “You . . . broke.”
Abel turns to whisper, “Don’t say that.”
“It’s fine,” Arthur says. He pats the chair. “Only half of me, my friend. And who might you be?”
“I’m Dumb. Will—”
“Abel’s friend,” Dorothy interrupts, though she doesn’t know why. Something in Arthur’s demeanor, a hint of recognition as Dumb Willie began his name. Or it could be nothing. “We’ve come a long way.”
Abel is still staring. It’s as though he’s heard nothing of what’s been said. “What happened to you?” he asks.
“An accident from a long time ago. I fell from a horse and landed on my back. I was okay, thank the Lord, though I’m afraid my spine wasn’t.”
“He’s. Broke,” Dumb Willie says, “like you A. Bull.”
Arthur’s eyes settle back on the boy, though he speaks to Dumb Willie: “Well, son, you look just fine to me. Abel, I expect I’m gonna need a word with your friend in private. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen her, and we have much to catch up on. But I’ll not do a thing until I see to your comfort. What do you need?”
“Nothing, I guess,” Abel says.
“Good. Why don’t you two go on out and have a seat for a bit. I’ll be right with you.”
*
Arthur rolls toward the entrance to show Abel and Dumb Willie out into the fading shadows of the larger office. The door is barely shut before he wheels around. Through a cold stare and two pursed lips, he says, “What have you done?”
“Judge me,” Dorothy answers, “should you have the gall. You do not know the why of our journey here, nor can you understand all that boy has endured. What we have endured.”
She sits in front of the desk in a worn leather chair that looks as though it’s been plucked from the landfill itself, wanting to give Arthur the respect of not having to look down upon him as she speaks. He is a mountain of flesh and muscle save for his skinny legs.
“By what name do they know you?”
“Dorothy,” she says, then shrugs. “It is never my choice where I come, or when, or by what manner. I appear as what brings a comfort to them for whom grace is given, a terror to those from whom it is kept.” And after a silence, “The boy loved trains. He dreams of freedom.”
“Do they know?”
“Only the dim one.” She moves to speak again, wanting to say Dumb Willie, then heeds another whisper of warning to hold the name. “He is special.”
Arthur’s chin drops. He utters a pained chuckle of disbelief. “The boy doesn’t know? Abel doesn’t know?”
“I did not come so that you can weigh me in the scales and find me wanting, Arthur Free. I’ve enough of that from myself.”
“Why haven’t you taken him on?”
Dorothy shakes her head.
“The boy is fading. What happens when his body yields? Do you hate him such that you would leave him to wander?”
“I have saved him.”
“You have made him an abomination,” Arthur says, “and yourself an abuser.”
“It is yet to be the appointed time.”
“It is a quarter past the appointed time—”
Dorothy balls a fist and brings it down hard upon the desk, rattling the phone and a cup of pens and pencils, rustling some pages to the dirty floor beneath them. “I will not hear this, and you would do well to remember what I am and not challenge my kindness.”
Arthur goes cold. He reaches for the two rubber wheels on either side of the chair and eases himself backward. Dorothy does not want this, for them to quarrel.
“The boy searches for his father,” she says. “I cannot deny him that, nor will I deny the safety of his friend. They are the things that hold Abel’s soul to this world, not me.”
“What of this friend? Has he no home?”
“They are so close as to be brothers. Home is wherever they dwell together. So long as there is a choice, Abel will not leave him.”
Arthur’s eyes speak what his lips will not—he believes this a lie.
“And Abel’s father?” he asks.
“In Fairhope. The boy has letters his father has written. The letters have guided us, Arthur. They speak of a purpose higher than his passing. But I cannot get the boy there in time without obligement. And so we are here.”
“And when the boy sees his father? Then you will take him on?”
Dorothy will not answer.
“You mean for me to take you?” he asks. “Is that it? Take you to Fairhope? And what comes when the son sees the father but the father cannot see the son? You would save Abel from the knowing and pain of his death when it occurred, only to place upon him a knowing and pain more terrible when he finally reaches for all he’s sought?” He raises his hands in an act of apparent surrender. “No. I will not. It is a cruel thing you have in mind. You are a shepherd, not a torturer.”
“It is not cruel,” Dorothy says, “and that is not what I seek from you. I’d have your knowledge, Arthur. Nothing more.”
“And by my knowledge you would condemn me to perpetuate this evil.”
“The weight of it will be upon me alone. You will save the boy. Both of them, if you even care. I only need one thing. Your people spoke of a place hid in these mountains. A place of magic. A spring.”
It is as though winter has stolen inside the small place where they sit, even as high summer rests outside. Arthur curls himself at this request as though reduced to little more than a child. His eyes grow wide and blacker. The tremble that only moments ago lay in his hands now creeps to his lips.
“That is legend. Nothing more.”
“Your dread betrays you. It is close. I would have you tell me what you know.”
Arthur shakes his head. “Such a thing is forbidden.”
“I am done with forbidden things. I mean to restore the boy. Tell me, and we’ll be on our way.”
“You cannot do this thing,” he says. “It strikes against God and all that is meant. You will suffer judgment.”
“It has been done before,” Dorothy says. “Once. A boy and the girl he loved. They were spared when I was called to them so they might live yet a little while more.”
“Spared,” Arthur says, “but by whom? Who spared them? You, or God?”
Dorothy will not answer that. She says instead, “I will suffer it for the boy. For Abel.”
“Will you?” He rolls forward now, gaining his strength. Arthur’s face is red with anger. “What penalty will Death itself receive? Have you as
ked yourself that? What is punishment but the taking of something precious in payment for offense? And what does Death hold as beyond price?”
Dorothy lowers her eyes.
“Yes,” he answers. “Only one thing. That day in the far distance when the gray scales that cover this world fall away and light comes to banish the night. The new beginning. That day is what you fear. That hour of joy when the sad earth will be remade in glory, and all the past tears will be fashioned into a river of peace that flows unending, because there is where your place ends. Your purpose will have been fulfilled. Death’s work will be done. And what will come of you then?”
“I will be called beyond,” Dorothy whispers. “To that paradise where I cannot tread.”
“No,” Arthur says. “Not so long as that boy roams this world as a soul unclaimed. What you wish will be taken from you. Death will fall under its own sentence. You will continue until the days are no more, and then you will be either cast down or shown the greater mercy of being extinguished. You will be a candle blown dark.”
“You do not know that,” Dorothy says.
“Can any hand be raised against heaven? Even Death’s?”
“I mean to restore the boy.”
“Have Abel’s remains been found? Is he in the earth?”
Dorothy is careful here of what she says: “His remains have been found. Yes.”
“And if Abel has letters, wouldn’t his father know the boy has passed? You would restore Abel’s life only to present him to one who knows him dead.”
“We were sent,” Dorothy says.
“By whose hand? Would God set you free to go against what is meant and bring the boy to me? To lay upon my shoulders this weight? You struggle against the order of things to your own undoing, and the boy’s. I will not take part in it.” Arthur’s voice is one of defiance and growing strength, his will summoned. His face flashes with a warrior’s fierceness to bring even the stoutest heart to its knees. “Such a thing is not meant, and I command you leave this place.”
Dorothy bends toward him—“You . . . command . . .”—and places her hands upon the desk. Her voice grows deep and low, falling into a tone unnatural to human ears, the words shaking the very walls of the office as though buckled by a mighty wind. The thin form wrapped about her slips away. Arthur moves backward into his chair, pale and lifeless as he beholds Death’s true nature, this haunting specter of emptiness clothed in nightmares of old and young. “I will not have your insolence. I ask you to give what I can take.”
Spiderwebs as black as the deepest cave ease forth from her fingertips, leaching into the wood of the desk. The surface begins to crack and splinter before turning to dust that rains down upon the floor at Dorothy’s feet, a steady line that inches to where Arthur cowers.
“You cannot claim me”—his voice a babe’s—“it is not my time.”
“None know the time until that time has come. I am Death, Arthur Free of the Real People. I followed your olden kin on their long walk of weeping. They suffered me, as will you. I may not take you before your time, but I will see that you and all these you love gaze hard into my face. I will make it such that you will beg me to come swift and sure.”
Tears flood the proud man’s eyes, making the dry beds at his cheeks rivers that quench the fire Death spews. The ghostly fingers that reach for him recede. The desk between them topples and sinks into the ashes. Death relents as it beholds the face beholding it, the fear and despair with which too many have looked upon it for too long. Dorothy’s frail figure sits in front of him once more.
“I will speak of madness,” says she. “I will tell of folly.” Her voice drops. Dorothy wipes her eyes to chase the weariness but finds she cannot. The tired in her is deeper, unable to be reached. “It is me, Arthur. My purpose. How many have I taken on? How many children have I torn from their mothers’ breasts and how many of the strong have I cut down? How many have I plucked from this life to be either lifted up or cast down, and how many of those whom they love have I left behind to rend their hearts and struggle on alone? And for what? For what good does Death teach life’s value only at life’s end, when its lessons are made meaningless and its wisdom empty? How long must I endure taking hold of the gone only to see them turn their eyes back in shame and regret for the lives they leave behind? I am a shepherd merely to those as you, Arthur, the learned and holy. I am but Death to the rest. I am what comes so that they may know they have never lived. I could not bear that with Abel, nor could I abandon his friend. And so I will save the boy. I will dip him in those waters and restore him so that he can be a light to others.”
“The boy is not even of my people.”
“The boy is of all people,” Dorothy says. “Can’t you see that? He is in you all, as you all are in him. Abel can teach them what I cannot—that only by standing in my shadow will there be life. Such a thing cannot be forbidden. We have been drawn here. For this moment. The boy is being guided by hands other than mine toward an end I cannot see. Abel was led to me by a man. A holy man.”
“The holy ones are scattered. The world bends toward night.”
Dorothy shakes her head. “No. This man is one. Abel said he was a preacher come visiting. A traveler. He gave Abel wisdom in a way no man can, and I believe him. Abel says this Reverend Johnny is touched.”
“Reverend Johnny?” he asks. “John Mills?”
Dorothy’s heart, such that it is, feels to flutter and then move. Whether floating upward or sinking, she cannot tell. “You know of this man?”
Arthur lowers his face. He raises a hand to his forehead.
“Yes.”
-4-
It’s a lot of noise going on in that office, Abel thinks, especially for two people who are supposed to be friends. Dumb Willie must be thinking along the same lines. He’s gotten up to put his face against the frosted glass, trying to catch a glimpse of the other side, but there’s nothing. He looks as tired as Abel feels. It’s been a long way they’ve come.
Dumb Willie jumps away and settles back into one of the desk chairs as Arthur’s door opens. He wheels himself out first, holding a piece of paper upside down in his lap. Dorothy is behind him. The look on her face is enough to tell Abel their conversation hasn’t gone well. And though the reasons for that could number many, what his mind settles on is the worst reason of all.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Dorothy? Is it the spring?” He tries to sound brave because Dorothy knows he is, tries to have faith enough that his chin doesn’t tremble and his eyes do not water. “It isn’t real, is it? There’s no magic water.”
Arthur positions himself at the apex of a triangle made up of him, Abel, and Dumb Willie. He doesn’t speak, only looks with those dark eyes. Abel thinks he sees sadness there. Fear too. It’s the same look Dorothy had in the back of that woman’s truck for much of the morning.
“It’s not that, Abel,” she says. “Not that at all. It’s real, and Arthur says he’ll even take us.”
Abel’s eyes are still watering, though no longer from sadness. It’s relief he feels. Those tears feel sweeter.
“Well, that’s great, then. Right? When can we go?”
Dorothy says, “Come on with me, Dumb Willie. Let’s sit out on the porch awhile and let Abel and Arthur talk.”
Dumb Willie rises with a worried look. He follows Dorothy, but not before pausing at Arthur’s side. Wanting a look at that paper, Abel guesses. Or maybe it’s Dumb Willie trying to get a whiff of him, wanting to know if Arthur stinks.
Dorothy lays a soft hand to Abel’s head as she goes. She bends down to whisper, “Gonna be okay now, Abel. And I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he asks.
“Wait outside,” Arthur says. “Both of you. Should Abel still seek the spring after we speak, come back in an hour. I’ll need to make sure things are locked here.”
“How far?” Dorothy asks. “Abel hasn’t much time.”
“He has what time he needs. It is not far.”
Dorothy stands there, looking at Arthur and now Abel. She leads Dumb Willie back through the gap in the counter and out the door. Abel follows him with his eyes. He sees those three men standing way out near those big piles of dirt, watching.
Arthur doesn’t move any closer than he is, though he’s smiling now. It is a thin smile that stretches no deeper than his lips. Like the way Dorothy used to smile, before Abel said he loved her and before she started acting like she loved him back: a grin that cannot hide the pain beneath.
“She told me what it is you seek,” Arthur says. “I can’t blame you for that, Abel. Not even a little bit.”
“Y’all fighting in there? Because it sounded to us like you were fighting.”
“I wouldn’t call me and her friends. We’ve known each other a long while, just as she knew my father and grandfather and all my olden kin.”
“They must’a been awful olden,” Abel says, “since Dorothy’s so young. We’re almost the same age, really. I know this guy back home, he lives in the trailer down the road from us. His wife’s clear twenty years older’n him, but they’re still married. It happens.”
“And is that why you came to me? Because you’d like a wife one day? You want the promise of brighter days ahead?”
“I guess,” Abel says. “But I think Dorothy loves me. She don’t care I’m the way I am. The only reason we come all this way is because she helped us. I ran away because me and my momma are dire. That’s why I’m gone get my daddy and bring him back.”
“What if your father doesn’t want to come back with you?”
“He will. He has to.”
“Has to?” The old man’s black eyebrows rise. “That doesn’t sound like solid reasoning. People seldom do what they have to.”
“He’ll come back,” Abel says.
“Then you believe the only way your daddy will come back is if he finds his boy healthy and whole? Because that I doubt. It seems to be you are a brave and noble young man. Dorothy has said as much. That blood must come from somewhere, wouldn’t you think? Passed down from father to son.”
