A Prayer for the Dying

by Stewart O'Nan

  “Pestilence,” you say.

  “Cleansed by a mighty fire. I figured you’d appreciate it.”

  “So they’re waiting to be saved.”

  “Put it this way—I wouldn’t count on them to help put it out.”

  Doc’s always seen Chase as a fanatic. You’re not so sure; you see more in him, or is it just that you want to? You don’t presume.

  “Who’s that Cyril was ringing?”

  He sighs. “Let’s see. Jim Brist. Hilma Rockstad. Walter Duncan.” He shakes his head. “They’ve been coming in at all hours. How’s Amelia?”

  “Not well,” you say, and he nods, sorry.

  “Marta?”

  “The same. You send word to Irma?”

  “Yep,” he says. “You know she wants to come.”

  The two of you are quiet. You want to say you don’t blame him for saving her, but you don’t.

  “I’ll have Harlow get a wire to Bart,” you say. “Then I’ll set out some signs. You want anything special on them?”

  “Nope. No sense everyone going crazy. Just put: ‘Town Sick.’”

  Across the street, Harlow’s not surprised. “The number of folks I’ve had to notify,” he says, though you both know he’s sent Doc’s messages to Chicago. He taps the sounder without looking, like Marta playing Bach. You ask Bart to meet you out by the town line. Please reply best time.

  You tell Harlow to come get you in the cellar when Bart calls.

  “How long you think we’re going to be shut up?” he asks.

  “However long it takes.”

  “You think that fire’s going to wait for us? You know you can’t get St. Martine anymore.”

  “I thought it was moving east.”

  “Whichever, it’s headed our way, and it’s not going to stop for any quarantine.”

  “Wait and see. It might just miss us.” You thank him and walk across the street, thinking you ought to have a better answer than that. Again, you scourge yourself for not calling for a quarantine sooner. Would it make any difference? Probably not.

  In the cellar, you use the cheapest white pine, knots and all. You make the signs big so they’ll be readable. Slop on the whitewash, let it set, then sketch in the letters with a pencil, make sure of the spacing. Any other day, you’d let these things occupy you, lose yourself in the littlest details, but you keep thinking of the fire and how to get everyone out of town.

  The line might hold, especially down by the canal.

  “Nowhere else though.” Once the fire gets into those oaks, it’ll jump crown to crown. A few feet of dirt’s not going to stop it.

  The train’s the simplest answer, but there’s no guarantee it’ll be running. By the wagonload’s a possibility, but if the fire comes from the east, there’s no road wide enough. You have to hope it moves west so you can send everyone to Shawano.

  What about the quarantine? Bart’s not going to want these people.

  “Damn it,” you say, feeling a sliver stick deep in your finger. You squeeze the tip and, along with a bead of blood, the dark head pops up. Not enough. Find the tweezers right where they’re supposed to be on your bench and pluck the thing out. It feels almost soft. You roll it between your fingers until it vanishes and stand there thinking maybe this is how the troubles of the world disappear when you enter the kingdom of Heaven. What does John say—this world is but a trial.

  You do four, one for each main road and two to let the freight know not to pick up anyone. S is the hardest letter. Take your time, do it right.

  Harlow comes when you’re almost done and says Bart says the sooner the better.

  “Tell him I’m leaving now,” you say, choose a maul and take the two dryest signs up the stairs.

  You ride past your house on the way out. The curtains are tied back as if nothing’s wrong, and you search the windows for Marta, catch a glimpse of the crab apple in the backyard. You can only hope she’s asleep, or maybe playing the melodeon with her eyes closed, filling the house with sound.

  An elephant rears on the side of Ender’s bridge, half-eclipsed by a new sign: USE INDIAN CORN CURE. The varnish on it smells fresh. You pass Karmann’s and Weitzel’s, the cut fields glinting in the heat. Their fences give way to woods; the road’s rutted here, and the signs are hard to balance on your handlebars.

  You slow. Beside the Hermit’s lake, you turn a corner and a crow lifts off. A turtle lies crushed in the road, the track of a wheel splitting it. And there’s no reason—you know the Hermit hates them, loses a precious duck to one every summer—but you stop and nudge it into the weeds.

  “Getting sentimental,” you say, but who are you fooling, you’ve always been.

  Make a note to see the Hermit on the way back. Check on Marta. The firebreak. Austin’s dog.

  You swear for the second time today and think of Amelia. You should have listened to Marta, sent them both to Aunt Bette’s. There’s no sense thinking that now, but you do. You were stupid.

  Still, would that have saved them or just killed Aunt Bette? You don’t know.

  The Hermit’s lake glitters in the trees, and again you wonder how it would be to renounce everything of this world. But it’s not true—he has his ducks, his cave. They say he sleeps with them on top of him like a living quilt, that he has long, odd conversations about the stars and those who would do him harm, that he preaches to the trees like some lost prophet. He’s never said a word to you, only waves from across the lake to let you know he’s fine, but you believe he appreciates your visits, that he thinks of you not as an intruder but as company, however brief. And you wonder if there’s something kindred between you, and, yes, sometimes this worries you. To have nothing, to be beholden to no one. Maybe this is temptation, not Chase and his fallen women and easy prophecies. But why should you worry, you who keep to the meanest path?

  Sin is in the heart. Now you would flee what you must do, when for so long you’ve lorded it over others. Your goodness, your generosity. You fear that, in this, all your protestations of faith will come to nothing. You would rather be the Hermit than Chase, retire rather than have your faith tested.

  “No,” you protest, as if you’ve come to a decision.

  And you have. You stand up on the pedals and ride for the line as if every second counts.

  Bart’s already there, stopping traffic, standing in the middle of the road, turning wagons back with his one hand. His other sleeve is neatly folded and pinned to his shoulder like a handkerchief. When you get up to him, you see his mustache is fading gray in patches, like an old dog going white around the snout. The war’s been a long time gone.

  “’Bout time,” he says, pointing back over the drivers’ heads. “What’s the story?”

  “Diphtheria,” you say, trying to sound matter-of-fact, untouched.

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Yep,” you say.

  “How bad? I heard Cyril ringing away this morning.”

  He holds the sign while you hit it with the maul, the shock rushing up your arms. You tell him most of what you know. Twenty dead, more expected. He spits in the dust in sympathy, wipes his lip with his fist. “How’s old Doc holding out?”

  “He’s all right, just a little busy. All we need’s a week or two to let things settle.”

  Thonk. Thonk.

  “Don’t think we’re going to get it,” he says. “That fire’s not taking the stage. Got everyone riled up over here. They’re running around like a bunch of dumb hens. Half of town’s cleared out and the other half’s stocked up on buckets.”

  “You got a fire line started?”

  “Done,” he says. “It won’t hold. It’s like drawing a mark on the levee and telling the river she can’t rise.”

  You wiggle the sign, give it another whack. The post splits, a long splinter dangling. “Cheap pine.”

  “Does the job,” Bart says.

  A man you half-recognize stops his buckboard and calls over, “How long?”

  Bart shrugs. “Long a
s it takes. It’s up to Jake here.”

  It’s what they called you in the army. Like you, Bart can’t quite give up that life.

  “How long?” the man demands.

  “A week,” you guess, “maybe longer. Why?”

  “I got business at the mill.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “I come all the way from Sheboygan. I got fifty pair of good boots here.”

  “Might try and wire,” Bart suggests. “You could leave the boots here and have someone come get ’em.”

  The man swears, and you want to tell him his fifty boots don’t mean a thing, that he’s not looking at the situation correctly. Instead you ask him to turn around so other folks can get by. He doesn’t argue, just sneers and flips his reins, wheels around so his dust rolls over you.

  “Idjit,” Bart says.

  There are more. The two of you stand there, Bart with his arm across his stomach, yours crossed, the maul still in one hand, as if guarding the sign. You field the same questions, almost start to believe your answers. The last wagon rolls off and the road’s clear.

  “All right,” you say. “No one in, no one out.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Bart says, though you both know you’re too busy to watch it all the time. You never saw the paper man for the circus or INDIAN CORN CURE; they come through at night.

  You start to move off, but Bart calls you back.

  “What if the fire comes while you’re still sick?”

  All your half-made plans rise up in your mind and then fall, lie down like scythed hay.

  “No one in, no one out.”

  “No matter what,” Bart says, giving you one last chance.

  “No matter what,” you say, and give him a look to make sure he understands. It catches him off-guard, that look, too hard, part of a long-gone war. But it can’t be too hard for what you’re saying, and again you wonder if this is Amelia.

  His lips part. He doesn’t take his eyes off you, as if you’ve drawn on him and it’s his play.

  “All right,” he says, but you wonder if he really believes it.

  *

  You pound the other one into the ground far enough off the track so it doesn’t get run over. The canal cuts through here, arrow straight, its limestone walls bright, the water low and black as grease, cottonwood fluff sprinkled across the top, and clumps of fat waterlilies. On the towpath a scattering of dung draws flies. Your sign can be seen by the drovers, lets them know to keep going south, to not take on cargo. You knot the maul to a belt loop and walk your bike back through the crackling weeds to the road and head back toward town.

  Even this far out you can hear Cyril ringing the hour—three. Everything seems to be taking too long today.

  You’ve promised yourself to look in on the Hermit, so at the bend in the road you hop off and pad through the shadows and across the soft pine duff until it turns marshy and the light off the water is blinding. On the far shore, his ducks mill and rip at the grass outside the cave mouth. Must be twenty of them by now, he has a talent for them sure. They say he believes people want to poison them, that he guards them like a mother. You shield your eyes and try to find him, that rick of rags and matted hair.

  “Ho!” you cry, and wave your arms over your head, looking for movement. “Ho there!”

  You hope he’s in. Sometimes in summer they say he takes off for the hills. Too many folks in the woods for his taste. Children pester him, and young people out picnicking. You too?

  “Ho! Ho there!”

  The ducks pay no mind to you, pluck up the grass. You wonder if you should walk around the near end and see if he’s all right. You have to check on Marta. Austin’s dog.

  “Hell’s bells,” you say, just as you see him emerge from the cave.

  He’s wearing the yellow shirt you left for him this spring, and it looks like he’s trimmed his beard. You’re pleased with how presentable he is, as if it’s your doing. You wave and he waves back, a tiny figure beneath the dry pines, and you realize he needs to know about the fire. You cross your arms over your head and wave them back and forth.

  He does the same.

  You wait, wondering if he understands, then do it again.

  He repeats it.

  “No,” you say, then cup your hands around your mouth and holler, “fire.” It echoes.

  He shakes his head.

  Holler it again.

  Nothing.

  You point to the near end of the lake and start walking along the shore, and soon he does too.

  You meet at a rippling spillway ruled by a wide beaver dam. Closer, you can see the ragged cut of his beard. Probably used an old knife whetted on soft limestone. His hair’s nearly white all over, and a knee pokes out of his dungarees. He walks hunched, head bent, like he’s still in the cave.

  “There’s a fire coming,” you call across the gap.

  “Eh?”

  “I said, there’s a fire coming.”

  “I can’t hear so good,” he says, and pats his ears. “Took sick this winter.”

  You walk out on the dam, feeling it gently give under your boots. He climbs his side easily, in wide strides, making you aware of how town you are. Even before you lean across the spillway, you can smell the stink of infection. His fingernails are so long they’re curled like ram’s horns. He turns his ear to hear you. And still, inches apart, you’re separated, part of the world and not.

  “There’s a fire coming. Big one. Killed a bunch of Winnebagos up north.”

  He nods to let you know he heard you, but doesn’t say anything.

  “You gonna be all right out here?”

  He nods. “I got the lake.”

  “You’ll jump in when it comes. Think of yourself. Don’t go running around after those ducks.”

  Nods again. He looks off at the water, lost.

  “All right,” you say. “Just thought you ought to know.”

  “Right obliged,” he says, and turns and tromps away over the dam like it’s a sidewalk, his long hair swinging, and you realize what you can give him, how you can help.

  “Hold on there,” you call, and when he turns to see what you want, you already have the knife out, its pretty finish catching the sun.

  He climbs the dam to you, looks but doesn’t take it. “Already got one.”

  “Always use another.”

  “That’s true,” he says, and takes it, weighs it in his hand. “That is true.”

  *

  There’s no one out west of town, the bogs shimmering in the heat. The Endeavor road’s empty all the way to the line, and as you roll past the houses, you remember what Doc said about the swamping camp and wonder about the people inside, behind the windows and old horsehair screens. Millie and Elsa’s yard is burnt brown, the roses withered, the fence still busted up. The roadway’s baked, and driving the sign in raises a sweat. There’s no fire line out here, and everything’s brittle as tinder.

  Do the railroad in the stink of creosote. No time to climb up Cobb’s tunnel, though you suspect you’d find a nice breeze on top. Get it done, get going.

  Marta’s asleep when you check on her, in bed, her shift and stockings hung over the commode. She breathes so shallowly, a long pause in between, and you wonder if Doc could help any. Probably not. It’s not his fault. Chase can’t save them either, nurses, mansion, fancy city medicine and all. The only cure is to wait, have faith, hold to what’s your own. When isn’t that so?

  You look at her face and see Amelia’s, the sudden upturn at the corner of her lips, the smile she wears when she’s not even trying, and then you’re on your knees again, asking Him to be merciful this time, to care for those who are His. It’s selfish, this beseeching, but there’s nothing without her, you’ve already lost Amelia, a man can only bear so much. Abraham and Isaac. Lot. Job. These are all lessons you’ve preached, yet when it comes time to walk in their shoes you run from it.

  “Who wouldn’t?” you ask, and before standing up, you kneel there a moment i
n the whiskey-colored light, motes rising up between you and the window giving on the backyard, and find you can’t answer that question. A month ago you would have said—with no hesitation—any good Christian, but now you pull yourself up, careful not to wake Marta, grab your hat and head out the door, completely silent.

  Austin’s dog is a mess—black with flies and mushy in the guts. It breaks in two when you lift it with a shovel. You’re used to the stink, but something about it makes you angry, and after you shovel dust over the hole, you bang the blade against a tree, tearing off a chunk of bark, and, suddenly stricken, you bend and find the missing piece and try to fit it back on. It doesn’t stick, and savagely you kick the trunk. Pick up the shovel and head back toward the churchyard. It’s hot. Maybe you’re crazed like Marta was last night, maybe that’s it.

  “Crazy Jacob the Undertaker,” you say.

  But when you reach the churchyard you shut up. Don’t want to be seen muttering among the tombstones, no. Then you realize the boys who make fun of you aren’t around now.

  Look around town. Fenton’s never opened. The livery’s shut up, and Ritter’s. You and Doc are the only ones. Even the mill’s off digging ditches.

  Cyril breaks you out of the spell, ringing six. Suppertime. No wonder everyone’s gone. You’re the only one not home.

  And why not?

  You decide to look in on Doc, see how things are with him, but there’s a sign in his window: VISITING.

  Walk along the picket fences, smell the chicken fricassee, the boiled corn, the steaming crusts of pies. You expect to meet someone straggling back from the fire line, or a family moving through with their furniture piled high in the back of a wagon, but there’s nothing. Crickets. The rustle of a jay lifting out of a rose bush. Under the oaks, the air goes cool, and you see Mrs. Bagwell lift her shade and take you in, then let it drop again. Another day you’d wave, but you walk along as if you haven’t seen her.

  Your door’s locked. Inside, it’s silent, and you don’t call for Marta. She’s still in bed, and while you’re standing there, she coughs, hard, her body jerking under the covers. Her bangs are plastered to her forehead. Bend and press the back of your hand to her skin. Burning. Fever sleep. You want to wake her up and ask her what you’re supposed to do.