“I’ll look in and let you know what Chase is up to.”
“I’ll be here,” he says, unconcerned, but then he stands and offers you his hand. The two of you shake as if sealing a pact.
“Take care of Marta and Amelia,” he calls after you, and you promise you will.
Outside, Carl Soderholm rattles past in his buggy, his bay mare raising a gray cloud. He sees you but doesn’t wave, doesn’t slow, just heads east out of town toward Ender’s bridge. As you cross the street, the air bites at your eyes, coats your tongue. Fenton’s door is open. Look inside, and the place is topsy-turvy, the shelves empty, the floor littered with yard goods. It reminds you of Kentucky, the looting. Wade through the clutter. His gun rack is empty, the lock sawed off. The entire display of knives is missing.
Harlow pokes his head in with a telegram. “Bart’s got trouble out on the line.”
You’re knee-deep in smashed sacks of flour and ask him to read it to you.
“Says a deputy of his had to shoot someone.”
“Who?”
“Emmett Nelligan. Just winged him, it says. Got the whole family in the pokey.”
High-step over the mess, read the wire yourself. Bart’s raised a barricade so no one else tries to break through. There’s still no word on Millard. You swear and tell Harlow what to wire him back. You tell him the whole plan and what he needs to do.
“Montello’s still sending,” Harlow says.
“I don’t care,” you say. “They’re fools if they stay there. After the freight gets in, tell them to get on it. And get someone to ring that bell.”
West of town the sky is darker, and the wind has picked up, the hot ash stinging your cheeks. It’s slippery, and you can’t ride as fast as you like. Your chest doesn’t hurt as much, just the remnants of a bruise. Someone’s finally ringing the bell, a slow, steady toll. Past the wreckage of Millie and Elsa’s, Winslet’s, Heilemann’s. It looks like Kentucky during the war, those endless hollows you marched through, the carcasses of hogs bloating in the sun, children hiding behind their mothers. Past Ramsay’s still boarded up. You’re tempted to stop at their gate, run up to the porch to see if she’s alive. Probably not; it’s been days. On the way back, you promise, if you have time. The horizon’s black as a tornado. When you pass the field full of Terfel’s sheep, you can’t even smell them.
You race all the way to the gap at Cobb’s tunnel, where John Cole and his crew are widening the fire line. The air is filled with cinders; they patter like sleet in the trees. The grass catches fire, and the men frantically stamp on it, dance in a huddle as if it’s a rattler, then pick up their shovels again. While you’re talking with John, a doe zigzags through the crew and bounds past you, headed for town.
“Don’t stay too long now,” you warn John.
“Don’t you worry about that,” he says. “You just make sure that train’s there.”
Back past the Q for the swamper camp, posted by a corduroy road running back into the pines. There’s no one there, you reason, and if they’re dead, you can’t fire the place because it’s in the middle of the woods. It’s that simple. So why are you stopped by the sign? Why stand there debating it, wondering how your bike will stand up to the ruts?
It’s been a week.
Don’t waste your time, Doc said.
He meant Chase.
He meant the dead.
There, that’s where you disagree with him. The dead need to be taken care of. Isn’t that your duty?
It’s just one of your jobs, and right now it’s a luxury. The air’s stinging with cinders. Be sensible. Get on your bike and ride.
Past Dole’s and Schnackmeier’s and Margaret Kyne’s. You leave them to die by fire.
Maybe they’re already dead.
You hope so. You picture them on the floor of the pantry, laid out in the front hall. Probably at the door, their last effort spent rattling the lock, cursing your name.
What, do you want to say you’re sorry? What good does that do? You killed them sure as the disease. Have you saved any of them?
Not Amelia. Not Marta. Not Doc.
The first house you stop at is Paulsen’s. The windows are shuttered. You rap at the door. A rumble, then footsteps, the jingle of a key, and Henrik Paulsen opens the door holding a shotgun from the hip.
“Stand back, if you would,” he says, and you do. “You ain’t sick, are you?”
“No,” you say, and ask the same of him.
“No. Ain’t planning on it neither.”
You keep your hands in front of you and explain the freight, and still he doesn’t budge. He comes out on the porch, looking around for your deputies, then forces you down the steps and into the yard. “I ain’t about to get mixed up with any town folk if I can help it.”
“Look over yonder,” you say, and slowly point to the massed blackness.
“John Cole still working that line of his?” he asks.
“Yep.”
“Then no telling where it’ll go. Ain’t that right?”
Agree with him, start in again with the plan.
“Where’s everyone else?” he asks, waving the barrel around. “If you’re taking everyone, where are they?”
You can’t answer him.
“No sir,” he says, “we made it this far, we’ll take our chances. If worse comes to worst, we can always go down the well.”
You’d forgotten about that. It’s an old Indian trick, though with the size of this fire, you don’t give it much chance of working. You tell Henrik that, admitting, though, that it’s possible, that your plan’s not foolproof either.
“To each his own,” he says, and when you nod at this logic, he lowers the gun. “No hard feelings, Sheriff.”
“None,” you say, and drop your hands. “I’ll look in on you after.”
“I’d be obliged.”
Riding away, you’re not surprised. People don’t like to leave their homes. They’ll bundle up the silver and bury it in the front yard, dig it up warm after the fire moves through. Let the stock run free, fend for themselves. You understand better than anyone, people don’t like to give up what they’re used to.
Yancey Thigpen’s already made a break for it. His horses are wandering the back pasture, harnessless, sneezing and waving their heads at the ashes. He’s locked the barn so they won’t rush back in, left his own front door open. You’re glad he’s gone, just hope he’s not out at the line.
Fred Lembeck says he’ll get his things together, calmly, as if he hadn’t planned to leave. For some reason it makes you angry. You’d think a man with one arm would get used to thinking ahead.
“Just take what you need,” you say, then think how ridiculous it sounds. Tomorrow there may be nothing left of the house. Take everything, you think.
“I’ll be more than a minute,” he calls from the back.
“We’ll meet at the river,” you tell him, “right below Ender’s bridge,” and when you’re sure he’s heard you, move on.
At Huebner’s you’re surprised to find Carl there with his family.
“I thought you were in Shawano,” you say.
“I was, but I couldn’t stay there. Not with this.”
“I suppose I understand,” you say, and go over the plan. You’re getting faster at it, and the more you explain it, the better it seems. You leave Terfel’s convinced it’ll work.
The next place is Ramsay’s, and against your better judgment you slow and then hop off at the gate. It’s latched, the post capped with ash, the sign still warning people away. Parts of the Q have chipped and fallen to the floor, but the lock’s solid. You hammer at the door, then listen.
Nothing. But you expected that.
Wander across the porch and peek through the boards. It’s dim inside. Broken dishes, what might be blood on the rug. You call her name, wait.
Walk around back, then the other side. The boards are intact, and you climb the porch steps again and pull out the key.
Fast around the
downstairs, then up. You smell her first. She’s in a doorway, her legs fallen awkwardly across the hall, the rest of her in the bedroom. Flies lift from a pile of dried vomit. It’s yellow, dotted with tiny red specks—matchheads.
How cruel you’ve become, thinking it’s better than Paris green. Then it’s true, you’ve gone absolutely mad, utterly indifferent to those you know. Every day there’s less of you. How you’d love to stop, to follow her. Your stomach clenching around the chemicals would be a penance, an offering before the release. But who would take care of Friendship then?
You kneel and carefully recite a prayer. Eyes shut tight, you picture Sarah Ramsay in the kitchen, cutting the heads off matches two by two, building a little pile. Gather breath and ask Him for strength, for forgiveness, then stand and walk away, leave her sinfully unattended.
The road is trackless again, a pond of ash. From town, the bell sounds muffled and dull. The wind is hot and hard, pushing you along; it lifts your hat, bites at the back of your neck. Every flake makes you grunt. You can see why hell is filled with fire. Lord knows how John Cole and his crew are doing.
Just outside of town a swallow drops from the sky, plummets into the sere cornfield beside you. You turn in time to see a whole flock falling, bending the dead stalks, thumping into the dust like hail, a rain of stones. They come down around you, their soft bodies pelting your back. They cover the road, dead yet perfect. When you bend to touch one, its feathers are hot, its eye boiled white.
You check the sky—empty again, and then a crow wings slowly over the woods, untouched.
Is this prophecy? But you can make nothing of it. There’s no sin Friendship needs to redress. There’s no reason behind any of this.
You stop in at home and get Marta out of bed and dressed, set her on the love seat with Amelia. Tell them the plan as you get them ready.
You’ll be back, she asks, and you reassure her. She understands you have to help the others first, she doesn’t question it. You kiss her to show how grateful you are for her. She knows.
Just don’t leave us here, she jokes.
“I won’t,” you say, and wave, then lock the door behind you.
Harlow’s waiting for you outside the jail, a wire in his hand. The bell’s deafening. “Montello’s down,” he shouts, and waves the paper tape to prove it.
It’s their last message.
FIRE HERE. MUST LEAVE SOONEST. ADVISE SAME.
“When’d this come in?”
Harlow counts the perforations on the tape. “’Leven-forty. Bout ten minutes ago.”
You reach for your watch, sure it’s earlier.
No. Where did the time go?
“Shawano still up?” you ask him.
“Already sent it. Haven’t heard back yet. I’m sure Bart’s busy. Lots of folks been headed that way.”
“He can take care of them,” you shout, mostly to convince yourself. “Who’s ringing the bell?”
“Cyril.”
“Where was he this morning?”
“I don’t know,” he says, and shrugs when you press him. “Maybe he slept late.”
Across the street, the crew from the mill is tossing buckets of water on Fenton’s roof. Let it burn, you want to say. None of it makes any sense.
Just as you’re going inside to get your rifle, John Cole and his crew hightail it in, swerving, their team foaming black around the mouth. They all jump off and rush around to haul someone off the bed. You run out and see one of the men is missing his eyebrows, his face a mask of soot. They’re carrying a heavy man on a makeshift litter; he’s burnt black as a minstrel show, his clothes stuck to his skin.
“Fire jumped the line,” John says, steering him toward Doc’s office.
“You can’t go in there,” you say. “He’s got the sickness. Put him in here.” You throw open the door to the jail and they lay him on the floor.
He coughs, moans without moving his lips. It’s Kip Cheyney, you didn’t even recognize him. His fingers show through the holes in his gloves—bubbles and bloody patches.
“I’ll see what Doc says,” you promise, and leave them standing around like mourners.
Bang the glass, the frame. Call.
You wait, expecting him to part the curtain, his breath a whistle. You hope he’s changed out of the dressing gown.
Rattle the knob, call again.
John comes out on the sidewalk. “Isn’t he there?”
You borrow a glove and punch the window in. John wants to follow you through the parlor, but you turn him back, remind him Doc’s sick.
He’s in the last room, laid out on top of the covers, still in the gown. His eyes are closed, his lips open. One arm hangs off the side, the back of his hand touching the floor. On the nightstand sits an empty vial of laudanum, and propped against the lamp, a letter in rich stationery for Irma.
“Goddamn it,” you say. “Goddamn it all.”
You squat and raise Doc’s arm, lay it beside him, quickly offer the same prayer you gave Sarah Ramsay. Doc. Goddamn. You feel like something needs to be said in his behalf but it’s like a sermon you don’t know how to start. What does it mean to say he was a good man? But he was. He helped others, he loved Irma. It does count for something.
Rise and slip the letter in your jacket. Go to the cabinet. There must be a salve for burns here somewhere. Carl Soderholm would know, but he’s gone like the rest of them, the cowards, and you rifle through the jars and boxes and tubes, interrogating labels.
Doc lies there. You’re not disappointed in him, you’re not, but you drop a bottle and can’t stop yourself from kicking the broken pieces and shouting out a curse. There’s no time. Goddamn it all is right.
You open one that looks like earwax and smells like bag balm. You figure Kip would be better off asleep and find a vial of valerian drops.
“Just follow the instructions on it,” you tell John. “And don’t say anything around town about Doc being sick.”
He nods, promises.
Tell him you’re headed out to the Colony, that you’ll be back to take the others down the river. You want John to have them ready when you get back, everyone who’s coming. They can bring Kip in the wagon.
He looks at you, confused.
“Talk to Harlow,” you say. “He knows the plan.”
You grab your rifle and head for Ender’s bridge. The road is mobbed with tracks, and in the ashes lies a flattened birdcage, a canary still in it, clinging sideways to its perch. You pick the twisted thing up and the bird flutters and beats its wings. Pry the bars wide with your knife and set it free, toss the cage aside.
Don’t congratulate yourself. Think of Doc, letting him rot there like an animal.
Why can’t you understand him? Sarah Ramsay. Millie.
Because it’s a temptation you’ve almost fallen into.
Because it’s wrong.
The handcar’s where you left it. You lay your rifle on the floor and pump, the bruise reminding you of last night. You understand Fenton. During the siege, men would run out from behind the horses and be shot dead rather than lie there another night. How many things in life come down to patience, the willingness to accept, to wait for a better chance.
The woods rush up and swallow you, and the bell retreats into the distance. Cyril missing daybreak. It’s getting so you can’t depend on anyone.
Not Doc, you don’t mean that.
He did the best he could.
Did he?
You concentrate on the bar, don’t try to answer for him. Your shoulders hurt, and your collarbone’s sore. Lean into the curve and onto the Nokes spur, the tracks rusty with disuse, ferns thrashing the front of the car. The sky’s taken on a jaundiced tinge, like before a storm. You wonder if Chase has led them down into the mines, then wish you’d thought of it before. Too late now, you’d never get everyone out here in time. Maybe he’s filled the mansion with the sick; they must be overflowing, the nurses careworn, harried. You imagine that he’s burned the great house to the groun
d, sent it shuddering earthward like Montello’s, the nurses still in it. Revelations, the Last Times, the fire that burns the earth clean. He set it with the kerosene the stout woman bought the other day. It should have been obvious. What kind of a penny-dreadful detective are you?
No, you would have seen it, even in this muck. And Chase is like you, isn’t that what you tried to tell Doc? He’ll send his healthy down south of town, after the circus, keep the sick ones here and tend to them. He’s responsible to his flock, something you doubt in yourself now.
But there’s a chance the schoolboy rumors are true, and after everything you’ve seen this week, you wouldn’t rule out a terrible ceremony, a communion with each believer lining up to kiss the diseased lips of their Messiah.
Anything is possible out here. The trees seem to confirm this, the woods full of shadows, fire raining from the sky. It’s a relief to turn the last curve of the spur and see the mansion still standing, the barns and corncribs and rock-walled slurry. And then you see there’s no one there, not a single chicken.
Pull the brake lever, get your rifle and hop off. Wind in the trees, the patter of ashes. The gate is an arch of raw branches, the Holy Light sign swinging beneath it. REV. S. P. CHASE, it says. You cross a long swath of yard toward the mansion. No footprints, hoofprints, nothing. The windows are shuttered, the porch stairs caked with ash.
Beyond the mansion stands the carriage house, also closed, then a row of cottages with saints’ names above the doors. Sebastian, Stephen, Thomas. All martyrs. None of them are locked. Inside they have identical furniture—a single bed, a desk, a simple chair—and each is tidy, unlived in.
The formal gardens are planted with vegetables, the grand fountain in the middle used to water them. Despite the drought, their beans are high climbers, their tomatoes fat as apples. All of it’s dusted with ash, a slick skin on the water.
The mines, you think.
He’s smarter than you, he’s taken better care of his people.
Yes, but it was easier—they listen to him.
Turn, the rifle loose in one hand, pointed toward the ground. The chapel, another barn, the chicken house with its rows of windows. You slog across the yard, leaving tracks, and as you angle for the chapel you hear—lightly, as if far off—singing.
A Prayer for the Dying Page 13
