After the Rain

by Jane Lorenzini

  When Boone appeared on the boat’s upper deck, she hurried down the dock and looked up at him.

  “It’s Belle,” she said, shivering. “I need your help.”

  •••

  “Of course,” Boone said. “Where?”

  She pointed toward the cottage.

  “Wait right there. I need to grab my revolver from the boat.”

  When he returned, the pair walked briskly back to the cottage. With his Colt .45 drawn, Boone entered through the busted door, Belle staying close to his side. A large man lying motionless on the bed was the obvious source of blood on the floor and on Belle. His hat and a bottle lay on the floor. Boone walked to the bed and, with his free hand, touched the intact side of the man’s neck.

  After several seconds, he looked over at Belle. “He’s dead.”

  She collapsed to the floor and wept into her hands. Boone went to her and sat down. He laid aside the gun and draped his arm around her shaking shoulders. She leaned her head against his chest and sobbed. They sat side by side until she quieted.

  Boone asked softly, “Belle, does this man need to disappear?”

  She vigorously nodded yes.

  He stood and helped her up from the floor. “I’m going to wrap him up in these bedsheets and drag him to the river.”

  She nodded again and turned to face the wall while Boone cleaned up the mess.

  “Belle, I need you to give me your gown. I’m going to turn around. Let me know when you’re dressed again.”

  He heard the dresser drawer open. In less than a minute, Belle said softly, “Done.” He turned and took the soiled gown from her, adding it to the rolled linens.

  Belle plugged her ears as Boone dragged the body across the floor and out the door into the moonless night.

  As he pulled the heavy load, it dug a deep trough in the sand, slowing his journey toward the river. Once there, he dropped the end of the long roll with a thunk. He took a quick break, breathing hard, hands on his hips. Who was this rat? Would Abigail need to know what had happened? He knelt down and began to push on the roll. Nothing else mattered right now. The heels of his boots dug into the sand as he strained to move the man toward his watery grave. Once momentum cooperated, the roll easily spun down the bank and into the water. The splash was brief and minimal. He exhaled, relieved the evidence would now be concealed. Boone watched the wrapped body sink. The black moon stayed hidden as the river quietly swallowed up the last of the secret he now shared with Belle.

  •••

  When Boone returned, Belle was sweeping up debris on the floor. She hadn’t washed her face or hair. A bloody knife lay on the bedside table.

  “Stay here for a few minutes, Belle. I’ll be right back with tools to fix the door.”

  She squeezed the broom handle. “Can I come with you?”

  “Of course,” Boone said. He chided himself for suggesting she stay by herself any longer.

  Aboard the boat, Belle sat on deck while Boone gathered what he needed below. He returned with a sack of tools, a cloth, and a towel jammed into a bucket.

  “Let’s get your hair washed.”

  He helped her lie down on the deck and lean her head over the side of the boat. Her long hair dangled close to the still water. Boone scooped the bucket into the river and gently poured water over her hair, running his fingers through the ends to clear the blood. He repeated the process several times. Using a damp cloth, he lightly washed her face, careful to avoid touching the swollen area. He gave her the towel to wrap up her hair.

  They slowly and silently walked back to the cottage by candlelight. Once inside, Boone began to repair the half-hinged door as quietly as possible, even though the cottage was quite far from the boardinghouse. He made fast work of it.

  “The lock bar is in good shape now; it’s very secure.” He knew the fix was too little, too late but wanted to comfort Belle.

  She was on all fours, washing blood from the floor. He walked over, knelt down, and took the rag from her.

  “Let me do that.”

  As Boone scrubbed the wooden boards and cleaned the knife, Belle sat cross-legged on the floor and rested her head in her hands. He covered the bare mattress with two extra blankets, the pillow with a fabric remnant. Once he closed the window, he sat down across from her.

  “Do you want me to stay with you until morning, Belle?”

  “Please,” she said, and removed the towel from her head. Wet hair spilled down around her shoulders. He watched her run her fingers through it and create a thick side braid. She touched her throbbing cheek.

  “He hurt me for so long.”

  Boone tensed. “Belle, you don’t need to tell me anything.”

  “I just killed a man, Boone.”

  “A man who broke into your cottage and, from what I see, brutally attacked you.”

  “Yes, he did. But that’s not the only reason I killed him.”

  Boone stayed silent.

  “That man is Julius Carson. I grew up with his family because my mother died when I was born. For much of my childhood he did . . . unspeakable things to me.” Her hands drew together and linked fingers. “His depravity found me convenient.” She looked away. “He just kept getting away with it.”

  He watched her eyes, looking beyond him. He hated where she must be and drew her back quietly. “Not anymore, Belle.”

  Neither talked until she continued with her story.

  “I finally got away from him when I was fourteen. Merle took me in. Julius moved away, and I never saw him again . . . until the tournament.”

  Boone blanched, stunned and disgusted by the real reason she’d left the park so abruptly. She wasn’t sick; she was terrified. Had he known who Julius was and what he’d done to Belle, he would have beaten him to within an inch of his life and dragged him to Sheriff Clark. Boone clenched his jaw. The man he’d rolled into the river deserved more than a knife to the neck.

  “I’m very sorry, Belle.” He shuddered at the thought of her horror when she realized who had smashed his way into the cottage.

  She rubbed her neck and sat quietly for a minute. In a soft voice, she said, “I’ve always wanted to kill him, Boone. I’ve done it in my head a hundred times in a hundred different ways.”

  He scooted closer to her and took her hands. “Yes. He deserved it. He was overdue for it.” He waited until she looked into his eyes. “You’re very brave, Belle.”

  She squeezed his hands and looked down. “I’m glad he’s dead. God help me for saying it, but it’s the truth.”

  “No one will ever know.” He reached up and placed his palm on her unharmed cheek. “It never happened.”

  She leaned into his touch. “I don’t want to burden you with this secret.”

  He offered the slightest grin. “I’ve got some of my own. What’s one more?”

  She sighed. “But nothing could be worse than what I’ve done.”

  He sat back and chewed on his lower lip. “I shot a man when I lived in Kissimmee. He died.”

  She tilted her head. “And no one found out?”

  “Only my parents.” He tapped the floor with a finger. “I left home after it happened and found work here.”

  “Well, your secret’s safe with me.” She rubbed her eyes with both hands.

  “Would you like to rest, Belle?” He wasn’t sure if the bed was an option she could stomach.

  “I guess I’ll try.”

  He stood and gingerly helped her up. She walked to the bed and sat on it.

  “What about you?”

  Boone pointed at the rocking chair. “My boat rocks me to sleep every night. This will do just fine.”

  She swung her legs up onto the bed and lay back. “Thank you, Boone.”

  “I’ll be right here.”

  He blew out the candles and settled into
the chair.

  Chapter 13

  The broad, deep puddles in the yard the next morning surprised Belle. She must have slept through a heavy rainstorm. Boone’s presence last night, three feet away, had allowed her to consider sleep. She’d expected to get none at all, her mind and body vaporized. How could she, as a vapor, fall asleep? But she did. Thankfully, a new day came all the faster for it.

  Through the cottage window she could see Abigail’s youngest current boarder, Jamison. Several days ago, when she asked him in the kitchen how old he was, he stuck out his right palm, all fingers up. Now he was playing with a red wooden sailboat in a large puddle beside the vegetable garden. She’d noticed the toy boat in the shed and wondered if Boone built it for Abigail’s youngest guests. How sweet Jamison looked with his bedhead hair and bungled buttons on his shirt, a welcome sight for her tormented mind churning through the horror of last night. She hoped her brain would cycle through it all, somehow. All she wanted right then was to be out of the cottage, moving through the first day of her life without a monster in it.

  Righting a blown-over porch plant, Belle headed down the steps to say hello to the sailor. He was barefoot with his pants rolled up, calf-deep in what must have seemed to him like a proper lake. She waved as she approached and readjusted the head scarf she wore to conceal her swollen, bruised cheek. Her straw hat helped keep the scarf in place. She’d left her boots in the cottage so she could wade with the boy, which she did, lifting her skirt just high enough to avoid soaking its hem.

  “Ahoy, Jamison,” she said.

  He smiled and moved the boat across the water, clutching the top section of the boat’s mast.

  “Ahoy, Miss Belle.” He looked up at her and rubbed one sleepy eye with his free hand.

  “You’re a good sailor, little man. I like how careful you are . . . making sure your boat stays upright.”

  The boy squatted and blew hard into the sail. His bottom dipped into the water.

  “Oops,” he said, standing up and touching his soggy backside.

  “That happens,” Belle said. “Sailors and their boats get wet during adventures.”

  Jamison grinned and resumed powering his trusty vessel, making it lurch in pretend choppy waters.

  Suddenly, an unpleasant memory interrupted the innocence—another time, a different place. Move through, she thought, and saw herself at Jamison’s age.

  There she sat, clutching the coarse hair of a mule’s mane. The day was brisk, and the Carsons were participating in a sugarcane grind with several other families. Julius, knowing she was timid around large animals, had plopped her atop a mule. The animal was hitched to a long wooden pole and walking in endless circles, powering the cane press extracting juice to be boiled into syrup. She gripped the mule’s mane with both hands, her eyes pinched shut. She was certain the creature would break free from the pole and race off into the woods with her on its back. She’d fall off and be attacked by ravenous vultures, their black heads banging against each other in the fierce battle for her flesh.

  “Look how my boat can tip over and still float, Miss Belle.”

  Jamison’s face was beaming as he discovered the toy’s new trick.

  She smiled, grateful to be pulled back to his sailing puddle.

  “Now isn’t that a clever boat,” she said. “It’s always good to be able to rely on something, isn’t it?”

  Jamison nodded and poked at the boat, testing its resolve.

  When George walked from Baker’s toward them, Belle said her goodbyes.

  “Have fun, Captain.” She saluted. The young boy saluted back, then waved to his father.

  She left open the possibility of more flashes back to the past. There was no telling what to expect on this day, washed clean with rain.

  •••

  The river had done its job, moving its water, keeping its secrets. Boone walked along the muddy riverbank, searching for any potential threats to the body that lay below. No one was fishing nearby; gators sunned on thick logs, but some slipped into the water. All good signs.

  Last night seemed impossible. The eerie moan of the conch shell sounded again in his mind. The rank smell of whiskey and sweat filled his nose. Never before had he learned so much about someone in such a lightning flash of a moment. He hadn’t known anything about Belle and—snap—in an instant, she’d revealed to him both immense courage and intense fear. Then, in the flickering light of a candle, she’d shared her darkest secret with him. He shuddered again at the foulness of Julius.

  Before he left the cottage this morning, he’d sat on the bed’s edge and talked softly to Belle.

  “How are you feeling?” he said, searching her eyes for pain.

  “It’s over, right?” Her tone was flat.

  He took her hand, warm from rest. “Yes. It’s finished, Belle.”

  They spoke for several more minutes and decided he would sleep in the rocking chair for however long it took Belle and the cottage to reclaim the peace that was so violently abducted.

  Boone turned from the river and headed toward the Edison property. Belle would be on his mind as he swept the porches in preparation for Mr. Wood’s visit to Seminole Lodge.

  Chapter 14

  The Press editor greeted his interviewee with an angler’s hello.

  “How are they bitin’, Mr. Wood?”

  Stephen Fitzgerald shook William Wood’s hand and sat down with him on the porch of the Edison home.

  “They’re biting like it’s January,” William said, a pile of fishing rods next to his feet. “Still hooked two yesterday, though,” he added, and smiled.

  Belle glanced at the men from her neighboring position near the guesthouse steps. She was preparing the soil for the first set of gardens. Earlier, she’d filled a pushcart with compost from Abigail’s well-aged pile, a rich mix of sawdust, coffee grounds, eggshells, horse manure, and chicken feathers. With a shovel, she moved the pungent fertilizer from the cart to the turned, sandy soil. She was surprised to see both men arrive on the property but kept working, much of her face concealed by her scarf and straw hat. When the editor said, “Mr. Wood,” Belle connected the man with the heap of fishing tackle.

  Last year, the newspaper covered Wood’s brief visit with Edison, describing him as a New York architect one year shy of thirty. A successful building designer, W. H. Wood was invited to Seminole Lodge for a different set of skills, ones he exhibited on the water, not on land. In 1885, Wood was declared the first angler to catch a tarpon using a rod and reel. Previously, the feisty fish were taken only and infrequently with a hand line or harpoon. When Forest and Stream magazine reported Wood’s feat in the waters off southwest Florida, the country and world took notice. The London Observer wrote, “Sportsmen may yet go to Florida for the tarpon, as they now go to the Arctic zone for the reindeer, walrus, and musk-ox.” Wood, like Edison, had given the world a reason to notice southwest Florida.

  Stephen grabbed a pencil from behind his ear. “What brings you to the Lodge, Mr. Wood?”

  William laughed lightly and smoothed each sleeve of his cream-colored suit. “I suppose I’m baiting the hook. I told Al that if he visited this season, I’d outfit him with first-class equipment, flawlessly rigged. I want to give him every opportunity to outsmart and overpower a tarpon this time.”

  “We here in Fort Myers certainly hope he takes that bait, Mr. Wood,” Stephen said. He eyed the pile. “So, just a day trip to drop off the gear?”

  “Yes. I’ll head back down to Punta Rassa later in the day,” William said, and reached down for a rod. He laid it across his lap.

  Turning to a blank page in his notebook, Stephen said, “Please explain what you’ve selected for our neighbor.”

  “First of all, I chose what works for me. Last May, I used this exact setup to catch a six-foot, five-inch hundred and forty pounder; a five-foot bamboo rod and a Silver King reel.” He
ran his hand along the line. “Of course, a durable fifteen-thread line and a number ten O’Shaughnessy hook rigged onto a three-foot link chain.”

  “Bait?” Stephen asked, scribbling.

  “I used mullet, but I’ll be suggesting live crabs and pinfish as well to Al.”

  “So, now we know the tools required,” Stephen said, and leaned forward. “But, Mr. Wood, what of a man’s heart? What is the state of the heart when a monstrous fish agrees to do battle?”

  Belle stopped turning soil and gently laid the shovel on the ground. She kneeled and fiddled in the soil with her hands, hoping to hear William’s answer clearly. Anything to push aside the terror of last night was welcome, and she was grateful to be within earshot of yet another accomplished world figure.

  Leaning over, William placed the pole on the floor. He crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and began. “When you feel the bait lift up from the sandy bottom, you stop breathing. You steady your feet. Is it a shark or a tarpon?” His chest and arms rose and fell with a deep breath. “You force yourself to breathe, calming your body for either foe. Then, when you feel the line going out . . . and out . . . you let it run. The fish thinks it’s free.” His eyes popped open, and he whipped back an imaginary rod with both hands. “Now spring that hook into the fish with a yank!”

  Stephen jumped in his seat, making them both laugh.

  “Pow!” William’s palm cut up through the air. “It’s a Silver King! Up he leaps, unmistakable in his armor of hammered silver. Flashing in the sun and jackknifing midair, he tries to shake the hook, the rattling of those deep-red gills his battle cry.”

  Stephen kept writing and, with his head down, asked, “And then the tug-of-war begins?”

  “Precisely!” William said, and looked toward the sky. “Don’t fail me, rod and reel!”

  Belle stared at William, captivated by his story.

  “An hour passes and your arms and lungs beg for rest, but if you crave the title of tarpon slayer, you must persist.” Holding the imaginary rod again, William worked the reel and jerked the pole. “Keep reeling him in closer. Grant him no gulps of air, no second wind.” With a swoop of his arm, he gaffed the imaginary fish. “Using no less than a five-inch-diameter gaff, grab your prize. Another King dethroned!” He exhaled and smiled.