Kit's Law

by Donna Morrissey

  After a while the crackling fire and the steady rocking sent her drifting off, and I made her lie down on the daybed. Covering her up, I put more wood in the stove and took her place in the rocker. I rocked through the rest of the night, listening to the wind howling against the tide.

  Her forehead grew hotter during the night. The next morning the wind and rain had stopped, and I sat on the door stoop waiting for Sid. Catching a glimpse of him coming down the road, I quickly ran to meet him.

  “She has a fever,” I babbled. “She was out in the rain last night—we seen Shine’s boat.”

  Putting his arm around my shoulders, Sid talked fast and quiet as he led me back to the house.

  “It’s the biggest news since the coming of Christ. Old Joe was the first to find him when he went out to check his nets this morning. They’ve sent a message off to Deer Lake for the Mounties. They should be here by noon. Some of the fishers are going up and down the shore, looking for Shine’s camp. Old Joe and his brother is gone over to check out Miller’s Island.” Sid paused. “Has she said anything?”

  “No. They’re goin’ to find out, Sid.”

  “Not by us helping them, they won’t. We’ve got to tend to Josie’s fever ourselves. Perhaps after the Mounties come, we can get Doctor Hodgins to come look at her.”

  “I don’t think we can keep her quiet about Shine.”

  “We have to. We’ll talk to her good. She listens, Kit, she most always listens. But, we have to wait a day. We don’t want anyone looking Josie’s way yet, not with Shine just found dead. It don’t take much for some people to start making connections, even if there’s none.”

  “Sid, it wouldn’t her fault. I mean, she was protectin’ us. Perhaps they’d let her go … ”

  “The law might. But, you’re forgetting about the reverend. He’d be on to the both of you like gulls to shit, convincing everyone that morally you’d be better off someplace else, that it was Josie’s sluttish ways that brought Shine upon you in the first place, and who’s to say it wouldn’t happen again, this time with you being the victim. He can play it good, Kit. You don’t need me reminding you of that.”

  “Oh God,” I cried. “It’s gone too far, I’m scared. I don’t care about me, no more. I only care about her, and … and you.” I turned to face him. “They’ll find out, Sid, and it’s goin’ to be bad. They don’t have to know about you. It’s me that’s to blame. It’s me that wouldn’t leave. I should pay! I should pay!”

  He caught me by the shoulders, his eyes hard set against mine.

  “There’s none of us to blame!” he half yelled. “You hear me? None of us. But, it’s her they’ll haul off to jail. Her mind couldn’t take it, Kit. You know it, and I know it. Even if after the trial they let her go, there’d be nothing left to let go. Josie can’t survive without you. Without … ” he swung his arm around the gully, “Without this. It’s all she knows. It’s all that keeps her alive.” He tightened his grip and whispered harshly, “And me. She has me too, now. She killed Shine to protect me. I won’t let them destroy her because of it.”

  I was quiet, the truth of his words washing over me.

  “Do you think it’s O.K. to talk with Doctor Hodgins now?” I whispered.

  “No. He’s a man of the law too, in some ways, and he’d be forced to tell the truth. It wouldn’t be right to involve him. Will you trust me, Kit? I’m going to see us through this. I promise you.”

  I closed my eyes, and felt his lips pressing against my forehead. Taking him by the hand, I led him inside. Josie was sitting up on the daybed, rocking in that strange way of hers, but her eyes fixed right away on Sid as he walked over and sat down besides her.

  “How you doing, Josie?”

  She never said nothing, just kept rocking.

  “Kit says you’ve got the flu,” he went on, laying the palm of his hand across her forehead. “You’re hot, for sure. Are you feeling sick?”

  She smiled weakly, and watched as Sid reached inside his shirt and brought out a dark red pitcher plant, its heavy belled sides slightly crushed and drooping from the weight of its petals.

  “It’s for you,” he said, pressing it into her hand. “I seen it on the bog on the way over and it reminded me of you. See? It’s pretty and red, and it grows alone, and it’s got a poison sitting in its centre, and anything that goes in there that don’t belong, don’t get out. That’s God’s law, do you hear me, Josie? What don’t belong, don’t get out! And that’s why you hit Shine with the axe, because he didn’t belong here. He was going to hurt me and Kit, and you done the only thing you could. It’s God’s law.” Clasping his hands around hers, he leaned over and pressed his cheek against hers. “God’s Law, Josie,” he whispered. “No one can judge it but God himself. You done good. Didn’t she do good, Kit?”

  “Real good,” I said, my voice trembling. “I bet Nan’s proud of you.”

  A faint glimmer of yellow appeared in her eyes as she looked up at me.

  “Real proud,” Sid whispered, brushing back a limp strand of hair. “And you can make us prouder, Josie. You know how you can do that? By not telling anybody what happened with Shine. Not anybody! It’s our secret—mine, yours and Kit’s. Promise me now, promise me that you won’t ever tell anybody anything about the axe and Shine. Do you promise? Do you promise?”

  She lay back and nodded tiredly, a small nod, just one dip of her head, and then she closed her eyes. Her cheeks looked more flushed, and her breathing was starting to sound a little raspy. Sid and I looked at each other, then quickly went outside.

  “I don’t like the looks of her,” he said worriedly. “Let me go back and find out what’s happening. Perhaps the Mounties are out from Deer Lake by now. If so, and everyone’s making a fuss over them, they won’t notice Doctor Hodgins making a house call too much. Don’t worry,” he said, trailing a finger along my cheek. “She’s going to be fine.”

  I smiled the best that I could, but the unease growing within me since the killing was starting to take over.

  “Hey,” he said, giving me a little shake. “Will you never start trusting me?”

  “What about Aunt Drucie?”

  “I’ll drop in on the way and tell her the two of you’s gone berry picking. How’s that? What with everything that’s after happening, she’ll be happy enough to mosey into Haire’s Hollow and catch the news. Are you O.K.?”

  I pulled away and folded my arms worriedly.

  “The reverend says if we kill, we pay,” I said, looking out over the gully.

  Sid gave a snort.

  “You care now what the reverend says?”

  “He preaches God’s law.”

  “He uses God’s law to fix his own preachings.”

  “Isn’t that what you just did?” I said, turning to face him.

  “Isn’t that what we all do, sometimes? Take God’s law and make it ours?” he answered almost angrily. “Damn! You think I haven’t thought about this, Kit? You think I don’t care about God’s law? Hell, I’m scared to death of God’s law.” He kicked at a rock and sent it plinking against the side of the house. “But there are other laws, God’s laws too, I suppose,” he said, turning to me. “But they aren’t so clearly written. And it’s those the reverend don’t spend much time on, like those of the mind. Well, those are the ones I think about all the time. And my mind can’t reason it through that Josie should suffer any more. And that’s the one God will judge me on, do you understand me, Kit?”

  He cupped my chin and forced me to look at him. “I’m doing what I have to do,” he whispered. “I believe that. Now, you have to believe what you’re doing is right, too, else the lie becomes your sin. Decide, Kit. Is she deserving of your lie?”

  He kept staring at me, but I could find no reassuring answer. It was how the reverend and everyone else was going to be using God’s laws that was causing me the most concern. Fear clung to me like a black shroud as I watched him walking away, shadowing my every step and darkening my every thought. I wen
t back inside and spent the rest of the morning tending to Josie and looking out the window, waiting and watching, waiting and watching …

  Come noon, Sid hadn’t come back and Josie’s forehead was burning hot. And she was still, so very, very still. I sat back in the rocking chair and must have dozed, because suddenly I was on my feet, listening to the hard, deep moans coming out of her as she slept.

  “Shine! Shine!”

  “It’s all right,” I said, shaking her.

  “Shine!”

  “Shh … ” I tried to soothe her but her moans sounded so raw, so deep, they felt as if they were being dredged out of her. “Wake up,” I shouted, shaking her harder. “You’re havin’ a bad dream, that’s all, just a dream. Wake up.”

  Her eyes popped open, dazed and burning. I felt her forehead. The fever showed no signs of breaking and her breathing was starting to sound more and more ragged. Wetting a cloth in the wash pan, I laid it across her forehead and ran out of the house and down the road to Aunt Drucie’s. She was just coming out her door, tying her bandanna beneath her chin, on her way to Haire’s Hollow.

  “Kit!” she called out upon seeing me.

  “It’s Josie,” I gasped, running up to her. “She’s burnin’ up with fever. Will you sit with her till I gets back with Doctor Hodgins?”

  “Aye, you knows I will, but did you hear someone killed Shine?”

  “Yes, Sid come by … ”

  “It’s shockin’, maid, shockin’… ”

  “Aunt Drucie, I got to hurry up.”

  “Go, go. My my, the poor thing, is it the flu?”

  “Yes, no … I don’t know. She … she might sing out Shine’s name. We seen his boat last night. She thinks his ghost is goin’ to haunt us.”

  “Poor lamb, go on, go on, run for the doctor. I goes to where she’s at.”

  I raced down over Fox Point and along the road through Haire’s Hollow. There was a crowd gathered down by the wharf, everyone swarming around Shine’s boat. He must have been in it because there was a piece of canvas covering the top. Old Joe’s motor boat putted into sight, coming across the harbour. Just back from Miller’s Island, I figured, and everyone crowded onto the wharf to meet him and his brother. There was a third person in the boat, but they were too far off yet to recognize. I saw the reverend’s black hat as he walked amongst the people. Then I saw Sid standing on the edge of the wharf. His eyes widened as he looked up and seen me, and I hurried off towards the clinic so’s he’d know why I was here.

  “They got someone aboard,” Gert Combdon was saying as I walked in through the clinic doors. She was kneeling upon the wooden bench that ran along one wall, her nose pressed against the window. Maisie Rice and Darkus Randall were cramming to see around her, a red-eyed youngster with a runny nose sitting on each of their laps.

  “My gawd, who is it?” Darkus asked, a touch of scandal already on her tongue.

  “Can’t see,” said Gert.

  “He don’t look very big, do he?” asked Maisie.

  “Looks like someone from Perpy’s Cove,” said Darkus, edging Gert to one side for a closer look.

  “For sure they’re down there bad enough to kill,” said Maisie.

  “The devil takes care of his own, for sure,” agreed Gert. “My gawd, sure it’s Mope!”

  “Mope!” Darkus near pressed her face through the glass. “Well, blessed be, we should a known if there was a still, Mope’d be soaking his head in it.”

  “Well now, for sure it wasn’t Mope that killed Shine,” said Maisie. “He got trouble liftin’ a spoon outta his cup.”

  “I got to go see,” said Gert, jumping down from her seat. “You take my turn with the doctor, Darkus.”

  “You can go in next,” Darkus said to Maisie, tucking her youngster under her arm and running out the door behind Gert. Maisie was on her feet, fixing to run out too, when the examining-room door opened and Old Joe’s brother’s Missus was standing there, with Doctor Hodgins.

  “What’s goin’ on? Is he back?” the Missus asked, looking from me to Maisie.

  “He’s back, maid,” said Maisie. “With Mope aboard.”

  “Mope? Well, I’ll be … I’ll see you next week, Doctor,” she said hurriedly, and gussied out the door, leaving Maisie staring after her.

  “You can take young Kit over me, Doctor,” Maisie said with half a laugh, heading after the Missus. “I’m worse than Gert for wantin’ to know what’s goin’ on.” She was out the door before Doctor Hodgins had a chance to agree.

  “How about you?” Doctor Hodgins said to me with a grin. “You want to run off, too?”

  “It’s Josie,” I blurted out. “She’s got a fever. Bad.”

  “I’ll get my bag,” he said, and disappeared inside his office. I ran outside to where his car was parked on the road, and looked out over what was happening on the beach. Old Joe was leading Mope towards Shine’s boat. Sid was still standing on the edge of the wharf, and the reverend’s hat was shifting through the crowd.

  “I keeps tellin’ ’em Shine’s been kilt, but he won’t listen,” Old Joe was complaining, hauling the piece of canvas off Shine’s boat. “Thinks Shine is goin’ to come after him for lettin’ the fire go out under the still. Here, how’s that.” Old Joe pushed Mope up by the side of the boat. “Is that dead enough for you?”

  Mope’s eyes bulged open and he stepped back in alarm, his head bobbing on his long, spindly neck at the sight of Shine sprawled out in the bottom of his boat, his legs thrown over one of the benches as if he had leaned back too far to fetch something and had lost his balance. Everyone started laughing at Mope’s comic-looking face, and seeing how he was the centre of attention, Mope laughed, too. A few of the fishers and Gert crept up to the boat for another look. With Shine dead, there was nothing for anybody to be worried about. It felt like they were having a party, not standing around a dead man.

  “Was it you that killed Shine?” Old Joe’s brother-in-law called out to Mope with a chuckle.

  Mope shook his head, his good humour giving way to sudden fright.

  “N-no sir. I n-never killed ’em.” He threw a skittish look towards the boat and took a shaky step backwards. Everyone laughed.

  “The only thing Mope killed was a gallon of shine,” Old Joe answered.

  “Who killed him, then?” Gert asked, shaking her head at the scandalous sight of Shine being dead.

  Mope shrugged, his mouth opening and closing several times before any words come out.

  “I-I d-don’t know,” he finally stuttered, looking wild-eyed around at everyone standing looking at him.

  “You must know something,” Gert kept on. “Was anyone over there with him? Was he goin’ to see someone?”

  A startled look come across Mope’s face as his darting eyes landed on me.

  “The gully tramp’s girl,” he called out triumphantly.

  It felt like Josie was suddenly standing besides me, giving me one of her surprise slugs in the guts. Heads turned to where I was standing, and a look of dismay swept over Sid’s face. The shroud of fear from this morning tightened itself around me as the reverend looked my way, then coiling his arms up by his sides, he snaked his way through the crowd.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TIDE AGAINST THE WIND

  “WHAT ABOUT THE GULLY TRAMP’S GIRL?” the Reverend Ropson asked, coming to stand before Mope.

  Everyone become quiet and Mope started to quake faster. I imagined the reverend’s paltry eyes creeping in through his and possessing him to say again the words that would give him grounds to damn Josie to hell, and me alongside of her. With beads of sweat popping out on his already sweating forehead, Mope darted his tongue nervously across his lips.

  “I—I—I—”

  “With all respect, reverend, sir,” Old Joe said, throwing a look at me that Nan often gave to stray cats shivering in the snow, “I don’t see how you can expect Mope to remember anything, seein’s how he’s been sauced for days.”

  “Try years,�
� Maisie said, catching a laugh from a few others around her.

  “Where was Shine going the last time you seen him?”

  the reverend shrilled to Mope, oblivious to those around him.

  “T-to get the g-g-gully tramp and her girl.”

  It was as good as getting a confession. Swinging around, the reverend’s eyes lit onto mine like bolts of lightning.

  “It’s the Devil’s milk that made an evil man out of Shine,” he rasped. “And it’s the Devil’s milk that’s nursing the soul of Josie Pitman. It’s out there,” he said, pointing towards the gully, “that you’ll find out who committed this foul crime.”

  At that second the Mounties drove up the road in a dusty black Dodge, and Doctor Hodgins was taking me by the arm and pushing me inside his car.

  “Out with it, Kit,” he ordered, starting up the motor and stepping on the gas.

  I looked out the window, catching sight of Sid furiously shaking his head, his finger to his lips, silencing me.

  “She—she was out in the rain last night … and got sick.”

  He was quiet. Then, “It was Shine who got Josie drunk, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, you know. Kit, this is no time to lie,” he said urgently, swerving the car sharply around a turn. “What’s after happening out here?”

  I fixed my eyes straight ahead, thinking only on Sid and the set look on his face as he warned me to silence.

  “Kit!” Doctor Hodgins’s tone held out a warning of its own.

  “I don’t know nothin’ about her gettin’ drunk,” I said stonily.

  Doctor Hodgins said nothing more till we were at the gully. Before the car had stopped, I was shoving open the door and running down over the bank. Aunt Drucie met me at the door.