The Color of Dust

by Claire Rooney

  She turned her head away from the light that hurt her eyes.

  Robert was asleep in the chair beside her. Four red and puckered scratches ran down his cheek. A series of raw half-moon gouges dotted his chin. It looked like he had the beginnings of a black eye, but it was hard to tell in the thin dawn light. Carrie kicked at the sheet and Robert stirred. She tried to sit up and found that she could get nearly upright if she used her arms as props, but her head was buzzing and her stomach roiled. Robert’s eyes opened.

  He got up from his chair without saying a word and stood by the bed, the top of his head lost behind the drape of the canopy.

  “Lilly.” Carrie’s voice was a broken caw.

  “Celia, it’s all right. You’re safe now.” Robert bent to touch her hand. Carrie moved it away.

  “Where is she?” That was better. Her tongue moved a little more freely behind her dusty teeth.

  “She’s at the jailhouse.” Robert ran a nervous hand over the front of his chest, smoothing his rumpled waistcoat. “Celia, I’m so sorry. We had no idea she would attack you like that. She won’t ever hurt you again. I promise you.” Robert’s words ended in a quiver.

  Carrie sat all the way up, walking her hands behind her until she was more or less vertical. The buzzing in her ears got louder.

  She took a deep breath and was encouraged when she didn’t throw up. “What did you give me?”

  Robert averted his eyes and blushed. Carrie looked down at herself. She was only in her underthings. She felt at her throat and her hand closed over the locket. She squeezed it tight in her fist. Its sharp edges cut into her palm and her head cleared a little.

  “I gave you laudanum. Your father phoned the central exchange and they put out a message. I got it at the Westmore’s. He said that he had overhead some disturbance the night before between you and Lilly. He was going to send her away and thought you might be upset. I was to come help him calm you.” Robert raised a hand to his scratches. “It seems I arrived just in time.”

  “Dear God.” Carrie looked over at her bedroom door. She felt sick.

  Robert shifted his feet uncomfortably. “Please don’t fret, now, Celia. No one blames you for being hysterical after an attack like that. It was a horrible thing to see, like a dog turning on its owner. And after you and your father had been so kind.” Robert stole a quick appraising glance at her. “At least you’re looking better now. I was afraid I’d given you too much from the way you slept.”

  “How long have I slept?”

  “Through the day yesterday and then through the night.”

  Carrie looked around the room for her clothes. “Where’s my dressing gown?”

  Robert’s blush deepened. “It was ripped. Martha took it to be mended.”

  Then she would have to do this without clothes. “Where’s the jail from here?”

  Robert reached for her hand again. “Please don’t worry, Celia. She can’t get out. She can’t hurt you anymore.”

  Carrie raised the sheet to cover her chest. She didn’t really care what he saw, but she needed to keep him away from her and off balance. “Where’s the jail, Robert?”

  Robert sat back in the chair and looked to the floor. “It’s on the near edge of town just on the other side of the river.”

  “On the main road?”

  “Yes. You’ve driven past it before, if you didn’t know what it was.”

  “Shit.” She wouldn’t be able to cross the river. If the central telephone exchange was involved, everyone would know everything by now. Someone would stop her.

  Robert blinked, looked at her and then away again. “Celia?”

  Carrie fought to calm herself, to still the dark panicked place inside that threatened to unravel and overwhelm her. She hid her face behind her hands and breathed deeply. “Robert. My dear. Forgive me. I’m still a bit muddled. I’m sick and I’m thirsty and I hardly know what I’m saying.”

  “Oh, Celia. I’m sorry. Let me get you some water.” Robert got up quickly and fetched the water jug and a small glass from the nightstand. He poured some water into the glass and handed it to her. She drank it all in big fast gulps and her head started to feel much clearer, if her stomach protested. She motioned for Robert to hand her the jug. He turned it around and gave it to her handle first with his eyes still fixed firmly on the floor. She took the jug, poured herself another glass and put the glass on her bedside table. She braced herself.

  She swung up and out, smashing the jug against the side of Robert’s head. He went down in a pool of water and shards.

  Carrie hauled herself out of bed. She knelt on the floor beside him and started stripping off his clothes. Robert was heavy and she was still weak. His arms flipped and flailed as she struggled to get him out of his jacket and shirt. His legs felt like thousand pound weights as she struggled with the pants.

  The whole process took longer than she wanted it to and she had to rest after she had everything she needed. She drank the water in the glass and sat on the floor until her muscles stopped trembling. Robert lay in his undershirt and drawers where Carrie had rolled him, a pool of pink water spread in a halo around his head. The rise and fall of his chest was the only thing moving.

  She looked at the jacket, the waistcoat and shirt. They were wet, but that was all.

  She stood slowly. Her head was clear and her stomach had more or less settled. She started putting on Robert’s clothes. The shirt and the pants were too big. Her fingers fumbled clumsily with the cufflinks and the tie. The jacket was hot and heavy. His socks stank and her feet swam inside the boots, but it would have to do. She piled her hair on top of her head and pinned it down as flat as she could. It wouldn’t look right up close, but from a distance, it might get her by. According to Robert, she had slept through Sunday. That meant it was Monday. Her father would be at his mill. Martha would be in the kitchen with all the rest of the help polishing the silver. The groundsman would be in the garden, the stableman with the horses, the kennelman with the dogs. She would have a clear path to the road if she cut through the northwest field.

  She ran out of the mistress suite and down the front stairs two at a time, her feet sliding around inside the boots. She grabbed Robert’s hat off the hat stand and smashed it on her head as far as it would go. She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. Robert’s horse was tied to the rail, waiting patiently, plucking at the grass within its reach. She couldn’t take Robert’s horse. People recognized horses even before they recognized other people. She would have to run. It would take her not quite an hour to jog to the river if she went along the road, maybe even more with poorly fitting boots on, but she couldn’t hurry.

  She had to move at a reasonable pace or she wouldn’t make it at all. She hadn’t run in many years, not since she was a girl in short pants racing the boys to the river and back. Carrie stepped off the porch and started across the drive. It had been a very long time, but her body remembered the easy loping stride, the rhythmic pumping of her arms and legs, the whistle of the wind past her ears. She turned off the drive and ran across the field, through the fresh green growth of summer rye, the young blades whipping against her calves.

  Her feet broke through the rye and stumbled onto the road.

  The earth wobbled under her boots as the world skittered across her eyes. Brown dirt and deep ruts flashed into black pavement and yellow lines. Carrie staggered and fell, her hands splayed against the dirt. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again. A pebble poked into her palm. A beetle crawled past her finger. It was just dirt under her hands, hard-packed and solid, but it was brown and not black. She sat back on her heels and then staggered to her feet. She slapped her hands together and brushed the dirt off her knees, scrubbed at her eyes. The road stayed dirt. She took a few tentative steps, walked a bit faster and then broke into a jog.

  Carrie tried not to think about anything. She couldn’t think about anything. She listened to the slap of her feet, to the rush of her breath, the shushing o
f her elbows as they rubbed against the jacket. Her mind tried to stay focused on the road in front of her, on moving her feet, on breathing. She tried to think only of the running and not on what she might find when she got to town.

  Her feet stumbled, scuffing in the dirt, scattering little rocks, but she recovered her balance and she ran.

  She knew she was nearing the river by the change in the air, the smell of fresh water and green growing things on top of the fishy stench of new death and old rot. She slowed to a purposeful walk. A man in a cart passed her from behind. He tipped his hat without looking in her direction. She touched the brim of hers and kept walking. He passed by her without a pause. She buttoned up the jacket, put her hands in her pockets and kept her head down as more people passed her on the road, a man on a horse, one leading a donkey, a woman with a basket. Carrie walked as if she knew where she was going and didn’t have time to stop. The woman looked at her curiously but no one tried to talk to her.

  She rounded a bend in the road and saw the river, a wide blue-brown ribbon of water that flowed in a slow arc, pushing against one bank, pulling at the other. It was a quiet stretch of river, deep and deceptively still. Carrie knew it was stronger than it looked. The ferryman was holding the boat steady while its passengers climbed aboard, the woman with the basket, the man with the donkey, a small black boy with a gunnysack huddled in the far back corner as far away from the white people as he could get, and a few others, mostly men in straw hats and sagging trousers. The boat was full of people. Too many people. It only cost a penny to cross on the ferry and she did have one. There was money in Robert’s pocket, quite a few bills, a pocket watch and some small change. She had pennies, but she didn’t dare get too close to anyone, much less get stuck in the middle of a crush of people.

  She couldn’t take the ferry, but maybe she didn’t have to.

  Lots of people kept small boats tied up along the shore. Her father kept more than one on his stretch of the riverbank for sending someone to fish the shallows or to take her picnicking on the west peninsula. The boats weren’t made for crossing the whole wide width of the river, but people did cross in them all the time. People with secrets to keep or without a penny to spare. If they could do it, so could she.

  Carrie stepped off the road and onto a side path that wandered along the slope of the riverbank. She followed the trail as it turned and twisted beside the river. Not too far along, she spotted a flat-bottomed rowboat tied underneath an overhanging tree. She scrambled down the bank and stepped into it, untied the rope from the limb overhead and crabbed her way to the middle seat. She pushed off with the oars digging into the silt and began rowing.

  Four strokes away from the bank, the current was much stronger than she had even imagined. The boat spun around in a circle before pointing its nose downstream. She didn’t want to go that way. Downstream would take her farther from town, closer to Richmond, to the east and to the sea. Farther from Lilly.

  Carrie struggled with the oars, with the unfamiliar motion, until she found a method and a rhythm that carried her almost in the direction she wanted to go, though the river still pushed her relentlessly downstream.

  She pulled and strained and pulled again until the swish and plop of the oars started to sound like an echo that would never end. Her legs started shaking with fatigue. Her hands burned where the rough wood scoured her palms, but it wasn’t as sharp as the burning muscles of her back, the bite of pain just below her shoulder blades. She was beyond what she had ever tasked her body with before. She had done more than she knew she could do, but she couldn’t think about her body’s hurts. She couldn’t think about Lilly. She couldn’t think about anything but the stroke. Lean forward, dip the oars. Plop. Pull back, lift the oars.

  Swish. Lean forward, dip the oars. Plop. Pull back, lift the oars. Swish.

  The boat jolted and ran aground. Carrie jumped up and the boat tilted dangerously to one side, almost spilling her out.

  She fell back into the bottom. She tried again a little slower and managed to get out without getting her boots wet. She scrambled up the side of the bank and stopped at the top to rest her legs and look around. There was a field with a board fence and a red barn with a tin roof. White-splotched cows were grazing on the green summer grass.

  It was the riverside field of the Westmore’s farm. She knew the place. She had picnicked there, played with their children, picked wildflowers, chased butterflies. That wasn’t what she thought about, though. She only thought that seeing the farm now meant that the river had carried her almost two miles from the main road. Two miles farther from Lilly than she wanted to be. She walked in a little ways from the bank and stepped out of the weeds onto a cow path. It ran beside the river for as far as she could see, heading back toward town. Carrie settled her hat more firmly on her head. Her blistered feet ached and throbbed, the muscles in her thighs burned and pulled, but she wasn’t going to think about it. She was just going to do what she had to do. She bent her knees and started running again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Her feet stumbled over nothing as the cow path dumped Carrie back out onto the main road sooner than she expected.

  She staggered to a stop and bent over double with her hands on her thighs, her breath burning in her lungs, her legs…No. She couldn’t think about her legs. With some effort, Carrie straightened herself up again and looked around her. The ferry was already halfway back across the river and the road was empty of its previous passengers for as far as she could see. She started walking again.

  She kept to a fast walk instead of a jog, just in case someone came around the corner, but the jail wasn’t far. Around the bend and she could see it just down the road. It had to be the jail, she knew, from the bars on the windows and the dilapidated state of the building, its sagging roof and unpainted clapboard. Carrie looked all around her, but the road was still empty. She stepped off the road and into the high brush so she could circle around and approach the jail from the back. There were woods not too far away, but they were farther than she would wish them to be if she and Lilly had to run. She crept through the weeds until the jail itself hid her from the road.

  The brush ended in a wide empty space around the building.

  The ground all around it was dirt and rocks as if no green growing thing wanted to live so close to such a place. Carrie ran across the bare ground at a low crouch and pressed herself flat against the back wall. She waited and listened. All was quiet. No one was shouting. No one was sounding an alarm. She turned around and stood on her toes to peek inside a barred window. That cell was empty. She crept up to the next window, got up on her toes and looked inside. That cell was empty too. Her heart started to beat hard inside her chest. She looked into the third cell. It held a narrow bed and a chamber pot but, otherwise, it was empty.

  There weren’t any more cells. They were all empty. Lilly wasn’t there.

  Carrie leaned against the side of the building. Her body’s aches and pains began to overwhelm her, feet and legs, shoulders and arms. She wanted to lie down right there, cover her head with dirt and ashes, scream her throat raw, howl at the sun. She slid down the side of the building and sat on the ground. What was she supposed to do now? Where was Lilly and why had Robert lied? Carrie’s head dropped into her hands. The dark, panicked place inside her mind began to unfold, to open into a bloom of madness. The wind blew a little dust storm across the toes of her boots as she tried to choke the panic back. She sat as quiet and still as she could, listening to the wind flutter through the trees, to the soft whisper of leaves as they rubbed against each other. To the soft jangle of a chain.

  She lifted her head and she heard it again, a soft jingling, a light clinking. The sound came from the shed near the woods. Carrie eased herself off the ground and limped over to it, stumbling slightly as she bent over low. She moved around to the back of the shed and put her eye close to a chink in the boards. Lilly was sitting in the dirt, disheveled and dirty, one ankle manacled and chained to a b
olt in the wall. Carrie pressed her forehead against the boards. She wanted to cry out, to shout with joy, to scream her relief. She wanted to tell Lilly that she was there and everything would be all right. But she wasn’t sure that it would be, not just yet, so she said nothing.

  Carrie stood and stepped quietly back to the jail. She walked around to the side and peered into a window with real panes of glass and no bars. A man with an unkempt beard sat at a rough-hewn table drinking from a tall jug, something that left a foamy trail across his moustache. He wiped at it with a sleeve. Carrie thought for a moment as she looked around for something she could use. The man inside had hurt Lilly. She spotted an ax stuck into a stump over by the woodpile. A lot of people had hurt Lilly.

  Carrie walked quietly over to the stump and pried the ax out. She wanted to hurt everyone who had ever hurt Lilly. Starting with herself.

  Carrie peered into the window. The man was drinking deeply. She walked around to the front of the jail and looked both ways down the road to make sure it was empty. It was. She stepped quietly around to the front door, knocked hard and then ducked back around the corner. The door opened. There was a moment of silence and then the scraping of footsteps, but they were headed in the wrong direction. Carrie beat on the side of the building with the handle of the ax. The steps turned around and the man came shuffling around the corner. Carrie swung the ax. She hit him upside the head with the flat of it. He slammed into the side of the building and slid to the ground without a sound. She stooped to get his keys. The man’s belt was made of old cracked leather that split easily when Carrie yanked. The man groaned and rolled onto his back. She raised the ax to hit him again, but his eyes remained closed.

  She ran back to the shed. Carrie threw down the wooden crossbar and opened the door. Sunlight fell in on Lilly, who cringed deeper into the corner, her arms covering her chest. Her hair fell loose across her shoulders. The bruise on her chin had turned a dark purple. Her feet were bare.