After Eli (19 page)

“Candles, yes,” replied Rachel. She stood beside Sarah in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Candles it’ll be then,” Michael responded. “Miss Dora, you’ll be in charge of the candle-lightin’ ceremony. And we’ll need music. Sarah, you’ll find us somethin’ on the radio, and if the battery’s weak, you’ll be hummin’ for us all night. Rachel, lend me a hand with the furniture.”

The room was prepared as Michael commanded, with laughing and playing, with Michael’s voice riding throughout the room like a ringmaster building suspense for a great show. The finger flames from the candles made amber pools, like hearts, on the scrubbed wood walls, and the rearranged furniture opened the room like a hallway. It was, Michael pronounced, the equal of any ballroom east of St. Louis, and he had been a guest in all of them. It was a room that was warm and inviting, he said. A room where you’d gladly tip the waiter a handsome sum for a table.

But there was a storm and static and the only sound from the radio was a crackling like a fire. It was not a problem, Michael concluded. Not a problem as long as there were people with willing voices that could be tuned, as fine as a violin, to the proper song. “We’ll do it that way,” he determined. “All sing out like we was a London, England, choir, and since I’m the only gentleman present, I’ll take turns dancin’ with every lady on the premise.” Sarah first, he said. Sarah first because it was her birthday and it did not matter that she protested she had never before danced. “You’ll learn,” vowed Michael. “You’ll learn. It’s a matter of your feet listenin’ to what your heart tells them. And, besides, I’m the man and the man does the pushin’ and shovin’ when it comes to dancin’. You go where I push and shove and you’ll be dancin’.”

The song, decided Michael after deliberation, would be “Jeannie.” That was it. “There’ll be no hagglin’ now. That’s a song an Irishman would’ve been proud of writin’. ‘Jeannie, with the Light Brown Hair.’ Listen to it. Sounds Irish, it does. May have been. Stephen Foster. Could have been Irish. Someday I’ll ask some of my music friends. Come on, now, everybody, on the count of three. One, two, three…”

And they began. Softly, haltingly, until Michael stopped them.

“Is that singin’?” he bellowed. “Why, I’ve heard many a chicken more excited over the layin’ of an egg. Now, sing it out. It’s a party, not a bloomin’ wake.”

They began again and Michael’s strong baritone-tenor opened over the three women like an umbrella. And as he sang, he extended his hand to Sarah and pulled her into the middle of the room and began to dance with her in wide, strong steps. Sarah stumbled awkwardly after him, but she was not embarrassed; she was with him, holding him, and he was playing with her, tenderly, comically, and her whole body was happy.

And then it was Rachel’s dance. A slow, polite dance, hands and arms touching but with distance between them—distance that Sarah watched with confused jealousy. Michael and Rachel sang “Beautiful Dreamer” as Sarah and Dora’s small voices struggled to follow them, and Rachel felt she was alone with him, holding him.

The dance ended and Michael bowed theatrically and escorted Rachel back to her chair. Then he turned to Dora.

“Miss Dora,” he said earnestly, “I have heard it mentioned in Yale that you are the dance queen of the Naheela Valley. There are men who have smiles frozen in their faces like a carvin’ in granite when the talk of a dance comes up and the name of Dora Rice is said. I have been told—in secret, of course—that even in cakewalks you used to put to shame
every other lady in the hills. So, it’d be an honor if you’d permit this hobbled old man a short dance.”

Dora’s eyes widened as she stared at him. Her mouth was opened in disbelief. She twisted in the armchair to look at Rachel.

“It’s the truth, Miss Dora,” Michael continued. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

“Well, you’ve been listenin’ to some of them drunks in Pullen’s,” snorted Dora. “I don’t remember the last time I tried dancin’ and I ain’t about to try it now.”

Sarah giggled behind her hands.

“Miss Dora, you’re hurtin’ my feelin’s,” pleaded Michael.

“Go on, Dora, dance,” Rachel urged. “You know he’s actin’ the fool, but what he don’t know is how you used to dance. I remember it.”

“See,” Michael said. “See. I knew you did.”

“She was as good as anybody,” added Rachel. “I remember when I was little and they used to have street dances in Yale. Dora would dance the night away.”

“That was a long time ago,” Dora said simply.

“Time? Time’s nothin’, Miss Dora,” argued Michael. “Look at me. It’s been a year or two since I saw twenty, and I’m still a fool, like Rachel said. One of the worse things a person can do is quit bein’ a fool.”

“Dora—”

“No, Rachel,” Dora snapped. “I ain’t gonna dance.”

Michael stepped away and surveyed the three women. He began to hum a lively Irish tune and his feet began tapping lightly across the floor. The hum grew into a trumpet sound blaring from his lips and his feet stamped harder, faster, like a pounding drumbeat.

“What’s that?” Sarah called above the trumpet and feet.

“Irish jig,” answered Michael, picking up the rhythm.

“Don’t look like no jig to me,” Dora said. “Looks like cloggin’.”

Michael did not stop. He bounced happily about the room, his shoulders and arms swinging free, his legs driving like pistons.

“It’s a jig,” he shouted between music stops. “And it’s somethin’ you can’t do, Miss Dora. I’d bet a week’s worth of woodcuttin’ on it.”

“Call it what you want, it ain’t nothin’ but cloggin’,” Dora shouted over the noise. “I know cloggin’ when I see it.”

“Then, let’s see you do it,” roared Michael. He passed before her and grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. Then he backed away, facing her. His feet slowed to a soft, sweeping tap-shuffle, playing the floor like an instrument.

“Come on, Miss Dora,” he teased. “Let’s see it.”

“Go on, Dora,” Rachel urged.

“Please, Aunt Dora. Please,” Sarah squealed, applauding.

Michael lifted the pace. He was breathing hard and his face had reddened. He began a rhythmic finger-snapping to the tune that squeezed through his lips, and Rachel and Sarah picked it up. He moved closer to Dora, motioning to her with his arms.

Dora began tapping her right foot, finding the beat. Then she stepped into a spirited toe-heel tap and she whirled over the floor and circled Michael. Her face was somber as her mind raced to remember the steps, and as she skipped over the floor, Michael stopped dancing and stared in astonishment. Rachel and Sarah had picked up the beat with their staccato clapping and they were laughing happily.

Any of them would tell me, Michael thought as he watched Dora. His plan for the party had worked. Any of them would tell him gladly. He need only ask. And there was time to ask.

“She’s dancin’,” Michael thundered. “Miss Dora’s dancin’. By God, we’ve got us a party now. We’ve got us a party.”

THE PARTY HAD lasted long—until after midnight, after the rain had been swept away in the wind—and Michael had gone to the barn and waited for the visitor he knew would arrive. It had been Sarah’s birthday and he had seen the woman step forward and the shyness of the girl fall away from her like a discarded garment. He knew she would come, and he had waited and taken her quickly and then dismissed her. Then he had fallen into an easy sleep.

He was still asleep when the 1936 Chevrolet with SHERIFF lettered on the front doors arrived at the Pettit farm on Saturday morning.

George English waited solemnly and fretfully inside the barn room as Michael quickly dressed. George had said the sheriff and the doctor needed him. He did not say why. He knew, but he did not say, and Michael realized that George had been bound to a threatening pledge to remain silent.

As they rode back into Yale, speeding over the top-slick dirt road and then down the narrow paved highway, Michael sensed a fear, or perhaps an anger, building in George. It was not the game of law and order that George often enjoyed playing as he sat at the rolltop desk of the jail, imagining heroic episodes of legendary bravery. George was not a brave man, except in his illusions, which had become, in their own way, real. No,
thought Michael, this was not a game. Whatever it was, whatever awaited him in Yale, was serious, and George English felt caged by it.

* * *

Michael saw the men, gathered in front of Fred Deal’s Merchandise Store across the street from the jail. He knew the scene immediately: It was a judgment crowd, silently standing, waiting, wondering. He recognized many of the men from his visits to Pullen’s Café. Especially the older men. He did not see Teague or Bailey or Job or the sawmill workers, who would arrive later, nearer evening. Michael knew the crowd and their mood. Crowds like this had followed him for years, yelping and spitting anger from their diseased tongues like a spray of dragon fire. He knew them from inside their souls and their guts. He knew the impregnable shields of their single-mindedness. He knew their generals and their followers—could pick them out at a glance.

“Any trouble yet?” he asked George.

“The sheriff’ll tell you what you need to know,” George mumbled.

Michael swiveled in his car seat to face George. He said, “Dammit, man, I don’t need to know what’s wrong to see that’s a thinkin’ crowd. What I want to know, and I want to know it now, is if there’s been any trouble yet.”

George shook his head. He was surprised by the ice in Michael’s voice. Michael had been a jester.

“Nothin’ yet,” George replied. He flipped his head toward the crowd of men. “They ain’t moved since I left to come get you.”

George braked the car to a stop in front of the jail. He got out quickly and went inside without looking across the street. Michael sat and waited. He could see the doctor watching him through the door of the jail. He opened the door of the car and slipped out of the seat and stood and stretched. He waved
broadly to the men standing in front of Deal’s store and strolled lazily inside the jail.

Garnett Cannon nodded to him.

“Doc. Sheriff,” Michael said in greeting. He looked beyond Curtis Hill. He could see Owen through the bars of the cell, sitting on the cot, his head bowed into his hands. The tension in the room was almost material.

Michael did not ask why he had been summoned. He knew he would be told. Instead, he said, “The boy all right?”

“He’s better,” answered Garnett. “All right? Hell, no. He won’t be for days, if then.” His voice was sharp and bitter. He paced the office, looking out the window at the men gathered across the street. “Sit down,” he finally said to Michael. “We’d better explain some things.”

Michael sat in the chair beside the door. He crossed his arms and waited. Garnett motioned to Curtis, and the sheriff shuffled nervously where he stood.

“The boy’s daddy—Frank—he come in early this mornin’, right after sunup,” Curtis began. “Said he’d come for the boy. Said the boy had to pay for his crimes, and he’d do the punishin’, since it was his own flesh.”

“Crimes?” asked Michael. “What crimes?”

Curtis bowed his head and thought through his words. He was uncomfortable around the doctor, Michael realized.

“A little while back, maybe three months or longer, there was a young couple livin’ up the valley a few miles, and they was killed,” Curtis answered slowly. “Murdered. Both had their throats cut in bed. Frank said it was his boy that done it.”

A shiver ran through Michael. A sharp, needle pain began to throb inside him. He could see Lester Caufield falling from the bed. He felt the warm spurt of blood lap across his arm. He heard Mary Caufield’s cry and felt her limp, thin body.

“Did you hear him?” Garnett asked.

“I did,” answered Michael softly. His mouth was dry. His palms began to perspire. The nausea swept through him like a heat wave and then it was gone and a chilling, exhilarating
coolness filled him and he could hear the echo of applause from a blackened arena.

“Frank said he’s seen it,” Curtis continued. “Said he’d tried to beat the truth out of his boy, but Owen wouldn’t own up to it.”

Michael did not move from the chair. He looked across the jail to where Owen sat.

“Did he?” he asked. “Did he see it?”

“For God’s sake, Irishman, you’d have to know the man,” Garnett replied irritably. “He saw it in his mind, like some goddamn picture show. The boy was talking about leaving home, going to Chattanooga to work, where his uncle lives. That was all. He told Frank that he’d been thinking about it since the Caufields were killed, because he’d talked to Lester about it and Lester was thinking of moving there, too. It was just a comment, just something he said, but it was enough for Frank. He began to have a vision of his boy killing the Caufields. It’s all in his mind. I suppose it’s the thought of another child leaving home, and after what happened to his daughter, well, hell.”

“Where is the boy’s father now?” Michael wanted to know.

“He left,” answered Curtis. “Went ridin’ off a few minutes before you showed up. Said he’d be back later. The boy kept sayin’ he wanted to talk to you. That’s why I had George come up and bring you in.”

“And the crowd?” Michael said. “You expectin’ trouble from them?”

Garnett shrugged. He paced the room. His hands were stuffed deep into the pockets of his coat. He kicked at the rocker, then sat in it and leaned back and rubbed his temples with his knuckles.

“It comes down to this,” he said at last. “There’s not one shred of evidence in what Frank says, but that’s not going to matter very much. There’re a lot of people in this community who were blood-related to Lester and Mary Caufield; that’s who they were, if I didn’t say.”