Dolores Claiborne (24 page)

He screamed again goin down. It echoed off the sides of the well. That was somethin else I hadn’t figured on—him screamin when he fell. Then there was a thud and he stopped. Just flat stopped. The way a lamp stops shinin if someone yanks the plug outta the wall.

I knelt on the ground n hugged my arms acrost my middle n waited to see if there was gonna be any more. Some time went by, I don’t know how much or how long, but the last of the light went out of the day. The total eclipse had come and it was dark as night. There still wasn’t any sound comin from the well, but there was a little breeze comin from it toward me, and I realized I could
smell
it—you know that smell you sometimes get in water that comes from shallow wells? It’s a coppery smell, dank n not very nice. I could smell that, and it made me shiver.

I saw my slip was hangin down almost to the top of my left shoe. It was all torn n full of rips. I reached under the neck of my dress on the right side n popped that strap, too. Then I pulled the slip down n off. I was bundlin it into a ball beside me n tryin to see the best way to get around the wellcap when all at once I thought of that little girl again, the one I told you about before, and all at once I saw her just as clear as day.
She
was down on her knees, too, lookin under her bed, and I thought, “She’s so unhappy, and she smells that same smell. The one that’s like pennies and oysters. Only it didn’t come from the well; it has something to do with her father.”

And then, all at once, it was like she looked around at me, Andy ... I think she
saw
me. And when she did, I understood why she was so unhappy: her father’d been at her somehow, and she was tryin to cover it up. On top of that, she’d all at once realized someone was lookin at her, that a woman God knows how many miles away but still in the path of the eclipse—a woman who’d just killed her husband—was lookin at her.

She spoke to me, although I didn’t hear her voice with my ears; it came from deep in the middle of my head. “Who
are
you?” she ast.

I don’t know if I would have answered her or not, but before I even had a chance to, a long, waverin scream came out of the well:
“Duh-lorrrrr-issss
...”

It felt like my blood froze solid inside me, and I
know
my heart stopped for a second, because when it started again, it had to catch up with three or four beats all crammed together. I’d picked the slip up, but my fingers relaxed when I heard that scream and it fell out of my hand n caught on one of those blackberry bushes.

“It’s just your imagination workin overtime, Dolores,” I told myself. “That little girl lookin under the bed for her clothes and Joe screamin like that ... you imagined em both. One was a hallucination that somehow come of catchin a whiff of stale air from the well, and the other was no more’n your own guilty conscience. Joe’s layin at the bottom of that well with his head bashed in. He’s dead, and he ain’t gonna bother either you or the kids ever again. ”

I didn’t believe it at first, but more time went by and there was no more sound, except for an owl callin somewhere off in a field. I remember thinkin it sounded like he was askin how come his shift was gettin started so early today. A little breeze ran through the blackberry bushes, makin em rattle. I looked up at the stars shinin in the daytime sky, then down at the wellcap again. It almost seemed to float in the dark, and the hole in the middle he’d fallen through looked like an eye to me. July 20th, 1963, was my day for seein eyes everywhere.

Then his voice come driftin outta the well again.
“Help me Duh-lorrrrr-isss
...”

I groaned n put my hands over my face. It wa’ant any good tryin to tell myself
that
was just my imagination or my guilty conscience or anythin else except what it was: Joe. To me he sounded like he was cryin.

“Help meeeee pleeease ... PLEEEEEEEASE
...” he moaned.

I stumbled my way around the wellcap and went runnin back along the path we’d beat in the brambles. I wasn’t in a panic, not quite, and I’ll tell you how I know that: I stopped long enough to pick up the reflector-box I’d had in my hand when we started out toward the blackberry-patch. I couldn’t remember droppin it as I ran, but when I saw it hangin off one of those branches, I grabbed it. Prob’ly a damned good thing, too, considerin how things went with that damned Dr. McAuliffe ... but that’s still a turn or two away from where I am now. I
did
stop to pick it up, that’s the point, and to me that says I was still in possession of my wits. I could feel the panic trying to reach underneath em, though, the way a cat’ll try to get its paw under the lid of a box, if it’s hungry and it can smell food inside.

I thought about Selena, and that helped keep the panic away. I could imagine her standin on the beach of Lake Winthrop along with Tanya and forty or fifty little campers, each camper with his or her own reflector-box that they’d made in the Handicrafts Cabin, and the girls showin em exactly how to see the eclipse in em. It wasn’t as clear as the vision I’d had out by the well, the one of the little girl lookin under the bed for her shorts n shirt, but it was clear enough for me to hear Selena talkin to the little ones in that slow, kind voice of hers, soothin the ones who were afraid. I thought about that, and about how I had to be here for her and her brothers when they got back ... only if I gave in to the panic, I probably wouldn’t be. I’d gone too far and done too much, and there wasn’t nobody left I could count on except myself.

I went into the shed and found Joe’s big six-cell flashlight on his worktable. I turned it on, but nothin happened; he’d let the batt’ries go flat, which was just like him. I keep the bottom drawer of his table stocked with fresh ones, though, because we lose the power so often in the winter. I got half a dozen and tried to fill the flashlight up again. My hands were tremblin so bad the first time that I dropped D-cells all over the floor and had to scramble for em. The second time I got em in, but I musta put one or two in bass-ackwards in my hurry, because the light wouldn’t come on.

I thought about just leavin it; the sun’d be comin out again pretty soon, after all. Except it’d be dark at the bottom of the well even after it
did
come out, and besides, there was a voice in the very back of my mind tellin me to keep on fiddlin and diddlin just as long’s I wanted—that maybe if I took long enough, I’d find he’d finally given up the ghost when I did get back out there.

At last I got the flash to work. It made a fine bright light, and at least I was able to find my way back to the wellcap without scratchin my legs any worse’n they already were. I don’t have the slightest idear how much time’d gone by, but it was still gloomy and there was still stars showin in the sky, so I guess it wasn’t yet six and the sun still mostly covered.

I knew he wasn’t dead before I was halfway back—I could hear him groanin and callin my name, beggin me to help him get out. I don’t know if the Jolanders or the Langills or the Carons would’ve heard him if they’d been home or not. I decided it was best not to wonder; I had plenty of problems without takin
that
on. I had to figure out what to do with him, that was the biggest thing, but I couldn’t seem to get far. Every time I tried to think of an answer, this voice inside started howlin at me. “It ain’t fair,” that voice yelled, “this wa’ant in the deal, he’s supposed to be
dead,
goddammit,
dead!”

“Helllp, Duh-lorrrr-isss!”
his voice come driftin up. It had a flat, echoey sound, as if he was yellin inside a cave. I turned on the light n tried to look down, but I couldn’t. The hole in the wellcap was too far out in the middle, and all the flashlight showed me was the top of the shaft—big granite rocks with moss growin all over em. The moss looked black and poisonous in the flashlight beam.

Joe seen the light. “Dolores?” he calls up. “For God’s sake, help me! I’m all broken!”

Now
he
was the one who sounded like he was talkin through a throatful of mud. I wouldn’t answer him. I felt like if I had to talk to him, I’d go crazy for sure. Instead, I put the flashlight aside, reached out as far as I could, and managed to get hold of one of the boards he’d broken through. I pulled on it and it snapped off as easy as a rotted tooth.

“Dolores!” he yelled when he heard that. “Oh God! Oh God be thanked!”

I didn’t answer, just broke off another board, and another, and another. By then I could see that the day had started to brighten again, and birds were singin the way they do in the summer when the sun comes up. Yet the sky was still a lot darker’n it had any business bein at that hour. The stars had gone in again, but the flicker-flies were still circlin around. Meantime, I went on breakin off boards, workin my way toward the side of the well I was kneelin on.

“Dolores!” his voice come driftin up. “You can have the money! All of it! And I’ll never touch Selena again, I swear before God Almighty and all the angels I won’t! Please, honey, just help me get outta this hole!”

I got up the last board—I had to yank it outta the blackberry creepers to get it loose—and tossed it behind me. Then I shone the light down into the well.

The first thing the beam struck was his upturned face, n I screamed. It was a little white circle with two big black holes in it. For a second or two I thought he’d pushed stones into his eyes for some reason. Then he blinked and it was just his eyes, after all, starin up at me. I thought of what they must have been seein—nothin but the dark shape of a woman’s head behind a bright circle of light.

He was on his knees, and there was blood all over his chin and neck and the front of his shirt. When he opened his mouth n screamed my name, more blood came pourin out. He’d broke most of his ribs when he fell, and they musta been stickin into his lungs on both sides like porcupine quills.

I didn’t know what to do. I kinda crouched there, feelin the heat come back into the day, on my neck n arms n legs I could feel it, and shinin the light down on him. Then he raised his arms n kinda waved em, like he was drowndin, and I couldn’t stand it. I snapped off the light and drew back. I sat there on the edge of the well, all huddled up in a little ball, holdin my bloody knees and shiverin.

“Please!”
he called up;
“Please!”
n
“Pleeease”
n finally
“Pleeeeeeeeeeze, Duh-lorrr-issss!”

Oh, it was awful, more awful than anyone could imagine, and it went on like that for a long time. It went on until I thought it would drive me mad. The eclipse ended and the birds stopped singin their good-mornin songs and the flicker-flies stopped circlin (or maybe it was just that I couldn’t see em anymore) and out on the reach I could hear boats tootin at each other like they do sometimes, shave n a haircut, two-bits, mostly, and still he wouldn’t quit. Sometimes he’d beg and call me honeybunch; he’d tell me all the things he was gonna do if I let him outta there, how he was gonna change, how he was gonna build us a new house and buy me the Buick he thought I’d always wanted. Then he’d curse me and tell me he was gonna tie me to the wall n stick a hot poker up my snatch n watch me wiggle on it before he finally killed me.

Once he ast if I’d throw down that bottle of Scotch. Can you believe that? He wanted his goddam bottle, and he cursed me and called me a dirty old used-up cunt when he seen I wasn’t gonna give it to him.

At last it began to get dark again—
really
dark—so it must have been at least eight-thirty, maybe even nine o’clock. I’d started listenin for cars along East Lane again, but so far there was nothin. That was good, but I knew I couldn’t expect my luck to hold forever.

I snapped my head up off my chest some time later and realized I’d dozed off. It couldn’t have been for long because there was still a little afterglow in the sky, but the fireflies were back, doin business as usual, and the owl had started its hootin again. It sounded a little more comfortable about it the second time around.

I shifted my spot a little and had to grit my teeth at the pins n needles that started pokin as soon’s I moved; I’d been kneelin so long I was asleep from the knees down. I couldn’t hear nothing from the well, though, and I started to hope that he was finally dead—that he’d slipped away while I’d been dozin. Then I heard little shufflin noises, and groans, and the sound of him cryin. That was the worst, hearin him cry because movin around gave him so much pain.

I braced m’self on my left hand and shone the light down into the well again. It was hard as hell to make myself do that, especially now that it was almost completely dark. He’d managed to get to his feet somehow, and I could see the flashlight beam reflectin back at me from three or four wet spots around the workboots he was wearin. It made me think of the way I’d seen the eclipse in those busted pieces of tinted glass after he got tired of chokin me and I fell on the porch.

Lookin down there, I finally understood what’d happened—how he’d managed to fall thirty or thirty-five feet and only get bunged up bad instead of bein killed outright. The well wasn’t completely dry anymore, you see. It hadn’t filled up again—if it’d done that I guess he woulda drowned like a rat in a rainbarrel—but the bottom was all wet n swampy. It had cushioned his fall a little, n it prob’ly didn’t hurt that he was drunk, either.

He stood with his head down, swayin from side to side with his hands pressed against the rock walls so he wouldn’t fall over again. Then he looked up and saw me and grinned. That grin struck a chill all the way through me, Andy, because it was the grin of a dead man—a dead man with blood all over his face n shirt, a dead man with what looked like stones pushed into his eyes.

Then he started to climb the wall.

I was lookin right at it n still I couldn’t believe it. He jammed his fingers in between two of the big rocks stickin out of the side and yanked himself up until he could get one of his feet wedged in between two more. He rested there a minute, and then I seen one of his hands go gropin up n over his head again. It looked like a fat white bug. He found another rock to hold onto, set his grip, and brought his other hand up to join it. Then he pulled himself up again. When he stopped to rest the next time, he turned his bloody face up into the beam of my light, and I saw little bits of moss from the rock he was holdin onto crumble down onto his cheeks n shoulders.