Nathaniel (35 page)

He crouched at the edge, his eyes fixed on the rain gutter. The pipe seemed as if it was about to collapse under its own weight, and finally he decided not to risk it. Surely his mother would awaken if the gutter pulled loose, and the jump looked pretty easy. He lowered himself to a sitting position and let his legs dangle over the edge. A moment later he launched himself off the roof, letting his knees buckle as he hit the ground so that he rolled into the kind of somersault he’d seen his father use when he was skydiving. He lay still for a moment—something else his father had always done—and then stood up to brush the dust off his jeans. Then he went to the front door, unlocked it, and let Shadow out.

Ryan and Eric were waiting for him next to the storm cellar.

“How we gonna do it?” Ryan whispered. “Old man Findley hasn’t gone to bed yet. There’s a light on in the downstairs window.”

“Maybe we better not try it,” Michael suggested.

“You chickening out?” Eric asked.

“N-no. But what if he catches us?”

“If we do it right, he won’t,” Eric said. “We can cut down to the river, then come back through Potter’s Field. That way the barn’ll be between him and us. Come on.”

They moved out of the shelter of the storm cellar’s slanting roof and began zigzagging down the length of the pasture, hunched low, pausing every few seconds to watch and listen.

Except for the soft chirping of insects and the lowing of cattle floating over the prairie, the night was silent. They came to a stop at the fence separating the pasture from the wheat field beyond, and Michael peered intently into the darkness. The night seemed to thicken over Potter’s Field, just to the west. Shadow, crouching at his master’s feet, whined softly.

“What is it?” Ryan asked, his voice barely audible.

Michael said nothing. His head was beginning to hurt, and in the darkness he was almost sure he could see a slight movement. And as if from a great distance, a voice—Nathaniel’s voice—was whispering to him. The words were indistinct, but Michael knew it was a warning.

“Something’s out there,” he said at last. “In Potter’s Field. I can feel it.”

“Come on,” Eric said. He climbed the fence and began making his way down the wheat field toward the woods next to the river. Ryan followed him, and, a moment later, so did Michael. But even as he came to the strip of cottonwoods and stepped into the near-total darkness beneath the trees, Michael’s headache grew worse, and the voice in his head became more urgent.

Their progress slowed. They moved with all the care their imaginations demanded, and every time a twig snapped under their feet, they came to a halt, waiting for an answering movement that would tell them they were not alone in the woods. After what seemed an eternity, they emerged from the forest, and found themselves at the south end of Potter’s Field. They gazed out at it. In the gloom of the night, its growth of tumbleweeds seemed to have turned threatening.

“Maybe Michael’s right,” Ryan whispered. “Maybe we ought to go home.”

“You scared?” Eric asked.

Ryan nodded.

“Well, I’m not,” Eric declared. “Come on.” He started to worm his way through the barbed wire fence that surrounded the field, but suddenly Michael’s hand closed around his arm.

“There’s something out there.”

Eric hesitated. “Bullshit.” Then: “What?”

“I—I don’t know. But I know there’s something in the field. I can—I can sort of feel it.”

The three boys, their eyes squinting against the darkness, peered into the field, but saw nothing more than the blackness of the night and the strange forms of the tumbleweeds etched vaguely against the horizon.

Suddenly Shadow tensed, and a low growl rolled up from the depths of his throat.

“Oh, Jeez,” Ryan whispered. “Let’s go home.”

And then, in the distance, a light appeared, and Shadow’s growl turned into a vicious snarl.

“It’s Abby,” Ryan breathed. “It’s gotta be Abby, lookin’ for her kids.”

“M-maybe it’s not,” Eric said, but his voice had suddenly lost its conviction. “Maybe it’s old man Findley—maybe he saw us.”

Only Michael remained silent, his eyes concentrating on the light, his ears hearing only the words that were being whispered within his head.

“If he finds you, you will die.”

The light moved, bobbing slowly through the field, stopping every few feet. With every movement, it seemed to come closer, almost as if whatever was in the field knew the three boys were there, and was searching for them.

Shadow, too, seemed to be concentrating on the light. Every muscle in his body was hard with tension under Michael’s hands, and the end of his tail twitched spasmodically. A menacing sound, barely audible, welled up from deep within him, and his ears lay flat against the back of his head.

And then, as if he’d responded to the hunter’s instinct buried deep in his genes, he shot off into the night, disappearing almost instantly, as his black fur blended into the darkness.

The dog’s sudden movement triggered Ryan and Eric, and suddenly they were running, oblivious now to the sounds of their feet pounding through the underbrush as they dashed back into the cover of the forest.

Only Michael, his head throbbing, stayed where he was, peering into the darkness, searching the field for someone—or something—he knew was there, but couldn’t quite find. And then, following the voice that seemed to come from within, he carefully crept through the fence and began making his way across Potter’s Field toward the barn beyond.

Amos Hall had been making his way carefully through the field. He knew where each of the markers lay, which were the stones that marked the children’s graves. He paused at each of them, though only for a second at the ones that still lay undisturbed.

The stones that had been turned over that afternoon took more of his time, for when he came to those, he knelt in the earth, carefully sifted the soft soil through his fingers, smoothing it as well as he could, then replacing the stone markers with an odd sense of reverence.

He’d been in this field only four times since the day when he was a young man and his father had brought him out here, shown him the stones, and told him the story of Abby Randolph.

“And our children still die,” his father had told him. “It’s as if there’s a curse on us, almost as if Abby and Nathaniel want us to remember how they felt, want us to feel the pain they must have felt that winter.” Amos had started to protest his father’s words, but his father had stopped him. “It’ll happen to you, too, Amos. You’ll have children, and some of them will be all right. But there will be others who will be born dead. Bring them here, Amos. Bring them here and bury them with Abby’s children.”

Amos hadn’t believed it at first, not until the first time it had happened. He and Anna had been young then, and as Anna’s belly swelled with the growing child they had made plans for it, begun to love it, cherishing it even before it was born.

And then, finally, one night it had come.

And it had been dead.

Amos remembered that birth still, remembered being in the little downstairs room with Anna, helping her as her labor began. And then the child had emerged from the womb, and he had known immediately that it was dead.

Anna had denied it.

It couldn’t have been dead, she’d said. It couldn’t have been dead, because she’d felt it moving inside her, right up until the very end. If it had been alive then, how could it have died?

Amos hadn’t been able to tell her. He’d tried, done his best to make her understand the tragedy that had befallen their family so many years ago, but in the end, he’d failed. Stories and old wives’ tales, Anna had insisted.

Despite what Anna had thought, Amos had brought the child out to this field and buried it with Abby’s children. And when he’d returned, Anna had changed. A hurt had entered her soul, a hurt that had never healed. Slowly, over the years, she’d come to think he had killed her child.

When it had happened again, her bitterness had only increased. And once more he had come to Potter’s Field, burying what he had come to think of as Nathaniel’s child near its brother.

Then there had been Mark. And Laura. Healthy children, who had lived though both had seemed frail at birth.

With Anna’s last child, it had been different. Amos still could not bring himself to remember that night. On that night, he had not come to the field. That night, Charles Potter had done it for him, and Amos had never even asked where that child lay.

He didn’t want to know, for it was after that night that Mark had left, and Anna had retreated to her wheelchair, and Laura’s mind had begun to weaken.

Laura.

He hadn’t even tried to explain the truth to Laura. Instead, he’d merely been there, as he’d been there for Anna, to help her with her labor, and take away the tiny bodies when she inevitably gave birth to one of Nathaniel’s children. For Laura, he’d been here twice.

If other people ever came to Potter’s Field, Amos Hall had never known about it.

Except for Mark.

Mark had come to the field twice. Once, the night Anna’s last child had been born. That night, he’d said nothing. Instead, he’d simply disappeared. But then, last spring, he’d come home, and once more he’d come to Potter’s Field. And after that night in Potter’s Field, he’d sought Amos out, confronted him with wild ravings about dead children who still lived, shouting about Nathaniel and punishment.

Amos had tried to explain the truth of what had happened so many years ago. But Mark hadn’t wanted to hear. Instead, he’d only stared at Amos with hate-filled eyes. “I was there, Pa,” he’d said. “I was there the night my brother was born. You thought you’d killed him, didn’t you? And you gave him to Doc to bury. But he wasn’t dead, Pa. I could hear him, crying out, calling to me. I followed him that night, Pa. While Doc carried him into the field, I followed him, and I watched what happened. Doc buried him, Pa. The baby wasn’t dead, but Doc buried him anyway. And he’s still not dead, Pa. He’s alive. Nathaniel’s alive.”

Mark had been shouting, shouting and screaming, and then, Mark had died. And Amos, in his own mind, was still not sure if it had been an accident, or if he had meant to kill Mark. All that had mattered was that suddenly there was silence in the barn. Silence and peace. There had been too many years of pain, too many years of misunderstandings. Now, all that mattered to Amos was that Potter’s Field lay undisturbed, that Nathaniel’s children have their peace.

But today, Anna had come, and Michael, and Michael had prowled the field, turning over the stone markers, disturbing the soil that covered Nathaniel’s children.

Tonight, carefully, reverently, Amos was repairing the damage.

He worked slowly, moving from grave to grave, checking each stone.

Twice, he thought he heard sounds in the night, sounds that didn’t fît. Twigs snapped, and he knew well that the creatures of the night moved silently, never betraying their presence with more than a rustling of leaves that could be mistaken for the wind. Tonight, there was no wind.

He paused each time he heard a sound, and listened, but all he heard was silence, and after a few moments he returned to his work.

Then, as he was replacing the sixth stone, he felt something. It was a presence, and it was near him. And suddenly the night was filled with sound—the sound of running feet, human feet, fleeing into the woods by the river. And yet, despite the sounds, Amos still had the feeling that he was being watched. Nervously, he cast the beam of light in a circle around him, and finally saw them. Two yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness, and beneath them the bared fangs of Shadow, his lean body slung close to the ground in readiness for the attack.

His rifle. Amos had to find his rifle. He groped around in the dark, but it wasn’t there. Finally, in desperation, he used the flashlight. The gun lay on the ground a few feet away, just out of reach. As Amos moved toward it, Shadow launched himself into the air.

Neither the man nor the dog uttered a sound, and for Amos the dog’s silence was the most frightening thing about the attack. Shadow’s first lunge knocked him off his feet, and he tumbled to the ground, expecting the dog’s fangs to sink into his flesh immediately. It didn’t happen.

Instead the dog placed himself between Amos and the gun, his cold yellow eyes fixed on the man, his teeth bared. For several seconds, Amos lay still on the ground, waiting for the dog to renew his attack.

Then, when Shadow made no move toward him, he pulled himself up onto all fours. Shadow watched him, but still made no move.

But when Amos started forward, moving slowly and carefully, Shadow tensed, and his tail began to twitch.

Amos backed off, and Shadow’s tail stopped moving, but he inched forward, closing the distance between himself and Amos to what it had been before.

Every time Amos tried to move toward the gun, it happened again. The bared fangs, the dangerously twitching tail, the tensing of the body.

Slowly, Amos began backing away, and just as slowly Shadow closed on him, never crowding him, but never letting the distance between them increase.

Then Shadow began playing Amos, moving him slowly across the field, circling him slowly, guiding him toward the fence that separated the field from the woods. At first Amos rejected what was happening, but each time he tried to define the direction of his own retreat, Shadow countered him.

And still there was no sound, either from the man or from the dog.

Minutes later, Amos felt the sting of barbed wire as the lowest strand of the fence gouged into his leg. He stopped, sank into a crouching position for a moment, then finally stood up. Shadow, too, came to a halt, as if sensing that for the moment the man could go no further.

After a few seconds had passed, Amos took a step to the left. For the first time, Shadow growled, then countered the move. Amos tried going to the right. Again, the growl, and the counter.

“Goddamn you,” Amos muttered. Carefully, he made his way through the fence. The moment he was free of it, Shadow slipped easily beneath the bottom wire and began relentlessly driving the old man through the woods toward the river beyond.