Sweet Everlasting (24 page)

“Getting prettified?”

The slur of his words told her everything. She couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t move.

“God will not hear vanity. The generation that’s not washed from its own filthiness will perish.”

His footsteps came to a stop behind her. She saw herself rinsing the washcloth over and over, paying minute attention to the shapes it made when it bloated with water and when she squeezed it dry in her fists. She heard the clink of Artemis’s teeth against the whiskey jar and the sound of him swallowing, the sharp exhale of his breath afterward. In her side vision she saw him put the jar on the drain board next to her. Dropping the washcloth, she turned slowly around to face him.

The look in his eyes, cruel and righteous and full of the black lust, answered all the questions she had left.

“ ‘God is faithful,’ ” he quoted to her. “ ‘He’ll not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ ”

He wasn’t any taller than she was, a part of her mind observed in surprise. Funny she’d never noticed that before. But she never got this close to him if she could help it. Holding his rabid gaze, she glided one sideways step toward the door.

“Every man is tempted when he’s drawn away of his own lust and enticed. But you won’t draw me into sin again, you fornicating slut, and I’m God’s punishment on you.”

She bolted.

He reached the door before she did, slammed it shut with a giant paw, and lunged for her. Even though he was staggering drunk, he was lightning quick and ten times stronger, and she was too panicked to move fast. He had her in a strong-armed hug, grunting and breathing his whiskey fumes in her face. Why wrestle, why fight? This was fated—it had happened before and it was happening again. But the second she got one hand free, she hit him as hard as she could on the side of his beefy neck.

He struck her across the face, using his knuckles. She sailed backward and crashed against the cook stove, scattering pots and pans. The cast-iron skillet wobbled near her hand; she picked it up. Artemis came at her like a charging bull. She took a mighty swing. The skillet thunked him hard on the shoulder, and he howled. She couldn’t back up any farther. He yanked the pan out of her grip and flung it at the wall behind her.

“When lust hath conceived,” he panted, “it bringeth forth sin, and sin bringeth forth death.” He wound his enormous hands around her throat and squeezed.

She flailed out at him, kicking, scratching. He had her bent backward over the stove. She couldn’t see anything but dots, black and white and streaming. But suddenly he let go of her neck and started to tear at the buttons on her dress. She rolled to her side, trying to throw off his vile weight, but it was no use. When he pawed her bare breasts, she snarled at him like an animal, blind with rage, yanking his hair, biting at whatever part of him came within snapping distance of her teeth. Keeping silent was the last thing in her mind, but it didn’t matter; she could’ve screamed in his face, and he wouldn’t have noticed. He’d gone mad.

Her knee missed his groin by an inch. He jerked back, and she scrambled out from under him, running blind. He came at her from behind, bringing her down on top of the table. It crashed beneath them, the legs splintering, sending them both sprawling. Carrie got one knee on the floor, but before she could spring up, Artemis leapt at her, taking her down again. His weight crushed her; she couldn’t get her breath. Pulling on her hair, he got her turned around; he wanted her facing him. He was battering her with his knees, trying to get between her legs, struggling with apron and skirt and petticoats. She raised up to sink her teeth into his throat. He screamed. When she tasted his warm blood, she had to let go, repelled by it.

He arched over her. She saw his raised fist; he was going to kill her with it. She twisted her head, and then she felt the score-settling
smash
against her temple. She dropped down a deep hole into nothing.

At first it was just a feeling, lurking beyond the shifting rock wall between her and consciousness, beyond the pain and confusion. A feeling that he was watching. Time crawled, or raced; somehow it passed. The rock wall began to shift. She had a glimpse of gray denim—a trouser cuff. Now a mud-caked shoe. Everything in her rebelled—uselessly. She let her eyelids slide closed again, feigning unconsciousness; a second later she slipped into the real thing.

The rock wall crumbled, and the fragments of her mind began to reassemble. The next time she opened her eyes, all she could see were scattered marsh violets and larkspur, mule harness, notebook papers, a copper pot—the toppled remains of their struggle. Artemis was nowhere in sight.

She sat up. The room whirled and buzzed like a bottle full of bees; she held onto her head so it wouldn’t go flying off her shoulders. Since the table was broken, she had to stand up on her own power. Nausea passed in its own time, but her vision wouldn’t clear. The least movement of her head caused pictures to flap into place sideways, like somebody thumbing a deck of cards. By focusing ferociously, she made out that the mantel clock said ten minutes to four.

A noise—from Artemis’s room. Panic snaked along her scalp, skittered down her spine. She stumbled against the door, fingers gone numb, scrabbling at the knob. Wrenching at it, she got the door open and staggered outside.

Wobbling crazily, she made it to the lean-to and got that door open, too. But she didn’t think she could hitch Petey to the wagon. She’d ride him, then. She’d gotten the bridle bit in his teeth when she heard a crash from the cabin, then a drunken shout. She jerked the harness over Petey’s ears and somehow got it buckled. Using the stall rail to stand on and mount him bareback, she kicked him into a startled jog, out into the sunny yard.

Artemis was lying sprawled on the porch step, legs spread, arms waving. When he saw her, his vacant eyes burned, and he let out a bellow of rage. She slapped Petey’s rump with the long rein and dug her heels into his sides—but he was trotting
toward
the cabin,
toward
Artemis, and he wouldn’t turn. Now Artemis was only twelve feet away, hollering about concupiscence and fornication and idolatry. But he was stuck like a bug on his back, elbows and heels slithering helpless against the porch step. Like a scene from a slow-motion nightmare, Carrie finally turned the mule and got him moving, barely, on the narrow track that led down the mountain.

Everything hurt, and Petey had the bumpiest gait of any creature God ever made. All that kept her from despair was knowing she was going to see Tyler, and every jolting step the mule took carried her closer to him. When she reached the town’s outskirts, she had enough presence of mind to take the alley, not Broad Street, so she wouldn’t be so conspicuous. The few people who did see her looked startled, but she didn’t know them and nobody stopped her. She couldn’t imagine what she looked like, but it must be a sight, with her hair down and her face bloody, her torn dress held together in one hand.

Turning left on Antietam, she spied Broom on the far corner, bent double under a sackful of cans. He saw her a minute later and immediately dropped the sack in the middle of the sidewalk. Petey snorted and stepped sideways, scared of the noise. Broom shouted out, “Carrie!” and scampered over, arms and legs churning like broken umbrella spokes, while she tried to quiet the mule. She felt light-headed, and she couldn’t make her legs stop shaking, but she was glad to see Broom.

“What happened? How’d you get hurt? Are you hurt bad, Carrie? What happened to you? Was it Artemis done it? Was it, Carrie?” She finally nodded, and Broom burst into tears.

He pressed his face against her thigh and sobbed, clutching at her skirts. “I’m all right,” she whispered, reaching a hand down to stroke his head. His dirty hair had the feel and the color of grass in wintertime. “Help me, Broom. Take Petey’s reins and help me get to Dr. Wilkes.”

Broom never was any good with horses or mules; they scared him to death. But he took Petey’s reins without a second’s hesitation and pulled him all the way to Dr. Wilkes’s office. If he thought anything about the amazing fact that she’d just spoken her first words to him ever, he didn’t mention it.

“I swear it never fails,” grumbled Mrs. Quick, setting Tyler’s plate of sausage rolls and scrambled eggs down with an irritable smack—as if it were
her
dinner the pounding on the door downstairs was about to interrupt. She made no move to see who it was, though. Cooking and cleaning were her jobs, and hell could freeze before she offered to do anything extra. Holding in a sigh, Ty got up from the table and headed for the sitting room stairs that led down to his office, shrugging his coat on as he went.

The banging got louder, but he didn’t race to the door; experience had taught him that nine out of ten “emergencies” were no such thing, and that the more theatrical the messenger’s arrival—upon a foaming steed, for example—the less urgent the call was likely to prove.

He pulled the door open. Carrie’s friend, the boy named Broom, tumbled in and almost tackled him.

“Doc, Carrie’s pa beat her up! Look, look!” He pointed to the street behind him. Over his flailing arms, Ty saw Carrie standing on the far side of her mule, resting her head on its withers. He shook Broom off and ran.

She put her arms out when she saw him. Bruised face, bare breasts, wild hair—he took it all in at a glance, and snatched her up in his arms before she could fall. Her hand on his chest was unsteady but her eyes were clear. “I expect I look worse than I am,” she said faintly, trying to smile—trying to reassure
him.

“Don’t talk. I’ll tell you how you are.” But she was clearheaded and apparently not mortally hurt. His panic subsided.

Broom danced around them all the way back to the house, babbling and weeping and wringing his hands. In the waiting room, Ty told Carrie, “I’m going to put you here because it’s more comfortable than on my examining table.” He lay her down on the sofa. “Mrs. Quick, bring my medical case down here now!” he called up the stairs. “And a blanket!” Kneeling beside Carrie, he stroked the hair out of her eyes and asked in his best professional voice, “What hurts you the most?” Her hand went immediately to the abraded black bruise on her right temple. He skimmed it lightly with his fingertips. No sign of a broken bone spicule to cause bleeding into the brain. “Were you unconscious?” She nodded gingerly. “For how long? An hour?”

“Longer, I think,” she whispered.

“Did you vomit?”

“No.”

“Are you cold now?” She shook her head. She wasn’t shivering; her skin felt warm but not hot. She wasn’t in shock—yet. “You’re going to be fine,” he assured her. But when Mrs. Quick appeared with the blanket from his own bed, he threw it over Carrie quickly and tucked it snugly around her feet.

“Lord have mercy! What happened to you, child?”

Ty said, “Thank you, Mrs. Quick, I won’t be—”

“Artemis done it,” cried Broom. “Artemis beat her, lookit her face. Aw, Carrie.” He fell to his knees and pressed his head against her arm; his body shuddered convulsively from the spasms peculiar to his disorder, worse now because of his distress.

Tyler put two firm hands on his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. “Broom, you want to help Carrie, don’t you? Don’t you?”

It took a second to get his complete attention, but then he answered eagerly, “Yes, sir!”

“Well, what she needs right now is rest and quiet. Rest and quiet, hear me? She needs to lie in this room by herself and be quiet so she can get strong again. Do you know what you can do to help her?”

“What?”

“Take her mule to the livery and tell Hoyle Taber to stable it overnight. Tell him I said so. Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir, I think I can, I’m pretty sure I can.”

Tyler wasn’t sure at all. But he said, “Good boy,” and gave him a manly thump on the shoulder. “Go along now. You can see Carrie tomorrow, and I bet she’ll be good as new.”

“No, tonight,” he protested, the tears starting again. “Let me see her tonight, please? Please, Doc, I’ll—”

“All right,” he cut him off hastily. “Come back tonight, and I’ll tell you how she’s doing.”

“Okay! Now I’m going to the livery.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m taking Petey, and he’s gonna stay there till tomorrow.”

“That’s it.” He got Broom through the door, and closed it on him before he could start in on a new subject.

Carrie’s pulse was rapid but even. Her pupils weren’t dilated, but it seemed impossible that she could have avoided concussion after such a blow. “What else hurts you?” he asked, after making sure no bones were fractured. She rolled her eyes and made a face “Hurts all over,” he guessed, smiling in sympathy. “Did he hit you here?” He pressed lightly against her spleen, her pelvis, her kidneys. She made a negative gesture with her hands that said he hadn’t hit her in the body at all. The bruises must have come from falling, then, or struggling with the son of a bitch.

“Is this girl staying here overnight, Dr. Wilkes?” Mrs. Quick asked from behind him. He’d forgotten she was there.

“Yes.”

She gave an unpleasant adenoidal sniff. “Then I guess I’ll have to stay, too.”

Tyler looked at her over his shoulder. “How’s that?”

“For decency’s sake. Can’t have a young woman in your house all night and no chaperone.”

He made a private face at Carrie of exaggerated revulsion. She put her hand over her mouth and turned her head into the sofa cushion—a reaction that heartened him so much he almost laughed out loud. “Thank you, that’s very kind and thoughtful of you, Mrs. Quick, but it won’t be necessary.” He stood up and put a solicitous hand on his housekeeper’s massive shoulder. “I wouldn’t think of troubling you,” he said as he walked her toward the staircase. “It’s after six now, you don’t want to be late getting home. Miss Wiggins is fine where she is, I assure you. She’ll rest here tonight. I’ll be upstairs, of course, within calling distance if she should need me. There will be no proprieties flouted, you can be sure of that. Thank you very much, though, that was indeed a gracious offer.” He was practically pushing her up the stairs now.