The Axman Cometh (13 page)

He has at least a couple of minutes; no one else is on the stairs. The voice of
Dabney
Hill booms through the house.

"I guess the only time I've been more surprised is when I woke up the morning after my wedding night, and Ernestine says to me—

But he is interrupted by Ernestine's sink-unclogging laugh, followed by her admonition: "If you tell
that
one, Dab, the next time we all get together will be at your surprise funeral!"

Passing by the closed bathroom door, mindful of some give and squeak in the floorboards there, he hears the boy groaning inside, and the girl says breathlessly, "Let me lick it, Clifton, that'll for sure make it go in easier." Down the hall to the front of the house again. There is a parched rubber plant on a brass stand beneath the window. Next to the master bedroom is the door to the attic. He opens it.
Dabney
Hill is saying, "—but to be serious for just a minute, if I may, I feel truly blessed to have so many good friends, who have taken the trouble to come by tonight and help old Poop-Deck Pappy celebrate his fiftieth birthday, and I'm looking forward to seeing each and every one of you back here again when the one with the two big zeros rolls around." Applause. He pauses on the stairs; the attic is dark and warm and reeks of stale, settled-in cigar smoke. He takes out his pocket flashlight and searches the risers, looking for obstacles in his way. Then he climbs the stairs to the attic floor, checking the beams for headroom, which is adequate when he removes his rancher's straw.

No windows overlook the backyard, although the wall has been cut to allow for a half-ton air-conditioning unit Enough light penetrates the grime on the panes of the two small dormer windows on the front of the house so that after a couple of minutes he no longer needs the thin beam of the flashlight to get around without bumping into things: a child's rocking horse and playpen, a mounted
deerhead
ravaged by moths, a wardrobe filled with out-of-style clothing, twenty boxes of old books, papers, keepsakes, letters, Christmas ribbon and wrapping and ornaments. A
gnomelike
Santa Claus with a cottony beard and a red-lipped grin. A couple of dolls and doll furniture, a stack of children's board games. An old navy footlocker and seaman's bag, some trunks and other items of luggage.

Dab is saying, "Now I think my daughter has a few words before we get on with the cake-cutting, so all you kids with sweet tooth’s just settle down, and that goes for you too, Pearl
Blaney
—-"

The attic is
unpartitioned
. There is the housing of a ceiling fan positioned above the second-floor hallway, a toilet and a sink in the open where Dab has put down some carpeting and made a space for himself, a clubroom of sorts: the centerpiece is an octagonal poker table with the green baize in pretty good shape, a little gray in spots from rubbed- in cigar and cigarette ash. Stacks of chips and decks of cards in the center, glass ashtrays of various shapes and colors all around. Dab has hung a fluorescent fixture low over the table. There is a standing lamp behind an armchair with the fabric worn down to the stuffing in places, a footstool, a little table which holds a humidor and a green glass ashtray the size of a dinner plate, overflowing with ashes and cigar ends. Dab has been forbidden to smoke his cigars downstairs, the man in the attic assumes. Dab has an old pewter spittoon beside the chair. There's half a roll of toilet paper, some Ex-Lax and a sliver of pink soap on the little shelf above the washbasin, which has a big rust-stained blot on the finely cracked porcelain; all of the bowl looks like a bloodshot eye.

For reading matter Dab has stocked mostly hardware catalogues and trade journals, a few copies of sportsmen's magazines, the kind featuring photographs of men with heavy armament posing beside downed grizzly bears the size of King Kong. If Dab is a hunter and fisherman, where does he keep his firearms? That may be a matter of concern. He hasn't seen a gun cabinet anywhere. But he didn't look in the closets in the master bedroom, and he hasn't been to the cellar yet. He will do both before the night is over.

Interspersed between the pages of
Field and Stream
and
Outdoor Life
he finds evidence that Dab's interest in sex is still alive and breathing: a couple of nudist magazines with hale, hearty, bushy people enjoying the sun, and a more explicit, obviously well- thumbed little magazine with captions in Danish or Swedish: a buxom woman pushing her breasts into another woman's face, a man with tattoos, a blacksnake whip and a horse- sized cock lording it over a supine nude; two slightly flabby youths having anal intercourse. Something else Dab isn't permitted downstairs, but who knows the extent of Ernestine's desires, willingness, ability?

Shannon is saying, "For all those nights you were patient with me when I just couldn't memorize the multiplication tables, for all my faults you've overlooked, for all the times I didn't take the time to say, 'I love you, daddy . . Her youthful voice in the gloom of the attic is a thrilling presence, melodious and as suspenseful as a lingering, rising horn call to a supernal, perfect E-sharp; he is inspired, assured that his finest work to date will be done before he leaves 298 West Homestead.

But now he must settle down, find a place for himself. Wait, invisibly, a ghostlike presence in their newly haunted house.

There is some cobwebby space behind the wardrobe, which, he finds, can be moved to make a little more space; and the wardrobe is far enough from the corner which Dab visits so that he will go undiscovered as long as he chooses. He casts around with his small light and finds a straw broom with a broken handle, uses that to sweep out, meticulously, behind the wardrobe, after first tying on a surgical mask to filter the dust. Dust is murder on his sinuses. There are some old drapes in a carton which he spreads on the floor he has cleaned, a couple of cushions left behind when a piece of furniture went to the Goodwill. A makeshift but comfortable arrangement. The attic floor, of course, makes enough noise when he walks around to be heard in the bedrooms; but it's an old house and a windy season, and they have lived in the house for so long they will be deaf to almost any familiar sound it makes at night: floorboards creaking, the branches of a tree rubbing against a gutter or roof. Probably the last thing they would think of is a guest in the attic, in the cellar, in their closets beside their beds with his
razorsharp
—

Not yet. It is not time to think of this.

"Dab, we love you so much!" Shannon cries out, her voice breaking, and he is touched, almost as deeply as if he himself is the one for whom she has composed this tribute.

Behind the wardrobe he unwraps the package, which contains a
toolbag
. First he takes out a camp lantern with a nine-volt battery that affords plenty of light in this limited space. The door to the attic scrapes on the sill as it is opened, so anyone coming up will give him warning to shut the light and crouch unmoving in his darkness for as long as necessary. Next he ties on a fresh surgical mask before removing other items purchased recently, before he had a new family in mind. After only a few days in Emerson, and after a few minutes with the irresistible Shannon, his choice seemed inevitable. Ordained. There are five in her house, always the number he seeks. The Cobb family of Briarwood, Missouri, had a pert daughter just Shannon's age.
Timmie
Cobb. He remembers her now with fondness, for the score they composed together is still his favorite, although, like all the other pieces he's been working on, it is as yet unperformed. There is time for that, he reminds himself. He is a young man, still growing in his art. What matters now is the vital, the daring act of composition, doing the groundwork, tapping deeply the streams of inspiration that families like the
Cobbs
, the
Crismons
, the
Hanyards
have provided.

Out of his
toolbag
comes a mechanic's one-piece coverall, a hard hat, polycarbonate safety goggles, driving gloves to protect his hands from blisters. A four-pound hammer with one blunt and one tapered, cold-forged chisel end. Nippers. A new hickory ax handle to replace the one that was broken during his last home visit. He is never without at least one spare ax handle. His kit also contains two double-bitted ax heads, the curved, sharp edges protected by tough leather scabbards. And duct tape, cement nails, used but not worn clothesline, the fishing line he has found to be more reliable than ordinary baling wire. The husky
Hanyard
boy, cheating on the finale, somehow broke the wire that bound his wrists and, weakened as he was by loss of blood and handicapped by having no feet, still almost managed to crawl out of the house alive. As it was his work was botched, the ballet score had to be discarded. His disappointment left him in desperate shape for a while. This happened in Iowa. Crestview, Iowa, where neighbor trusted neighbor and no one bothered to lock their doors or windows. He has assumed, on his drives through town, that Emerson is that sort of place, too. He's found it very friendly so far. He feels very much at home here.

Now he takes time out to review all of his movements of the last twenty minutes, when he arrived on West Homestead Avenue. He hates mistakes. The discarded surgical mask? Right there in the pocket of the tool bag. He has total recall of every step he's ever taken in each of the four houses he's visited to date. A fat memory book to browse through. But it hasn't been all fun. There are always surprises to deal with. And he can't face the prospect of another botched, useless score.

Might as well change clothes now, while the party is still going on. He isn't so sure it will be tonight, but there is no sense in not being prepared. So off with the Levi's and boots and the shirt with the mother-of-pearl buttons, adequate camouflage wherever he wanders in the Heartland. He folds and places this clothing neatly in the box. He is wearing white Jockey underwear briefs and white boot socks that come to just below his knees. On the right knee, the trick one, is a protective brace. He pulls on the roomy mechanic's coveralls and does up the snaps, then laces on a pair of bowling shoes; they are light in weight and afford a maximum grip on tile and hardwood floors—some women just can't get enough of waxing their floors, and fresh blood on a newly polished floor can be greased lightning. But from what he has seen of Shannon's house, Ernestine is at best a desultory housekeeper.

When he is dressed he prepares his ax, using the four-pound hammer to pound a bit tightly down onto the handle. Hearing the rock-and-roll band again, he wishes he'd brought along earplugs. It's the kind of music that puts him in a baleful mood—ugly, edgy, prone to mistakes, to doubts about the sanctity of his pursuit.

Do you remember that night, Shannon? How well do you remember?

Can't
 
remember. They're
 
all
 
dead and
 
I
 
don't
 
want
 
to
 
remember

Oh, but you must. It's inevitable. So is the work we'll finish, together. Before the night ends.

"Help me help somebody!!! I can't take any more "

I don't want to die!

You know that I can get you out of the elevator. I'm the only one who can. Be sensible.

"Stop
 
torturing
 
me "

Is it torture to be loved? Adored? Needed? I peed you desperately, Shannon.

"No way. You're not coming back."

The way out of here, Shannon, is through the back door of your house in Emerson. You're so close now. The party's over. Just walk inside. And I'll be there.

"I can't go in the house!"

Of course you can. It's home, Shannon. Come on."

"Come on, honey."

"You okay, Dab?"

"Sure. But it's been a lot of excitement, and I'm feeling kind of tired. I think Ernestine's hit the hay already."

"What about Uncle Gilmore?"

"He's happy," Dab says. "Let him be."

They pause in the back yard, arms around each other, and look at the lawn glider with the fringed vinyl top. Gilmore Hill is sprawled on the glider, his appaloosa-hide Stetson cocked low over his face, a cigar in one hand, a paper cup in the other. Uncle Gilmore brought his own refreshments to the party, and the fifth of Jack Daniels black label is about empty. For the last half-hour he's been singing softly to himself all of the hoary Western songs he knows.

"Need anything, Uncle Gilmore?" Shannon calls to him.

"
Doin
' just fine," the old cowpuncher replies, waving his cigar in the air. "Believe I'll catch a couple hours' shuteye on your sofa in the living room, light out about four a.m."

"Might as well stay for breakfast," Dab says. "No telling how long before we see you again."