The Rosewood Casket (31 page)

She had been waiting a long time in the waiting area reserved for loved ones of those in surgery. She had crumpled her good winter coat into a pillow, and there were coffee stains on the skirt of her gray wool dress, but she was not concerned now with her appearance. Surely doctors saw nothing but the eyes of their patient’s family: the staring, pleading eyes that waited to hear what sentence would be pronounced on their loved one.

“Mrs. Arrowood?” He was a youngish man, and he looked tired, too. He could have done with a bath and a shave. The name tag on his white coat said:
Peter O’Neill, M.D.
“Sit down, please.” He waved her to a plastic chair and took the one next to her.

“How is he?” Jane felt as if most of her were still standing.

“Spencer is out of danger now, I think. The bullet missed a lot of chances to really mess him up. All he lost was his spleen.”

Jane felt tears spill onto her cheeks. “Is that bad?”

“He can live without it. The spleen is like a big sponge. It holds an extra amount of blood in case your body happens to need it for emergencies. So he’s lost that, and maybe he’ll be more susceptible to colds and things. Nothing major. If that bullet had hit him on the right side, it would have been a different story. Then it would have taken out the liver, and we’d have lost him.”

“But he’s all right?” Jane kept asking it. She could not hear the answer often enough.

“He is. He’ll be on a ventilator for a while, so he won’t be able to talk even if he comes to, but it’s only for support. We’ll remove it when he regains consciousness, which should be sometime after midnight, if all goes well. He’s had a rough day.” The surgeon let out a deep sigh, and patted Jane Arrowood’s shoulder. “We all have.”

Something in the doctor’s voice made her wary. “Is there something else?”

He sighed, and ran a hand over his unkempt hair. “I’ll tell you, Mrs. Arrowood, we almost lost him in there.” He nodded toward the operating room. “He had been in shock a long time before they got him off the mountain and into the operating room, and it was almost too much for his system. We got a flat line for close to a minute, and we had to work to bring him around. But he’s young and fit. He came back strong, and we got the bullet out. Removed the spleen. He’ll have a good long scar for the rest of his life, but that’s about the worst of it. He’s in recovery now, still unconscious, of course.” He looked at her worn face and reddened eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d consider going home?”

Jane shook her head. She had been dreading this night for a long time—ever since her son was first elected sheriff. She had nightmares about it sometimes, and the memories were always mixed up with those of her older son, Cal. She hadn’t been able to keep a vigil over his dying. Two uniformed army officers had come to her door one spring night in 1966 to tell her that, half a world away, her boy was dead. Bad enough to have to go on living after that. Then Spencer had gone into police work. He must find a job that risked his life every single day. She wondered sometimes if he were still competing with his older brother—if getting shot at were the whole point of it for him. And now it had come.

She had lived through this vigil many times in her imaginings, and she would not abandon it now that it had come. “It’s safe for me to leave for a while. You’re certain?”

“He’s going to have to take it easy for a while, but I think he’ll make it through this without any permanent damage. Try to see that he’s not a damned fool about going back before he’s ready.”

Jane bowed her head. There were no words for the magnitude of her relief.

Dr. O’Neill glanced around the waiting room. “I should let the sheriff’s department know that he’s out of danger, shouldn’t I? I’m told that they have been calling regularly”—he permitted himself a wry smile—“almost constantly, in fact, to ask about your son’s condition. Will you call them, or shall I?”

Jane felt suddenly tired. She had been in the hospital since early afternoon, and she couldn’t remember whether she had eaten or not. “You call them, please,” she said. “You may have to leave a message, though. I think they’re out searching for the person who did this.”

Dr. O’Neill frowned. “I hope they’re not drumming up more business for me.”

“I hope not, either,” said Jane Arrowood. She meant, but did not say, that when it was over, she hoped that the officers in the search party would come out unscathed, and that the person they were looking for would be past needing the services of Peter O’Neill, M.D.

*   *   *

Kayla pulled her coat more tightly around her. It was getting dark now, and an occasional gust of wind would find them in the trees, making her shiver. They had been walking uphill for a long time. Kayla wasn’t sure which way home was now or how far they had come, but she was tired. She was hungry, too, but she could tell that it wouldn’t do any good to ask for food. There plainly wasn’t any. Kayla had some jelly beans in her pocket, but she hadn’t bothered to eat any. She might need them worse later.

The lady with the gun had let her sit down on a rock for a few minutes to catch her breath. Then they would walk some more. “I don’t reckon we can build a fire?” Kayla said softly.

Dovey Stallard shook her head. “No. We shouldn’t talk, either. Somebody might be close enough to hear us.”

“Nah,” said Kayla. “Posses are pretty noisy. They got dogs and flashlights, and walkie-talkies, and they yell all the time. If they were coming up on us, we’d know it.”

“Posse,” Dovey almost smiled. “You been watching cowboy movies?”

“Sometimes. Charles Martin likes them. He has a whole bookcase full of videos. All of Clint Eastwood. Some John Wayne. It’s the right word, isn’t it? When cops are chasing somebody, doesn’t that make them a posse?”

“I guess.” Her captor sighed. “We used to play games like this when we were kids, me and Charles Martin and his brothers. Never thought it would really happen to me, though.”

“What did you do?” asked Kayla with interest. The lady hadn’t hit her or anything, and she hadn’t even pointed the gun at her lately, so Kayla wasn’t particularly afraid of this new grown-up. She was sober, anyhow. Some of Kayla’s mama’s boyfriends had been a whole lot worse, even when they were
trying
to be nice. Besides, this lady was a friend of Charles Martin Stargill’s, she’d said so herself. So she must be all right. And she seemed pretty scared. Kayla wished she could help.

Dovey shrugged. “Some bad men were trying to take my land,” she said. “I shot at them to make them go away.”

“You didn’t kill one, did you?” Kayla’s eyes widened.

“I—I hope not.” She stood up. “No sense talking about it. We’d better get moving.”

“Is that how come you took me? To keep them from shooting at you?”

“I don’t know,” said Dovey. “Mostly that, I guess. A hostage was better than nothing. And maybe I did it to hurt Charlie Stargill, too. He could have stopped all this, and he wouldn’t.”

“How could Charles Martin have stopped it?”

“He’s rich. I asked him to give me the money to save the farm, and he wouldn’t do it. So—whatever happens to us—let him live with it.” Dovey pointed the barrel of the pistol at the ground, and helped the child up with her free hand. “Let’s get going.”

Kayla’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness now, but she had to move slowly. She couldn’t see the rocks or branches in deep shadows, and now and then she stumbled. “It’s pretty dark,” she said, dusting off the knees of her jeans after a fall. “You didn’t bring a flashlight?”

“I didn’t bring anything. I just—I ran.”

“You know where we’re headed?”

“Sort of. If I can find it again. Look out for this mountain laurel. It’s pretty thick, and the branches can scratch you up good.”

Kayla stood still and listened. Far off she could hear the baying of tracking dogs, and she thought she heard an occasional shout from one of the searchers. She wondered if her mother had missed her yet, and whether anybody had figured out where she was. Clayt would probably come looking for her. He was her friend. Charles Martin was nice enough, but Kayla couldn’t imagine him ruining his custom-made Lucchese boots traipsing through the woods in the dark. Clayt wouldn’t care, though; his clothes were beat up already. And he talked to her like she was a real person. Besides, trailing her through the wilderness was something Daniel Boone might have done, and Clayt would love it on account of that.

That thought stirred something in her memory. Daniel Boone had tracked a girl through the wilderness. Clayt had told her the story the day she’d gone with him to take the coffin wood to the shop. The Indians had kidnapped Daniel Boone’s daughter, and he’d had to follow their tracks to get her back. Boone’s daughter had helped him find her by stalling the Shawnees at their rest stops. She picked lice out of the old chief’s hair. Well, that wouldn’t work. The lady with the gun looked clean enough, just sweaty and scared. She wondered if she ought to make it easy for him to track her. She didn’t want to get the lady in trouble, but she figured it would be okay if Clayt found them. He’d never shoot anybody.

Kayla fished a jelly bean out of the pocket of her jeans, and dropped it on the ground. “Want to play like we’re Indians?” she asked the lady.

Dovey sighed. “I reckon that’s what we’re doing, child. Playing Indian.”

“How come?”

“We’re being hunted through the woods by men with rifles who have taken our land. You can’t get much more Indian than that.”

“I had me a Pocahontas dress for Halloween. They only let me go to four houses, though. What was the name of your Indian?”

“Nancy Ward. She was a great chief. Cherokee.”

*   *   *

Kelley Johnson kept blinking the tears away from her eyelashes so that she could see the seam she was sewing for Randall Stargill’s coffin lining. They had cut up some of Randall’s old neckties and bits of old clothes they had found in the trunk, and Lilah had used almost all of the Italian shawl, scattered piecemeal throughout the design. Its silky sheen and the fine embroidery work brightened the quilt until it was almost too festive for a burial.

It was nearly finished now: seven feet long, five feet wide—soon she and Lilah and Debba would sew their three portions together, and lay it aside to wait for Randall Stargill to die and have need of it.

Around her in the parlor, all the Stargills—except Clayt—were sitting stiffly in little pools of light from the table lamps. The television was on as always, but the sound had been cut off, so that the people on the screen moved and gestured in helpless silence. Kelley felt as if she were one of them: screaming without uttering a sound.

The Stargills were making desultory conversation, and trying to seem natural. Kelley wanted to put down her sewing and throw her coffee cup against the wall. Anything to make them stop pretending. Her baby was out there somewhere in the night, and they were all acting like nothing was wrong. They had said how sorry they were, and they’d assured her that Kayla would be home safe by midnight—all, that is, except Debba, who stared at her with round, frightened eyes, anticipating tragedy, and transfixed by it. The others had seemed callous in their optimism. Kelley sewed in silence and hated them.

Lilah had tried to be helpful. She kept bringing Kelley cups of tea, and she’d wanted to call Dr. Banner to come and administer a sedative to the distraught mother, but Kelley refused. She didn’t want to be numbed; she wanted to wait, and she wanted to be awake enough to pray as hard as she could that Kayla would be all right.

“I just can’t believe Dovey Stallard would have shot anybody,” said Charles Martin, for maybe the tenth time.

“That’s the trouble with guns,” said Lilah, peering through her reading glasses at the eye of the needle she was trying to thread. “You can do something in a split second, and regret it forever after. I’m sure she’s very sorry about it now.”

“It’s the culture up here,” said Robert Lee. “It’s violent. Always was. We’re well out of it, all of us.”

Kelley looked over her needlework at Charles Martin. He had been avoiding her eyes for the last half hour. He sat in the wingback chair, cradling the Martin guitar in his arms, and picking a dozen notes of first one melody and then another. Kelley recognized the tune to “Footprints in the Snow,” an old Flatt and Scruggs number about a fellow who finds a lost girl in the woods by tracking her steps in the snow. Charles could sing about it, but he couldn’t do it.

He looked up suddenly and met her gaze. He looked away first. “Kayla will be all right,” he mumbled. “Dovey wouldn’t hurt a kid. She’s hot-tempered, but she doesn’t mean any harm.”

“She shot somebody this morning,” said Kelley.

“Well, that was over the land, honey. She was desperate to keep that farm. Don’t ask me why. She’s the last of the Stallards, so it’ll go to strangers sooner or later anyhow, but—” He shook his head. “Dovey Stallard. I can’t believe it.”

“I can,” said Robert Lee. “People around here are not sane on the subject of land. I get the feeling that Clayt would do the same thing, if it came to that.”

“Well, at least it has drawn attention away from that box of bones you took to the law,” said Lilah. “Maybe they can just gather dust in the sheriff’s office, and we can bury your daddy in peace. Perhaps that’s the silver lining in this terrible cloud.”

“I think Dovey and Kayla are a damned sight more than distractions from an old family scandal,” said Charles Martin. “That skeleton won’t matter to anybody except the tabloids. Tabloids! I can’t believe I used to worry about them—and now I … I guess when you’ve got real trouble, it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks. I just can’t believe that Dovey would do such a thing.”

Kelley’s stare told Charles Martin that he had been talking too much about Dovey Stallard. “I hope Kayla’s all right,” he said a little too loudly. His strumming pattern changed. He looked down at the Martin for a moment, and he began to pick out the melody to a different song. Kelley recognized “The Bounty Hunter” by North Carolina folksinger Mike Cross. “And Clayt, too, if it comes to that. Imagine him hightailing out of here to track down the fugitive! He’s been playing Daniel Boone too-oo long, boys. Reckon he’ll be back soon, though. Last thing those police officers want is some damn fool loose on the mountain when they’re trying to find somebody. He’ll be lucky not to get himself shot out there in the dark.”