Jack raised his glass a little, tipped it in gratitude, and took a sip. Then he smacked his lips and stifled a belch. “I called the Sheriff a few weeks later when I heard those kids’ folks was in town askin’ questions. Told ’im what I thought, even though there weren’t no good reason for thinkin’ it other than a bad feelin’ I got every time I passed that damn place. So McKindrey comes over, tells me he’ll go out there and ask some questions. See if the Merrills know anythin’.”
“And did they?”
“Dunno. He never went out there, or if he did, he pretended he didn’t. But the night after I called him tellin’ him what I knew, or thought I knew, I woke up to find Old Man Merrill standin’ in my room with a big rusty lawnmower blade to my throat.” He finished the drink, set the glass before the doctor, who filled it without hesitation and slid it back.
“Thought I was dreamin’ ’bout Death itself, I swear. He was wearin’ dark clothes: long coat, and one of them hats like the preachers used to wear.” He raised his hand and made a twirling motion with one upraised finger in front of his face. “Big hat. Couldn’t see his face. And he were tall. Least I think he was, but I guess anyone standin’ in your room at night with a blade to your throat with only the moonlight showin’ you he’s there’s gonna look tall, right?”
“Right,” Wellman agreed, and noted the other man’s hands had started to tremble.
“He says to me, and I’ll never forget it: ‘I don’t want to kill a good, Godfearin’ man like you even if you is just an old dirty nigger with a big mouth, but I won’t hesitate to cut out your tongue if you keep spreadin’ lies about my family.’ He told me his boys never did nothin’ they weren’t forced to do to protect themselves and the family, and never would. Said they respected our boundaries and we should respect theirs.”
Jack swallowed, eyes cloudy with the memory. He took a long drink of his whiskey, and it could have been water for all the effect it had on him. “I dunno what came over me, but I sat right up, despite that big ol’ blade at my throat, and I told him to get the hell out of my house. He stepped away, and raised an arm that looked like it belonged to a scarecrow, and pointed at my bedroom door. I looked, saw a boy standin’ there holding hands with Pete, who weren’t more than a little kid himself at the time. He looked sleepy, standin’ there in his underpants, wonderin’ what was goin’ on, and who this kid holdin’ his hand was. And I couldn’t tell him, couldn’t say nothin’ because that other kid, the Merrill kid, was holdin’ a huntin’ knife in his other hand and lookin’ at me like he knew exactly how to use it, like he wanted to use it.”
“Jesus…” Wellman said, and removed his spectacles so he could wipe a hand over his face. “Jesus.”
“Merrill asked me if we had ourselves an understandin’.” He shook his head slowly, and finished his drink. “I told him we did, and he left. Mussed up my boy’s hair on the way out as if he were nothin’ more than some ’ol kind uncle come to visit. I didn’t sleep for weeks after that. Sat up with my shotgun and moved Pete’s bed into the livin’ room where I could watch over him.”
“You tell the boy any of this?”
“Told him it were a dream. Didn’t see the sense in scarin’ ’im any worse.”
“They shouldn’t have gotten away with that, you know. No one should get away with that kind of thing. Not in this day and age.”
Jack looked up from his drink. “I ain’t never told no one what I just told you, Doc, but I’m tellin’ it now because you wanted to know why I didn’t want you callin’ the Sheriff. Even if you do, he’ll tell you he’ll take a look, but he won’t, ’cuz I reckon he’s just as scared of ’em as I am. Maybe they paid him a visit one night, told him what they told me. But if they find out, it might be you they come see. You understand now?”
Wellman nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure how much of Jack’s story he should believe. It was madness what he’d been told, but then hadn’t he witnessed firsthand the very worst kind of madness and desperation the world had to offer three years before when he’d been summoned to operate on Alice Niles, a fifteen-year-old girl who’d tried to burn her unborn baby out of herself with a blowtorch, believing it to be the spawn of Satan itself? That particularly frightening conviction had come courtesy of the girl’s mother, Lynn, after she discovered her own husband was the baby’s father.
What Jack had said scared him, even worse than the realization that had he not refused Alice Niles’ anguished request to aid in the abortion, she might not have felt compelled to take the torch to it. This scared him more, because something had occurred to him that he wasn’t sure he should say aloud for fear of terrifying Jack more than he already was. Assuming it hadn’t already dawned on him.
What if they saw you, Jack? What if they saw you taking the girl?
She was sleeping, but it was not a peaceful sleep. Even over the rain that sizzled around him and the wind that had risen, even through the thick glass, Pete could hear her moaning low in her throat. One hand was flung over her brow; the other twitched spasmodically every few minutes. Doctor Wellman had washed her cuts and bandaged her eye, or rather the hole where her eye had once been, and put icepacks on her cheeks to help ease the swelling. She looked a little better now, but not much. She was still naked—he could tell by the shape of her, and the raised points of her nipples beneath the material, the sight of which caused something within him to stir—but the sheets were pulled up to her chin, as if she was cold. There were bloodstained cloths, swabs, and a kidney-shaped metal dish full of dark red water on a stand by the bed. Next to these, laid out on a blood-spotted white towel, a variety of steel instruments gleamed like shiny letters surrounded by wild crimson periods.
As Pete watched, consumed with the sudden urge to go back inside and bring her another blanket, she slowly turned her head toward him, as if following the flight path of a bird in a dream, and he almost ducked down beneath the sill for fear she’d wake and see him peering in at her like some kind of peeping tom. But he waited a moment, then straightened, his face pressed to the glass.
Who are you? he wondered, smiling slightly as he cocked his head to see better through the rivulets of rain streaming down the pane. Where d’you come from? He pressed his fingers to the glass, wishing it were her skin he was feeling beneath them, knowing her flesh would be infinitely warmer. He closed his eyes, confused by this yearning for someone he didn’t even know, and not for the first time chided his foolishness. But the warmth inside him countered the uncertainty. She would wake, and she would need a friend, that was all there was to it. And if they forbade him his visits to see her, then he would sneak out. He had done it all the time for Valerie, even if she’d never learned that he’d been watching her, looking in on her from time to time like a guardian angel. On reflection, that had probably been for the best. She hadn’t loved him anyway.
He wondered if it would be different this time.
The rain hammered the glass and needled the back of his head like nature’s way of opposing such foolish thoughts, and he opened his eyes. The cold trickling down the nape of neck chilled him as he checked to make sure his father or Doctor Wellman hadn’t suddenly appeared at the door.
The coast was clear.
Thunder made a sound like barrels tumbling down a stairs.
Pete turned back to the window, saw that the girl was awake, and watching him, and his mouth fell open.