"Private."
"D.A.'s family. What's his business is ours."
I hesitated, glancing back at Taylor's children. They had not resumed their play, were watching intently. I didn't think the men-their uncles, or whatever-would do anything violent in front of them. Finally I said, "If that's so, why don't you come with me while I talk with him?"
They exchanged a look; it seemed to be the primary mode of communication around here. This one I couldn't read so easily, but it contained an element of relaxation. After a few seconds the heavier man stepped aside. "What the hell-go ahead. Last cottage. You'll probably find him on his dock, staring at his island."
"His island?"
He grinned nastily. "Hog Island. D.A. don't really own it, but he's got it into his head that he does. He's never owned nothing, except in his head. And that's about all that's in there anymore."
Some family D.A.'s got, I thought, moving past the men and walking along the crushed-shell path. I heard the two laugh, as if the remark had been terribly witty, but I ignored them. The dogs ignored me as I stepped over and around them.
Toward the end of the path the land came to a barren point, a rubble-strewn slope falling away to the wind-whipped gray water. I could see the island from here- rocky, cypress- and eucalyptus-crowned, treetops wreathed in fog. Hog Island-reputedly named for a bargeload of pigs that had briefly been marooned there at some dim point in history-was now owned and maintained in its natural state by the Audubon Society. No one lived there, and the only man-made addition was the ruins of a house built by a German family in the 1800s. I wondered why D.A. Taylor took such a proprietary interest in the isolated wildlife preserve.
Taylor's tiny cottage was the shabbiest of the seven I'd passed, with broken and patched windows and virtually no paint, but a tub of pink geraniums stood next to the door. There was an old tricycle parked beside the flowers. I knocked on the torn screen door, received no answer, and went around the cottage to where a spindly dock leaned over the stakes of the oyster beds.
A man-tall, thin, with black hair that fell to the shoulders of his faded denim jacket-sat at the very end of the dock, looking across the bay toward Hog Island. I started out to him, stepping over and around places where the boards were splintered or missing. The dock trembled under my weight. The man turned his head and watched me approach.
At first he appeared perfectly normal, but when I came within a few yards of him I saw his eyes. They were black and dead-looking-pits where the fires no longer burned, containing nothing but ash. When I reached him he didn't speak, merely continued to watch me without a hint of interest or curiosity. I asked, "Are you D.A. Taylor?" and he nodded and looked back at the bay.
The man was in another world, as Ross had said he would be. I didn't know if that particular place was accessible to others, but I had to try to reach him. I sat down on the edge of the dock, drawing my knees up and hugging them with my arms. Taylor didn't even glance my way.
I said, "That's a nice island out there."
No reply.
"Wonder what it would be like to live on it."
Now he turned his strange eyes toward me. I thought I saw a flicker somewhere in their depths, but it could just have been a trick of the light. "Someday I'll know," he said. His voice was mellow, the syllables flowing gently.
"Oh? You planning to move out there?"
Again he looked toward the island. After a long moment he said, "Who are you?"
"My name's Sharon McCone. I've just come from Libby Ross's."
"Libby. Libby of the beautiful violet eyes." He paused, then added, "Libby of the evil tongue."
"The way she tells it, you and she are friends."
"Friends can be cruel when they tell the truth." After my encounter with his relatives, his educated, somewhat formal diction was more of a surprise than his sudden lucidity. I'd known other people like Taylor: substance abusers who seemed perfectly rational at one moment, then could flip over into disconnected raving or protracted silences the next.
"What does Libby tell the truth about?" I asked.
Silence.
I let it spin out a few moments, watching a fishing boat circumnavigate the island. Smells rose from the oyster beds-brackish, fishy-and were borne away on the chill breeze. Finally I said, "What about Perry Hilderly-was he a truth teller, too?"
Taylor turned his head slowly. This time I could see that the flicker in his eyes was real. "Perry believed implicitly in the truth. He had high ideals. He placed the sanctity of life above all else. I looked up to him and loved him like a brother. He was a better man than I. Than any of us."
"And Jenny Ruhl?"
I hadn't thought anything could alter his trancelike state, but at my mention of the name, a wave of pain crossed his face. "Jenny. All these years dead. It was so unnecessary. All of it was so unnecessary."
"All of what?"
He looked down at his fingers, which were splayed against his denim-covered thighs.
"What about Tom Grant?" I asked.
"Who's that?"
"You don't remember him? Thomas Y. Grant?"
"I don't. There's a great deal I don't remember anymore. But it's the wrong things that stay with me. Always the wrong things."
"Bad things?"
"Very bad. No matter what, I can't shake them."
"Tell me about them."
He shook his head violently, long straight locks flaring out, then falling back to his shoulders.,
Before he could close up completely, returned to the subject of Hog Island. "When do you plan up go there?" I asked, gesturing toward it.
His gaze followed my hand. "When it becomes too much here. So far I'm all right. You know I drink?"
"Yes."
"Of course Libby would tell you. She also told you about the drugs. That's all quite true. She despairs of me, but she understands. My wife doesn't understand; her despair is painful to watch. When it becomes too painful, then I'll go."
"And do what there?"
"Be at peace."
It dawned on me that the man wasn't talking about becoming a hermit. Or about living on the island at all. He meant to kill himself out there. Despite the fact that I barely knew him, a coldness clutched at me. I pictured his children: their young-old faces, their shared conspiratorial looks. What would his suicide do to them, to the wife I'd yet to meet? To Libby Ross, who pretended to have washed her hands of D.A. Taylor, but in reality cared too much?
I watched him wordlessly for a moment, studied his rugged, hawk-nosed profile, wondered what had made him this way. As if he could hear my unvoiced question, he said, "I've never been a strong man. But I'm not insane, at least in any classical sense. I just slip in and out of touch with reality. Out is better."
"Why, D.A.?"
"Why not?"
I could find no reply to that.
After a moment he said, "I suppose you saw Harley and Jake on your way in."
"The men in the first cottage?"
"My cousins. My self-appointed caretakers. When Mia's gone, it's their duty to watch over old D.A., make sure he doesn't do anything crazy. There has been trouble with the sheriff, you see. Trouble with the customers at the restaurant. Did they try to stop you from coming out here?"
"Yes."
"What did you do to convince them otherwise?"
"Damned if I know."
Taylor actually smiled-a brief upturning of the corners of his mouth. "They probably decided you looked as if you could take care of yourself. And they know I'm not really violent, just bizarre and unpredictable. I insist to Harley and Jake that I actually own Hog Island. They're convinced I believe that. I've always had a perverse streak when it comes to my cousins. Stupidity brings it out."
"Are they stupid?"
"Moderately. My father's side of the family never had too much going for it. Their capacity to choose smart, strong women is all that's allowed them to survive." Again the small smile flickered. "Listen to me. I claim to be so smart, but what have I ever done right but marry Mia? And now I'm destroying her, little bit by little bit."