Totentanz (5 page)

They were a doctor's hands.

Or the opposite of a doctor's.

The hands moved out of the shadows first,
pulling the rest of the body with them. And then appeared the plump
suit and Old Glory suspenders; the pocket watch, with Abe Lincoln's
face etched on the case, hanging at just the right loop over the
vest; and then above it all appeared a face to match the hands, all
smile and thinning hair, and kind cow eyes as wet as his palms and
the color of an August sky reflected in a fish pond. The nose of a
Caesar. And teeth, so many and so white and wide they made you
smile and forget the real hard look at the bottom of those
fish-pond eyes.

The man, all of him, stepped with a grunt
into the sunset, stepped heavily off the porch of his office and
held out his large, moist hand, offered his moist, hard eyes and
thin, smiling mouth.

"Well, well," the man said, "and here you are
after we just rolled up the banners and put away the cakes and pies
and let the ice cream melt and sent the marching bands home."

The damp hand remained suspended in air.
"Tell me what happened to my father."

"Well," the lion, the fat man, said, moving
both hands to his lapels in one deft, curving motion, "it's a
complicated business.—

"Tell me who killed him." His fingers moved
around the hilt of his rusty sword.

The fat man drew his lapels back, slid his
hands down into his cavernous pockets. Despite the marvelous
control of his face, sweat beaded on the hairline of his forehead
and the top of his lip. Mustering all his best attributes, in a
voice that for any other listener would have been accompanied by a
firm, friendly arm around the shoulder, he said, "Well, he just up
and died."

"That's not the truth, Mayor."

"Well, son, I'm afraid it is. You see, after
your daddy learned that both your brother and you was killed over
at Gettysburg, well, he just sort of gave up hope. A couple folks
even heard him say words to that effect. He said, 'Life ain't worth
living without my boys, I can't see any use going on this way.' And
he just gave up on it. 'Course he didn't know you were alive and
all, none of us knew that. And that's the damn shame of it, because
that might have turned the trick. I really think it would have. He
loved you, son, always said you were his favorite. It's a damn
shame he didn't know you were safe."

With any other man, he would have ended this
speech with a firm squeeze on the shoulder and then separation, to
be followed by a walk down the street and a light on a new
cigar.

"Who shot him?"

Again a line of sweat broke on the fat man's
brow. "Well, now, we never did find that out. Consensus was, it was
a hand he had working over there with him, named Lucius. Black
fellow. Ran away after the shooting, so we figured it must have
been him. Sheriff Deacon, he did a real good job trying to track
that boy down, but just had no luck. None at all. And couldn't find
any reason to think it might have been any other way. Unless of
course. . . ." The mayor caught himself before plunging ahead, and
then, feeling he had to complete what he had started, said in a
much lower Tm-real-sorry-for-you,-boy' voice, "Unless, of course,
your daddy took his own life."

Eyes, blue-gray ice, turned on the mayor.

" 'Course we ruled that out," the mayor
added. "Doc said there was definitely foul play. 'Course people
always will talk . . . But we're sure, we're all damn sure, that
black fellow did it."

"I heard otherwise."

"Did you?" The mayor feigned slight amusement
and reproach. Once again his hand reached out of its own accord to
grasp, to assure; once again the hand fell limp to crawl defeated
back into the mayor's pocket.

"Like I said, I heard otherwise."

His finger moved smoothly to the stock of his
rifle, felt the old use there, the tiredness, the defeat. With
practiced effort, his fingers sought to warm the rifle back to
life, put the spark of death back into it. "What I heard was, the
whole town murdered him." His voice stayed cool and even. "I heard
lots of things." Once again his eyes bored into the fat man. “Tell
me, who owns my father's land now?"

The mayor's sweaty hands had nowhere to go,
nothing to hold onto and squeeze with falsehood. They played around
his pockets, his lapels, his watch chain, and finally his watch,
winding it so hard the spring inside broke with an audible
sound.

"Town owns the land, of course. Your daddy
never did settle his claim on it."

The other spit on the ground, not missing the
mayor's white shoe. "I saw what you did with that farm. Couldn't
wait to get your hands on it. The house and barn are already half
torn down."

The sweat had disappeared from the fat man's
lips and brow. "Soon be ten new homes out that way, with ten more
planned next year."

He brought his war gun up, but hands not the
mayor's were laid on it. His eyes swiveled to see that others had
come onto the darkening street.

"I think we got us a suspect in that little
girl's death last week," the man who laid his hand on the rifle
said. He had a dull five-point star on his shirt. Firmly he took
the rifle away. "Shame about your brother at Gettysburg," he said.
“Heard he was a real brave boy." The sheriff grinned, a yellow,
dull, tobacco-stained smile. "And don't you worry about Lucius. Him
telling you all those stories. We know he was the one killed your
daddy. We'll catch him yet. Reckon we only got to look from where
you came." He said quietly to the mayor, "I fear we'll be having a
hanging, maybe two, before long."

The mayor replied, his hands finally finding
safe passage on the lawman's shoulders, squeezing them, "I think we
best have one of those hangings before another sun gets high."

In the night he heard quick hammers working.
Steel nails met and kissed wood, and at dawn, through the bars of
his cell, he watched them prove the rope tight and true.

They led him up the scaffold and put the rope
around his neck. He still wore his dusty uniform. He did not look
at any of them, but stared straight ahead as they tightened the
noose and stood back. There over the hill, he could just make out
in the rising light his father's farm, the ruined beams of the
barn, the skeleton of the carousel. . . .

He felt the floor give way beneath his feet
and the rope close like two cruel hands around his neck. It was
then that he screamed, not in pain but in raging promise, spitting
out one word over them, one word that echoed around the low hills
long after his feet stopped kicking at the air.

"Rise and shine."

He was jarred from his memories by the rough,
metal-scraping sound of the back doors of the truck opening. A dark
figure stood outlined there. The figure smoked, and the smoke that
came from his long cigarette was as black as his hooded eyes and
the suit he wore. He lifted his cigarette to his mouth. His nails
were neatly trimmed and pale, his skin as white as flour. He pulled
the cigarette from his lips, blew black smoke.

"Our workers are up," the dark man said,
smiling. "Don't you think you should be up too?" His voice both
soothed and mocked.

The other grunted, rolling up into a sitting
position on the cot. He spat on the floor.

"They'll be finished by morning," the dark
man said.

"Good."

"Come, come, now. Can't we have a little
enthusiasm?"

He spat again. "Lay off it, Ash."

Ash was silent, smoking, and then he said,
"Could it be that we're feeling just the tiniest bit anxious?"

There came now the dull sounds of equipment
being moved, along with the sounds that saws and hammers make.
There were no shouts or greetings; it was as if some inevitable
engine had ground into life and set about doing its work. Ash
smiled, turning to look at the proceedings outside, and after a
moment the man on the cot rose stiffly and joined him. He held his
right leg as he rose, though he gave no evidence of pain.

"Look the same?" Ash inquired.

"A little," he answered, not really wanting
to say anything. His eyes roamed the low hills, finally resting on
the church steeple, the rows of new houses, the stores. It was the
same, yet not the same. His gaze fell to the scene before him, the
piles of boards and metal struts, the rolls of white lights and the
red and green pennants. The ground they stood on was the same but
utterly different; the barn, the house, everything was gone; even
the huge oak had been uprooted, and other trees, low, scrubby,
unhealthy things, had grown in its place. They, too, would soon be
uprooted.

He eyed the ranks of silent workers; more
were wandering down from the squat hill next to the church. A few
bony-looking wooden structures had already been raised, and one was
being covered in dull green canvas trimmed with red fringe. A few
bright lights from the line of humming trucks gave the scene
ghostly, intermittent spots of illumination.

"I told you they'd be finished by morning,"
Ash said. He offered his cigarette pack, and when the other said
nothing, he took a fresh one for himself, lit it and tucked the
pack into a pocket of his sharply creased suit. He laughed, looking
at the cigarette for a moment. "They certainly can't hurt you, my
friend," he said caustically. "Tell me this," he continued, his
voice probing like a knife as he watched his companion, whose eyes
stared unswervingly ahead. "How does it feel to know they built you
your very own tomb at the top of the churchyard, at the very
highest point, and then couldn't find you to put you in it?" Ash's
smile stretched into a long, thin, ghastly grin. "How does it feel
to be back in Montvale, Jeff Scott?"

Someone had to be first, and someone had to
be second. Mayor Poundridge was second. He tried not to be, tried
to burrow himself so deep into his pillow that Montvale and the
whole world would go away and not come back. But if he didn't
believe in his job this morning, Emily did, and she wrapped herself
in her dressing gown and made her way to the front door.

"All right! All right!" she scolded, opening
the door to let in the first man to get up in Montvale. He looked
like a scarecrow, all pieces of angle thrust out this way and that,
and as skinny as straw. He came flapping in like a blackbird that
had just seen a scarecrow come to life.

"Barney, you calm down," Emily Poundridge
said.

"Got to see the mayor, Emily," Barney Bates
said. His face was nearly as flushed as the red baseball cap he
held tight in his hand.

"You just sit down, or at least stand still,
and I'll see he gets up." She looked at him sideways. "What's wrong
with you, anyway?"

"Got to see the mayor, that's all."

"All right, you just stay there." She moved
off, taking a last look at him.

The mayor produced himself five minutes
later, rubbing sleep from his eyes. From the back of the house the
smell of coffee leaked in. The mayor shuffled around behind his
desk and sat down in his chair, yawning.

"Morning, Barney," he said.

Barney Bates fluttered up in front of him
like that blackbird taking flight again. "Mayor, you got to do
something about it."

"Can't do nothing about it till you tell me
what it is, Barney."

"You got to do something about the park."

"What's that?" Poundridge was still not truly
awake.

"The park that sprung up outside my back
window last night. The one you gave a permit to last month."

"Barney," Mayor Poundridge said, waking up at
last, "slow down and tell me again what you want."

Barney Bates looked like he would burst a
vein. "Goddammit, Mayor, they got a whole goddam park out
there!"

"First of all," the mayor replied, his voice
turning stern, "I won't hardly abide swearing in my house. And this
being a Sunday, I won't abide it at all. And second, Barney," the
mayor said, his face reddening a little in frustration, "what in
blazes are you talking about?"

"Didn't you sell that old patch of land, that
old Scott family land, to them carnival people last month?"

"You were at the meeting, Barney. Everybody
voted on it."

"Well, it's up."

"
What?
"

"The whole amusement park. It's all
there."

"Now, Barney," the mayor began, laying a hand
on Bates' shoulder.

"You can see it from your top window," Barney
said. "Come on, Mayor, you can see it from your window."

Shaking his head, Mayor Poundridge led the
way to the top floor.

The smell of coffee was very strong in the
house now. Jonathan Poundridge was fully awake, and he looked
forward to that coffee.

"You'd better not be fooling with me,
Barney," he said, realizing that it was entirely possible that
Barney Bates was seeing things. It had happened before, and it
wouldn't be the first time that Barney would have to be put away
with a fit of the DTs. It had been a while, though, and as
Poundridge turned to regard Barney when they reached the top of the
stairs, he could smell no liquor on his breath. Still . . . .

"There, just like I told you," Barney said,
pointing.

A July chill went through Mayor Poundridge as
he looked out the small window. There behind the Bates' place was
the "park" Barney had been yelling about. It was there in a
thousand shades of tent canvas. It twisted and looped and spread
itself out over the old Scott land like a lion after a gorging
meal. Banners, long lengths of lights, and balloons and streamers
formed its perimeters, within which lay a circus array of roller
coasters, rides, games and a broad, paved midway waiting to be
filled with people. A year's worth of work had been dropped on the
town in one night. It looked new, but the rides and tents were in
the style of at least a hundred years ago. The carousel, one
corner of which the mayor could just see, appeared antique. The
highest curve of the Ferris wheel edged up to hang even with the
top of the church spire.