After Eli (20 page)

“You did,” Michael replied.

“Well, hell, they weren’t more than twenty,” Garnett continued. “If that old. Anyway, they’re old-line family. That house belonged to Lester’s grandfather. Everybody knew them, and liked them. Even George is first cousin to the girl. Saw her grow up from a baby. Had to help take her body out of the place. This thing that Frank’s telling will fill out in their heads like yeast. The boy’s damned any way you look at it. Turn him loose and Frank’ll probably kill him; keep him here and it’ll seem like he’s guilty and God only knows what’ll happen then.”

“Frank could be right,” George blurted suddenly. “By God, he was right enough about that girl of his.”

Curtis sighed. He shook his head sadly and said, “George, you sonofabitch, you know damn good and well that girl didn’t start whorin’ until after she’d run away from home. God-a’mighty, you were here. You almost arrested Frank that day he was beatin’ her out in the street. Now, I know how you feel about Mary. Everybody around here feels the same, but this is a boy’s life we’re talkin’ about, not some damn sack of oats.”

“But what if he’s right?” argued George. “Nobody never thought about it bein’ anybody from around here. It could have been like Frank says.”

Garnett rocked forward in his chair. He touched the fingertips of his hands together. Michael watched him carefully. He could sense the words forming in the doctor’s mind like crystals. George English’s anxiety was a matter of the memory of his mutilated cousin and a revived lust for vengeance raging in his mind. It was necessary to have George understand, to believe that Frank Benton was wrong.

“George,” Garnett said patiently, “you know that boy. You know he wouldn’t kill anybody. Now, I’d like to see the bastard who murdered Lester and Mary hanging from his balls with his heart cut out, but it’s not Owen. It’s not. You let those people out there even halfway believe Frank’s right and you’ve as much as executed that boy yourself. Besides, dammit, you know the law. You know you’ve got to have some
evidence, and you know you don’t.” He paused and rubbed his hands across his mouth and slumped back into the chair and looked at George. “But if reason won’t work, George, let me put it to you this way: If I hear of you spreading any kind of gossip about this, I’ll personally have you arrested for obstructing justice and I promise you that you will lose your job and if I have to bring in a lawyer from Atlanta, I’ll see to it that you serve time.” He paused again. “Do you understand me?” he asked quietly.

George nodded.

“Good,” Garnett mumbled. “I’ll tell you this: What happens here depends eighty percent on you. Believe me.”

George walked away and peered out the door. He was breathing hard and the perspiration dripped from his hair down his neck and into his shirt, staining it with lines that looked like claw marks.

“One question,” Michael said. “Why’s it not been talked? I’ve not heard it since I’ve been here.”

There was a pause. Garnett smiled wearily. He waved a hand in the direction of Curtis.

“It’s private,” Curtis answered slowly. “People around here keep such things to themselves. It’s their way.” Then he added, almost to himself, “It’s best that way.”

“You’ll learn it, Irishman, if you stay around,” Garnett said. “I have. Still don’t understand it, but, by God, I’ve learned it. And, believe me, it’s the truth.” He thought for a moment, then added, “Maybe Curtis is right; maybe it is best.”

Yes, thought Michael. That was why no one had spoken of the Caufields. He had often wondered why, had been tempted to lead a conversation to it, but it would have been too risky. The death of the Caufields was part of the silence that he had seen in the stark, secretive faces in Pullen’s Café, and in Floyd Crider’s shyness, and in Dora’s suspicious glare when he arrived at the farm. They would not talk of the Caufields because it was private, a tragedy that belonged only to them.

“Leave the boy with me,” Michael said, standing. “Go outside, anywhere you like, but not around the jail.”

“That’s a lot of men across the street,” warned Curtis.

“Men you know,” replied Michael. “And right now they’re just curious. Nothin’ more.”

“Maybe so,” Garnett said, “but they know what Frank said. He made sure of that. Went up and down the street ravin’ like a fool before he ever got to the jail. Seemed like he wanted to raise an audience.”

Michael smiled. “Now, I understand why they’re out there, Doc,” he remarked casually. “If I’d heard such, I’d be curious, too. Wouldn’t you?”

Garnett pulled himself from the rocker. “I guess,” he mumbled. “God, yes. Why wouldn’t I? Maybe we’ll go over and talk to them, Curtis. Maybe that’s what we should do. Right now. Not leave it hanging.”

“I would,” agreed Michael. “They know everythin’ you know, but they’re over there and you’re in here, and that’s a far distance to cross over.”

Curtis thought of the men huddled across the street. Michael was right. There
was
a distance, a space separating their waiting and the uncertainty of what he would do.

“We’ll be close by,” Curtis said to Michael.

* * *

Michael took the key from the rolltop desk and unlocked the heavy steel door and stepped inside the cell. Owen was still sitting on the side of the cot, his elbows resting on his knees, his face dipped into the bowl of his hands.

“Did you have breakfast?” Michael asked.

“Some,” Owen answered softly.

“Good,” Michael said. He sat in the chair in the cell. “That’s good,” he repeated. “Shows you’re gettin’ back some strength.”

Owen dropped his hands between his legs and clamped together his fingers. Michael saw that he had been crying.

“Don’t pay attention to all that’s goin’ on here,” he said. “It’s just talk. Too many people angry about somethin’ they can’t put their finger on. That’s all.”

Owen did not move.

“It was bad, was it?” asked Michael. He packed his pipe with tobacco and tried not to look at Owen.

Owen’s voice quivered. “Daddy—Daddy said I’d done that,” he stammered. “But I didn’t. I didn’t do what he said.”

“No, Owen, you didn’t. Your daddy’s wrong. That’s the first thing you have to do; you have to say he’s wrong. He’d have his pound of flesh. You have to say that over and over to yourself. Say it so you’ll believe it.”

Owen stared at his fingers. “He’s my daddy,” he said pleadingly. “He’s my daddy.”

“Well, now, Owen, think about that,” replied Michael. He lit his pipe and drew smoke from the stem and blew a gray ring swirling across the cell. “You think about that,” he repeated. “That man who was in here today, accusin’ you of murderin’ some poor people, is somebody besides your own father. He’s another man. Changed over by some blindin’ sight that’s built up inside him like a sickness. That’s not your father. I’d say your father—the father you’re rememberin’—was a carin’ man, carin’ and gentle. Am I right?”

Owen did not answer. He whimpered weakly and began to cry.

“Don’t be ashamed of the feelin’,” Michael said quietly. “It’s a way to hold it all up, to keep it from crushin’ in on you like a stone. I know about that, Owen. I’ve been in the same place. Seems like there’s no room for breathin’, but there is.”

“I didn’t kill nobody,” Owen sobbed. “Not Lester and Mary. Lester and me—Lester and me, we was friends. We went to school together when we was little. We was talkin’ about goin’ to work together in Chattanooga. I wouldn’t kill Lester and Mary.”

Michael drew smoke from his pipe and listened as the hurt
broke open in Owen Benton and poured from him. He was such a small person, thought Michael. Brittle. Frail. And he was being sacrificed for a crime he did not commit. Michael shifted uncomfortably in his chair, thinking. What was it about Owen that had made him curious, that had attracted his attention on the night Owen first spoke? Destiny, he thought. But what destiny? A sense of remorse shot through Michael. Owen was his substitute, his stand-in, and he had been delivered to Michael in the disguise of fate. Nothing could save him from the role. The doctor could heal him, but the doctor could not save him. It was destiny.

“There’ll be nothin’ come of it, Owen,” he said. “I promise that. You didn’t kill anybody. I know it. I know it to be true.” Owen did not see the quick smile that wandered into Michael’s face like an amusement.

“My daddy’ll come back. He’ll come back. Like he said he would.”

Michael touched Owen’s shoulder with his fingers and gently pushed him up into a straight sitting position. He said, “Owen, do you trust me?”

Owen nodded hesitantly.

“I know there’s no reason to, me bein’ a stranger, but I’m askin’ you to,” Michael continued. “I’ve been all over, and I’ve seen many tight spots like this. I’m askin’ you to trust me and not say what I tell you to the doctor or the sheriff or anybody, and I promise you there’s nothin’ goin’ to come of it, nothin’ll happen to you. If I must, I’ll steal you away from here and take you to someplace that’s safe.”

Owen struggled to stand, but could not. He sank back on the cot, and a shudder, like a chill, whipped through him and he wrapped his arms around his body and began to sway.

“I’m not sayin’ it’d be easy, leavin’ home,” Michael whispered. “It never is, no matter what. But sometimes it’s best. And you don’t have to be like your sister. Yes, I know about her; the doctor told me before. There’s lots of people leave
home, tear away from their families, and go on their own.” He sucked on his pipe and spit the smoke from his mouth. “I did it,” he added. “And it was much the same with me as it is with you, exceptin’ it was my mother who did the evil.” He twisted in his chair and his voice tightened. “They say she was taken with fits and didn’t know she had the madness, but when you’re a lad and you feel it across your back, you don’t know about fits.”

Owen stopped his swaying and listened to Michael. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He seemed far away. “My mama died,” he said calmly. He added, “Before Elizabeth left home. Elizabeth, she’s my sister.”

“They never told me,” replied Michael. “But it’s as good she did, before seein’ this. She’d be burdened by it. My own good father was.”

They sat quietly. The dim memories swimming in Michael no longer seemed certain. He did not know if they were real or if he had invented them as a touchstone, as some trail of crumbs to lead him back through the maze of his wanderings. There had been times—totally unexpected—when the living ghost had leaped out of him and streaked through a dark hole of history and wrapped itself in a silky cocoon around a single idyllic moment older than all of his senses. He did not know what formless jelly-drop of life was bubbling in the cocoon, but it had no stories to tell him. In its bliss, it was the essence of a sinless promise, and he had longed to peel it open and slip into its thick, quivering plasm and be born in its peace.

“I can’t go back home,” Owen said, breaking the silence. “I know what’d happen. He don’t mean it, but he won’t never believe I didn’t do what he sees in his mind.”

“Then you’ll not go. I’ll see to it.”

“But there’s the others.”

“Your brother and sisters?” guessed Michael. “You’re worried about them?”

Owen nodded.

“I can’t help them,” he mumbled. “I can’t do it no more. Somebody else’ll have to do it.”

“They will,” Michael assured him. “You know the people here. They’ll step in and do what’s to be done. You’ll see.”

Again they were quiet. And the music began inside Michael, a delicate, reedy melody. There were lights on an empty stage and the floor of the stage glistened under the lights in an oily brilliance. The audience waited.

“I won’t say nothin’ to the sheriff, or the doctor, or nobody,” Owen promised.

“Not a word?”

“Nothin’.”

“You’re a trustin’ man, Owen. I’ll tell them we spoke of your innocence. That’s all. That’ll be enough.”

Owen looked at Michael. His eyes, which were small blue buttons in his face, were dull and lifeless. He said in a whine, “I didn’t do nothin’. What my daddy said was wrong.”

“I know it, Owen. I know it.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed and he lifted his head to the window of the cell. The mumbling audience quietened.

“I know it,” he repeated absently.

MICHAEL CROSSED THE street
from the jail to the men huddled beneath an awning hanging from Fred Deal’s Merchandise Store. He was relaxed. On another morning, he would have been jovial and called the men into a standing circle around him to play them for their smiles. There, around him, in their sideway postures, they would have listened to his impish stories and begged with their mumbling for his favor. On another morning, he would have juggled them as nimbly as brightly colored balls.

The doctor was with them, and the sheriff and George. They watched him cross the street, wondering what he had been told, what he knew that would add to their curiosity.

“Gentlemen,” Michael said somberly as he approached them.

A few voices muttered a return greeting.

“The boy all right?” Garnett asked.

“Upset some, but he’s all right,” answered Michael.

“Me’n George’ll go back over,” Curtis remarked. He stepped away from the crowd of men and walked briskly across the street. George followed, his head bowed.

“I hate to confess it, but I was sleepin’ like a baby when George drove up for me,” Michael said idly, “and I’ve not had so much as a cup of coffee the whole mornin’. Anybody wants to get out of the heat, I’d like the company for breakfast at the café.”