Possession (48 page)

Joanne clung to him as if he really could save her, and he 361

stroked her hair and whi:-<' <-r

He heard a car door slam and the sound of a car leaving. He was alone with Joanne for a long time, waiting for Doc to come. He heard Elizabeth Crowder's voice, and then Sonia Kluznewski's, but neither of the women ventured beyond the doorway. He kept talking, and Joanne gradually stopped whimpering against his chest. She breathed so shallowly that he was a!:;.: ;-.'ed, but her eyes were open and blinking occasionally.

'*••>••• '•-•• -a hip demanded a change of position, but even sligh-' ;.7.;>-ement set off her trembling, and he stayed still, still ,:• -aid holding and whispering with his face against her hair.

When Doc walked in, the two of them together could not unlock Joanne's arms from Sam. He carried her to Doc's car, held her against the night while Doc drove too fast into town, and then carried her into the hospital, and laid her on a bed. She would not let go of his hand.

Doc Massie shut the door against the hovering nurses and filled a syringe.

Sam held his free hand out and stopped Doc's wrist. "What is that?"

"A sedative. She's not going to let loose of you until we sedate her."

"What if she's pregnant? Would that hurt the baby?"

Doc pulled the syringe stopper back and turned away from Sam. "Did I say she was pregnant?"

"No. And I'm not asking you. I said I wouldn't ask you."

Doc turned back and winked, a solemn wink with no humor behind it. "On the off-chance that she's pregnant, that she's carrying Danny's kid, I've got something in there that won't harm it. Nothing I've given her so far would harm it."

"That she's carrying Danny's ..."

"Who else's? And who would know, and who would tell?"

Joanne's features relaxed, her eyes finally closed, and her hand slipped out of Sam's and lay open.

362

When he was sure that she was really asleep, he walked down the stairway and away from the hospital. The night smelled of chrysanthemums and smoke and apples. His truck was still parked behind the sheriff's office. He drove past the high school and saw the stadium lights were on for night practice.

He drove past the Safeway and went home to feed his cat.

363

Spring, 1982

People forgot. The scandal had burst upon Natchitat already blooming, scarlet flowers budding and fading prematurely; like most gossip, the roots were shallow. It could not survive—at least not with its original glory—the hard winter. Those who knew the truth would not speak of it, and even the most dedicated tale carriers gave up after a while. Without a definite hero (or heroine), or a certain villain, it was too difficult to draw battle lines. In small towns where one can hear each neighbor breathe and laugh and cry, and sometimes in the act of adultery, new transgressions rush in to fill the void. Whatever peculiar secret thing it was that had prevented a trial became part of the folklore of Natchitat, scarcely examined except by old women with nothing better to do, and nobody listened to them anyway.

The winter was bad, full of blizzard and drift, the snows muffling everything and quieting life. The volcano down at St. Helens rumbled and stirred long before spring and threatened to suffocate Natchitat for a second time with eerie and perhaps deadly gray ash. The economy faltered. They closed down the lumber mill and one of the apple packing plants, and people worried far more about running out of unemployment compensation than they did about sin and the possibility of unavenged murder. Jobless, depressed men fought with each other and with their wives in taverns and houses, and when blood is drawn and property threatened, no one looks closely at the deputy who comes to the rescue. Walker Fewell had to take Sam back into his department, a bitter pill to swallow. Under the law and according to civil service guidelines, Sam was without blemish. The rest of the deputies clapped him on the back and made loud, awkward conversation, and then everything was the same as it had

367

been—except that Danny was gone. Sam refused all partners at first, patrolling alone on day watch, but then he accepted the new man, a kid not over twenty-five, who needed a mentor if he was going to make it. And, if the truth were known, Sam was lonely.

Joanne. Joanne went away in a quiet caravan of cars with Doc and her mother and Sonia. They came back without her, leaving her in a gray, quiet, and terribly expensive private sanatorium on the other side of the Cascades. When she came back, she remembered what she had forgotten and understood what she remembered. Except for certain times when the air was a familiar color or when the night was very dark and the wind tore at the moon, she was well. Not wonderfully well, but as well as most.

She came home in January and was welcomed tenderly, all the more tenderly when they saw that she carried her dead husband's child. The women at the church gave her a surprise shower, and she went to natural childbirth classes with Sonia who was pregnant again herself. When Doc Massie saw Joanne for monthly check-ups, he always referred to the unborn child as "Danny's kid," and she gave no sign that she might believe otherwise.

The child within her was active early on, and she stared at her white belly when she bathed and saw its elbows and knees making little bumps there. She was glad that it was healthy.

Sam passed her one day as he patrolled along the Old Orchard Road. She stood at the mailbox and waved him down as he wondered if he should stop. She looked beautiful again, more beautiful, standing there in one of Danny's blue plaid wool shirts, bundled up against the snow. She smiled at him happily and there seemed no reason not to drive her up the lane and sit in the kitchen and drink coffee with her.

It was easy then—more than easy—for him to stop daily. By tacit agreement, they never spoke of the summer or of the trouble in the fall. They were comfortable together. She needed someone to talk to; she was as serene as he had ever

368

known her to be—worried only, she confided, at being alone at night because the snowstorms so often broke the thin black power lines. She would not go to her mother's house in town; she was quite determined about that. He was concerned enough so that he began to sit with her through the long evenings until she was tired enough to sleep. They watched television and talked, and he hugged her when he left, feeling paternal or telling himself that he felt paternal toward her. It seemed reasonable and mutually beneficial that he accept her offer when Rhodes caught Pistol fouling the laundry room once too often and told Sam to get his trailer out of the park. He moved it to the lower part of the farm property, hooked into the water and electricity lines, and became a sentry at the beginning of the lane. Hidden as the trailer was behind the poplar screen, it was weeks before any passerby noticed it was there. And since he was so close now, it would have been ridiculous for them to cook separately; so he bought the groceries and she cooked for them.

Sam found himself more and more anxious to hurry "home" to Joanne, and she began to listen for the sound of his truck coming up the lane. She had some memory, some old recollection that might not be real, of being safe in his arms.

Three things occurred on the 14th of April, apparently unrelated. Nina Armitage's bill for "Interest on $5,000.00 loan: $900.00" reached Sam's post office box. He wrote a check immediately, enclosed it in a sweet, flowered thank you card, and mailed it.

The ground in Chelan County thawed, and Duane Demich's body—which had remained unclaimed—was removed from its vault and buried without ceremony in an unmarked grave in a cemetery outside Wenatchee. And, although the moon was only three quarters full and she had been very careful, Joanne Lindstrom went into hard labor and was delivered of a premature son. Despite his

369

shortened gestation, the baby boy weighed over seven pounds and came into the world with a full head of burnished red hair.

Joanne nursed the infant and rocked it, and carried it close to her wherever she was. He did not have the dull blue eyes common to newborns; his were full of light and intelligence. He clung to her and would have none of Sam at the beginning. But Sam persevered, fascinated by the baby's vulnerability, determined to let this child know that he would not harm it. Gradually it relaxed in his arms as he sat, dwarfing the rocker with his heavy shoulders, and sang to it in a gravelly voice that made Joanne laugh.

Joanne named the baby Danny. Hearing her say the name so often first made Sam wince, but he agreed that it was the only choice.

In May, when the apple trees were dotted with pink and white blossoms, they carried Danny outside and laid him on a blanket in the bright green grass so that he could reach out for the blossoms.

"Look at him, Sam. Watch him. He seems so wise the way he stares at us—as if he knows everything and would tell us if he could only talk."

"All babies do that."

"No, he's special. He's really special."

He could not argue with her because she was so happy, and it was good to see her smile again. "Maybe he is. You never can tell."

"I'll love him so much; he'll grow up perfect. You believe that, don't you?"

He looked away from her for a moment, toward the river, and when he turned back her face was suddenly grave.

"You do believe that, don't you?"

He took her hand and lied, "I believe that."

He thought of Nina, who believed in nothing, and he finally let her go. He was not sure what it was that he believed. But the sky was clear above them, and the grass was sweet, and the child too. And there was, after all, only this one place where they were. Only this day.

370