Soul of a Crow (22 page)

I leaned over the table on both elbows; I had neglected to remove my hat. I asked again, forcing myself to remain steady, “What did you speak of with my wife?”

Rebecca said, “We talked of her origins in Tennessee.” She worked efficiently, catching up a serving spoon and dishing out stewed potatoes and carrots. She nudged Boyd with her elbow and murmured, “Sit, please do.”

I refused the offer of food, sliding my plate to the side. I said, “We are from there, yes. What else?”

“Lorie-Lorie said you reminded her of a girl she used to know,” Malcolm said, addressing Rebecca. His eyes were red-rimmed and his voice husky, but he spoke with the attitude of someone attempting to be as helpful as possible. He continued, “She was upset, Sawyer, I could tell, but she tried to hide it.” He gulped a little, new tears winking into his dark eyes; he did not let them fall, instead saying softly, “She wanted to get back to you. She was in an all-fired hurry.”

What Malcolm spoke of was just minutes before Lorie disappeared. He had told me everything he knew at least a dozen times, at my insistence, but I persisted, “Then what?”

Malcolm clutched his kitten. Clemens was quietly and politely eating, napkin upon his lap, though he appeared to be listening with concentration, his bespectacled gaze lighting upon each of our faces by turns. Boyd could not seem to remember how to handle utensils, as he sat holding both fork and knife, but made no move to apply either to his food.

“We talked of your uncle, the doc, an' how he's from Tennessee like us, an' then you invited us to dinner. Lorie-Lorie said we didn't plan to stay that long in town,” Malcolm remembered.

“Our Uncle Edward was born and raised in Tennessee,” Rebecca said. “He served in the Army of Virginia, and moved north only under duress. Our mama,” and here she nodded at Clemens, “was his younger sister. But Mama died in 'sixty-four. Uncle Edward had not heard word of this until after he arrived, but as we are his only remaining kin, he elected to stay in Iowa. I knew you were from Tennessee the moment I heard your voices.”

“Blythe,” Clemens said, in a tone of contradiction. “Blythe survived.”

Rebecca nodded and agreed, “Yes, that's right, he did.”

Only a small, feeble thread held together my sensibilities as they spoke of matters I cared nothing about. I shoved back my chair and paced to the window, saying, “I must go.”

Where, I did not have the faintest idea; I only knew I could not continue to sit like a goddamn gamebird on a pond, unwary of the approaching huntsman.

“Sawyer,” said Boyd, speaking for the first time since sitting. He had not touched his food. “We will find her. I swear I will not rest 'til she is found.”

I looked gratefully at him, then passed a hand over my face. I could smell the stale scent of my fear, clinging to my clothing.

“I weren't gone no more'n ten minutes,” Malcolm whispered. His fork clattered to the wooden floor but no one moved to retrieve it. “I ain't ever been so sorry, Sawyer. I didn't listen to Lorie an' now she's gone.”

“It's not your fault,” I said, holding his gaze. “It is not, Malcolm.”

Clemens wiped his lips with the napkin and set it aside, requesting of Malcolm, “Young Mr. Carter, if you would relate the events again, just as you recall. I am unduly disturbed that a woman should simply disappear with no trace in a town as unremarkable as Iowa City. There is no reasonable explanation. Our instance of crime is quite low. Today's hanging marks the only evidence of it in months.”

Malcolm said, “I only meant to peek at them ropes. I figured I'd run while Lorie was in the necessary an' come straight back. It was right crowded, an' I got jostled. I got me a look, an' then I spied you, Mr. Clemens, an' the other man, up on the top there…” His eyebrows drew inward in concentration. He recalled, “An' I seen that fella we was talkin' with when we first come to town, the scrawny-necked fella with the big mustache.”

“Parmley,” Rebecca said at once. “Lorie and I spoke of Parmley, as well. Trust him to advertise a hanging as though it was sport.”

“Then what?” I asked, still standing, fidgeting as one awaiting his own execution.

“I saw the man carrying them hoods,” Malcolm said, his gaze tilted upwards, as one drawing from memory. “An' then the prisoners was marched out, an' another fella made a picture. Startled me, it did. There was a loud swoosh, an' smoke from his picture contraption, an' the crowd sorta made a big breath, all at once. Them two fellas they was gonna hang was being led like cattle. I figured I been gone too long aw'ready, an' that Lorie-Lorie would be mad, so I run back for her. But then—she weren't there. I yelled and hollered for her, Sawyer, I swear on my life. I checked the necessary, an' I run into the hotel to ask after her, but no one seen her. An' then I run for you an' Boyd.”

Boyd, Malcolm, and I went directly to the hotel where Lorie had last been, but as the hanging was still keeping everyone in Iowa City occupied, there was hardly a soul present to inquire. Immediately I'd called out to Lorie in my mind, certain she would respond. But there had been nothing. We flew from business to business, all along the main streets, but no one knew a thing. And now the sun was about to set on the day my wife had disappeared. Night was fast approaching and I had not a notion of where she was—or if she was safe.

Keep level
, I reminded myself.
It won't do any good if you lose all control.

Clemens asked, “I mean no disrespect, but is there any reason at all that your wife would choose to leave, of her own volition?”

I tried not to grit my teeth, thinking suddenly and unwelcomely of a man Boyd and I had known during the War, a soldier named Chalmers, from Alabama. The darkness had grown too severe for him to bear, the darkness of spirit, and he put his pistol to his temple by the light of a November dawn, and drew on the trigger.

Before I could respond, Boyd, having regained his sense of self-possession, said heatedly, “Of course there ain't no reason. Y'all wouldn't know, as you ain't well acquainted with us, but Sawyer an' Lorie's in possession of a love the likes of which most of us'll never have. They's been happier than I ever seen two folks, an' Lorie's missing because of some foul business of which we's unaware. I aim to find her an' I aim to do it fast. She's in danger an' we set here eatin' like nothing's wrong.” He thrust his chin forward, eyes snapping with dark fire, and just as quickly he amended, “I apologize, ma'am, we appreciate your hospitality. But we ain't accomplishing nothing by settin' here. An' I know Sawyer agrees.”

Boyd could always be counted upon. I said quietly, “I do.”

Malcolm's eyes likewise glinted.

Rebecca drew her gaze from Boyd with seeming difficulty, appearing slightly startled by his impassioned outburst. She lifted her chin and said decisively, “Uncle Edward is able to mind the boys at home a while longer, I am certain. Let us make the rounds and assist Billings. We shall ask everyone we meet if they have word. Young Malcolm, if you'll accompany me?”

“Do you believe your wife is still within town limits?” asked Clemens.

Relying on nothing more than deep-seated instinct, I said quietly, “No.”

* * *

Rebecca and Malcolm ranged east, Clemens south, while Boyd and I took ourselves north, which proved to be a district comprised mainly of saloons. The activity on the streets increased as the sun sank; we skirted high-spirited men and trotting horses, buggies and carriages and wagons. The day's execution had drawn a crowd that seemed now to wish for nothing more than to seek refuge in drink.

There was a time when I'd been unable to resist the urge to seek solace in a bottle, though I had not let it overpower me since long before we left Tennessee. That wretched summer of 1865, returning home to ashes. To a family dead and buried, every last Davis but for me. Father, mother, grandparents, two brothers younger than I—all snuffed from existence as candle flames pinched between dispassionate fingers. Most days by the time dusk fell that long, cruel summer, I'd lost nearly all sense of who I was, though that suited me. If I allowed myself to dwell on what had been, upon my family that lay in a straight, evenly-spaced row, as seeds planted in a garden, dropped from a warm palm and covered over with earth, then I wanted nothing but death.

What had grown from their buried bodies, the seeds of them, were equally-placed headstones of rough gray rock, inches high and with slanted tops bearing their names, and the years of their births and deaths. I traced my fingers over each name every night that I could still see clearly enough, as part of a ritual of self-punishment. I'd been unable to save my brothers on the battlefield, I'd failed to return home in time to bid my parents farewell, and now my wife was missing—it seemed that ragged guilt intended to stalk me to my demise. Unwittingly I envisioned the crow—a creature whose presence I had not sensed so strongly in years. And yet now it hovered, wings widespread and talons extended, as though about to land.

Perhaps you've been allowed all the time you deserve with Lorie.

“Boyd,” I whispered, in effort to slay the terrible thought.

He gripped my upper arm in an old gesture of comfort, responding instantly, “We'll find her.”

“She's not here,” I said. The helplessness brought me to a halt. A band cinched my chest and it was greater effort than I possessed to continue walking. The darkening town closed around me, seeming to revolve on a wobbly axis, like a child's toy. I sank to a crouch, the sights and sounds just as quickly receding. I felt stranded at the edge of a gaping chasm.

Boyd crouched at my side, preventing me from plunging into the nothingness as he had after many a battle, the two of us left reeling at what we'd been forced by circumstance to do—the guilty misery descending over our bodies, two green boys from the holler who had never killed more than wild game before becoming soldiers. Two boys who watched our beloved brothers, all four of them, slaughtered like animals before our eyes.

What I recalled most about that chaotic gray battlefield was the blank surprise upon Ethan's features as a round pierced him from behind, taking out the entire front of his throat in a burst of dark-red chunks. Not fear or pain on the face I had known my entire life, only absolute stun. His mouth opened and closed like that of a hooked fish before he plunged forward; I tried to stop his fall from where I knelt nearby, but I was already clutching my youngest brother, Jeremiah, whose blood flowed over my lap, obscenely warm. Jere stared with fading sight at the distant, weeping sky above the rocky field at Murfreesboro on that icy January morning. Sleet fell into Jere's cedar-green eyes and he did not blink.

“Jesus,
oh Jesus
.” I heard words being uttered, not quite realizing I spoke them. The horror of losing Lorie beat at me, allowing forth memories I did my damnedest to keep from ever surfacing.

“It's all right,” Boyd said quietly, hovering over me and thereby shutting out the curious murmurs of attention we were attracting. “Sawyer, it's all right.”

“She's not here,” I repeated. “I don't know where she is.”

“We'll find her,” he said authoritatively. “Come, we's work to do. Come, Sawyer.”

I allowed him to haul me to my feet, vulnerable as a goddamn kitten. To those looking on, Boyd commanded in the tone not a soul dared contradict, reminiscent of his father, “
Scat
, all of yous, before I make you wish you had!”

I resettled my hat and drew a deep breath, and together we continued on our way. Past saloon after saloon, where we parted batwing doors and inquired of those within, men mostly, though a woman or two graced the floor. No one knew a thing. I did not believe that anyone was intentionally misleading us—they truly had no idea. Most went straight back to their drinking, dredging forth no more than a momentary sympathy.

“It pains me fierce,” Boyd said, as we walked to the final establishment, one at the very end of the street. “What coulda happened? I been wracking my brains. It don't make no sense.”

“I know,” I said roughly. I had regained a measure of calm. I would not think about the night hours passing without Lorie safe in my arms.

“Here, of all places, where we don't know a goddamn soul,” Boyd continued, in his habit of thinking aloud. For all that he blustered and put forth a show of being brash, I knew Boyd to be a keen observer, a deep thinker. Little missed his attention. He mused, “If we ain't heard a word by morning's light, I aim to wire Charley Rawley. He's a fair-minded man, who knows these here parts. I believe he could help us.”

I was so very grateful for Boyd's presence. He could never fully appreciate how much I depended on his levelheaded nature. I nodded agreement at his words. It was something, at least, a vague shadow of a plan. My gaze roved away from the bustling saloon and to the place where the street expired; beyond, the prairie stretched endlessly to the northern horizon, where we should have been just now, miles from Iowa City, encamped along the trail. It seemed such a simple desire—I well knew what a true gift had been bestowed upon me in my wife. Clasping Lorie's hand and making her my own, in all ways, was more than the most deeply moving moment of my life; it was a consecration. I felt born anew, allowed to experience contentment in ways I had not since my childhood, and joy as I had never known.

Boyd paused at this last set of doors, prepared to enter the bright, noisy space beyond. I told him, “I'll be just yonder,” and nodded in the direction of the empty land to the north.

Boyd hesitated. At last he said, “I'll find you directly.”

I walked swiftly into the darkness, no more than twenty steps from the street, before dropping to both knees in the tall, scratching grass. I studied the thinning moon and implored, “Lorie, answer me.”