The Cypress House (13 page)

    "Actually,
the
one
thing I need right now is another drink."

    He
stood up and walked around the bar and into the kitchen, found the icebox. He
took a bottle of beer out, then hesitated and withdrew two more.

    When
he came back, he set a bottle down in front of Paul, then in front of Rebecca
Cady. Both of them looked at him like he was crazy, and he shrugged. The wind
shrieked around the house, and Paul reached out tentatively and touched his
beer, then moved his hand away when Rebecca Cady shifted her eyes to him.

    "Go
on," Arlen said, "just one ain't going to bite you. It's a hurricane,
son. If that isn't a special occasion, what is?"

    It
wasn't strong stuff, but it was enough to settle Arlen's stomach and ease his
headache. Paul let the bottle sit untouched in front of him for a few minutes
and then lifted it and took a small swallow.

    About
ten minutes went by, and then there came a crash and a tearing from the back
porch. Arlen and Paul got to their feet and went to the small exposed portion
of glass to look out. One of the porch railings had ripped free and blown into
the back wall, and the corresponding roof support had buckled. The porch roof
was still standing, but on just three legs now.

    "That
porch is almost finished," Paul whispered. "I wonder what's happening
to that dock and the boathouse up in the inlet."

    Before
Arlen could answer, there was another crash, this one far louder and on the
southern side of the house, out of sight at their angle. The entire building
trembled with impact, and then the lights went out. There wasn't so much as a
flicker; they simply snapped off. The electric fan whirled down to a crawl and
then a stop, and now there were no sounds but the storm.

    Arlen
led the way back, picking past chairs and tables that existed as shadows.
Rebecca Cady was where they'd left her, and though she hadn't said a word, she
was moving in the darkness. It took Arlen a minute to realize that she'd begun
to drink the beer.

    It
went on through the afternoon and into the evening—wind and rain and the sounds
of the house threatening to break up around them. One of the back windows
splintered from the squeezing and shifting of the frame, then fell to the floor
in shards when another gust shook the house. Paul and Arlen set to work
cleaning up the glass and waiting on the rest of the windows to go, but they
never did. The storm surge covered the beach and reached the porch and sloshed
under the house. They could hear it moving beneath the floor, and Rebecca Cady
kept her eyes downcast for at least an hour, looking for signs of it, expecting
the water to begin seeping through. It didn't rise high enough, though. Now and
then a particularly inspired wave would splash up onto the edge of the porch,
but it never made the door.

    The
three of them went out onto the front porch once, with the building offering
shelter between them and the wind, and took in the yard. Everything was awash
with water, the sea moving all around them, as if they stood aboard a ship
rather than a porch. The heavy Cypress House sign banged on its iron chains.

    Up
the hill, the trees bent almost to the earth and the undergrowth had been
picked clean by the wind. The air was thick with spray and sand, peppering the
trees.

    "You
ever seen one like this before?" Paul shouted in Rebecca Cady's ear, his
hand cupped to the side of her face. She shook her head.

    It
didn't begin to lessen until evening, and then it was subtle — the wind shriek
losing its voice just a bit, as if its lungs were worn from the day's ravings.
An hour later it was noticeably calmer, and the rain had faded to an ordinary,
steady summer shower as the ocean mustered a slow retreat, as if displeased
with the results of its reconnaissance mission on land. Maybe it would invade
sometime, but it wouldn't be now and wouldn't be here.

    As
the storm eased away, real darkness settled in, and Rebecca lit more oil lamps.
She had two lanterns, and around nine that evening, when the wind dangers
seemed past, she lit them both and handed one to Paul and kept the other herself,
and they all went outside.

    The
yard was littered with pieces of siding and porch rails and shingles. The back
porch was in shambles, but the roof had held; the widow's walk deck hadn't
fared so well.

    Rebecca
Cady looked everything over without comment and then said she wanted to go to
the boathouse. She led the way, holding the lantern out in front of her body,
picking over branches and planks and other debris. There was a narrow path that
led north from the house and into the palms. It curved away from the Gulf, then
opened up on an inlet that appeared to wind back into ever deeper undergrowth.
The boathouse stood before them, little more than a tall shed built out onto
the dock. Most of its roof was gone. Rebecca walked to the edge of the dock and
lifted the lantern high. A third of the floor planks were missing, but the
pilings that supported them were intact.

    "You
have anything in that boathouse ?" Arlen asked.

    "It
was moved," she said shortly, and then turned and started back to the
house. "Let's look at the generator."

    "We
might be able to get it running again tonight," Paul said, full of forced
optimism.

    That
idea lasted for the amount of time it took them to get back to the house. The
generator was in an enclosure that had been constructed on the north side of
the building. Where it had once stood, nothing was visible but tangled
branches. A tree of at least forty feet in length — it was some sort of coastal
pine whose branches and needles had been pruned away by the storm — had blown
directly into the side of the building, crushing the shed. The smell of fuel
hung in the air, and when Paul leaned over the tree and lifted his lantern, a
piece of an engine became visible.

    "It's
ruined," Rebecca Cady said. "Destroyed."

    Paul
set his lantern on the ground and tried to heave the tree off the generator.
After watching him struggle for a few seconds, Arlen fell in to help, and they
rolled the tree back enough to see the damage more clearly. It looked to Arlen
to be catastrophic — the generator had been broken into pieces and was now
covered with wet sand. He could see a metal plate with the words "Delco-
Light" stamped onto the side. Arlen was a damn fine carpenter, but he was
no mechanic, and even a great one wouldn't be able to put this wreck back
together.

    "Going
to need a new one," he said.

    "I
can't afford one." She looked up from the ruined generator and out at the
rest of her property — shanks of damaged siding littered the yard, pieces of
the back porch lay half buried in the sandy hill above the inn, the bed rails
from her truck had been ripped off and deposited somewhere in the darkness.

    "We'll
get it cleaned up," Paul said, and Arlen looked at him with wide eyes. The
hell they would. They were leaving.

    "I
can take care of it," she said.

    "No,
you can't. You going to rebuild that porch?" He shook his head. "We
won't leave until it's cleaned up."

    Arlen
said, "Have you lost your senses?"

    "We
have to stay long enough to help —"

    "We
don't have to stay long enough for anything! I don't recall that we invited the
hurricane here, and I'll be damned if I take any sense of neighborly kindness
at a place where I was jailed and robbed. We're leaving in the morning."

    Paul
shook his head, and Arlen wanted to knock it right off his shoulders.

    "We
came in together," Paul said. "That doesn't mean we have to leave
together. I'm staying at least long enough to help her get this place cleaned
up."

    They
stood there for a while in the lantern light and the soft rain, looking out at
the inn that was now bound by darkness.

    "Come
on," Arlen said at last. "Won't be able to do anything out here till
daylight, and there's no use burning the lantern fuel. Way that generator
looks, you're going to need it."

    Nobody
came by to check on the Cypress House until the next morning, and then it was a
man in a white panel van. Arlen was in the bathroom and Paul and Rebecca Cady
were already outside, pulling the boards off the windows. They hadn't reached
the second floor yet, so when Arlen heard the sound of the approaching engine,
he had to go downstairs to see the source. The van had parked and the driver
got out, a short, squat man in a watch cap. He stood with his hands on his
hips, looked around the tavern, and shook his head.

    Arlen
opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, lifting a hand. The man lifted
one in response and walked up to join him. "How'd you folks fare?"

    "Well
enough," Arlen answered, "but it's not my place."

    "Oh,
I know that," the visitor said. He had a heavy drawl, a spray of freckles
across his face, blue eyes that held good humor. "Y'all are the
criminals."

    Arlen
raised his eyebrows, and the man laughed.

    "You
best expect that to be known by now. Think a pesky thing like a hurricane will
keep folks from talking?" He put out a hand. "Thomas Barrett. I
reckon you're Wagner, not Brickhill."

    Arlen
didn't take his hand, and Barrett laughed again. "Relax. I'm nothing but a
delivery driver. You can put away your guns."

    "Sorry,"
Arlen said, finally reaching out to accept the handshake, "but I'm a bit
leery of folks out here. They kill some men, lock others up, and probably steal
from everyone."

    Barrett's
smile went sour as he pulled his hand back. "Ain't everybody around here
that'll do you that way."

    "I'd
hope not. But it's who I've met so far."

    Barrett
nodded. "You met the sheriff, and maybe you met the judge? "

    "That's
right. What do you know about them?"

    "Enough
to stay out of their way. Enough to know that most folks with half a mind are
scared witless of them."

    "They're
elected positions, aren't they?"

    Barrett
threw his head back and gave a bull snort. "Elected, sure. And I ran
against Tolliver for sheriff, so you ever want to hear about Corridor County
politics, I can talk on it. But you probably don't, and I probably
shouldn't."

    "I
got the impression he was from Cleveland."

    Barrett
gave him a surprised glance and a nod. "You had the right
impression."

    "How
in the hell did he become sheriff down here, then?"

    Barrett's
smile was forced this time. "I wouldn't waste your thoughts worrying on a
thing like that. It's Corridor County's problem, not yours."

    "Is
High Town really all there is to the county?"

    "Most
people are scattered. You know, live in the woods or out at places like this.
Was a lumber mill outside of High Town that kept the place alive, but it went
under five years ago, and, all told, a few thousand people probably went with
it. Workers and their families and such. Take away the only real industry in a
place like this, and it empties out powerful fast."

    "So
what do people out here do now?"

    "They
try to get by," Barrett said. "Just like Becky."

    "How'd
she end up alone in this place?"

    "Was
owned by her parents. They came down from Georgia years back to try and build a
sport fishing business. It didn't take. Her mother drowned right out from the
house. Some said it was tides that caught her, others believed she went
willingly enough. Tired of her husband's methods of getting ahead."

    "What
methods were those?"

    Barrett
gave him a long look, then turned away and said, "A few years later,
Rebecca's daddy took his boat out, lost the engines, and then lost himself.
They found the boat but not him. All that was left of her family by then was
her brother, and he's in prison."

    At
that moment Rebecca Cady appeared around the side of the house, wiping her
hands on a towel.

    "Hello,
Tom."

    "Becky,
you survive all right?"