The Winslow Incident (49 page)

Sean leaned back and observed the
activity in the cemetery. Many more dead miners hustled about their business.
They wore ill-fitting denim and sturdy boots, stamping down straw-colored weeds
that sprang back in their wake. The rushing men would pause long enough to
argue with each other using hostile gestures, or to tell a joke as evidenced by
their barks of laughter—not amused laughs, but bitter and knowing. They
did not seem bothered by the heat.

George and Dinky and Sean had been
discussing the situation for quite some time now. Everyone agreed it was
Zachary Rhone’s fault that nobody knew how sick they were going to get from
eating the bread. And for keeping that a secret—George and Dinky
insisted—he’d deserved to die.

Yet none could deny that it was
Sean who spread the bread all over town.

“I
should’ve made Zachary look at that nasty flour before I made deliveries.” Sean
tossed a pinecone at a marker planted beside the tree:

18 Sept 1890

Yellow
Jacket Mine

By accident,
most harsh

Here lies
what’s left

of Guy D. Marsh

“Should’ve,” George agreed and
kicked at the pinecone. Then he reclined into the tree, resting one boot
against its trunk.

“Should’ve thrown all that bread
into the trash,” Sean said. The remorse was voracious, eating away his spirit
in fat greedy bites.

“Yeah.” Dinky squatted down next
to him. “You really shoulda.”

Sean examined the singed skin on
his right forearm. “I wanted to save him.”

“Did yer best,” Dinky said.
“Weren’t yer place to deny ’im his due.”

“I thought I had him when he
latched onto my arm.”

George gave a plaintive shake of
his translucent head.

“I tried to pull him out but he
pulled against me. Why’d he do that?” They all shook their heads
dunno.
“I
had to cut him loose. My arm was burning, the heat on my face. Had to.”

“No choice but to cut him loose,”
George agreed.

“I watched him melt away.” Sean
exhaled hard and abruptly stood as if the memory of it wouldn’t let him sit. “I
never wanted him to get hurt. Only wanted to talk, get things straight.”

Dinky stood too, remaining at
Sean’s side. “But then ya seen the blood inside the house,” he reminded him.

“Everywhere.” His stomach churned.
“In the house, on the sheets outside, all over the grass.”

“And heard yer brother Aaron
callin’ to ya.”

“Heard the fear in his voice.”

“You had to do somethin’,” George
said. “You saw him—you saw the ax.”

“I had to flush him out or else he’d
hurt them too.”

Dinky put his hand on Sean’s
shoulder, but Sean felt no pressure from it.

“Burnin’ the bakery was right,”
Dinky said. “Was redemption in those flames.”

“I’m still gonna have to pay.”
Sean walked out from beneath Dinky’s weightless grasp.

“S’pose you will,” George said.
“S’pose you will.”

Then Sean suffered a gruesome thought,
Maybe I melted too.

Except the pine needles were sharp
beneath his bare feet and his arm hurt where Zachary had grabbed him with
burning hands, and Sean didn’t think pain carried over to the great beyond. But
he could be wrong. After all, why did he run away after it was all over?

“Why’d ya hightail it?” Dinky
wanted to know.

“Because I didn’t want Aaron to
see me this way,” Sean said.

“What way?” Dinky asked.

“Toes up,” George answered for
Sean. “Worm food.”

Not caring to discuss it any
longer, Sean drifted away to the stand of hemlocks at the base of the
graveyard. He shook a branch and brown needles rained down.

Everything’s dying
, he thought.
And now I’ve killed twice: two Rhones,
father and son.
“I’m going to hell for sure.”

When he was here with Hazel on
Sunday, it’d been roasting then too. How long had it been this hot?
He
couldn’t imagine it ever being any other way.

And now his heart felt
sick—mottled and thin and weak. She had always made it clear, hadn’t she?
Made it clear since they were little kids that she didn’t want him holding her
hand. Made it clear since the first time they swiped rubbers from Clemshaw
Mercantile that it meant nothing to her. (“It’s fun, Sean,” she says, “but
don’t get emotional.”) Why’d he ever let himself think otherwise?

I couldn’t stand to see.

But Tanner had forced him to face
facts. “Hate to see a friend get suckered,” he’d said.

Maybe it was better to finally
accept it. Only now he imagined that everyone had been laughing at him behind
his back—for years—for being such a slobbering fool. No better than
James Bolinger.
Why didn’t I have the guts to face it?

“The thing is, though,” he told
Dinky Dowd who’d followed him to the hemlocks, “it doesn’t even matter if I
face it now, does it?”

“Nothin’s changed,” Dinky agreed.

“I still want her.”

“That’s nothin’ new.”

“And she doesn’t want me.”

“Nothin’s changed.”

Sean supposed he should leave now.
This was his last stop. Time to cross the creek.

When he trudged back up the hill,
he was startled to spot Patience Mathers standing at the entrance to the cemetery.
He wouldn’t have recognized her were it not for her long black hair; all her
other features were washed away by the sunlight. Sean was sad to see her, for he
knew what it meant.

This is my punishment
, he realized then.
This is my hell.

He could tell she didn’t want to be
here. That she was scared.

But being dead, she had no choice.

“Patience,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I killed
you.”

P
atience dreaded entering the graveyard. It was
swarming and repulsive and she was having trouble swallowing, but she had to
get to him first. Matherston Cemetery was always the last place Sean searched
on his ghost hunt, so this was where Hazel would find them.

She fidgeted with the lucky charms
at her wrist. The dice felt huge between her fingers—sixes all the way
around. Lucky.
It’s all I have.
She felt helpless and powerful at the
same time.

Patience forced herself forward.

And they reached each other under
the purple tree.

“I’m sorry, Patience.” Sean
wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight. “I’m sorry.”

Warmth flooded her but then Sean
pulled back.

“Sorry for what?” she asked. He
was shirtless so she unbuttoned her vest.

“I killed you.”

“No you didn’t.” She took his hand
and placed it over her heart. “See? It beats.”

“I’m dead,” he said.

“No, you’re not.” She placed her
palm flat against his chest. “See? Warm.” Then she slid her fingers down to his
belly but he stopped her and took her hand in his.

“It isn’t like that with us,” he
said and she could tell from his eyes that he meant it.

“What does it matter, Sean, if we’re dead?”

H
azel pulled the melted ice cream bars from her
sling and tossed them onto a fern beside the path. Her arm wasn’t killing her
for the first time since the Percocet wore off. The relief would be short
lived.

After leaving her dog and the kids
safely ensconced in the Never Tell Brothel, she had picked up the trail and
continued west, growing hotter with every step as the sun rose to its most
offensive position of the day and even the tall pines could no longer shield
her path. She sucked in a long breath, careful to hold her tongue against her
tormented tooth so as not to irritate the nerve. She was almost there.

When she arrived at the white
granite wall Hazel retrieved a piece of blue chalk wedged at its base and
scratched out
I’m Sorry—SA
.
Beneath that, she scrawled:
SA → HW
TFC X HRC
.

The message turned out to be
unnecessary because when she rounded the corner of the wall and saw a pair of black
tennis shoes lying in the dirt, she knew she’d finally found Sean.

In her excitement, she forgot all
about her battle wounds. She couldn’t wait to see him and she marveled at how
completely she’d missed him. She hadn’t seen him since he came looking for her
at the Crock on Monday morning, when she told him she didn’t have time for him.

I don’t have time for you?
It was impossible for her to believe that she’d said that
to him.
What the hell!
He was sick and confused and she couldn’t make
time for him?
How could I do that to you?

She fully realized then how much
her loneliness for him had drained her spirit; it was a wonder there was
anything left of her. And as she ran to the entrance of the cemetery, she
thought,
I have all the time in the world for you, Sean. The rest of my
life, if you want it.

As soon as she reached the wrought
iron gateway, she saw them.

“They move like ghosts,” she whispered
and wondered briefly if Aaron were right.

But their bare torsos appeared all
flesh and blood.

The graveyard stood bleached
beneath the noon sun. The weeds the grave markers the trees—all the same
bleak tone. Hazel felt delirious from the blank heat and brilliant shock.

The charm bracelet reflected
sunlight as she touched him and he took her hand. He spoke, but from so far
away, Hazel could not hear what he was saying.

Hot and high, the sun washed
Hazel’s world away in an achromatic wave and she swayed on her feet, wondering
what happened to all the air on the mountainside.

Then Sean saw her over Patience’s
exposed shoulder and his eyes took on a look of bewilderment.

Patience turned, followed his gaze
to where Hazel stood in the wrought iron gateway, and smiled that exquisite
rodeo queen smile.

Hazel felt like somebody else
entirely as she marched toward them at the plum tree, as if another entity had
taken over her body and all she could do was keep out of the way and watch.

Sean appeared stunned to see her.
He pulled away from Patience and released her hand.

Patience did not look one bit
surprised, like when they were kids and she’d been following them.

This isn’t happening
, Hazel thought.
This. Is not. Happening!
She kicked
a flat wooden grave marker in her path, splintering the word Hanged in two.

Sean reached for her, as if he
wanted to touch her to verify that she was real the way his dad Samuel had
thrown the candy dish at her in the hotel hallway. “I thought you left with Tanner,”
he said.

She dodged his grasp. “Does it
look like I left, Sean?”

He staggered and shook his head
like a boxer who’d taken a sucker punch.

“I stayed for
you.
” She
poked a finger against his bare chest. “I’ve been looking for
you
!”

“What happened to your arm?” He
reached for her again, eyes dark with concern.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch
me again!” She noticed red slashes across his right forearm as if he’d been
burned but all she could think of was that arm around Patience.
This isn’t
happening.

She glowered at Patience, who
hadn’t moved from Sean’s side. Her eyes held that same hollowness as when Hazel
had encountered her in Prospect Park the night before, made creepier still by
the bright light in the cemetery.

“Hazel,” Sean said softly, “you
are so wrong—”

“I
saw
you,” Hazel cried.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere and finally I really saw you!”

“Don’t do this . . .” He wore that
same helpless look he used to get when he was still small and couldn’t defend
himself against Kenny Clark or his drunken father.

“I was so worried about you.”
Hazel placed her hand over her stomach as though the thought of it sickened
her. “But now I see that you’re fine. The two of you are just fine and dandy.”

Patience said nothing, only
scratched up and down her red-striped arms with that maddening sound.

“Hazel, come over here with me.”
Sean wrapped his hand around her fingers and pulled her away from Patience.

“Let go of me!” She squirmed out
of his grip and then pressed her hand against her cheek.

“What’s wrong with your mouth?” he
asked.

“Nothing.” She let the hand drop.
“I broke my tooth.”

“Were you eating candy?”

“Yes—damn you.” The urge to
cry nearly overwhelmed her, but she would not let them witness her heart
breaking.

His face drawn with empathy, Sean
said, “I would never do anything to hurt you, Hazel.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I
don’t care enough about you, Sean, to get hurt.”