Those Across the River (29 page)

When we got to the river, I didn’t recognize the crossing point, but that made sense. If I were them, I would try to ambush us at the raft.

This was a wider, shallower part of the river. I waded it, supported by Martin on one side and Dora on the other. I thought about how pleasant it would be to die right there, to slip from between them and let myself fall into those cold waters and forget everything.

While we were crossing, I said into Dora’s ear, “Are you still my wife?”

“If you can stand it.”

 

 

 

PAST THE RIVER, Martin was hacking terribly, too tired to carry me any farther. Dora went to pick me up, but I wouldn’t let her.

Martin stepped in front of me, and whispered evilly, between muffled coughs, “They’re coming. Four of them, maybe five. I never thought I’d say this to a man, but get on your wife or I’ll coldcock you.”

Martin helped her get me into the easiest carry, and we went on.

We made the cabin.

Martin bolted all the windows and doors while Dora put me on the bed.

“Do you have any trousers?” I said.

“What for?” Martin said. “We’ve already seen it.”

Dora almost laughed.

He threw her a pair of filthy denims and she helped me get my legs into them. When she saw how much leg stuck out the bottoms, she did laugh. I could barely button them.

“Can you handle that thing?” Martin said to Dora, indicating my .45. She shook her head. I sat up and took it from her.

Just then the front door banged, hard enough to shake the little house. Dora started. I pointed the gun. I looked at the black iron reinforcements and the inch-thick drawbolts. The door wasn’t pine. It was oak.

It banged again, hard.

Martin said, “Look, I know you’re as strong as three fellows, but it would take ten to break that door. You’re seven fellows short. Go home.”

Now the bolted shutters banged, and I saw that the bolt was smaller.

“Don’t worry,” Martin said. “They’re barred.”

The shutters banged again, then gave. The black one had used a log. Now he wrapped his hands around the bars, getting ready to yank for all he was worth, but Martin jumped and cut three fingers off him with his hatchet, hitting the bar so hard it made a spark. The man howled and jerked himself away.

“I’m gonna git you for that, Cramma.”

“I thought you were already gonna ‘git’ me. What, are you gonna ‘git’ me worse? Grow your fucking fingers back and try again.”

It got quiet.

It stayed quiet.

Martin grabbed a rough little stub of a pencil and wrote on the wall near me,

I wrote,

He wrote,

“Do me a favor,” he said.

I nodded.

“In case they get in, save your last bullet for her. You they can kill. Her they can keep alive. You get me?”

“No.”

“How’d you like to have your hands and feet cut off every day?”

“Jesus Christ, Martin.”

“Don’t ‘Jesus Christ’ me, that’s how he thinks. The school was his idea.”

“What about you?”

“Not me,” he said, grinning impishly in his beard. “They can’t get me alive. They know that.”

Something occurred to me.

“Where are you from, Martin?” I said.

“Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When did you . . .”

“Let’s just say that wasn’t the first plantation house I’ve burned.”

I grinned at him. Some part of me was treating this all as a fever dream. Nothing could surprise me. Or so I thought.

I heard the fat
pop
of glass breaking against the side of the shack.

“Oh shit,” he said. “We’re in the stew now.”

“What?” Dora said. “Why?”

“I had a few jars of moonshine outside.”

“Alas,” I said.

Another jar broke.

“Well . . . maybe they won’t have fire?” offered Dora.

“No,” Martin said. “That was Hector’s Zippo being opened. And lit.”

A cloud of strong cigar smoke drifted in the window.

“It’s been nice knowing you kids,” Martin said.

“Likewise,” I said.

Two more jars broke.

“Jesus,” Dora said. “How much did you have out there?”

“Plenty,” said Martin, opening a jar that was on his table and drinking from it. He offered it around, and we all took communion.

Another cloud of smoke came in the window.

“In case you were wondering,” said Hector’s deep voice outside, “we were unable to save the house.”

I was tempted to shoot through the wall at him.

“My guess is you didn’t try hard enough,” Martin said. “Maybe you should go back and form a bucket brigade. Perhaps the good people of Whitbrow would help.”

“You have burned my house, Mr. Cranmer. Worse, you have burned my library. I hope to inherit yours when you are dead. Will you come outside now, or must I light this fuel?”

“You know what?” Martin said. “You’re a killer, a savage and a poor housekeeper. Maybe my books would be good for your education. Yes, why don’t you take them?”

So saying, Martin poured moonshine of his own on his bookshelf.

Dora looked at him wide-eyed.

“What would you like first? How about
The Return of the Native
?”

He struck a match, lit the selfsame book, and pitched it through the bars.

“Not a fan of Hardy? How about Walt Whitman?”

He lit and threw that one too, but it was the last one.

The outside of the shack’s wall went up and a wave of heat came from it. Martin helped me to my feet. He unbolted his door and at just that instant the black one with the bad haircut launched himself through.

I shot him in the mouth. It was awful. It hit just under his nose and seemed to blow every tooth out of his head. He wasn’t dead immediately, but he wasn’t feeling combative anymore.

Now Martin lit his bookcase on fire and picked it up and charged out the door with it, pitching the whole flaming lot into the white man and woman, who were bowled over by it. Dora jostled me out the door. Hector rushed at Martin, but Martin flipped him heavily into the wall. The white man’s arm was on fire. He must have gotten shine on him pitching jars of it against the shack.

“Run!” Martin said.

He was on fire, too.

I was lining up to use my last bullet on Hector, who was starting to shudder, but Dora grabbed my arm and yanked me off into the woods with her. I looked back over my shoulder, feeling like Lot’s wife. I looked just in time to see Curly Woman get up, and I realized she had a gun.

I thought she would shoot Martin.

But she was shooting at us.

We weren’t very far away.

Then the gun was empty and something moved fast behind her.

The second to last thing I saw back there was Martin Cranmer partially on fire beating that woman with a flaming board.

The last thing was Hector dropping to all fours and turning into an enormous black wolfish thing.

Dora scooped me up on her shoulders again and ran with me.

I know the three of them killed Martin.

But he hurt them.

All of them.

Enough to slow them down.

And Hector never got his books.

D
ORA COLLAPSED JUST outside of town.

I had been in and out of consciousness myself, but the rough landing in Miles Falmouth’s unkempt patch of acorn squash jolted me into the here and now. Dora and I both struggled to our feet. I saw now that her nightshift was drenched in blood, and she was holding her hand over her abdomen.

There was so much blood.

Her white legs were covered in it.

“I’m sorry, Frankie. I guess she shot me. I didn’t feel it for a while, but oh God I do now.”

“Is it . . . is it going to heal?”

“It burns too much. I think it’s silver.”

Charley Wade’s gun. The bitch had picked up Charley’s gun when he dropped it during the stoning.

We leaned into each other and rested with our foreheads together. My mind raced. Eudora was bleeding to death and I didn’t know where to take her. Dr. McElroy was surely dead and Morgan’s hospital was far away and dangerous. Oddly, I noticed that it was a pleasant day. The brilliant blue sky and tawny fields behind her seemed incongruous with the mortal danger she was in.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to lie down with her so we could die together nestled like teaspoons.

“Who’s out there?”

I looked at the porch of the sagging house and saw Miles Falmouth leaning on his cane, holding his rifle. I couldn’t see clearly, but it seemed he had a beard now.

“Thank God,” I said, then shouted, “It’s Frank and Dora Nichols! We need help!”

He was silent for a moment.

What was he doing?

Fussing with the gun.

He pointed it now and screamed insanely at us. “GIT ON OUTTA HERE! I know what she is now. Maybe you, too. GIT!”

“She’ll die,” I said.

“Good,” I heard, then he shot above our heads.

He drew and slapped the bolt, and aimed again.

“Next time I start tryin. GIT!”

I remembered my .45, which was still in my waistband; Martin’s pants were so tight, the gun had stayed wedged in. I had the presence of mind not to actually put my hand on it now.

We limped together through his field. It was taking forever. He watched us down the barrel all the way off his property.

Now we were in the Gordeaus’ corn, but there weren’t any more Gordeaus. Crows were flying all around, a few at first, then many. A proper murder of them. We made the street. A dog was barking somewhere.

The town square was deserted as we went through. We limped near Harvey’s Drug Emporium, and I banged on the door but found it locked. Harvey was moving inside. He pulled the shade.

“Please,” I said, and banged the door again.

Nothing.

We moved away.

I looked at the wrecked tea roses.

I looked at the flaking town hall.

I looked down and noticed that we were both leaving bloody footprints on the sidewalk.

I felt woozy for a minute, and went to lean on Dora, but she was leaning too much on me. Her head was starting to droop. I reached deep inside me and pulled up what was left. I had to be strong for just a little while longer. I helped Dora towards the general store, but before I even got close, Peter Miller came out and waved us off.

“Keep away,” he said. “Nobody here wants what you got.”

“We’re dying,” I said.

“We don’t want it,” he said again, and went inside and locked his door. I looked around. Curtains jiggled and shadowy figures moved in windows in all directions. We were a spectacle. We were lepers.

The door to the hardware store opened, and for a wild moment I thought Sheriff Blake was going to come out. He did not, but one-armed Mike did. He had a wheelbarrow. A fucking wheelbarrow.

“Get away from there,” somebody yelled at him.

He dragged it behind him, unable to push it with just the one arm. He helped me put Dora in it. Then he went back to the hardware store and shut the door. He waved out the window at us. He was crying.

Staggering, praying, stopping to heave, stopping to rest. Somehow I got us home.

I piled Dora into the passenger seat of the Ford and then stumbled into the house to get the key and my spare pair of glasses, whose frames were slightly bent. I didn’t bother locking up as I left. As I opened the driver’s-side door, I saw my reflection in the glass and didn’t recognize it for a second. Beard nearly full grey now. Sunken eyes. Crooked glasses. A ghoul was trying to get into my car.

I pulled the gun out of my waistband and sat down. The car seemed strange to me, like I had forgotten how it worked. I had to think my way through every step. Key in the dash, turn it to On, check the gas, clutch in, stick in neutral, spark lever up (this hurt my broken finger), throttle down, choke, then the starter button. Spark lever down. Let her warm up. Don’t pass out. Brake. Reverse gear. Check mirror. Foot off brake. Now we’re moving.

I backed the car out.

Right into a throng of women.

Nearly hitting Mrs. Woodruff, Sarah’s mother. She was holding a large, mean-looking wrench. The other women had makeshift weapons, too. And at least one gun; a woman I didn’t recognize had a rifle.

Mrs. Woodruff’s face was tight and determined. She slapped her hand on my window. Her ring nearly chipped it.

“You open that window and talk to me!” she said.

Proceeding on the theory that angry women with wrenches rarely have nice things to say, I stepped on the gas. I believe I ran over her foot. A hoe flashed and broke a headlamp. The woman with the rifle shot, but I don’t know how many times because I was also honking the horn as I sped off. I can’t say why. I believe it was a reflex. One of the shots hit the body of the car, but I could only assume it didn’t damage anything important, because we kept moving. Now I saw Mr. Woodruff coming up the road on a horse, holding a pistol. God knows how the maenads had beaten him here; maybe he had gone ahead to try to cut me off.

He pointed the pistol, and I laid on the horn again, making straight for the horse, an ugly mottled thing. It did what I hoped it might do in ruining his shot, but then it surprised everybody with a proper rear and pitched the ignorant bastard into a tree.

And that was how we left Whitbrow.

I didn’t know where we were going, but that’s just as well.

We wouldn’t have arrived anyway.