Unbury Carol(17)

“Sheriff,” he said, reaching forth his hand. “How wonderful of you to be here.”

“Carol was one of the finest ladies in all of Harrows, Mister Evers.”

“The finest, Sheriff.”

“Yes, the finest.”

Opal swallowed before saying, “Seems a lot of death going around these days, what with the Illness. If you don’t mind my asking—”

“No, Sheriff Opal. A weak heart it was.”

Opal held Dwight’s gaze and nodded.

“Well, I don’t mean to stop you, wherever you’re headed.” He stepped aside.

Dwight passed him and then others.

“The poor man is cracked,” a lady whispered.

“Shaken to his bones,” said another.

He exited the parlor and stepped quietly into the hall, his boots clacking a soft rhythm on the wood. Sounded a bit like the typing of a telegram. His black suit hugged his elbows as he reached for the kitchen door then slipped inside. More biscuit and bread and whiskey and lemonade were set out on the counter there, Eleanor’s reserve, and Dwight stopped and poured himself a shot of the booze. In the same dream-daze the ladies of the parlor had noted, he continued, awkward but firm, through the breadth of the kitchen to the old cellar door. He did not look over his shoulder before turning the knob and taking from the inside wall a candlestick, lit, to guide him down the shoddy wooden stairs that creaked like braying dogs for his descent. He thought of all the faces he’d seen this morning…some of them familiar…many of them not. Replaying some of the conversation, he recalled Jonas Tom’s pitying attempt at future company. He thought of the Walker girls, just eight and ten, daughters of the doctor, their hair done up for the visit. It was a parlor chock-full of condolences, a warm room turned cold with thoughts of mortality, the guests naturally contemplating their own delicate being, the fragility of their loved ones, calculating the day when they, too, would wear the face Dwight Evers wore today. Or even the face Carol wore. He could hear them now, above him, the cobwebbed support planks creaking with the shifting weight, the lamentation of voices muffled so well that not even the name of the deceased cut through like it had…

Carol…

…no more…

Carol…

…no more.

A path was created by the candle he held, but the corners of the basement remained in shadow. It was very cold, but Dwight did not bunch up, for he planned on his visit being brief, and the temperature was welcome in that it felt no colder than his blood.

Dwight stepped into the storm room Carol had long ago overseen being built, citing Harrows’s fondness for windstorms and tornadoes. A stone cutaway room with walls as thick as the ones upstairs, a cold floor, and a great table-length slab in its center where they could put bread, food, wine, if ever they descended to avoid bad weather.

Dwight set the candlestick on the edge of the slab and lifted from it a small box of matches. He stepped to the wall and struck one against the stone, the length of the room coming to life behind him. He lit a second candle, its silver-plated sconce embedded deep into the wall, then stepped farther into the room, lit another, and another, until the three walls and the door were alight at last.

He now faced his wife, on her back upon the stone slab, her soft features mobile in the dancing candlelight. It appeared as if her eyes opened, the corners of her mouth turned up, as if the lines of her face were fluid, living lines where life might yet flow.

Then quite suddenly a second frightening thought occurred to Dwight, almost as alarming as the telegram from James Moxie.

Farrah isn’t at the wake. Why?

He looked over his shoulder to the dark entrance of the storm room. It seemed possible then that either James Moxie or Farrah Darrow could come screaming out of that darkness, eyes like eggs, pistols in hand, firing upon the would-be widower. He thought of Sheriff Opal stepping quietly into the room.

Weak heart, huh, Evers? And yet…it still beats?

Dwight stepped to Carol’s side, his belt against the slab, his face very different now from the one he wore upstairs. He leaned over her and studied her before reaching into his suit coat’s interior pocket and pulling forth a small hand mirror. He held it below her nose and counted how long it took to fog.

“Breathe,” he said, quietly. “But do not wake.” He lowered his face closer to her ear. He knew Carol heard voices in the coma. Knew she heard him now. “Can you fathom what little space you shall have upon waking? Can you fathom the loss of power? I am sorry for you, Carol. I truly am.”

The words buried alive came to mind, and Dwight thought of Opal again.

Farrah had written James Moxie. And what did she tell him?

Dwight felt another jolt of horror peal through his blood and bones that was eventually squelched by the meaning inherent in Moxie’s response.

Not dead.

As if Carol’s long-ago lover, the insane outlaw of the Trail, felt compelled to tell Farrah that Carol was actually not dead. This, Dwight hoped, meant Farrah suggested Carol was.

How had Dwight overlooked James Moxie? When was the last time Carol had mentioned his name?

Looking down at her still face he remembered the time quite well. It was just after she’d told Dwight himself of her condition.

Now you’ll go running from me, just like James Moxie did.

Moxie was the very reason Carol had kept her condition so secret. He’d scarred her by abandoning her. At the height of young love, first love, he’d chosen the Trail over her, over the care and attention he would have to pay a woman who often died.