Unbury Carol(46)

* * *



—

…My name is Moxie.

Moxie? That’s a queer one.

Well. He blushed and removed his hat. My name is James Moxie.

I like it. Do you like this song, James Moxie?

Moxie looked over his shoulder at the band. He smiled.

I do.

It went like this:

    Oh we’ll have fun when our folks hit the Trail,

When our horses sleep, from the beer and the bale,

When our enemies die, and the grudges they carried,

And we’ll keep on dancing, long after they’re buried…





* * *



—

…Physically, she’s very close to dead. But her mind continues. She says she’s not thirsty or hungry in there and also, I find this fascinating, she described it as one continuous fall. I told her that sounded frightening. She told me that depended on how often you fall.

The doctor, clearly charged by the events, spoke as Carol rested, awake, in another room.

Moxie just wanted to know when it would happen again.

I can’t say. And because of that it’s important you take very good care of her. It’s important you watch her. Say she was crossing the road, a coach approaches…it would be a terrible thing if she were alone, say, if she were to fall…



* * *



—

…Moxie carried the package under one arm. He walked steady but his heart beat hard. Silas was right. The doctors were right. Carol was right.

But he couldn’t do it.

Carol’s house was just a fence-length away but there he turned back. The air was icy, winter on the Trail. Moxie’s red boots left heavy prints in the snowy dirt. He felt something like an entirely open life before him. A life in which he didn’t have to worry that his lady might slip into false death with every syllable of laughter that escaped her lips. A life without keeping watch of Carol every minute, every hour, every day. Had he seen her house it would have been the last time he saw it. But he didn’t walk quite that far. Years later, he wouldn’t be able to remember exactly when it was, the last time he’d seen her house.

Or her person.

His boots dug into the snowy gravel of the Trail, and the package felt oily and snakelike under his arm. He ought to drop it, he thought. He ought to drop it on a rock. Or maybe he should just tuck it behind a tree and cover it with leaves and if she ever chanced upon it she might smile; something to warm the cold he was going to leave her with.

He did neither, carrying the jarred owlfly home with him instead.

How many times had she died now? How many times had he believed it was real death…this time?

Five? Six? And with each one Moxie held his own breath lest this be the time she slipped too far…slept too long…her false cadaver just a room away…him there at the window, looking out at all the infinity of a wide-open, carefree life.

He entered his home and set the jar on the table. He took the paper off it, and when he did the dying sunlight came through the oily wings of the blue owlfly within, painting the other side of the glass with its color.

Moxie covered it again and began packing.

The decision to leave Carol had shaken his reality, his identity, in many ways. Staying put was now impossible.

When a man turns his back on one thing, he must then be facing another.

The Trail waited.

Moxie, a single green sack packed with his scant belongings, took to it…



* * *



—

…I’d have thought she was dead myself, the second doctor said. Could have fooled a coroner, I’d say. Could’ve fooled a coroner, a funeral director, and a coffin maker all at once. Could’ve fooled a whole town. A whole town…unable to hear the bell because she couldn’t ring it…a whole town grieving the loss of a living woman…that bell positioned useless above her grave…the string an inch from a hand that just didn’t have the power to pull it…





Opal was sleeping deep when the knocking came.

The sheriff of Harrows lived a rather routine life: He left the office every day when the sun went down and he returned just as it came up. Sometimes it was necessary he stick around, and so he might. Sometimes he wanted to keep his eye on things. But most commonly Opal tipped his hat to the ladies he passed, minding the men and the boys. And no matter what time he left he stopped off in Eleanor Roberts’s kitchen in the Corey Hotel and took with him a sack full of steak, to eat on his horse ride home. If you lived in Harrows and did nothing wrong, you might not know the law existed. The sheriff was one for keeping the peace and had no mind to meddle, no mind to push himself on the people who elected him.

But if you did do something wrong…

It wasn’t the first time he woke in the middle of the night to the sound of knocking. Often it was Deputy Cole, asking advice, informing Opal of a fight that had ended badly. Usually Opal would be kind with the deputy, either instructing him how to fix things or telling him he needn’t really have come all this way for the matter.

“Shudders,” he said, sitting up in bed. “I’m coming.”

The knock came again. It was light, too graceful to be Cole with urgent news. Opal didn’t like to guess, but he thought it might be a newcomer looking for protection, a harmless beef to do with new neighbors.