Dolores Claiborne(57)

I braced m'self on my left hand and shone the light down into the well again. It was hard as hell to make myself do that, especially now that it was almost completely dark. He'd managed to get to his feet somehow, and I could see the flashlight beam reflectin back at me from three or four wet spots around the workboots he was wearin. It made me think of the way I'd seen the eclipse in those busted pieces of tinted glass after he got tired of chokin me and I fell on the porch.

Lookin down there, I finally understood what'd happened - how he'd managed to fall thirty or thirty-five feet and only get bunged up bad instead of bein killed outright. The well wasn't completely dry anymore, you see. It hadn't filled up again - if it'd done that I guess he woulda drowned like a rat in a rain-barrel - but the bottom was all wet n swampy. It had cushioned his fall a little, n it prob'ly didn't hurt that he was drunk, either.

He stood with his head down, swayin from side to side with his hands pressed against the rock walls so he wouldn't fall over again. Then he looked up and saw me and grinned. That grin struck a chill all the way through me, Andy, because it was the grin of a dead man - a dead man with blood all over his face n shirt, a dead man with what looked like stones pushed into his eyes.

Then he started to climb the wall.

I was lookin right at it n still I couldn't believe it. He jammed his fingers in between two of the big rocks stickin out of the side and yanked himself up until he could get one of his feet wedged in between two more. He rested there a minute, and then I seen one of his hands go gropin up n over his head again. It looked like a fat white bug. He found another rock to hold onto, set his grip, and brought his other hand up to join it. Then he pulled himself up again. When he stopped to rest the next time, he turned his bloody face up into the beam of my light, and I saw little bits of moss from the rock he was holdin onto crumble down onto his cheeks n shoulders.

He was still grinnin.

Can I have another drink, Andy? No, not the Beam - no more of that tonight. Just water'll do me fine from here on out.

Thanks. Thanks very much.

Anyway, he was feelin around for his next hold when his feet slipped n he fell. There was a muddy squelchin sound when he landed on his ass. He screamed n grabbed at his chest like they do on TV when they're supposed to be havin heart-attacks, and then his head fell forward on his chest.

I couldn't stand any more. I stumbled my way outta the blackberry creepers n ran back to the house. I went into the bathroom n puked my guts. Then I went into the bedroom n laid down. I was shakin all over, and I kep thinkin, What if he still ain't dead? What if he stays alive all night, what if he stays alive for days, drinkin the seep comin out from between the rocks or up through the mud? What if he keeps screamin for help until one of the Carons or Langills or Jolanders hears him and calls Garrett Thibodeau? Or what if someone comes to the house tomorrow - one of his drinkin buddies, or someone wantin him to crew on their boat or fix an engine - and hears screams comm outta the blackberry patch? What then, Dolores?

There was another voice that answered all those questions. I suppose it belonged to the inside eye, but to me it sounded a lot more like Vera Donovan than it did Dolores Claiborne; it sounded bright n dry n kiss-my-back-cheeks-if-you-don't-like-it. 'Of course he's dead,' that voice said, 'and even if he isn't, he soon will be. He'll die of shock and exposure and punctured lungs. There are probably people who wouldn't believe a man could die of exposure on a July night, but they'd be people who've never spent a few hours thirty feet under the ground, sitting right on top of the dank island bedrock. I know none of that is pleasant to think of, Dolores, but at least it means you can quit your worrying. Sleep for awhile, and when you go back out there, you'll see.'

I didn't know if that voice was makin sense or not, but it seemed to be makin sense, and I did try to go to sleep. I couldn't, though. Each time I'd drift a little, I'd think I could hear Joe stumblin his way up the side of the shed toward the back door, and every time the house creaked, I jumped.

At last I couldn't stand it anymore. I took off my dress, put on a pair of jeans n a sweater (lockin the barn door after the hoss has been stolen, I guess you'd say), and grabbed the flashlight off the bath-room floor from beside the commode, where I'd dropped it when I knelt down to vomit. Then I went back out.

It was darker'n ever. I don't know if there was any kind of moon that night, but it wouldn't've mattered even if there was, because the clouds had rolled back in again. The closer I got to the blackberry tangle behind the shed, the heavier my feet got. By the time I could see the wellcap again in the flashlight beam, it seemed like I couldn't hardly lift em at all.

I did, though - I made myself walk right up to it. I stood there listenin for almost five minutes and there wasn't a sound but the crickets and the wind rattlin through the blackberry bushes and an owl hooty-hoom someplace . . . prob'ly the exact same one I'd heard before. Oh, and far off to the east I could hear the waves strikin the headland, only that's a sound you get so used to on the island you don't hardly hear it at all. I stood there with Joe's flashlight in my hand, the beam aimed at the hole in the wellcap, feelin greasy, sticky sweat creepin down all over my body, stingin in the cuts n digs the blackberry thorns had made, and I told myself to kneel down and look in the well. After all, wa'ant that what I'd come out there to do?

It was, but once I was actually out there, I couldn't do it. All I could do was tremble n make a high moanin sound in my throat. My heart wasn't really beatin, either, but only flutterin in my chest like a humminbird's wings.