The Green Mile(73)

I fell asleep thinking of piney-woods atonement, and Eduard Delacroix on fire as he rode the lightning, and Melinda Moores, and my big boy with the endlessly weeping eyes. These thoughts twisted their way into a dream. In it, John Coffey was sitting on a riverbank and bawling his inarticulate mooncalf's grief up at the early-summer sky while on the other bank a freight-train stormed endlessly toward a rusty trestle spanning the Trapingus. In the crook of each arm the black man held the body of a naked, blonde-haired girlchild. His fists, huge brown rocks at the ends of those arms' were closed. All around him crickets chirred and noseeums flocked; the day hummed with heat. In my dream I went to him, knelt before him, and took his hands. His fists relaxed and gave up their secrets. In one was a spool colored green and red and yellow. In the other was a prison guard's shoe.

'I couldn't help it,' John Coffey said. 'I tried to take it back, but it was too late.'

And this time, in my dream, I understood him.

Chapter 20

8

At nine o'clock the next morning, while I was having a third cup of coffee in the kitchen (my wife said nothing, but I could see disapproval large on her face when she brought it to me), the telephone rang. I went into the parlor to take it, and Central told someone that their party was holding the line. She then told me to have a birdlarky day and rang off... presumably. With Central, you could never quite tell for sure.

Hal Moores's voice shocked me. Wavery and hoarse, it sounded like the voice of an octogenarian. It occurred to me that it was good that things had gone all right with Curtis Anderson in the tunnel last night, good that he felt about the same as we did about Percy, because this man I was talking to would very likely never work another day at Cold Mountain.

'Paul, I understand there was trouble last night. I also understand that our friend Mr. Wetmore war, involved.'

'A spot of trouble,' I admitted, holding the receiver tight to my ear and leaning in toward the horn, 'but the job got done. That's the important thing.'

'Yes. Of course.'

'Can I ask who told you?' So I can tie a can to his tail? I didn't add.

'You can ask, but since it's really none of your beeswax, I think I'll keep my mouth shut on that score. But when I called my office to see if there were any messages or urgent business, I was told an interesting thing.'

'Oh?'

'Yes. Seems a transferral application landed in my basket. Percy Wetmore wants to go to Briar Ridge as soon as possible. Must have filled out the application even before last night's shift was over, wouldn't you think?'

'It sounds that way,' I agreed.

'Ordinarily I'd let Curtis handle it, but considering the... atmosphere on E Block just lately, I asked Hannah to run it over to me personally on her lunch hour. She has graciously agreed to do so. I'll approve it and see it's forwarded on to the state capital this afternoon. I expect you'll get a look at Percy's backside going out the door in no more than a month. Maybe less.'

He expected me to be pleased with this news, and had a right to expect it. He had taken time out from tending his wife to expedite a matter that might otherwise have taken upwards of half a year, even with Percy's vaunted connections. Nevertheless, my heart sank. A month! But maybe it didn't matter much, one way or the other. It removed a perfectly natural desire to wait and put off a risky endeavor, and what I was now thinking about would be very risky indeed. Sometimes, when that's the case, it's better to jump before you can lose your nerve. If we were going to have to deal with Percy in any case (always assuming I could get the others to go along with my insanity - always assuming there was a we, in other words), it might as well be tonight.

'Paul? Are you there?' His voice lowered a little, as if he thought he was now talking to himself. 'Damn, I think I lost the connection.'

'No, I'm here, Hal. That's great news.'

'Yes,' he agreed, and I was again struck by how old he sounded. How papery, somehow. 'Oh, I know what you're thinking.'

No, you don't, Warden, I thought. Never in a million years could you know what I'm thinking.

'You're thinking that our young friend will still be around for the Coffey execution. That's probably true - Coffey will go well before Thanksgiving, I imagine - but you can put him back in the switch room. No one will object. Including him, I should think.'

'I'll do that,' I said. 'Hal, how's Melinda?'

There was a long pause so long I might have thought I'd lost him, except for the sound of his breathing. When he spoke this time, it was in a much lower tone of voice. 'She's sinking,' he said.

Sinking. That chilly word the old-timers used not to describe a person who was dying, exactly, but one who had begun to uncouple from living.

'The headaches seem a little better... for now, anyway... but she can't walk without help, she can't pick things up, she loses control of her water while she sleeps... ' There was another pause, and then, in an even lower voice, Hal said something that sounded like 'She wears.'

'Wears what, Hal?' I asked, frowning. My wife had come into the parlor doorway. She stood there wiping her hands on a dishtowel and looking at me.

'No,' he said in a voice that seemed to waver between anger and tears. 'She swears.'

'Oh.' I still didn't know what he meant, but had no intention of pursuing it. I didn't have to; he did it for me.