Dolores Claiborne

It felt like my blood froze solid inside me, and I know my heart stopped for a second, because when it started again, it had to catch up with three or four beats all crammed together. I’d picked the slip up, but my fingers relaxed when I heard that scream and it fell out of my hand n caught on one of those blackberry bushes.

“It’s just your imagination workin overtime, Dolores,” I told myself. “That little girl lookin under the bed for her clothes and Joe screamin like that… you imagined em both. One was a hallucination that somehow come of catchin a whiff of stale air from the well, and the other was no more’n your own guilty conscience. Joe’s layin at the bottom of that well with his head bashed in. He’s dead, and he ain’t gonna bother either you or the kids ever again. ”

I didn’t believe it at first, but more time went by and there was no more sound, except for an owl callin somewhere off in a field. I remember thinkin it sounded like he was askin how come his shift was gettin started so early today. A little breeze ran through the blackberry bushes, makin em rattle. I looked up at the stars shinin in the daytime sky, then down at the wellcap again. It almost seemed to float in the dark, and the hole in the middle he’d fallen through looked like an eye to me. July 20th, 1963, was my day for seein eyes everywhere.

Then his voice come driftin outta the well again. “Help me Duh-lorrrrr-isss…”

I groaned n put my hands over my face. It wa’ant any good tryin to tell myself that was just my imagination or my guilty conscience or anythin else except what it was: Joe. To me he sounded like he was cryin.

“Help meeeee pleeease… PLEEEEEEEASE…” he moaned.

I stumbled my way around the wellcap and went runnin back along the path we’d beat in the brambles. I wasn’t in a panic, not quite, and I’ll tell you how I know that: I stopped long enough to pick up the reflector-box I’d had in my hand when we started out toward the blackberry-patch. I couldn’t remember droppin it as I ran, but when I saw it hangin off one of those branches, I grabbed it. Prob’ly a damned good thing, too, considerin how things went with that damned Dr. McAuliffe… but that’s still a turn or two away from where I am now. I did stop to pick it up, that’s the point, and to me that says I was still in possession of my wits. I could feel the panic trying to reach underneath em, though, the way a cat’ll try to get its paw under the lid of a box, if it’s hungry and it can smell food inside.

I thought about Selena, and that helped keep the panic away. I could imagine her standin on the beach of Lake Winthrop along with Tanya and forty or fifty little campers, each camper with his or her own reflector-box that they’d made in the Handicrafts Cabin, and the girls showin em exactly how to see the eclipse in em. It wasn’t as clear as the vision I’d had out by the well, the one of the little girl lookin under the bed for her shorts n shirt, but it was clear enough for me to hear Selena talkin to the little ones in that slow, kind voice of hers, soothin the ones who were afraid. I thought about that, and about how I had to be here for her and her brothers when they got back… only if I gave in to the panic, I probably wouldn’t be. I’d gone too far and done too much, and there wasn’t nobody left I could count on except myself.

I went into the shed and found Joe’s big six-cell flashlight on his worktable. I turned it on, but nothin happened; he’d let the batt’ries go flat, which was just like him. I keep the bottom drawer of his table stocked with fresh ones, though, because we lose the power so often in the winter. I got half a dozen and tried to fill the flashlight up again. My hands were tremblin so bad the first time that I dropped D-cells all over the floor and had to scramble for em. The second time I got em in, but I musta put one or two in bass-ackwards in my hurry, because the light wouldn’t come on.

I thought about just leavin it; the sun’d be comin out again pretty soon, after all. Except it’d be dark at the bottom of the well even after it did come out, and besides, there was a voice in the very back of my mind tellin me to keep on fiddlin and diddlin just as long’s I wanted—that maybe if I took long enough, I’d find he’d finally given up the ghost when I did get back out there.

At last I got the flash to work. It made a fine bright light, and at least I was able to find my way back to the wellcap without scratchin my legs any worse’n they already were. I don’t have the slightest idear how much time’d gone by, but it was still gloomy and there was still stars showin in the sky, so I guess it wasn’t yet six and the sun still mostly covered.

I knew he wasn’t dead before I was halfway back—I could hear him groanin and callin my name, beggin me to help him get out. I don’t know if the Jolanders or the Langills or the Carons would’ve heard him if they’d been home or not. I decided it was best not to wonder; I had plenty of problems without takin that on. I had to figure out what to do with him, that was the biggest thing, but I couldn’t seem to get far. Every time I tried to think of an answer, this voice inside started howlin at me. “It ain’t fair,” that voice yelled, “this wa’ant in the deal, he’s supposed to be dead, goddammit, dead!”

“Helllp, Duh-lorrrr-isss!” his voice come driftin up. It had a flat, echoey sound, as if he was yellin inside a cave. I turned on the light n tried to look down, but I couldn’t. The hole in the wellcap was too far out in the middle, and all the flashlight showed me was the top of the shaft—big granite rocks with moss growin all over em. The moss looked black and poisonous in the flashlight beam.

Joe seen the light. “Dolores?” he calls up. “For God’s sake, help me! I’m all broken!”

Now he was the one who sounded like he was talkin through a throatful of mud. I wouldn’t answer him. I felt like if I had to talk to him, I’d go crazy for sure. Instead, I put the flashlight aside, reached out as far as I could, and managed to get hold of one of the boards he’d broken through. I pulled on it and it snapped off as easy as a rotted tooth.

“Dolores!” he yelled when he heard that. “Oh God! Oh God be thanked!”

I didn’t answer, just broke off another board, and another, and another. By then I could see that the day had started to brighten again, and birds were singin the way they do in the summer when the sun comes up. Yet the sky was still a lot darker’n it had any business bein at that hour. The stars had gone in again, but the flicker-flies were still circlin around. Meantime, I went on breakin off boards, workin my way toward the side of the well I was kneelin on.

“Dolores!” his voice come driftin up. “You can have the money! All of it! And I’ll never touch Selena again, I swear before God Almighty and all the angels I won’t! Please, honey, just help me get outta this hole!”

I got up the last board—I had to yank it outta the blackberry creepers to get it loose—and tossed it behind me. Then I shone the light down into the well.

The first thing the beam struck was his upturned face, n I screamed. It was a little white circle with two big black holes in it. For a second or two I thought he’d pushed stones into his eyes for some reason. Then he blinked and it was just his eyes, after all, starin up at me. I thought of what they must have been seein—nothin but the dark shape of a woman’s head behind a bright circle of light.

He was on his knees, and there was blood all over his chin and neck and the front of his shirt. When he opened his mouth n screamed my name, more blood came pourin out. He’d broke most of his ribs when he fell, and they musta been stickin into his lungs on both sides like porcupine quills.

I didn’t know what to do. I kinda crouched there, feelin the heat come back into the day, on my neck n arms n legs I could feel it, and shinin the light down on him. Then he raised his arms n kinda waved em, like he was drowndin, and I couldn’t stand it. I snapped off the light and drew back. I sat there on the edge of the well, all huddled up in a little ball, holdin my bloody knees and shiverin.

“Please!” he called up; “Please!” n “Pleeease” n finally “Pleeeeeeeeeeze, Duh-lorrr-issss!”

Oh, it was awful, more awful than anyone could imagine, and it went on like that for a long time. It went on until I thought it would drive me mad. The eclipse ended and the birds stopped singin their good-mornin songs and the flicker-flies stopped circlin (or maybe it was just that I couldn’t see em anymore) and out on the reach I could hear boats tootin at each other like they do sometimes, shave n a haircut, two-bits, mostly, and still he wouldn’t quit. Sometimes he’d beg and call me honeybunch; he’d tell me all the things he was gonna do if I let him outta there, how he was gonna change, how he was gonna build us a new house and buy me the Buick he thought I’d always wanted. Then he’d curse me and tell me he was gonna tie me to the wall n stick a hot poker up my snatch n watch me wiggle on it before he finally killed me.

Once he ast if I’d throw down that bottle of Scotch. Can you believe that? He wanted his goddam bottle, and he cursed me and called me a dirty old used-up cunt when he seen I wasn’t gonna give it to him.

At last it began to get dark again—really dark—so it must have been at least