having such pleasant dreams…
In her dreams, her parents lived. There had been no accident, no deaths, and they were together again. Likewise, in the dreams, Ginny had never perished at sea. They were all so happy in their dream life, having so much fun…
Indeed, the dreams seemed more real than the waking world, very sharply detailed and filled with emotions. They were preferable to the drab surroundings she discovered upon waking, and she longed, now, to get back to them.
“Do you feel more rested?” Elaine asked.
“Yes,” she said.
But she was still quite tired.
“You'd like to sleep more, wouldn't you, dear?”
“Yes, Elaine.”
“I'll get you a tablet.”
“Thank you.”
The sound of running water.
The rattle of the cap being removed from the medicine bottle, the hollow sound of it being put down on the nightstand again.
A hand lifting her head.
“Here you are, dear.”
She opened her mouth.
Elaine popped the pill inside.
Gwyn reached, helping the older woman tilt the waterglass, took a long swallow of water, washing down the tablet. Then, pleased to know that the dreams would soon be returning, she lay back and waited for sleep to overtake her.
At 12:45 that same afternoon, while Gwyn slept upstairs, Sheriff Louis Plunkett sat down in an easy chair in William Barnaby's study, holding his large black hat in both hands, like a superstitious man religiously fingering a talisman. He had hoped to meet Barnaby at the front door and conclude this business without having to come inside. However, Fritz had answered the door and escorted him to the study, giving him no choice but to almost literally beard the lion in his own den.
Plunkett got up, paced around the bookshelves, looked at the two watercolors in ornate frames, checked the view from the window, went back to his chair, looked at his watch, found that he'd only passed three minutes with all of that.
He was nervous, partly because this was one of those cases he despised being involved with, and partly because he'd thus far had nothing at all for lunch. A man his size, as active as he was, had to keep his regular meal schedule, or he got nervous. So he was nervous.
At last, Barnaby entered the study and closed the door behind, all smiles. He was still pleased with the efficient, no-nonsense way that Plunkett had posted the eviction notices yesterday and delivered all the right papers to all the right fishermen with nary a hitch. He offered his hand, shook Plunkett's, then went straight to his chair, sat down and picked up his letter opener, which he usually toyed with when entertaining a visitor in this room.
“What's the problem?” he asked Plunkett, though he was not really expecting a problem.
The sheriff had one for him, anyway. Plunkett frowned, his large face creased with two lines from the sides of his nose to the perimeters of his square chin; he stopped twisting his hat in his hands and placed it on the arm of his chair. He said, in a businesslike voice in which there was no longer a reluctance to skirt the issue at hand. “Well, I went out there late this morning, to see how they were getting along, to find out if there were any hitches in the moving.”
“Out to Jenkins' Niche?” Barnaby clarified.
“Yes, sir
“They have — what? Twelve hours?”
“Somewhat less than that, now.”
Barnaby smiled and nodded happily. He said, “That was very efficient of you, Sheriff, to make the follow-up call.”
“You don't seem to understand me, Mr. Barnaby. I came here to you because we seem to have a problem,” Plunkett said. He ignored the other man's compliment, perhaps more because of a deep-seated dislike for William Barnaby than because of any great modesty.
“Problem?”
“They won't leave.”
“The fishermen?”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
Barnaby froze, the tip of the silver letter opener pressed against the ball of his thumb. He said, “Won't leave?”
“That's what they say.”
“They told this to you, directly to your face?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They must be joking!”
“They seem serious, Mr. Barnaby.”
“They
Plunkett said, unable to disguise his uneasiness at being involved in an event of this sort, dots of sweat on his forehead, “I told them that, Mr. Barnaby.”
“They've been evicted, dammit!” But Barnaby was talking more to himself, now, than to Plunkett.
The sheriff nodded.
Barnaby put down his letter opener.
Plunkett noticed a tiny dot of blood on the other man's thumb, where the point of the silver tool had broken the skin.
Barnaby seemed unaware of his wound.
“So we've a problem,” Plunkett repeated.
Barnaby said, “What are you going to do about it?”
Plunkett picked up his hat from the arm of the chair and began to play with it again, twirling it around and around in his calloused hands. He said, “I warned them that they were breaking the law, and I explained the consequences of trespassing after the delivery of an eviction notice. But, in point of fact, there's really nothing that I can do to them — besides yell my head off.”
Barnaby was clearly appalled at this admission. He said, “You can evict them by force if they aren't out of the Niche by tonight!”
“No, sir, I can't.”
A dangerous look entered Barnaby's eyes, like an influx of muddy water into a clear stream, polluting his gaze. “Are you saying that you won't do your job on this?”
“That's not what I'm saying at all,” Plunkett protested. “But I simply
Barnaby was temporarily satisfied with that answer, though he was not happy. He thought a moment and said, “Couldn't you arrest a couple of them, just the ringleaders? If the top few men — Younger and his cronies — were thrown in the tank, the rest would fall apart.”
“I doubt that, sir,” Plunkett said. “It seemed to me that they were all equally determined about this. I believe, if we tried jailing any of the top men, the rest would only be more resolved than ever.”
After a short silence, Barnaby said, “Is this a token resistance or a real battle? Do they intend to overstay by only a day or two—”
“They're not leaving until their legal thirty days are up,” the sheriff said, finding it difficult not to smile.
