behind me. I leaned against a telephone pole, waiting. They were watching me, I could tell. When I glanced up, they deliberately turned away, focusing their attention on the closed church doors. I slipped up the walk to Penance House, ducked around the corner, and moved quickly across the yard to the side of the barn.
I had not been there since the day of the Agnes Fair, when Missy had pointed her bloody finger at me. There were several outbuildings scattered around, and, a short distance away, what looked like an abandoned hatchway set into the earth. The double doors were secured with a heavy chain and rusted padlock. I wondered what the doors led to.
Across the way was the rear of the post office. There was only one window, with a heavy latticework of metal screening over it. I crossed the lawn separating the two properties and crouched under the window, listening for the sound of voices. There was none. I stood and peered through the grille.
The room was small and sparsely furnished: the Constable’s desk with a wooden swivel chair, askew on a square of worn carpeting, and a folding cot along one wall; on it sat Worthy Pettinger. His hands lay listlessly in his lap, and he looked pale and harried. I ran my nail over the screening; the boy started, then came to the window and opened it.
“You all right?” I asked. He nodded. “What are they going to do with you?” He shrugged and jammed his fists in his pockets, returning my gaze evenly but saying nothing.
“Listen, son, I’m sorry. I guess I’m the one who got you in this jam.” He shook his head again. “They saw your letter. Tamar steamed it open; that’s how they knew where to find you.”
“You told them.”
“No-no, I didn’t. Christ-”
“How did they know which letter to steam open? Why would they look for a letter from John Smith if someone hadn’t told them? Nobody knew ‘cept you and me.”
I was perplexed. “I can’t say, boy. But I swear I didn’t tell them.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He turned away, walked to the desk, and stared down at the tray of food on top. “Food’s good, anyhow.”
I examined the screening. It was riveted tight along a solid iron frame, the frame sunk into the stone surround of the window. But the screening could be cut. “Listen, Worthy, you sit tight. I’m going back to the studio and get some heavy cutters, and after dark I’ll come back and get you out of here.”
“Go away.” He threw himself down on the cot, clasping his hands in front of his chest, drawing his knees up in a fetal position. “It wouldn’t do any good. They’d find me again. It wouldn’t do any good.” He was shivering.
I thought a moment. “Christ, Worthy, make sense! What have you done? There’s no law-”
He leaped from the cot and slammed his palms against the iron grille. “Yes, there is!” he exclaimed hotly. “There’s a law for everything! You can’t help me. Nobody can. Don’t interfere or you’ll only make trouble for yourself. It’s what they want. They always get what they want!” His dark eyes blazed; then the light in them went out and he wrenched himself away and sat in the swivel chair. I waited another moment, then left.
The men were still in front of the post office, looking over at the church. I crossed the Common and went into the tavern. Amys was hunched over a beer on the corner stool. I asked Bert for a Scotch-and-soda, and pulled up a stool next to the bell ringer. “What’s going on, Amys?”
“Little of this, little of that. Not much in a small town like this.”
“That’s not what I mean. What’s happening at the church?”
“Meetin’.”
“What about?”
“How can I tell-I ain’t there.” He tossed off the rest of his beer.
“Amys, over there in the back of Penance House-what’re those hatchway doors in the ground?”
He choked, sputtered, then let go in the spittoon. “Root cellar.” He spun a quarter on the bar, wiped his mouth on a soiled handkerchief, and went out blowing his nose. I saw him look over at Penance House, then back in my direction before he went off toward the church.
Some men came in, Will Jones and Fred Minerva among them, and as they gathered farther along the bar I could tell from their furtive looks that I was the object of their conversation. I finished my drink and went out. The Constable was still in the doorway of the post office talking with the other men. One or two glanced my way, then returned to their discussion. The church doors remained shut. The clock said a quarter after three. I thought again of Worthy on his ticket-of-leave, secured in the back room of the post office, and I wondered what I could do to help him.
I had no idea how long the meeting in the church would take, but I still wanted to talk to the Widow Fortune. In the meantime, I drove south along Main Street, down the River Road to the bait shack. I found Jack Stump seated beside the cold fireplace. I thought it odd, his having no nurse; then I remembered that all the women were at the church meeting.
He turned his head to me as I entered, giving me a long look. Finally he lowered his lids wearily and rested his head against the back of the chair.
“It’s cold in here, Jack. Why don’t I poke up a fire?” He made no sign; I went about laying some kindling. When it began crackling, I brought a blanket from the bed and covered him. As I tucked it around his shoulders, his hand appeared from beneath the folds and grasped mine.
“It’s O.K., old-timer. How about some tea?” He stared at the flames in the fire. “Some of the Widow’s One-B Weber’s?” A faint smile flicked in the corners of his mouth before I went to put the kettle on. When the water was hot, I got down the tea box and brewed tea in the pot and filled the cup. I held it for him while he sipped, but his look told me he found it unpalatable. “Sorry, Jack, I haven’t got anything stronger on me.” A sly look came into his eye. “You’d prefer some of the old stuff to the Widow’s tea, huh?” He flashed another look, and I could see both fear and contempt in his eyes. He made a quick hissing sound through his teeth.
“Don’t worry about the Soakeses, Jack.” He shook his head, pushed the cup away. He leaned back against the chair and immediately fell asleep. I put the cup and saucer aside and carried him, blanket and all, to the cot. His body seemed to weigh scarcely anything, and when I laid him down I had the sudden premonition that spring would never see him back on his rig again.
As I slid my arm from under his neck, I felt something catch. The button of my jacket sleeve had become entangled in the little red cloth bag around his neck, and when I tried to free my arm the string broke. I slipped out the bag and held it between my fingers, looking down at the peddler’s face, agonized even in repose.
The wood crackled in the fireplace, providing a dancing light against the wall. Jack stirred uneasily as a clock chimed the half-hour. Absently, I toyed with the cloth bag for a moment; then, feeling something inside, I opened it and spilled the contents into my hand. There were a few bits of dried, crushed herbs, the rolled scrap of paper the Soakeses had scribbled their warning on, and a ring-a small irregularly shaped circlet, carved in the village fashion from a piece of hollow bone. I smiled, thinking of the Widow Fortune’s charms for toothache and for warts, and wondered what my own little red bag had contained. I blew away the bits of herbs, then unrolled the scrap of paper, the sinister note the Soakeses had left in Jack’s trap:
I stared at it for a moment, holding it up to the fire. My hand must have been shaking slightly for I saw a small bright shape rippling on the sooty wall next to the fireplace, the tiniest beam reflected back from my hand. I thought it was my wedding ring, but as I dropped that hand, holding the paper in the other, the small shape still remained, like the signal of a tiny heliograph flashing a message. I reversed the paper into the light and discovered what was causing the little ripple on the wall. When I had read the too clear words on this other side I felt a sudden chill, though the fire had warmed the room-the chill that comes not from any drop in body temperature but from those faint warning notes that are sounded in the dim recesses of the mind.
I tucked the scrap of paper in my pocket, and was returning the bone ring to the bag when Mrs. Green came with food for Jack. She stopped, and without greeting stared at me. Hurriedly I retied the string around his neck and slipped the bag inside his shirt. I left quickly. There was still time to get to Soakes’s Lonesome before dark.
24
