After Eli Read online

  “Hey, Benton,” he called, “you got company. Ol’ Doc’s back. Had his hands all over some woman up in the hollow and he’s gonna give you a smell, boy. Gonna make you forget you locked up in here. Ain’t that right, Doc?”

  “Shut up, George,” Garnett ordered. He stepped inside the cell and walked cautiously to the frail figure cowering like a whipped animal in the deep shadows of the bare room. The man was sitting in the corner on a quilt that had been torn and soiled by years of use. The quilt smelled of urine.

  “Goddamnit, George,” Garnett said angrily, gagging on the odor. “I told you to get this quilt out of here and wash it out in the river.”

  “Now, Doc, you watch it,” George warned. “They come in here pissin’ all over the place, it ain’t my job to clean up after ’em. Let ’im wallow in it and he’ll stop it.”

  “Dammit, he can’t help it,” Garnett sighed. “I told you that.”

  “Help it if he don’t want to sleep in it,” George said authoritatively.

  Garnett shook his head slowly. He was perspiring and he wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Then he bent forward, toward the still, frightened figure.

  “Boy, don’t be afraid of me,” he said quietly. “I’m not here to hit you.”

  Michael watched from outside the cell, standing beside George. The figure moved slightly against the rock wall. One hand rose helplessly in front of his face and the face—indistinguishable in the dark—rolled away.

  “I’m the doctor,” Garnett said. “You know me. I came in earlier. Put some medicine on those cuts. Bandaged you up. You remember me?”

  The figure did not move.

  “Well, I’m just going to take another look at those bandages. See if they need anything before morning.”

  Garnett knelt slowly, as if kneeling before something wild and dangerous. He reached for the man, who jerked away instinctively, bashing his head into the rock wall.

  “Goddamnit,” Garnett muttered. “O’Rear, get in here,” he commanded.

  Michael stepped inside the cell.

  “Hold him, but watch his head and chest,” instructed the doctor. “No telling what’s broken and what’s not. He’s scared. Not much older than a boy.”

  Michael caught the trembling man by the arms, at the shoulders. The body was bones, emaciated and weak. The man froze at Michael’s touch.

  “Dear God,” Michael whispered in surprise. “He must be near to death.”

  “Not far,” replied Garnett. “Pull him out to the light.”

  Michael eased his arm around the stiff, unmoving man and pulled him gently from the corner of the cell into the light. He looked into the man’s face. The doctor was right: He was barely more than a boy. His face had the gaunt look of starvation and it had been savagely beaten.

  “Who did it?” Michael asked.

  Garnett ignored the question. His fingers moved expertly over the man’s body and his eyes squinted in a judgment that Michael recognized as a hard calculation of the degrees of life and death. He could feel the doctor’s mind clicking off assets and liabilities, tabulating the mathematical chances of repair and survival, as though the man before him were a machine in need of spare pieces of equipment. Michael was amazed by the doctor’s concentration, by his reading touch. What he did was not coldness, Michael thought. Not a meaningless litany in a recital of his practice. It was the physician at work, and his mind raced through the blueprints of the anatomy like an engineer. It was the exercise of a gift—his gift. There was only one thing that was curious about Garnett Cannon, thought Michael: He held his breath as he examined the man. And Michael realized it was not because of the stench of the quilt; it was something the doctor always did, a habit.

  Garnett stood suddenly and breathed deeply. “He’ll be all right,” he said flatly. “Just lay him back down where he is. It’ll keep him away from the wall.”

  “On the floor?” asked Michael.

  “On the floor.”

  Garnett reached and pulled the quilt from beneath the man, wadded it angrily, and threw it against the bars of the cell.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Michael. “I can’t stand the smell of piss.”

  He whirled on his heel and walked to the door of the cell, where George stood blocking the opening.

  “Get the hell out of the way, George,” he said in an even, steel voice. George stepped aside and Garnett walked to the rolltop desk and leaned against it and glared at the deputy.

  “Dammit, Doc,” George stammered pitifully, “I don’t mean to go bein’ shitty, or nothin’ like that. It’s just that I ain’t gonna clean up after a man pissin’ on hisself. They ain’t never paid me enough for that.”

  “George,” Garnett replied coolly, “if that man dies because you didn’t do something you were told to do, you’ll be wishing to hell you’d changed his diapers every hour on the hour. Do you hear me?”

  George shifted his weight. He lowered his head and looked at the floor.

  “When I come in here in the morning, this place will smell like a lye soap factory,” Garnett continued. His voice was low and direct and unafraid.

  George nodded.

  “You heard the sheriff say that nothing on God’s earth will happen to that man, and it won’t,” Garnett added.

  “Doc, ain’t nothin’ gonna happen,” George whined desperately.

  “All right,” Garnett said. “One more thing. Keep it quiet. Nobody knows he’s here and we want to keep it that way for the time being, and that’s an order.” He stared hard at George, then he said to Michael, “Let’s go.” He turned and walked out of the jail.

  “Good to meet you,” Michael whispered to George. “Don’t worry about the doctor. He’s a bit tired.”

  “Yeah.”

  “See you at the café one night, I’d guess,” Michael added.

  “Yeah. Maybe so,” George mumbled.

  * * *

  Garnett said nothing as they crossed the street to his car, and Michael did not question him. He had impressed Michael with his authority. He had not bargained with George English; he had issued orders and George had listened and would obey. Michael wondered if anyone ever disobeyed the doctor when he was angry.

  The Ford rumbled slowly down the paved highway leading north out of Yale. Garnett drove with both hands on the steering wheel, with his body leaning forward. His face was furrowed in thinking and Michael knew he would speak when he was ready.

  A mile outside Yale, Garnett turned left onto the eroded dirt road leading to the Pettit farm. He drove beyond the bridge crossing Deepstep Creek and then pulled the car to the side of the road and turned off the motor.

  “Let’s stand out and get some air,” he said to Michael.

  “It’s a night for it,” replied Michael. “It’s one of the things I like about the mountains, more than the sea. You can stand right out in the middle of the mountains.”

  The two men got out of the car and walked to the front fenders and leaned against them. It was cool. The night was as clear and clean as polished glass.

  “Irishman,” Garnett said at last, “I’m about to tell you something that nobody knows but me and the sheriff and I expect it to stay among the three of us.”

  “You have my word,” promised Michael. “And it’s the word of a gentleman.”

  Garnett glanced at Michael. His eyes were bright, cold dots in the night. He said, “It had better be.” He crossed his arms and looked into the high half-moon, pale gold against the sky.

  “That man we just saw—that boy—was beaten by his daddy,” Garnett explained. “Curtis—Curtis Hill, he’s the sheriff—picked him up this morning. The boy’s name is Owen Benton. They live ten or twelve miles up in the mountain. Curtis was just by there and stopped in, and found him.”

  “What’d the boy do?” Michael asked quietly.

  “Do?” Garnett replied. He laughed sarcastically. “He was born Frank Benton’s son, that’s what he did. Frank’s never had reason for beating his ch
ildren, at least not in the past few years. Never saw a man that brutal. Ran off one of his girls—she was the oldest, I guess—because she spoke to some man in town one day. Just said ‘hello,’ but Frank went crazy. Started beating her right there in the street, calling her a whore, not worth living.” He paused and smiled. “Funny thing,” he continued, “that’s what she became. Ran off that night and went to Atlanta and took to whoring. Heard it from some of my medical friends. They said she was the best in the business and there’s two or three of them who know whores the way the French know wines.”

  “It’s a sad thing,” Michael said in a sigh. “A man beatin’ his own flesh. It’s a madman who’d do such a thing.”

  Garnett spat on the ground and kicked dirt over the phlegm with the toe of his shoe. He was thinking of Michael’s performance in the café.

  “Maybe so,” he said. “Maybe it is madness. I don’t know. It’s a sickness, at the very least. But you’d have to know Frank. He wasn’t always that way. I remember when he was outgoing and well, hell, even warm-hearted. He began to change after his wife died. If you listen to the people around here it’s because of his own father. Seems his father was a preacher of some sort, started his own cult up in the hills. Had a fair number of people that believed in him.” He laughed and shook his head slowly. “One of the things he believed in, they say, was raising people from the dead,” he continued. “God knows, I envy that.” He laughed again. “Anyway, they say Frank never believed in any of it until his wife died and something snapped in him. Grief can do that. I’ve seen it. He tried to raise his wife from her coffin and his children dragged him away from the body. Frank got it in his mind that it was the Devil working in the children. He changed after that. Everything they did, he watched, and every chance he’s had, he’s punished them.” He looked at Michael. “Madness, Irishman? Hell, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even know what can be done about it. All I know is the boy’s in bad shape. We don’t even know why Frank did it. I don’t think the boy will die, but he’s in bad shape.”

  “The sheriff jailed him to keep him away from his father?” asked Michael.

  Garnett’s eyes narrowed on Michael. His mouth opened and closed. His head nodded sadly.

  “You could say that,” he answered. “The boy’d been unconscious for a day. His sister was getting ready to come to town to get us. She’s younger by a few years, but I guess she knew.”

  “What?”

  “If the boy had awakened at home, Frank probably would’ve started the beating all over. It would have killed him.”

  “Why’re you tellin’ me about this, me bein’ a stranger?” Michael asked.

  Garnett laughed. He pulled himself up on the fender of his car, propping his feet against the bumper guard.

  “Well, Irishman, maybe it’s because you interest me,” he replied. “Maybe it’s because I think you’re one hell of an actor.” He paused and removed his hat and placed it on the hood of the car. His thinning hair billowed in the night breeze.

  “I want to tell you something,” he continued. “I don’t believe for one minute that story about you being a cousin to Eli Pettit, but I don’t hold you to blame for it. I’d say it was Rachel who made it up, or she wouldn’t permit it to be told. But it’s all right. As a matter of fact, it’s a relief you showed up. Those women have needed a man besides Floyd Crider around. And I don’t give a damn if you’re bedding down with all three at the same time. I don’t pass judgment on those things. I doubt you’ve touched a one of them, but I don’t care. With times as bad as they are and getting worse, I can’t blame a man for holding on to some security, no matter where he finds it or how he gets it. But there’s some things you should know. First, you’ll hear about a great fortune that’s hidden somewhere on the farm, some money Eli stole. It’s a lie, a myth. I can’t tell you why I know that, because there’s not a reason. It’s just something I feel, and I trust myself. Second, don’t worry about Eli returning in the middle of the night and blowing your head off. Eli’s dead. I know that, and, again, I can’t prove it. I just know it.”

  Garnett had spoken rapidly, frankly, without fear of sounding foolish. He fingered the brim of his hat with his right hand, waiting for Michael to reply.

  “Well, you’re not a fool, Doctor,” Michael said slowly. “There’s no question about it. It’s true, the way you see it. I’m not cousin to Eli. It was somethin’ Rachel made up when I had the snakebite, like you said. It even shocked me, hearin’ it, but it didn’t do anyone any harm and I’ve followed up on it and used it to advantage. It hurts to admit that, but it’s the truth, and maybe you’re right about a man needin’ some security. I’ve been wanderin’ a long time. Havin’ a place feels right for a change.”

  “It’s your business,” Garnett remarked. “Nobody else knows. Nobody needs to.”

  “I’m grateful,” Michael told him. “There’ll be a day when I’ll up and leave, but I’d like for it to be easy.”

  “Had you heard about the money?”

  Michael shook his head. “Not a word,” he said earnestly. “I’m surprised some of the men didn’t bring it up tonight.”

  “They were too busy being entertained,” Garnett answered, laughing. “You’re a magnificent liar, you know.”

  Michael smiled. He said, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Meant it to be. You’ll hear of the money. Somebody’s always talking about it. Take it for what it’s worth. I still don’t believe it.”

  A silence fell between the two men. A whippoorwill sang its monotonous flute tune from the black funnel of woods leading to the creek. The air carried the sweet smell of cut timber from high in the mountains.

  Then Garnett spoke.

  “The real reason I told you about the Benton boy was because I think you can help us,” he said. “It occurred to me sitting in Pullen’s, listening to you.”

  “Help? How?”

  “For whatever sin I’ll be charged with in the hereafter, I have to admit that I’m not only a doctor but also the dutifully elected mayor of Yale,” Garnett replied. “That’s why George English got an ass chewing and took it. That’s why the jail will be clean in the morning. Because I said it and George knows damn well I can make it stick.”

  “What would I have to do?” asked Michael.

  “Well, Irishman, I’d like to put you on the payroll, little as it is, to help keep watch over the boy. Normally, there’s nobody at the jail at night and the sheriff’s got to put George back on days, and we need somebody. It’s that simple. Besides, I’ve got a feeling you could talk Roosevelt into becoming a Republican and if there’s any trouble—like that boy’s daddy showing up—you could handle it.”

  Michael smiled. The doctor knew him well, he thought, but not too well. He walked away from the car a few feet and thought about the proposition.

  “Whatever I can do,” he finally said. “Besides, it’d make me feel good, earning some money of my own. I spent the last I had tonight.”

  “It’s not much,” Garnett warned. “A dollar a day, and you bring your own food. Only advantage you have is getting sick. Won’t cost you anything for a cure.”

  “When do I start?”

  “Tomorrow night. You’ll meet the sheriff then. You’ll like him. He’s a decent man. He’s up at the Benton place now, trying to make some sense of everything.”

  “Sense of a beatin’? He’ll find none,” Michael said.

  “Maybe not,” Garnett answered softly. He lifted his hat from the hood of the car and placed it on his head. He slipped from the fender and dusted the back of his trousers. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you on home.”

  “Tell you the truth, Doc, I’d enjoy walkin’ the rest of the way,” Michael replied pleasantly. “It’s a night to drink in, it is.”

  “Don’t blame you,” Garnett agreed. “That’s the trouble with being rich. First thing you do is buy a car and quit walking.” He opened the door to his car and slipped beneath the steeri
ng wheel. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, around seven,” he said. He started the Ford and turned around in the middle of the road and drove away toward Yale.

  * * *

  Michael stood watching the car disappear. Garnett Cannon was not a fool, he thought. Not a fool, at all. He had seen through Michael’s ruses and he knew more than anyone. But he was not a danger, either. The doctor was a tired man who drank too much and tried not to care as deeply as he did, and that was a flaw. No, Michael decided. It did not worry him that the doctor knew something about him that others did not.

  He began humming and his lips parted and the song sprang from his mouth:

  “I have loved you with poems… I have loved you with daisies… I have loved you with everything but love…”

  He turned quickly in the road, in a mock-military whirl, and he began laughing joyfully as he stepped lightly along the road.

  “Michael O’Rear,” he said aloud. “You’re a man with a job. What a fine settin’ it is.”

  * * *

  The house was dark and Michael realized it was late, after midnight. He slipped noiselessly across the yard and to the barn. He reached for the latch, opened the barn door, and stepped inside the solid black hull. He closed the door and pulled the latchstring and heard the crosspiece fall softly into place. He stood blinking in the darkness and then he began walking along the barn wall, touching it with his fingers. He reached the partition to his room and turned right with the wall until he touched the closed door, then turned the knob and stepped inside his room and closed the door behind him. The room was as dark as the barn. He pulled a match from his pocket and struck it across the door. The flame sputtered and grew and he touched it to the wick of a candle that he had placed on the iron stove. The pupils of his eyes contracted into dots as the flame blurred his vision. He stretched and looked across the room.

  She was standing at the foot of his bed, in the corner of the room, in a blind of shadows. She wore only a nightgown and the candlelight bathed her with a yellow softness. His eyes flashed in surprise, then softened, and he smiled and stepped toward her and opened his arms and she moved hesitantly to him.