After Eli Page 12

  “You’re sure?” he asked gently as she rolled her hair against his face.

  She nodded bravely and slipped her arms around him.

  “Unbutton the shirt,” he whispered.

  Her fingers played across his chest, turning the buttons, pulling the shirt open. He could feel her breath on him and her mouth lightly touching his body.

  “I’ve wanted to find you here, like this,” he said quietly. “I’ve dreamed it. Over and over, I’ve dreamed it.” He lifted her chin with his hand and kissed her easily on the tight line of her lips. “You’re not to be afraid,” he urged. “Not at all. There’s nothin’ here but the night. Nothin’ else.”

  She dropped her head to his chest and held him tight.

  “Let me see you,” he said, sliding the palms of his hands over the back of her gown.

  She stepped away from him and raised her arms and he slowly pulled the cotton gown over her head and hands. The eyes of her breasts lifted to him like small fountains and he could see the spasms of her heartbeat pounding in her neck.

  “It’s bad, what I’m doin’,” she whispered.

  “Bad? It’s like you’re praisin’ bein’ with me,” he said. “How can that be bad? No. It’s between us. Only us.”

  She began to cry softly and her body shuddered and she dropped her arms to cover her nakedness.

  “Shhhhh,” he whispered. “None of that. None of that, sweet Sarah. None of that.”

  Then he kissed her gently on her forehead.

  10

  OWEN BENTON COULD not control himself.

  He sat limp against the granite wall of the cell, against the coolness of the stone, as the urine oozed from his body and seeped into his clothing, leaving a thick, sickening odor. A rash burned his legs and testicles.

  His arms dangled beside him, his wrists resting on the floor and the palms of his hands turned up and opened. His legs were locked straight before him and his head was tilted left and bent forward and his eyes stared unblinking at the dark, damp circle on his trousers. The urine had begun leaking from him after his father struck him on the temple and after he had fainted from the pain.

  He had been unconscious for a day when the sheriff arrived at his father’s farm, and he had awakened in the cell in panic, intuitively wrapping his knees with his arms and locking his body into a fetal knot. Sitting propped against the granite wall of the cell, Owen felt no pain, no anger, no pity. He felt nothing. His body was awake, but his mind wandered dreamily in the euphoria of memories, of laughing years, of a father with soft gray eyes and soft full lips. And in the narrow corridor of that seeing, he was calm and happy. A fragile smile rested on his swollen face like a sweet sleep.

  * * *

  Curtis Hill sat rigidly in the rocker and stared at Owen through the bars of the cell. Owen looked like a puppet that Curtis had seen in the window of a shop in Atlanta. He would be better off as a puppet, Curtis thought. A puppet with a broken head could have one newly carved; arms and legs were as interchangeable as costumes. A puppet did not have to be force-fed or washed down like an animal. A puppet did not whimper and thrash about when someone approached. Owen did. Owen’s body reflexed on touch like some convulsive worship of pain. Christ, it was pitiful. God, yes, Owen would be better off as a body whittled out of wood. He would not drain piss like a cracked pipe.

  Curtis was tired and irritated. He had been with Frank Benton for hours, asking about Frank’s violence toward his son. He did not understand Frank Benton. He had asked, “Why, Frank? Why?” and Frank had only answered, “Because I seen things you ain’t.” And maybe he was right. Maybe he had seen things other people could not see. He had accused his daughter of being a whore, and she was—or she had become one. There was a story that his daughter had once mailed Frank a photograph of her in bed with two men, legs circling both and with a laugh of pleasure on her face that could be heard through the envelope. There was no other message; there was no need for one.

  He had never arrested Frank for beating his children, Curtis thought. Twice he had stopped beatings in progress—with the girl, Shirley, and the boy, Ray—but both times the abused child had begged him not to hurt Frank. It was sickening: the child, bruised and bleeding, hanging onto Frank’s leg, riding the leg like a weight, pulling to hold him, to keep him from being taken away.

  Curtis pulled himself angrily from the rocker, stalked to the cell, caught the bars with his hands, and shook the steel door. He knew that deep within him was a longing to kill Frank Benton, to blow his face off his goddamn shoulders. It was a horrifying desire. Curtis had once killed a man because he had to. But he had vomited at the sight of the broad, mangled hole in the man’s gut and the anguish of it had stayed in his mouth like a thick, slick coating that would not rinse away.

  He began to pace the oak floor of the jail office. His arms were crossed over his chest and he could feel the anger churning inside him. He could not let Frank destroy his own son. He had jailed Owen to protect him and yet he knew he could not hold him forever. There would be a time when Owen would return to his father.

  He walked to the doorway of the jail. The heavy wooden door was held open with a brick and the hot afternoon air sifted through the tiny squares of the screen door like a fume. He stood in the face of the heat and watched a fly crawl across the screen on its delicate legs. The ache from his encounter with Frank Benton spread over his thick neck and shoulders. The doctor had said he was only tired, that it was nerves. He had told Curtis to drink a half-glass of whiskey and go to bed. He had taken the advice the night before, but he had not slept.

  Curtis was glad the doctor knew about the beating of Owen, and he was glad because he had told it freely, and not because the doctor wanted to know.

  He flicked at the crawling fly with his finger and the fly fell away on its thin wings and glided to the doorsill. The Irishman also knew, he suddenly remembered. He had met the Irishman the night before and had liked him. He was not certain why Garnett had insisted on hiring the Irishman, but he trusted the decision. One thing for sure: Michael O’Rear had a way with words. If anyone could find his way into the murky recesses of Owen Benton’s mind, it would be the Irishman.

  Curtis pushed open the screen door and stood outside. He saw Ellis Finch standing in front of Fred Deal’s Merchandise Store across the street. Ellis was as still as a pillar. Curtis grinned. Damned lazy Ellis. Standing in the sun would be his only effort all day. No one was as lazy as Ellis, damn his soul. He was a good man, Ellis Finch.

  * * *

  The work at the jail was freedom to Michael. It gave him a pride that he could unfurl like a banner before Rachel and Sarah and Dora. It meant he had been accepted in Yale. Garnett Cannon had ordained it by hiring him, for the people of Yale would not question the doctor. It meant time to trace the map he had in his memory of Eli’s farm and time to learn of Eli’s habits from the men in Pullen’s Café. It did not matter what the doctor had said about Eli’s money—that it was a myth, a lie—the men of Pullen’s Café believed in it and they joked openly with Michael about stumbling over a buried strongbox. “Right under your nose,” they said. “That’s the way Eli would’ve done it. Put it right out, so plain you couldn’t find it with a bloodhound.”

  Michael put aside the work on the fence, with solemn promises to complete it when his duty at the jail was over. He said, “I feel I been lyin’ about it, not doin’ anythin’, but I’ll get to it the minute the doctor tells me I’ve done enough at the jail.” The fence could wait, Dora assured him. If the doctor needed him, that was enough. The fence could wait.

  He slept late each day, until midafternoon, and at five o’clock he left the farm and walked the three miles into Yale. He stopped first at Pullen’s Café, not to drink, but to tell stories and sit with the few old men who seemed to be always there, and who remembered Eli. At seven o’clock he relieved George English at the jail. George did not resent him. There was always a loud, laughing greeting from Michael and a mock inspection of George�
��s work during the day. To George, Michael was refreshing and joyfully alive. Being with Michael, in the few minutes before he left the jail, was the only part of the day he enjoyed.

  “Sheriff was by,” George would report. “Said he still can’t figure out why Frank beat up his boy so bad, but there ain’t nothin’ we can do but keep him locked up. Poor bastard. Tell you the truth, I feel sorry for him.”

  “It’ll take time, George,” Michael would reply. “Time’s easy to give. Time’s the freest thing on earth.”

  * * *

  Slowly, gradually, Michael began to coax Owen Benton out of the horror that was closed inside him like a fist.

  He did it with the gift of his patience, with the mesmerizing lull of his voice, with soft Irish melodies, with remembered poetry of the tent Chautauqua, with conversations he had with himself like a merry ventriloquist. He did it by caring for Owen’s wounds, by pressing food into Owen’s unwilling mouth, by cooling Owen with sponge baths on his neck and face and arms. He did it by surrounding Owen with his presence. And slowly, gradually, Owen’s eyes began to wander toward the voice. The subconscious other person in Owen was emerging—slowly, cautiously, innocently—and it came to trust the voice.

  Michael saw, and he fed Owen with all of his energy.

  * * *

  “The circus? How come I got caught up with the circus? Well, it was through a buddy of mine, a fellow I’d met not long after the tent Chautauqua closed down and I was left stranded. He’d caught on with the circus, cleanin’ up after the animals. Smelly job, but he was Irish and jobs for the Irish in search of the golden streets of America were few and far between, and shovelin’ dung wasn’t as bad as climbin’ down in the coal mines, I’ll tell you. No sir. Not half as bad. So, anyway, this buddy of mine talks me into goin’ on the circus with him and we start out tourin’.

  “Now me, mind you, I’m not for followin’after elephants with a shovel and broom and I get it in mind to do somethin’ else. So I up and find the circus manager and say to him, ‘Hey, I’m the son of a clown what toured Ireland with the greatest shows in all of Europe.’ And he says, ‘You are, are you?’ And I says, ‘I am. My father was called Sad Sean, the Finest Clown in I-re-land.’ And he says, ‘If your dad worked with the greatest, tell me whatever happened to McKenzie’s Magnificent Mammals?’ And I says, ‘Whatever happened to McKenzie’s Magnificent Mammals? Why, every red-blooded circus fellow in the world knows the true story of that. McKenzie run off with the Gorilla Girl and the act went busted.’ And he says, ‘What Gorilla Girl?’ And I says, ‘She was half-gorilla and half-girl and when she was makin’ love, you didn’t know which half was which.’ And the bloomin’ circus manager was so struck down because he’d been lyin’ to me and I lied back even better, that he gave me a job as a barker. And that’s how I got started in the circus, Owen. That’s the whole of it.”

  * * *

  Four days after Michael began guarding him at night, Owen finally spoke.

  He said, very softly, “Mister, where’s my daddy?”

  The voice startled Michael. It was as weak and emaciated as Owen’s body.

  “Your daddy?” he asked gently. “Well, now—” He began walking easily toward the cell. “Well, now, I don’t know, Owen,” he said. “Not here, though. You don’t have to worry about that. There’s nobody here but the two of us.”

  Michael unlocked the steel door and stepped inside the cell. He did not close the door.

  “My name’s Michael,” he said pleasantly. “Michael O’Rear. I work here. In a matter of speakin’, that is.” He squatted in front of Owen. “Do you know the doctor?” he asked.

  Owen nodded.

  “Well, he hired me to watch after you at night,” Michael said. “I’ve been stayin’ up on the Pettit farm. I’m cousin to Eli.” He smiled broadly and leaned close to Owen and whispered, “On the Irish side, in case you’re thinkin’ I talk a bit different.”

  Owen pulled himself closer to the wall. He could feel the raw skin where the urine had soaked over his legs. He looked shamefully at his trousers. There was only a small spot on the left pant leg. His mind remembered the blow from his father and the urine flood that gushed from him before he fainted.

  “My—my daddy been here?” he asked hesitantly.

  Michael shook his head.

  “No. No, he’s not been around. The sheriff thought it best to keep him away for a time. Seems he struck you good.”

  “He did,” Owen replied simply. “He did. But he don’t mean nothin’ by it. He don’t.”

  Michael lifted his head and cleared his throat with a cough. He stared through the small barred window of the cell into the dark hole of night. He could hear the gurgling of the Naheela River running a few feet behind the jail. It was past one o’clock, he judged. Pullen’s Café had closed and the last human sound had been Teague’s lumber truck rattling through town in its awful mechanical pain, and Teague’s one defiant yell: “Damn!”

  “Such things are hard to understand, Owen,” Michael said. “Man or boy, father or son, it’s hard. Not that I take to beatin’s. I don’t. But it’s a hard time and bein’ a hard time makes men do things they don’t understand in the least.”

  “My daddy don’t mean nothin’. He—sometimes he thinks up things and that sets him off. He don’t mean nothin’.”

  Michael stood. He said, “Maybe, but that’s enough of that for now. Fact is, you’re awake and talkin’ and that means you’re feelin’ better. I can tell. And that’ll mean movin’ the cot back in the cell. The doctor had it taken out so you wouldn’t hurt yourself on it when you was tossin’ about, bein’ the way you was.”

  Michael went through the open cell door and crossed the hallway to the storeroom. He returned in a few moments with a small, narrow cot that he placed against a wall in the cell. He had a brown army blanket over his shoulder.

  “You’ll sleep better the rest of the night,” he said. “Bein’ on a cot beats the floor. And we’ll wash you off some. I’ll even bring up a bucket of water from the river. It’s cold. Make you feel fresh.”

  “I been—been messin’ up my pants, I reckon,” mumbled Owen.

  “Not bad,” Michael answered cheerfully. “The doctor brought in another pair and I been changin’ you out every night. Doc says whatever it was that caused it seems to be healin’. Not much spottin’ at all tonight. Just a bit.”

  Owen watched Michael unfolding the blanket. He said, “Ain’t right for a man to be cleanin’ up after another man.”

  Michael laughed. He flipped the blanket open and snapped it in the air and dropped it in a perfect fit over the cot.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he replied. “Maybe so. But I don’t exactly see it that way. I could tell you I’ve done it because the doctor’s payin’ me a dollar a day—and that’d be reason enough, if you’d done some of the jobs I’ve done. But the truth is, I’ve been in somethin’ of the same shape myself. Down in Florida it was.” He tucked the blanket tight around the cot, smiling. “I’m ashamed to confess it,” he continued, “but there was a lady that had me lappin’ out of her hand, like a cat on a pan of cream, and me’n her used to go to this special place by the ocean and we’d go at it like some married couple, but it was all arguin’, not lovin’, and then one day I happened into her at that same place with another man and it was like night’n day. Bless her sweet soul, she knocked me over the head with a steel pipe and they half buried me in the sand and left me for dead. Hadn’t been for a kind old man findin’ me and takin’ care of me, I’d be fertilizin’ some palm tree now.”

  His smile tightened into a bitter curl. He knelt beside Owen.

  “And that’s why watchin’ over you means more than a dollar’s wage,” he said. “Come on, I’ll give you a lift to the cot, but go easy with it. It’ll take time to get your legs back. You’ve been stretched out on that floor for five or six days, I’d guess. Not out, thank God, or you’d be starved away by now. You’ve just blocked it out, that’s all. The mi
nd does that, Doc says. Kind of a built-in medicine.”

  Owen struggled to pull himself from the wall. He felt at ease with Michael.

  “Careful,” Michael warned. He caught Owen by his arm and pulled him to his feet. Owen was light, like something hollow, and he stood unsteadily, swaying with the surge of pain that ran in an electric shock over the length of his body.

  “It’ll take a minute,” Michael told him. “Don’t worry. I won’t let go.”

  Michael guided him in short, slow steps to the cot and eased him into sitting.

  “Take your breath good and deep,” he said. “When you get it clear, we’ll put you down.”

  Owen held his hands to his chest. His breathing seemed no deeper than his throat. A hazy filter coated his eyes. He could feel the faint pulse of his heart under the drumskin of his ribs. Dots of purple skittered across the silver of his mind and his intestines crawled inside his abdomen like an uncoiling snake.

  “Lie down,” Michael said quietly. “It’ll be better that way.” He put one hand behind Owen’s slender neck and stretched him across the blanket on the cot. “That’s good. You rest. I’ll get the water.”

  Michael did not lock the door to the cell or the outside door to the jail. He walked briskly to the Naheela River and dipped the bucket into the swirling current and filled it with water. Then he returned to the jail and to Owen’s cell. He put the bucket beside Owen’s cot and took a clean cloth from the drawer of the chifforobe and soaked it in the water.

  “Ah, it’s cool, Owen,” he said soothingly. “I’d almost swear it came from snow, like the water in the mountains in Colorado.” He bathed Owen’s face and neck as he talked. “Let me tell you about Colorado. It’s as lovely a place as a man could ever hope to see. Land runs flat as a board up to the Rockies—comes out of Kansas that way. And then you get into them mountains and it hurts down to your soul breathin’ that air, it’s so cold. Water’s better. You can take a swallow and it’s like a song rushin’ through you, tinglin’ in your toes and fingers like they’d been frostbit. Comes from the snow that falls in winter and sticks forever in the high places. There’s a mountain there—Lookout Mountain, it’s called—outside of Denver, and Buffalo Bill Cody’s buried at the top of it, near to Heaven as you can be, I’d say.”