After Eli Read online

  “I—I wadn’t,” Owen stammered. “The sheriff asked me about that. Asked me where I was. I was at home. I told him that.”

  Michael waved down Owen’s protest with his hands. He pulled the chair closer to Owen and leaned to him.

  “I know it’s the truth you’re tellin’,” he whispered. “But the sheriff’s caught between what he believes and his duty as a peace officer. You’re not supposed to know about it, and I’d have my tongue ripped out for sayin’ it, but the sheriff and the doctor are plannin’ on goin’ back tomorrow for some more questions, to ask your family to try and remember where you might’ve been durin’ that time. And they’ll be lookin’ over your things for a knife.”

  Owen began to shake his head. He tried to speak but there was no sound in him.

  “You’re not to be afraid,” Michael assured him. “We’ll work it out. I’ve made you my own promise that nothin’ll happen, and I’m a man of my word, as I’m hopin’ you know.” He paused and rubbed his hands together. Then he said, “Answer me somethin’, Owen. Is there a knife? Somewhere in your things, is there a knife?”

  Owen nodded slowly. “My—my pocket knife,” he said weakly. “Used to be my daddy’s. He give it to me when he got him a new one.”

  Michael leaned heavily against the back of the chair. He stared at his hands as if in deep thought.

  “I was afraid of it,” he said. “And that could be enough, along with somebody’s lyin’, to make a case. It could, at that, and that’s the damnin’ part of it. Everybody’s got a knife, who’s a man. For God’s sake, I’ve got a knife, long as a sword and sharp as a Turk’s razor. Keep it with me everywhere I go, strapped to my side or my leg.” He pulled up the right leg of his trousers. The sheath of the long hunting knife was tied to the calf of his leg by a strip of canvas, with its point tucked into his sock. “A knife’s a thing a man needs, off in the woods, travelin’ about,” he added. He pulled the knife free and held it up for Owen to see. Its fine cutting edge caught the dull light of the table lamp on the rolltop desk and flashed in Owen’s widened eyes like a silver scratch.

  Michael rolled the knife once in his hand, as he would play with a toy, and slipped it back into its sheath. He said, “But it’ll not matter much, if there’s wildfire gossip when it gets out. There’ll be people willin’ to believe anythin’ told by anybody.”

  “I didn’t do nothin’. I didn’t,” Owen mumbled.

  “True. You did not,” Michael said. He touched Owen’s arm. “I know it, in my heart. And that’s why I’m takin’ you away with me, as my travelin’ partner.” He squeezed Owen’s arm. “You’ll like it, Owen, believe me. We’ll follow the circus and I’ll show you sights your mind’s eye could never see. Buildin’s as high as these mountains, people as fancy as lace. Ah, Owen, it’ll be a wonder for you, a true wonder.”

  Owen said nothing. He bowed his head and crossed his arms tight against his body.

  “Owen,” Michael said gently, “I’m runnin’ off with my stories again, not mindin’ what you’d be feelin’. It’s like I said before, leavin’s not easy. It never is. Sometimes you have to do it. You have to take it on yourself to put aside all those things that’s been a part of you, cut it off like an arm, and go on livin’ the best way you can. But leavin’s not the endin’. It’s the beginnin’. People can’t see that. They may not like what they’ve lived in, or the way they’ve lived, but it’s what they know, and bad as it may be, it’s a warm tit to be pullin’ on, even if there’s a dry bag at the nipple. Take you: You stay here and face the threat of a murderer’s trial and they could put you to death for somethin’ you’ve never done. Or, worse, you could live with all the chains of your surroundin’s hangin’ on you forever. And that I can’t let you do. Not and live right with myself.”

  Owen sat very still, his head down, thinking. Then he said, “When we goin’?”

  “Tonight. Now.”

  Owen looked up with surprise.

  “How?” he asked. “We—we just walk out?”

  Michael shook his head.

  “It’d be too risky that way,” he answered. “We’ll stage it—like it was a play we were doin’. You makin’ off, leavin’ me lookin’ dumbstruck by what happened, and then I’ll put them that search for you on the wrong track and we’ll meet up in a day or so and go off in the opposite way.”

  “What if they don’t believe you?” Owen asked. His voice trembled.

  “I’m trustin’ they will, Owen,” answered Michael. “I’m trustin’ they will. Mind you, it’s not somethin’ I like doin’, the kind way I’ve been treated here, but I’m the only one to do it, me bein’ a stranger. The sheriff would do the same if he could, but he’s born to this place; he can’t. The doctor would—I’m sure of it—but he’s put in too many years carin’ for all the people around and he’s needed, no matter how he feels. And that leaves me, a stranger, and much as I dislike it, I’ve seen too much wrong done in the name of the law to take the chance with any man’s life.”

  “What—what are we gonna do?”

  Michael again leaned close to Owen and spoke in a whisper. “I’ll take you outside, to stretch your legs like we’ve been doin’ with the doc—the sheriff’ll go along with that—and then you’ll take off and I’ll jump in the river and say you pushed me in and started runnin’ off south, into the woods. But it’ll not be south you’ll be goin’; it’ll be north.”

  “It’ll make me show up like I done what they said,” Owen whined.

  “It will, yes. For the time bein’. When we’re clear away, someplace like Chicago, I’ll write the doctor and explain the truth, tell him it was my doin’. More’n likely he’ll understand, though it’s a chance we’ll be takin’. But you won’t be dead, Owen, and that’s the chance you’re takin’ now.”

  Owen nodded. He looked around the cell. He rose from the cot and moved absently to the cell bars. He stood, with his arms still crossed tight to his body, and leaned his forehead against the cold steel of the bars.

  “Owen, you tell me no and I’ll drop it,” Michael said evenly. “Maybe I’m wrong about it all. Maybe there’s nothin’ to it. Maybe I’m thinkin’ of too many other times. It’s you that has to give the answer.”

  Owen rolled his head against the bars.

  “No,” he replied. “I’ll do what you say. It don’t matter. Not no more.”

  * * *

  They moved quietly outside, staying in the shadows beside the jail, until they reached the cluster of scrub trees growing on the bank of the river. They sat beside the river under the trees and listened to the lusty bellowing of treefrogs and the shrieking of crickets and to the rushing of water. After a few minutes, they heard laughter and then the roar of Teague’s truck sputtering out of town, and then there was quiet.

  “It’s time,” Michael whispered. He reached for his leg and pulled his knife from its sheath. “Take this,” he said. “You may be needin’ it.”

  Owen looked at the knife in horror.

  “Take it,” Michael said bluntly. “They’ll not know, and you’ll be needin’ it.” He shoved the knife into Owen’s hand.

  “Now this is what you’re to do,” Michael continued. “Follow by the river, goin’ north. Cut off by the creek road, leadin’ up by the Pettit place. There’s a patch of small pines nearby the road cuttin’ up to the house, with a big rock in the center. I’ve put a sack of things there—provisions—in case I’d ever be needin’ to leave quick. I change out the food every few days when the ladies are busy, just to be sure. It’s under some limbs and pine straw. Take it with you.”

  “Where’m I goin’?” Owen asked nervously.

  Michael moved closer to Owen and stared deep into his face.

  “A place where they’ll never look, and I know it’ll make you a bit queasy, but it’s the best place around,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “That old house, where the young couple lived.”

  “That—?”

  “That house,” M
ichael repeated firmly. “It’s been closed up. I took a walk up there not long back and looked it over. You can pry out a board on the back door and get in.”

  “I—I can’t go there,” Owen stuttered. “Not where they was killed.”

  “Dammit, man, it’s the best place,” Michael insisted. “Believe me, I’ve been around these things before. I know what they’re bound to do.”

  “I ain’t—I—”

  “What?”

  “I ain’t never been in a killin’ house.”

  “It’s the place,” Michael said. “You stay there, hid, and I’ll come for you in a day or two, and then we’ll make our way out, after I’ve got things goin’ the other way.”

  Owen breathed hard. His heart was pounding. He wanted to run, to be in the cell, protected, but he was afraid.

  “Listen. Listen, Owen,” Michael said gently. “It’ll only be for a short time. And there’s nothin’ there. Nothin’. Just a place where you’ll not be found. Now go. Be gone, and keep out of sight. I’ll give you time to clear town before I give the signal.”

  Owen stumbled backward in his crouched position. He looked quizzically at Michael.

  “Go!” Michael hissed.

  Owen turned and slipped away, along the river, behind the row of buildings. Michael sat on the ground and watched until he disappeared, then he stood and began humming. He strolled to the river and waded into the cold water. He shuddered at the chill, then rolled his body beneath the water. The water covered him like ice and he lifted his head from its surface and gulped the night air. He swam to the shoreline and waded to the river bank. His body jerked with cold and he began to massage his arms with his hands. He stretched and shook his body like an animal. He opened his mouth and lifted his face to the sky and let the water run into his lips. It was time, he thought. It was working, all of it. Timed perfectly. He smiled broadly.

  * * *

  The doctor’s house was on a knoll at the end of town. It was a majestic frame house, painted white like a great shell. There were four brick columns across the front porch and the shrubbery that surrounded the home like a fur wrapping was trimmed to a sculptured perfection.

  Michael stood in the driveway and studied the house. A thought amused him: The doctor had never invited him into his house. He wondered if the doctor had ever been married. No one had ever mentioned a wife. Probably not, he decided. The doctor was the kind of man who would take whores like a prescription medicine.

  Time, Michael thought. It was time.

  He broke into a run and bounded up the front steps and began beating heavily on the front door.

  “Doc, wake up,” he yelled. “Wake up.”

  He continued pounding on the door as he saw lights pop on in the house. He could hear the doctor stumbling through rooms.

  The door opened suddenly and Garnett stood in the doorway. He had pulled a tattered robe around him and his face was red.

  “Goddamnit, what’s the matter?” he snapped. “You’re tearing the door off its hinges.”

  Then the doctor’s eyes focused on Michael, dripping with water, shaking uncontrollably.

  “God Almighty, what happened?” he said in astonishment.

  “The—the boy got away,” Michael stammered. “He—he shoved me in the river and run off.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “He went south, out of town.”

  “God Almighty,” Garnett muttered. “Come in. Come in,” he added quickly. “Get out of the cold.”

  “Doc, I—” Michael swallowed the words and kicked hard against the doorjamb.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Doc, he—he got my knife.”

  “Jesus Christ. Jesus.”

  15

  THE TELEPHONE MESSAGE from Garnett was blunt, a simple command, and Curtis had asked no questions, though he knew immediately the trouble was Owen Benton. In thirty minutes he was standing in Garnett’s kitchen listening, as Michael, stripped of his wet clothes and wrapped in a blanket, sat at the kitchen table and retold the story of Owen’s escape.

  Owen had awakened and complained of cramps in his legs and asked to walk for a few minutes outside the cell. He had been alert and more talkative than before, saying again and again how grateful he was for the care he’d been given, and then he had asked to walk beside the river, as he had done on other nights with the doctor. The night air had revived him even more and he had spoken of his sister in Atlanta, the sister named Elizabeth. He talked of how he had missed her, how they had been close, and how he yearned to see her again. And then he had asked Michael to cut him a twig from the cottonwood tree to chew on, to clean his teeth, and when Michael had pulled his knife, Owen had rushed him, striking him in the chest with his shoulder, making him drop the knife, and pushing him into the river.

  “I saw him grabbin’ up the knife when I plunged in,” Michael reported regretfully. “And off he runs, like a deer, straight down the road and into the woods. And there I’m thrashin’ about in the water, freezin’, feelin’ the Devil’s own fool. It was my fault, Curtis, and I’ll take the full blame for it. I trusted him. I truly trusted him.”

  “You wadn’t the only one,” Curtis replied. “Nobody on earth could’ve made me believe that boy’d up and run. Nobody. I kind of thought Frank might’ve come back and talked him into leavin’. I been expectin’ that. I reckon I was wrong.”

  Garnett poured a half-glass of whiskey from a jar and shoved it across the table to Michael.

  “Drink this,” he ordered. He pushed more wood into the furnace of the kitchen stove and pulled the chairs draped with Michael’s clothes close to the rising heat.

  “One thing I don’t want,” Garnett said. “I don’t want a bunch of crazy damn fools after that boy. First thing people’ll be thinking is that Frank was right, that the boy did that killing. And this running off may not be that at all. It just may be that he was scared. By God, I’d be. I’d be terrified if I knew I’d been accused of murder.”

  “But he got the knife, Doc,” argued Curtis.

  “So what? It fell, he picked it up. That’s a natural reaction, if you ask me. What’s that supposed to prove?”

  “Maybe nothin’ in court,” answered Curtis, “but it could mean a lot to people around here.”

  “And that’s why you’re not to say anything about it,” the doctor countered. “We make that known and somebody’ll kill him on the spot.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Well, goddamn, Curtis, thanks for the confidence,” Garnett said incredulously. “There’s no right or wrong in this. There’s just no reason to inflame people, that’s all. Now, where do you think he’s headed? Back to his home?”

  “I don’t know,” Curtis mumbled.

  “I’d be doubtin’ it,” replied Michael. He stood and circled the table to stand close to the fire in the stove. He could sense Curtis and Garnett watching him intently.

  “I’d say he’d be off to where his sister lives,” continued Michael. “He’d not be goin’ home, not the way he was talkin’. I’d say he’d go where he thought he could get some protection, him not havin’ much experience outside the home.”

  The sheriff nodded agreement.

  “Well, by God, it’ll be a trick if he can get to Atlanta on foot with men after him,” Garnett said.

  “And why is that?” asked Michael. His voice was edged in nervous surprise.

  “Why? There’s only two roads out these mountains, and you have to take one of the two no matter if you’re headed for the next continent,” answered Garnett. “Going over the mountains wouldn’t work. Some of those hills are about as straight up and down as a fall to Hell.”

  “That don’t mean much,” Curtis replied slowly. “He knows them woods, Doc. Them people know ways of gettin’ around they don’t even tell one another about.”

  The doctor smiled. He had been gently reminded that he was an outsider.

  “Just find him,” Garnett said. “And do it with as few people as
possible.” He paused, then added, “And try to keep from killing the boy.”

  Curtis pulled his hat into a snug fit on the crown of his head.

  “We’ll do it,” he mumbled. “I’ll go get Tolly Wakefield and let him get up two or three more men. Don’t see how the boy could’ve got too far. He wadn’t that strong.” He turned and left the room and the house, and Michael and Garnett listened until his car left the driveway.

  “Curtis is a strange man,” the doctor sighed. “He won’t sleep a minute until Owen’s found, but you’ll never hear him complain.”

  “I’ll join up with him as soon as my clothes are dry,” Michael said.

  “No. I’ll take you home.”

  “But Owen got away from me. I could at least help find him.”

  “Irishman, let me tell you something,” replied Garnett. “You’re just like me in one way: You weren’t born here. There’s some things they do by themselves, and you wait and see what happens. Believe me, the future of that boy is out of your hands now.”

  * * *

  Owen dropped to his knees in the cover of the island of trees below the Pettit house, breathing hard, trembling, cowering at the sudden, scurrying sounds around him. His face twitched. He realized that he held the knife in his hand. His palm perspired around the handle of the knife and he threw it on the ground and stared at it. He could not remember carrying the knife as he ran. He wiped the palm of his hand across his trousers, then cautiously picked up the knife and slipped it into his belt.

  Since he had left Michael at the jail, he had not stopped running, and now he was spent. His lungs ached and his eyes burned. He did not know if he was at the right place, where Michael had said the provisions would be hidden. He wondered what time it was. It was dark but he could feel morning rushing like an army over the eastern hills, pursuing him with its dangerous light. In the deep black forest above the Pettit house, he heard an owl. The voice of the owl was an omen, was it not? He remembered stories of the ancient, demented Indian, the last of his people, who spoke to the owls as if they were his brothers. The Indian had wandered the woods at night, hooting, chasing after sounds like echoes, and weeping for the sad messages he had heard from those secretive, seeing birds. It was part of the lore of the mountains that the Indian had died and had been swept away on the wings of owls, which had buried him in the nest of a tall beech tree. A woodsman had found the bones in the nest, as soft and white as chalk, covered with feathers. There were those who believed, for all those years, that the Indian was still alive in the voice of the owls.