The dog yelped once and then thrashed silently around on the wet ground. After a while it lay on its side and moved its legs like it wanted to run away. Duncan squatted there watching it. When it grew still he walked back along the edge of the pasture and went into the barn. Dandy and Babe weren’t there. He circled around Eric’s house, being especially careful not to walk through the patches of light thrown from the windows, cut across a field and came over the brow of a hill.
The countryside stretched out for miles and miles before him. He could see his own place not that far away, and some other ones that were lit up looking like candles on a big dark birthday cake. And he knew that there were unlit and unseen barns out there too, and unseen stables stretching out forever under the low, overcast sky. How could he search every one? He couldn’t.
And then he thought of Carole.
She knew he had horses, she’d seen them clip-clopping down the street enough times and whenever he saw her he’d always wave and call out “Hi, Carole” and she’d always wave back. She never failed to wave. Never once. And he might even have told her their names. He was sure he had. She would know where they were. She would have thought about Babe and Dandy right as soon as he’d had to go away to jail to straighten things out.
What about Babe and Dandy, Carole would have said.
“Did you hurt that man?” That’s what she had said, though, standing there looking frightened beside her back door. But by now she’d know why he’d had to do it. It was because they were going to get married someday. That was why.
And he knew then that he had to see her. See her window light up. See her hair tumbling down, see her slipping out of all her pretty clothes. One night she had come right up to her window and bent down a little to look out and he could see her breasts as clear as day and the curve of her hips and a little patch of darker hair.
Just the memory of it now made him shiver once again. So many things had changed, though. He knew they’d changed. His arms were on fire, for one thing. His wrists were red and wet. The police were chasing him with dogs. And as he thought about all these confusing things, he turned and turned on top of the hill behind Eric’s place. Turned and turned.
He knew he had to see her.
Duncan heard the water splashing over the dam long before he saw it, and as he crept closer he could see that all the lights in the mill were on. It was just up from where Carole lived. The river was running high but not so deep or as swift as it had a few days before. When he reached the side of the mill, he stepped into the swirling water and waded along waist-deep trailing his hand for balance along the rough stones on the back wall. He came out on the other side, pulled himself up the bank, snuck behind four houses and finally reached his grove of familiar trees. Carole’s window was dark. The windows downstairs were all lit up though.
Duncan’s heart filled with gratitude. Something had gone just right after all. He wasn’t too late. He slumped down on the ground.
“Do you know where my horses are?” he was going to say, “Could you help me find my horses?”
And Carole would smile just like she always smiled, and she would get her coat on and lead him to where they’d been stabled and he’d help her up on the back of Babe, because Babe was more gentle, and he’d be surprised because she would hardly weigh anything at all, and he’d lead her and Babe and Dandy into the river valley through all the shaded glades he knew, and through all the ferny places. And they’d sleep together on a soft bed of moss and walk together along sun-dappled ridges and they’d live there together forever and ever.
Carole’s light went on.
Duncan lurched to his feet. All the familiar feelings were rushing back in, the swooning delicious pulse of blood.
She crossed in front of the window, just as he’d wanted, just as he’d dreamed.
Let down your hair, Duncan thought to himself. Please Carole! Let down your hair.
She seemed to be looking across the room at something.
And then Wilf McLauchlin came into view.
* * *
With Andy at the one end and Wilf and Carole at the other, they struggled to get the settee out the back door. It was the easiest route, out to the back stoop, down the stairs and cut across the backyard to the truck.
Wilf was struggling the most. Carole and Andy glanced at each other but neither one wanted to say, “Why don’t you sit down and rest, Wilf, we can do it.”
Andy had positioned a ramp leading into the truck which made things easier. They teetered up it, placed the settee on its legs and sat down to rest.
“What smells?” Carole said.
“Wilf,” Andy replied. “No. That’s just good old straw. It’s my Uncle John’s truck. He has a farm.”
“It smells stronger than straw.”
“But not that much stronger,” Andy said. “Anyway, I put a tarp down.”
Carole looked at Wilf. He was sitting there smiling, his face gleaming with a sheen of sweat.
“Just the bed, the mattress, the dresser and the springs to go,” Andy announced.
Wilf and Carole had already gone up to her bedroom and taken the bed apart. It seemed a strange thing to be doing. Unworldly, Carole thought, watching Wilf as he helped her haul off the mattress and pull up the springs. Unsettling in a way. Exhilarating in another way. Embarrassing, too, there were a few dust bunnies blowing across the floor. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to get away.
Once the truck was loaded, Carole went inside to talk to her mother. Andy was standing out on the sidewalk having a smoke. Wilf walked up to him.
“So what happened out at Cooney’s tonight?” Andy asked.
“He went on about the boy and the cage, all that. But in a prophetic mode. He didn’t give anything away.”
Andy lowered his voice. “The reason I came around with the truck tonight, I called someone earlier, just out of curiosity.”
“Who was that?”
“The Grey County Children’s Home. Cooney was employed there all right, but not as a minister, as a janitor. They had to fire him.”
“Why?”
“Bothering people. Religious mumbo-jumbo. Trying to save the souls of the kids there and anybody else who showed up at the door. Most of those kids can’t talk anyway, most of them don’t even know their own names, or so this woman was telling me. It’s an asylum for children, really. And she said that he’d come in at night, too when he wasn’t supposed to, him and his son, and wander around the building.” Andy took a drag on his cigarette. “How big was the crowd?”
Wilf leaned against his father’s car. “Jam-packed.”
“He would have made himself a nice pile of money.”
“Ralphie was there.”
“Acting like a fool, no doubt.”
“He told me an interesting thing though. There’s deep water right off that river bank.”
“I know. I used to go swimming there.”
“How deep?”
“Fifteen, twenty feet at the most.”
“So you could toss that cage in there somewhere and expect it to stay lost?”
“If you gave it a good toss. It wouldn’t, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because those kind of things always come back to haunt you. Someone would go fishing and snag it. Or some brave soul would go swimming and hit their head on it. And anyway, that poor kid wouldn’t have done the Reverend much good underwater.”
“No.”
“To think he’d use a dead kid to draw a crowd.” Andy dropped his cigarette and ground it out under his shoe. “We should do something about this.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to get involved.”
“I wasn’t supposed to get involved with the war, either, remember? Just stand around here with a pop gun. I’m sick of it.”
“You were in the Reserves.”
Andy looked away.
“What have the OPP been doing?”
“Going out to the farms around Uncle John’s. Asking questions. At least that’s what I hear.”
“What do you think?”
“About the neighbours? It’s not one of them. It’s the damn preacher. A kid died out at that institution and he stole him.”
“And what? Kept him on ice?”
“Exactly. That’s why the body looks the way it does.”
Wilf glanced back toward the house. No sign of Carole. “Maybe. Then again, it could have something to do with a neighbour, when you think about it.”
“Not possible. I know them all. The Ball family to the south have been there forever, same with Jerry Zakowski to the north. Everybody around there has been there forever. The Portmans. The Zigglers. The Kellys. Well, Mr. Kelly now. The Grahams.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Kelly now?”
“His wife died. Aunt Bess was talking about it.”
“When did that happen?”
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago.”
Carole came out of the house and hurried up to them. She looked determined. “I’m ready,” she said.
Wilf and Carole got back in the car and began to drive out toward the cottage. Andy rattled along behind them in the truck.
“I’m just exhausted,” Carole declared, leaning her head against the door.
“When did your mother think your father might come home?”
“After the hotels close.”
“That would be about now.”
“He didn’t have his coat on but at least it seems to be turning warmer. It’s because I’m their whole family. Sometimes I wish they’d had more kids.”
“I’d feel the same way if you were leaving me.”
“You always know the right thing to say.”
“I stand in front of the mirror and practise. Are you happy?”
“Yes. Of course I am.” And then she said, “Stupid.”
Wilf smiled. “This feels like the start of something special.” He longed to feel one of her hands on his leg again, or both of them, the warm reassurance of it but she looked distracted. She stayed by the door watching the headlights search along the road.
Andy helped them get their furniture into the cottage but they all agreed that it was too late and they were too tired to set up the bed. It could wait for the next day.
Wilf and Andy hauled the mattress into the bedroom and laid it on the floor. Carole busied herself putting her sheets and the blanket back on it, getting her pillow out of her laundry bag and Wilf’s pillow out of the cardboard box he’d stuffed it into earlier.
Wilf walked Andy back to the empty truck.
“What do you think about going out to see Mr. Kelly early tomorrow morning?” Wilf asked.
Andy looked surprised. “Why?”
“Doc Robinson said the boy was about ten years old. If he did come from the neighbourhood, somebody must have been looking after him all that time. And then something must have changed.”
“Like what?”
“Like somebody died.”
Andy opened the truck’s door. Wilf could tell that he was doing a calculation. The Chief of Police. Linda. His kids. The house. His future.
“Where do the Kellys live?” Wilf asked.
“Next door to my uncle’s. But closer to the river.”
The light over the front door of the cottage was making a series of hazy rings in the dark. Andy was staring toward it, his broad face growing grim. “On a bit of land behind the Zakowski farm. Do you have a phone?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll pick you up,” he said.
* * *
Carole couldn’t get to sleep.
They’d snuggled together afterwards, the electric heater glowing beside them, but she remained restless. Wilf, on the other hand was fast asleep.
The mattress had proved to be a little too narrow but she hadn’t cared because she’d really wanted to feel his warm nakedness anyway, his toasty body pressing up against her own from her breasts down to the tip of her toes.
He’d taken off his sling. He always took it off whenever they made love so that wasn’t surprising, but she’d thought that since they were actually going to attempt a comfortable night’s sleep together he might put it back on again. Now his scarred arm was under him somewhere, pinned down. She was worried that it wasn’t getting enough blood and because it didn’t have any feeling that he wouldn’t know.
She looked toward the dark window. The glow from the electric heater was making red waves on the glass. She wished again that she’d taken the time to hang something over it. Wilf had teased her, saying there wasn’t anyone around for miles and anyway it was dark in the room, but the heater was throwing some light and all the time they were making love her eyes had kept going back to the window.
She turned to Wilf again. His face looked peaceful in the heater’s glow. At least he wasn’t snoring. He looked younger in his sleep, she thought. He wasn’t taking nearly as many pain pills as he had in the past. At least that’s what he’d told her. Wilfred McLauchlin.
She touched his hair and vowed that from now on she would listen to everything he wanted to tell her, everything he needed to say, no matter how crazy or painful. She wouldn’t shut him out.
She wondered if he were dreaming.
Wilf was walking through a cathedral. Light was pouring down from some glass somewhere. A rainbow of colours were drifting past as soft as mist. He was walking with a fixed intent but he didn’t know to where or why. Searching for something but not able to see his way. Just the sound of his flight boots echoing on the floor. Looking for a way out. That was what it was. Feeling now along a damp wall. His face rubbing along the cold stones. Peering in through a hole, the smallest of apertures.