SMOKE FROM THE chimney was a blue curl against the shell white of morning. It was as thin as a string and rose high above the house and spread into a veil, like a net of silk.
Michael knew the fire in the house was hot: pine kindling and hardwood. It was a quick fire on a clean grate and it would warm the kitchen and the heat would drift into the living room and along the corridor leading to Dora’s and Sarah’s rooms. The smell of coffee would be heavy.
Michael pulled the collar of his coat around his neck. He squatted beside a bush in the hem of the woods above the house and crossed his hands inside his coat, with his palms pressed against his chest. The night had been cold and he could not have a fire.
He did not know what had happened at the house, but he was calm. It was finished and he would not again be a fool. He would wait, be patient. From the distance, he was safe. He did not have to run. He smiled. He did not want to run. Not without Eli’s money, and the money was there, in the house. He would not leave without it; if he did, it would be a failure—a small failure—and it would linger with him. Rachel had hidden it with cunning. It was not in the quilts, as he had believed, but it was near her. Not even Eli could have found it. Eli, he thought. Was it the reason Eli left? Angry because he could not find the money he had stolen and given his wife? It would have been a fight, all right. Enough to make a man take a fit and storm out, if not kill her.
He looked over the roof line of the house to the hills opposite him. He wondered if Tolly Wakefield was there, waiting, watching. Tolly Wakefield was suspicious, but he had nothing he could prove. He was an annoyance, nothing more, Michael thought. Still, if Tolly Wakefield interfered with him he would split him open like a melon.
The door of the kitchen opened and Michael moved forward against the bush. Rachel and Sarah hurried across the yard to the barn lot. He watched as Rachel bridled the mule and led it to the fence. Sarah climbed the fence and straddled the mule and took the reins from her mother and rode away toward Floyd Crider’s house. He was puzzled. Why Floyd? What would she tell him? There was nothing to say, except to confess the intimacies, and they would never do that.
* * *
Rachel knocked lightly on the door leading into Dora’s bedroom.
“I want to talk to you, Dora,” she said.
“It’s your house,” Dora replied from inside.
Rachel opened the door and entered the room. Dora sat in a chair beneath the window, over which the curtain had been pulled. She was still dressed in her gown. She held her Bible in her lap.
“Dora, I’m sorry for what I said, what I done,” Rachel told her.
Dora looked away. Her hands played over the gold-edged pages of her Bible.
“I can’t live your life for you,” she mumbled. “It ain’t for me to say. You’ll have your judgment, like he will, like everybody else.”
“I know that,” Rachel replied quietly. “But I don’t want to talk about that. I’ve got to tell you somethin’.”
Dora did not answer. She sniffed the air and waited.
“I sent Sarah up to Floyd’s on the mule,” Rachel said.
“What for?”
“I remembered somethin’ this mornin’.”
“What?”
“Michael, he—he said he killed Owen because Owen was cuttin’ at him with the knife he stole when he run off at the jail.”
Dora stared at her. She did not have to ask the question.
“It wadn’t the truth,” Rachel explained. “Michael had the knife on him the night before that happened.”
“How do you know?” Dora asked bluntly.
“I saw it. It was in his pants leg. When we was havin’ supper, he leaned back and I saw the top of it. I remember it because I’d seen it before, when he was carvin’, and that was the first time I ever saw him wear it on his leg.”
Dora sat forward in her chair.
“Maybe they was two knives,” she said.
Rachel shook her head.
“There was only one. It was that one. He let me hold it one night, when he was carvin’. Said it was the only one in the world like it. Said a man from England made it special for him.”
“Didn’t you think nothin’ about it?” Dora demanded. “He’d told us about the boy stealin’ the knife.”
“I don’t know,” Rachel admitted. “I didn’t. I just didn’t. It didn’t come to me until this mornin’, when Sarah was askin’ why he killed Owen.”
Dora stood and walked to the table beside her bed and placed the Bible on it. She looked at the shredded pieces of paper shamrock scattered across her pillow.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “Tolly—Tolly didn’t believe him. I could tell.”
Dora remembered Tolly’s silence and the way his eyes had stayed on Michael. She thought of Sarah, alone.
“And you sent Sarah out by herself?” she asked angrily.
“She’s on the mule. I told you.”
“What’s she supposed to be tellin’ Floyd?” Dora said bitterly.
“That Michael run off. We don’t know why. He just up and left. I told her to tell him I’d feel better if he’d come over and help me check and see if he took anythin’.”
“You should of told me before she left,” Dora snapped. “It ain’t right, her bein’ out there by herself. You tell her about the knife?”
“No,” Rachel answered. “I—I couldn’t.”
Dora thought of Michael with Sarah, whispering soft, soothing promises, taking her.
“What if he catches up to her?” she asked.
“He won’t do anythin’ to her. Anyway, she’s on the mule. He won’t catch her.”
“What he won’t do is come back here,” Dora said coldly. She moved to her dresser and began to pick among her clothes.
“What you doin’?” asked Rachel.
“I’m goin’ to take the gun and go after her.”
“Dora, there’s no need in that.”
Dora turned to Rachel and stared hatefully at her.
“It’s somethin’ I’m doin’,” she said. “Ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. That girl may be from your own flesh, and she may have sinned her way right into Hell with that man, but she’s mine, too. I ain’t lettin’ anythin’ happen to her, if I can help it.”
Rachel knew it was senseless to argue with Dora. Dora was angry. And Dora’s God was angry.
“All right,” she said softly, and then left the room.
* * *
Michael saw Dora leave the house carrying the shotgun. He nodded to himself. She was after Sarah, to protect her. Dora knew. Dora knew it all. And she would gladly kill him. Poor Dora. She had been such a fool, such an ugly bitch of a fool, following after him like a child. Now she knew and she wanted to kill him. But she had left Rachel alone in the house. He settled against a tree and rubbed against its rough bark. He was pleased with himself. He had waited and the waiting had rewarded him. He was not like other men, he thought. Other men would have panicked.
* * *
He saw her through the kitchen window. She sat at the table, holding a pan of beans that she snapped methodically. She seemed serene. A trace of a smile that was cupped in memory rested in her face and her eyes floated over her moving hands as though gliding in a fantasy. He looked around him, then stepped to the door and opened it quietly.
“Rachel,” he said.
She looked quickly to him. Her eyes widened and then softened. She smiled warmly.
“Michael,” she replied. “You’re back.”
She placed the pan of beans on the table and moved to him, folding her arms around his waist and turning her face into his chest.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she whispered. “I been hopin’—”
He pulled her close and held her.
“Rachel, Rachel,” he said gently. “You’re a good woman, Rachel. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened. I’m the bastard of bastards. It’s a weakness in me. A curse. It runs in the men of my family. Blarney, they call it in Ireland. A curse of the blarney. I—I didn’t mean it with Sarah. Sweet Sarah. Wantin’ to be a woman and me around, and weak like I am. I’m askin’ your forgiveness.”
Rachel lifted her face to him. She kissed him on the corner of his mouth.
“No need explainin’ it, Michael,” she told him. “I’m a woman. I understand a woman’s needs. I talked it out with Sarah. No reason to forgive what’s easy enough to understand.”
Michael studied her face. He could see nothing hidden in it. He kissed her on the eyes.
“I been achin’ all night to come back and take you up close like this, like we was last night,” he said. “Up in the woods there, tryin’ to decide about leavin’ before seein’ you again—before apologizin’—I kept tellin’ myself to go, but I couldn’t do it, and then I saw Sarah leave on the mule and Dora after her, carryin’ the gun. And I knew what she was wantin’ to do, and I couldn’t blame her. But I knew I’d not have another chance to see you.”
“It’s all right, Michael. I just sent Sarah off to visit, just to let her get away for a while. Dora got scared and went after her.”
Michael held her tight. His hands rubbed over her back and shoulders, searching for the surprise, the lie, that his mind failed to hear. He thought of his audience, wondered if their faces could tell him anything, but he could not call them out of his deep senses where they rested.
“But I have to be goin’, Rachel,” he said at last. “You know that. And the pain of it crushes me. Just when I was beginnin’ to feel like I belonged, like there was a chance of takin’ Eli’s place.” He laughed quietly. “You won’t believe it, but I was makin’ plans. Yes, it’s true as the day’s long: I was thinkin’ about hirin’ on with Teague and the sawmill gang after I finish the fence. Me, Michael O’Rear, workin’ out wages, because I knew we’d be needin’ the money.”
She said it very easily, very casually: “You needn’t be worryin’ about money, Michael.”
The words struck him like a slap. He would not have to force her, he thought. She was about to tell him. He cupped her face in his hands and let his eyes draw her into him.
“You’re a lovely woman, Rachel,” he said. “I swear I’ve never met better. You’d give me the last cent you had. You’ve proved that. But I know you live from day to day, and—”
“No,” she protested, interrupting him. “It’s not my money, Michael.” She paused. “It’s Eli’s,” she added. “Like we talked about, but I never told nobody about it. Never. Not even Dora or Sarah. That’s why I told you it was a lie.”
“Do you mean it?” Michael asked eagerly. “There was money? It’s not just a story?”
She shook her head and touched his lips with her fingers.
“No, it’s not just a story,” she answered. “There’s money. It was stole and I never touched it. Never. I always saved up the quilt money. But I helped Eli hide it. I know where it is.”
“Why, Rachel? Why not spend it? It’d take you places you’ve never seen, buy you things you’ve never thought about havin’.”
“Because,” she answered hesitantly, “it was stole, and it wouldn’t matter where it took me; this is where I’d come back, and nothin’ else ever seemed to matter, knowin’ that.”
“Why?”
“It was somethin’ my daddy said when I was little,” she replied. “I heard somebody callin’ us hill people one time and I asked him what they was sayin’, and he told me to be proud of that. I think I learned what he meant.”
“What?” Michael asked patiently.
“It’s like when Mama Ada died,” she told him. “The preacher said he’d shuddered when he heard about it. And that’s what it’s like, livin’ here. You die, somebody shudders a little bit. I guess we all know that.”
Michael nodded seriously. He pulled her to him again and put his face against her face. She could feel the energy racing in him. She kissed him on the cheek and he nuzzled her neck. Suddenly, she felt the presence of Eli anxiously watching her. She closed her eyes. Eli, she thought. She smiled easily.
“And comin’ back’s what I’d be doin’, given the chance,” Michael whispered. “That’s the Hell of leavin’, Rachel. Knowin’ I’ll be wantin’ to come back every day I’m gone.”
“Take it with you,” she said. “The money. If it’ll help to bring you back, I want you to have it.”
Michael stepped from her. His face burned with excitement.
“It would,” he whispered. “Yes, it would. As soon as things calm down a bit, when Sarah has time to get over it, I’ll be back. I’ll use the money to get started in somethin’, so I can come back a full man, not a beggar.”
“Eli—” Rachel began.
“No,” interrupted Michael. “Eli’s gone. He’s gone. After Eli, there’s just me, Rachel. And I’ve got to be goin’, before Dora comes back with her shotgun.”
Rachel stared at him, her eyes searching his face. She knew that he had murdered and that it had been easy for him, but she was not afraid. Was it because of Eli? she wondered. She had never felt Eli in such a way, standing off, watching her, awed by her. She was not afraid.
“It’s in the well,” she said easily. “About halfway down. There’s a rock shelf Eli cut out when he was diggin’ the well. It’s like a little cave. He put the money there, in a heavy box. He said nobody’d ever think of lookin’ in the side of the well.”
Michael laughed and his eyes brightened. He lifted Rachel and whirled her.
“In the well?” he exclaimed. “Now, that’s as good a hidin’ place as a man could find. Eli was right. Nobody would think of it.”
“You’ll need a rope,” Rachel told him. “That thick rope in the barn. And a crowbar to take off the top of the wellbox and a trace chain to put around the box. That’s how Eli got it down. It’s got a handle on the side for hookin’ the chain on.”
“Why the rope?” Michael asked.
“To get down in the well. That’s how he did it. Tied big knots in it to hold on to, then lowered himself down and I dropped the box to him on the well pulley.”
“I’ll get them,” Michael said. He stepped to the door. “It’ll bring me back, Rachel. I promise that. I promise it.” He opened the door and jogged across the yard to the barn.
“Yes,” Rachel whispered to herself. “Yes.”
* * *
The rope was heavy and strong and Michael tied knots into it at two-foot intervals and then he tied the end of the rope securely to a support post holding up the roof of the shelter and tested it against his weight.
“Strong as steel,” he announced. “Now all I’ll have to do is manage to hold on, or I’ll be swimmin’ my way to China. Give me the crowbar and I’ll take off the top.”
Rachel handed the crowbar to him and watched as he pried loose the oak shelving of the wellbox and slipped it to the side. He then dropped the rope into the well and peered into the black tunnel.
“Good enough,” he judged. He looked across the field in front of the house. He sensed the need to rush.
“The trace chain,” he said. “Do I tie it to the well rope?”
“Yes,” answered Rachel. “Take off the bucket.”
“Best to cut it off,” he said. “It’s wet.” He pulled his knife from the sheath tied to his leg and sliced through the rope and tossed the bucket aside. Rachel stared at the knife.
“Better let me hold the knife,” she said quickly. “You might drop it.”
Michael handed her the knife and slipped the end of the rope through a link of the trace chain and tied the rope into a double knot, pulling it tight.
“Ready,” he announced eagerly.
“I’ll take it,” Rachel said, reaching for the trace chain. “I’ll hand it to you when you get on the rope.”
“You’d better,” he laughed. “I’ll have a devil of a time just keepin’ my balance.”
He climbed onto the wellbox and lowered himself into the well on the rope.
“It’s a bit shaky,” he said, laughing nervously. “Hand me the chain.”
“Not yet,” Rachel replied. “You have to get used to bein’ in the well. You lose sense of where you are. Eli told me that. Said you could look up in the sky in the middle of day and see stars, like it was night.”
“I’ll take the advice,” Michael said. He slipped lower on the rope. “It’s strange enough, all right,” he added. His voice echoed. “Drop the chain.”
“Just a minute,” Rachel told him. “Let me get it untangled. I’ll loop it so it can fit over your arm.”
Rachel lifted the chain and slipped the line of links through the latch loop and pulled it. She caught the handle of the winch and turned it until the rope tightened on the chain. Then she locked the winch and stepped to the wellbox, beside the rope ladder.
She looked into the well. He was two feet below her, holding on to the rope. One foot was braced against the opposite side of the well. He smiled up at her.
“Come up a little piece,” she said. “Give me your hand and I’ll slip the chain over your arm.”
He pulled up on the rope, climbing with his feet against the clay wall of the well. Rachel picked up his knife and placed it on the stone of the wellbox, near the rope. She held the chain loop open, above him.
“Close enough?” he asked, looking up.
“Close enough,” she said. She stared at him and did not move.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Why’re you starin’ at me like that?” His left arm was extended toward her.
She grabbed the rope ladder suddenly and began to shake it and Michael caught it with both hands and struggled to hold. He cried in surprise and his eyes flared in shock as he saw the wide noose of the chain slipping over his head. He shook against it and it fell around his neck. He clawed at it with one hand and began to pull up on the rope.
Rachel turned the handle of the winch until she could feel it tighten and then she locked it. She turned quickly and grabbed the knife and began to slice across the rope ladder. The knife was sharp and it cut quickly.
“No,” Michael shouted desperately. “No.”
The rope severed and as Michael fell the chain clattered tight around his neck.
Rachel pushed away from the wellbox. She could see the chain quiver, and she grabbed the winch handle and pushed against it with her shoulder. The wedge lock clanked sharply and held and the pulley beam creaked and sagged. She heard a short, hollow sputtering, like air escaping from a ruptured lung, and she turned and looked down into the well at Michael. His hands clutched weakly at his neck. His legs danced frantically and his head bowed forward, and then his body slumped against the chain and she heard a dull snap. His head jerked twice and dropped to his left shoulder and his arms fell limp at his sides and he began to turn slowly around on the chain, like a toy on a string.
Rachel stepped away from the well. She walked across the yard to the fig bush Eli had planted for her. She looked back at the well. She could hear the squeak of the pulley as the chain turned lazily.
She could feel Eli watching her, smiling his approval. Eli was dead, she knew that. She wondered where he had died, and how.