Читать книгу The Return - Dinah McCall - Страница 7

T he campfire was small but hearty, the flames eating hungrily into the deadwood that Jubal had piled into a teepee shape before setting it ablaze. Now, minute bits of burning bark drifted up into the air along with a thin spiral of smoke, marking their place in the woods. The forest was fairly dry for this time of year, but the men had been woodsmen too long to be careless. The ground around the campfire was spacious and barren, and added to that, a heavy dew was falling. Hank passed the jug to his brother John just as one of the dogs sent up a howl that echoed throughout the forest.

“That’s Little Lou!” John cried. “She’s struck trail.”

Charles laughed. “So she did,” he said. “Now pass me the jug.”

Jubal grinned. “Easy on the whiskey, boys. You don’t want to be runnin’ into any trees like Hank did last time.”

Hank frowned. “Damn near put my eye out,” he muttered, as his father and brothers laughed, remembering the chaos that had erupted from the accident.

They sat for a while longer, enjoying the heat from the fire and the warmth of whiskey in their bellies. It was Little Lou’s howl, followed by an answering chorus from the other hounds, that changed their perspective.

Jubal stood abruptly. “Sounds promisin’, boys. Let’s go see what we’ve got.”

Hank reached for his gun as John doused their fire. “Maybe it’s a painter, Pa.”

The mountain term for panther was familiar to them all, and, to a man, they shivered as they followed their father’s lead.

The pack was moving upward. Five minutes into the run, the muscles in Jubal’s legs began to burn, but he refused to acknowledge his pain. This would be his last winter to hunt. Age was doing something that his wife never could. It was slowing him down. But he kept on moving, refusing to show weakness in front of the men whom he’d sired. It wasn’t until Hank suddenly stopped that they all realized the howls of the dogs sounded fainter.

“What the hell?” Charles muttered. “Where did they go?”

Jubal stood with his head cocked to one side, trying to identify the familiarity of the sound. Suddenly he knew.

“They’ve gone underground!” he yelled. “Hell’s fire, boys, they must be in a cave.”

“It is a painter,” Hank cried.

Jubal grinned. “Then let’s go kill us a cat.”

They started off at a jog, still following the faint, but distinct, sounds of the pack.

It was John who first saw the opening.

“There!” he shouted, and they turned, holding their lanterns high and their guns at the ready as they moved inside.

The dogs were everywhere, noses to the ground, running over the makeshift bed, digging in a dimly lit corner. The cacophony of their baying and howls was painful to the ear within the confines of the enclosure.

“What the hell?” Jubal muttered, as he held his lantern high. “This ain’t no animal’s lair.”

John shouted, calling down his dogs. Hank and Charles quickly did the same. The noise trickled down to a series of soft whines and yips, but it was enough that the men could make themselves heard.

“Look here, Pa,” Hank said, pointing toward a satchel of clothes. Surprise colored his expression when he pulled out a woman’s dress. “Well, I’ll be danged. Women’s clothes.”

Jubal’s expression darkened as he poked into the jumble of boxes with the barrel of his gun. Then he looked at Old Blue and Little Lou, who were digging frantically in a darkened area of the cave.

“What the hell are those dogs digging at?” he muttered.

John moved toward them, holding his lantern high, then suddenly cursed and took a step back.

“There’s something buried here,” he yelled, pushing the dogs away from the hole.

They all converged on the place, holding their lanterns and flashlights aloft. Charles knelt for a closer look, then turned away suddenly, gagging.

“Shit,” he muttered, as he staggered to his feet. “There’s something bloody in there.”

Jubal shoved them aside for a closer look. His nose twitched, but his belly stayed steady.

“It ain’t nothing but some innards or somethin’,” he said. “Most likely whoever is stayin’ here just buried the guts of some game.”

“That ain’t like no guts I ever saw,” John said. “There’s some bloody clothes here, too,” he said, and lifted them out with the barrel of his gun. “Hell. It’s another dress.” He dropped it back in the hole with a shudder and moved away, poking through a book that was lying on a block of wood that had obviously been used as a table. Moments later, he spun, his face slack with shock. “Pa! Look here.”

Jubal took the book, read the name inscribed and dropped it into the dirt.

“Fancy Joslin.”

Then he spat, as if the name alone had poisoned his tongue.

Hank and Charles cursed, while John remained silent.

“So this is where she got off to,” Jubal muttered.

“Now, Pa. I don’t imagine no woman has been living in here,” John said, trying to add a bit of sanity to the moment.

“Where the hell else would she be living, then?” Jubal asked. “Frank’s house is gone. Burned to the foundation…remember?”

John looked away. The feud was a bone of contention between father and son, and had been for some time now. John was loyal to his blood, but of the opinion that a feud was something that belonged with the old ways, not the twentieth century.

“Well, wherever she went is no concern of ours,” John said. “Come on, let’s go.”

Jubal turned on his son, and in that moment the hate that burned in his heart was focused on John Blair’s face.

“What do you mean, it’s no concern of ours?”

John held his ground. “Just what I said. It’s over, Pa. Let it and her be.”

Before Jubal could answer, Charles interrupted. “Well, I’ll be damned. Look at this.”

They turned. Charles was holding up a baby blanket and a newborn-size gown.

Jubal cursed, then spat again. His voice was shaking as he yanked the items out of Charles’s hand, then threw them in the dirt and ground them beneath the sole of his boot.

“See there?” he yelled, pointing at John. “That’s what happens when you leave them alone. Females are the worst of the lot. Just when you think you’ve gotten rid of a pest, they’ll breed up another batch.”

He grabbed the dress Hank had found and pushed his way past his sons toward the mouth of the cave.

“Come on,” he yelled. “Bring the dogs!”

John blanched. “Pa! What do you think you’re doing?”

Jubal turned, and the smile on his face chilled John’s heart. “I’m goin’ huntin’, boy!”

“No!” John yelled, then looked to his brothers. “Hank! Charles! Tell him!” he begged. “We don’t wage war on women.”

Hank shrugged. Charles shook his head. “Pa’s right,” he said. “It ain’t over till it’s over.” Jubal whistled up the dogs, then thrust the dress into their midst.

“Go get her, boys. Go get her.”

Still antsy from being called off the hunt, the dogs took the scent of the dress and then burst out of the cave into the night like bullets out of a gun, with the hunters right behind them.

John ran, too, with his heart in his throat, hoping that they’d been wrong, that it wasn’t Fancy Joslin after all.

Fancy’s legs were numb. She couldn’t feel anything but the child in her arms and the thunder of her heartbeat slapping against her chest. One step, then another, then another, and suddenly she was on her back in the leaves and looking up at the sky.

“No,” she wailed, and curled onto her side, sheltering the child in her arms in the only way that she could. Her heart was hammering against her eardrums, her breath coming in jerks and gasps. If only Turner could have seen their daughter. He would have been so proud.

Suddenly someone was pulling at her shoulders and whispering in her ear. She screamed faintly, thinking they’d found her already, when she realized it was a woman’s voice she was hearing. She rolled over, then looked up, at first seeing only the silhouette of Pulpit Rock above her. And then she focused and sighed. It would seem that she’d found the witch after all.

The woman’s hair was dark and long, braided into a single plait that hung over her shoulder as she knelt at Fancy’s side. Her hands were gentle, her voice soft as she urged Fancy to her feet.

“Get up, girl, get up.”

“I can’t,” Fancy whispered. “Something broke inside me. I’m bleeding.”

The woman’s hands were swift and sure as she made a quick assessment of Fancy’s wounds. The shadows hid her shock at the pool of blood beneath the girl.

“I can help you,” she whispered. “Just try to stand. My cabin isn’t far.”

But Fancy’s world was already diminishing, and moving even an inch was beyond her.

“Don’t let them get my baby,” Fancy begged, and thrust the child into the witch’s arms.

The woman rocked back on her heels, shocked by the choice the young mother had just made.

“I’ll stay. We’ll fight off the dogs together until the hunters get here,” she said. “I can’t leave you.”

Fancy shook her head. “If it’s Jubal Blair, he’ll kill you, too, just to get to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“My name is Fancy Joslin. Turner Blair is my husband and the baby’s father, only Jubal doesn’t know.”

The woman was shocked. Even in her isolation, she’d known of the families’ feud.

“Surely he wouldn’t…”

Fancy grabbed the witch’s arm. “I’m dying, woman, and please God, you’ve got to grant my last request. Save my child from this hell. Take her away from these mountains and love her as you would your own.” Fancy’s voice faded, then caught on a weak sob. “Her name is Catherine, and when it matters, tell her how much her mother loved her.”

The woman bowed her head as she cradled the now crying baby close to her breasts.

“I just can’t leave you here,” the woman cried. “Don’t ask me to do this.”

With her last bit of strength, Fancy grabbed the woman by the wrist and raised herself up on one elbow to stare directly into her eyes.

“Your name, witch…” Fancy gasped. “What is your name?”

The woman hesitated, then touched the side of Fancy’s face in a comforting gesture.

“My name is Annie Fane.”

“Then go, Annie Fane. If you do nothing else on this earth in your time, for God’s sake, save my child.”

The dogs were closer now, too close. By best estimates, less than a quarter of a mile away and closing fast. Fancy stared into the woman’s face until she was satisfied with what she saw; then she dropped back onto the forest floor.

Suddenly the woman stood. Fancy blinked. One moment she was there. The next she was gone. At that point, Fancy shuddered with relief. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered now. She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the inevitable.

Turner was in tears by the time he reached the cave. From the fading sounds ahead, he guessed he was a good five minutes behind. And from the appearance of the interior, he knew that she’d been found. The place was in a shambles, but what frightened him most was the bloody dress on the floor and the fact that everyone was gone. Had they taken Fancy hostage, or had she, by some miracle, escaped ahead of them? And why the blood? Had they killed her already and were trying to hide the body? And the baby—what about the baby? Fear threatened to swallow him whole, but there was no time to panic. His only option was to follow the pack and pray that he got there in time to stop a tragedy before it happened. He dashed out of the cave, saying a prayer as he went.

He ran with his flashlight in one hand and his rifle in the other, dodging low-hanging limbs and jumping over exposed roots that might cause him to fall. Once he thought he saw a light a few hundred yards ahead and yelled out his father’s name, but no one answered. He kept on moving, running until the stitch in his side had spread to his belly, and his lungs were weak and burning, refusing to admit that his legs felt like rubber and his boots felt as if they were made of lead.

Just when he thought he could go no farther, he got a second wind. Desperately, he increased his speed, ignoring the stinging slaps of tree limbs against his face and body, unaware that his clothes were being ripped into shreds by the tentacles of dry limbs and brush. Nothing mattered except Fancy.

It seemed the sound of the dogs and the run would never end when, up ahead, he saw a trio of lights. It was them! Wanting to yell for them to wait, he found he had no breath left to speak. Spurred on by the fact that they were so near, he flipped the safety off the gun and fired, praying that they would hear the shot and stop.

Fancy jerked, coming back to consciousness as a shot rang out. She moaned and opened her eyes, only to realize she could no longer see the stars—only a spreading darkness that was coming closer and closer to where she lay. In the distance, she could hear the flurry of rustling leaves as the hounds traversed the forest floor. Their barking had turned into bays and howls, but it no longer mattered. The darkness was closer than the hounds. Within it would be shelter and salvation. She welcomed it with her last breath.

She never knew when the hounds burst into the clearing and raced toward Pulpit Rock. What they did to her earthbound body no longer mattered. She was soaring toward the light.

As the sound of Turner’s gunshot was still echoing within the trees, he saw a hesitation in the lights and almost cried with relief. But the relief was short-lived. The growls and yips of snarling dogs struck fear in his heart—it was the sound they made as they fell upon their prey. All he could think was, No, Daddy, no.

Seconds later, he ran into the circle of lights, shouting at Jubal Blair like a man gone mad.

“Where is she?” he screamed. “What have you done with Fancy?”

Taken aback by his behavior and appearance, their hesitation in answering was to become their last mistake.

Turner groaned, then pushed past them, following the sound of the pack. Seconds later, he burst out of the trees into the clearing to find himself below Pulpit Rock—the moonlight casting harsh, ugly shadows onto the carnage below it. In the blue-silver glow, he could see a bit of leg and the fabric of a woman’s dress beneath the pack, and he began to come undone, shooting dogs as he ran.

The silence that came after was as horrifying as the hounds had been. With choking sobs, he dragged the carcass of a dog off of her body, then dropped his gun, frantically gathering her up in his arms.

At first the wounds upon her body didn’t register. He kept stroking her arms and her face, begging her to move, to call out his name. But she was too still—too silent. He laid a hand on her stomach, trying to shake her awake. As he did, it hit him that her belly was almost flat. The baby! My God…the baby!

A new fear shafted through him as he looked around the clearing and saw nothing but dogs. The coppery scent of blood was everywhere, but he wouldn’t give in to the truth. Choking back sobs, he laid his cheek against her face, cradling her close.

“Fancy…honey…it’s me, Turner. Wake up now, sweetheart, I’ve come to take you home.”

She didn’t answer. Instead, her head rolled to one side, revealing pale, sightless eyes. He exhaled on a moan. Too late. He’d come too late.

A sense of loss washed over him, so profound that it took the breath from his body. At that moment, he didn’t think his next breath would come. Yet when it did, it was a roar of such grief that the echo of it spilled out in the night, then filtered down into the valley below.

It stopped his brothers in their tracks, but not his father.

“What the hell are you doin’?” Jubal yelled, and yanked Turner roughly to his feet. “Have you gone crazy—comin’ in here and killin’ your brothers’ dogs like some madman?”

For once the ugly accusations in his father’s voice passed through his mind without connecting. He picked up his gun, then pointed it directly into his father’s face. The quiet, noncommittal tone in his voice was deadly deceptive.

“You killed her.”

Jubal hid his shock as he struggled to answer. “We didn’t touch her, but even if we had, she’s just a damn Joslin. What the hell would it matter?”

Turner shifted his aim until the barrel was pointing straight at his father’s belly.

“Fancy was my wife. You set the dogs on my wife.”

His brothers were stunned into silence, but not Jubal. “What the hell did you say?”

Turner took a step forward. Now the barrel of the gun was firmly against his father’s belly.

“Where’s the baby?” he asked, his gaze slowly shifting from Hank, to Charles, to John. “What did you do with my child? Did you feed it to the dogs, too?”

“Jesus Christ,” John whispered, and took a step forward. “We didn’t know, Turner, we didn’t know.”

Turner shifted the barrel of the gun from Jubal to John. His voice was flat, completely devoid of emotion.

“Don’t touch me,” he warned them. “You’re all evil to the core. Now where’s my child?”

Hank was getting scared. They’d crossed a line that not even he could excuse.

“We didn’t know,” he said. “But you can’t blame us…after all, she was a Joslin.”

Turner’s finger twitched as the gun swung sideways. The shock on Hank’s face spread as swiftly as the blood in the middle of his chest. Seconds later, he dropped to the ground without uttering a sound.

Jubal lunged toward Turner. “God almighty!” he roared. “You shot your brother, your own flesh and blood, over a piece of filth.”

Turner fired again, this time at his father. Jubal dropped to the ground, screaming in pain, his kneecap gone.

Within seconds, Charles was taking aim. John held up his hand, begging for the killing to stop, and stepped in front of the bullet meant for Turner.

Turner watched the look of disbelief on John’s face as he fell forward. Instinctively, he caught him, lowering him to the ground as Jubal fired off a round. But Jubal’s bullet hit Charles beneath his right eye. Now he, too, was gone.

Turner rocked back on his heels and stood. His clothes were covered in blood. Fancy’s blood. John’s blood. The smell of death was everywhere. He turned, looking upon the area without registering the sight. He was out of his mind with grief and at the point of turning his gun on himself when it clicked on an empty chamber. He dropped the rifle with a painful grunt.

The pain—the pain.

He wanted it to go away.

Without looking at Fancy, he reached for John’s gun with every intention of using it on himself, when a different sound penetrated the horror in his mind. It was the weak but unmistakable cry of a newborn baby. He spun around, frantically searching the tree line as if he expected the baby to miraculously appear.

“Baby…is that you?”

The sound persisted, faint but clear. His body and his voice were beginning to shake as he took a step forward.

“Don’t cry, baby…. Daddy will find you.”

He dropped the gun and started walking like a man in a trance. He didn’t feel the shot that hit him in the back, but the one that tore through his leg sent him tumbling to the ground. He rolled as he fell, then looked back. Jubal was up on one elbow, with a rifle in his hand.

Turner looked past his father to the woman on the ground. He kept waiting for the pain, but everything felt numb. He looked at Fancy again. It would be so easy to let go.

“Finish the job, old man,” he screamed, shaking his fist in the air.

Hate spilled across Jubal Blair’s face as he raised the rifle, taking shaky aim.

Turner braced himself for the shot that never came.

Instead, the features on Jubal Blair’s face began to melt. The gun fell from his fingers as they curled into a fist. Instead of curses, nothing came from Jubal’s lips except a series of grunts as he fell to the ground with a thump.

Turner dropped backward with a groan. Now pain was spilling through his body with every breath. He turned his head. In the distance, he could see the outline of Fancy’s body.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and closed his eyes, willing himself to die.

Then it came again, the faint but unmistakable cry of a tiny baby, mewling in the night, and he rolled onto his side. Moments later, he began crawling toward the trees—and the sound.

Some time later, a silent figure of a woman slipped out of the woods and knelt beneath the shadow of Pulpit Rock. Her shoulders were shaking, her hands fluttering helplessly. Finally she stood and, with a burst of great strength, lifted Fancy Joslin’s lifeless body into her arms.

Sometime during the night it started to rain. Softly at first, then harder and harder, until the raindrops sounded like bullets against the leaves, splattering upon the bodies of men and dogs alike and washing them clean of blood. Thunder ripped through the heavens, shaking Jubal Blair from the darkness. The raindrops felt like ice against his cheeks, and there were rivulets of water running beneath his body. He tried to scream for help, but nothing came out of his throat. He was alive, but trapped within a body that had already died.

Meanwhile, higher up on the mountain, Annie Fane was frantically packing. She’d buried the young mother beneath a tree in her backyard, then burned her own bloody clothes. It was only a matter of time before the bodies would be found, and she was the only one within hearing distance of the site. Already distrusted by the people of Camarune, she knew someone would be blamed for the deaths. As superstitious as they were, it stood to reason it would be her. So using the light of the moon as a guide, she began to cover her tracks. She planted the bare earth above Fancy’s grave with some of the herbs growing on her porch, then ringed it with a circle of stones. By the time she was through, it was impossible to tell it from her other flower beds.

The baby was crying again, and she hurried into the house, quickly washing her hands, then cuddling it to her chest. Fashioning a diaper from one of her dish towels, she gave the baby a change. The momentary comfort was enough so that after a few minutes of rocking, the baby drifted back to sleep.

Annie gazed longingly at the little cabin that had been her home and salvation, then looked at the baby asleep on her bed. It had been a long time since she’d had a responsibility to anyone other than herself. But she’d made a promise—and Annie Fane was a woman of her word. She ran to a closet and pulled out an old suitcase. It was time to move on.

It was morning before the county sheriff, acting on an anonymous tip, found the bodies beneath Pulpit Rock. Shock reverberated within the community of Camarune as the pastor of the local church raced to Jubal’s home to give young Turner the bad news. But there was no sign of Turner Blair. Only the note that he’d stuck between the salt and pepper shakers telling his father he would be in touch. Another great shock moved through the town when it was discovered that the men had seemingly died at their own hands. Bullets found in the dogs and the bodies matched the guns that they carried. There was an extra gun, but it bore the name of Henry Blair, Jubal’s father, so they assumed that one of the men had been carrying two. It made no sense to the people, and even less to the sheriff, but Jubal wasn’t in any shape to explain. It was also common knowledge that when the sheriff had gone up the mountain to question the witch, he’d found nothing but an abandoned cabin.

Days later, as his sons were laid to rest, Jubal Blair lay motionless in a hospital bed in a nearby town, suffering from the gunshot wound to his leg, as well as the stroke that had struck him dumb. The town grieved, and then grief moved on, leaving only the brothers’ families to suffer the loss. Soon they, too, moved on, unwilling to stay in a place with such memories.

There were those who claimed that the witch had put a curse on the Blairs and that they’d killed each other while under her spell. Then days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, then to years. Only now and then would someone mention the mystery at Pulpit Rock, and when they did, they would follow it with a prayer.

It was part of their past, and that was exactly where they wanted it to stay. And stay it did—until Annie Fane returned.