Chapter 37
Lula
Morning comes, gray and damp.
I rise and begin making coffee before Hepburn can object. Everett emerges shaved and dressed, collar crisp, a tiny nick beneath his jaw dabbed with alum. He looks like a man who can orchestrate a kidnapping and still begin the day civilized.
“Well,” he says, eyeing the pot. “This is unexpected.”
“Captivity has made me domestic,” I reply.
He accepts the cup with a courteous nod. We stand there a moment—man, woman, deputy pretending not to watch—like some grotesque domestic tableau.
I raise my own cup but do not drink. Everett does. Deep swallows.
I watch the tendon move in his throat and hold my breath.
He lowers the cup with a soft exhale, as if the first taste of coffee has restored him to his usual self. “I wanted to apologize for the unpleasantness last night,” he says.
I look at him over the rim of my untouched cup.
“There is no excuse,” he continues, with the solemn air of a man offering one anyway, “but I have been wound tight as of late. This Bowering expedition matter has lingered far longer than anyone at Hollister ever expected.”
The words pass over me, ordinary as a breeze. Then they settle. Anyone at Hollister.
Not Everett alone. Not one bad man with a private grudge. Not some rash foreman in the dark giving orders that ran loose and bloody beyond his control.
Anyone at Hollister.
How many people know?
The question opens inside me like a trapdoor.
Clerks, perhaps. Men with ink-stained fingers and wives waiting at supper. Men who heard women were dead by the river and lowered their voices, then went back to their sums.
My fingers tighten around the cup.
Good people, I think. Good people who stand still while evil walks past them are not good in any useful sense.
They are merely polite. They are clean-aproned.
They are careful with their money and fond of their children and willing to let another woman’s child be dragged into the snow so long as their own supper stays warm.
Perhaps that is how every wicked thing grows large enough to swallow towns. Not through monsters alone. Through decent men making one small concession after another until there is not a shred of decency left.
Everett watches me, and I realize I have been silent too long.
“The Bowering expedition matter,” I repeat.
“Yes. But I hope for all of our sakes we can put that matter to rest today. Once and for all.”
Mary’s laugh. Bobby’s jaw harp. Dr. Bowering’s tedious voice. The notebooks. The pressed flowers. The blood going black in snow. All shuffled neatly away into a file.
I look down at his cup.
Half empty.
Good.
The hours crawl. Everett reviews maps and papers, calm as ever. I pour him more coffee when he asks, shielding the cup with my body while I work another flake of root into the grounds. I stir once, twice. Then pour my own cup down the sink when no one is looking.
He drinks.
And drinks again.
Nothing happens.
I begin to believe the root has lost its power, or that God has once more shown His peculiar sense of humor. Everett remains upright, composed, only complaining once of the coffee’s bitterness with a small, condescending smile.
Then, in the late afternoon, he presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose.
A small thing. But I see it.
He lowers his hand. Our eyes meet. For the first time, I cannot read him.
Outside, the yard comes alive with horses, wheels, and men. The wagon is ready.
Everett folds the map with finality. “We leave within the hour. For the Gemini.”
As we step outside, his stride is still steady. Too steady.
Then he coughs.
Once. Dry. Small.
He covers it with a gloved hand and keeps walking. No one else notices. But I do.
I climb into the wagon. Hepburn follows, rifle across his knees. The canvas flap falls, dimming the world to brown cloth and thin gray light. The wagon lurches forward toward the Gemini, toward my mother, toward Boone and Okee waiting beneath that terrible notice.
Outside, Everett’s voice carries—calm, controlled, still giving orders.
I close my eyes, the last of the root hidden in my shawl, and pray.
If You mean to answer me, God, do not take Your time.