Suffer the Children #9
“I had nothing to do with the rest. Mr. Eleazar offered his assistant. Everyone else will have to find a suitable volunteer.”
“How?” Dobbs’s voice rose. “My wife? Myself? Bring back one child and leave the rest with no one to raise them? No one to support them? Another of my children? Pick the one I like least? How is a father supposed to do such a thing? There is no one else. We have no other family in Chestnut Hill.”
Perhaps you ought to have thought of that before you agreed. That’s what Browning wanted to say as his guilt turned to outrage at the injustice of it all. He hadn’t offered Charlie. He hadn’t brokered a special deal.
Browning squared his shoulders. “If you cannot pay, then perhaps—”
The mayor never saw the blow coming. He felt Dobbs’s fist hit his jaw, sending him reeling back. He recovered and swung at Dobbs but missed, the younger man grabbing his arm and wrenching, sending him flying into the wall.
“Gentlemen,” Eleazar said. “Really. Must it come to this?”
He sounded almost bored, and Browning turned on him, the outrage filling him as pain coursed through his jaw. They were turning on each other now, and Eleazar was to blame. Eleazar had brought this to Chestnut Hill. He’d—
Resurrected Charlie. This was the man who’d granted his fondest wish.
Browning’s fists dropped to his sides.
“There are other ways,” Eleazar said. “They may be distasteful, but given the alternative of not returning the children…”
“What do you propose?” Browning asked.
Eleazar took a seat again. “In every village, there are…those who are not fully contributing to community life.”
The blacksmith’s face screwed up in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean those who live on the outskirts, both physically and metaphorically. Those living outside the village. Those who drink more than they ought. Perhaps aren’t quite as intelligent as others.
Perhaps not as mentally sound. Perhaps don’t fit in—the native population and such.
Are there any of those around Chestnut Hill? ”
“Some,” Dobbs said. “There were little Adeline’s parents, but they’re dead now. There’s others too. Old man Cranston and his wife. They’re crazy, both of them. Trapper Mike. He’s half-Injun, with a squaw wife. Timothy James, another trapper, when he’s not too drunk to remember to empty his traps.”
“See, there’s five, with only a few moments of thought. I’m sure there are more.”
Dobbs nodded, thinking it through. Dear God, was he really thinking it through? No, he couldn’t be. Not that way. He was seeing a solution and seizing it, with no thoughts except how this brought his boy back.
“You’re…you’re suggesting we commit murder,” Browning said slowly.
“Hardly. I’m suggesting you remove an unproductive segment of the local population. A potentially dangerous segment. Have any of these people ever caused problems for you?”
Dobbs nodded. “Timothy James went after one of Millie Prior’s granddaughters a few years ago.
Grabbed her in the forest and touched her before she got away.
Old man Cranston shoots at anyone who steps on his property.
He doesn’t even have property. No one knows what he considers his, on account of him being crazy.
And Trapper Mike? Folks around here swear he steals from their traps.
Never caught him, but he’s sneaky. I don’t doubt he does it.
Then there’s Paul over by the lake. Won’t tell nobody his last name.
I hear he’s a fugitive. I’ve been trying to get an accounting from the Mounties, but they haven’t come by Chestnut Hill in near on a year. ”
“Because you aren’t on the railroad route,” Eleazar said.
“The authorities are ignoring you. Leaving you to defend this town all by yourself…Sheriff. I’d say it’d be your God-given right to go talk to those folks, and if they give you any trouble, well, I think you’ve had enough trouble from them.
Who knows what they’ll do next? You need to look after your town. ”
Dobbs nodded. “I do. Look after my town and its children.”
“Now, you, Mayor Browning.” Eleazar turned to him.
“I’d say it’s your responsibility to accompany the good sheriff.
” He paused. “If your people don’t get their children back after you got Charlie…
? I’ve seen some ugly things in these wilderness towns.
Folks can go a little wild themselves out here. A mob is a wicked thing, Mayor.”
Browning looked from Eleazar to Dobbs. And he knew he didn’t have a choice. This was the cost of bringing his boy back. The real cost.
Addie
Addie raced all the way home. She got there just as Preacher and Sophia arrived. Any other time, walking together, they would have been talking or whispering, and Preacher would have had his hand on Sophia’s arm. Today it was as if each walked alone, silent and stone-faced with shock.
Preacher saw Addie first. He seemed to take a moment to recognize her. Then he said, “Adeline,” and Sophia started from her stupor.
“You were there,” Sophia said. “You saw.”
Addie nodded.
“I—we don’t know how to explain it,” Sophia said. “It is…beyond reckoning.”
“There must be something to it,” Preacher murmured, as if to himself.
“Some science. Perhaps the boy was not dead. I’ve read of such things.
Perhaps it’s not diphtheria but some new disease.
These men pretend to raise the dead, but they know the children were never truly gone, so…
” He shook his head. “No, I don’t see how that’s possible. Doc Adams would have noticed.”
They reached the porch. Preacher ushered them inside. Neither seemed to have noted that Addie hadn’t breathed a word. As soon as the door closed, she said, “Something’s wrong with Charlie.”
Preacher blinked, as if waking from sleep. “Wrong…?”
“Besides the fact that he’s been raised from the dead?” Sophia stopped and her cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry, Addie. I don’t mean to be sharp. I’m still trying to reconcile what I saw. That a boy could rise—”
“It’s not Charlie.”
She got them into the living room, prodding them along as if they were the children. “I went inside to see him. Whoever—whatever—is inside Charlie, it’s not him. Or he’s wrong. Very wrong. He didn’t know me at all.”
Preacher lowered himself into a chair. “Eleazar said he’d be exhausted—”
“It was more than that. He had no idea who I was. He didn’t recognize a feather that he wore in his cap for half a year. He didn’t care to try to recognize it. Or me. It was not Charlie.”
“But that’s…” Sophia trailed off and shook her head. “I’m not sure if that’s more or less incredible. How would it not be him? Who would it be?”
“What would it be,” Addie said, correcting her. “Eleazar has summoned a demon into Charlie’s body. He is possessed.”
Preacher and Sophia didn’t much like Addie’s possession notion.
It seemed quite reasonable to her. She’d grown up in a world where monstrous things happened, and rather than run from the idea, she’d always embraced it.
Nothing thrilled her so much as stories of hags and squonks, loup-garous and wampus cats.
She knew all about possession. It was right there in the Bible.
And it was real, too. Millie Prior’s cousin up in North Bay had been possessed, and they had to bring a priest all the way from New York City to exorcise her.
If priests did it, then it must have been real.
Addie didn’t see how you could argue with that. Preacher still did.
Eventually, they seemed to accept that something might be wrong with Charlie.
“If he was brought back, it would make sense that he’d be…not right,” Sophia said. “It’s unnatural. It’s not the work of God. I know that.”
“The work of the Devil,” Addie said.
She could tell Sophia didn’t like that idea much either.
If Addie found herself pulled toward demons and evil, Sophia sought out angels and goodness.
That’s the way she was. As for Preacher, Addie figured he didn’t quite believe in angels or devils—he just knew this was wrong.
The dead ought not to come back, however much one might wish it.
“His assistant is dead, too,” Addie said.
Sophia stared at her for a moment, then managed to say, “His…?”
“Rene,” Preacher murmured. “Or Mr. Rene. I’m not sure if it was a Christian name or family.”
“There is no Christian in these men,” Sophia muttered. “You mean the old one, then? He was the assistant? And you say he’s…he’s…” She couldn’t seem to finish.
“Dead. I saw him at the hall. I thought he was asleep, but his eyes were open and…he was dead. I’m sure Eleazar has killed him.”
She went still. Preacher did too, and Addie could tell they were processing the shock of her news.
“But why?” Sophia said finally. “Why bring him here, only to kill him?”
“I’m going to find out,” Preacher said, rising. “Addie? Stay with Sophia and watch out for her. I’ll return as soon as I have answers.”
Preacher
When Preacher said he was going to get answers, he didn’t mean to find out why Rene had been murdered and what was “inside” Charlie Browning. The first step was confirming that what Addie said of Rene was true. Not that he suspected her of lying. She’d never do so on such a grand scale.
No, Addie believed what she said to be true.
While he could not take her claims as truth, he had been a teacher long enough to know that you did not doubt a child to her face.
Few things eroded her confidence more. You accepted the truth of what she said and quietly investigated on your own. As he was doing now.
When he arrived at the community hall, Doc Adams was coming out. Preacher stopped on the road, behind a cluster of people. Through the open door, he could catch a glimpse of Eleazar with the mayor and Dobbs.