Come Back Dead (12 page)

19

It occurred to me as I hung up the phone that I hadn't told Ella about Linda Traynor or her parting kiss, making me an accessory after the fact. The slip hadn't been entirely accidental, either. I wasn't afraid that Ella would be jealous; a woman who could recognize my ring knew me better than that. There was a chance she'd play jealous, though, as one more justification for her own trip to Indiana.

My resolve not to have my family in the same state with Carson Drury, which had weakened on my trip east, was feeling its oats again. The whole Indiana setup–Gilbert Traynor's coy absence, our isolation on the farm, Marvella Traynor's hostility, and now Eric Faris's sudden arrival–was making me jumpy. So was the dark night outside, which sounded as alive with invisible life as any jungle. I felt as much an outsider in that jungle as Hank Shepard did, which bothered me. I decided that Indiana and I needed a little quiet reacquainting.

I walked out through the back of the house, past Drury's room and through the kitchen. I stepped out boldly enough through the screen door, but then I caught the door before its old iron spring could slam it behind me. I shut it soundlessly and stepped out across the dry, clipped grass, making a show of looking for stars. There weren't any. The western thunderheads had snuck up after dark and surrounded me. I could hear them rumbling overhead, but it was a peaceful rumbling, like the sound of a sleeping cat.

The backyard was much smaller than the front and more functional. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see the little outbuildings and coops that marked the edge of the lawn. Unlike the traditional red barn, these buildings were white, as white and empty as the house usually was. I knew from daylight inspections that beyond the sheds was a field, tilled but not planted, and beyond the field a clump of woods that held Clark's cabin. I wasn't feeling that adventurous, so I headed for the barn, whose white trim floated in the darkness like a child's chalk drawing.

At the barn's side door I found more of Clark's handiwork: the side rails for another ramp. When finished, it would allow Drury to ascend unaided to the editing room that Clark and Shepard were setting up inside. The ramp was a low-priority project because Drury had shown little interest in getting inside the barn, aided or unaided. His dithering bothered Shepard, who had paid for special delivery of the editing equipment from Chicago, but it pleased me. The delay meant that the precious
Albertsons
negative was still safely tucked away in one of the Traynor Company's vaults.

I opened the barn's door and stepped up onto the raised floor, fingering the air ahead of me like a blind man as I searched for the dangling light chain. I found it with the end of my nose. The fixture that came on when I yanked the chain was brand new, and it would have been more than adequate for an operating room. I counted the pieces of equipment and furniture like a good night watchman, checked the metal cabinet installed in one corner to make sure Drury hadn't slipped the negative onto the farm when I wasn't looking, and switched off the light.

I was blind again outside, so blind that I couldn't be sure I saw what I thought I saw: a figure near the corner of the house. The figure seemed to melt away as I strained to make it out. I started to run. I had my night vision back by the time I reached the corner of the house, but it didn't buy me anything. There was nothing between the side of the house and the wire fence that marked the edge of the yard except for a bed of peonies, the plants bent over almost double by their blooms.

I circled the house twice without seeing anything but great places for a prowler to hide. Then I went back inside and sat in the parlor–well away from the lamp I'd left burning–to wait for the return of the country club set.

It was nearly midnight when I heard the station wagon on the gravel drive. Not long afterward I could hear Drury himself. From what I could make out, he'd had another brainstorm at dinner. He was talking about filming the new, improved second half of
Albertsons
in color.

“That's a great idea,” Shepard said while the last note sounded by the wagon's brakes was still scaring the crickets. “I love it. I've loved it ever since I saw it done in
The Wizard of Oz
in '39. Maybe you can say they stole your idea.”

“It wouldn't be the first time someone stole an idea of mine before I had it,” Drury replied good-naturedly. “Why not color? Think of the impact going from black and white to color will have. The audience will know the Albertsons have arrived in a new world.”

“Why not CinemaScope or goddamn Vista Vision? Maybe their new world is wider, too. You know why not. Because we don't have the money. We're in a hole right now, and every new idea you get digs it a little deeper. I don't want to hear another one. And I'm not just talking about tonight. I'm talking about the rest of my life. No more.”

I felt the same way about it. I didn't want to referee another round of Drury and Shepard's long bout. I could wait until morning to tell them that Eric Faris had shown up and that I was seeing ghosts. I left Shepard to struggle with Drury's wheelchair alone and went up to my room.

I thought I'd have to wait until the house settled down before I could sleep, but I dropped off right away. I was deep into a dream about a twister chasing Judy Garland across a black-and-white prairie when Hank Shepard woke me.

“Roll out, pally,” he said. “We've got company.”

I tried to raise my arm to read the luminous dial on my watch, but that was the arm Shepard had grabbed to wake me and he hadn't finished grabbing it. I didn't think it could be dawn yet, but my room was almost that bright. I could make out Shepard's face. It was gray and glistening with sweat. I wanted to ask him if he'd seen my ghost, but I couldn't form the words in time.

“Hurry up,” he said, releasing my arm. “Carson's down there alone.” He turned in the doorway. “Bring that cannon of yours.”

I climbed into my pants and pulled my gun–an army surplus forty-five–from the bottom of my suitcase, shaking its holster onto the floor as I padded out into the hallway. Across the hall was the front of the house and Shepard's room. It was the source of the false dawn; that is, Shepard's twin windows were the source. His room was lit faintly from outside by a flickering light coming from the front yard. I didn't cross to the windows, but I did check my watch on my way down the stairs. It was two-thirty.

The front parlor was also lit from outside, but not faintly. Two pairs of headlights were pointed into the room, converging on the doorway where I stood. The lights were almost blinding, but they weren't the first thing I saw in the yard. Between the crossed headlights and eclipsing them was a burning cross.

“Some old friends of mine have come to call,” Drury said. “Come and see.” He'd wheeled himself right up to one of the front windows. To make himself an even better target, I thought.

I was doing a fair job of that myself. I stuck the automatic into my belt at the small of my back and stepped up beside him. There were figures moving about in the dazzling light–hooded figures in white robes, holding torches.

I had a flashback as vivid as the scene before me, a memory of a Klan march I'd seen in Indianapolis as a boy. There had been hundreds of robed figures that night, carrying torches of their own and scaring the life out of me. I hadn't been that scared again until the day I stepped onto Utah Beach. But that rally was thirty years in the past. The figures outside the farmhouse made no more sense now than a squad of Nazi infantry would have.

“I guess I really should say they're old friends of D. W. Griffith's,” Drury said. “They've never been that fond of me. In fact, after the
First Citizen
premiere, I had a very lively correspondence with them. It was a one-sided correspondence because their letters were always anonymous.”

He was talking big, but he had the sense to do it in a low voice. I stepped back toward the antique phone without turning away from the lights.

“Don't bother, Scotty. I've already tried it. The line's quite dead.”

“Where's Shepard?”

“Here,” he said. “I was checking the back of the house. There's no sign of anyone back there. Could be a trap, or it could be a way out.” He pointed toward the back door with a gun, a thirty-eight Police Special.

“Put that gun somewhere where they can't see it,” I said.

“To hell with that. I want them to see it.”

“Do as he says, Hank. They can see us better than we can see them. You could have a rifle trained on you right now.”

Shepard stuck the revolver under his shirt while Drury talked on in his comforting whisper. “That's always been the secret of the Klan's power. They can see you, but you can't see them. They know who you are, but you don't know who they are. You don't know which of your smiling neighbors might be underneath the hood.”

“Where the hell is Clark?” Shepard asked.

“That's what I'm saying, Hank. For all we know he's right outside. Or if we're lucky, he's gone for the marines.”

“Three of them are coming forward,” I said.

Two of the three carried torches. They were escorts for the third man, who walked between and a little in front of them. Each torch-bearer had a round insignia on the left breast of his robe. The figure in the middle had two insignia on his chest, and his robe was gathered at his waist with a crimson cord. He was the one who spoke when the trio reached the edge of the gravel drive.

“Carson Drury, defamer of the Ku Klux Klan, we know you're in there. Come out and hear your sentence. Come out now, or we'll burn you out.”

“The Great Oz has spoken,” Drury said almost to himself.

His calm voice stopped me from reaching for my gun. I glanced over at him. He was running his long fingers through his uncombed mane, calming it, too.

He caught my eye and smiled, his teeth glinting in the headlights. “How many torches do you see, Scotty?”

I counted the ones held up by the figures around the cross and others out in the darkness that were just flickering points of light. “Twelve.”

“What the hell difference does that make?” Shepard demanded.

“Just figuring the odds, Hank. If I were shooting this scene, I'd use torches scattered here and there myself. I'd have to. I couldn't afford to fill the yard with extras.”

“This isn't a goddamn movie.”

“Everything's a movie nowadays, Hank. That's what I think. That's the world Hollywood has given us. And a man can write himself as big a part as he can handle.”

He backed his chair away from the window, almost knocking Shepard down. Then he wheeled himself toward the front door. “If you'd be so kind, Scotty.”

Shepard grabbed at the chair. “Are you crazy?”

“I'm just scared, Hank. And mad.”

I had my hand on the doorknob. It felt cool and peaceful behind the door, out of the glare of the lights. Drury was also in the door's shadow, but his eyes were still bright. He nodded to me.

I pulled the door open. Drury battered the screen door out of his way and bumped over the sill before Shepard or I could cover him. He wheeled himself forward until his extended cast hit the porch railing. I stepped up on Drury's left, smelling kerosene and thinking again how much the eye holes in the loose white masks looked like the sockets of a skull.

Drury pushed his cast off the chair. It hit the porch floor with a thump that shook the windows of the house. Then he stood up, swayed once, and caught the railing with both hands.

“I'm Carson Drury,” he said. He projected the words effortlessly, filling the night with them, making the head Klansman, when he spoke again, sound like the village soprano.

“Carson Drury, defamer of the Ku Klux Klan, you are not welcome here. You will leave this place by sundown tomorrow or suffer our wrath. Your evil work has not been forgot. It will never be forgot. For the Bible says, ‘God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.'”

“I think of that verse from time to time myself,” Drury said. “But I prefer these:

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him I will trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wing shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Drury had started in an easy voice, almost crooning the psalm. Now, as he released his grip on the rail and raised himself to his full height, his voice doubled its force:

Thou shalt not be afraid for
the terror by night;
nor for the arrow that flieth by day.

Nor for
the pestilence that walketh in darkness;
nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

A thousand will fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

He broke off there, leaving a silence that the flaring and crackling of the cross couldn't fill. Nothing happened for a year or so. Then, from the far corners of the yard, torches began to move toward us. I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet.

The first man to reach the cross threw his burning torch at its base, and the others followed suit. Then a car door opened. That was a cue for the three Klansmen at the edge of the drive. First the torchbearers and then, almost reluctantly, the man with the crimson cord fell back into the darkness. A motor came to life and then another. The two pairs of headlights moved back in tandem toward the far end of the lawn. Then they turned for the gravel drive and disappeared into the night.

“Where's my chair gotten to?” Drury asked. He'd grabbed the rail again, but he was still tottering.