Nightlight (10 page)

They were silent for a moment.

Franklin made a motion with his hand. “Come on.”

The hoe tore grass, lifted, dropped it.

“Try to pick up a little more with each scoop. There you go. That's doing it.”

The hoe unpeeled sod, and tore it like a thick rug. The soil was black, and pale roots glistened in the drizzle. “Now we're rolling,” called Franklin.

The machine worked in a slow rhythm, and Paul strolled through the grass of the field, huddled in his jacket to keep warm. When the machine was quieter, he returned, but Franklin's hand simply described the places on the surface of the field that still had to be removed, and the work continued.

At last, the engine was completely quiet. A hill of black earth had risen in the field, and Paul realized that he had forgotten how much work a machine could do.

The hole was not a tidy rectangle. It was a huge oblong, much larger than a grave, and there was no coffin visible. Nothing but dirt as dark as chocolate, and then caramel-colored dirt, scarred with the claws of the back-hoe. Franklin climbed into the hole and toed the claw marks. He forced a long, thin rod into the earth, grunting with the effort.

To Paul's horror, he withdrew the rod and sniffed it. He plunged the rod in again, and withdrew it, frowning at the tip of the rod, which was wet with earth. The third time he straightened. “We've got him.”

“Rock-solid,” offered Skip.

The pick rang against the side.

“Take it easy on the merchandise,” said Franklin. “Dig it out up there.”

Franklin wielded a shovel, stopping occasionally to blink dirt out of his eyes, or to puff out his cheeks and let air out in a slow stream. Paul felt restless watching, and vaguely guilty that he was not helping.

At last Franklin had stopped, panting. “Mahogany,” he said.

“Ah,” said Paul.

“Weighs a ton.”

“Mmmm.”

“A local product.”

Paul nodded, feeling stupid. He opened his notebook and reread Franklin's full name, Berkeley Adler Franklin, and his age. Newspapers needed people's ages. Paul never understood why, but an age was always put beside a name at least once in every story he wrote. He closed the notebook.

A hawk canted overhead, scanning the field. It banked in the other direction, and glided out of sight, over the cattle that had gradually worked their way nearly over the hill.

Paul forced himself to look down. The black carapace gleamed like the exoskeleton of a cricket, smeared with yellow soil.

“We got one split,” said Franklin. His forefinger made an invisible mark in the air. He looked up and made a grimace of unconcern. “Won't go anywhere.”

“You're sure?” asked Paul.

“Just warped.”

He crooked his finger in the direction of the machine.

The mechanical arm creaked, and the engine rumbled as the claw sawed up and down. Like the head of a huge ant, it lowered itself into the hole. “Easy,” called Franklin. “You're doing great.”

The mahogany husk shifted, as if by itself, and lay cradled across the steel jaw. “It's real important,” called Franklin, “that you hold it just like that, all the way up. Okay?”

A nod.

“Great. Okay. Lift her up. Real good. You're looking good. You're looking real, real—okay, now that's what you have to be careful about. Oh no. Skip. Look out. It's going to fall.”

It did not fall, but with a wooden grunt it slid forward, and the scoop tilted back just in time. Paul could not breathe. Franklin's hands exhorted it upward. “Come on, now, you've got it. Looking good. Ease her down. Easy. Don't jerk it down like that. Hold it!”

The metal jaw held the wooden box until it reached the ground, and then it tilted the box forward. Franklin rushed to it, and kept the box from spilling onto the grass. He walked the tractor back, and the machine was silent.

“Christ,” whispered Franklin.

No one else spoke.

Franklin shook his head slowly. “That was too close for comfort, as far as I'm concerned.” He stroked soil off the top of the box. “But, all's well that ends well. Where's the can opener?”

Franklin took a few steps, and picked the crowbar from the grass.

“I am,” Franklin said, “surprised at the fit condition of the container. I can usually find even a very old grave by nose. But what we have here”—he grunted with effort—“is well constructed.”

He gasped as he pried unsuccessfully at the lid. The wood creaked, but then was silent, and the crowbar slipped out of Franklin's hands. Paul backed away, praying that the lid would hold.

“Like I say,” panted Franklin, wiping sweat and drizzle with a sleeve. “Constructed.”

Skip dusted his hands against each other, and placed them on his hips, shifting so he had a good view.

Franklin held the crowbar like a pointer. “This is the workmanship of the Oakland Casket Company.” He bent, and grunted. “Notice the beveled edge all the way around the lid.” He grunted. “Ah. And the brass—where it's green, that's brass—hinges.” He gasped and closed his eyes.

He opened his eyes. “We have it. Let's see now. Let me loosen her up down here. It's just about ready. Those hinges could use a little oil.”

He stepped back.

Paul glanced, and looked away. A mouth with yellow teeth gaping wide, and a black suit. He glanced back again. That's all there was. A skull with hair, dark and confused as a bird's nest, and a collar rich with mildew.

He walked away and did not look again.

Paul stirred the fire. Lise was singing in the kitchen. Singing a song he did not recognize, perhaps because it was in Latin, or in Middle English. He was thankful that he was able to hear Lise's voice.

Since seeing the exhumation, he had been very glad to be alive. But he had also been very careful not to remember it very clearly. Until this moment, here in this cabin, he had not really dwelled on it at all. He had typed up a quick story, one that Ham cut in half anyway, and it had been all a day's work, nothing more.

Until now.

13

Lise wanted to have the pork chops with sliced carrots for dinner, but Paul wanted spaghetti. He always prepared the dish by following a recipe he had long-since memorized. It was a meal that always seemed so hearty. “We don't want hearty,” Lise said. “We want romantic.”

“What's romantic about pork chops?”

“I don't know. Just trust me.”

Paul zipped up his raincoat. Spaghetti was romantic, redolent as it was with those Italian herbs, and smacking of red wine. Pork chops were harmless, but uninteresting.

The rain continued, but Paul was determined to inspect the grounds of whatever place this was. He did not understand it, entirely. It was like a hunting lodge, or the weekend retreat of a prosperous but discomfort-loving businessman. It was well built. The stone walls were solid, and beautiful in this late-afternoon light. But it had an inhuman quality, as if it had erected itself out of the rock of the creekbeds without human assistance.

He walked behind the cabin, but did not get far. A creek, as loud and deep as any he had seen, ran behind the house. The cabin was on a sort of island, he realized. He followed the creek to the end of the island and stumbled over the roots of redwoods until he reached the bridge they had crossed. The Volkswagen made Paul laugh, it looked so out of place.

Everywhere the ground was tangled with roots, or heavy with half-rotted leaves. The bay trees of the creekbed were evergreen, in theory, but dropped many leaves in the autumn, and Paul gathered a handful to use in his spaghetti sauce. Fungus, which he imagined to be deadly, erupted from the bark of redwoods.

When he came upon them, they seemed to belong there, among the dripping fronds of redwood trees. He did not know what they were at first. Depressions in the earth, each the size of a narrow bed, like an army cot. Five of them, and only when he saw the headstones did he understand.

The headstones were wooden, and the words carved in them were worn invisible. There were mere indentations where there had been names, faint depressions in the harsh grain of the wood. The headstones were glazed green with moss. Paul was struck with a desire to pray.

His prayer would not be only for the dead. There was something shocking about these graves—their neglect, their solitude. Something bad, Paul thought.

Something bad had happened here.

He shook himself free of the feeling, but as he strode purposefully away from the graves, he could not help sensing that something should be done. Some act on his part was necessary; he could not guess what.

He was a great fool, he thought. He was so badly in need of a vacation, that once he began one he became preoccupied with half-digested fears. He and Lise were indeed isolated, but it was a charming isolation. The redwoods were magnificent, and if they needed to return to the civilized world for any reason, all they had to do was leap into the car and drive back across the bridge.

He entered the cabin, and did not move. Len was here, he could sense it! “Lise,” he called.

“I'm here,” she said, emerging from the kitchen, drying her hands on a piece of gray terrycloth. “What did you see on your walk?”

“No word from anybody?”

“No, nothing. Why?”

“I don't know. I just felt suddenly—that Len must be here.”

“I'll fry him a chop in case he shows up.”

“He could, you know. I almost expect him.”

“He's probably back in the City visiting his mother.”

It was possible. He might keep an alternate toothbrush there. An alternate razor. It made sense.

“What are those?”

“Bay leaves. For tomorrow night's spaghetti. The Turkish laurel is better. But the native will do nicely, if I don't use too many. Maybe half a leaf. They're full of resin. Smell.”

“Wonderful!”

The wet leaves reminded him of the five sunken graves, and he could not mention them to Lise. He did not know why. They seemed brutal, somehow, or obscene. He tried to convince himself that they did not bother him, but they might bother her.

She opened one of the bottles of sauterne, and now that it was well chilled he could swallow it without too much revulsion. “I love it,” she breathed, and dressed as she was in an apron she had dug out of a bottom drawer with
SOUP'S ON
printed on it in red letters, she was the most alluring woman he had ever seen.

“It's not too bad,” he said. He touched a raw chop.

“I could stay in a place like this forever,” she said.

The sentiment shocked him. “Not me. Although it's a pleasant place,” he added. “There's just something about it I don't really like that much.”

“How can you say that?”

How indeed? He swallowed some wine. “We're on an island, really. A creek on both sides. I didn't walk all the way around it. The island is shaped sort of like a bay leaf.”

“How wonderful!”

“Or, maybe more exactly, like an eye.”

“We'll explore it together when it stops raining.”

The thought troubled him. “There isn't that much to look at really. Even the creeks aren't much. No doubt in the summer you can walk across either of them, stepping on the stones.”

They slept in front of the fire. It spat and sizzled, then grew quiet as the light from it died. Rain pattered on the roof high above them, and from time to time a tiny cone would fall from one of the redwoods, and roll down the slope of the roof.

This time the dream began like any dream. Paul stood alone in a friendly place. Perhaps he was getting ready to paint, or wallpaper. He was in a house that had suffered neglect. And only when the steps began did he realize where he was. It was the cabin, and he was in the downstairs bedroom looking at the tape recorder, and he could not move. He could not move his arms, or his legs, and when he tried to call out he could not speak.

14

Paul stirred some oregano into the scrambled eggs. The percolator was chattering, and although he did not care for percolated coffee, he had to admit that it was a jolly sound.

“To be absolutely fair,” he continued, “you should bring three friends, and share the food. One fish dish, one of poultry, and one of whatever seems most difficult. It can be fun, but after a while it becomes a little like scouting the minors for players with a major-league curve. You see a lot that are pretty good, but very few that are excellent.”

“I thought you like to do it all by yourself.”

“Yes, I do. I find the effort to be sociable and eat seriously at the same time to be a strain. So I wind up going three or four times to the same restaurant, ordering something different each time, probing for weakness. I always find it.”

“Always?”

“Perfection itself is a fault. The impeccable restaurant is usually sterile. Too quiet. Too pretty. Not enough hearty laughter.”

“You're impossible to please.”

“No, once you realize you can ruin anybody with a few sentences you realize you have to try to be fair. You have to consider things objectively. What the restaurant offers for the price, for example. How much parking is available. Things like that. I've learned to at least try to be judicious.”

He poured coffee into two red porcelain cups. A scum of oil formed on the surface of the coffee, the inevitable result of perking. Paul had grown to dislike bad coffee, and wondered if bad coffee was better than none at all.

“Did you have a bad dream?” she asked.

Paul scraped the eggs onto the plates. One plate was a fine piece of Spode, the older Spode, when they were still reliable. The other was blue melmac. Paul served the melmac to himself, although the scratched cheapness was disgusting.

“Last night,” she continued. “I thought you had a nightmare.”

“I don't know,” he lied. “I can't remember.”

“It sounded pretty frightening.”