The Cove (19 page)

Chauncey stepped onto the porch and pointed the pistol at Hank's chest. It wasn't until the third shot that he heard the solid thunk of the bullet finding its mark. He fired the magazine's last three bullets and twice more heard metal hit flesh. Chauncey opened his eyes. The acrid odor of cordite filled the porch. Chauncey let himself look at one board in front of him and then another and then one more until he saw the soles of Hank's boots. He let his eyes rise a little more and saw the pants and then the darkening shirttail. All the while, like Laurel, there hadn't been a cry or moan, just silence. You've got to be sure, Chauncey told himself, and raised his eyes higher and saw the first bullet hole in the upper stomach and the second in the middle of the chest. You don't have to look for the third one. Just go untie him and drag him off the porch and leave. But he couldn't stop himself. His eyes lifted and he saw where the third bullet had entered Hank's cheek. Hank stared straight at Chauncey, the manner of his gaze not accusing or angry or even sad. It was something worse. What light Hank's eyes held faded, not dying away like an ember but receding like a train headed elsewhere. Chauncey couldn't shake the feeling that wherever the light was going it was taking part of him with it.

Chauncey stepped off the porch and went to the side railing to untie Hank. The knot was tight and his fingers shook so bad he couldn't free the rope. He tried using his forefinger and thumb but a nail snagged in the hemp and broke off. The finger started bleeding and it was just one more thing gone wrong. Chauncey went inside the cabin and found a butcher knife. He was about to cut the rope when a horse snorted.

Through the railing he saw Slidell Hampton coming out of the woods. Just hide in the shadows and see what he does, Chauncey decided. To take the body back to town, he'll have to unknot the rope. Then it's Hampton's word against yours that Shelton was shot while tied up. Who should any fair-minded person believe, Chauncey told himself, an old codger who's known for months the Sheltons were hiding a Hun, or a man who wears the uniform. Yet there'd be folks who'd expect Chauncey to prove what he claimed, as if a soldier needed to justify killing an American in league with a Hun spy. It was treason and the army shot men for that and shot them with their hands tied behind their backs, but some people in town would still get all righteous about it. They'd expect Chauncey to prove he'd been nearly killed before he shot Hank Shelton, proof like a bullet in his leg or arm. Or a knife cut.

By god he'd give it to them then, Chauncey vowed as he stepped back from the porch. He'd show them the butcher knife and a wound, then dare them to their faces to say they'd have done different. He'd make the cut on his forearm, like he'd been fending Shelton off. That would shut them up. There might even be a medal after all. He could do it right now, just take the knife and rake it across his forearm. It looked sharp enough to go right through the shirt cloth and into the skin. But it would hurt.

No, he'd do it later, Chauncey decided as Slidell dismounted. I'll do it when I can see and cut careful so the knife won't go deep, only enough to draw blood. Chauncey took another step back and shadows almost fully enveloped him. If he hasn't seen me yet, he's not going to see me now, Chauncey told himself. Just stay out of sight until he leaves. Chauncey lifted his foot to take a final step back and the ground was not there and he was falling into the darkest place he had ever known.

Chapter Twenty-five

W
alter stayed at the outcrop until dusk. Laurel's quilt was where she had laid it, and he left it there, made his way up to the campsite. Come full dark, he tucked himself knees to chest in a burrow of leaves. Dawn finally came and he waited. Twice the woods stirred, soft footfalls coming nearer, but each time it was a deer, once a fawn, then a buck whose branching antlers were such a wonder that he first thought it an hallucination. That evening he went down the opposite slope and found a few shriveled apples.

On the third morning, Walter woke to a gunshot, then a second and a third. He walked up to the ridge crest and saw the farmer in his yard, shotgun in hand. The boom of shotguns and crackle of rifles came from farther away, then even farther, the blasts like firecrackers set rattling down the valley. The farmer raised his gun skyward and pulled the trigger a last time, unbuckled the stock from the barrel, and removed the spent shell.

What the gunshots meant, Walter did not know, but he turned and started down the ridge. He looked through the trees for chimney smoke. What he saw made him break into a run. It's just livestock they killed, he told himself, but as the woods thinned he saw the buzzards gliding above the cabin. He tripped and twisted his ankle, got up and went on. As he came into the yard a buzzard, wings spread, hopped off the porch, balancing itself briefly on two scabby yellow legs before taking flight.

There were no bodies on the porch, just what looked like a spill of tar. No one was inside the cabin either. He went out in the yard and shouted Laurel's name and it echoed off the cliff and ridge, then silence. He called again and again until his voice was no more than a rasp. An hour passed before he left the porch and took the path up to the notch. Slidell was not in the house. As Walter stepped off the porch, he saw the two mounds of fresh dirt.

After a few minutes, he walked on toward Mars Hill. Walter was almost to the main road when he heard dogs barking. He thought the men were on their way back so stopped and waited, glad he wouldn't have to walk any farther to have it over with. But the dogs' barks grew distant. He was lightheaded from the lack of food and his body too felt lighter, unfleshed, only the weight of bone left to carry it forward. Walter went on. He passed cabins and then houses in which no one appeared to be home. Before long he heard music and then shouts amid spurts of fireworks, gunshots. The road rose a last time and he saw the town was filled with revelers. Small flags waved from children's fists and adults cheered and shouted. Red, white, and blue streamers hung from storefronts and musicians played. A man raised a pistol and fired at the sky while two couples danced a reel. Four men walked past with linked arms as they drunkenly sang. Walter looked for familiar faces but saw none, and no one took notice of him though he walked down the middle of the street. Slidell's wagon was tethered beside the saloon. A barkeep exited the swinging doors with a brass spittoon and poured out tobacco juice. Walter followed the barkeep inside.

After the expansive midday light, the room was at first only darkness. Men had been talking but, as Walter's sight adjusted, the sound, as if in some necessary balancing, lessened. Glasses and bottles emerged above the muted shine of the bar, then the barkeep's face and the backs of the two drinkers, last the wide mirror's reflections. One of the men was the red-bearded man who had been at the cabin, beside him another much older man. Both stared into their shot glasses. The bartender held his rag steady on the counter as though staunching a leak.

“You wanted me, so I am here,” Walter said.

Silver coins spilled onto the bar, their ringing against the varnished wood slapped mute by the red-haired man's broad hand. He muttered something and turned from the bar, as did the man beside him. Walter waited for them to come at him but they instead stepped around and out the saloon doors.

“So you can talk. I've been wondering about that for months now.”

Walter turned and saw Slidell in the corner. On his table was a half-empty bottle of whiskey. Slidell's eyes were bloodshot, his clothes rumpled and dirty as Walter's. He motioned toward the swinging doors.

“The war may be over, but it's not smart baiting fellows like you just did.”

“The graves,” Walter asked. “They are Laurel's and Hank's, aren't they?”

“Yes,” Slidell answered. “I wasn't sure where to bury Hank, but I'd made a promise to Laurel. It seemed they ought to be together.”

“They were killed because they helped me?”

“I don't know,” Slidell answered. “Some who were there claim Chauncey Feith didn't mean to shoot Laurel, but him shooting Hank was no accident.”

Slidell nodded toward the saloon doors.

“I think you better leave here, and I mean out of the whole town. That son of a bitch Wray may be coming back.”

“The man who killed Hank and Laurel, where is he?”

“I don't know and nobody else seems to know either,” Slidell said, glancing at the entrance. “Feith's horse wandered into town two days ago, but that could just have been a ploy. Most folks figure his daddy sneaked him onto the train, or he sneaked on himself. That way he can stay clear of here until things settle a while, then come back. Or maybe not come back. He'd not be the first to do that. But no one saw him get on the train, or at least admits it. Feith could still be in the cove. Folks have been known to disappear down there.”

Slidell lifted his glass and drank what was left, stood and looked at Meachum.

“How long till the next passenger train?”

Meachum checked the clock above the mirror.

“Twenty minutes if it's on time.”

Slidell came around the table and stood beside Walter.

“You need to be on that train.”

“I have no money with me,” Walter said.

“Your fife and other belongings there too?” Slidell asked.

Walter nodded.

Slidell opened a leather wallet and took out all but one bill.

“Here,” he said, and stuffed the money in Walter's shirt pocket. “That's enough to get you to New York. Write me when you get there and I'll send your belongings. Come on, we'll get your ticket and wait on the platform.”

Walter didn't move.

“You knew I was German all along?”

“Not until I brought you to town that morning,” Slidell answered. “I went to the depot to make sure you'd gotten on the train okay. The depot master said he hadn't seen you. There was a wanted poster in there with a sketch of you on it.”

“Why didn't you tell?”

“That morning, it was because bastards like Feith and Jubel Parton wouldn't wait for the law. If they knew, they'd hunt you down and kill you. You hadn't hurt Laurel or Hank and I knew you weren't a spy or a soldier. But later . . .”

Slidell looked at the floor. He pressed the bridge of his nose with a thumb and finger, looked up, and met Walter's gaze.

“But later,” Slidell said, “because you were the one chance for Laurel to have some happiness in her life. And she did, for a little while.”

For a few moments, Slidell looked like he might say more, but he didn't. He took Walter by the arm and led him through the doors. They stepped onto the boardwalk just as the red-headed man and a companion came toward them, axe handles and rope in their hands. The one who led gestured with an axe handle.

“Get back in there, Hun.”

“The war's over, Jubel,” Slidell said.

“Not until we find out what he done to Chauncey,” Jubel said. “Then this town's going to have use for that grandstand after all.”

Jubel poked the handle into Walter's chest, pushed him back inside.

“Go on home, old man,” the red-headed man said, and left Slidell on the boardwalk.

“Pull down your shutters and bolt the real doors, Meachum,” Jubel ordered. “We're having us a private party tonight.”

Meachum had just pulled the shutters down when Slidell came in, a raised double-barreled shotgun in his hands.

“If you don't think I'll use it, you better mull this over,” Slidell said. “I've already lived four days longer than I wish I had. Hank and Laurel, they were the last thing I cared about on this earth. What happened to them, you had your part in it.”

Slidell turned to Walter.

“Get on that train. If need be, you can switch to one headed to New York at the next depot. Go, go now.”

Walter walked out into the afternoon's brightness. A banner hung from the savings and loan's awning, one word on it,
VICTORY
. As he walked over to the depot, Walter stepped around a limp string of firecrackers, small flags, and a brass-capped shotgun shell. Inside the train station, the wanted poster was no longer on the wall. The depot master gave him his ticket and told him the train left in twelve minutes. He went outside and sat on a bench, watched the clock tower's minute hand make ten measured lurches before the train arrived. The conductor set down a wooden footstool, nodded for Walter and the two other passengers to board. He found an empty window seat but did not look out through the glass until the wheels began to turn. He stared at the mountains and thought how small and fleeting a human life was. Forty or fifty years, a blink of time for these mountains, and there'd be no memory of what had happened here.

He leaned his head into his palms and closed his eyes, did not open them until a voice asked for his ticket. Walter handed the conductor the ticket and turned to the window, watched the world rush past him.

The train had rumbled into Maryland before his head cleared enough to remember why he was returning to New York. It was harder to remember why it once had been so important to him. He tried to imagine some alternative, another place, another profession, but could not. New York, then. After Slidell sent the flute, he would go to Goritz and tell the conductor that what had been asked of Walter was now done. He would tell Goritz that he was ready.

Acknowledgments

F
rank O. Braynard's
“World's Greatest Ship”: The Story of the Leviathan, Volume 1
and Jacqueline Burgin Painter's
The German Invasion of Western North Carolina
were especially valuable sources in writing this novel, and are excellent reading for anyone interested in learning more about the
Vaterland
and the Hot Springs camp. The newspaper article in chapter 15 was published in the November 5, 1916, issue of the
New York Times.

Grateful appreciation to Marly Rusoff, Mihai Radulescu, Lee Boudreaux, Abigail Holstein, Tina Monaco, Phil Moore, Bill Koon, George Frizzell, Kathleen Dickel, Tom Rash, Lea Kibler, Western Carolina University, Ann, James, and Caroline.