The Cypress House (10 page)

    "End
of the week at the latest."

    "That
sounds good," Paul said. "Be nice to be back by Friday. Today's
Monday, right? Today's Labor Day. Some holiday we had."

    He
was right, Arlen realized. It was the end of the holiday now, the end of Labor
Day, 1935.

    Arlen
had felt some swelter in his time, but not much that rivaled the way that jail
got by midafternoon. The back wall faced west, and the sun came on and baked
into the stone and there wasn't so much as an open window to let the heat
breathe. Paul Brick- hill shifted and muttered and paced, and Arlen lay on the
cot and felt the sweat bead on his flesh and waited for Tolliver's return.

    It
never came. That evening a new deputy brought them food, and then it was night
and they were still in their cells. The next morning Arlen woke to the sound of
rain, stretched, and ran a hand over his face. When he did it, he winced. The
stubble was thickening up. Arlen shaved every morning, no matter what, refused
to miss it. He hated to see the hint of a beard when he looked in the mirror.
Even a touch of dark shadow on his broad jaw changed his face, made him look so
much like his father it was frightening. Isaac Wagner had always worn a beard,
and because of it, Arlen stayed clean-shaven. Less he resembled that man, the
better.

    He
was still on his back, studying moisture marks that seemed to be darkening in
the old ceiling, when there came the sound of a key in the door and he sat up
to see Solomon Wade stepping through.

    "Paul,"
Arlen said in a low voice.

    "Yeah."

    He'd
just wanted to make sure the kid was awake. The judge walked over to Arlen's
cell and stood leaning forward with his hands wrapped around the bars. At the
sight of him, Paul and his worries about prisoners' rights had fallen silent;
he offered nary a question.

    "Those
beds aren't too bad, are they?" Wade said.

    "I've
had better," Arlen said, "and I've had worse."

    "Ain't
that the truth." Wade twisted his head to study Paul. "You know
there's men all over this country don't have a bed for the night. Women and
children, too."

    Paul
said, "Yes, sir. I know."

    Wade
nodded. "Just so we're clear on that. Wanted to be sure y'all had a sense
of appreciation."

    "Yes,
sir."

    "You
have a sense of appreciation?"

    "Yes,
sir."

    "Well,
I'm glad to hear it. Because I was worried you were lacking in appreciation
after I heard from the sheriff. Said there'd been talk of lawyers and
lawfulness and a general quality of bitching, not a hint of gratitude in the
air."

    "He
was mistaken," Arlen said.

    "You
calling the sheriff a liar?" Wade said, swiveling to look at Arlen.

    "I'm
not."

    "A
fool, then?"

    "No,
sir. Just mistaken."

    Wade
nodded sagely, as if this were a philosophers' debate of intense interest.

    "I've
made some calls," he said. "Seems the CCC actually recollects the two
of you. So does a train station attendant out in Bradford County."

    "Good
to hear," Arlen said, still wondering why in the hell a judge would be
making calls in an investigation. Seemed like Tolliver's job.

    "Not
a one of them answered the question I needed answered," Wade said,
"which is what you did to find yourself inside Walt Sorenson's Auburn on
the day of his demise. I'll tell you something—it's a question that vexes
me."

    "If
we could ease your suffering," Arlen said, "we surely would."

    Wade
cocked his head sideways and gazed in at Arlen. "Why'd you get off that
train? Station attendant told me you didn't miss the train, you just got off
and didn't get back on."

    "I
didn't like the look of the crowd we were traveling with," Arlen said.
That was true enough.

    "Well,
I'll tell you something: you have fool's luck watching over you."

    The
words gave Arlen a tingle, one that started low in his back and shivered all
the way up his spine and tightened the muscles in his neck.

    "Train
you were on was bound for the Keys," Wade said. "Would've put you off
down there, what, late afternoon day before yesterday."

    He
dropped his hands from the bars. "You know what happened to the Keys last
night?"

    He
waited, so Arlen said, "No. We've been in here. Nobody kept us posted on
the news."

    "Well,
let me get you posted, then — the Keys are
gone"

    Paul
said, "What do you mean, gone?"

    "I
mean obliterated. Nothing left but sand and shells. And blood."

    "The
hurricane?" Paul said, voice soft.

    ”‘
Hurricane' isn't even the right word," Wade said. "That's what
they'll call it, yes, but sounds like this was more devil than storm. I've been
listening to the radio reports; they say they've got bodies in the trees down
there. Whole towns blown to the ground, men and women and children swept out to
sea. They sent a rescue train, and it was torn right off the tracks."

    Arlen
couldn't find his voice. Solomon Wade was staring in at him like he wanted to
hear a response, but Arlen simply couldn't muster one.

    "They
say it's coming here now," Wade said. "This rain's the first of it.
Wind'll come next, and with it? We'll have to wait and see. Could be as bad as
what the Keys got, could be that it's tasted enough blood by now. Either way, I
ain't got time to deal with you sorry bastards. But if a complaint rises to
your lips about your stay here in Corridor County, you remember where you'd be
if we
hadn't
locked your asses up. You remember that."

    The
sheriff was waiting in the car, parked just in front of the station, no more
than fifteen steps from the door. Even so, they were soaked by the time they
fell into the backseat. The rain was coming down in a way that made Arlen
wonder if the power of gravity had been increased while they'd waited in the
jail; things didn't fall from the sky now, they plummeted.

    Tolliver
didn't say a word to them as they sat dripping in the back of the car, just put
it in gear and drove slowly away from the center of High Town, back into the
shrouded woods that today looked more black than green. Arlen watched the rain
come down, pouring so furiously the sheriff had to keep the car at a crawl
because he couldn't see out of the windshield, and wondered how in the hell
they were going to get to a train station today. Be a mighty wet walk. And if
there was a hurricane on the way . . .

    Shit,
hurricane or not, he wanted out, and he wanted out
now.
Regardless of
the rain, the wind didn't seem all that powerful yet, had the trees swaying and
shaking but not stretching out sideways the way they would when it really began
to blow, like they were roaring mad at the roots that bound them to the earth,
determined to get free. He'd never seen a true coastal hurricane, but he'd been
in Alabama in
'28
when the remnants of a bad one blew out in the wooded
country where he'd been staying. The sheer power of that storm, the ferocity of
the wind, had lingered in his mind. It wasn't the sort of thing you wanted to
experience hiking down the highway. No, they'd best grab their bags and hitch
whatever ride they could, get inland and find housing for the night.

    "I've
never seen rain like this," Paul said. He had one hand on the seat in
front of him, squeezing it as he stared out the window and into the downpour.

    "It's
heavy," Arlen agreed.

    They
limped along a ribbon of gray that looked more like a creek bed than a road.
Here and there the sheriff slowed and eased them one way or the other to avoid
washouts of mud and gravel. He moved his hands on the wheel constantly,
shifting their positions as if he weren't sure which one worked best, and Arlen
realized he didn't like the rain any more than Paul did. He was breathing
shallowly and there was sweat on his face. Twice he swore at the storm, and his
voice was uneasy. This was the first hurricane he'd seen. Arlen was sure of it,
and with that recognition the old questions returned: How had he found his way
down here, and how had he gotten elected sheriff in a place where strangers had
to be scarce?

    "Hey,
Arlen," Paul said.

    "Yeah?"

    "What
the judge said about the hurricane . . . you think the men we were with on the
train . . . you think they died?"

    Arlen
turned his head from the kid, looked back out the window, and said, "No. I
don't."

    "That's
a lie," Paul said softly. "You know they did. You always knew
it."

    There
were answers for that, but Arlen didn't offer any of them.

    Down
near the Gulf, without the woods as a screen, the rain actually seemed less
imposing. The sheer expanse of gray sky lightened things up, and the ocean
winds pushed the rain sideways and sprayed it around. There were no cars parked
in front of the inn, but lights showed inside. The sheriff drove them to the
top of the hill, just where the Plymouth had parked, and then said, "Get
out. I'm not trying the hill in this mud."

    "It's
been a real pleasure," Arlen said. He pushed open his door and felt a
spray of rain drill into his face, stepped out and let the wind swing the door
shut as he walked for the inn. He intended to go all the way down there at a
stroll—couldn't get much wetter — but then Paul passed him at a run and Arlen
thought,
What the hell,
and followed suit.

    Paul
beat him to the door and jerked it open, but Arlen slid on the wet boards of
the front porch and knocked right into the kid. They fell through the door
together, stumbling, and by the time they had it shut they were both laughing,
acting like a couple of schoolboys instead of two men who'd just been released
from the county jail.

    "Well,
we're out," Paul said. "I didn't think I'd ever be so happy to stand
outside and get rained on!"

    "You'd
have thought we were in there for ten years, way you talk."

    The
kid grinned and wiped rain from his face. "Felt close enough to me."

    Arlen
was sweeping his palms over his clothes, trying to shed the water, when he
looked over Paul's shoulder and finally saw the woman. He'd thought the room
was empty when they entered, but Rebecca Cady stood in the corner nearest them,
a hammer in her right hand. When he saw her, neither of them spoke. Then Paul
followed his eyes and spotted her and blurted out, "Hey."

    "Hey,"
she said.

    "The
sheriff just dropped us off," Arlen said. "We had a nice couple
nights in jail. Evidently it didn't matter to them that we were in here with
you when Sorenson's car blew up."

    "I
didn't expect it would," she said, stepping forward and dropping a handful
of nails onto the bar, then setting the hammer down.

    "Don't
seem awful concerned," Arlen said.

    "Would
my concern mean much? You seem to hold me responsible."

    "I'm
just wanting to let you know that we're damn lucky the judge didn't decide to
keep us in those cells until the end of the year."

    Something
changed in her face. "You met the judge? Solomon Wade?"

    Arlen
nodded. "That's right. You a friend of his ?"

    That
put fury in her eyes. "No."

    There
was something odd here, but Arlen had no wish to pursue it.

    "We'll
take our bags," he said shortly, "and be on our way. I'd appreciate
it if you'd give us a ride to a train station."

    "I'm
not driving you anywhere in this weather."

    "Seems
the right thing to do. We were visiting on your property when our last ride was
killed and we ended up in jail."

    "That
may be," she said, "but it was not my fault and is not my
responsibility. You were Walter's guests, not mine. I didn't invite you
here."