The Winslow Incident (25 page)

After a painful while she realized
that as much as she wanted to stay with Aaron in the safety of his little boy
room, she needed to get moving. She extracted herself from the beanbag and
stood beside his bed.

“Aaron,” she whispered so quietly
it would be a wonder if he woke up. She supposed she didn’t want him to. “Stay
here, just stay put.”

“Don’t go, Hazel,” he said in a
thick voice. “I’m scared.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of,”
she lied.

“Is so. Ruby Winslow and Uncle Jim
are here, and the lady with blood gurgling out of her throat.” His mouth turned
down. “And more are coming too. New ones. They told me so.”

That gave Hazel chills and her
hand shook a little when she touched his forearm. “Listen to me: they’re
friendly ghosts. Like Casper, you know? He’s nice, right?” Hazel had never
taken The Winslow’s ghosts seriously before; she was beginning to now.

“Don’t go,” he said.

“Don’t worry, Aaron, I’ll be back.
I swear.”

Then she left him there, alone
with his ghosts, when she shut the door behind her.

On her way out to the hallway, she
glanced into Sean’s bedroom. His bed was unmade, one corner of the sheet flipped
over where he’d gotten up. He always slept calmly, the sheets and blankets
hardly messed up. Whereas she slept restlessly, her bedding twisted and falling
off to one side in the morning as if she’d done battle with it during the
night. Every time she’d been in this bed with Sean, she’d managed to make a
jumble out of it too.
I miss you
, she thought as she turned away,
feeling horribly homesick even though her house was just around the corner.

The music drifting up from the
first floor grew louder as she approached the stairway landing; a lone guitar
playing a lonely tune. Loud voices also carried up from the ballroom. The long
room was the largest single space in the hotel—in the entire
town—so it was little wonder people had congregated there.
That or the
cowhands are sequestering the ‘sickos.’

She shivered when she reached the
top of the red-carpeted staircase.

Since Winslow had never built a
town hall or courthouse, every town-wide meeting, frontier justice trial, and
resolution of neighborly dispute over the past hundred plus years had taken
place in the ballroom. It was tradition. And it was here that in 1889, after
less than fifteen minutes of jury deliberation, Judge Evan Winslow sentenced
Dinky Dowd to hang for the murder of George Bolinger.

The last town meeting convened had
been to discuss water tank maintenance. The tank was an old rust bucket and her
dad worried the water was poisoning Winslow’s children with dangerous levels of
lead. Of course nothing had been resolved because the town had no funds, which
made Hazel think that Owen might be right after all.

Humming along to the music, she cautiously
descended the wide staircase. She felt crusted-over tired and unprepared for
any more surprises. She didn’t want to see more skeletons jump out of their
graves; this ride was already getting scarier the longer she rode.

“
Aiii
!” someone screamed
from deep inside the ballroom. “It’s a hundred and fifty degrees in here!”

As Hazel walked across the black
and white tiled lobby, her heart picked up the beat of the song Marlene Spainhower’s
brother, Caleb, played on his guitar from the sofa upon which Hazel had slept
last night. Ivy Hotchkiss danced around the black tile star located dead center
in the lobby. His playing was smooth; her dancing was not—an aimless
flailing about.

When Hazel reached the ballroom,
she hesitated beneath the arched entryway while her mouth went dry and her
heartbeat lost the tempo and turned erratic.

It
was
hot in there. But
that wasn’t all.

Jay Marsh stood in the middle of
the room beneath a chandelier, ripping at his shirt and gasping, “Too hot! It’s
too hot!” Julie Marsh sat at her husband’s feet examining her left hand. Not
moving, just staring at that hand as if she’d never seen it before, as if it
revealed the very mysteries of the universe. Laura Dudley and Marlene
Spainhower huddled together on a velvet couch near the fireplace, giggling at
each other like little girls sharing a delicious secret. Rose and Owen Peabody
were curled together on the opposite sofa, neither moving now.

Hazel blinked, and blinked again,
yet still he stood in front of the fireplace: Kohl Thacker, buck-naked but
covered from bald head to bare toe in a cruel-looking rash.

“I’m telling you, it’s typhoid
fever,” Gus Bolinger insisted from the green wing chair he occupied next to the
bay window facing the front yard.

“I’m telling
you
it’s the
beef,” Kohl hollered at him. “Why else would Holloway burn down his ranch?”

“You don’t know that’s what
happened.”

“And you don’t know it’s typhoid
fever.”

Nobody’s taking care of them
, Hazel realized.

Suddenly Kohl bolted to the far
side of the rectangular ballroom and ran back and forth in front of the
floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the woods. “Trapped!” His voice
rang shrill. “Trapped like rats and left to die!”

Gus Bolinger stood up from his
chair. “For the last time, Thacker,
shut up
!”

“It’s just
too
hot!” Jay
grabbed Julie up by the precious hand and marched her out of the ballroom.
Passing Hazel in the doorway, Jay whispered, “Don’t stay.”

Hazel realized that sweat was running
off her forehead and down her jawbone. The fans whirring in each corner of the
room did nothing to relieve the stuffiness. Rather, the fan blades wafted about
unpleasant odors. She wished Rose or Owen would move—even a little.

Gus started as if to beat a path
to the doorway after Julie and Jay, but then his legs buckled and he collapsed
to the wood floor with a pitiful sound reminiscent of the red cow at Holloway
Ranch Friday night. An old man, Hazel hoped he hadn’t broken anything. She
wondered where James Bolinger was right then, if he knew his Grandfather Gus
was here. The two had always been close. But the last time she’d seen James, at
the Crock Sunday evening, he hadn’t looked so good himself.

Hazel moved toward Gus, intending
to help him up.

Kohl had his nose pressed against
the window now, watching Jay lead Julie through the backyard and into the
woods. “They’re gonna get them.” Kohl turned to face the occupants of the
ballroom. “Holloway’s gonna get them for sure.”

That was when Laura Dudley started
convulsing.

I can’t stay here!
Hazel stopped. Spun around.
I can’t look at these people
anymore!

She raced out of the ballroom and
tripped past Caleb and Ivy in the lobby. When she reached the main entry, she
heaved open a heavy walnut door, burst across the porch and yard, and ran down
the stone steps and onto the gravel driveway.

Several yards down the drive, she
cut off into the trees and made her way back to the trail leading to Ruby
Creek—running away from the hotel, away from the sickness, and away from
the certainty that she was about to lose control of her body or mind at any
moment too.

Pounding the trail, a plume of
dust rising and a bolt of pain shooting through her arm with each thwack of her
tennis shoes, it occurred to her that she hadn’t run this hard since that day
five years ago when she and Sean ran away from Hawkin Rhone’s cabin.

Halfway to the creek she heard a
noise in the woods. She slowed to a jog. Most likely a raccoon or deer. Or
maybe—

She stopped to listen.

“Jinx?” she asked hopefully. “That
you, boy?”

Nothing.

Deer
, she told herself,
harmless fawns with downy tails.
She
listened for another minute while her heartbeat slowed and there was only
silence in the woods.

Until a rustle . . . followed by
the distinct
crunch crunch
of dry pine needles being crushed against the
forest floor.

She bolted.

More snapping and crackling—louder
now so that she could hear the sounds even over her panting and footfalls.

She ran faster, thinking,
Fucking
Bigfoot!
I’ve got enough problems here!

Nearing the creek now, legs aching
and lungs burning, she looked over her shoulder.

Nothing there.

But then she rounded a curve and
found two small figures directly in her path. She slammed on the brakes and
skidded through the dirt, trying to keep her balance with one good arm. To
avoid plowing the girls over, she leapt off the trail and smashed through ferns
and pinecones for several more steps before finally stopping herself with a
hard slap of her left palm against a tree.
Please don’t let that wrist snap
again
, she prayed.

Violet and Daisy Rhone looked
raggedy and unkempt. Hazel couldn’t ask what they were doing out here, all she
could do was lean against the tree trunk and wheeze.

Trying desperately to keep hold of
her squirming gray cat, Violet hissed, “Stay still, Boo!”

Daisy stared at her feet, wringing
her hands. When the little girl glanced up, Hazel saw that she was flushed and
feverish like Aaron. Acting shy, Daisy asked, “Can you babysit us?”

It was then Hazel realized the
girls’ dresses weren’t just dirty: they were spattered in blood. She flashed on
Patience a few days ago at Holloway Ranch saying,
This is bad.

We had no idea
, Hazel thought now.

“We’ll be good,” Daisy added and then
gave Hazel a small scared smile.

Hazel’s heart broke a little more.
Unless things got better soon, she doubted she’d ever be able to put all the
pieces back together again.

“Of course I can babysit you.” She
tried to sound less freaked out than she felt. “I’ll take care of you.” But
immediately she worried,
Where can we go?
Her grandmother could look
after them, couldn’t she? Things were creepy at the hotel but it was confined
to the ballroom.
So far
, Hazel thought, then out of necessity pushed it
from her mind.

Hazel’s sense they were being
watched was extreme—her scalp tingled with it. Though the only sounds she
made out now were the buzzing of insects in the midday heat of the damp woods
and her own ragged breathing. She looked first at Daisy sucking her dirty
thumb, next at Violet struggling to keep Boo on board, and decided to steer
them back toward The Winslow.

They all hurried up the path;
Hazel had no trouble rushing them along. Maybe the girls also sensed they
weren’t alone. Or Hazel’s fear was contagious. Both sisters’ hair had come
loose from braids, tousled red curls framing dirt-smudged faces. And the blood on
their yellow sundresses had dried dark and crusty. So whatever happened,
happened a while ago.

“Are you hurt?” Hazel asked
despite her reluctance to find out. What would she do if they were?

No, the girls shook their heads
while Hazel exhaled in relief.

But then whose blood was that?
Maybe
it’s animal blood
, Hazel tried to convince herself.
A pig’s.
Then,
What’s
the matter with me? Why would I even think that?
Hazel felt her loose ends
unraveling even further.

“Look at the porcupine!” Daisy
squealed, pointing into the woods.

“Where?” Hazel saw no porcupine.
She’d never seen a porcupine.

“By that rock, silly-willy. It’s
the hugest porcupine ever!” Daisy laughed in delight. “It’s bigger than our
house!”

But there was no gigantic spiky
creature in the woods, for which Hazel was grateful.

“Knock it off, Daisy,” said
Violet. “There’s nothing there. I told you a zillion times.”

Daisy shrugged as if to say,
It’s
not my fault you’re too stupid to see it.

Violet seemed healthy and fine,
Hazel noticed, if scared, which made Hazel wonder how one sister could be
affected by this illness but not the other. And why were the girls running
around in the woods by themselves? Where were Melanie and Zachary?

“Violet, are your parents all
right?” Hazel asked.

“Daddy’s not well.” Violet’s tone
was grave.

“Is that what he told you?” It
didn’t sound like something Violet would say, and it gave Hazel the creeps.

Violet balled her small hands into tight fists
against the poor cat’s belly. “That’s what Hawkin Rhone told him.”

H
azel had hoped to find her grandmother when
they reached her quarters down the hall from the Adairs’ rooms on the second
floor, but Sarah Winslow was nowhere to be seen.

With some difficulty, Hazel used
her good arm to strip the girls and stick them in her grandmother’s
bathtub—in hot water, despite the heat. Then she wadded up the filthy
dresses and threw them down the seldom-used laundry chute.

Wiping her hand on her dirty
shorts, she studied the plump gray cat hunched on the hearth. Boo looked
belligerent. “Good kitty,” Hazel said with zero conviction.