The Winslow Incident (32 page)

With the sun gone, the oak and
headstones quickly turned dark; the cow stood silhouetted against the pallid
sky. Hazel would have lingered there awhile, had she not sensed things trying
to wriggle to life beneath her feet. So she got her tennis shoes moving toward
the church, where music played and candles flickered behind stained glass.

A white, clapboard structure, the church
was neither large nor fancy save for its colorful windows. Like the school, the
community served the church on a rotating basis. With no permanent minister,
sometimes Rose or Owen Peabody gave do-unto-others-type sermons, other times
Ben Mathers preached hellfire and brimstone. Not because he believed it, Hazel
always thought, but because he enjoyed it.

When she pushed open the door and
walked into the church, she found the people inside sheathed in sweat. All the
windows were shut tight, and every nook and cranny held lit candles that cast fast-moving
shadows against the walls. Several people were on their knees praying. A woman
played a dirge on the organ while another softly sang, but the lyrics didn’t
seem to match the tune the organist was churning out.

The atmosphere was so eerily thick
that Hazel’s gut instinct was to turn around and flee. Yet she remained rooted
to the spot, transfixed by the fearful oration streaming from the pulpit, the
force of it drowning out the singing and the music and the praying.

It wasn’t Rose or Owen Peabody
preaching. It was Ben Mathers.

“The devil challenges us in our
weakness.” The old man glowed, eyes greedy behind a pair of goggles. “Unless
and until we atone for our misdeeds, we shall shed tears in great plenty.”

“Amen.” The organist nodded.

Ben Mathers lifted his goggles to look
dead on at Hazel. “Wrongs must be righted. Wicked acts atoned for.”

A thin man standing before the
pulpit shouted, “Atone, yes!”

“Atone.” The organist agreed.

“Atone!” the thin man repeated.
Then, slowly, he turned.

Doc Simmons.

Hazel hadn’t seen the vet since he
shot at her and Jinx from his porch—and her rage against this man instantly
overtook her. This man who would do nothing to help anybody. He who had hurt
her dog, killed him maybe, and very nearly killed her.

“Atone for this, you lunatic!”
Hazel shouted as she charged toward him past rows of pews.

The prayer-makers stopped praying
and the singer stopped singing. But Ben Mathers droned on, “Without atonement
there is no salvation. Without salvation there is no peace . . .”

Simmons noticed her then, adjusted
his spectacles, and must’ve realized she was gunning for him because he dashed
out the doorway to the left of the pulpit. This time, he had no rifle.

Hazel reached the doorway seconds
later to find Simmons halted just outside, shrinking from the darkness back
toward the church. She stood behind him, longing to strangle him, certain she
could find the strength even one-armed, the fingers of her left hand twitching
with the desire to sink her nails into the saggy flesh at his neck. But she
needed answers. “Tell me what’s in the bread that’s making people sick.”

After Simmons spun around, he
leaned so far back from her she thought he’d topple over. “I don’t know
anything!”

“Don’t mess with me, Simmons.”

“Leave me alone. I don’t know
anything.”

“Tell me: What is it?”

His mouth drew down in a grossly
exaggerated frown.

“
What
?” Hazel reached her
arm toward him.

He leaned even farther back.
“Ergot.”

“Er—, what?”

“Ergot. Now leave me be, girl.”

“No. What is it?”

“A mold, a fungus. Found its way
into Pard Holloway’s feed as sure as the sun.”

“The flour too?”

“Looks that way.”

“Did you tell my uncle? Or Zachary
Rhone? Anybody?”

Simmons shook his head rapidly
back and forth.

“How long will this last? How long
will everybody be sick from it?”

More head shaking.

“What are you going to do about
it?”

He held up empty hands. “Nothing I
can
do, and that’s the honest truth.”

She leaned closer to him. “Is it going
to get worse?”

He seemed to think his feet were
stuck and he continued to pivot his torso away from her.

“Worse?” she repeated.

He gave a slight nod.

“How bad, Simmons?”

“Bad.” He finally uprooted one
foot and turned from her.

Watching him run into the night, she
yelled, “My dad’s gonna arrest you! Throw your ass in jail for dog murder and
willful neglect of our town!”

It was then Hazel realized it couldn’t
have been her dad who ordered quarantine; it must’ve been her Uncle Pard. That
for whatever reason, Tanner lied. Her father would never order quarantine
without first consulting with at least one real doctor. Ergot?
At this
point she couldn’t be sure that it was something real and not just Simmons
winding out. Either way, there was nothing contagious about this sickness and
the last thing they needed was quarantine.

She wasn’t aware that Cal from the
Fish ’n Bait had come up behind her and was also watching Simmons scurry away
until he said, “He’d better watch out for Indians. Scalping is a rough way to
die.”

When Hazel turned to look at Cal,
he smiled at her . . . not a warm and friendly smile, but the smile of a madman
that made her stomach flip over.

She hurried away from Cal and the
church, into the darkness, heading in the opposite direction Simmons had fled.

Bad
, she shivered.

The street appeared deserted,
which was at once a relief and a worry. And while the air had cooled a few
degrees she remained sticky and damp. If she weren’t so scared of the dark she
would’ve gone straight to Ruby Creek and jumped in with her dirty clothes on.

Once Dad feels better
, she thought,
there’s going to be some serious hell to
pay.
Simmons, definitely. And Old Pete and Kenny Clark for dumping the sick
at The Winslow.
Unacceptable.
And whoever was responsible for the blood
on Violet and Daisy Rhone’s dresses, they would have to pay too.

Civic Street seemed especially sinister.
Usually a benign collection of buildings, she now imagined things hiding behind
dark windows and brick walls. Hiding and watching. Sick people and sasquatches,
lunatics and wolves. The strong sensation that she was being watched sent the
creeps crawling up the back of her neck. She picked up the pace.

Ducking into Prospect Park, she
thought,
Six hours of darkness left, six and a half at the most.
That
was one good thing about summer in Winslow: not dark till ten, light at five. Not
well acquainted with five o’clock in the morning, or six even, she knew that this
particular morning she’d be relieved when the sun rose.

For now, the park was deep in
silence and shadow. As she moved across the playground, she kept catching
movement out of the corner of her eye. But when she’d turn to look, there was
never anything there except for the swings, the little merry-go-round, monkey
bars. She put the hustle on, anxious to pop out onto better-lit Park Street.

When she reached the duck pond,
her foot encountered something mushy. Hazel shuddered and saliva flooded her
mouth.

She glanced down in horror,
certain she’d stepped on a body.

It was a pile of clothes: a
sundress, a man’s shirt, a squishy down jacket. She remembered Julie Marsh
wearing that parka because it’d struck her as so odd. She poked at the clothing
with her shoe, terrified she might uncover a body part—a toe or a finger,
an entire hand.

Where is Julie now?
Hazel scanned the dark park.

Silence and shadow.

Until an astoundingly loud crunch
split the quiet, followed by the scream of metal scraping against metal. It
came from Civic Street, where she’d walked just minutes ago.

When she turned to look, she saw a
streetlamp falling. It hit the road in a shatter of glass and the light
extinguished. Through the trees, she could make out vehicle headlights traveling
slowly up the street toward Ruby Road. Then the vehicle picked up speed before
slamming into a parked car in another cacophony of destruction. Her heartbeat raced
out of control. Maybe she should’ve left with Tanner.
Did I make a mistake?

“I think I made a big one,” she
whispered and hurried on.

She was nearly to Park Street when
the ducks came after her. In a confusion of quacking and flapping, a dozen
birds burst from the darkness to chase her the rest of the way out of Prospect
Park.

When she reached the street she
glanced back to find they’d all stopped at the edge of the park, evidently
satisfied now that she’d left their territory, except for one large duck who
continued to waddle toward her. “Get lost, you stupid duck.”

The green-headed bird honked
loudly before falling onto his side. Trying to right himself, he flapped a wing
several times but then lay strangely still.

“I told you to get lost, not drop
dead.”

Staring at the bird, Hazel
realized she shouldn’t leave him lying in the middle of the street. But she
didn’t want to touch him either. She went to the duck and gently nudged him
with the toe of her tennis shoe. Dead as a dodo. Using the bottom of her shoe
she indelicately rolled him off the road and onto the grass.

Studying the creature’s dead eyes,
she remembered Tanner feeding pieces of his piecrust to the paddling of ducks
before the rodeo. Had this duck been among those that ate Tanner’s pie?

She spun away, refusing to
consider it any further. All she wanted to do was go home, find her dad there,
and together, figure out what to do next.

But when she reached her house she
remained on the sidewalk, afraid to get any closer. The house was
dark—hostile in its emptiness. Clearly her dad wasn’t home.
I’m not
going in there alone.
A whimper sounded from her throat.
Was that me?
She
didn’t know what to do, or where to go. She turned in a complete circle, a
sinking sensation in her belly.
Where is everyone?

Reluctantly, she looked up at The
Winslow. All the structure’s lights were blazing, which she took as a good
sign.
At least there were people inside, maybe even somebody who wasn’t
sick.
Besides, she needed to go back and check on Aaron, her
grandmother, Daisy and Violet.

After she crossed Ruby Road, trudged
up The Winslow’s steep driveway, and climbed five stone steps to the yard, she
stood in the yellow glow cast from the pedestal gaslamps—distraught to discover
that her grandmother’s hotel now looked menacing.

“What’s changed?” she entreated
its tall windows. “What are you trying to tell me?”

That I should’ve never come
back here.
She sensed the hotel watching
her with its bay window eyeball as she continued through the yard.
That I should’ve
left with Tanner.

She was startled to encounter
Marlene Spainhower tucked into a corner of the porch. “Why are you out here by
yourself?” Hazel asked. Marlene smelled gamey and Hazel brought her hand to her
nose.

“Best to keep to myself,” Marlene
whispered. “I don’t want to get it.”

It was obvious to Hazel that she
had it. Even in the dark she could see that Marlene’s pupils were open too
wide, that her cheeks burned with fever. But Hazel couldn’t tell her that.
Instead, she went to the door and twisted the silver knob.

“You’ll catch it in there,”
Marlene warned.

Hazel pushed open the heavy door
and made her way through the lobby.

Ivy Hotchkiss still danced to
Caleb Spainhower’s weeping guitar, while another man crawled on all fours along
the perimeter of the octagon-shaped room, eyes intent on the black tile border,
mumbling, “Fits nice fits nice fits nice—” He ceased crawling. “A little
off. Bring me my square and level.” A rail-thin woman in a flower-print dress
lay flat on her face on the red-carpeted staircase, as though she’d intended to
head upstairs but collapsed in exhaustion after only three skinny-legged steps.

Somebody must be better by now
, Hazel tried to convince herself.

She wiped damp palms on her shorts
as she entered the ballroom. Brilliant light thrown from three crystal
chandeliers illuminated the population of the long room—many more people
than were here just hours ago. Heavy rugs from the lobby and hallways had been
dragged in to cushion sore bodies from the hardwood floors. The podium used at
town meetings was positioned at the back end of the room as if somebody planned
to make a speech. It struck her as curious that there were no Mathers here. And
nobody from Holloway Ranch.

Rose Peabody sat stick straight on
the sofa by the fireplace—an improvement over the last time Hazel had
seen her. She was staring at her reflection in the window, Owen no longer at
her side.