Nevada Barr - Anna Pigeon 11 - Flashback

by Flashback(Lit)

  "Can't even trust the dead anymore," she muttered, then wondered if talking to yourself was a sign of incipient madness. "I've always talked to myself," she said. See, her traitorous mind whispered.

  "Fuck."

  A light flitted, butterfly-like across the upstairs window of one of the houses between the Portia trees and her quarters on the second tier: Lanny Wilcox's house.

  "Fuck," Anna said again for lack of anything more erudite. She didn't move. The thought that she would be pursuing yet another will-o'-the-wisp and would become hopelessly lost in craziness paralyzed her. The light didn't come a second time, though she waited without moving for several minutes.

  Standing barefoot in the dark, helpless with indecision, she had a sudden galvanizing thought. What if this precise reaction was what the maker of ghosts and will-o'-the-wisps wanted? A ranger too unsure of herself to do her job? Even as the idea cheered her, it faded. Criminals-real ones-were seldom so crafty as to employ esoteric psychological tortures with uncertain ends. Except in fiction, it was pretty much a smash-and-grab, drive-by-shooting sort of world.

  As if in ratification, the unmistakable click of an old-fashioned door closing snicked through the still air. Anna'd been related to a psychiatrist long enough to know that run-of-the-mill hallucinations seldom came with sound. A human being from the twenty-first century was skulking about the Wilcox place in the dead of night.

  "Hallelujah!" Anna breathed and, silent as a cat on her bare feet, she ran lightly over the brick path that rounded toward the houses. She made so little noise she could hear a muffled plod that could be the fall of soft-soled shoes on brick.

  The pathway was old, the bricks broken in places. Intent on speed, Anna stumbled, her toes catching on a ragged upthrust. Pain was immediate and intense. She didn't cry out but went down on one knee. If the skin was scraped from it, the screaming of the nerves in her toes drowned out its complaint. All she felt was the jar. Her fall made a sound, a small one but on a night so still it might have been enough. Holding her breath, she listened. The footsteps had stopped.

  If they'd ever been there. The earlier expletive went unspoken if not unthought. Hallucinations she could live with. Self-doubt was crippling. She stayed where she was, not moving, not thinking, just listening. Mad or not, there was little in this dimension or the next that she could not outwait. The pain in her toes passed, allowing her to feel the burn where brick had abraded the skin from her knee. Compared to the burn of coral it wasn't worth her notice. It was almost a relief to have a scrape that didn't itch while it hurt.

  She didn't twitch or scratch or fidget. Stillness grew around her, knit from the night itself. The faintest of skritching noises heralded a lizard, not more than two inches long, who came out from his crevice in the crumbling mortar and warmed his tiny belly on the brick an inch and a half from her little finger and never sensed he was not alone.

  Occasionally a recurrence of the idea that there'd been no footsteps drifted into Anna's brain. In stillness she accepted it without fear. Should she be mad, there was no better place to be so than in the quiet darkness with a lizard for company.

  After a time she had no interest in measuring, her patience was rewarded. Not a footfall but a splash came to her ears. She rose in one fluid motion and ran quickly around behind the Wilcox/Shaw homes and up the wooden stairs to where her quarters were. The casemates beneath, where she guessed the nightwalker had stopped when he heard her fall, were too dark to walk into alone, half-naked, at night merely because she believed the danger to have passed.

  On the second tier she ran to the broken-out gun port forming a ragged-edged window opposite her picnic tables and leaned out to see beyond the thickness of the wall. The casemates on the first floor had like holes punched in their sides. At one time the ports had been enclosed with iron shutters-high-tech for their time-designed to fly open when the canons came forward and slam shut when they recoiled. According to the old military and engineering reports, they'd never worked properly.

  In the ensuing century those that hadn't been forcibly removed had rusted out. Water had Mown into the exposed mortar, and bricks had fallen away leaving great toothy gaps where the ports had been.

  Crawling out onto her three-foot windowsill, she studied the gun ports in the ground-floor casemates. Empty. She'd expected that. The moat, crystal clear and not more than two- or three-feet deep on the west side, was empty as well. She'd not expected that. The water was mildly agitated, but that could mean nothing. Big fish and little waves came in through the break in the wall to the sea.

  On the gray concrete capping the wall separating the moat from the ocean she saw, not what she looked for, but proof it had been there. Against the pale concrete, silvered by the moon, were two dark handprints and a darkened slash. Whoever she'd heard leaving Wilcox's quarters had stepped into a lower casemate when she'd fallen. Too clever or cowardly to trust her silence, he-or she-had gone out through the portal into the moat and over into the ocean. The moat wall on the west and south sides of the fort was high, six to eight feet above water level in places. Once outside, it could be easy to keep out of sight of the fort.

  Because the moat was unoccupied, at least by bipeds, Anna guessed she'd not heard the drop from the fort to the moat but the splash made as the person had clambered out on the far side. By the time she reached the place the handprints were, whoever it was would be gone, either back into the campground, out to his boat or in through another portal and back to his bed.

  It occurred to Anna to run down, follow the trail through the darkened casemate and the warm water just to see if the handprints and the butt slide were really there, feel the dampness with her own fingers. Instead, she turned and went into her quarters.

  She did not want to arrive on the moat wall to find the prints were gone, then have to spend the rest of the night wondering if they'd dried or were never there in the first place.

  Too late to sleep, she picked up Raffia's letters and began to read.

  8

  My Dearest Peg, The footsteps we heard were indeed Joseph's. Having had more than ample opportunity over the years to witness his rages, I've come to classify them into red and white. When in a red rage Joseph yells and curses, slams doors and smashes his fists into things-not me, mind you, but walls, bolsters and other pieces of innocent household accoutrements. The white rages are more alarming. These are blessedly rare and marked by tight-lipped control and palpable emanations of violence leashed. I don't fear them as I once did and, in a strange way, have come almost to admire them. Joseph in a rage is a force of nature. I find myself watching him in fascination and awe, much as I would a tremendous hurricane wind.

  The day he found Tilly and me outside the door of the dungeon, his rage was white hot. Entering as he did from the direction of the light, the first thing we saw was his silhouette framed in a confluence of dark arches. Joseph is not a big man, but he looked so to us Tilly stopped her whimpering over her damaged rebel and became absolutely still.

  What she did from instinct, I had to learn by trial and error. When Joseph's rage is white, I know better than to so much as utter a single word.

  Since he cannot speak when this mood is upon him-due no doubt to the fact that even the slenderest of syllables cannot force themselves through iron-clenched jaws and lips compressed to a bloodless seam-our entire drama was enacted in near silence. Only the ring of my husband's boots on the brick and the whisper of my skirts entangling with Tilly's told of our exodus.

  Joseph grabbed each of us by the upper arm and marched us from the door of the dungeon. Struggling would only have drawn attention to our indignity, so we allowed ourselves to be escorted ignobly back to quarters. Joseph never looks so handsome as he does when in high dudgeon. His hazel eyes were sparkling, his dark mustache framing that sensuous mouth and setting off a nose that must have been introduced into his French ancestors when they fought the Saracens in Spain. Perhaps I am pitifully like that old dog we used to have. He never seemed
to care if we were yelling at him or stroking him as long as we were paying attention to him.

  That night and the next day I kept myself out of his way, doing housewifely things for his comfort, and left Tilly to bring him around. Though I know soft ways and womanly wiles are best, I cannot bring myself to do them. Even after two decades there is a devil in me that wants to meet the devil in him out in the open. And, too, I believe our sister could wrap Lucifer himself around her little finger if she set her mind to it.

  Even with beauty, cunning and youthful zeal, such is my husband's inner strength, it took Tilly thirty-six hours before he would agree to let us tend Joel. The fort surgeon refused to treat a "traitor," and Joseph refused to order him to do so, but in the end, I think he does have a heart if not of gold then at least not entirely of stone and didn't want the boy to die alone and uncared for.

  Having begged what necessaries we could from the small infirmary in the parade ground-bandages and a blanket were all they said they could spare-we set off to get the key and then go to the dungeon.

  The passage of another day and the insistence of the Lord in pouring the rational balm of pure sunlight down from a stunningly blue sky had done much to calm the garrison and return the soldiers to routine. Just that quickly was Joel not forgiven but forgotten. None of the guards so much as raised an eyebrow when we appeared, bandages and buckets of fresh water in hand, to ask for the key.

  "He's dead," Tilly whispered when I opened the dungeon's door.

  "Hush." Should the boy still live, I didn't want him to hear her despair. He lay, without moving, in his own waste-the reek of it filled the vault. Diffused light from the gun slit showed us a full water bucket and an empty slops bucket. Food had been left for the pleasure of rats and mice, who graciously vacated the area at the noise of our arrival.

  Blood and bruising made Joel's flesh the color with his stained uniform, still confederate gray only in the places where rebel insignias had been ripped from it subsequent to his capture.

  "He's warm," she said. "That means he's alive."

  The vault was near ninety-eight degrees at a guess. Even a coldblooded creature from the depths of the ocean would have been warm to the touch. I felt for a pulse in his throat just under his jaw and was pleased to tell Tilly: "Yes, that means he's alive."

  I could see Tilly was shortly to become useless with the emotion of the past days, so I set her to the task of clearing away the old food and sweeping up the crumbs. When she'd left the cell to fetch broom, dustpan and cleaning rags, I removed Joel's clothing and cleaned him as though he were an infant. Tilly at her tender age did not need to see that part of a naked man, but it was the one part of Private Lane's body that was unhurt and, though my experience is limited to my husband and the boys we used to spy on swimming at the old quarry, Joel is a well enough made man.

  The rest of him was painful to look at. There was bruising on his chest so dark and vicious I knew the ribs underneath had to be broken. His abdomen was black and purple as well, but it felt neither terribly hot nor swollen. Had the beating ruptured something inside, Tilly's and my roles as ministering angels would soon have changed to those of undertakers. Ropes had cut both anus, and his thumbs remained so swollen and angry I could not be sure he'd ever have full use of his hands again.

  In a previous letter I described the injuries to his face. Suffice to say, though still grim and disfiguring, I did think they looked somewhat better. He looked more man than monster. I felt his face, and the bones had not been broken but for his nose. It will never be so neat and straight as it once was.

  As I washed his most delicate areas, his member twitched and started to swell. Modern scientific theory would have it that when people die the heart is the last organ to cease functioning. I believe with men the center of life is located somewhat further down.

  "Tina," he whispered. I was so pleased that he had not entirely left this world, I wasn't terribly interested in what past peccadilloes I had inadvertently awakened in memory. And I most certainly will not tell Tilly his first word was not her name.

  I left the vicinity where I had been giving such life-affirming ministrations and knelt by his head. "It's Mrs. Coleman," I told him.

  "Oh my God," he mumbled and his eyelids twitched. The flesh around them was too battered to allow his eyes to open fully, but even so I could see alarm there. To wake and find oneself being touched intimately by the prison warden's wife must have been jarring to his poor beleaguered mind.

  To calm him lest this new horror shake his tenuous grip on consciousness, I told him where he was and why I was at his side doing what I suspect was once the job of "Tina." The alarm faded and he closed his eyes but did not leave me.

  "Thirsty," he said.

  Holding his head in my lap that he might not choke, I drizzled nearly a cup of water between his parched lips. Having drunk, he seemed much revived, and I sent a belated prayer of thanks to the Almighty for the strength and recuperative powers of the young.

  By the time Tilly returned, I had Private Lane as clean as a sponge bath allowed and decently covered from the waist down by the blanket.

  I gave her a moment to weep over Private Lane, which I think did him nearly as much good as the water and the "bath," but when she began peppering him with questions that were bound to upset the balance of his humors, I sent her off on more errands.

  We stayed, dripping water and encouragement into Joel, for near two hours. He spoke again several times and seemed clearheaded but fell easily into restless dozing that was tormented by dreams. Finally he fell into what I dearly hoped was a restful sleep and not a return of the unconsciousness that is so like and so near to death.

  Tilly and I knelt one to each side of him, my knees aching from so long against the hard floor. Tilly cradled one of Joel's hands in her lap, looking at it as she asked me: "Will he be crippled?"

  Honestly, I could not say and didn't wish to burden her with my opinion. "He needs a doctor," I said instead.

  Between us lay the hurtful knowledge that the fort's hospital was closed to Joel, and Captain Caulley had hardened his heart against the man who'd spoken traitorously of the murder of our president.

  "We'll do our best," I promised.

  Tilly said nothing for a minute, then: "There's another medical doctor at Fort Jefferson."

  There are no other doctors at Fort Jefferson and for a moment I sorted through my memories in the vain attempt to find one. Then it came to me.

  "Oh, no, Tilly."

  She said nothing, but by the way she looked at me I could tell neither of us were to have any peace till it had been tried.

  9

  When her eyes grew too tired to read, Anna returned to the broken-out gun portal. The moon was low, yet she could feel its light upon her skin if she closed her eyes. My mind is no place to play alone, she thought and kept her eyes open, her brain focused on real three-dimensional things, things she could touch.

  Staying awake in these wee hours wasn't difficult. Sleep seemed like a thing of the past, something she used to do but was no longer necessary. That in itself was odd. Thinking back, she knew that she should have been exhausted-not just mentally but with the body fatigue that demands sleep. No wonder she was getting squirrelly. Had she access to sleeping pills she would have happily drugged her body into submission. As it was, there was no point in going to bed; she may as well stare at the moon as the ceiling. Sitting still she was at least resting.

  Unfortunately stillness without exacerbated restlessness within. Her mind with its specters would not leave her alone. The corners of her eyes were plagued with flickerings of almost unseen things flitting from shadow to shadow. Too long staring at the silver track the moon lay across the quiescent ocean and it began to change subtly, to move in sinister waves. The fear that had torn at her earlier when her sister, her psychiatrist, for God's sake, didn't immediately assure her she was sane, that normal people saw ghosts on a regular basis, returned.

  Frank Herbert's Bene
Gesserit had it right: fear was a mind killer. Anna needed a litany of facts to hold the irrational world at bay.

  "Idle mind; devil's playground," she whispered, and resolutely turned her mental processes to the events of the night, something real-or so she had chosen to believe-to let her gray matter chew on.

  A boat had exploded and sunk. This boat was carrying a lot of extra fuel. An NPS boat had been sunk by a chunk of flying debris. Bob Shaw saved an unidentified Cuban man. Anna saw a ghost. There was a light in the upstairs bedroom of Lanny Wilcox's quarters. A person shut a door. A person crossed the moat and climbed over the outside wall into the sea.

  How these things interrelated-if they did-was lost to Anna. What she should do about any of it was also a mystery. Investigation of the sunken boats would continue come sun-up. Identification of the Cuban man would be done by Florida State law enforcement. The ghost or ghost-hoax was within Anna's jurisdiction, but she could not bring herself to venture into the dark where the nearly unseen skittered about and so that, too, would have to wait till morning.