The Amulet

by Michael McDowell

  Sarah stood at the dresser, and stared at her mother-in-law. After another pause, Jo asked, “Now, what you mean she got hold of what amulet?” Her voice sounded curious, but Sarah thought she detected a note of urgency in it as well.

  “Merle Weaver’s dead,” said Sarah slowly. Jo Howell never answered a question directly, never gave the an­swer that was strictly called for, and Sarah considered that she could play that game as well.

  “I told you,” said Jo, commandingly, “that that thing burned up in the Coppage place.”

  “Hogs got her,” said Sarah quietly.

  Jo squinted. “Hogs?”

  “Out on their farm,” said Sarah grimly. “She’s dead, and I don’t think her husband’s right anymore.”

  Jo shifted uneasily in her chair, as if she wanted to re­move herself from her daughter-in-law’s directed gaze. “Well,” she said, “what do you want me to do about it?”

  Sarah was calm. Her fingers played with the switch on the small lamp. She said quietly, “You plan these things, don’t you—you and Dean?” She glanced down at her husband, motionless, a bizarre figure of immobility and helplessness.

  “You not talking sense, Sarah,” said Jo, with a grim smile that turned into a prolonged sneer.

  Sarah decided that she must continue the attack. “You sit there all day and plan.”

  “We sit in this house all day,” echoed Jo, “and we watch television, and we look out the window, except Dean, he can’t see, and he can’t talk. I watch television, and I look out the window, and I keep Dean company while you’re away at work, and that’s what we do all day.” Jo’s words protested her innocence, but the tone of her voice was insolent, as if she were daring Sarah to prove her guilty. It was the ironic denial of the murderer who knows he can never be convicted.

  “Becca and I went out to the Weaver place,” said Sarah.

  Jo looked displeased, and a little startled: “What’d you want to do that for?” she asked uncomfortably.

  “I wanted to talk to Mr. Weaver, and I wanted to find that thing—that amulet,” said Sarah. All this while, she watched her mother-in-law very closely, trying to find out all that she could from the way that Jo responded to any­thing that she said.

  “D’you find it?” Jo demanded, but in a way that sug­gested that she did not expect an affirmative answer.

  Sarah shook her head.

  “Well, what makes you think that it was out there?” Jo said, once again on the offensive.

  “Merle Weaver’s dead, that’s why. Died peculiar, just like the others. A whole line of ’em, and I didn’t want anybody else to die. The others had the amulet and they’re dead. Merle Weaver’s dead, and so she must have had the amulet too. I went out to find it.”

  “That don’t necessarily follow, Sarah, you know that,” said Jo, with another derisive smile. “Just because she’s dead, don’t mean she had the thing on her. It got burned up, like I told you.”

  Sarah stared at Jo a few moments, and then said, “I talked to Mr. Weaver too. He said that his wife had the amulet. They found it yesterday morning, the day before. It came off of Dorothy Sims’s body, when they were driv­ing her back to Pine Cone.”

  “It still don’t prove nothing,” said Jo. “How could a piece of jewelry cause all them deaths? You’re still talking crazy, Sarah.”

  Sarah realized then that no matter how convincing her evidence was, no matter how closely she could get to the sequence of events, and reproduce them in front of her mother-in-law, the old fat woman would fall back on the same argument: “You’re talking crazy, Sarah.” And she was, because it was a crazy thing to begin with. There wasn’t any sense to make out of it. It was magic—black magic, and black magic didn’t make sense, it didn’t even exist. Suddenly Sarah was very angry. Without thinking about it, Sarah turned off the lamp, a little involuntary movement of her fingers. In a second, she flicked it back on, and said to her mother-in-law, in a vicious voice. “Why don’t you just shoot ’em in the head, be a lot better than these terrible things that are happening to everybody. There’s twelve of ’em, Jo, twelve people dead, so far!”

  Jo was petulant. “They got Dean in the head, didn’t kill him.”

  “You blame me too,” cried Sarah, “ ’cause I’m on the ’ssembly line, don’t you? And you blame Becca Blair too! ’Cause we had our hands on that rifle that blew up in Dean’s face. It was a accident. He could’ve got his legs cut off in a jeep. You wouldn’t have blamed the people in the factory up in Ohio that made the jeep.”

  Jo made no reply.

  “Do you two plan who’s going to get it next?” Sarah looked with loathing at her mother-in-law, and then trans­ferred the gaze to her husband, who had not moved at all in the course of the conversation. In a slightly calmer voice, she said, ‘These people didn’t have nothing in this world to do with what happened to Dean. Miz Weaver, the Simses, the Shirleys, they didn’t none of ’em have nothing to do with the Pine Cone rifle that blew up in Dean’s face. The Weavers was good people, James Shirley was a good policeman, they was five of the Coppage kids and they probably never even set foot one in the Pine Cone Munitions Factory. You want to get back at some­body, you ought to burn the factory down, you ought to stop the war.”

  Sarah turned away in disgust.

  “Well,” said Jo, after a few moments in which the only sound was Sarah’s labored breathing, “well, who’s got it now?”

  Quietly, Sarah replied, “I don’t know. I couldn’t find it. It’s still in the mud out at the Weaver place.”

  “You’d better find it then, you better crawl through that mud and get it before someone else finds it, and dies too, ’long with their husband, and their children, and the ani­mals in the barn.” Jo was sarcastic, and it sounded really as if she didn’t believe that the amulet had anything to do with the deaths.

  Sarah did not reply to all of this. “One day . . .” she said quietly.

  “One day what?” snapped Jo.

  “One day,” repeated Sarah, “we are gone take those bandages off Dean.”

  She switched off the light and walked swiftly out of the room, leaving the mother and son alone in the stuffy darkness.

  Chapter 46

  Early the next morning Sarah and Becca rode back out to the Weaver farmstead. Along the way they said very little, for it was very early in the morning and neither of the women had much liking for the errand.

  “Well,” said Becca, “you came in late yesterday after­noon, you’re leaving early this morning. What’d you tell the old biddie?”

  “I told her that I had been out to the Weavers—she didn’t like that—”

  “Good!” interjected Becca.

  “—and then I told her I was coming back out here this morning, and she didn’t like that either. She told me I ought not be going around causing people anguish.”

  “If Jo Howell didn’t like it, then I’m glad we’re doing it. If she did something wrong, I mean something real bad, then we’ve got to get her on the run.” Then Becca laughed at the image called up of that great, fat, greasy woman trying to propel herself on her two short thick legs.

  Sarah had wondered if she shouldn’t go up to the house first and speak to Mr. Weaver, introduce herself and ex­plain to him again why she wanted to go through the mud in his pigpen with a leaf rake. Farm people got up with the sun and there was no danger of awakening him, but still she hesitated to intrude upon his grieving soli­tude.

  But from the main road, Sarah could see a figure mov­ing about the barnyard, and she had Becca drive directly there. Jack Weaver stood in the open barn door and waited patiently, and without any expression of curiosity or interest, for the two women to get out of the Pontiac and approach him.

  Sarah introduced herself and Becca to him, reminding him that she had called the night before, and asked if he would allow them to search the pigpen for the amulet.

  “Worth something?” the farmer said automatically, but his eyes moved vaguely over the bar
nyard.

  Sarah nodded. “It’s been in the family a long time, and we just didn’t want it to get lost.” This was a lie made up on the spot and Sarah realized even as she spoke, that it made no sense, for how would a Howell family heirloom come into the hands of Dorothy Sims? But Jack Weaver was in no emotional shape to cross-examine Sarah on her motives, and in fact he did not even notice the logical discrepancy. Sarah wanted to tell the farmer nothing about her fears concerning the amulet, for she saw he felt bad enough already, and was better off believing that his wife had died simply by horrible accident.

  “It’s bad mud in there. You gone get yourself filthy,” said Jack kindly. “Why don’t you let me go in there and try? Give me that rake, and I’ll look for the thing for you. It wasn’t ours, and we was on our way practically to go back into Pine Cone and give the thing to the sheriff, when Merle,”—he broke off and looked away, then picked up again—“Merle said she thought it might be worth something, and I guess she was right. I sure do wisht she hadn’t never found it though . . .”

  Sarah refused the farmer’s offer; she didn’t want to put him to any trouble, but also she knew that she would not be satisfied unless she examined the pen herself. Without ceremony then, Sarah simply climbed over the fence into the pen and, starting in the far corner, began to rake through the mud. This was a difficult enterprise, for since the pigs had been removed the ground had not been dis­turbed and had begun to firm. For a few minutes, Jack Weaver and Becca watched the young woman at her strange task.

  Becca had told the farmer who she was, and reminded him that she used to come out here with her mother and father fifteen, twenty years before. Jack smiled mournfully and started immediately to talk to Becca of his dead wife. He spoke quietly and with great feeling for some minutes, and Becca wouldn’t look into his face for fear that she would see him crying and embarrass him. The two leaned forward on the fence and watched as Sarah raked carefully through the congealed mud.

  Suddenly, Jack Weaver shook his head and exclaimed loudly to Sarah, “I’m just standing here, talking my head off, when you are in there breaking your back! You got to let me help you!” He ran back into the barn for an­other rake, and returned presently.

  Now Sarah allowed him to assist her, for the work was hard and she knew that, though this was not a common task, the farmer would probably be better at it than she was. In another twenty minutes the two had gone over every square foot of the pen and turned up nothing.

  “I don’t know where it could have gone,” said the farmer, “but I sure don’t think it’s here.” He moved over to the spot just where Becca was leaning on the fence. He faltered, “Merle . . . Merle was standing right there . . . when the thing fell out of her pocket. She couldn’t find it either, but it must have fell just about here—” He raked through the stiffening mire for another few minutes, but still came up with nothing.

  He turned to Sarah apologetically. “I’m real sorry. I’m real sorry that we couldn’t find it. I know how much that thing means to you, to come out here and look for it like this. If I come across it, I’ll call you right up.”

  Sarah nodded nervously. She was worried about the amulet, but she was even more concerned for this unfor­tunate, good man and his grief just now. Obviously he had nothing on his mind but his wife, and yet he had been willing to spend a good hour raking up the mud in a pig­pen as a favor for two women he didn’t even know, searching for a piece of jewelry that he credited with the death of his wife.

  Sarah thanked him profusely and motioned for Becca to get ready to go. “We don’t want to take up any more of your time, Mr. Weaver. We really do ’preciate your help, ’preciate you letting us come out here like this.”

  “I’m just sorry we didn’t find it,” repeated the farmer.

  “So am I,” agreed Sarah sincerely.

  “Sarah,” said Becca, “we got to get going, if we’re gone get to work on time. We got to go by the house and let you change them pants.”

  Sarah nodded. The two women got into the car and drove off, Sarah and Becca both waving out the window to the farmer standing forlornly in his barnyard.

  “What does it mean?” asked Becca: “What does it mean that you couldn’t find it?”

  “It means it’s not there anymore,” said Sarah simply. “It means it got somewhere else.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Mr. Weaver would have said if there had been anybody else out here going through the pen. That man Mr. Emmons may not have cared much for us yesterday afternoon, but I think he would have told us if he had got hold of it.”

  “I bet if he found it, he’d keep it,” said Becca. “He looks like the type.”

  “You think we ought to stop at his store and ask?” Em­mons’ store would be coming up on the left in just an­other mile or so.

  Becca looked at her watch. “We can stop and get a drink or something. Feels like its noontime to me, I been up so long this morning, and it’s just seven-thirty. But we got to hurry.”

  They did stop, and Mr. Emmons behind the counter provided them with bottles of soda and the information that he had not found anything in the mud that afternoon before. “I didn’t step foot in there, and them boys didn’t either. Didn’t want to get all that mud and blood on my boots and cuffs. Don’t like to go trampling on the scenes of murder anyway. Bad luck.”

  Becca nodded her sympathy with this opinion.

  Back in the car, headed for Pine Cone, Becca and Sarah agreed that they believed him. He might have picked up a double-barreled shotgun if he had found it on the ground out at the Weavers’, but what would he do with a piece of jewelry? Becca had noted that the man was not wearing a wedding ring, and he didn’t even have a wife to give the thing to.

  “So where is it?” said Becca. At last, she was convinced herself that there was something terribly strange about the amulet. Concrete information had been received, not through Sarah, but directly. Becca had heard Jack Weaver say that his wife had the amulet, that it fell into the mud, that no one had taken it out of the mud. But it wasn’t there, and that was inexplicable. And Becca did not like to have the inexplicable so close at hand.

  “I don’t know who’s got it,” said Sarah. “It’s got beyond me, I think. I can’t figure it out. And I don’t know where to go from here.”

  “I know what,” said Becca, “let’s you and me think about it on the line this morning, and see if we can’t come up with something by dinnertime. Maybe by then we’ll have thought of something.”

  Sarah laughed, and Becca asked her why.

  “Because,” said Sarah, “you said yesterday afternoon that you didn’t believe in any of this.”

  “Still don’t,” said Becca curtly, “but I’ll do anything that looks like it’ll make Jo Howell mad.”

  “That’s not all though, is it?” said Sarah seriously.

  Becca shook her head. “No, it’s not,” said Becca. “I listened to that poor man talk this morning, talking about Merle Weaver. Now I don’t remember her too well, but she was always sweet to me, I do remember that. What happened ought not to have happened, and I’m just sick about it. That man went through what I hope I never have to go through in my life, and I don’t want to hear of it happening again.”

  Sarah said nothing, but she knew that now, in whatever she proposed, Becca Blair was sure to assist her.

  Chapter 47

  All that morning, Sarah hardly saw the three screws before her. Her thoughts were confused and undirected. To begin with, she was upset because she had not been able to find the amulet. That meant either it was still in the mud, or else that it had already moved on to its next victim. There was no doubt that Merle Weaver had got hold of the amulet. Jack Weaver had described it roughly, but well enough for Sarah to equate it with the piece that she had passed from Jo Howell’s hands into those of Larry Coppage. If only she could see the thing again! It was in­furiating that she was always a step or two behind it. She dreaded finding out who had it now, drea
ded stumbling over another corpse in Pine Cone.

  But she was also relieved by having Becca with her, backing her up. It made it much easier to deal with the whole situation now that there was someone who sympa­thized with her. Neither of them, when it came down to it, could credit the amulet with the twelve Pine Cone deaths. There had to be some explanation behind it, some reason or sequence of events that they simply hadn’t the imagina­tion or brains to reason out for themselves. Maybe when they got hold of the thing themselves they would be able to make everything clear. But until that time, it was an enormous reassurance that Becca, at least, would not make fun of her, would take her part against Jo and Dean, and if necessary, against the rest of Pine Cone.

  The two women smiled at one another many times over the partition, and were very anxious to talk with one an­other, though when the noon break came, both had to confess that they had no new ideas.

  “I thought about it till my eyes rolled,” said Becca, “and I can’t make heads or tails of it. What I did start to think about, though, was Jo Howell. I mean, you saw her give the thing to Larry Coppage, and we think that the thing had something to do with everybody dying. But what we don’t know is how much Jo Howell knew. It’s possible she didn’t know anything about it; it’s possible that she was just giving him a present like she said she was, and she just gave him a necklace that was unlucky, real unlucky. Or it could be she just wanted to get back at Larry Coppage, and wanted him to have a car wreck and get his arm broke or something, and wasn’t even thinking about Rachel and the kids and all them other people. She may not have wanted all them people to die, but once she gave the thing away she couldn’t control it anymore.” Becca sighed in perplexity; she did not like to defend Josephine Howell, even by hypothesis.

  Sarah considered this, and realized that Becca was right. It was possible that Jo Howell was not so culpable as she thought. But no matter the extent of the woman’s guilt, it was still imperative that they get the amulet back and destroy it. “ ’Cause when she found out it was killing all these other people, she was surprised, I think. I would tell her about it, and it was like she didn’t expect to hear it. And that means she can’t control it. And that still means we got to get it back.”