The Cypress House

by Michael Koryta

  The sheriff was home, and when Arlen told him the story, he stared with astonished eyes. When it was through, he gathered himself and thanked Arlen for coming down and told him to go on home and wait.

  “I’ll come for him shortly,” he said. “And you did the right thing, son. Know that. You did the right thing.”

  Arlen went home. He waited. Isaac was back in his shop, silent.

  Thirty minutes passed before the sheriff came, and then he wasn’t alone. Edwin Main was with him, wearing a long duster to fight the chill night wind. When Arlen saw them approaching, he felt sick. Why had the sheriff told him anything?

  They came through the door without knocking and saw Arlen standing there and asked where his father was. He pointed an unsteady hand at the closed door of the shop.

  They went in for him. Arlen stayed outside, heard the exchange, Edwin Main shouting and swearing and Isaac speaking in deep, measured tones. When they emerged again, Isaac was handcuffed.

  Isaac looked over and locked eyes with Arlen, and his face was so gentle, so kind.

  He said, “You’re going to need to believe. And something you need to know, son? Love lingers.”

  They shoved him out the front door then and off the porch and down into the dark dusty street. Arlen trailed behind. Edwin Main was still shouting and offering threats. They’d gone a few hundred feet before Isaac spoke to him.

  “You killed her,” he said, “and it will be proved in time. We’ll talk to your house girl and to your children and they’ll tell me what Joy already did.”

  Edwin Main went for him then, and the sheriff stepped between them. Edwin was a big man, but Isaac was bigger, and he stood calmly and looked down at the screaming widower and didn’t seem troubled by him.

  “You struck her with the ax handle,” he said. “She’d run out of the house to get away from you, and you chased her into the yard and killed her there. Then you dragged her into the stable so there’d be blood in it, and you shot the horse because you believed it would add credence to your tale. That’s what happened. That’s the truth of it.”

  Edwin Main shook free of the sheriff’s grasp. The sheriff stumbled and fell to his hands and knees in the road as Edwin reached under his duster and drew a pistol. Arlen cried out and ran for them, and Edwin Main cocked the pistol and pointed it at Isaac’s head from no more than two feet away.

  Isaac Wagner smiled. Edwin Main fired. Then Arlen was on his knees in the road and his father’s blood ran into the dust and the wind blew down on them with the promise of coming snow.

  33

  IT TOOK HIM LONGER to tell it than he expected, and he was strangely nervous recalling the events, went through three cigarettes before he was done. Rebecca just listened. She didn’t interrupt, didn’t even give a murmur or a shake of the head as he spoke, never broke eye contact.

  He told her about the way it had looked out there in the street, the wind blowing dust over the blood and Edwin Main with his coat flapping around him like some old-time gunslinger and the sheriff with his hat in his hands, and then he finished his last cigarette and put it out and it was quiet for a moment.

  “So what happened then?” she asked eventually. “Who took you in?”

  “Nobody took me in. I left.”

  “Left?”

  He nodded. “Worked in a mine for nearly a year, lived in a boardinghouse. The war was on in Europe, but we hadn’t stepped in yet. I figured I’d try to enlist. I was too young, but I lied about it and they let me in. Wasn’t a hard thing to do. After the mines, I didn’t seem much like a boy anymore.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen when I enlisted. I was almost nineteen before we started fighting, though.”

  “You’ve never been back?”

  “Hell, no. What’s there for me?”

  She thought about it for a moment and then said, “This is what you meant when you said we were kindred.”

  “Yes.”

  “At least I didn’t have to see it happen,” she said. “But somehow that doesn’t seem much comfort.”

  “I’d expect not.”

  Out in the darkness the waves broke over the sand and insects trilled and there was the sound of something banging in the wind down by the boathouse.

  Rebecca said, “How long was it before you realized he was right?”

  Arlen frowned. “Pardon?”

  “Your father. What he said about you having the gift.”

  Arlen shook his head slowly. “He wasn’t right. I can’t speak with the dead, and neither could he. The man was crazy.”

  “But you see warnings of death. You have for years.”

  “That’s different.”

  She pulled her head back. “How?”

  “Nobody’s talking to the dead,” he said. “They can’t be talked to. They’re gone, Rebecca. Anyone who says anything else is as crazy as my father was.”

  “So you don’t believe what he said about the dead woman.”

  “No.”

  “Then why would Edwin Main have shot him?”

  Arlen felt a swelling of frustrated anger. There were a handful of reasons he’d never told the story, and this was one of them. He didn’t need some outsider telling him the crazy old bastard could have been right. Because if he had been… if he had been…

  “Edwin Main was enraged,” Arlen said, “in the way any man might be after hearing the sort of story my father told. He reacted out of rage.”

  “Was he arrested for shooting your father?”

  “No.”

  “But your father was in handcuffs! It was cold-blooded—”

  “He was provoked,” Arlen said. “That’s what the sheriff ruled. Nobody argued.”

  “I can’t understand how someone who’s had your experiences would be unable to believe in the possibility of what your father claimed,” she said.

  “It’s a league of difference. I’ve got an ability with premonition, probably resulting from all the death I’ve seen, far too much of it. I don’t know, I can’t explain that, but it’s only premonition. A sense of what’s about to happen. Talking to the dead, though?” He shook his head. “That’s the belief of old women and children, not sane men.”

  “Your father’s last words to you were to say you’d have to learn to believe.”

  Actually, his last words had been a promise that love lingered. Spoken so soft, so kind, so damned forgiving, that years later Arlen would still wake in the night almost unable to breathe from the memory of it.

  “The only thing I have to believe,” Arlen said, “is that I did the right thing. I’ve got to believe that. And you know something? I do. Always have, always will.”

  She paused, then said, “Arlen, if you know that you can see the dead before they’re gone, why can’t you speak to them after they are?”

  He got up out of the chair swiftly, ready to go inside and pour a whiskey and get the hell away from this conversation. He ought never have told the story.

  “Stop.” She caught his arm, and her hand was soft and cool, and stilled him. “We won’t speak of it anymore.”

  He ran a hand over his eyes and leaned against the wall, suddenly exhausted beyond measure.

  “Let’s go to bed,” she said, rising with her hand still on his arm.

  “It was wrong what was done to him,” Arlen said. “That was wrong. Murder, as you said. But what he’d done was wrong as well. He was out of his mind, Rebecca. Hearing about it is one thing, I suppose. But you didn’t see it. You didn’t see the way he held that poor dead woman and looked into her eyes.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “He was going to be a problem. He was going to cause harm.”

  “Of course he was,” she said in a soft voice. “Of course.”

  They didn’t speak of it again in the days that followed. He worked on the boathouse, the walls going up quickly, and there were no visitors. Rebecca’s brother was to be released on the upcoming Tuesday, and she went into Thomas Barrett
’s store once to make phone calls and arrange to go out and collect him. Arlen asked if she wanted him to go along, and she said that she didn’t.

  “You can meet him when we get back.”

  Arlen nodded, but he couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever see her again. If she might pick up her brother and drive off in some unknown direction, and that would be the end of it. He hoped not, but he couldn’t help the thought.

  It turned out he didn’t need to worry over it—she never had the chance to make the drive to Raiford. Owen Cady arrived on Monday, the day before his scheduled release, and he arrived in the company of Solomon Wade.

  They came around noon, and Arlen and Rebecca were both out on the back porch, having just finished lunch. They heard the car and looked at each other with shared displeasure, fearing it would be Wade. When they walked through the barroom, the gray Ford coupe was visible in the yard, and Rebecca said, “He’s come to make a last round of threats in case I’m thinking about running tomorrow.”

  Then the doors on the Ford opened and two men stepped out: Solomon Wade from the driver’s seat, and a tall, rangy kid with blond hair from the passenger’s. Rebecca said, “Owen,” in a whisper, and went onto the porch.

  The two men walked toward her, Solomon Wade with a blank face, Owen Cady wearing a wide grin. He crossed to the steps and hugged his sister fiercely.

  “I’m home!” he yelled. “Made it home!”

  He stepped back from her and laughed, still wearing the easy grin, Rebecca standing there stunned and silent.

  “Well, I thought you might be happy,” he said.

  “I was supposed to get you,” she said. “Tomorrow. I was supposed to pick you up tomorrow. That’s when they said you’d be getting out.”

  She was staring at Wade.

  “Solomon here pulled a few strings and got me out a day early,” Owen Cady said. “Figured we’d surprise you.”

  “You could pull strings?” she said woodenly, still looking at Wade. “You could do that to get him out a day early? A day?”

  “You’re welcome,” Wade said.

  “Get off my property,” Rebecca said. “Get away from here. And stay away from him. You stay—”

  “Rebecca, what in the hell’s gotten into you?” Owen said, raising both hands in a peacemaking gesture, glancing back at Wade in apology. “Solomon hasn’t done a thing but help.”

  Arlen thought that might snap her. Thought she might turn and go running up the stairs and come back with a Smith & Wesson in her hand. Instead she just swiveled to stare at her brother and said, “He didn’t pull strings to keep you out.”

  “That isn’t his fault! It’s mine. I don’t know what—”

  “It’s fine, son,” Solomon Wade said, his voice awash in generosity. “If your sister wishes this to be a family occasion, a family occasion it shall be. I just wanted to welcome you back to Corridor County myself.”

  He gave a little bow, said, “Y’all have a fine afternoon.” Then he turned and walked back to his car and drove away, one hand lifted out the window in a neighborly wave. A dark red flush rose in Rebecca’s face as she watched.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Owen said. “I wanted to surprise you. Can’t you be happy to see me?”

  She looked back at him, blinked, and tried to force some cheer.

  “Of course I’m happy.”

  Owen looked up into the doorway at Arlen and said, “Who’s this?”

  Arlen stepped forward and put out a hand as Rebecca said, “Arlen Wagner. He’s helping me rebuild things after the hurricane. We lost the dock and boathouse and most of the back porch.”

  “Good to meet you,” Owen said. He gave Arlen a measuring stare, though, some suspicion in his eyes.

  “Likewise,” Arlen said. “Your sister has been eager for your return.”

  “Half as eager as me, that’s for sure. Raiford isn’t a fun place to be. Tough fellas in there.” He gave that grin again, and there was a cockiness to his eyes and bearing, as if he considered his prison days a point of pride.

  Arlen said, “I’m sure it isn’t fun.”

  “Let’s go on inside,” Owen said to Rebecca. “I want to pour a drink, a good one, and then I’ll tell you some stories. Tell you what it was like in there.”

  Rebecca frowned, and Arlen understood why. The kid was talking like he’d just returned from a holiday trip. Wanting to tell stories? Shit. It reminded Arlen of men he’d known who always wanted to tell stories about what the war had been like. Inevitably, they were the ones who hadn’t seen any real combat. He had yet to meet a man who’d emerged alive from the Belleau Wood with any desire to tell tales about it.

  As Owen Cady swaggered into the barroom, bellowing about how beautiful the liquor bottles looked, Arlen missed Paul with a sudden, deep ache.

  He told his stories. They sat around for an hour while Rebecca made him a thick sandwich and brought him a cold beer. Owen ate, and drank, and talked. And talked some more. Everything was designed to impress. He told of how tough the Raiford bulls had been, how quick with their billies and their fists, but he didn’t sound chagrined about it. He told about one man the guards had beaten so badly he’d been taken out with a fractured kneecap and broken ribs, and when he finished that story he laughed and shook his head, as if recalling some moment of horseplay. He bragged about the other inmates as if they were a collection of mythical heroes instead of a cell block full of cruel bastards and swindlers.

  “Thing about it is, you got to fall in with the right crowd early, or they’ll eat you for lunch in that place,” he said. “I found some boys who knew those I’d run with, and that was the start. You find somebody to back you when it’s needed and you do the same for them and that’s how you make it. If there’s going to be fighting, you better not be alone.”

  Rebecca was listening quietly but unhappily. Owen had turned most of his attention to Arlen, gesturing and pointing with his beer.

  “There was a fella who ran with Dillinger,” he said. “Did you know that Jack—that’s what Dillinger was called by them that knew him—came down to Florida for a time when things got hot back in Indiana? It’s the truth.”

  “Dillinger was killed last year,” Arlen said.

  “I know that. Everybody knows that.”

  Arlen shrugged.

  “So were Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson,” Owen said. “All in one year. And Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. No, thirty-four was not a good year to be in the rackets.”

  “No year is,” Rebecca snapped. “I wish you wouldn’t say that like you think it’s a sad thing. Those people were criminals. They were killers.”

  “I know, sister, I know.” But he winked at Arlen as he drank the beer.

  After a time he ran out of stories or tired of making them up, and told Rebecca he wanted to go upstairs and get some rest.

  “You got no idea how sweet a real bed will feel,” he said. “A beer and a bed in one day? Must be heaven. Now all I need to do is find myself a girl.”

  He gave Arlen another wink, and Arlen tried to plaster a grin on his face in response as the kid strutted toward the stairs. Rebecca showed him the bedroom she’d made up. Paul’s old room.

  When she came back down the stairs, neither of them spoke at first.

  “He’s a good boy,” she said eventually.

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “All this talk, the way he’s going on, he’s just trying to seem tough. I imagine that’s a skill you learn pretty fast in a place like that.”

  Arlen nodded. “I’m glad he made it out, and made it out so quickly. A lot of guys who go into a place like that don’t come out so cocky. Since he did, I’m guessing the months went easier on him than on some of the others.”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  He didn’t say the other things he was thinking, like there were some men who jailed well because, frankly, they liked the credibility it gave them in certain circles, same as men who valued scars because
of what they told the world: I’ve been to rough places and seen rough things, and, buddy, I’m still standing here.

  Arlen had his share of scars. He kept them hidden the best he could.

  “He’s a good boy,” she repeated. “Just give him a little bit of time.”

  “Sure. Can I ask you something, though? When do you intend to lay out your plan with him? About leaving this place and heading to Maine.”

  “A few days,” she said. “I want him to adjust, settle down. I want Solomon to see that we haven’t run yet. I want everyone to relax.”

  “All right.”

  “In the meantime… be patient with him. I know the way he sounds right now, but it’s not him. It’s not really him.”

  “Hell, he can talk however he wants,” Arlen said. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “I know, it’s just that I… I want you to like him.”

  He saw the sincerity in her eyes and said, “I like him, Rebecca.”

  It was one of the easiest lies he’d ever told.

  34

  OWEN WAS BACK AT it that night, telling more of his stories, speaking of Karpis and Barker and Dillinger, any number of other well-known gangsters he’d certainly never met but wanted Arlen to believe he had. He spoke of bank robbers and killers and hustlers, spoke of them with a voice of adoration. He was twenty years old now, a big, good-looking kid, with deep blue eyes and a smooth smile that no doubt would draw in plenty of women. Rebecca, clearly growing more frustrated by the minute, didn’t wait as long as she’d suggested before explaining that they’d be leaving the Cypress House.

  “Now that you’re back,” she said in the midst of one of his tales, “we need to find some time to talk things over. Doesn’t have to be tonight, but soon.”

  “Talk about what?” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  “Where we’re going. What comes next.”

  He frowned. “Going? I don’t need to go anywhere. Hell, I just got home.”

  “This isn’t home,” she said. “There’s nothing in this place for you except trouble. The same trouble you got into last time.”

  He gave her a grin and a dismissive wave. “Aw, I’m fine.”