Out of the Darkness

by Robert D. McKee

  “Yes.”

  “We have Miss Pratt on the table with her head at the opposite end of the table?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was Dr. Hedstrom?”

  “Well, he was—” Eggers stopped short. Again her complexion changed, only this time instead of turning scarlet, the woman blanched. In an instant, as though some plug had been pulled, every ounce of color drained from her face.

  Micah continued. “When Dr. Hedstrom was performing this procedure and you saw this horrific sight you’ve told us about in such detail, where was the doctor at that time?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Mrs. Eggers,” Micah prodded, “isn’t it true that the doctor would have had to have been standing at the end of the table, between the stirrups? Isn’t it also true that he would have been between you at the exam room doorway and Polly Pratt, who was lying on the table?”

  Still she was silent, and still Micah pushed. “Isn’t it true that Dr. Hedstrom—all six feet two inches and two hundred and fifteen pounds of him—stood between you and what you, under oath, told this jury you observed?”

  When she still did not answer, Judge Walker said, “Mrs. Eggers, you must respond to Mr. McConners’s question.”

  Micah shook his head. “That’s all right, Judge,” he said. “I withdraw the question, and I have nothing further of the witness.”

  Micah walked to his chair and sat down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Though he had seen it many times, Fay’s body always amazed him. She was moderately tall—five feet, four—at least four inches taller than Earl Anderson. But her body was thin. It was not the voluptuous body with enormous breasts and wide, full hips that many men considered the ideal. Fay was the opposite of that. She was Micah’s ideal. Her breasts were small, but beautiful, firm, and high. Her hips arced in a feminine curve that melted into smooth thighs. But the thing that amazed him more than anything was Fay’s waist. He could almost get his two hands around it—the thumbs touching in front and his fingertips almost touching at the small of her back. It dazzled him every time he saw her nude. It made him buzz as though the electricity from Chester’s generator was coursing through him.

  He felt that buzzing now as he lay smoking a cigarette and staring at the ceiling. Since they were in trial, Micah skipped his turn at standing watch. Jackson and Chester shared those duties so Micah could sleep. But sleep came hard.

  Fay’s head rested in the crook of his arm. She was quiet, but she was not asleep, either. Occasionally he could feel her light kisses on his chest. Occasionally he could hear her make the faintest of sounds: a sigh, perhaps—perhaps a moan.

  It was very strange, their sleeping together here in this bed. After all, Polly and Cedra were in the bedroom down the hall, and Chester and Jackson slept on their pallets in the parlor. He and Fay had not done this before—not at Lottie’s house—but today had been an eventful day.

  On redirect examination, Thomas Blythe had done his best to try to salvage some of Jane Eggers’s testimony, but for the most part it had been hopeless. Jackson was beside himself. He said he’d never seen a better cross-examination in his life. Micah felt good about it too. It was pure joy showing everyone what a liar the woman was, but he was not kidding himself. Ultimately it would not make a whit of difference. There was still Polly’s testimony, and she would have to admit to the abortion. And, most of all, there was Chester’s confession.

  But Eggers’s cross-examination had been fun. Micah was now what he had always wanted to be: a lawyer—more specifically a trial lawyer. And the trial was the thing.

  He felt Fay’s hand move up the inside of his thigh and brush against him. More electricity.

  After Eggers’s cross, Jackson was ecstatic. At the close of court that afternoon, he had stopped by Buck’s, bought fifteen bottles of beer, and brought them to Lottie’s Café. They were all taking every meal there now. They ate at the large table in a small but private back room off the kitchen. Even the women had each drunk one of Jackson’s beers, although none of them but Cedra seemed to like it. Micah hadn’t discouraged the celebration. He expected it was the only celebrating they would get a chance to do, so why not enjoy it?

  He snubbed out the butt of his cigarette, rolled to his side, and scooted deep enough under the covers so that his and Fay’s eyes were even. The moon was full, and the light coming through the window washed across her face. He pushed a loose strand away from her forehead so he could better see the arch of her eyebrow. He found even her eyebrows erotic. That was another thing that addled his brain when he was around Fay: the things about her he found sexually exciting that normally would not be considered sexual at all—like the arch of an eyebrow, the tiny lines at the edges of her eyes when she smiled, the flow of her neck.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” she whispered.

  Micah smiled. “It is hard to believe.” He nestled in closer to her.

  “Even when I confronted her in September,” Fay said, “she never admitted she knew we’d been together like this, but I knew she did.”

  “Well, that’s clear now,” he said, “but how did you know she knew it at the time?”

  “The woman’s not blind, Micah. She can see that stupid look you get every time I come around.”

  “My, my, aren’t we proud of ourselves?”

  Fay looked away from him, toward the ceiling, and the moonlight caught the line of her nose and the rise of her cheekbones. “Plus,” she said, “she watched me pine away for you when you were gone so long.” She looked back at him, their lips only inches apart. “She knows how much I love you.” She kissed him. It was a soft kiss at first; then she kissed him harder, searching for his tongue.

  In a day filled with the unusual, Lottie had called Micah aside after supper. “Micah,” she had said and jerked her head toward the door. He followed her into the main room of the café. Their little party had run late, and all the customers were gone.

  “What is it, Lottie?” When he saw the hard look on her face, he asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “I like you, Micah.”

  “Why, thank you, Lottie. I’m fond of you too.”

  “And my little girl loves you.”

  This was the first time she’d ever acknowledged to Micah that there was anything at all between him and Fay. For a moment his glibness was gone. Finally, he said, “I love her too, Lottie. Damn, I’ve loved her for years.”

  “It’s hard, ain’t it?”

  He nodded but didn’t speak.

  She turned and poured herself a cup of coffee but held it without drinking. “I figure there’s two kinds of love in this world between a man and a woman. There’s the practical, downto-earth kind. That’s the kind the lucky folks have, I reckon. They meet. They’re drawn to each other. They feel a little lust, maybe. Maybe it’s the time in their life it’s time to get married, so they do. They share a few Christmases, a few good times and a few bad. After a while they’re comfortable together. They make babies and watch them babies take their first steps. They raise up memories together like they was vegetables in a garden. They can those memories and stack ’em in the pantry. Before long what they have together is love. The best kind of love. The kind me and my first husband had. It’s a real honest-to-God love, Micah, as real as anything ever was, and it’s a practical, make-sense kind-a love. One they’ve built up over the years.

  “What’s the other kind, Lottie? You said there were two.”

  A little smile deepened her wrinkles. “The other kind,” she said, “ahhh, that other kind, now it’s a rude ol’ boy. It’s the kind-a love that walks into the room without knockin’. It’s the kind that smacks you on the back of your head, and says, hey, you, look at me. It’s something that’s loud and pushy and makes its presence known. It’s somethin’ that won’t take no for an answer. It’ll go out of its way to disturb your sleep, your appetite, your work. It’s something that will not be ignored.”

  Now her smile fade
d. She took a sip of coffee and crossed over and sat down at her “doing-books” table. “You never met Fay’s Pappa. He was sick when we got to Probity, and a week later he was dead.”

  “No, I never met him, but I’ve heard a lot about him.”

  “I loved that man. I truly did. You may not believe it to know me now, but in my younger years I was a passionate, fiery woman. I left my home in the bayou, and I was ready to follow him all the way to the Yellowstone, but we only made ’er this far.” She took another sip and said, “I’m sorry, Micah. Pour yourself a cup and come over here and sit down.” It wasn’t often Lottie invited anyone to sit at her table. He did as he was told. “Gaston was a white boy too, like yourself, ’cept he was a Frenchie. Not one of them Canadian Frenchies, neither. He was the real thing. Gaston was born and raised in the country of France. I was no child when we met. I had done buried me a husband and two sons. I knew the ways of the world all too well, but I tell you, Micah, that white boy done stole my heart away.”

  “Fay’s shown me a picture of him. He was a handsome man.”

  “Yes, he was. He was beautiful. And he was as passionate and fiery as I was. What we had was a scorcher from the beginning to end. And I don’t mean just the man and woman kind of thing.” There was a twinkle in her eye. “Though, that was fine too. But there was fire in everything—our fightin’ as well as our lovin’. We could sit for hours, him and me, holdin’ hands like a couple of kids. We could talk to each other ’bout nothin’, and the time would melt away. There was a magic how we could talk. Or,” she said, staring into her coffee, “we could get us so furious at one another that you’d think all the furies of hell had been let loose. It could be an ugly thing, the way we could get sometimes.” Her head rose. “It could be an ugly, ugly thing. It shames me now to think about it. We had us many, many hard times because of that, but we did love each other. At the end Gaston said to me, ‘Lottie, I am dying. I can feel the death a-coming.’ I told him I was with him, not to be afraid. And I was with him too. I climbed up in that bed beside him, and I put my mouth close to his ear and I began to whisper to him. I told him how I loved him. How I had always loved him. I whispered love into that man nonstop until with a smile on his lips he closed his eyes and he was gone. He died, though, my man did, hearing how much I loved him. My whispers walked him off into that darkness, Micah, and he did not die alone.”

  Rufus, her little terrier, waddled up to her and nudged her leg. Without looking down, she reached and scratched behind his ears. “It was a fine kind of love we had,” she continued, “but our life together was a harsh one.” She looked up and fixed Micah with her black eyes.

  “I know it was, Lottie.”

  “We had us none of the practical, comfortable things that life should offer to folks. The kind of things that helps folks get through the hard times. We could never grow us enough of them good memories, the kind the lucky folks grow and store away in their pantry. And that’s what I want for my girl, Micah. I want her to have them things.”

  Micah looked away. “And you know she’ll never have them with me.”

  Lottie’s eyebrows moved toward each other. “You’re wrong, boy. You misunderstand what I’m sayin’. You are the one person Fay can have ’em with. It weren’t because his skin was one color and mine was another that Gaston and me didn’t have them things. Well, that was part of it, sure; that was a big part of it. But the hardest part about our life was because we were too much alike, Gaston and me. You, Micah, you carry ’nough passion for two folks, and my Fay, that girl carries ’nough of the practical for a dozen. What you have, she needs, and what she has you need too. I done give up on her ever marryin’ a nice Negro boy. She loves you. There’s no denyin’ that. She knows she could never be happy with anyone but you, and she is practical enough to admit it. Watchin’ the two of you together these last weeks has finally convinced me of that too.” She reached over and took Micah’s hand. “I know what I’m talking about, so you listen to me. It’s hard to mix white and black. That’s why I’ve never wanted you and Fay to be together. Wyoming here ain’t like the South, but it’d be hard here too. Maybe someday things’ll change, but by then it’ll be too late for the two of you.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “It ain’t right, you and Fay having to sneak around.” Micah started to speak, but Lottie said, “Don’t you even say it. And don’t you be givin’ me that innocent look, neither. Fay’s told me how much the two of you loves each other. She tol’ me that in no uncertain terms. And I’m not so old I can’t remember that young people in love have to be together. I know part of the reason you’ve been havin’ to sneak around to be together is because of me. I’ve known the two of you been sinnin’, and I don’t mind tellin’ ya, I ain’t liked it. But I was wrong. My Fay would choose to be your wife if the world was a different place, and I’d change this world if I could, but that ain’t possible. I can change me, though. Tonight you and Fay can have my room at the house. I’ll be sleepin’ on the cot in the storage room here at the café.”

  “Lottie, I—”

  She held up her finger and stopped him. She was not finished, and she would not be interrupted. “Gaston and me was married,” she said, “and you would not believe what we went through. Once in New Iberia Parrish Gaston was tarred and feathered because he had taken hisself a nigger wife. It was fine to be with nigger women down in them parts, but you weren’t supposed to marry one. He nearly died after that tarrin’, but that time I nursed him back. I don’t expect that’d happen here in Wyoming, not to you, anyhow, but there would be a hundred other ways they’d tar and feather you, Micah, a thousand ways. And Fay knows that. She would never bring that on you. But I know my girl and she can’t let herself be with no other man. She considers herself your woman. You two might have to keep hidin’ from the eyes of the world, but as of this minute, you don’t have to hide from me no more.”

  “What about the others, Lottie? Jackson and Cedra, Polly—”

  “For an intelligent man, you ain’t too smart, are you? Didn’t you see the way them people looked at you in there tonight? I saw it even if you didn’t. They love you, Micah. They are your friends. And I saw them lookin’ at you lookin’ at Fay. You don’t worry about them,” she said. After a bit she repeated, “No, sir, don’t worry about them.” She reached up and patted his face. “You are a good man, and I want my Fay to have you in whatever ways she can. Except for the difference in your skin, you are perfect for each other. Fay needs some of your fire and although, God knows, you are more practical now than you was in your younger days, you could use some of Fay’s practicality. She stood and tightened her apron. “You get on back in there, now. I have to finish my cleanin’.”

  He stood and drew the old woman to him, holding her close. He was surprised at how thin she was. He held her that way for a moment but didn’t speak. After a bit, he let her go and returned to the back room.

  Micah thought of Lottie and Gaston now as Fay lay beside him. He could tell by her even breathing that she was asleep. Coiling himself against her, he closed his eyes. It took a while, but eventually he too fell asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Micah was asleep when the window exploded, but the second it happened, he knew what it was. “Fay, stay down!” he shouted. He ripped their top blanket away and threw it across the shattered glass that covered the floor. He rolled from the bed onto the blanket and grabbed the shotgun that leaned against the wall. He crawled over the blanket to the window and peered through.

  The moon was gone, and it was too dark to even see the grove of cottonwoods by the river. Somewhere a dog barked, and Micah thought he heard a horse whinny, but nothing more.

  There was a pounding on the bedroom door, and Chester called, “Micah, are you and Fay all right in there?”

  “Yes, get back. Have everyone stay down. And watch the front.” He turned to Fay, who was huddled in the corner of the room with the bed sheet wrapped around her. “Fay, throw me my pants.�
� He knew it was irrational, but he didn’t want to get into a gunfight without his pants. She tossed them to him, and he pulled them on.

  “Can you see anything?” she whispered.

  A thousand thoughts were rushing through Micah’s mind, but Fay’s whispering brought them all to a stop. There had been a shot fired, glass shattered, dogs barking, he and Chester shouting back and forth, and after all of that, Fay was whispering.

  He would laugh if he weren’t so damned scared. “No, nothing,” he said. For five minutes he stared into the darkness, but he couldn’t see or hear a thing. “Whoever it was is gone.”

  “Whoever it was?” said Fay, standing. “We know who it was.”

  Micah didn’t respond, but she was right. Sonny Pratt had been outside the house tonight, and he had put a bullet through a bedroom window to let them know he was there.

  Micah moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. He pulled on his boots and shirt. “Careful of the glass, Fay,” he said as he crossed the room to the far wall. The bullet had blown out the window and torn into the wall. Micah opened the door and stepped through. Sure enough, there was an exit hole on this side of the wall.

  “Is everybody okay in here?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Chester said. “A little shaky, but all right.” They were clustered together in the center of the room.

  “A little shaky?” Jackson asked. “Very shaky is what I am.” He pointed to the floor next to the pallet where he had been sleeping. Micah crossed to the spot where he pointed. When the bullet exited the wall, it had done so in a downward trajectory, hitting the pinewood floor less than six inches from where Jackson’s head had been. Micah pulled out his pocket knife and dug the slug from the plank. The bullet was distorted, but it looked to Micah to be a forty-four.