Rose & Poe

by Jack Todd

  “He was found by a jury not to be guilty of the aforesaid crimes. As you say. But it appears there are some who didn’t approve of the verdict. Teenagers, mostly. They got all liquored up down at the Bald Eagle and got to talking about how it was a travesty and such, and they firebombed the house. They say Poe carried Rose out of the burning house, but then the mob stumbled on a pile of rocks and stoned them both, and they were seen going down under a hail of stones.”

  Thorne’s hands flap helplessly at his sides. “I made this happen,” he says. “I created this.”

  “Made what, boss?”

  “I’m not your damned boss, Airmail! I am an old man who has failed those he loves most. Listen to me, man. I created this. I don’t know precisely how, but I know it has something to do with that walking stick yonder, the staff I carved with my own hands, my fabula animi. There is wizardry in that wood, Airmail, a frightening sorcery. I was fast asleep when it unleashed the tempest that turned our county into an island, yet my subconscious mind controlled the staff and caused it to happen. The storm, all of it. I used that magical staff in the most terrible way, because I was angry and jealous. It’s all coming back to me. I remember now. You came here, didn’t you? In August? Something you said drove me half mad with rage. Do you remember? What was it?”

  “I most certainly did come here, boss. I came to inform you that I had seen a certain party visiting, and that his name was linked with that of your daughter, Miranda.”

  “It was more than that, Airmail. There was something more . . .”

  “The name of the young man in question was Sebastian Coyle. Son of your nemesis, Anthony Coyle.”

  Thorne whacks the oak kitchen table with the palm of his hand. “That’s it! Coyle! Of course! Coyle and Miranda. I believe . . . I believe I may have seen them myself, at a distance. So far away that I couldn’t quite place him. Then I forgot about it. All of it. What you told me, seeing them together. It all vanished, but the wrath inside me remained. I was consumed with a terrible rage, though I could not remember why. Then I had a terrible dream of a flood descending on the land, but it didn’t merely descend, I summoned it! I summoned it, Airmail, d’you hear me? I made this happen. I brought on the tempest, the attack on Miranda, Poe in jail, all of it. I phoned the state’s attorney — what’s his name? Savage? I phoned Savage a dozen times, insisting that Poe be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I brought these curses down upon us because I wanted revenge on Sebastian for interfering with my daughter. I wanted vengeance on all the Coyles. Oh, I have sinned, Airmail. I have sinned grievously.”

  Airmail places a tiny hand on Thorne’s forehead to soothe him. “No, no. Not you. It is your fancy playing tricks on you. You give yourself too much credit. Surely you cannot summon storms and bloody mob attacks while not once leaving your mountaintop? You’re not a sorcerer, boss. Your mind is not what it was. You imagine these things, I tell you. I am as acquainted as any with all the black arts, with necromancy, witchcraft, Santeria, voodoo. It is not in you to practice such sorcery. Where the heart is good, such wizardry will not follow.”

  Thorne will not be consoled. “Rose and Poe. I can’t bear to think of them harmed. I would watch Poe from my window as I worked, a man who seemed born of the earth itself, the same earth where I have sown nothing but abomination and loathing.”

  Great sobs shake Thorne. He bows before them, as a man before a great wind. Tears course down his cheeks into his white beard. Airmail tries to comfort him, but Thorne remains inconsolable. At last, the old man lifts his head. “What about this Sebastian, then?” he asks. “Is he the culprit? Is it possible that he attacked my Miranda?”

  Airmail shrugs. “I think not. I have seen him. He is a soft one. A pampered child of wealth. Miranda is a young athlete, sire. It would take a great deal to overcome her.”

  Thorne nods, puzzling on it. There is something vague in his blue eyes, and Airmail understands that the old man may be slipping away, beyond the reach of rational discourse. “Sire,” he whispers, “Miranda will want to know what has befallen Poe. Perhaps you ought to rouse her?”

  Thorne nods and trudges obediently up the stairs to wake Miranda. He returns with his sleepy daughter trailing him, fastening her robe and rubbing her eyes, her hair wilder than ever.

  “Airmail! What are you doing here?”

  “I bring terrible news. Rose and Poe have been attacked by a mob. House burned down, goat shed, geese burning, everything.”

  “Oh, God — what have those fools done? The jury found him innocent, what more do they want?”

  “They wanted blood. They felt like they were cheated because Poe didn’t hang.”

  “Are they alright?”

  “This I can’t tell you. I know they were taken away by ambulance. They’re at the hospital or the morgue, one or t’other.”

  “God, no! I have to go!”

  Thorne puts his hand on her arm. “There’s something else Airmail needs to tell you. He told me last summer, but it slipped my mind immediately.”

  Miranda looks from her father to Airmail and back again. “What? What is it? Tell me quickly!”

  “It’s about Sebastian. Sebastian Coyle.”

  “What about him? Tell me!”

  “I saw him last summer, lurking along the path where you hike.”

  “That’s impossible. He wasn’t here last summer. When was this?”

  “Right before the storm. The first storm. Before you were attacked.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t recall him being here at all.”

  “That’s because your mind is temporarily out of order. Sebastian was here, alright. Knowing a little of the circumstances of your father’s exile, I checked the register at the Manitou Mountain Motel, where he was staying. Sebastian Coyle, written plain as day. I was going to keep an eye on him, but when the first storm rolled in, I decided to sample other climes, and I climbed on the Ninja and rode south all the way to the sea.”

  Miranda glances at her father. Thorne is wild-eyed, on the verge of another explosion. “It’s true then, isn’t it? You betrayed me. You betrayed your own father with him.”

  “It wasn’t a betrayal. Not at all. I ran into him at school. I thought he and I could bring our families back together, like we used to be.”

  “Our family and the Coyles? Are you mad? I would slit my own throat before I would have anything to do with Anthony Coyle.”

  “I know that now, Daddy. It was a pipe dream. I was foolish. I am so sorry.”

  Something in her father’s eyes tells Miranda that he is thinking unbearable thoughts, but for the moment, she can’t help him. “I have to go to the hospital now, Daddy. I have to see what’s happened to Rose and Poe.”

  Airmail hops off the counter. “I can whisk you there in two shakes on the back of the Ninja,” he says.

  “Thanks, but in this weather I think I’ll pass. I’ll take my VW.”

  Miranda dashes upstairs to get dressed. Airmail helps himself to another Rolling Rock. Thorne takes up his walking stick from its place by the door and sits heavily, studying his handiwork, running his fingertips over the Alpha and Omega, the intertwined strands of DNA, the Buddha and Muhammad and Christ, wondering if the staff has turned him into a sorcerer. He feels as though he ought to toss the thing into the fire before it does more harm, but he can’t bring himself to part with such a beautiful object.

  ~

  With the angels

  Poe knows that light. It’s bus-station light. Flat light without shadows, light that takes the hollows out of things. He knows it from the army winter, when he and Rose took the bus across America. Rose always ordered the same thing in the bus-station diners, three grilled cheese sandwiches and an extra-large Cherry Coke hold-the-ice for Poe, a tuna-fish sandwich and a glass of milk for herself. The sandwiches in every bus station came with the same long thin slice of dill pickle and a heap o
f potato chips, just like you’d get at the Woolworth’s counter in Bunker’s Corner. People always stared, pretending not to stare but staring all the same, and the whispers started up until they attracted a gallery of watchers. I swear as I live and breathe there’s a man the size of King Kong sitting right there on two stools at the counter gobbling up grilled cheese sandwiches like they was going to outlaw them tomorrow, did you see him? Gawd how could a fella that size fit on a bus? I hope he ain’t goin far.

  In the bus stations there were always lone soldiers in uniform headed in all directions and whole families who dozed piled against one another, shoulder to hip, head to knee, grandmas and grandkids and teenagers and pregnant mothers and worried fathers pulling out their billfolds to have another peek and count the singles one more time, wondering if there was any chance at all this money would hold out for the bunch of them until they got to Abilene or Valdosta or Tuscarora, waiting on the hard shiny pews where slender slack-limbed Indians slept with an elbow for a pillow, noses twitching at the ammonia stink of a mop bucket wielded by a stooped brown woman with gray hair who spoke no English and worked without pause, mopping around the sleepers and the lovers, the bankrupt and the desperate and the mind-gone crazies babbling at the moon.

  No matter what he was doing, Poe always paused to listen enthralled to the voice of God booming from the loudspeakers above at regular intervals, intoning the names of places he’d never been: Bus to Renton, Kent, Tacoma, Lakewood, South Hills, Centralia, Longview, St. Helen’s, Portland, Beaverton, Salem, Albany, Corvallis, Eugene, Roseburg, Medford, Ashland, Redding, Red Bluff, Chico, Yuba City, Roseville, and Sacramento, leaving in five minutes from Gate 17.

  Poe hears footsteps and smells the perfume of angels. His head throbs. It feels like his arms are tied down and he can’t move. He can hear beeping sounds and he can see the bus-station light, and he thinks maybe he’s dead and this is heaven, and he listens to the sweet-smelling angels talking.

  “Can you believe it? A bunch of them rotten good-for-nothings that hang out at the Bald Eagle tried to kill this poor man and his mama. Burned their house down and then tried to stone them to death, like this is one of those godawful countries where they stone people. They would have killed them, too, except that young deputy came to the rescue. Travis Proulx.”

  “He’s cute.”

  “Poe?”

  “Travis, silly!”

  “Oh, Travis! Yeah, but he’s no brighter than he has to be.”

  “I don’t care if he’s bright. Long as, you know. He has those dimples and that cleft in his chin and the blue eyes.”

  “God, don’t you ever think of nothing else?”

  “Not if I can help it! My friend Annie says nurses are just plain hornier than other people. You think that’s true?”

  “Maybe. So much death. Makes you want to grab on to life while you’ve got it. That’s my theory, anyhow, and I’m sticking to it.”

  They’re quiet for a bit, working, then Poe hears them talking about him.

  “So this is Poe. First time I’ve seen him up close. My God, he’s even bigger than they say. He really is a giant. There’s about two feet of him hanging off this bed.”

  “That’s why they brought the other bed in. We had to put two beds together.”

  “He’s the guy who attacked that girl, isn’t he? The one we had in here last summer? Miranda Thorne? The one whose father was always after us for not doing our jobs right?”

  “Yeah, her. Anyhow, they turned him loose.”

  “Who? The dad? They turned the dad loose?”

  “No. This guy. The one with the bandage on his head. Poe what’s-his-name. They had a jury trial and they turned him loose yesterday afternoon. I imagine somebody didn’t like it, so those demented devils tried to kill him. Where have you been? On Mars?”

  “No. I’ve been with Jimmy again. I haven’t seen the news, read the paper, nothing. A month now it’s been like this. I think it’s true love. He never seems to get tired.”

  “Sounds more like true lust to me. That’s what happens when you have a young boyfriend. Cradle robber.”

  “He’s twenty. That’s only three years younger than me.”

  “I’m jealous. That’s what I need for these long winter nights, a guy like your Jimmy. All I have is Steve, and he’s snoring before I can get Arianna down, same thing every night. Geez, did you see this IV? Marlene must’ve had trouble finding a vein in that big old arm when they brought him in. He looks like a pincushion. Poor man.”

  “So what are we dealing with?”

  “Concussion. Lost a lot of blood. Head wound, other gashes all over him from the rocks. The head wound bled like a stuck pig. He got two units before he stabilized. Dr. Jennings said he put a hundred and eighty stitches in the man. He took a rock in the mouth and lost four teeth, too. Some ribs are broken and his legs are black and blue, up and down. He got hit all over the place. Worst of it is they shattered his kneecap. He’ll need an operation to put that back together, if they can do it at all on a man his size. Some burns, too, but the burns were first and second degree, could have been worse. Oh, and frostbite. He was barefoot out there and it’s freezing. He has six toes, did you notice? Six fingers, too. I heard they might have to amputate one toe on each foot, make him like everybody else.”

  “There isn’t anything they could do that would make this man like everybody else. What about his mother?”

  “Second-degree burns on her back and arm and smoke inhalation. She’s bruised pretty bad. I heard they were throwing rocks at her when she was out cold. Imagine stoning an unconscious woman? Who does a thing like that? She’s in the burn unit, but they say she’ll survive. Could have been a whole lot worse. They say the big fella carried her out of that fire, saved her life. We got a bunch more came in, too. One old man, a friend of theirs, Bill something-or-other, he has two broken legs. A kid ran him down with a snowmobile. One of those boys got an ass full of buckshot, serves him right. A few of the others are banged up pretty bad, but they’ll all live. Kind of a miracle that everybody got out of this alive, I guess.”

  Poe tries to speak to the angels, but his jaw won’t move. He hurts all over, but the bus-station lights are making him very tired, and he falls asleep.

  ~

  Aftermath

  Belle Coeur hunkers down after the blaze, sullen and contrite under the winter sun, licking its wounds. The temperature drops and drops again. At thirty below zero, everything in the county grinds to a halt. The few cars that will start without jumper cables groan in protest, and the drivers shiver as they head out to run the errands that have to be run.

  Fourteen men and two young women from the county face charges ranging from arson to public drunkenness to attempted manslaughter in connection with the attack on Rose and Poe. The father of the blond youth whose buttocks caught thirty-seven pellets from Bill De Graaff’s shotgun attempts to sue Wild Bill, but he’s laughed out of court by a judge who points out that Bill’s intervention might have saved the boy from a murder rap. Four of the accused are descendants of Lambert Cain’s clients. When the parents and grandparents come calling, expecting the youngsters to get off with a slap on the wrist and a warning, Cain refuses to represent them. He’ll lose a few clients, maybe, but the money doesn’t matter. After what they’ve done, these young people deserve to take their chances with Gerald B. Nye, the public defender. Having won the most important case of his life, Lambert has decided that it’s time to take down his shingle. The wealthy folk of Belle Coeur County will grumble, perhaps, but they will survive without him, because people do.

  At the end of what seems like an eon of winter, the ice on the Belle Coeur River cracks with a noise like cannon fire. A few bedraggled tulips stagger out of the ground, peek at the sun, are buried by fresh spring snow, and pop out again, stronger and brighter. The denizens of Belle Coeur County surface from their homes, blink at one another, an
d begin convincing themselves they had nothing whatsoever to do with the stoning of Rose Didelot and her son, the giant Poe.

  Jim Dunn is having none of it. He has seen the worst of what his fellow citizens are capable, and it’s more than enough. The verities of his youth — scout’s honor and never tell a lie and respect your elders — have long vanished, replaced by a viciousness in public discourse that sickens him. For most of his career as a lawman, he has loved his job, but the events out at Rose’s place, the things people already call “the Happenings” as though what occurred was a divine accident, have left him wondering if the people of Belle Coeur County deserve his protection. Teenagers did the burning and hurled the stones, but they were egged on at home by their parents, taught a malignant brand of hatred that has poisoned the water and fouled the air. Dunn wants nothing more to do with it. His retirement is approaching and he’s ready to make that blue highways tour around the continent he’s been promising himself for twenty years, but there is one item of business that must be taken care of before he can leave. He has an unsolved sexual assault on the books, and he wants that case closed. For Poe’s sake, for Miranda, for himself as an officer of the law. Once it’s solved, he can ride away with a clear conscience.

  Miranda has supplied one missing bit of evidence. She has informed him that her ex-boyfriend, Sebastian Coyle, had indeed been in Belle Coeur County shortly before the attack. She doesn’t recall seeing him, but the courier Airmail, a friend of her father’s, had seen the young man and found his name on the register at the Manitou Mountain Motel.

  When the sheriff attempts to interview the young man, he is informed that Sebastian Coyle is traveling somewhere in Southeast Asia and cannot be reached. It could be a coincidence, or it could be that Coyle is hiding out on the other side of the world until things cool down. The fact he was in the area when Miranda was attacked is enough to make him a suspect, but not enough to bring charges.