Doc Banes had given up—Graham could see it in the old man’s eyes. Banes was not long for this world, and he probably wouldn’t mind if all of the human race was wiped out in the next few months: all the more souls to escort him on his journey to the afterlife. Graham wasn’t so sure he believed in an afterlife, but whether or not there was anything beyond, he was still determined to make this world as hospitable and safe as possible while he remained.
Frank had barely slept the last few days. There was nothing to tire him, nothing to tax his body or spirit, and long after eating the meager suppers they’d given him, he would sit there thinking, his mind more places than he could control. He thought of Sepenski and the other dead soldiers, thought of their laughter and their taunts, thought of the C.O. and his weak attempt at push-ups and the water hose and the broomsticks that had turned into bayonets. If only they’d stayed broomsticks. He thought of Michelle and wondered where she was, what she thought of him. He thought about his family being told that he was a deserter, which would have been bad enough. But a spy? Surely they would know better, would refuse to look those army officers in the eye as they spouted their drivel. They would steadfastly hold on to their vision of Francis Joseph Summers as an upstanding and patriotic and God-fearing man. The only thing Frank wasn’t sure of was whether that vision was accurate any longer or if he had forever dispelled it with his actions.
His mind was doing things to him. He was certain one time that Michelle was there with him, that she was upstairs, that the people of this forsaken town had for some reason invited her in. Maybe they thought she could get him to confess to being a spy. She had stood at the top of the stairs and said she would come down only when he told the truth. He’d replied that he had told them the truth, but she chastised him for being dishonest with her. Finally he had screamed at her and she stopped talking, walked away. Another time he felt himself reenacting a conversation with his father, a long talk about duty and honor and all the reasons why enlisting was the right thing to do. It was a talk they’d had several months ago, and Frank had agreed with everything his father had said, only this time Frank found himself taking a contrary opinion. What the hell’s so honorable about it? Duty to whom? To myself, or to the guys who would be fighting without me, or to the people here at home afraid of the Hun? Or duty to President Wilson, or to Carnegie, or to God, or to all the fallen soldiers before me, to Great-granddad Emmett and his bleached bones down at Antietam? His father had shaken his head at him and walked away—not at all how the conversation had ended the first time, when Frank’s father had stepped forward and suddenly hugged his son, something he’d never done before.
But Philip’s visit—that had been real, right? Frank had thought otherwise at first, had figured it was the latest trick of his mind. But at some point he realized that this really was an actual person visiting him and talking to him—unlike the guards, who always brought the food and never said a word, their dry lips sealed behind gauze masks. Philip wore no mask and wanted to talk, wanted to hear Frank’s voice, to know him again. And the emotion that had been bottled up in Frank, then shaken and crammed into too small a space, had exploded, pouring out, and not until he had stopped shaking did he realize that it was the prison of his memories more than that of the chains that was so unbearable.
Philip’s visit—that had been yesterday, hadn’t it? Philip had said he would come back to free Frank. Had it been only a day? The absolute lack of sunlight in the prison was no longer bothersome to Frank; it had become expected. How long had it been since he was outside? Over a week, perhaps. He thought of the clouds and the sun melting the mountaintops in the distance beyond Missoula, of the vultures and buzzards that hung in the summer sky, of the kites he’d flown with his sister, who could not see them but loved the feel of the wind tugging at her hand as she grasped the roll of string, who thrilled at the knowledge that she was a part of something vast and overwhelming and beautiful, even if it was invisible.
Frank and the C.O. had escaped from the truck when it stopped at an outpost in a town they didn’t know, had marched through the surrounding forest all through the remainder of the night and continued to march the next day. They didn’t know where they were going, only that they would soon be pursued and therefore needed to create distance.
They found a place to sleep, a high spot that had stayed reasonably dry despite the rains. They had lain there beside each other, silent. At some point Frank had started crying and so had the C.O., and Frank saw the C.O. shaking his head over and over and saw him shivering and then Frank realized he was, too, and as they lay there in the cold they leaned in to each other and then clasped each other closer. Frank remembered the sound of the C.O.’s tears and the feel of the C.O.’s tensed fingers digging into his shoulders, remembered the feel of the C.O.’s tunic on his face as he buried his tears in it. They had lain there until they fell asleep, crying onto each other’s shoulders and holding each other tight for warmth and for reassurance that they weren’t completely alone in their fate.
They spoke little the next day. It didn’t occur to Frank until later that the C.O. had never thanked him for his aid that night in the storeroom. Perhaps the C.O. knew that if Frank hadn’t stepped in, his painful beatings may have continued but at least he wouldn’t have been condemned to death, as he was now. Frank would still be an honorable soldier, waiting for the flu to pass so he could be shipped off to France. The C.O. had never thanked him and Frank didn’t really feel like he deserved any thanks.
So maybe that was why Frank hated the C.O. so much. Maybe Frank blamed the whole situation on him. The morning after they had held each other, Frank had woken up and started walking. He pretended these were the woods outside Paris and that his pursuers were not the U.S. Army or police but the bloodthirsty, nun-raping Heinies, and he marched as fast as he could and never stopped, never looked back. He marched through the forest for hours, his feet sore and his stomach crying out for sustenance. He kept the road just barely in sight to his left, and when he finally took a break to relieve himself in the woods he saw that the C.O. was gone.
The sound of footsteps stirred Frank from his memories. The footsteps grew louder, tapping now down the stairs. They were heavy. Philip? The light from another lantern softly fell on the floor below, gracefully touching down without a sound except the footsteps, one and two more. And then a man standing before him, tall and strong, his face blank above the gauze mask but the skin around his eyes pulled tight in concentration. It was the man Frank had struggled against when he’d first seen the chains they meant to fix on his ankles, the man who had knocked him down with one blow—the man they called Graham.
“You’re awake,” the man said, sounding somewhat disappointed.
“Couldn’t fall asleep with all the racket,” Frank replied, making a joke despite himself. Always jokes when there was no reason, always stupid comments when he was in a dire situation, like offering to do push-ups to prove to Philip that he wasn’t sick. There was a large man in the room and he had brought no food and there was no overt purpose for him being here.
“Well, it’s your lucky day,” the guard said. He reached into his pocket, and the hand emerged with something metal and shiny. “We’re letting you go.”
Graham was holding a key.
“Are you with Philip?” Frank asked.
Graham eyed him strangely. “Philip’s at home.” Then he stepped closer with the key. “Better back up a bit.”
Frank lifted himself up, his knees aching as the stiff muscles and ligaments were forced from their positions for the first time in hours. He felt the blood rush to his feet, reminding them they had a purpose.
“Thank you,” Frank said, backing away so Graham could bend down and reach the lock, and then Frank heard the click he had been dreaming about. He reached forward to untangle the chains, but Graham shook him off.
“I’ll do it,” Graham said. “Just hold back.”
Frank nodded; he couldn’t tell if this man still fear
ed him, so he tried to act as harmless and compliant as possible.
After the chains were removed, Graham stood back up and took from his pocket a thick knife five inches long. “Better give me your hands,” he said.
Frank stepped forward, closer to Graham, and lifted his arms, presenting his bound wrists. The rope was thick and he hoped Graham would be able to cut the coils without digging into his wrists, especially since they had been bound palms-up, exposing his steel-blue veins. But after Graham put one hand on Frank’s wrists, the blade shifted in Graham’s clenched fist and his arm lunged forward. Frank felt first a long pinch, as if the skin of his chest were being grabbed by a clawed beast, and then a hot and violent pain deep in his chest, flooding his entire body and causing every muscle to spasm. He reached forward with his nearly useless hands and tried to grab Graham’s arm but the arm moved, pulling back and lunging a second time, driving the blade deeper. Frank finally grabbed hold of Graham’s fist, trying in vain to break his grip on the hilt of the knife, the only part of it that wasn’t jammed into Frank’s muscles and bones and heart. Graham’s other hand clamped down on one of Frank’s. Frank slipped and his back was pressed into the wall and the blade sank deeper still and all the air was forced from his lungs. His fingers and Graham’s interlocked like the opposing hands of a man praying. Frank’s eyes fixed on Graham’s, which were wide and determined as he forcefully exhaled and twisted the knife. Frank would never see Michelle again and never be allowed to argue his case before the military or at least his father, tell him that Dad you always said do right by God and do right by others and remember there’s no difference between the two, the action that pleases one pleases the other, and Dad I swear I tried to do both even when it seemed they weren’t the same, I swear I tried to do right and if I failed in that simple goal then I suppose the fault is mine, and mine alone.
Graham’s fingers were still interlocked with Frank’s. He finally let go and released the hilt, allowing the body to slide off the wall and onto the ground.
It had taken longer than he had thought it would; the soldier had suffered more than Graham had hoped. Graham would have liked to do it while the man slept but unfortunately that hadn’t been possible. He turned around and grabbed the blanket, wrapping it around the soldier’s body, covering him so most of the blood would be absorbed rather than staining the floor. There was already some blood spilled, but not much. Graham also had blood on his fingers, blood that had seeped onto them as he’d held the blade in place and let it do its work, so he reached down and grabbed the end of the blanket and wiped them clean. He retrieved his gloves from his pockets and put them on, something he realized he should have done before. His mind had been on other things.
When he was a kid his father had bought two enormous hogs from a visiting trader, two behemoths that looked healthy as could be. But within days, the other hogs all became sick, some of them dying. Graham’s father was not a rich man, and he couldn’t afford to have swine fever kill off what few hogs he had to his name; nor could he afford to get rid of the two hogs that seemed to have brought the strange plague with them. Yet Graham remembered helping his father go out back one morning and slaughter those two giant beasts, killing them and burying their bodies right by the edge of their property. It was a lot of money he was burying, money spent in hopes of a good investment but costing him far more than he could have imagined. Young Graham had asked his father why they couldn’t just release the two hogs—which had still seemed healthy the morning they were killed—or maybe put them in a separate pen where they wouldn’t have sickened the others, but his father said it had to be done this way. They had disturbed the air somehow, and the only way to purge that disturbance was with blood. If he had let those two hogs go, the air would have remained foul, would have stayed that way forever and doomed all their livestock and possibly even the Stone family as well. His father had not relished this chore, and it would put the family in somewhat hard times for another year, but he’d had no choice, he told Graham. After the two hogs were slaughtered the remainder became healthy again, practically overnight, vindicating his father’s decision.
Graham, standing over the dead man wrapped in the meager blanket, hated what he had done and hated that he’d had to do it, but that was the way it was and there was no point questioning it. Killing the soldier was what the town needed. He didn’t understand why no one else could see this, or, if they indeed saw it, why everyone else had refused to act on it. This man had brought something upon the town, had fouled the air or carried a curse. He was slowly killing them off, one by one. Whether a spy or simply a soldier, he was indeed a murderer. Graham had done the right thing when the first soldier had approached, had saved the town, and by removing this soldier, he had done right again. This deed, though painful, would maintain the purity of his earlier act.
The dying would stop now, Graham knew. Maybe not right away, maybe not until a storm had washed the town clean or a good wind had blown away the rank air, but it would end soon. They would still uphold the quarantine, could still avoid the fate of Timber Falls and those other towns. They could leave those ridiculous gauze masks in a cabinet somewhere, a memento of a time they would try to forget.
Graham decided to leave the knife in the body rather than retrieving it and cleaning it. No more blood. He reached down and lifted the body, which was heavy but nothing he couldn’t manage, and let it fold over his left shoulder. He grabbed his lantern and slowly made his way up the steps. Leaving the building and closing the door behind him, he carefully laid the body over Icarus. Graham climbed up behind the body and guided Icarus past the building and into the woods, along one of the old trails leading farther up the hill.
It had already been cold out, but now it felt like the temperature had dropped another ten degrees. Graham’s fingers gradually lost all their heat through the insufficient gloves, and the haze of warm breath escaping through his gauze mask hung before his eyes. Icarus moved slowly and carefully, possibly spooked by the way the tree trunks looked in the lantern light, their bottom twenty feet illuminated but the rest fading into nothingness, nothing but the spirits of the forest hanging above them. Or perhaps the horse was spooked because he sensed he was carrying dead freight, that the faint wetness he felt along some of his vertebrae was the blood of a man who had been alive only moments ago. The earth crunched beneath Icarus’s hooves, and Graham swayed as they proceeded along the uneven ground.
Graham rode until he reached the clearing he had been seeking. He dismounted and tied Icarus at its edge, then grabbed the soldier’s body by the feet and tugged. The body slipped off the horse and landed roughly on the ground. Graham bent down and lifted the body on his shoulder again, walking to the outer circumference of the lantern’s light.
The light barely traced the edges of the grave Graham had dug earlier. His shoulders and arms were still tired from the digging; each shovelful had been a painful extraction, as the earth had been wet from the recent rains and cold from the long nights. He dropped the body into the grave and looked at it down there, the way the blanket had rolled up, exposing the soldier’s feet and hair. The sight of the partially covered body lying there in a filthy blanket in the dark and wet grave struck Graham in a way that even the act of killing had not. He wanted to apologize to the soldier, but he reached for the shovel and began to fill the grave.
Mo had agreed to lend Graham his horse with the understanding that Graham would use Icarus to ride the living soldier out of town, giving him a head start to someplace else. Graham had said he would ride over the back trails a few miles, far enough to get the soldier away from Commonwealth but not so far that Graham would risk bumping into anyone from the outside. The next morning Rankle and another man—who were not in on the plan; Graham knew that Rankle would not approve—would take over guard duty, and when it was time to bring the prisoner some food, they would discover him gone. They would also discover a hole in the back of the building, which Mo had secretly made that morning. No one wo
uld ever figure out how the soldier had let himself out of those chains, but it wouldn’t matter—he was gone, he was part of the past.
Mo assented to the plan because he, too, was beginning to think the soldier was the problem. In truth, Mo hadn’t quite understood the reasons for keeping him captive these last few days, the reasons Charles and Doc Banes had presented and Rankle had echoed. So when Graham had told him the plan, Mo had agreed, clearly pleased that all he had to do was make a hole in a wall and lend Graham his horse, then play dumb the next morning.
By the time the grave was filled, Graham’s arms were so heavy he wouldn’t have been able to lift them above his head if he had tried, wouldn’t have been able to reach up to the heavens even if he hadn’t been scared to do so. He patted down the freshly turned earth, hoping that no one would cross this way for some time, at least not until after several good rains had flattened the dirt. This was a seldom used trail, leading only deeper into the forbidding woods and hilly terrain, away from the river and the lumber camps.
Graham dropped the shovel and took off the gauze mask, which had made his work all the more tiring, as if it were smothering him, his mouth and nose trapped by the wet second skin. He untied Icarus, picked up the lantern, and took a final look at the fresh grave. Then he rode back to town, past the storage buildings and beyond, back to Mo’s house, where he returned the horse to the stable. The town was dark and peaceful, not even Doc Banes anywhere to be seen.
Graham’s steps were slow as he made his way back to the storage buildings, where he would stand for the rest of the night, guarding a building with no one inside it, waiting for the foulness to pass.
XVII
Charles walked to work early the next morning; his sleep had been brought to a premature conclusion by nightmares about the mill failing, the town in ruins. But the waking world proved no more peaceful.
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