by Robert Inman
Darkness came. His body gradually unwound, the tight spring of a clock coming slowly apart until time disappeared. Every muscle, every nerve ached. He rose to his knees and looked out through the window that faced the river. He could see the winking red lights of the radio towers off yonder across the river, could hear the Cape Fear itself, a murmur, more like a vibration, so low that you had to be very still and quiet to catch it.
The fever subsided, the ghosts receded into the darkness, leaving him lost and utterly drained. Exhausted, he slept.
*****
“ Min,” he said at breakfast several days later, “I’ve been accepted at Chapel Hill.”
The tiniest flicker of something -- pain, fear, disappointment, regret? -- crossed her face and then was gone. He felt a quick thrill of satisfaction at the wounding, and then he regretted it. She hadn’t intended to damage him, he was pretty sure of that. Maybe she had, as Wingfoot said, just done the best she could. He was the one who had done the damage.
“I’ve got a loan for the tuition and I’ll get a job.”
He hadn’t told Min a thing about applying for admission. He just sent off for the forms, signing “Tyler D. Baggett” where it said “Parent or Guardian,” and then watched the mail box up by the road to intercept the package when it came.
Min rose and busied herself clearing the table. She didn’t say anything for a good long while. Finally, “Why don’t you take the afternoon off,” she said. “I can manage the store.” Then she was gone and it was time for the school bus.
*****
Min came to him in late August with a check for six hundred dollars. “It’s from the car,” she said. “I told you I’d save it for your college education.”
That was all that was said. The next morning he hitchhiked to Southport and went to a used car lot and bought a 1954 Plymouth. It wasn’t a Cadillac convertible, but it would do. There was enough money left over for a tank of gas and a few bills in his pocket. He drove it home, packed it up, and set out for Chapel Hill.
As he drove through the afternoon he made a pact with himself. He would leave Baggett House and all it represented there on the Cape Fear with its shallow graves and its great legion of ghosts. He might forever be a Baggett, but he would not be a prisoner of the name, would not be shackled by anybody’s past -- his own or anyone else’s. See what it had done to Min and Wingfoot? No, he would make his own way, as French had said long ago he might, as Tyler had done. It was, perhaps, a way of atoning in part for his betrayal.
He would save himself. He would be somebody, by God. One thing for damned sure, he wasn’t going to spend his life being disappointed. Or on probation.
BOOK THREE
NINE
They took Interstate 40 toward Wilmington -- Wingfoot driving the Ford van, Will propped in the bucket seat beside him with plenty of room for his leg to stretch out -- but then they veered off after awhile onto the old back way, Highway 421.
“Why are you going this way?” Will asked.
“Are you in a hurry?”
“Not really.”
“That’s good, Wilbur. A fellow ought not to be in a hurry.”
Will smiled to himself. Wilbur. Nobody’s called me that in a good long while. Not since he had gone off to Chapel Hill and introduced himself as Will Baggett, not Wilbur, because he wanted to get a fresh start. The other thing -- well, yes, he supposed he’d been in a powerful hurry for a good long while. But here on Highway 421 in the dark, cruising mostly on two-lane toward Clinton and Delway and Harrells, it seemed to make sense not to be in a hurry. He decided to give himself over to the novelty of it. They rolled the windows down and let in the night air, cool and Spring-laden, and they turned on the radio and got an AM station out of Richmond that was playing country music for truckers.
He looked over at Wingfoot, who drove in a half-slouch, elbow resting on the open window, right hand draped over the steering wheel. Will hadn’t seen him in more than four years, not since he had turned up unexpectedly at Palmer’s graduation from high school. Min hadn’t come, but Wingfoot had. The other surprising thing, besides Wingfoot showing up, was that he had been entirely at ease around Palmer and Clarice and Clarice’s folks, the Greensboro Palmers. He wore a nice navy blue suit and a yellow tie and his shoes were shined and he looked and acted right at home with the rest of them. He still had that fit, erect military bearing about him and he moved with the ease and grace of an athlete, but there was none of the old white-hot intensity. He seemed like a man who had made some accomodation with himself. Will had meant to visit with him, to ask him how his life was going, but when the ceremony was over and the photos taken, Clarice’s family had hustled them off toward Greensboro where luncheon waited at the country club and Wingfoot had headed on back to the Cape Fear, where he said he was living then, off and on. There hadn’t been occasion for them to be together since then.
“You look good,” Will said now.
“How so?”
“Fit. Solid. Like you’ve come to grips with yourself.”
“How about you, Wilbur?”
“Well, since the last time I saw you, I’ve gained weight, lost my job, and made a goddamn fool of myself.”
Wingfoot looked over at him. “All sorts of shit has hit the fan, huh?”
“All sorts.” He stared out the window for awhile at the passing lights of farm houses and crossroads stores and the blur of plowed fields in moonlight, waiting for the planting of a new tobacco crop. On the radio, Hank Williams, Junior was singing a song about getting buck naked. Finally Will asked, “Why?”
Wingfoot knew what he meant. “Min thought a fellow in your sorry shape should come home.”
“For what?”
“Sympathy, rejuvenation, blueberry pancakes…” He shrugged.
“It’s been awhile. I haven’t had any communication with Min, except for Christmas and birthday cards, for a couple of years. Is she okay?”
“I suppose,” Wingfoot said, “you’ll have to judge for yourself.”
They fell silent then and Will leaned back and let April blow fresh on his face. He had taken another pain pill just before they left the house and his mind mellowed and eased into untroubled sleep.
He woke as they reached Wilmington and passed over the Cape Fear River where the gray hulk of the battleship USS North Carolina, outlined in twinkling lights, hunkered at its memorial park below the bridge.
Wingfoot recalled how, as a child, he and his elementary school comrades had collected nickels and pennies to help save the old battlewagon from the scrap heap. From his perch in the big liveoak next to the river, he had watched as the ship glided past, nursed by tugboats, on the final leg of its journey from Bremerton, Washington to its resting place. “It was the most magnificent sight I’d ever seen,” Wingfoot said. “It made me downright giddy and I had to hold on tight to the liveoak to keep from falling out.”
“Did it make you want to be an admiral instead of a general?” Will asked. He was not sure he ought to broach what might be an old, painful subject with Wingfoot, but in his half-fog, just easing out of sleep, his voice took its own path.
“I thought about it for a little while,” Wingfoot said, “but then not long after that was when Papa took me to West Point. I decided that if I was gonna buy the farm, I’d rather get it on a battlefield, where I could fight back, instead of being torpedoed or eaten by sharks.”
“But you did neither.”
“We can talk about that sometime,” Wingfoot said. “I’m okay with it.”
On the east side of the Cape Fear they turned south on Highway 133, paralleling the river for several miles, passing Min’s store on the left and, a mile later, turning on the old plantation road. Then it was hard-packed sand under the canopy of moss-dripping liveoaks, until they reached the place where the road emerged from the trees and there was the house and the long sloping lawn and the liveoak and the expanse of river and marshland and the twin lights of the radio towers winking across the way.
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The house was ablaze with light and Min was standing at the back door peering out. She came to the car and opened the door and helped him out and got him situated on his crutches and then hugged him for a long time.
He breathed deeply of the night air, warm and soft as only mid-April along the Cape Fear River can be. Smell of the river, tinged with the slightly brassy aroma of marsh -- a river both tart and sweet, where salt water from the Atlantic mingled with fresh from upstream. It was, he thought suddenly, something he had missed without knowing it. It might be a place to heal. And then get back to his life.
When Min finally pulled away a bit he could see the glint of tears. “Come on in the house,” she tugged on his arm. “It’s good to have you home.”
He woke the next morning to the smell of bacon and eggs and pancakes. When he opened his eyes he had the strange, momentary thought that he was in a museum. Then he remembered that they had set up a cot for him in the study so that he wouldn’t have to negotiate the stairs with his bum knee. The room was exactly as he recalled it from that first visit years ago, when he had listened to Uncle French tell about the Baggetts and their baggage: paneled walls, mahogany and leather furniture, the oil-on-canvas visage of Squire Wilbur Baggett peering benignly down at him. It had been unchanged when he went off to college and it was unchanged now. Everything clean, neat. Just as it was.
When he hobbled into the kitchen on his crutches, Min was at the stove. Billy Hargreave was at the kitchen table, hunched over a mounded plate, attacking it with gusto. Billy waved a fork. “The walking wounded.” He was in dusky green uniform with dark green epaulets, a “Sheriff’s Department Brunswick County” patch on one shoulder and a silver nameplate that said simply, “Sheriff Hargreave.”
“Morning.”
“Wilbur!” Min called happily, jabbing the air with the spatula she was using to turn the pancakes. She had matured into a sturdy woman with strong gray hair that she kept close-cropped. “Sit down. I’ll have you a plate in a second.”
Will eased into a chair across from Billy, propped his crutches against the table, and stretched out his bum leg, encased in the plastic-and-velcro cast. It was still pretty sore, but he wasn’t feeling any of the sharp knife-thrusts of pain. “What time is it?”
Billy checked his watch. “Almost eight.”
“You show business people -- up all hours and sleeping away half the morning,” Min said. “How do you feel?”
“A little groggy. I think I’ll lay off those pain pills.”
Billy peered over at the cast. “Looks like you come in second in an ass-kicking contest,” he said around a fresh mouthful of pancake.
“Billy, if you’re going to be crude, you can eat out in the yard,” Min said from the stove.
“Yes ma’am.”
Min brought him a huge plate of food -- a stack of pancakes, already slathered with butter and maple syrup, a mound of scrambled eggs, several pieces of bacon and sausage.
“Good Lord,” Will said. “Are you trying to finish me off?”
“Shut up and eat,” she commanded. Will shrugged and started working on the breakfast. Min brought her own coffee to the table and sat down with them, watching the two men. “Is it any good at all?” she asked Billy.
“Tolerable,” he said with a grin.
“Is Wingfoot sleeping in?” Will asked.
There was a moment of silence, just enough to make Will notice. “Wingfoot has his own agenda,” Min said pleasantly. And then she rose quickly and took the coffee cup to the sink and poured out what was left. “Well, I’ve got to get moving. See what that Pakistani is up to.”
“Who?” Will asked.
“Hired help at the store. No telling what kind of mess he’s made. I usually open up so people can have their fresh coffee and cheese biscuits on the way to work. But with company this morning…” and she was gone, down the hall and up the stairs.
“Who’s this Pakistani?” Will asked.
“Actually, he’s from Lebanon,” Billy said. He was mopping up egg yolk with a biscuit.
“Is he legal?”
“He’s got papers.”
“How long has he been working for Min?”
“Couple of years. She still refers to him as the Pakistani.”
“To his face?”
“Yeah. He gave up trying to tell her. You know, when Min gets something in her head…”
A few minutes later, Min breezed back through the kitchen, purse in hand. “See you tonight. You know where everything is.” She bustled out the back door and in a moment he heard her car crank and pull away.
Billy pushed back from the table, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and dropped it onto the plate. “Damn!” he said with a satisfied smile. “That woman can flat cook a breakfast.” He rose and poured himself another cup of coffee and stood looking out at the morning through the window above the sink.
Will picked at his food, but he really wasn’t very hungry. The after-effect of the pain pills, probably. And all the rest of it. Maybe he would get in the habit, in his few days here on the Cape Fear, of eating less. Lose a little weight, get rid of the fleshiness around his chin and midsection before he went back to Raleigh. By the time his non-compete clause was up and he was back on the air, people would said, “Doesn’t Will Baggett look fit.”
“Haven’t seen you in a good while,” he said to Billy’s back as he pushed the plate away.
Billy turned to him and leaned against the counter. “Four or five years, prob’ly.”
In the vertical, Billy Hargreave filled up a room. Still six feet eight or so, broad in the shoulder and now, at middle age, a good-size paunch bulging the uniform shirt and easing over the wide leather belt at his middle. Imposing, the kind of law officer you probably didn’t want to mess with. At North Carolina State, he had been a bruiser on the basketball court (his teammates had named him “Takeout” because of his knack for doing grave damage to opposing teams’ best players). He had returned to Brunswick County after college, dabbled in business for awhile, and then run for Sheriff. Wingfoot had related to Will that Billy was very good at it. He carried no gun and wasn’t in the habit of chasing folks down with warrants. If Billy wanted to see you, he just sent word. But as big and imposing as he was, he had a gentle air about him, an easy smile.
There was a time, while Will was off at Chapel Hill, that he heard reports that Billy -- newly returned to the county -- was spending a good deal of time at Baggett House. If he was sweet on Min, nothing ever came of it. Billy had instead married a girl from Maryland he had met in college. But now, here he was in Min’s kitchen this April morning, having devoured an enormous breakfast that she had prepared for him and leaning against the counter sipping on his coffee as if he were right at home and always had been. Will wondered if the girl from Maryland minded. Was there something? Whatever, it wasn’t any of his business.
“How’s the sheriff business?” Will asked.
“Tolerable. The usual stuff -- some drugs, not too bad, kids with too much money, tourists that don’t know how to behave, occasional shooting or cutting, domestic stuff. Keeps us hopping.”
But Billy didn’t seem to be in a hopping mood this morning. He sipped on his coffee, looking over the top of the cup at Will. After a moment, he set the cup down on the counter and unlimbered himself. “Ready?”
“For what?”
“I’m your nursemaid this morning. I’m gonna get you a bath and change your diaper.”
He rode piggyback up the stairs and Billy helped him into the tub and left him to soap and soak for awhile, then hauled him out and helped him get dressed from the suitcase Min had left open on the bed in his old room. Will felt a little self-conscious about it, but if it bothered Billy, he didn’t show it.
He looked about the room as he struggled into his clothes. It too, like the study downstairs, seemed unchanged from the day he had left to go to Chapel Hill. Old high school textbooks on the desk, his saxophone in its case in a corner. Odd. Almos
t a time warp. Things preserved in amber. The difference here was himself -- middle aged, a few pounds overweight, unemployed, battered about the head and shoulders. A refugee, in a way, the same as he’d been more than thirty-five years ago when he and Rosanna had come here to Baggett House because there was no place else to go. At least, he thought, this time I’m not on probation.
“You know how to handle yourself on those crutches?”
They were standing at the top of the stairs now. “Not really. They showed me at the hospital, but I was pretty doped up and I don’t remember much about it.”
Billy took the crutches and Will steadied himself with a hand on the bannister. “Broke my foot one time when I was at State,” Billy said. He had to bend way over to get his armpits on the crutch pads. “When you’re going down the stairs, the crutches go first, then the foot. Like this.” He clumped down a couple of steps, then turned back. “Going up, it’s foot first, then the crutches. And be sure to keep your weight forward so you don’t topple over backwards.” He handed the crutches to Will. “You try it.”
Will peered down the stairwell. It seemed a great long way to the bottom. “Crutches first, then the foot.”
“Yeah,” Billy said. “Get it backwards and you’re likely to bust your ass.”
“Maybe I should give it a couple of days…”
“Nope. Just go ahead and do it, Wilbur. You only get a nursemaid for one day. After that, you’re on your own.”
While Billy fetched folding lawn chairs, Will leaned against the liveoak tree and gave the house a good looking-over. It had sagged and deteriorated even more in the four or five years (he couldn’t remember exactly) since he had last been here. Large chunks of plaster were missing, and what remained was dingy and moss-splotched. Paint was flaking from eaves and window sills. Some of the fascia boards beneath the roofline showed signs of rot. He remembered it from his youth as a grand, even forbidding place. But he had first begun to notice signs of decay the first time he had brought Clarice here, a couple of months after they were married. They had driven down from New Bern, and as they approached, she peered through the windshield of the car at the aging, sagging house and said, “It looks like a…tumor.” It was much worse now. And the lawn, once lush and green and immaculately kept, was a straggly stretch of sand and patches of grass. When Billy brought the chairs they turned them so that they faced the river.