by Lee Child
No matter.
Johnny was coming home.
And we watched as he rowed, and we waited until the little boat reached the docks, and then we all raced to him, descended upon him, really, tying up the rowboat, and helping him to the dock. His dear little sister, Janey Sue, immediately threw herself into his arms, nearly knocking him from the dock.
He hugged her in return; over her shoulder, he looked at me.
I was shocked.
Johnny and I had been together forever. We’d both been born and raised on the island. We had dreamed great visions for our future, and in those dreams, we would travel, but always return to our island. He wanted to be a teacher. Knowledge gave a man power and strength, he believed. Oh, Johnny had always been a thinker, and I had loved following the pro cesses in his mind.
But he’d been more than a thinker. Johnny had been a doer, a man who had always been strong, in a way, the typical Southern gentleman of his age. He could drink, ride, and shoot with the best of them, and also been able to repair any leak or damage done to Fairhaven, his estate on the island.
He was a man ahead of his time; he had joined the Confederate forces because he had believed in states rights. He had never believed in slavery—how could one human being, one soul, ever own another?—but he had also believed that change had to come about with laws that would help newly freed individuals make a living—survive, in short.
He had been . . . Johnny. Beautiful, such a handsome man. Smart, always careful in his thoughts and words. Strong, a man’s man, a woman’s man, in de pen dent, powerful, capable.
And now . . . .
Johnny was a shell of the man he had been. My father had warned me—war changed people. It brought out their strengths and their weaknesses, but either way, it changed a man for good. We had heard that Lee’s troops had been starving, so his emaciated shape shouldn’t have shocked me. His pallor had come about, certainly, because of his illness.
But I had never expected the look in his eyes.
Once, they had been the blue of the sky on a summer’s day, as brilliant and vital as Johnny himself. Once . . . they had brightened easily with laughter. Once upon a time, they had looked at me in way that had awakened every raw and erotic thought in my mind, and stirred my heart to a thunderous pounding. Once . . . .
They had been alive.
He looked at me now with recognition, but even the color in his eyes had changed. Now, they seemed so pale a blue as to be almost colorless.
It was as if . . . the color within them was dead. It was a ghost color, like the remnant of what had once been real and tangible, but now was nothing more than a memory.
I gave myself a shake. The town was welcoming him, but as he looked at me over his sister’s shoulder, he smiled slowly. A ghost of his old smile, but it was there, and suddenly, as dead as his eyes might appear, I saw that he had never forgotten what we had shared, that he loved me. I told myself that I was crazy. I rushed forward through the crowds, and he took me into his arms. Despite his fragile appearance, he swept me up in strong arms and swirled me around, and held me close.
“Now,” he whispered, “I have come home.”
I smiled at him; I was jubilant. Johnny was home.
Once he had been greeted by one and all, we helped him into the family carriage and headed to his home, Fairhaven. We were greeted at the door by Brambles, the butler, while in the foyer stood Brent, who had not come to the docks to meet Johnny. Brambles was all over himself, sputtering and crying as he greeted Johnny. Brent was more reserved, shaking his cousin’s hand. He was cordial, but visibly cool. Johnny was polite to everyone, saying all the right things.
When my father, Janey Sue, and Brambles led Johnny on into the dining room where a feast was awaiting his return, I held back, pulling on Brent’s arm. “You are—a horse’s ass!” I hissed to him. “What? Were you wishing that Johnny wouldn’t make it home? What’s the matter with you?”
I had grown up with Brent as well. He was lean and tall like Johnny, dark haired, handsome, light eyed, and he’d been bred with the same ethics. I couldn’t understand him being so bitter and churlish, not about Johnny coming home. I knew he’d taken some hard hits. He’d married a girl in Virginia, and she’d died before any of the family had even managed to meet her. To be sad and even bitter seemed to be one thing; to be so cold to his cousin seemed quite another.
Brent studied me. I couldn’t help but think that his eyes were green—not the beautiful blue Johnny’s had once been. And yet today . . .
They were alive. Deep set and steady, and somehow, wise beyond all that I had seen before.
“I loved Johnny like a brother,” he told me.
I frowned. “Then give him a hug and a real welcome, and be happy that he is home!” I told him.
He gripped my hands tightly. “Jules,” he said, his voice suddenly heated and passionate, “be careful. Be very careful, please.”
I jerked away from him, staring at him. “Be careful—of Johnny? Brent, you have lost your mind.”
I swept on into the dining room.
Mable, the cook, had gone all out. Johnny’s favorites were all on the table. There was ham, chicken, roasted lamb, cornbread, turnip greens, summer squash, tomatoes, fresh berries, and for dessert, sweet-potato-pecan pie.
Johnny barely touched his food. He thanked Mable and told her how delicious everything on the table tasted.
But he didn’t really eat. He simply pushed his food around the plate.
When the meal had ended, Janey Sue and I gave the gentlemen a few minutes alone in the study for brandy and cigars. She and I were both chafing. Johnny had just come home. And so much that was innocent and traditional had already been lost—why were we delegated to the ladies’ room?
“Time enough!” I said firmly. Janey Sue smiled, and she and I headed to the study.
Johnny was seated in his father’s huge old leatherback chair behind the desk. Brent was at the settee, and my father was standing by the mantle, perplexed as he watched Johnny. “What’s done is done. How would we change anything now?” My father was asking.
Brent seemed to be looking out the window, paying no mind to what was going on.
“Maybe the world needs a clean sweep,” Johnny said. “A mighty flood to rise up, and clear us all out, those who were greedy and made their fortunes on the backs of other men, and those who will sweep down now to make their fortunes on the broken backs of those trying to come to terms with the war. What has been . . . the past is gone. It can never be relived.”
He stood up. “My dear friends, and family,” Johnny said, glancing tenderly at his sister, glancing at Brent, “I am exhausted. Forgive me.”
Everyone agreed that he must rest. But I raced out into the hall after him. He didn’t mean me, of course. He would need me. Naturally, a Southern lady did not sleep with her beau until they were married.
But such myths had gone away in the river of bloodshed that had been the war. I had lain with Johnny many times. I did not shout it from the rooftops, nor did other Southern women, well aware that their opportunities for intimacy with their loved ones might be limited and quickly ended by a volley of cannon fire.
“Johnny!” I said, stopping, laying my head against his chest. “I will come up later, once we’ve settled for the night. Father will understand that I am staying with Janey Sue, and Janey Sue has long known that I stay with you.”
He pulled away and stared at me, frowning. He shook his head. “No, no, you must go home tonight.”
“Johnny—”
“Tonight, please. You must.” His hands cupped my face. “You must go home, far from here. You are not . . . you must. I love you as I have always loved you. But tonight, go home.”
He walked away from me. I stared after him, incredulous. I had missed our nights together. I had dreamed about them time and time again as I had prayed that he would return from the war.
My father emerged from the study. “Jules, we must go home, and le
t these fine folks rest for the night.”
“But—” I began.
“Jules, please,” my father insisted.
Brent stared at me. He was not going to help me. And even Janey Sue, next to Brent, appeared to be a little lost.
I had no choice but to leave with my father. I was not invited to stay.
The next morning, fishermen from Douglas Island boarded the schooner which had brought Johnny home, but not into the docks.
The schooner was empty. There was not a soul aboard her.
My father, commonly looked upon as the people’s leader on the island as we had no mayor or other governmental structure there, listened gravely to the men, then announced that we’d be going out to Fairhaven to speak with Johnny while he sent other men in one of our fastest ketches to alert the proper authorities on the mainland.
Brambles, deeply distressed, opened the door. He told my father that Johnny was doing poorly. He would get Mr. Brent.
Brent, looking worn, came to the foyer and led us into the study. My father told Brent about the lack of a crew or other passengers on the schooner. Brent listened gravely. I thought his face became more ashen as he did so.
“That’s quite a mystery,” Brent said.
“Surely, Johnny can tell us something!” my father said.
“Johnny is sedated right now; he had a very hard night,” Brent said. He grimaced. “I have laudanum, for my hip, you know. Johnny needed sleep, very badly,” he said.
“Well, I must speak with him. Authorities will come from the mainland, and they will demand to know something,” my father said.
Brent nodded. He looked like a man under torture. Still, I was resentful. I was convinced he was jealous of Johnny, and that he was hiding something.
“May I see Janey Sue?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “She is resting, as well.”
“Brent, damn you—!”
“Jules!” My father said with horror. “The war is over. We will not become animals because it existed, or because it is over!”
Brent looked away. “It’s all right, Mr. Shelby. I realize that my own behavior must appear far less than hospitable. Forgive me.”
I wanted to slap his face. My father, however, had my elbow. He apologized for me, and we were quickly out of the house.
“He’s doing something to Johnny—it’s Brent. Father! Maybe he’s trying to kill him. Brent would probably like to inherit the property. You must stop him!”
My father looked at me. He was grave, but didn’t share my fear or my passion. “Child, war is hard on the women who wait. It is devastating to the men who fight, who stare at their fellow human beings, sometimes look them in their eyes, and shoot them or stab them through with their knives or bayonets. Let it be; we will see. Brent knows that Johnny must answer to me. Give it the day.”
I had no intention of giving it a day. I rode out to Johnny’s beautiful Fairhaven, and I came around the back. I left Mathilda, my horse, behind the stables, grazing on long grasses, and I slipped through the kitchen door. I knew my way around the house, and I looked out for both Brambles and Mable as I climbed the stairs.
What I found horrified me.
Johnny’s room had been boarded; there were nails imbedded in the wooden planks that now walled him in. I walked to the door and called his name.
He did not answer. I tried and tried, and then hurried down the hall to Janey Sue’s room. Her door was not barricaded, but she wasn’t there.
I slipped from the house, furious now. Brent was locking his cousin away! What had he done with Janey Sue?
I rode hard, straight back to my home, determined that my father was going to do something, and do that something now. But he wasn’t there, and as I stood in the parlor of our home on Main Street, not far from the docks, I heard the shouting.
The sound was distant, but so loud it carried on the breeze. I left the house and ran down Main Street until I reached the long boardwalk that stretched out so that the larger ships could avail themselves of the deep harbor, and there, found the reason for the horror. People had backed away, but they were in a circle around something on the dock.
I pushed through the crowd.
And I saw what they saw.
Bodies. White, swollen, and bloated, and torn to shreds. They had been gnawed upon.
Eaten.
“Sharks,” someone cried. “The water is infested!”
“This was not a shark attack,” one of the older fishermen said. He shook his grizzled head, rubbing his chin. “This is not a shark attack. I’ve seen what the big fellows can do to a man left in the water. The bodies are . . . not missing any limbs. They’ve been chewed by something. But not a shark.”
As I stood there, Brent arrived at the docks. He pushed his way through the crowd until he could stare at the bodies. He became the color of burnt ash, and he turned around without a word, and strode back to his carriage.
I ran after him. I caught him at the end of the dock, grabbed his shoulder, and forced him to face me. He stared at me for a minute as if he didn’t even see me. I slapped him across the face, I was so scared and furious. “What is going on, Brent, damn you, what is going on? I went to the house. I saw what you did to Johnny, and I will not stand for it, do you hear me?”
He did then. The slap had angered him, but it had brought him back to the reality of the moment—and me, forcing the issue, in his face.
“Go away, Jules,” he said duly. “Go away, and lock yourself in your house. Better yet, take your father and go far, far away.”
“You have lost your mind, Brent. What are you going on about? What is happening?”
He hesitated, but then indicated the tavern on Main Street. He set an arm around my shoulder and led me toward it, and around to the benches that sat outdoors to where, in better times, many a fisherman and farmer had gathered together to drink beer and eat their noon meals.
Now, the area was empty, and he made me sit down.
Across from me, he closed his eyes for a moment as if gathering both his strength and his sense of sanity, then, he looked at me. “There’s something really wrong with Johnny.”
“What?” I demanded. “I know he has been at war. I know he might have been injured, I know that many men bear mental wounds, that they’ve seen things, but . . .”
“You saw the men on the dock,” he said. It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. “I’ve seen just a similar thing—before.”
“Go on,” I said, frowning, and truly puzzled. Maybe Brent had returned more damaged than any of us had imagined.
He let out a breath and looked at the moss dripping from one of the old oaks that bordered the small outdoor dining area. He didn’t want to look at me.
“It was at Cold Harbor,” he said.
I shook my head, still trying desperately to understand what he was talking about. I placed my hands on his. “Brent, Cold Harbor was a victory for Lee. I know that dead men are still dead men, and I know that more than two thousand of your own troops died as well, but—”
He looked at me, dead on. “Men die. It’s how they die that’s terrifying. We were near Bethesda Church, camped out there. Yes, it was a Rebel victory. But on the night of the tenth, there was a break, and two companies of Feds made it through the lines. We might have been slaughtered in our sleep, but Johnny was on guard duty.”
“So he saved your lives!” I told him.
Brent said, “We woke up and found them. At least fifty of them. Torn to pieces. Like the men on the dock. It wasn’t as if they had been killed; it was as if they had been eaten. I don’t know what happened; I never will. They were bloated from the sea, but they were . . . gnawed. Chewed. Eaten.”
I ripped my hands away from his and stood up. “Brent! You’re trying to say that Johnny did it, that Johnny . . . ate the men on the schooner? You must be insane! I’m telling my father what you said, I’m . . . Brent! You’re horrible, don’t you see that? How dare you imply that Johnny could . . . and where
is Janey Sue? She wasn’t at the house.”
He looked up at me, startled. “What?”
“Janey Sue isn’t at the house,” I told him.
Ignoring me, he jumped to his feet, and he was gone down the street. I saw him reach his horse, and in his wake, the road became dust.
I left him to find my father. At the docks, I was horrified to find that he’d left a message for me. He was gone. He had climbed aboard a boat with the bodies to take them back to the mainland.
I was frustrated beyond belief, but it was almost dark. I went back to my house, seething, trying to determine what I could do before he returned.
Finally, I determined that I would wait until the morning. In the daylight, I was going to find one of my father’s friends to accompany me out to Fairhaven, and I would demand that Brent produce Johnny and Janey Sue.
I locked my doors carefully, and I went upstairs to sleep. I tossed about, but finally dozed, and I believed it was Brent’s horrible story that made me dream. And in that dream, Johnny was outside. He was high in the branches of the massive oak beyond my window, begging that I let him in. I opened the window, deliriously happy to know that he was all right, and that he needed me.
But something was wrong with him.
His eyes. The color, the pale blue color, a dead color . . .
He was cold, although it was June, and he seemed strong, though he shouldn’t have been so strong. He held me, he cradled me, and then he pulled away from me. Suddenly, he seemed tortured, and he pushed me away. “No, God no,” he shouted. “Oh, God, no, oh, God, no!”
Then, he was gone. He leaped through the window, and he was gone.
I had been dreaming, of course. He had never been there. I opened my eyes and roused, and discovered that my window was open.
Through the open window, I heard the screams.
My father owned a Colt; he kept it in his drawer by his bed, and I raced to retrieve it, my fingers shaking as I loaded it with six bullets. I was in my nightdress, but I didn’t care. With slippers on my feet I went tearing from the house and down by the docks.