On the Rocks: A Willa Cather and Edith Lewis Mystery

by Sue Hallgarth

  “NO, unfortunately, no,” Willa nodded agreement.

  James tensed, wary.

  “What’s more,” Willa continued with an intake of breath, “the day you first delivered rocks you were wearing a red shirt. Am I correct, James? Under your jacket?”

  James wrapped his arms about his body.

  Edith felt her own eyes grow large.

  “And unless I miss my guess,” Willa pressed harder, “you recently lost or misplaced that shirt. Perhaps you mislaid it in the woods or let it slip overboard when you were out fishing. After all, it had already lost a button on its sleeve. Am I right, James?”

  James gripped his bottom lip in his teeth and made a single, sharp nod with his head. Then he sighed, a long, slow sigh. His hands released his ribs and cradled themselves on the arms of Adirondack.

  “Young James?” It was all Edith could think to say.

  DAGGETT rolled to a stop and cut the engine. Sunday peace. A light breeze, a warm sun, the waft of honeysuckle, the buzz of bees. Daggett loosened his collar.

  Four cars lounged before the church, almost as many automobiles as North Head contained. With the Chevrolet silenced, he could hear the joyous notes of the recessional. Any moment now, Father Morgan would throw open the heavy wooden doors and place himself so that his parishioners, filing past on the church porch, would stop for a word or two.

  Rising above North Head on the edge of town, the Anglican Church was impressive and protective. Its steeple, masonry, and brick set it apart from the rest of the island, where most of the buildings sported wooden clapboards or weathered shingles and nestled close to the earth.

  The Anglican fathers had dared the elements with their church, placing it just beyond the town on a hill facing east. There it led the eye both upward and outward, looking east over Flagg Cove to the Bay of Fundy. Daggett squinted in that direction. Nova Scotia was somewhere over there, reaching down with its gentle arm to shelter Grand Manan from the fierce Atlantic, but so far east even the most powerful telescope failed to catch sight of its shores.

  The rock of the church. The rock of the island. Bedrock, Daggett smiled to himself, settling more firmly in his seat. Strongholds, retreats. But storms came, he reminded himself, despite Nova Scotia. Too many storms. And no place on earth provided safe haven forever.

  “YOU know then.”

  “I believe I do.”

  Young James fixed his eyes on Willa, his body newly taut, his breathing once again shallow. Willa’s eyes were luminous and, for the moment, deeply blue.

  “I’ve been frightened so long,” James let the remaining air escape from his lungs. His body, decompressed, followed the contours of the Adirondack, lying against it inert like the Hindenburg without air.

  “Oh,” Edith reached over to cover his hand with her own. She patted the hand gently.

  “Miserably frightened, yes, I’m sure you have been,” Willa regarded the young man, her eyes thoughtful. “And for a long time, I’d wager. First of the man … of his finding you … and then of being found out about his death … which, I’ll also wager, you did … and did not … cause.”

  It was fully one minute before James took a breath.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve been in hiding ever since you came back from the mainland?”

  “Pretty much. Yes.”

  “You came home first to hide from the man, and when he died, you began to hide from everyone else …”

  “Yes.”

  “And you put on a false face, a mask …”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were frightened.”

  “Terrified, yes.”

  XXI

  WHENEVER ENDERBY CLEARED his throat, he lifted his hand as though he meant to assist the movement of his Adam’s apple. He often cleared his throat in church. The gesture never failed to catch Janey Dawson’s attention.

  “Good day to you, Mr. Enderby,” Janey rocked for a moment on the toes of her patent leather shoes and straightened the skirt of her best Sunday dress before stepping out into the aisle.

  Janey Dawson was growing up. James Enderby approved, nodding a greeting to her parents, who had not yet risen from the pew. The counter in Enderby’s bank had always been just beyond Janey’s reach, but it would not be much longer, Enderby guessed, watching Janey drop the coins her father had just given her into the pocket on her dress. She was careful to inspect the pocket first to detect holes. Enderby appreciated her prudence.

  “Good sermon today, didn’t you think, Mr. Enderby?” Eric Dawson reached across his wife to shake Enderby’s hand. Eric’s sister and Mary Daniels stood just behind. Mary finished straightening the prayer books in the racks at the back of her pew before entering the aisle.

  “Grand sermon,” Enderby agreed. “It is always a good thing to be reminded of tolerance and universal love,” he raised his hand again and coughed.

  “Especially now,” Eric glanced toward the back of the church, where Little John Winslow was pumping the priest’s hand.

  “No doubt congratulating Father Morgan on this morning’s wisdom,” Enderby followed Eric’s gaze. “I do wonder at times whether a man like Little John has any idea what casting a stone means. He might very well think it has something to do with Miss Briggs making one of her pots.”

  “I doubt it,” Eric chuckled, taking his wife’s arm, “Little John doesn’t know a thing about art … or the Bible.”

  “Mmmm,” Enderby agreed, “and I doubt that today’s sermon did much to enlighten him. I heard several snores emanating from the direction of Little John’s pew,” Enderby stepped back to make room for Mary Daniels.

  “You must join us for Sunday noon, James Enderby,” Mary Daniels took hold of his arm. “The Dawsons are coming, and you must too.”

  “That’s very kind of you, fair lady,” Enderby tucked Mary Daniels’ hand into the crook of his arm.

  “Good, then it’s settled,” Mary Daniels led the way toward the door.

  “THIS simply can’t be,” Edith could remain silent no longer. Until this moment, she thought she knew exactly what was in Willa’s mind. They finished each other’s sentences, for heaven’s sake. But this … well, this just wasn’t right. Willa had to be mistaken.

  “This young man would never do such a thing,” when Edith finally got the words out, she patted James’ hand with a firm sense of reassurance. She realized with a start that she actually felt self-righteous about the matter.

  “Correct,” Willa agreed with Edith but kept her eyes on James. “This young man,” she declared, “would not and could not do such a thing.”

  “There, you see.”

  James dropped his head.

  “But this young man did do such a thing,” Willa cleared her throat, “didn’t he, James?” Willa’s voice softened when she reached his name.

  James folded and refolded his hands. They were deeply tanned.

  “Didn’t he, James?” Willa repeated the phrase.

  “That was an evil man, Miss Cather,” the words shot out of James. He inhaled sharply, then held his breath. His hands fell open and lay motionless on his knees.

  “You didn’t mean to do it,” Edith had to feel her way. The novelist’s gift for grasping character and plot had always been Willa’s, she realized, not hers. She glanced at Willa for confirmation, “James couldn’t mean it.”

  “Exactly,” Willa sighed.

  “He was going to kill me, Miss Lewis,” James spoke the words quietly, but his hands gripped his knees. Then he freed them and began to rub his arms, elbow to shoulder, shoulder to elbow, as though the air held a chill. “He had a gun, Miss Lewis. I don’t know where it came from. His pocket, I guess. He made me take him to Seven Days Work. He wanted me to jump. He must have hated me. He said he wanted the highest cliff. The most remote,” James hesitated. His hands grasped again at his ribs.

  “But you got the gun away,” Edith began now to carry the scene forward on her own.

  “Yes,” James leaned into h
is words. “He stumbled, I grabbed hold of his arm. We fought. He fell. By the time he got up,” James half rose in his chair, “his gun was in my hand.”

  “And, and you threw the gun over the cliff,” Willa took up the narrative with a vehemence that surprised even Edith.

  “He ran at me. I shouted,” James nodded vigorously, “then there I was on the edge still holding the gun. He reached for it … and I threw it as far as I could,” James flung out his arm and opened his hand.

  “So,” Willa nodded and completed the scene, “he went over the edge diving after his gun.”

  “WHERE is young James keeping himself today?” James Enderby patted Mary Daniels’ hand, resting comfortably in the crook of his elbow. He was only being conversational but looked around expectantly. The young man was always putting away folding chairs or doing another of the chores he took upon himself. James was a good fellow. Enderby had always thought well of him. Most people did.

  “I wish I knew.”

  The sharpness of Mary’s reply surprised Enderby, but Mary wasn’t really paying attention, he realized. She was nodding to Elizabeth Daggett in the next pew and adding a smile for Jennifer. But when she did turn back to Enderby, she seemed absent still.

  “Wish you knew?”

  “James rarely misses his breakfast, you know,” Mary glanced up at Enderby, “but he never ate a bite this morning. And church, he never misses that,” she looked around quickly, “but this morning he did.”

  “He must have had something very important to do then,” Enderby patted her hand and they hurried to catch up with the Dawsons.

  “THEN it was an accident,” Edith reached the edge of her chair.

  “Self-defense, surely,” Willa pronounced.

  “Not murder,” Edith sank back, relieved. They did agree, then, all of them. She stared at James. He seemed composed, Willa serene.

  “Thank God, you understand,” James said the word softly. He too had dropped back into the lap of his Adirondack. It held him firm.

  Edith heard and saw again the frightening details of that day. They played in slow motion with a jerky stop-start, each frame freezing for momentary review. The sound of the waterfalls, the flash of red, the naughty spruce leaning back to touch the earth, the muffled shout, the gulls near the weir, the red shirt, its arm flung out. Then the body lunging, the body leaping, the body diving, the body reaching forward … toward a gun the red shirt flung out and Edith did not see. Now in her mind’s eye Edith followed the trajectory of the gun’s flight down to the sea, where, just as the waves were receding from the rocks, John Thomas Bush—his body tilted oddly throughout his decline—had also arrived.

  Naughty Spruce

  “GREETINGS and good day to you, my friend,” Enderby reached past Mary Daniels to shake Daggett’s hand. Enderby was always his heartiest on Sunday. “You should have been at the service. You’d have enjoyed the sermon.”

  Daggett grinned in reply, nodding to the Dawsons and Father Morgan. Daggett arrived at the front steps just as Enderby and Mary Daniels came through the church door with Jenny Dawson. Eric and Lizzie Dawson were already there.

  “I hear you gave an excellent sermon today, Father,” Daggett caught sight of his wife and daughter standing near the altar talking with the Tinsleys.

  “Tolerance,” Eric Dawson picked up the cue, “Tolerance as opposed to Casting the First Stone. Appropriate topics for today, I’d say,” Eric’s grin broadened, his eyes following the receding figures of Little John Winslow and his family.

  “Tolerance for everyone,” Father Morgan admonished, catching the direction of Eric’s glance.

  “That’s true,” Eric relinquished his gaze.

  “Surely not for murder,” Enderby demurred. “Not tolerance for murderers.”

  “But one must be proven guilty,” Mary Daniels reminded him, “before anyone reaches to lift the first stone. With murder, too, isn’t that right, Father?”

  “Exactly right, Mary.”

  “And true guilt, I suppose, involves evil … evil intent,” Eric concluded. “That’ll let Little John off.”

  “That’s the sticking point, all right,” Enderby conceded. “And how does one determine what is evil? Intentional evil. Isn’t that how you phrased it?” Father Morgan’s sermons were rarely so provocative.

  “Mmmm, and how does one determine appropriate punishment or intentional justice.” Father Morgan stopped short of returning to his sermon by nodding toward Daggett, “I suppose you could say that’s why we Canadians have laws and the mounted police.”

  “Let’s say that’s why we have a just God,” Daggett returned the compliment. “I just wish I could say that Canadian justice was certain and swift. But if I am the one who represents justice in this land,” he shook his head ruefully, “then, at least in the case I’m pursuing right now, it’s neither.”

  “The Lord takes care of our timing,” Father Morgan asserted. “Man is meant to be uncertain and cautious, questioning and accepting. What humans need, you see, is empathy and patience.”

  “Patience and perseverance, you mean,” Enderby broke the priest’s solemnity with unexpected heartiness. “That’s the Mounties for you. Dogged perseverance. And that’s one of your better-known traits, too, Mark Daggett. No one on this island is much worried about swiftness or certain justice. Not with you around.”

  “WHAT I still don’t understand,” Edith finally confessed, “is why. Why did John Thomas Bush have a gun? Why did he want to kill you?”

  James blanched.

  “It’s time you told the rest, James,” Willa put a hand on his arm. “I guessed the first part right, but there is more, I know. An explanation, a reason.”

  With several long sighs, James began to put his story together.

  “Bush thought I would tell what I knew … knew about him … what he did … what I saw him do.” The words fell out of James’ mouth like a crazy quilt, random pieces stitched with pauses. “I didn’t tell … I was just that scared … and he knew I left there … I ran as fast as I could … from New Bedford … I came here and I didn’t talk … didn’t talk there, didn’t talk here … he didn’t know where I was … didn’t even know my name or where I went … everyone on the docks called me Jimmy, just Jimmy … a Yank thing to do … but he knew what I saw … he’d seen me … and when he caught sight of me here, here on Grand Manan, he came right after me … wouldn’t believe I’d stay quiet … said the only way he’d believe me … was dead.”

  Edith wanted to say, Saw him do what? and How did he happen to come here? But she didn’t. She didn’t say anything. She waited. And so did Willa.

  “It was only chance he saw me,” James began again slowly, between huge breaths, “just chance. Sharkey offered to drive me all the way home. Doesn’t usually. And in one more day, I’d have been out to sea with Sam Jackson. Bush wouldn’t have seen me then. Almost didn’t anyway. He had barely arrived when Sharkey and I passed through town. Coming out of the bakery, he was. Had a little bag of scones or some such and stopped to talk to Miss Briggs. It was a big shock to see him standing there. I made myself as small as I could, hunched behind Sharkey. But he had me right off. I knew he had me. Soon as Sharkey dropped me off, I slipped away and went to wait on the dock. I figured he’d come there to look and he did. I told him I wouldn’t tell. Swore it on my mother’s soul. But he wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Wouldn’t tell what, James,” Willa finally interjected, “say what you wouldn’t tell.”

  “How could I know he’d find me,” James seemed unable to stop the flow of words he had started. “Here, of all places, here on Grand Manan,” the words marched forth, emphatic, even paced, as though his life depended on their orderly arrangement. “I’d seen him before on the docks at New Bedford, but I didn’t know his name and he didn’t know me. I never figured for a moment he’d find Grand Manan … find me on Grand Manan …”

  The words stopped, almost of their own accord, and James let his gaze drift out across th
e water toward the weir. Two gulls lazed above. Farther out a whale rose and skimmed momentarily along the surface, then spouted.

  “Tell us, James. Tell us what you saw. Tell us now.”

  “IT was odd, you know,” placing emphasis on the verb, Eric Dawson prepared to explain again. Daggett’s response was so sudden, so dramatic, Eric thought perhaps Daggett had misunderstood. No one else was reacting that way. But there was Daggett, already six strides from the church, running full out for the Chevrolet.

  “What on earth,” Elizabeth Daggett called from the church door.

  “Tell us again, Eric,” James Enderby swung around to demand, “I’m not sure I …”

  “It’s just that yesterday I saw someone on Seven Days Work and someone else on the beach … pretty much at the same time … and in the very same spot where Mr. Bush went off the cliff. It took my breath away for a minute. There I was in the dory, in the very same place, rowing …”

  “What on earth has gotten into my husband?” Elizabeth Daggett joined the small group, which had moved quickly to the grass just beyond the church steps. “Father, do you know?”

  “That’s exactly what we are trying to understand,” the priest adopted his most reassuring tone.

  “I hadn’t expected to see him here in the first place,” Elizabeth’s frown drew vertical lines, one slightly longer than the other, between her eyes.

  “The fellow on the beach was in white,” Eric’s voice maintained an even pace, “the one above in red, something red … then they were gone … the one on the beach running toward the Cove … the one above just gone. My heart stopped. I suppose he ran into the woods toward the road, but I don’t know …”

  “But why,” Enderby demanded. “Why did they run?”

  “I have no idea. It was just,” Eric paused to review the scene, “they saw each other and then they were gone. And later, I guess I was already unloading nets for repair, I saw the same fellow in white dart out from between pilings to leap onto the deck of the S. S. Grand Manan. Odd thing to do, but there was no harm. I don’t think anyone else even noticed. They were just then lowering the gangplank, and a few minutes later he walked off across it.”