Nightblood

by T. Chris Martindale

  Farnam went on to heal two cataracts and a bum kidney, but no one was listening to the television anymore. Not even Ida. The two men were watching her, knowing precisely what her reaction would be. She let go of her heart and opened her downcast eyes, and the smile she wore was thin and defeated. She stroked the cover of her book with a trembling hand. Then she looked up, acknowledging their presence for the first time since Bailey came in. “Well, it’s getting awfully late,” she said softly.

  Hubert yawned on cue. “Yes, I was just about to go to bed myself. Can I give you a hand, Ida?”

  “So soon?” Bailey stammered. “I mean, we could sit up for a while . . . you know. Talk?”

  Hubert was helping Ida to her walker. “George, we’re old men,” he said. “Time’s all we’ve got. Tomorrow, the next day, next week. But right now it’s late.” He left the room with Ida, returning only after the electric hum of the elevator seat marked her ascent of the staircase. Then he kneeled beside Uncle Jim’s chair and nudged his shoulder. “Jim? You need some help to bed?”

  The barely tufted head raised and craned toward him, blinking with uncertainty. He cleared the thick sleep from his throat and muttered “You ain’t mah nephew.”

  “Not hardly. C’mon, I’ll help you to bed.” But the senile old man’s perpetually glazed eyes were already closing, his tortoise-like head angling onto his shoulder. Hubert grabbed a pillow off the couch and wedged it in there before the two came together. Then he took a blanket from the cedar chest in the corner and draped it around Taggart’s boney shoulders. “Well,” Hubert said, stretching his lanky frame, “it’s been a long day.” He scooped up his notebook, saying, “I’ll leave the hall light on for you,” and trudged upstairs.

  George Bailey sat there for several minutes, listening to the silence that settled around him despite Reverend Farnam’s incessant requests for “tax-deductible gifts for Jezuuz.” Then he turned off the TV and the lights, left Uncle Jim in the dark, and climbed the stairs himself. He went very quickly to his room and locked the door behind him.

  He turned on every light available and checked the windows, reaching behind the drapes to make sure they were locked, but not daring to look. Only when he was satisfied did he move to the bed which dominated the room and lay back, trying to calm his heart. But even bathed in light, he trembled. He could still feel the darkness, the night, waiting out there, pressed against his window, looking for him. The fear that had festered in the pit of his stomach for most of his life was growing worse. It had made him young again; not the youth he craved, not the vitality and strength of it, but the uncertainty. It was the superstitious, smothering fear of every child when the world turns black and closes in. When he is alone. Afraid.

  Nothing in the dark can hurt you, dear. God protects his children.

  His mother’s words had rung true in the past. But what about now? He had led a cynical adulthood. There had been little of late to bolster his faith—these days even the town minister was rumored to visit porno shops in Bedford. Was there enough belief left in crusty old George Bailey? Was he still one of His children? Or had the Lord forgotten another elderly man, just as society and the world seemed to do? He couldn’t help but think of poor Ida Fleming sitting before that television and praying her hardest and waiting, waiting for something to happen. Had she been forgotten too? Had they all?

  He knew how Ida would have answered that. She would have said that her disappointments were her own fault, that she expected too much, that her own faith was not strong enough, not yet at least. And she would be right back there tomorrow, in front of that television set, quoting scripture and making out checks for their crusades and ministries and holy amusement parks and praying that maybe tonight it would be enough.

  He lay there on the bed without undressing, and he prayed for the rest of the night. He spoke in a soft voice that only God could have heard and he asked for strength never granted and courage never fulfilled. And he prayed for dawn. Hours later when that last prayer was answered he finally relaxed and let himself sink deeper into his pillow, exhausted. And he clutched to his chest the ornament he’d carried since he came into the room, the one he had taken from the nail on the wall.

  The big rosewood crucifix had been an heirloom from his wife’s family. When he slept, he dreamed of her.

  PART II: THE RECKONING

  Chapter Seven

  “Isn’t it great like this?” Billie said, inhaling deeply the crisp morning air, letting it sting her lungs. She was perched atop the porch railing, hugging herself to fight the autumn chill since her sweater was not enough. “It’s so clean and peaceful out this early. No screaming kids, no Big Wheels, no neighbors fighting. The world’s kind of relaxed this early, you know? At peace. It’s like the sun is cleansing the earth. God, I really love the morning. Gordon used to love it too.” She grew pensive at the recollection, but not melancholy. A smile lingered on her face. “He used to love the sunlight, warming his skin. Even after he got sick I used to wheel him out here onto the porch and we’d have breakfast and watch the sun come up. He always liked that.” She looked at the man on the porch swing across from her and blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble.”

  “It’s okay,” Stiles said, sipping his coffee. “You still miss him. I understand.”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt as much these days, but before . . . You know, sometimes I wonder if there’s a masochist hiding inside of me. I mean, first there was Mike, Bart’s dad. His death really got to me. We hadn’t been married all that long—the whole thing threw me for a loop. So when I finally get my act together again what do I do, first thing? I fall for Gordon and he gets cancer and the whole thing starts over again.” She shook her head in bewilderment. “Not that I wouldn’t do it again, mind you. I would. I really did love him. Both of them. But something about losing people, I don’t know, the hurt goes so deep you think. I’ll never do that again. Once makes you gun-shy, but twice, that gets you downright scared. I can’t say I’ve been close to anyone since Gordon. I mean really close.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  She bristled. “Meaning?”

  “You’re an attractive woman. I can’t believe you haven’t had any offers.”

  She blushed again and forced a laugh. “Who needs the grief? Besides, I’m kinda used to my independence now. It’s okay, really. I’ve got my kids and my work. And I’ve got me. There’s nothing wrong with being alone.”

  “Nope. Only with being lonely.”

  Billie nodded in agreement but couldn’t decide whether he was referring to her or to himself. At times, sitting there with his vest collar turned up to the cold and cradling his coffee cup in both hands, he could look gruff yet quite vulnerable, like a lost child, searching for something. Then he would look up and smile, as he did just then, and the impression would fade. She cursed herself for a gabbing ass. They had sat and talked all night long, but she had done most of it, making up for times when there was no one else to talk to but the kids. She told him about them and their fathers, and about her family in nearby Ellettsville and her life in Isherwood. And she told him about herself. Not just trivial things, surface details like where did she go to school or her favorite color, but deep-down things. Her successes. Her failures. Her dreams. She couldn’t believe it herself, even as the words came pouring out of her like water from a spigot she couldn’t turn off. And finally she quit trying to understand. It felt good to get things off her chest after so long. To finally confide in someone. She hadn’t done that since Gordon was alive. Somehow this stranger had touched something in her. It was beyond just physical attraction, she was sure of that. He listened. He cared. He knew how to draw her out of herself. But at the same time he gave very little in return. Chris Stiles was still as much an enigma as when he walked into the diner yesterday morning.

  She went over to the swing and scrunched into the seat beside him. Eve
ry mystery must be unraveled sooner or later, she decided. Especially this one. “You know, this really isn’t fair.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Your letting me do all the talking. You know nearly everything about me but I don’t know nothing about you. Tell me about the real Chris Stiles.”

  He gave a slight chuckle. “There isn’t that much to tell.”

  “Let me be the judge. C’mon, Chris, play right. Tell me about, let’s see . . . how about your family?”

  Where her own remembrances a moment ago had brought a sentimental expression to her face, she noticed just the opposite in him. It was as if the stirring of memories raised a faint, unpleasant odor. She reached out and took his hand. His expression softened somewhat.

  “My mother’s name was Mary,” he said hesitantly. “Mary and Griffin Stiles. Just your average parents, you know, struggling to get by, raise a family. Pop worked in a tire factory during the day and pumped gas at night. Mom took in sewing to help us out. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t hurting. They were good providers. Of most things.”

  He stared into his coffee cup. “I never got a whipping when I was little. Can you imagine that? Not one spanking. Neither of them ever laid a hand on me. Oh, they did Alex, my older brother. They really laid into him at times. But never me. Hey, I thought, this is all right. For a while. Then I realized it was because they just didn’t care. It was as simple as that, really. Alex was their pick. I wasn’t. Not that I didn’t try to get their attention. Especially Pop’s. I played football and baseball, ran track, wrestled. I excelled in everything. But it was never enough. So I tried to get his attention in other ways. I excelled in trouble. I ran with the wrong crowd, I stole, you know, that whole sob story. Still nothing from Pop. Well, finally, after Mom had died, I was grabbed for some pretty serious stuff, assault and a few other things. So here comes Pop down to the station and I was never so glad to see him because I think, hey, he’s finally looking at me, right, and he’s going to bail me out. Well, he looked at me, all right, eye to eye. And he says to me, ‘You can rot in there. You’re no son of mine.’ Not exactly what you want to hear from your pop, you know?” Billie was silent. “Mom died when I was what, fourteen or so. Pop, he might still be alive. I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything to the contrary. Hell, I think he’s too ornery to die. Alex keeps saying I ought to look for him and get all of this off my chest but . . .” He shook his head. “After all this time I guess I don’t really give a shit.”

  “How do you get along with your brother?”

  “Not very well,” he sighed and drained his cup. “He’s been dead for a while now.”

  Billie was shaken. “Oh, Chris, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . it’s just that you said . . .”

  “It’s okay,” he squeezed her hand. “He was killed while I was in Vietnam.”

  “Killed? Was it an accident, or . . .”

  “He was murdered.”

  She pondered that a minute, then fought off a sudden chill. “Lordy. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was murdered. It kinda gives you the creeps.” She trembled again and he put an arm around her shoulders. “That’s one good thing about a town like Isherwood. No one ever gets murdered around here. Bored, maybe, but never murdered.” She waited for him to continue but he didn’t. “Is that all?”

  “You want me to make something up?”

  “It’s an idea. What about marriage?”

  “Billie, we just met. . . .”

  “You know what I mean, wise guy. Were you ever married?”

  He thought for a moment. “Not that I can recollect.”

  “Chris, I’m serious.”

  “Okay, seriously. No, I haven’t.” She glared at him. “More? Hmm. I’ve been close once. Twice. No, just once, that one didn’t count. And the other I guess she just wasn’t my kind of woman.”

  One slender eyebrow arched with exaggerated curiosity. “And what, pray tell, is your kind of woman?”

  He grinned mischievously. She couldn’t tell whether it was a fleeting memory or he saw through her paper-thin questioning. “That’s a hard one,” he sighed. “I suppose the usual stuff; you know, bright, beautiful, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound . . .”

  “You don’t want much.”

  He reached out, took her face in his hand, and turned it toward him, and she could see from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t kidding anymore. The sincerity shone through. “I’d settle for someone I could talk to,” he told her. She started to laugh and make some flippant remark about his tight-lipped manner, and how she must not be the one because you can’t listen when there aren’t any words, no matter how willing you are. But looking into those dark, piercing eyes, she realized it wasn’t what he’d told her already. It was what he was going to tell her. About his family, his brother. About Vietnam. About himself.

  He pulled her closer then and kissed her, and she was surprised. Not by the kiss—she’d been hoping for that and planning on it, and at that moment would have initiated it herself had he not moved when he did. But it was the kind of kiss that caught her off guard. In the years since Gordon’s death she had dated and become used to passionate, kneading, probing embraces with little behind them beyond the physical need of the moment. That was how Stiles had struck her at first; rugged and appealing, good for a few nights, and then he’d be on his way again and out of her life. But this was entirely different. His kiss barely brushed her lips, but the sensations from it, the tenderness, sent out shock waves she hadn’t felt since . . . she’d never felt, period.

  He drew back slowly, still touching her cheek. His smile was hesitant as he searched her face for a response. It wasn’t long in coming. This time she went to him, straddling his lap in the shallow swing and wrapping her arms about his neck. “I’m listening,” she whispered.

  A door banged inside. Bare feet sounded on the stairs, louder than an entire squad of combat boots as they slapped against the hardwood and then the kitchen tile. “Mom! Where’s the cereal?”

  Billie drew away, a bemused smile cracking the frustration on her face. “Did you ever feel like killing a kid?” She yelled through the screen door, “Try the counter where you left it!” She slid off his lap, but not before a last, lingering kiss. “Don’t lose our place.”

  The screen door swung open and Bart stumbled out onto the porch in long thermal underwear with a tear over one bony knee. His red locks were more disheveled than ever and his eyes were still glazed with sleep. His jaw looked worse this morning, if that were possible. It was not only swollen but had turned a deep shade of blue and was well on its way to black. It looked sore; that probably had something to do with his bypassing any kind of solid breakfast in favor of a glass of Nestle’s Quik. He sat down in a lawn chair with bad webbing at the other end of the porch and sipped his chocolate milk and waited for his brain to catch up with his body. He looked at them. Nothing registered, or if it did he had not thought of a way to respond. “You’re still here,” he said to Stiles.

  “Yes, he is,” Billie said, suddenly self-conscious in front of her son. She got up from the swing. “We’ve been talking all night. How’s your jaw?”

  “It hurts,” he snapped, then rubbed his eyes and softened his tone. “It’s fine, Mom. It’ll just take some time. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Well, I do worry, young man. I think you’re going to the doctor today. The both of you.”

  “On a Saturday?” Del said coming through the screen door. He was still in his pajamas and carrying a bowl of his nicknamesake, Cap’n Crunch. “Couldn’t we wait till Monday to go, so we can miss some school?”

  “Sorry, sport. But that’s the way it is.”

  Del went to sit by Stiles on the swing. “I thought you’d still be here,” he grinned, then gave his mother a thumbs-up sign behind his back. “Did you two have a good time?”

  “Delb
ert!”

  “It’s okay, Billie. Yes, Del, we had a good time last night. Talking.”

  “I’ll bet you did,” Bart muttered under his breath.

  “So,” Del was trying to sound casual, “will you be staying around for very long, Mr. Stiles?” There was an unspoken question in there somewhere, and it didn’t take a code book to decipher it. Danner’s on the loose. Stiles picked it up with a subtle nod.

  “Yes, I’d like to know that myself,” Billie said, for an altogether different reason. “Will you be staying long? In Isherwood, I mean?”

  “That depends.” He looked first to Billie, then met Del’s still-nervous gaze. “I do have a few commitments around here.” Both of them translated that in their own way and were apparently satisfied. “But for now,” he stood up and stretched, “I’ve got to get going.”

  Billie stood with him, her disappointment evident. “So soon? We haven’t even had breakfast.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve got a few things to do, like that desk at the marshal’s office.” He patted his pockets. “I could use the money. As for breakfast . . .” He stole Del’s spoonful of cereal, tasted it, and went back for seconds. “Not bad,” he winked, much to the boy’s delight.

  “Chris,” said Billie, conscious of Bart’s suspicious stares but simply ignoring them, “do you have any plans for tonight? I was just thinking we might go out and eat, maybe take in a movie. Boys, how about it? There’s that Chuck Norris flick in Bedford you were wanting to see.”

  “Bart’s already seen it,” Del was quick, to report, “and I, uh, I don’t really feel up to it. Why don’t you two just go without us?”