Slow Fall

by Edgar Warren Williams

  “Did she ask to see you?”

  “Yes.” Amy's body stirred. “She… that's all she wanted. Just to see me. She said—she said that she just wanted to see me once again. Before…”

  “Before what, Amy?”

  “I don't know. She wasn't going to stay. I asked her to. I wanted her to. At first, anyway. But she said she was going away. I don't know where. Or why. She didn't tell me.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  Roger stiffened at the question.

  “Told me? Amy bridled like her father. The mark of her nails was visible on the back of her left hand which now held down the right. “She told me nothing—except that she was my mother. And that she was sorry that she'd left me. That—” Amy put a hand to her mouth and cleared her throat. Her hand shook. “—that she loved me.”

  She recited this as if it were a catechism.

  “Is that all that she told you?” her father asked. There was a desperation in his voice that he instantly regretted. “I mean, did she tell you her plans or… anything?” He looked to Pickett sheepishly.

  “What do you care?” Amy said it with contempt.

  “Amy, please—”

  “No. What do you care. If it hadn't been for you, I'd still have a mother, instead of a… a…” She gestured angrily toward her father, but couldn't find the word. “You drove her off, just like—”

  “Did she tell you that?” Roger Mooring's face grew pink. “She told you that didn't she?”

  Pickett cut them both off: “Amy…”

  They stopped, as if caught in some pet game, embarrassed that an outsider should have witnessed it. Father withdrew back into his shell; daughter assumed her cloak of composure. The eyes of both spoke pain.

  “Amy, I have to ask you this. The Sheriff will if I don't. Did you ever see the man in the canal before that night? Before he died?”

  It was as if the sheath of ice that shrouded her were melting away. Her features and posture fell as if only now feeling the weight of the earth that pulled at them. Amy seemed tired now, worn. She looked down to her hands.

  “Yes…”

  “Amy!”

  “It's all right, Father”—all rancor gone now. “I went to see my… to see Millie at her—well, it's sort of a house. I think that it used to be a motel or something…”

  “And?”

  “And we were talking—arguing really. She wanted to tell me things—things I guess I just didn't want to hear.”

  “What sort of things?”

  Roger looked at Pickett in horror.

  “Just things. She—she wanted me to understand, I guess.”

  “Understand what, Amy?”

  “Why she… had done things. Bad things with men. For—for money. I didn't want to hear. I wanted my mother to be… something else, I guess.” Amy pushed her hands deeper into her lap. “Someone else.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of a hand. “I wanted her to be someone I could—could love. She just wanted me to understand… so desperately for me to understand.” Amy shook silently, shoulders hunched, head bowed over her breast as if to shelter it from such memories.

  “Really, Bo, I think that this is just about enough—”

  “Roger—” said Pickett sternly; then more calmly: “Roger, you asked me to look into this. I'm in so deep now that there's only one way for me—for any of us—to get out of this whole. You don't want it that way, I know, but it's the way it's gotta be.”

  “It's okay, Daddy. I need to talk—to tell someone. I'll be fine.” She pulled a tissue from the pocket of her house coat, blew her nose, then dabbed at her eyes. As she spoke, she began the slow process of shredding it between her nervous fingers. “You asked about the man—the man in the canal. Well, I saw him that night. We were… arguing and he came to the door. My… Millie wouldn't let him in. I couldn't hear everything he was saying, but she kept saying that she didn't want any part of it. Whatever it was. Then he said he'd break down the door if she didn't open it. She was afraid that he'd wake the landlady. She… my… Millie was terribly afraid of losing that place. It was so cheap, and she was saving her money.”

  “What did they talk about then?”

  “Nothing really. When he saw that I was there, he laughed, thought it a wonderful joke. He was such an ugly, spiteful man—I hated him. Millie seemed scared. She told him that she would never have anything to do with his… plans—I think she said—and to get out. He just laughed and asked her how she'd like it if he told me right there and then.”

  “Told you?” Roger's voice cracked.

  “Yes, that's what he said.”

  “Told you what?” said Pickett.

  “I don't know what. I guess he meant about her, well, past… about the… bad things that she'd done. But then”—Amy's pain turned to puzzlement—”she'd already told me that.”

  “What did Millie say?”

  “She didn't say anything, she got mad. Real mad. I've never seen anyone that mad. I was afraid…”

  “Of what, Amy?”

  “I don't know, I was just afraid.”

  “What did Millie do?”

  “She ran to the bed and got her purse and, well, she had a gun in it.”

  “Holy Jesus—” muttered Roger.

  Pickett admonished him with a glance. “What sort of gun?”

  “I don't know. Small, shiny—sort of silverish.”

  “What happened then?”

  “The man stopped laughing, I can tell you that.” Amy managed a laugh of her own. “He thought she was going to shoot him, I could tell. Millie said that if he ever came around again—that if he ever so much as looked at me she—she…”

  “She would what?”

  Amy looked down and said, “She would kill him.” Amy spoke almost in a whisper. “She said that she would squash him like a bug—that's what she said—like a bug, and think nothing more of it. I can still hear her. I don't know if I believed her. I'm pretty sure he did, though. He left, and I never saw him again. Except, well, you know, that time at the donut shop…”

  “Did Millie say anything to you after he left?”

  “No. I asked what was going on, but she didn't say anything. She wouldn't say anything. She put the gun away in her purse and went to the door, like she'd forgotten I was there or something. She said that she had something to do, someplace to go, and that if that man ever came near me again I was to tell her. That was all she said.” Amy paused and took a deep breath. “It was the last time that I saw her, too. Except the next afternoon. Where I saw you.”

  “Why'd you go to the donut shop?”

  “I don't know, really. I wanted an explanation, I suppose; I wanted to know what was going to happen—with us, I mean, Millie and me. I demanded an explanation. Oh… she exploded, told me who was I to make judgments on others, who was I to… to decide who was worthy of love and who wasn't, when I was no better than her, what with—” Amy froze, a word half formed by her lips.

  Pickett's eyes narrowed. “Why did she say that, Amy?”

  “Say what?” Amy's face became hard and dumb.

  “That you were no better. What did she mean?”

  “I-I dunno, I mean… nothing. She didn't mean anything; it was just, I dunno, what she said.” Amy looked to her father for help.

  Roger stared back, sternly.

  Amy stared at the mangled tissue in her lap. “That's all it was. Really.”

  Pickett was the first to break the long silence that followed. “Go on, Amy.”

  “Well… that man came in. It's like our arguing made him come—you know what I mean, like the last time?”

  “Did she say anything to him?”

  “No. I don't think either of us noticed him, I mean, who he was. She was pretty mad at me. I don't blame her, now. Then, when she saw who he was, she stopped in the middle of a sentence. If she could have—have squashed him then and there, I'm sure she would have. She was so mad… Her face… She was like a different person. It was scary. I-I-I had to leav
e. I was too confused and, well, ashamed, I guess.”

  “Ashamed of what, Amy?”

  Amy stared down at the shredded tissue without answering.

  “And you never saw either of them again?”

  “No. And—and I never will, will I? God has seen to that.”

  “God?” Pickett started—then relaxed. “No, I don't think so. This particular disaster's fairly well man-made.”

  “Woman-made. The sins of the mother…”

  “They've nothing to do with you, Amy. You can't feel responsible for them.”

  Amy smiled—with her mouth only—and shook her head slowly. “You don't understand, do you?” Amy turned from Pickett to her father. “Her sins are my sins, and—and I never will see her again, will I? Not even in heaven.” She turned to her father. Roger squirmed in his seat, opening and closing his mouth. Nothing came out. “Will I?” Amy's defenses fell beneath the weight of her grief and regret.

  Roger Mooring crossed the room to his daughter. He urged her from her chair and into the darkness of the hall. She was swept away by a father's protective arm—welcome, but too late.

  “She was right, wasn't she?” Amy asked the hall shadows. “And God has punished her for her sins. And now—and now he'll punish me, won't he? He'll… He'll… `For whatsoever is not of faith… is sin.'“ She stumbled into the hall, but her father's arm held her on her feet. “She was right,” Amy repeated to herself like an incantation. “I had no right…”

  Pickett sat alone. The room had become warm and close. The stripes of light had narrowed on the floor; the dust had settled. A door shut softly on Amy's murmured chant. Pickett rose as Roger returned.

  “I want to thank you, Bo, for all you've done. But I think, now, that—”

  “That's what I came to tell you, Roger. There's nothing I can do for you or Amy now. I figure that Millie musta hired Purdy to find the two of you—Amy anyway. Millie musta thought you were still in Jacksonville, and didn't know how close you were. Anyway, something musta gone wrong. This Purdy seems to have been pretty much a low-life. He got onto something else—what, I don't know; but it's out of our hands now. I just hope that… well, we'll just have to let Homer worry about that now, I guess.”

  “Yes, I think that's best, Bo. And…” Roger lowered his voice. “I'd appreciate it if you kept what I told you—you know, about Amy's… well, you know—as a confidence. I've never told anyone else, not even Amy.”

  “Sure. Do you know the father?”

  “No. No, I don't. I never asked. Does that seem strange to you?”

  “Not really. Did you—do you have any ideas?”

  “No. He brought Millie to Jacksonville, whoever he was. That's really all I know. When we were married, I knew nothing of Millie's life before she met me. I learned that later. She was very unhappy, that's all I knew. And now? Now she has succeeded in making me and Amy the same.”

  The two spoke about getting together again some time, and Roger told Pickett to come by and visit if he ever were in town again. Pickett said that he would, and Roger seemed satisfied. As Pickett walked out to his car, he looked anything but satisfied.

  The seat of the Nova was too hot to sit on. He opened the door and stood, staring down the street. The old bungalows sat in the heat, unmoved and unmoving. Pickett looked back over his shoulder to the Mooring's house, then dropped to the still hot vinyl and drove back to Main.

  He stopped at the Gulf station on the corner, but the phone was out of order. He found a phone booth a block down next to the Winn Dixie. He dropped in two dimes.

  19

  By the time Bodie Pickett hit I-4, sweat glued his seat and back to the vinyl.

  He had telephoned for Edmund and got Annie the maid. She said that the Reverend Ayers was not at home. No, she didn't know where Master Mark was. Miss Jan was at the river house. She had gone down early that morning looking for Master Mark. Miss Jan had left a message for a Mr. Pickett, though. Miss Jan needed to speak to him—in person. Yes, Annie thought, it was urgent. No, Annie said, there was no telephone at the river house. Yes, she was certain—Miss Jan was expecting him. No, she couldn't tell him how to get there: “It's sommers out near Osteen, east a Canaan. They never takes me out there.” And that, her tone suggested, was just fine with her.

  He turned east onto oak lined 46; then, at the Crab Shack, left towards Osteen. Gradually, the hardwoods disappeared and the savannas spread out on both sides, seething liquid and insubstantial behind the curtain of parched air that snaked up from the asphalt and roared through the Nova's windows. The dark pine scrub was barely visible on the horizon.

  The Osteen bridge arched out of the green ahead, flanked by two clapboard structures of weathered cypress. The largest rose two stories and carried a battered wooden sign. PUGH'S FISH CAMP/BOAT LAUNCH/ROOMS BY THE NIGHT. The smaller structure had the largest sign, the words written in unlighted neon: PUGH'S INN. Both looked abandoned.

  The river, hidden below the surface of the marsh grass, appeared as Pickett curved over the Osteen bridge and through the afternoon sun toward the opposite shore. A small cabin squatted directly to the left, slanting downstream into the shadow of a stand of palms and stunted water oaks. Beyond it, the dark humped shapes of brahma cattle dotted the grassland. Farther down river stood a ranch house with out buildings.

  The Nova angled down to the eastern bank and back into the saw-grass.

  The long green blades rippled in the light breeze, and beat gently on the palm groves that sprang from the marsh like islands in a tropical sea. The cabin was invisible now, hidden by the shoulder high grass that flanked the highway. A once white Ford pick-up, rust spreading up from its underbelly and wheel wells like fungus, napped on the raised shoulder. Next to it, a muddy track ran off into the grass at right angles to the highway. Pickett pulled onto the shoulder opposite and cut the engine.

  The dry grass and crickets rattled in the warm breeze. Below this din flowed the low, hollow sound of a flute, as cool and insistent as an underground stream. It came from the other side of the highway.

  Pickett crossed toward the path and truck. A gun rack hung with fishing rods covered the rear window. Foam rubber pushed through the worn seat-covers like distended flesh. A dirty, hard bound book lay on the passenger seat, its burgundy cover partially stained black. The dashboard sported a radio, but it was silent. The sounds of the flute drifted through the window from the high grass beyond. Pickett turned down the path in the direction of the sound and the cabin.

  A grove of palms appeared above the grass; the path curved toward it. Mud became mostly water, and he skirted the path, walking as close to the saw-grass as he could manage. The blades clung and pulled at his damp shirt, scratching his bare forearms. Suddenly, the path cornered to the left, and Pickett found himself at the foot of a small dock, looking across the St. Johns. A rowboat slanted under the weight of an ancient trolling motor; it seemed poised for flight, as if surprised in the act of shedding its alligatored green paint. Pickett turned from the river toward the music. It stopped.

  A few yards behind him and to the left was the cabin that he'd seen from the bridge—no more than a shack leaning into the shadow of a grove of tall palms that hung over it like solicitous kin. Wide open and dark, it looked abandoned. It wasn't.

  “Can a man really lack feelings?” The voice was low and liquid, like the flute.

  Pickett shaded his eyes and searched the darkness framed by the open door. “Well, sure, I suppose so.”

  “But how?” A rhythmic creaking came with the voice. “I mean, if he's without feelings, how can you call him a man?”

  Pickett walked to the dilapidated steps, and up them to the front porch. A piece of driftwood nailed to a porch pillar read, COLD MOUNTAIN, in crude white letters. The rotted wood was spongy beneath his feet. He stopped at the door and waited for his eyes to adjust. “If he looks like a man, and walks like a man, and if he talks like a man, why not call him a man?”

  “Y'see…” The voice see
med to come from a large form that rocked back and forth in the cool twilight of the hut. “. . . you called him man already. And if he is man, he can't be without feeling, now can he? See what I mean?”

  Pickett exhaled and shook his head.

  The form inside stopped rocking, stood, and emitted a soft laugh. “You try too hard, man. Life'll help itself along. Don't need you. It'll get where it's going.”

  Pickett stepped back as the voice stepped out into the light. “And where's that?”

  “Where ever it wants, m'man, where ever it wants.” He was a little shorter than Pickett, but probably fifty pounds heavier. Mostly fat. It enveloped him like a layer of insulation. He wore dirty chinos torn off at the knee and heavy work boots caked with mud. His chest was bare, hairless, and black as tar. A full black beard laced with fine spirals of grey hung to his chest. Tight coils of grey covered the top of his skull like a steel wool cap.”You got the look of the lost, m'man.” A blond cat leaped down from the black man's cradling arm. The man's hand half covered a short length of bamboo, pierced irregularly with rough cut holes. He stuck the bamboo under his arm and clapped his hands sharply. The cat disappeared into the scrub that ringed the palms. “And from the look a your face I'd say you been lost in some a the wrong places.”

  “You're right there. But I'm not so much lost as searching. Know where the Ayers' place is.”

  “Look round you, m'man, and whataya see?”

  It sounded like a song. Pickett looked at the black man, half expecting him to begin singing. Deep brown eyes looked back, crinkled with good humor.

  “Now, you see anybody's place?” When Pickett still didn't answer, the black man threw back his head and bellowed. He doubled over and dropped to the edge of the porch, his laughter flushing blackbirds and coots from the waters edge. “Oh my, my…” He wiped at his eyes. “You trying hard, man, aren't you now?”

  When he'd calmed himself a bit, he stood. “Relax…” He draped an ebony arm over Pickett's shoulder and drew him down the steps. “This here's the Ayers' place, most everthing you see from that there bridge…”

  Pickett glanced back at the hut, then looked a question at the fat black man next to him.