Property(37)
A racket of blue jays in a bush nearby made me want to clutch my head, but my right arm was unresponsive to my command. I noticed a thin stream running nearby. The water sparkled as the sun flushed over the tops of the bushes and bright rays pierced the forest from every direction. I grasped a low branch passing near my nest, and pulled myself to my feet. I was unsteady, I was in the purest agony, but I was on my feet.
“Wake up, Walter,” I said in a voice to rival the jays. Then I recalled that my sleeping companion wouldn’t hear a gun fired next to his ear. How had he found me? Did he know his way in this place? I peeled a clump of mud from my hand and threw it at him, striking him on the leg. His eyes flew open, he coughed, then began to cry. I should have left well enough alone, I thought.
The stream probably ran toward the river. My way must be in the opposite direction. I took a step, then another; each one felt as if it might be the last. Walter sat up among the roots and babbled nonsense. “Quiet,” I said, straining to see through to some wider area of light. A chameleon rushed past my feet, another stopped on the root in front of me and eyed me, once from each side of its head. A world of idiots and monsters, I thought, and I left to tell the tale.
The air was damp, and the cold penetrated to my bones. It seemed to me there was a clearing beyond a bramble bush, but I couldn’t see how to get to it, as the bush was as long as a city block. Walter got to his feet and walked off in the other direction, toward what I took to be the river. Should I follow? He disappeared beyond the next tree, then I heard rapid footsteps. Slowly, painfully, I made my way in his tracks, skirting a tangle of broken branches and vines, then around the thick trunk of a bay tree. I was standing on the lawn looking up at the side of the house. Walter ran ahead of me across the grass, toward what looked like a pile of clothing. The sun broke over the roof of the house, bathing the scene with a freshness utterly inappropriate to what it exposed. The air was bright, chilly, and still. I saw the cloud of flies rising above the crumpled body of my husband. Walter had reached it. He bent over the body and began struggling to lift the head, shrieking all the while.
Don’t do that, I thought. Don’t touch him. The front doors of the house stood open, the dining room casements were all ajar, but there was no sign of living occupants. So the field hands had got up with the bell and gone out to their work, blissfully unaware that their master lay with his head nearly off on the lawn. Mr. Sutter had not come to join the fray; the vaunted patrol had skipped our house in its pursuit of the rebels. Was it possible?
I dragged myself toward the drive, pausing every few steps to get my breath. I thought I might die of thirst before I got to the door. If only Delphine is here, I thought. I went in through the hall, glancing in at the dining room just long enough to see that it was wrecked, chairs upended, broken glass everywhere, the remains of the ham mysteriously left on the carpet near the hall door. I went through the hall, out at the back, across the narrow yard to the kitchen door. It was closed. I tried the latch; it was locked. I leaned against it. “Delphine,” I said. “Are you there? Let me in.” The curtain at the narrow window moved, Rose peeked out, gave a shout, and dropped the curtain. “Let me in,” I said again. “I’m not a ghost. But I may be soon if you don’t open this door.” The curtain moved again. This time Delphine looked out. “Is that you, missus?” she said.
“I’m alive,” I said. “They didn’t kill me.” She pulled the bolt and the door swung out before me. “Lord, missus,” Delphine said, leading me inside. “What happen to you.”
“I got away,” I said. “I hid in the woods. But they shot me.” I gestured to my shoulder. In the process I saw my mud-daubed arm, my torn and bloody sleeve, and I remembered that I was covered in mud. “Get me some water,” I said, sinking into a chair at the table. “I’m dying of thirst.”
The fire was up, there were pots already boiling, good smells of bread and meat. Delphine put a glass of water in front of me and I drank it at one gulp. “More,” I said, holding out the glass. Rose brought the pitcher and filled it again. Delphine went to the kettle and poured hot water into a bowl, then brought it to the table and added some cool from the pitcher. She took a cloth, dropped it in the water, and wrung it out. “I hardly knows where to start,” she said. I took the cloth and wiped my face, wincing when I found the gash in my cheek. “Thas a bad cut,” Rose observed. Delphine was unfastening the back of my dress. “All these bits of cloth stuck in the wound,” she said. “It gonna hurt to clean this out.”