an invading army.
Isaiah and I sat beneath a pecan tree at a table splattered with dried bird shit. Isaiah wiped what he could of it away with his hand, then bent down to wipe his hand on grass. He'd come a long way for a city boy.
"It's his brother's diary, from the last days," Isaiah said of the package I'd brought him. "The only other person, besides me, that Merle was ever close to. Thomas was dying from cancer, this weird kind that doesn't metastasize but recurs. First time, they pulled a tumor out of his stomach that weighed eleven pounds. Called it Gertrude—and Merle sent a birth announcement instead of a get-well card. Everything fine, then a little over a year later it was back, bigger this time, with more organ involvement. With the fourth one, Thomas refused further surgery."
Isaiah leaned back against the tree.
"Remember when I told you about my grandmother, how she was the start of all this? How I was with her there at the end? Well, it wasn't like that with Thomas and Merle. Merle wasn't there with him, he was three states away, trying to save a marriage that had been too far gone for far too long. He was at work when the call came. A patient was going bad, a transplant that came in an hour or so before. They insisted the call was urgent, so Merle took it. It was the hospice telling him that Thomas had died that morning. Merle thanked them for letting him know and went back to work just as a code was called on the transplant patient. He was in charge that day, and ran it."
You just listen.
"Merle was never one to show emotion much. Part of that was what he did, part of it simply who he was. But Thomas's death hit him hard. He'd call some nights and we'd exchange three or four sentences the whole time, he'd just be there on the phone, six, eight hundred miles away."
I had to ask; old habits die hard. "How long ago was this?"
"Little over a year."
"So he was still depressed?"
"Why do you ask?"
I hesitated. "To all appearances he was coming here to give you the diary."
"You think he was suicidal."
"Why would he want you to have it now? Something that was so important to him. It's the sort of action that people take—"
"Yes. It is." Isaiah pulled off the tree and sat straight again, his hand flat on the diary. "But I don't know. We'll never know, will we?"
"Could he have been ill, like his brother? A premonition of some kind?"
Isaiah was silent. He picked up the diary and stood.
"Does it matter?" he said.
CHAPTER TEN
I HAD FAILED again to listen.
Eldon wanted to think it over, this turning-himself-in thing.
Jed Baxter was back in unmarked room 8 at the Inn-a-While.
And the dog that Red Wilson complained about had, as it turned out, good reason to be barking.
Late afternoon, I drove out that way. By the time I came around the curve, Red was standing at the mailbox waiting for me. Jerry Langston, who runs the rural mail route, told me that Red was there every day waiting to collect his mail in person, adding that "Heard you coming" was all he ever said. Which is what Red said to me.
My questions about the dog didn't fare a lot better. If I'd been collecting syllables, I'd never have made my quota. The barking had been going on for three, four days now, I managed to discover, but as of yesterday it got worse. Old man over there had taken to beating the dog for it, he was pretty sure.
Old man. Though still hard and lean, Wilson himself was well along in his seventies. He pointed across the dirt road to a house that gave the impression of having begun as a porch, developed a middling ambition, and undergone mitosis.
I drove over. It hit me the minute I stepped out of the Jeep, but the smell's common enough in the country that I didn't pay undue attention. The property owner, Bob Van-der, stood inside the screen door peering out. He'd probably been watching me across the way at Red's. We'd never met, but I knew of him. Around to the side of the house, tethered on a ragged length of clothesline
Isaiah and I sat beneath a pecan tree at a table splattered with dried bird shit. Isaiah wiped what he could of it away with his hand, then bent down to wipe his hand on grass. He'd come a long way for a city boy.
"It's his brother's diary, from the last days," Isaiah said of the package I'd brought him. "The only other person, besides me, that Merle was ever close to. Thomas was dying from cancer, this weird kind that doesn't metastasize but recurs. First time, they pulled a tumor out of his stomach that weighed eleven pounds. Called it Gertrude—and Merle sent a birth announcement instead of a get-well card. Everything fine, then a little over a year later it was back, bigger this time, with more organ involvement. With the fourth one, Thomas refused further surgery."
Isaiah leaned back against the tree.
"Remember when I told you about my grandmother, how she was the start of all this? How I was with her there at the end? Well, it wasn't like that with Thomas and Merle. Merle wasn't there with him, he was three states away, trying to save a marriage that had been too far gone for far too long. He was at work when the call came. A patient was going bad, a transplant that came in an hour or so before. They insisted the call was urgent, so Merle took it. It was the hospice telling him that Thomas had died that morning. Merle thanked them for letting him know and went back to work just as a code was called on the transplant patient. He was in charge that day, and ran it."
You just listen.
"Merle was never one to show emotion much. Part of that was what he did, part of it simply who he was. But Thomas's death hit him hard. He'd call some nights and we'd exchange three or four sentences the whole time, he'd just be there on the phone, six, eight hundred miles away."
I had to ask; old habits die hard. "How long ago was this?"
"Little over a year."
"So he was still depressed?"
"Why do you ask?"
I hesitated. "To all appearances he was coming here to give you the diary."
"You think he was suicidal."
"Why would he want you to have it now? Something that was so important to him. It's the sort of action that people take—"
"Yes. It is." Isaiah pulled off the tree and sat straight again, his hand flat on the diary. "But I don't know. We'll never know, will we?"
"Could he have been ill, like his brother? A premonition of some kind?"
Isaiah was silent. He picked up the diary and stood.
"Does it matter?" he said.
CHAPTER TEN
I HAD FAILED again to listen.
Eldon wanted to think it over, this turning-himself-in thing.
Jed Baxter was back in unmarked room 8 at the Inn-a-While.
And the dog that Red Wilson complained about had, as it turned out, good reason to be barking.
Late afternoon, I drove out that way. By the time I came around the curve, Red was standing at the mailbox waiting for me. Jerry Langston, who runs the rural mail route, told me that Red was there every day waiting to collect his mail in person, adding that "Heard you coming" was all he ever said. Which is what Red said to me.
My questions about the dog didn't fare a lot better. If I'd been collecting syllables, I'd never have made my quota. The barking had been going on for three, four days now, I managed to discover, but as of yesterday it got worse. Old man over there had taken to beating the dog for it, he was pretty sure.
Old man. Though still hard and lean, Wilson himself was well along in his seventies. He pointed across the dirt road to a house that gave the impression of having begun as a porch, developed a middling ambition, and undergone mitosis.
I drove over. It hit me the minute I stepped out of the Jeep, but the smell's common enough in the country that I didn't pay undue attention. The property owner, Bob Van-der, stood inside the screen door peering out. He'd probably been watching me across the way at Red's. We'd never met, but I knew of him. Around to the side of the house, tethered on a ragged length of clothesline
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