All That Lives (42 page)

“Your father has passed on.”

I told you I done fixed him!

The Spirit could not contain its excitement and its most pleasant laughter filled the room. Mother responded not at all, but
kept her head on Father’s chest, crying bitterly. Richard, Joel and I held on to one another, not knowing what to do. We cried,
but softly, beneath the Spirit’s giggles, disbelieving Father had breathed his last.

I did it! He’s dead! I will go and tell!

The Spirit’s joy at its accomplishment brought rage into my soul. I wished to throw my body down and strike the floorboards
until my fists and head were bleeding, so I might fall into fortuitous unconsciousness, and so be released from the pain of
grief. I thought I could not bear it, yet someplace near my stomach lay the heavy stone holding me in my place, rendering
me immovable. If the Spirit had not placed it there, I could not have remained still and silent in that chamber, witness to
my father’s death.

The Spirit left us to broadcast Jack Bell was dead to all our community. Though we were unaware of it, the Being had told
Frank Miles the trapper nearly three weeks previous, while he was bagging coons. After his visit to our house in the spring
Frank had returned to his mountain to find all his traps sprung and open and all his furs and hides gone to Indian hands,
exactly as the Being had predicted. When the Spirit had spoken the news of Father’s death to him, Frank had dropped his hides
straight away and worn his horse near into the ground, traveling through the snow and storms to knock at our door, only minutes
after Father breathed his last.

“Lucy! Tell me it is not true, tell me, Jack, my friend, is still amongst us?” He stood on our porch shaking snow off the
bearskin he’d worn as a cloak on his ride.

“No! Dear Frank, he has passed away this very hour!” Mother fell into his arms in tears and behind Frank I saw the Reverend
huffing his way through the deep snow up our steps.

“Dear Lucy, I came at once, is Jack seriously not well?”

“He has passed on, Reverend! Please, bless his soul!” Mother led the Reverend and Frank into the bedroom where she stood beside
Father’s lifeless body and tears rolled off her cheeks, falling in dark drops onto his quilt.

“He is eternally at peace, dear Lucy.” The Reverend put one hand on Mother’s shoulder, and the other on Father’s forehead.
I sat in the corner chair and Richard and Joel sat on the cold floor at my feet. No one spoke for a moment and the only sound
was Mother’s persistent sobbing, rising and falling along the valleys of her despair as Father’s breath had done, before he’d
breathed his last. We heard the sound of horses riding fast, then boots on the porch steps, and Drewry threw open our front
door, arriving with Dr. Hopson.

“How fares John Bell?” Dr. Hopson shook the snow from his hat on our parlor floor as he crossed to the bedroom.

“He fares no more.” Frank was the only person able to respond.

“Father! No!” Drewry raced to Father’s bed and stared in disbelief at his still corpse.

“By what means has he passed?” The doctor gazed at his dead patient, adjusting his gold-rimmed spectacles. Mother remained
overcome with tears and appeared not to have registered his question, as no answer came from her, though she did move aside,
clutching Drewry, to make room for the doctor to examine Father’s body.

“What’s this? This is no medicine of mine.” Dr. Hopson held aloft the smoky vial and Mother’s sobs increased.

“ ’Tis poison left by the Spirit,” I answered, since she did not.

“Poison?” The doctor held it to his nose, then bent above my Father and smelled about his mouth. He put the bottle down and
in a shocking gesture put his finger into Father’s throat. When he withdrew it, we could see a touch of blackish liquid on
its tip. “This substance must be tested,” he announced.

“I’ll catch a cat,” Frank said and left the house at once.

“Boys, come away.” Mother seemed to recover herself slightly and moved to take Richard and Joel by the hand, to lead them
upstairs. The Reverend and Drewry gathered around the doctor’s finger held aloft for them to see, but I hung back.

“He smells of this quite plainly, but I do not recognize the substance. And the bottle is unlike any I have previously viewed.
Do you recognize it, Reverend?”

“I do not.” The Reverend’s gaze returned to Father and he shook his head with sadness.

“The Spirit brought it.” Again I tried to communicate the details of the morning.

“How say you, Elizabeth?” Dr. Hopson turned and lowered his spectacles over his nose at me, frowning with distracted annoyance.

“Father was recovering until this morning, when I went to visit him and found he was severely worsened.”

“In what state did you find him?” Dr. Hopson wanted every detail.

“His breathing appeared difficult and though his eyes were open, he was unable to see. He gave no sign he knew of my presence
in the room. His arm hung from the bed as if disconnected from his body. It was horrible to see.” The doctor squinted hard
at me and I could tell he did not trust my accurate recounting of the facts. Drewry spoke up, supporting my rendition.

“When Mother and I entered, we heard the evil fiend which haunts us here report it had dosed him with the poison contents
of this bottle.”

“Where now is that fiend?” The doctor looked to the Reverend to confirm his skepticism but the Reverend Johnston had too many
times been witness to our torment and a victim of the Being himself.

“That fiend may soon appear, good doctor. Call it not unto this house,” the Reverend cautioned. “It came to me at dawn this
morning to say it had poisoned Jack Bell and he would soon breathe his last and here I find it has come to pass.” Reverend
Johnston shook his head with heartfelt sadness.

“All of you are demented. This bottle and what it does contain must come from someplace!” The doctor was infuriated but all
present ignored him, overcome as we were with grief and the reality of our situation. We were at the mercy of a demon from
Hell and we knew not when, or in what way, we would suffer next.

Frank returned, carrying a burlap bag with a cat trapped inside. It thrashed and wiggled in a comical manner as he dropped
it on the floor.

“Give me the bottle,” Frank commanded and the doctor did so, while Drew and I moved closer. Frank sat on the chair and placed
the bag between his knees, rolling back the burlap until the head of the cat appeared. I recognized the friendly golden barn
cat I had stopped to pet on the day Richard was saved from the whirlpool of quicksand in summer. She was no longer a kitten,
but she had yet to have her own. She hissed and spat at those assembled in fear.

“Wait,” I cried, not wanting him to test the stuff on her, but Frank ignored me. Withdrawing a piece of straw from the pocket
of his vest, he dipped it deep into the bottle, coating it with the blackish liquid. He ran it through the cat’s mouth, wiping
it across her tongue. In an instant, she jumped from the bag, whirled twice around, then fell sideways to the floor, and lay
there, kicking out her legs. She gave a high-pitched yowl as if she suffered greatly, then a violent shudder passed through
her and she was quickly dead. We stood silenced by this demonstration of the poison.

“Give it to me!” I lunged at Frank and grabbed the bottle from his hand. I ran into the parlor and threw the vial with all
my strength into the fire where the glass smashed against the andiron. The men followed and witnessed the liquid contents
exploding in a blue blaze that shot up the chimney in an instant.

“What have you done, Elizabeth Bell? We shall never know what was contained within it!” I could see the doctor was enraged,
thinking I was an insolent and foolish girl.

Whoa, doctor, pray the day shall come when you might mix a tincture to stand with the likes of mine!

“Respect the dear departed, you wretched creature.” Frank came to my side and placed his hand around my shoulder with such
paternal tenderness I began to cry.

“Where is Mrs. Bell?” Dr. Hopson asked. He was shaking with fear or anger, I knew not. A few unmelted bits of snow fell from
his cape to the floor as my own tears fell off my cheeks onto Frank’s soft deerskin coat. Richard’s slate had been set against
the side table in the parlor and suddenly it rose into the air and we witnessed the Invisible writing a message in chalk,
in a hand similar to Father’s own tight cursive.

Jack Bell, December 20, 1820.

“How is this possible?” Dr. Hopson slid his glasses over his nose, as if he could find a place where what was happening before
him could not be seen.

“You demon of the night! Show your face for this murderous deed. Come into my arms that I might match my strength to yours,”
Frank shouted. The Spirit appeared intrigued by Frank’s invitation of a challenge and abruptly it allowed the slate to clatter
to the floor and pushed me from Frank’s side with such force I fell into Father’s desk. Frank wrestled the Being and the doctor
and the Reverend and Drewry backed against the walls and furniture as Frank thrashed about the room. Drewry had cast his coat
on the parlor chair when entering with the doctor, and I saw him move with the same volition and speed he had used to shoot
the witch rabbit in the field. He threw the coat on what wrestled Frank and with one motion and a cry, they hurled the bundle
solidly into the fire. The coat smoldered into flames, but the Spirit had not been contained within it and struck them each
blows to the face that left vivid red marks and they cried out in pain. A foul stench and odor worse than eggs rotting in
the chicken coop overpowered the room.

“What a nasty business!” The doctor covered his mouth with his hand.

’Tis the smell of Jack, three days hence.

I ran to our front door and cast it open wide. I flew down the porch steps and caught my skirt on branches fallen from the
pear tree, standing like black knives in the deep snow of our path. I ran, past the frozen well and the horse tie, until I
reached the road, where I could run no more. There I fell into the snow as though into a faint, face down, and I cried and
cried. I felt the thumping of my heart and listened to the heaving of my breath, and I knew for certain in my soul the day
was approaching when they would thump and heave for me no more.

“Betsy, you must not be forlorn. Your father has eternal rest.” Mother took me in her arms the moment I passed back through
the door, but her voice caught in her throat and I could feel her breast trembling as she held me close. She stroked my braid
in silence and did not give in to tears. “You’re too cold. Change that dress for another, and wrap this about you.” She draped
her shawl over my shoulders and turned me toward the stairs. “Come before the fire when you are dressed. I will brew some
tea.”

The smell of Father three days hence was gone from the house and the Spirit too seemed absent. Dr. Hopson stood shaking his
head in our parlor and he did not look pleased.

“The inclement weather, so late in the day, necessitates my staying on.”

“Were the weather fine as summer, I would stay here this evening to sit vigil with the body of so outstanding a soul as John
Bell.” The Reverend’s tone was firm to the doctor, but turned soft when he spoke to Mother. “Jack will be deeply missed.”

“We are glad to have your company, Reverend, and we are much in need of your spiritual guidance,” Mother said, acknowledging
his concern.

When I had changed my clothes, I returned downstairs and Mother brought me a steaming china cup of light-colored sweet tea.
I settled into my skirts on the rug, beside Joel and Richard, who were listening to Frank Miles tell stories with indomitable
enthusiasm of Father in his younger years.

“John Bell could shoot more rabbits in a day than we could bag.” Frank shook his head, in admiration of the feat. “And he
was strong! I saw him at Thorn’s barn-raising hold a wall completely on his own.” He leaned toward my brothers with his elbows
on his knees, pure adulation for the dear departed in his weathered face. Joel’s beautiful eyes were red from crying and he
was very pale, yet he did smile at Frank’s recollections. The Reverend cleared his throat and opened his Bible carefully,
so none of his parchment notes fell out. He read to us in a voice much subdued.

“The righteous perisheth, and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous are taken away from the evil
to come. He shall enter into peace.”

A silence fell over the room and I felt acutely conscious of Father’s corpse. As if the Spirit ran a finger up my spine, I
became aware of the shell of him, lying still in his bed, growing grayer and stiffer and larger with each passing minute.
I feared the next act of the Being. Would it parade Father’s corpse about the house? Or shatter the glass of the windows with
stones? Or breathe on the fire so it shot tendrils of flame out from the hearth into our breasts, stilling all our hearts?
I knew not what to expect, but I waited for something, and listened, and in the silence, my mind repeated,
the evil to come.
This was what I waited for. Did the Reverend’s thoughts tend like mine, toward dwelling on the nature of that evil? When
next it came, what form would it take? Would my corpse soon lie beneath my sheets? I felt if Father had entered into peace,
while I must remain waiting for more evil, clearly he had the better situation.