Bone River (44 page)

Junius ignored that. He stepped up the stairs to the porch. He barely looked at her. He looked at Daniel, and there was a funny smile on his face, something that raised my dread and my misery. He said, “You haven’t told her the truth, have you?”

Daniel went still. “What truth? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, I think you do.” Junius reached into his coat, taking a folded piece of paper from an inner pocket. His gaze came to me. “The reason I went to Bruceport,” he said, waving it in his hand. “I’ve been waiting for it.”

Warily, I said, “What is it?”

“A letter, of course.” He leaned back against the railing negligently. “From San Francisco. I still have friends there, you know, boy. Or perhaps you didn’t realize it. Actually, I think you must not have, else you might have covered your tracks better.”

I didn’t like the cruel edge in his voice, nor did I like the way Daniel had gone so still—there was a trapped animal feel about it, and I was afraid. “What are you saying, Junius?”

“He’s not a reporter for any newspaper,” Junius said brutally, though he didn’t look at me as he said it, but at his son. “He worked as a printer’s devil at the
Call
once, what—seven years ago or so? Do I have it right, boy? The editor there barely remembers him.”

I was confused. I looked at Daniel, who very carefully wouldn’t meet my gaze.

Junius went on, steady and cruel. “He works for a curiosity museum.”

“A curiosity museum,” I heard myself repeating—as if from far away.

“Everson’s Hall of Curiosities. He’s on a mission, as it were, or so the owner was kind enough to tell my friend. Everson made a deal with him—Daniel here would procure the mummy for a split of the profits. He’s here to steal her away from you, Leonie. It’s why he’s come. Not for me, not for any ‘story.’ He’s here for the mummy.”

I felt stunned and sick, disbelieving.

Junius went on, “I suspected it from the first. But what I don’t know is why he’s waited so long to take her. How hard is it to just paddle her away some night when everyone’s asleep? What were you waiting for, boy?”

There was silence. Daniel looked at me, and what I saw in his eyes told me it was true. Guilt. And too, a plea for forgiveness. “She’s more valuable with a provenance.” He said quietly. “I needed the story of who she was.”

“Ah. That explains it. And here I thought it was just that you were enchanted by my wife.”

I sagged back upon the railing, feeling it shake a little with the suddenness of my weight.

“Lea,” Daniel said, reaching for me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry—”

“Don’t touch me.” My voice sounded distant; there was no force in it, but he jerked back again as if I’d hit him. Everything, every disparate little thing that hadn’t seemed
right about him fell into place, all the things he’d said, all that talk about curiosity museums, everything that should have told me. He never worked on any newspaper story. He’d worked for circuses and sideshows. He had too much knowledge about the mummy, about what must be done. The day when I’d come upon him in the barn with her and the canoe readied instead of upended. His willingness to steal.
You will regret it now he is here...
I should have known. I’d been a fool. I said weakly, “Was any of it true?”

“Lea’s always enjoyed a good story,” Junius said.

Daniel glanced at him, then back to me, quickly, as if he were afraid I had suddenly disappeared. “All of it,” he whispered. “Everything I said except for...the reason I was here.”

“There was no feather. No newspaper.”

“That was true. Your Toolux—”

“Don’t.” My throat was tight. I felt tears again.

Daniel let out his breath. Woodenly, he said, “It was what happened. It seemed too good to be true. My long-lost father”—spoken bitterly—“and a mummy. Two birds with one stone. Vengeance and...and I needed money.”

“For Eleanor.”

“Yes,” he said impatiently before he took a step toward me and then stopped again, wary. “But Lea, I...I didn’t expect you.”

The words held echo and force. I remembered the first time I’d heard them, the first time he’d said them.

Junius said, “How touching.”

Daniel snapped back, “Go to hell.”

“Get off my land.”

“It’s not your land, it’s hers,” Daniel said. “And I’ll go when she tells me to.”

“She’s my
wife
,” Junius said.

“Only if she wants to be. You weren’t free to marry her. Your marriage is a joke. She’s less tied to you than I am.”

“Tell that to the sheriff.”

“The sheriff?” Daniel let out a laugh. “Is there one? Go ahead. Bring him out. Do you really want the whole place to know the truth of what you did?”

I stepped forward, forcing my voice through a throat that felt swollen. “That’s enough. Please. Enough.”

“Tell him to go, Leonie,” Junius said.

Daniel looked at me. “Don’t let him do this, Lea. Please. I love you.”

“Quiet.” I held up my hand, uncertain, unsteady. “Please just be quiet. Both of you.”

Miraculously, they were.

I didn’t know what to do, or what to think. My thoughts chased themselves like moths, dodging, here and gone. The mummy and the pull of him, and her voice in my head saying
I brought him for you
. Bibi’s warnings and June’s and now she was decaying and everything dissolving, and I felt as if I stood on the verge of something I wasn’t certain I wanted, too afraid to go forward, unable to go back. I found myself rubbing my wrist, searching for the twine, the charms that were no longer there. No protection and only myself to trust.

I said, “I don’t know what I want. Neither of you, perhaps.”

Daniel exhaled sharply. Junius looked angry.

I left them on the porch and walked into the heavy rain, toward the Querquelin, toward the place where I had found her, and I sat on the bank and watched the water churn and tumble and course—too much rain, the river was rising again. If it kept up, it would flood. But I didn’t move. I sat there in the rain until the night came on, and there was nothing more to see, and still I sat, so cold I could not feel my hands or my face, shivering and drenched, voices churning through my head, every one an attempt to define me:
Science needs a more logical brain than a woman’s...Where did that story come from, Lea? Is there some savage here to tell it to you?...An intemperate woman who studies
obscenities and dances like a whore...You’re not a scientist, you’re an artist.

But her voice was no longer among them, and so I could not find myself.

W
HEN
I
FINALLY
left the river, the night was so black and the rain so hard it felt I was moving through a void toward some distant, beckoning light, drawn almost without volition, made eerie by the music that floated on the air, organ music, something slow and quiet like a hymn, but I didn’t recognize it. When I went inside, Junius was still playing. Daniel was in the kitchen, leaning against the pie safe, a cup of coffee in his hands. Lord Tom was not there, and he was the one I wanted. The comfort of my adolescence, words that didn’t toss me to and fro.

Daniel glanced up quickly when I came through the door, and Junius stopped playing abruptly, twisting on the bench to face me. “You look chilled to the bone,” he said sharply.

“I need to go to Bruceport tomorrow,” I said, taking off my sodden coat. “I need to talk to Bibi.”

“To Bibi? What for?”

“I just do. I can’t explain.”

“I’ll take you.”

I shook my head. I looked at Daniel, who had stepped into the room, who stood silently by the settee, waiting. I said, “I’ll take Lord Tom.”

Junius frowned. “Why? You’re angry with me? What have I done but show you what a liar he is?”

“Nothing,” I said quietly. “You’ve done nothing. But I’m taking Lord Tom.”

Daniel said, “Don’t believe everything she tells you, Lea. Please just...just speak with me before you condemn me.”

Junius laughed. “Yes, by all means. Give him the opportunity to lie to you further.”

I said nothing. I went to the trunk beneath the stairs and took out blankets, bringing them back into the main room, and Junius said, “What are you doing?”

“Making a bed.”

“I’m not sleeping here, goddammit. You’re my wife. I won’t just hand you over to this...this—”

“It’s not your decision, June,” I said quietly. “And it’s not you I’m making a bed for. It’s me.”

He looked as if I’d struck him. “Lea. Sweetheart. I don’t understand.
He’s
the one who lied.”

I sank onto the settee, the blankets still in my arms. I felt cold and tired, and I could no longer be anything but honest. “I’ve been having an affair with him, Junius. We’ve been...together. You know this already, or you at least suspect it. You can’t just pretend it hasn’t happened. I can’t.”

I heard Daniel’s expulsion of breath behind me. I didn’t look at him, but kept my eyes on Junius. His expression turned bleak—he had known, of course. Every word he’d spoken since his return had said it. There was no surprise in his eyes, only a deep hurt that was a pain in my own heart. I could not keep his gaze; I looked down into the blankets.

Junius said, “I forgive you. He seduced you. You were vulnerable—I should have taken more care.”

I shook my head.

He went on, almost desperately, “I won’t let you go. Twenty years, Lea. You can’t mean to throw that away. You can’t mean to
leave me for him. He’s done nothing. He
has
nothing. He’s a liar and a thief.”

“And you’ve taken advantage of her for years,” Daniel interjected. “You don’t appreciate her. You barely know her.”

“Stop. Please, Daniel,” I said. “Please. It doesn’t help.”

“You’re in love with me,” he said, almost as desperately as Junius had spoken. “You know you are.”

“What do you know of love, boy?” Junius asked. “What about your
fiancée
?”

“Eleanor will be relieved.”

“How convenient. How easily you justify a broken promise.”

“Shall we talk about broken promises, old man?”

“Stop it, both of you!” I shouted. And then, when they went silent, I said softly, “Go to bed. Leave me to myself. I’m tired. I’m going to Bruceport tomorrow.”

Junius rose from the organ bench. “I won’t let you go.”

Daniel only looked at me. But I heard the words he didn’t say:
Promise you won’t release me, whatever happens.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Dully, I said, “I understand. Please, June, go to bed.”

“When
he
does. I don’t want him alone with you.”

I nodded. “Go, Daniel.”

“Promise me you’ll speak with me,” he said. “After you see Bibi. Promise me.”

“Yes, of course.” I waved them both away, exhausted, despairing. I waited until I heard them both on the stairs, the close of one room door, and then the other, and I knew they’d be listening for each other, and that was my best assurance that neither would come to me tonight. I was as alone as I wanted to be, but I wasn’t relieved as I spread the blankets on the settee, as I undressed to my chemise—nearly transparent with rain, clinging to my skin—and crawled into my uncomfortable, too-short bed. Daniel had lied to me and I should not have trusted him, and the mummy was leaving me and I was afraid. The world felt
too big for me suddenly, and this place, this house at the meeting place of the Querquelin River and Shoalwater Bay, was the bastion of safety I’d always known.

I was not sure I would sleep, but...

Water, tumbling and freezing, taking my breath, a tornado of water, spinning me about, drawing me down, tangling me while I choked and struggled and fought, filling my nose and my lungs, roaring in my ears, tearing me apart. I grabbed at my throat, choking and struggling, crumbling like rock dashed by the waves, pieces of me gone, disappearing quickly beneath the sun, burning hot and withering into nothing, drying up, and I felt myself drying with it, my muscles clinging to my bones, skin adhering, stiff and motionless and the sun did not stop burning and the wind rising, dust and wind battering, flaking away skin, sweeping me into its whirling cloud, ashes to ashes, dust to dust...

I woke abruptly, as if someone had shaken me, blinking into moonlit darkness. I heard the wind in the trees outside, a wind from the south—Toolux. The mummy’s voice in my ear, as if she stood beside me:
You must come. Come now.

The call was uncompromising, a command, and I rose from the settee, grateful that she had not abandoned me after all but afraid of what she meant for me to find. The room was cold; I shivered as I put on my still damp coat and shoved my bare feet into my boots, and then I went outside. The rain had eased, but it was only a momentary lull in the storm, the clouds briefly parting over a crescent moon, a heavy gathering of darkness lurking over the bay, biding its time. The river was full and dangerous, pushing at its banks. Everything seemed marked in light and shadow, black and white, like a sharply rendered sketch, lines abruptly clean, shadows darker than any pool of ink. I heard the creak of bare branches, and the shush through the cedar and the fir. I stood there for a moment, hugging myself against the cold, wondering why she’d brought me, why I was here, not yet doubting, still touched by the dream.