The Green Mile (42 page)

Outside, the wind gusted hard enough to give the house a second shake—and that was strange, you know, because until then there had been no wind to speak of at all.

John Coffey pulled away from her, and I saw that her face had smoothed out. The right side of her mouth no longer drooped. Her eyes had regained their normal shape, and she looked ten years younger. He regarded her raptly for a moment or two, and then he began to cough. He turned his head so as not to cough in her face, lost his balance (which wasn't hard; big as he was, he'd been sitting with his butt halfway off the side of the bed to start with), and went down onto the floor. There was enough of him to give the house a third shake. He landed on his knees and hung his head over, coughing like a man in the last stages of TB.

I thought,
Now the bugs. He's going to cough them out, and what a lot there'll be this time.

But he didn't. He only went on coughing in deep retching barks, hardly finding time between fits to snatch in the next breath of air. His dark, chocolatey skin was graying out. Alarmed, Brutal went to him, dropped to one knee beside him, and put an arm across his broad, spasming back. As if Brutal's moving had broken a spell, Moores went to his wife's bed and sat where Coffey had sat. He hardly seemed to register the coughing, choking giant's presence at all. Although Coffey was kneeling at his very feet, Moores had eyes only for his wife, who was gazing at him with amazement. Looking at her was like looking at a dirty mirror which has been wiped clean.

“John!” Brutal shouted. “Sick it up! Sick it up like you done before!”

John went on barking those choked coughs. His eyes were wet, not with tears but with strain. Spit flew from his mouth in a fine spray, but nothing else came out.

Brutal whammed him on the back a couple of times, then looked around at me. “He's choking! Whatever he sucked out of her, he's choking on it!”

I started forward. Before I got two steps, John knee-walked away from me and into the corner of the room, still coughing harshly and dragging for each breath. He laid his forehead against the wallpaper—wild red roses overspreading a garden wall—and made a gruesome deep hacking sound, as if he were trying to vomit up the lining of his own throat. That'll bring the bugs if anything can, I remember thinking,
but there was no sign of them. All the same, his coughing fit seemed to ease a little.

“I'm all right, boss,” he said, still leaning with his forehead against the wild roses. His eyes remained closed. I'm not sure how he knew I was there, but he clearly did. “Honest I am. See to the lady.”

I looked at him doubtfully, then turned to the bed. Hal was stroking Melly's brow, and I saw an amazing thing above it: some of her hair—not very much, but some—had gone back to black.

“What's happened?” she asked him. As I watched, color began to blush into her cheeks. It was as if she had stolen a couple of roses right out of the wallpaper. “How did I get here? We were going to the hospital up in Indianola, weren't we? A doctor was going to shoot X-rays into my head and take pictures of my brain.”

“Shhh,” Hal said. “Shhh, dearie, none of that matters now.”

“But I don't
understand
!” she nearly wailed. “We stopped at a roadside stand . . . you bought me a dime packet of posies . . . and then . . . I'm here. It's dark! Have you had your supper, Hal? Why am I in the guest room? Did I have the X-ray?” Her eyes moved across Harry almost without seeing him—that was shock, I imagine—and fixed on me. “Paul? Did I have the X-ray?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was clear.”

“They didn't find a tumor?”

“No,” I said. “They say the headaches will likely stop now.”

Beside her, Hal burst into tears.

She sat forward and kissed his temple. Then her eyes moved to the corner. “Who is that Negro man? Why is he in the corner?”

I turned and saw John trying to get up on his feet. Brutal helped him and John made it with a final lunge. He stood facing the wall, though, like a child who has been bad. He was still coughing in spasms, but these seemed to be weakening now.

“John,” I said. “Turn around, big boy, and see this lady.”

He slowly turned. His face was still the color of ashes, and he looked ten years older, like a once powerful man at last losing a long battle with consumption. His eyes were cast down on his prison slippers, and he looked as if he wished for a hat to wring.

“Who are you?” she asked again. “What's your name?”

“John Coffey, ma'am,” he said, to which she immediately replied, “But not spelled like the drink.”

Hal started beside her. She felt it, and patted his hand reassuringly without taking her eyes from the black man.

“I dreamed of you,” she said in a soft, wondering voice. “I dreamed you were wandering in the dark, and so was I. We found each other.”

John Coffey said nothing.

“We found each other in the dark,” she said. “Stand up, Hal, you're pinning me in here.”

He got up and watched with disbelief as she turned back the counterpane. “Melly, you can't—”

“Don't be silly,” she said, and swung her legs out. “Of course I can.” She smoothed her nightgown, stretched, then got to her feet.

“My God,” Hal whispered. “My dear God in heaven,
look
at her.”

She went to John Coffey. Brutal stood away from her, an awed expression on his face. She limped with the first step, did no more than favor her right leg a bit with the second, and then even that was gone. I remembered Brutal handing the colored spool to Delacroix and saying, “Toss it—I want to see how he runs.” Mr. Jingles had limped then, but on the next night, the night Del walked the Mile, he had been fine.

Melly put her arms around John and hugged him. Coffey stood there for a moment, letting himself be hugged, and then he raised one hand and stroked the top of her head. This he did with infinite gentleness. His face was still gray. I thought he looked dreadfully sick.

She stood away from him, her face turned up to his. “Thank you.”

“Right welcome, ma'am.”

She turned to Hal and walked back to him. He put his arms around her.

“Paul—” It was Harry. He held his right wrist out to me and tapped the face of his watch. It was pressing on to three o'clock. Light would start showing by four-thirty. If we wanted to get Coffey back to Cold Mountain before that happened, we would have to go soon. And I wanted to get him back. Partly because the longer this went on the worse our chances of getting away with it became, yes, of course. But I
also wanted John in a place where I could legitimately call a doctor for him, if the need arose. Looking at him, I thought it might.

The Mooreses were sitting on the edge of the bed, arms around each other. I thought of asking Hal out into the living room for a private word, then realized I could ask until the cows came home and he wouldn't budge from where he was right then. He might be able to take his eyes off her—for a few seconds, at least—by the time the sun came up, but not now.

“Hal,” I said. “We have to go now.”

He nodded, not looking at me. He was studying the color in his wife's cheeks, the natural unstrained curve of his wife's lips, the new black in his wife's hair.

I tapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to get his attention for a moment, at least.

“Hal, we never came here.”

“What—?”

“We never came here,” I said. “Later on we'll talk, but for now that's all you need to know. We were never here.”

“Yes, all right . . .” He forced himself to focus on me for a moment, with what was clearly an effort. “You got him out. Can you get him back in?”

“I think so. Maybe. But we need to go.”

“How did you know he could do this?” Then he shook his head, as if realizing for himself that this wasn't the time. “Paul . . . thank you.”

“Don't thank me,” I said. “Thank John.”

He looked at John Coffey, then put out one hand—just as I had done on the day Harry and Percy escorted John onto the block. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

John looked at the hand. Brutal threw a none-too-subtle elbow into his side. John started, then took the hand and gave it a shake. Up, down, back to center, release. “Welcome,” he said in a hoarse voice. It sounded to me like Melly's when she had clapped her hands and told John to pull down his pants. “Welcome,” he said to the man who would, in the ordinary course of things, grasp a pen with that hand and then sign John Coffey's execution order with it.

Harry tapped the face of his watch, more urgently this time.

“Brute?” I said. “Ready?”

“Hello, Brutus,” Melinda said in a cheerful voice, as if noticing him for the first time. “It's good to see you. Would you gentlemen like tea? Would you, Hal? I could make it.” She got up again. “I've been ill, but I feel fine now. Better than I have in years.”

“Thank you, Missus Moores, but we have to go,” Brutal said. “It's past John's bedtime.” He smiled to show it was a joke, but the look he gave John was as anxious as I felt.

“Well . . . if you're sure . . .”

“Yes, ma'am. Come on, John Coffey.” He tugged John's arm to get him going, and John went.

“Just a minute!” Melinda shook free of Hal's hand and ran as lightly as a girl to where John stood. She put her arms around him and gave him another hug. Then she reached around to the nape of her neck and pulled a fine-link chain out of her bodice. At the end of it was a silver medallion. She held it out to John, who looked at it uncomprehendingly.

“It's St. Christopher,” she said. “I want you to have it, Mr. Coffey, and wear it. He'll keep you safe. Please wear it. For me.”

John looked at me, troubled, and I looked at Hal, who first spread his hands and then nodded.

“Take it, John,” I said. “It's a present.”

John took it, slipped the chain around his bull-neck, and dropped the St. Christopher medallion into the front of his shirt. He had completely stopped coughing now, but I thought he looked grayer and sicker than ever.

“Thank you, ma'am,” he said.

“No,” she replied. “Thank
you
. Thank
you
, John Coffey.”

I
RODE UP
in the cab with Harry going back, and was damned glad to be there. The heater was broken, but we were out of the open air, at least. We had gone about ten miles when Harry spotted a little turnout and veered the truck into it.

“What is it?” I asked. “Is it a bearing?” To my mind, the problem could have been that or anything; every component of the Farmall's engine and transmission sounded on the verge of going cataclysmically wrong or giving up the ghost entirely.

“Nope,” Harry said, sounding apologetic. “I got to take a leak, is all. My back teeth are floatin.”

It turned out that we all did, except for John. When Brutal asked if he wouldn't like to step down and help us water the bushes, he just shook his head without looking up. He was leaning against the back of the cab and wearing one of the Army blankets over his shoulders like a serape. I couldn't get any kind of read on his complexion, but I could hear his breathing—dry and raspy, like wind blowing through straw. I didn't like it.

I walked into a clump of willows, unbuttoned, and let go. I was still close enough to my urinary infection so that the body's amnesia had not taken full hold, and I could be grateful simply to be able to pee without needing to scream. I stood there, emptying out and looking up at the moon; I was hardly aware of Brutal standing next to me and doing the same thing until he said in a low voice, “He'll never sit in Old Sparky.”

I looked around at him, surprised and a little frightened by the low certainty in his tone. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he swallered that stuff instead of spitting out like he done before for a reason. It might take a week—he's awful big and strong—but I bet it's quicker. One of us'll do a check-tour and there he'll be, lying dead as stone on his bunk.”

I'd thought I was done peeing, but at that a little shiver twisted up my back and a little more squirted out. As I rebuttoned my fly, I thought that what Brutal was saying made perfect sense. And I hoped, all in all, that he was right. John Coffey didn't deserve to die at all, if I was right in my reasoning about the Detterick girls, but if he
did
die, I didn't want it to be by my hand. I wasn't sure I could lift my hand to do it, if it came to that.

“Come on,” Harry murmured out of the dark. “It's gettin late. Let's get this done.”

As we walked back to the truck, I realized we had left John entirely alone—stupidity on the Percy Wetmore level. I thought that he would be gone; that he'd spat out the bugs as soon as he saw he was unguarded, and had then just lit out for the territories, like Huck and Jim on the Big Muddy. All we would find was the blanket he had been wearing around his shoulders.

But he was there, still sitting with his back against the cab and his forearms propped on his knees. He looked up at the sound of our approach and tried to give us a smile. It hung there for a moment on his haggard face and then slipped off.

“How you doing, Big John?” Brutal asked, climbing into the back of the truck again and retrieving his own blanket.

“Fine, boss,” John said listlessly. “I's fine.”

Brutal patted his knee. “We'll be back soon. And when we get squared away, you know what? I'm going to see you get a great big cup of hot coffee. Sugar and cream, too.”

You bet, I thought, going around to the passenger side of the cab and climbing in. If we don't get arrested and thrown in jail ourselves first.

But I'd been living with that idea ever since we'd thrown Percy into
the restraint room, and it didn't worry me enough to keep me awake. I dozed off and dreamed of Calvary Hill. Thunder in the west and a smell that might have been juniper berries. Brutal and Harry and Dean and I were standing around in robes and tin hats like in a Cecil B. DeMille movie. We were Centurions, I guess. There were three crosses, Percy Wetmore and Eduard Delacroix flanking John Coffey. I looked down at my hand and saw I was holding a bloody hammer.