The Pig Did It (15 page)

At the rise of a medium swell he saw about fifteen feet to his left, the canoe, now nosed toward the shore, the man not looking in his direction or even taking note of the change in the canoe's course. His hands were no longer folded, but gliding through the water at the canoe's sides. Before Aaron could call out, another wave tumbled down on top of him and it seemed, as he struggled to reach the air above, that the sea had finally made its claim and he should cease and desist in his futile defiance.

He swallowed water and struggled harder, his arms heavy from the weight of his hands, his legs weary from the drag of his feet. He must throw off this heaviness. He must fling from him his hands and shake his ankles free of his feet. Flinging, shaking, he reached the air. He pulled it in, but it gagged him. And another wave tumbled down, dunking his head, holding it under, not even offering to free him after the count of ten. Again he took up his struggles, cursing the hugeness of his weighted hands, begging to be free of his size twelve feet. Again his mouth was flooded with the salty taste stinging the inside of his nose, threatening to burst open his ears so the water could make a more thorough invasion. But the air was near, then nearer. His hands became as light as down; his feet buoyant, lifting him toward the blessed air he was to be given at last.

First he felt the water rush from his mouth. There was a taste of sand on his tongue, a sea taste of weed and kelp. Next he felt the waves press down on his chest and water spurt out of his mouth. Again a wave pressed down. He twitched his hands. He shifted his feet. There was no water under him. This then, was the ocean's bed, and he had come to rest on it and wait for the murmuring currents and the whispering nibbles that would relieve him of his flesh and heart and lungs, his liver and his spleen, that would unman his proud and lovely crotch, that would transform him to Declan Tovey's twin, bare bones clothed not even in tatters, scalped, without even a Brewers baseball cap to cover his head. Unmourned he would lie, and unmournful too. Phila would cease to matter. Lost. All lost. Due to the imagined look-alike of the dead Declan Tovey, out in his canoe.

Again a great wave pressed down on him, but this time it forced him to take in what seemed to be air, not water. The wave pressed down again and again. He felt his opened mouth sucking in some drying substance not unlike the breath he had known and been accustomed to during his life on earth. He opened his eyes. A wet tangle of weeds, brownish yellow turning to green, was less than six inches from his nose. It had the smell of fish no longer fresh. The leaves looked like the emptied seed pods from a maple tree, interspersed at intervals with what seemed oblong beads growing a slimy fur, a sea rosary sent to tempt him to prayer.

The pressure was repeated. Aaron grunted. In quick succession three more shoves were made downward on his sides, along his ribs. “Hah! Now you've done it!” a voice said. “You've gone and saved him.” It was a man's voice, a voice that managed to be both amused and unbelieving at the same time. “And are you all right? You took on a bit of water yourself, you know.”

“Ill be all right by the end of the day,” another voice said, this one low and solemn, the breath coming in quick gasps between the words. Aaron lifted his head with the intention of twisting it around so he could see who was there and ask what was happening and what had happened that had brought him here, lying on the sand with a tangle of kelp inches from his nose. That he had failed to save the man in the canoe and that he himself had been rescued was apparent to him now, but a few particulars might be welcome. He felt a hand on his shoulder encouraging him to put his head back down on the sand. “Rest yourself another minute,” the quiet, solemn voice said.

Aaron obediently put his head back down and stared at the seaweed. A sea spider was coming toward him, making its way from bead to bead, walking more along the side than the top, the long, hair-thin legs barely touching the furred surface as it moved. Aaron had never realized how tiny the body itself was and how extended and delicate were the legs that took the body to wherever it might want to go. When the spider was less than three inches from Aaron's nose, he lifted his head again and, before he could be urged to do otherwise, he raised his right shoulder and turned to look at his rescuer.

There, seated on the rock, was Sweeney, naked, his elbows propped on his knees, his head bowed into his hands, his torso heaving slowly up and down as if he were keening, but without a wail or a moan. Water dripped from his hair onto his hands and ran in rivulets between the knuckles and down past his wrists to his knees where they disappeared in the thick red hair that sprang from his shins and calves.

Aaron, still stiff in the arms and legs and spine, got up and stood watching, wondering what he might say or do. Then he saw the man he'd attempted to rescue standing ten feet off, the paddle of the canoe held like a staff in his right hand, the canoe nosing his leg like a faithful pet. He was looking at Aaron. His lips were jutted forward. His eyes were wide and round and seemed amused by what they saw. Aaron thought the time had come to punch his nose again. He lurched toward the man but stumbled when the numbness in his legs absorbed without effect the signals sent out by the will.

“This is not one of the better places to take a swim,” the man said. “There are plenty of better beaches, in case you have any trouble like the trouble you've had today. You're a lucky man. And did you know you're still wearing socks?”

To rob the man of any further satisfaction, Aaron turned away and went toward Sweeney. Sweeney had lowered his hands from his face and was letting them dangle between his knees, not quite shielding the plump penis and low-hanging testicles that sloped along the curve of the stone where he sat. The heaving breaths had become less labored. He was staring out over the water, his mouth slightly open, his eyes quiet and mournful. His exhaustion had brought him to a repose where neither rage nor exasperations could hide his sorrow.

Aaron went no closer. He started to turn, back toward the man with the pet canoe, but decided to do as Sweeney was doing, to stare out over the sea.

Finally Sweeney spoke. “I should never have done it,” he said. “I'll never be forgiven. Never at all.”

Aaron said nothing. Sweeney was talking to the sea, not to him. It would be impolite to insinuate himself into the conversation. He'd wait until Sweeney addressed him directly. And there, behold, he saw, well offshore, the canoe, the man paddling his way out into the rising, the falling waves.

“He's doing it again!” Aaron must have meant to shout, but it all came out more like a moan. To test his ability to modulate, he repeated “He's doing it again!” The modulation was there, effected mostly by a gagging in his throat, then a gargling, then a thin line of water emerging from his mouth and running down his chin onto his chest. “Look! There!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Look!”

“I've betrayed my name,” Sweeney said in reply. “I've dishonored my family for all time to come. And may I never be forgiven.”

Aaron turned to face the mournful man. He was standing, still naked except for the thick reddish hair that covered his chest and the thick orange hair that curled around the base of his dick and the darker hair that furred the skin of his balls. Without acknowledging Aaron's presence, he continued to stare out toward the rampage before him. Aaron was tempted to ask what he might be talking about, but before be could say anything, Sweeney spoke again. “My name is Kieran Sweeney and your name is Aaron McCloud. And you were meant to drown, and I was meant to watch and see it happen. But I didn't watch. I saw the waves claiming you for their own, and rightly so. I've told you that. But, no, being a McCloud, you hear nothing a Sweeney says. In you go—and the waves waiting, moving their jaws up and down. This was as it was meant to be. And it was meant to be that I would see it and rejoice. But did I rejoice or even smile? No. I, Kieran Sweeney, unstable of mind and with a body beyond all control, went running in, fighting the waves like the heroes we Sweeneys always were and are and will always be. And I reach down and drag you up from where they've caught you, from where you belong. And not content to simply laugh in your face and let you go, I pull you out of the depths. And then do I just fling you down and let you die? No. Unstable of mind, I work away and send the water gushing out of you onto the stones. And you're a McCloud. McCloud, do you hear? A cursed McCloud. And I a good and blessed Sweeney. An enemy in the blood, an enemy in the breath. From all time past and all time to come. And I saved you, so I'm cursed along with you and with you all!”

Aaron did little during the tirade except blink and let his lower lip fall a bit lower, little by little. But now the lip could go no lower, the jaw could fall no farther. His amazement was complete. He blinked once more, with Sweeney still standing huge before him, the cliffs and the scree rising high behind him, blackened red and darkening rust. It was his aunt whom Sweeney loved, that he already knew. And for Kitty McCloud did Sweeney walk the shore grieving and sorrowing. She was one of the cursed, born on the far side of a boundary that must never be crossed, and he a man too foolish to kick the nonsense aside and say what was in his heart. Aaron decided to speak.

“Does my aunt know that you're in love with her?” Sweeney curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist, but made no other move. Slowly he let the fingers uncurl. After they had rested a moment, lightly touching his thighs, he said—without looking at Aaron—“See him out there, getting farther and farther from shore. The paddle will be taken from him again. The water will come into the boat. Lower it will go until there's no hope for it. And the man will go under. But you—you must go for him. Save him. Do again what you already did. Try to rescue him. Please. Try again. And this time I will watch and keep on watching. Maybe he'll keep his canoe again and make it to the shore. But you, you must go under and stay where you belong. No one must come for you. No one must save you. Please. I promise by my family's good and blessed name I'll make no move. My mind I'll feed with ancient thoughts, my body I'll instruct to stand where it stands. You'll drown—you'll drown! And I watching! And I'll be the one saved. See? See there? His paddle's gone. He's adrift. Save him. Save him. And save me as well. You can do that, can't you?” Sweeney had moved closer, his, plea streaming from his eyes, near to taking the form of tears. “I saved you,” he whispered. “Now you must save me.”

“Why don't you just tell her you love her?”

Sweeney drew in a deep breath and sneered. “Of course you won't save me. You're a McCloud. A McCloud never saved anyone. I should have known better than to have asked.”

“Maybe she feels the same way about you.”

The sneer fell from his face, the jaw went slack, and the mouth opened. Then all was clamped shut again, with a look of loathing and disgust. Aaron waited for Sweeney to spit at him. But Sweeney merely turned and, with heavy tread, began to march more than walk, away to the north.

“Your clothes,” Aaron called. “You forgot your clothes.” Back Sweeney came. He reached down and gathered his pants and shirt and shoes and socks and undershorts and bundled them against his chest. Without looking at Aaron, he said, “Tell your aunt she had her chance to give proper burial to the dead. I'll be over before the day is done and take the man away. It's best she be rid of him. And tell her again her secret's safe with me. She did what she had to do, and not even Kieran Sweeney will blame her for it. But warn her I'm coming—and Declan Tovey goes with me.” He turned north and began again his determined march. As Aaron watched, he saw a shoe drop from the bundle.

“Your shoe,” Aaron called.

Sweeney stopped, stood a moment, then continued on.

“She loves you!” he yelled.

Sweeney went right on, the gulls careering overhead, the waves booming, and the waters hissing along the shore. Aaron considered picking up the shoe—to give it to him later—after all, he did save his life—but Sweeney might come back for it later when there was no one to see his need for it. Aaron turned and started south, toward home.

Then he realized that he himself was near to naked. He went back, retrieved his clothes and put them on, except the sandals. They were gone. The wind caught the loose shirt, the buttons flown, and flapped it out behind. Just before the shoreline made a curve at the foot of the cliffs, he took one more backward glance. Sweeney's shoe was still there, and Sweeney was nowhere in sight.

7

K
itty and Aaron and Lolly, like relatives around a sickbed, had gathered again in the priest's room to look down with solemn concern at the outstretched Declan Tovey. Declan, for his part, seemed neither the worse nor the better for having been left alone for almost twenty-four hours, except the grin seemed not quite so insolent, a bit more subdued than Aaron remembered. Like any patient surrounded by those discussing his fate, indifferent to his presence, involved solely in their own determinations, Declan seemed to have retreated into concerns considerably distant from the urgencies and intensities being exchanged not two feet from where he lay.

Lolly was already at the house when Aaron had returned from his dousing, wet again, cold again, but with the chattering and shivering under considerably more control than on the day before. Aaron had wanted to say something about the previous evening at Dockery's, starting not with a mention of his championship or even of the Declan surrogate accompanying her, but with a humble apology for his drunken state. Not that he cared one way or the other about his drinking, but it seemed a polite and possible pretext for beginning a review of an evening that had raised more than a few questions as yet unanswered. Who was the man? Why had Lolly not seen him, Aaron? Had she seen him but ignored him? Had she forgotten that they'd met that very afternoon in the presence of the present corpse? Perhaps she couldn't recognize him if he wasn't bedraggled, as he was now after his near drowning. All these he considered topics of high import, subjects that easily took precedence over what to do with the skeleton arrayed before them or the resolution of the unsolved matter of his murder. But Lolly, coming through the kitchen door had, at the sight of Aaron, merely said, “You've been swimming again. You'll catch your death.” And had then swept past Kitty at her computer and into the priest's room, holding up a needle threaded with heavy black thread. Kitty and Aaron had followed. Lolly was already at work sewing the detached button back onto the man's coat, her hands supple and swift and obviously more competent at a domestic task than Aaron had considered likely.