When the Wind Blows (28 page)

“Stop that!” she hissed. “You aren’t supposed to cry. Do you hear me? Stop that!”

Christie trembled in the crib and tried desperately not to cry, but her fear was too great. A sob escaped her lips.

Diana’s fist flashed down, striking Christie in the ribs. She moaned and drew her body into a tight ball.

“Don’t you cry!” Diana’s voice rasped. “Don’t you dare cry!”

Again she raised her fist, and Christie clamped her hands over her mouth, determined to keep silent, knowing that if she screamed, it would only be worse.

Time after time Diana battered at the little girl, her voice sinking into guttural mutterings as an unreasoning fury drove her on.

And then, as Christie wondered if she were about to die, an eerie silence came over the house. The wind had stopped.

Christie lay still in the crib, her scream frozen in her throat. Above her, Diana’s face glowed in the moonlight; her eyes were slowly losing their manic glaze. She reached down and touched Christie’s bruised body.

“What happened?” she asked. “Christie, what happened?” But Christie, too terrified to respond, lay still, her legs pulled tightly up against her chest, her thumb in her mouth.

“Did the wind frighten you?” Diana asked. “But it’s all over now, sweetheart. Mama fixed it for you. Mama will always fix it.”

Then she was gone, and Christie heard the lock click into place. She lay staring into the darkness, wanting more than anything in the world to run away. But she was too frightened to move.

*  *  *

Edna sat in the living room, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the television, an unopened magazine on her lap. Sometime during the night, she was sure, the telephone was going to ring.

As the silence lengthened she began to believe that perhaps it wouldn’t Perhaps, as Diana had said, everything
was
all right. She glanced upward, wondering what was happening upstairs. The house was strangely still, and Edna suddenly realized that the wind had died down.

And then the telephone rang. As Edna stood up to answer it, her magazine fell unnoticed from her lap.

“Yes.” she said. Everything was not all right, after all.

Dan Gurley’s voice seemed to drift over the line from a great distance.

“Miss Edna? Is Miss Diana there?”

“She’s gone to bed. Can I help you?”

“I don’t know. Reverend Jennings called me a few minutes ago. Jay-Jay appears to be missing.”

Edna’s lips tightened, but when she spoke, her voice was flat, emotionless. “What has that got to do with us?”

“I’ve done some checking around, and it seems some of the kids were planning to go out to the mine tonight.” Gurley paused, and when he got no response, went on. “As far as I know, only Jay-Jay actually went.”

Edna’s mind worked furiously, but she needed time to think. “Perhaps you’d better come out here, Daniel,” she said at last.

There was another pause, then the marshal spoke again. “I’ll be there in ten minutes, Miss Edna.”

Edna hung up the phone and went to the bottom of the stairs.

“Diana? Diana!”
Her cane crashed against the banister, resounding through the house. Getting no reply, Edna mounted the stairs, moving as fast as her stiff
legs would allow. She went to Diana’s room and entered without knocking. Sitting in bed, a peaceful smile on her face, was Diana.

Edna’s eyes blazed with fury as she stared at her daughter, but Diana remained impassive, her gaze expressionless.

“Mama? What is it?”

“Get up,” Edna told her. “Daniel Gurley is on his way out here, and he wants to talk to you.”

Diana frowned slightly, but got out of bed. “What could he want at this hour?”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you,” Edna replied.

Five minutes later Dan Gurley arrived. Without waiting to be invited, he went into the parlor, then waited for the two women to seat themselves.

“Did you see Jay-Jay tonight?” he asked at last.

“Certainly not,” Edna snapped. “If I had, I would have called you, and her parents, too.”

“Diana? Did you see her?”

“No,” Diana said. “I was out with Bill Henry tonight.”

“What about Christie?” Dan asked.

“She was here with me all evening,” Edna replied.

“May I talk to her?”

“What on earth for?” The old woman stood up. “It’s bad enough having you disturb us at this hour,” she said. “I won’t have you upsetting Christie, too.”

Dan hesitated, then gave in, realizing that even if he argued, Miss Edna would not be moved. Besides, finding Jay-Jay was, for the moment at least, more important than arguing with the Ambers. “All right,” he said. “Sorry to have disturbed you. I’ll just go on up to the mine and have a look around.”

A few minutes later, when Dan was gone and they were alone, Edna faced Diana.

“What happened up there tonight?” she asked.

Diana looked puzzled. “Where?”

“At the mine. You went up there, Diana.”

“I didn’t,” Diana insisted. “Bill brought me home, I said good night to Christie, and I went to bed.”

“That’s not true, Diana.” There was desperation in the old woman’s voice now. “Diana, did you do something to Jay-Jay Jennings?”

Diana shook her head, totally baffled. “Mama, we don’t even know if anything’s happened to Jay-Jay. She’s probably already home.”

“I hope so,” Edna said darkly. “For your sake, I hope so.”

“What do you mean, ‘for my sake’? Mama, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t want to send you to the hospital again, Diana. But I might have to.”

“The hospital?” What was she talking about? “But, Mama, why?”

“A child died, Diana, and another one is missing.”

Diana stepped back from her mother. “Mama—you don’t think—you can’t—”

“Listen to me, Diana,” Edna said. “I want to protect you. I’ve always wanted to protect you. But how can I? You won’t let me!” Her voice rose. “You’ve never let me!”

Now Diana’s voice rose, too.

“Protect me from what, Mama? What have I done that you want to protect me from?” Suddenly she knew. “You mean my baby?” she asked, her voice low.

Edna paled. “He told you.”

“Yes, Mama, Bill told me. Is that what you think you’ve been protecting me from all these years? My own memory?”

Edna sank onto the sofa and stared up at her daughter. She had made a mistake, telling Dr. Henry about the baby. Now she tried to think. How much did Diana know? Only, Edna was sure, as much as she had told the doctor. She let herself relax a little.
“Maybe I should have told you,” she said softly. “But it was so many years ago.…”

“You mean maybe it doesn’t matter anymore, Mother?” Diana asked. “God, Mother, it was my baby!”

“It was nobody’s baby,” Edna shouted. She glowered at Diana, her hands shaking as she clutched her cane. “It was born dead!”

Diana, her face pale, sank into a chair. “Tell me about it,” she said.

“There’s nothing to tell,” her mother replied. “It was born dead, and that’s all there is to it.”

“That’s
not
all there is to it,” Diana cried. “For God’s sake, Mother, can’t you understand? All my life I’ve wanted to have a baby, and now, when I’m fifty, I find out that I had one, and you say that’s all there is to it?”

Edna shook her head sadly. “Why dig it up now, Diana?” she asked. “It happened so many years ago.”

“And for so many years,” Diana replied, “I’ve been so unhappy. What else happened to me that you never told me about, Mother? Besides the fact that you used to beat me.”

Edna glared at her. “I never—”

“You did, Mother. I remembered. Up at the mine, when I was with Christie and Jeff, I remembered. You blamed me for my father’s death, didn’t you? And you beat me.”

Her face ashen, Edna rose to her feet. “How dare you?” she demanded. “How dare you talk to your mother that way?”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Diana demanded.

“Maybe it is!” Edna drew herself up and seemed to tower over Diana. “You were an evil child, Diana, but I raised you as best I could. And don’t you ever forget that I’m still your mother, and I still know what’s best for you. I always have, and I always will. But that’s
never been enough for you, has it? No matter what I’ve done, you’ve always resented me. Well, maybe I should have let you marry Bill Henry; let you have more children!”

“Maybe you should have,” Diana whispered.

Edna raised her hand and struck her daughter. “So they could die, too? Never!”

Stunned, feeling the blood rushing to her cheek, Diana stared at her mother, and as she gazed into Edna’s angry blue eyes, a memory stirred in her.

Just for a moment, she heard a baby crying.

“It wasn’t born dead,” she whispered. “My baby wasn’t born dead, was it?”

Again Edna struck Diana.

“Don’t say that,” she hissed. “Don’t you ever say that again. It was dead, Diana! Do you hear me?
It was born dead!”

But as she made her way up the stairs a few minutes later, her hand held to the cheek where Edna had slapped her, the thought remained in Diana’s mind.

It wasn’t dead.

My baby wasn’t dead
.

She repeated it to herself over and over again as she bathed her cheek with cool water and the pain slowly subsided.

But if it wasn’t born dead, what happened to it?

She went to her room and undressed, slipping into her nightgown.

Then, her mind still whirling in confusion, she went up to the third floor.

She stopped when she came to the nursery door and listened.

Inside, a child was crying.

Her child?

“Baby?” she called softly, unlocking and opening the door. In the crib, she could see her baby. It was crying. She went to it and picked it up.

“Baby,” she whispered in the stillness of the night. “You mustn’t cry. Mama doesn’t want you to cry. Mama loves you.”

In Diana’s arms, Christie Lyons forced herself to be still.

   Dan pulled his car up to the mine. As he turned to park near the entrance, his headlights swept the old caretaker’s cabin. He frowned as he gazed at the squat dark building sitting fifty yards away, then shut off the engine, got out of the car, and approached the cabin. He knocked on the door and called out softly, “Esperanza?”

When there was no answer, Dan tried the door. It was not locked. He opened it and stepped inside the cabin. He switched on his flashlight and looked around.

On the bed, her eyes watching him suspiciously, a blanket clutched around her, was Esperanza Rodriguez. Dan found the light switch, and the cabin was suddenly bright.

“It’s only me, Esperanza,” he said, The woman’s dark face relaxed, but only a little.

“What you want?” she asked. “Juan? Is it Juan? Did something happen to
mi hijo?”

“Now, calm down, Esperanza. This has nothing to do with Juan. He’s in the jail, and I’m sure he’s sound asleep.”

Esperanza pulled the blanket tighter around her and sat up in the bed. “Then what do you want?” she asked.

“It’s one of the children,” Dan told her. “One of the children is missing.” When Esperanza’s face remained impassive, he spoke again. “I need to ask you some questions, all right?”

Esperanza nodded silently.

“Did you see anyone up here tonight?” he asked.

Again Esperanza nodded.

“Can you tell me about it, please?” For a moment Dan thought she was going to refuse, but then she began speaking, slowly, as if wanting to be sure she got all the words right.

“I was in bed, and the wind, it was blowing. Then I heard something, so I looked out the window. It was a little girl. So I went out the back door to see what she was doing, and she ran away.”

She fell silent and stared at Dan as if expecting him to accuse her of lying to him.

“And that’s all?” he asked.

Esperanza’s head moved again, her black eyes fixed on his.

“You didn’t go into the mine to look for someone else?”

“I don’t like the mine,” Esperanza told him.
“Los niños
are in there.”

Dan nodded, remembering the legend of the children that the Indians thought lived in the mountain.

“All right,” he said. “You go back to sleep. I’m going to have a look around.”

But Esperanza was getting out of bed. “You come back,” she said. “I make coffee, and you come back and tell me what you find. Okay?”

Dan agreed, then left the cabin.

He approached the dark entrance to the mine and paused, flashing his light inside. There appeared to be nothing.

“Jay-Jay?” He called. There was no response, and he flashed his light around again, then began walking into the tunnel.

Just inside he found the power box and threw the main switch on. The lights cut through the darkness, and Dan turned his flashlight off. He moved slowly through the mine until he was at the edge of the vertical shaft. Sighing heavily, he stepped into the elevator and started down.

He found Jay-Jay at the bottom.

Once again, the black floor of the mine was stained red with blood. The body, a shapeless mass of mangled flesh and bone, was almost unrecognizable.

“Jesus …” Dan Gurley whispered. He got back into the elevator and, as the cage rattled slowly upward, his stomach began heaving.

When he was back outside, he breathed deeply of the night air, but it wasn’t enough. Leaning on the fender of his car, he vomited into the dust.

When he returned to the cabin a few minutes later, Esperanza handed him a cup of steaming coffee and read in his face what had happened.

“Està muerta?”
she asked. As he nodded she crossed herself and muttered a quick prayer. As Dan sipped his coffee she lowered herself into a chair, shaking her head sadly.

“Los niños,”
she murmured. “Bad things are coming,” she told Dan. “The children are restless.”

“Bad things have already come, Esperanza,” Dan said quietly. “Three people have died.”

“It is because of the mine,” Esperanza said. “The mine must be left alone.”

“No,” Dan replied. “It’s not the mine, Esperanza. The mine is only a hole in the ground. They were just accidents, that’s all.”

But Esperanza knew better, and when Dan finally left her cabin, she fell to her knees and began to pray.