Jane Was Here (15 page)

Iacovucci’s snowy eyebrows lifted over his bifocals.

“That means it’s a Gabriel Nation chair. Crazy what some people pay for them—they’re rare, made upstate by some nutty 19th-century commune like the Shakers, except with zero talent for furniture. That’s why you don’t see many of these, on account of they fall apart so easy.” Iacovucci eyed Hoyt’s cervical collar. “So what happened to you?”

“Whiplash.” Hoyt’s pain was increasing every day; the foam collar didn’t seem to be helping any more. Alcohol worked better, along with a modicum of weed.

By late afternoon he was hanging out in Jack’s study, chugging a bottle of the Meltzers’ best Bordeaux and sucking on a joint as he surfed the Web for wildlife porn. He liked to watch the big-loined animals going at it: elks, Kodiak bears, lions. Also hot, bundled king cobras.

Halfway down the bottle, and a charred roach all that remained of the marijuana, Hoyt found himself typing “gabriel nation” in the search bar. Following a link to an antiques site, he read a short paragraph on the insignia:

“The Gabriel Nation cross, with its base bent to the left signifying the angel Gabriel’s position at the left hand of God, and its apex touching the scalloped canopy of heaven, symbolizes the highest spiritual state which can be achieved during mortal life.”

Wikipedia
offered a few more details:

“Gabriel Nation, a short-lived Christian utopian community, originated in Beller, Texas, in 1849 under the leadership of Levon Artzuni, an Armenian immigrant. Two years later, when Texans proved hostile to his ministry, the charismatic Artzuni moved a small group of followers to Hovey Brook, Massachusetts.”

Hoyt knew Hovey Pond. It was about fifty miles northwest of Graynier, near Marlborough. The town had a massage parlor whose Friday “Wild West” nights made the trip occasionally worthwhile.

“Declaring himself the messenger of the angel Gabriel, Artzuni preached that the divinity of angels was attainable by humans: through prayer, ecstatic trance, and conversion of sinners, concepts he drew from the evangelical religious traditions of the South. What gave the group its notoriety was Artzuni’s claim that virginity was a prerequisite for all members, without which one could not aspire to angelic beatitude.

“For a time, Gabriel Nation was tolerated in Massachusetts, until disaffected locals spread rumors that Artzuni himself had divested some female converts of their virginity, and local outrage forced the group to move on. Whether they would have eventually died out like the Shakers, who also promoted celibacy, can never be known, since all the followers of Gabriel Nation perished of famine en route to the Pacific Northwest in 1857.”

For a moment, Hoyt was with the little band of believers, huddling with their demented leader in some god forsaken mountain pass as doom howled in. He shivered: it was a feeling like when he was ten years old, hunkered down with his scripture-spewing mother as the eviction notice was hammered to the door.

He touched his fingers to his eyes, suddenly aware he was crying. Angrily he wiped the tears away, but they only flowed harder.

It was a mercy when he passed out.

AND NOW, REGRETTABLY
, he’s conscious again.

Hoyt shuts off the computer, getting to his feet. The blood booms in his head; his neck is on fire again. Ripping off the useless cervical collar, he chucks it in the trash basket and lurches to the door, leaving his mess on the desk for Honorata the maid. Tomorrow she’ll clean everything up before the Meltzers copter in. Right now he requires neat liquor, fast.

He yanks open the glove compartment in his truck, his hand closing around the sleek, cool glass shape of deliverance. Twisting off the cap, he brings the bottle to his lips, throwing a slug of brandy “
derrière la cravate
”— behind the necktie—as the froggy froggy French put it. The thought hits him that he forgot to order a replacement for the missing tiki torch on the pool path—no doubt the work of teenage vandals. Ah, the Vandals. Sack of Rome, 455 A.D. Were they hormonal too, with acne? He drinks to them, those naughty Vandals.

Then he remembers Pete. Climbing out of the truck, he puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles for the dog. The night’s humidity seems to suffocate sound. Haze drifts across a chawed-off moon as Hoyt walks up the driveway toward the lawn, whistling again. “Pete!”

Honks from the lake greet him, which means the dog is in the woods; the Canada geese wouldn’t be back if Pete were around.

Taking the brandy with him, Hoyt strides out on the grass. Immediately he realizes his blunder. He’d left the sprinklers on—for two days? Three? Now every step he takes is in mush, the viscous soil sucking up his boots, the grass drowned. Halfway to the lake, his feet have sunk past the ankle; he can’t pull either boot up.

“Pete! You asshole!”

The unseen geese chortle. The skunks must be highfiving each other in the bushes.

Trying to pry his boots from the mire with all his might, he manages to drive them deeper. His stomach recoils as the mud breaches his calves. Cursing, he decides to undo his laces and pull his stockinged feet clear.

But first, a drink.

Before he can take a swig he is sinking further, as if in a slow elevator down…

With a sound like thunder, the ground below his feet opens and he free-falls, hurtling through a void.

He lands with a crash on his back and lies there in shock, staring at the stars above. His thumped brain burps up the German for star:
stern
. The stars are stern indeed, admonishing him:
Your fault. You left the fucking sprinklers on.

He scrambles to his feet. He is standing at the bottom of a crater, a gaping sinkhole in the middle of the Meltzers’ flooded lawn, the rim of its steep mud walls at least five feet above his head, far out of reach. Water droplets pelt his upturned face: the underground sprinkler pipes, sticking naked out of the collapsed soil overhead, drizzle on his head in further mockery.

If he can climb partway up the side, he can grab onto the pipes and hoist himself up the rest of the way. Clambering up the slope, he grasps at frangible roots, dislodging stones.

The wall caves downward under his exertions, melting away. Hoyt is back at the bottom, the hole bigger than before.

He gropes up the opposite side. This time when the wall gives way, he is sent rolling to the bottom with rusted metal scrap, loose chunks of concrete rubble, and what looks like a part of a toilet seat.

He realizes the contractor used improper fill, then neglected to compact it. The sprinklers’ deluge only hastened a collapse that was long overdue. Flat on his ass and panting, Hoyt mentally hoists a glass to his fellow cheat, who really should be here with him celebrating at the bottom of the canyon.

Taking his cell phone from his back pocket, he dials 911: he’ll rouse that circle jerk known as the Graynier Volunteer Fire Department.
No service
, his phone announces. Maple Manor’s signal is weak; Jack Meltzer had brought in a brace of lawyers to defeat the installation of a phone tower on Rowell Hill, which would have compromised his view. Usually Hoyt can find a spot where there’s a flimsy connection—but not here at the bottom of a twelve-foot pit.

Hoyt leaves the phone on, just in case someone might be able to get through from the other end. But no one knows he is here; no one lives nearby; and no one, in any case, cares. Everyone above is sweating through a hot summer night, but down here the bowels of the earth are cold, wet, and covetous, hoarding their captive. He’s in for a long night.

Even worse is the prospect of getting sober. He feels around for the brandy bottle, hoping it survived the plunge. His hand contacts something smooth and round. But it’s only a piece of plastic duct pipe amid the debris. He flings it aside and keeps digging, first methodically, then with a vengeance, dirt packing his nails, his arms scraped bloody by stones and scrap metal.

At one point he pulls forth a long femur bone. Perhaps from a horse, from the bygone days when this whole area was carved up into farms. In the deep woods behind his house, he has seen remnants of stone fences. Suddenly a straight, carefully-laid wall will appear, demarcating nothing anymore except maybe history.

Yes, plenty of history to be found in a ten-foot scrap hole. If he gave a shit.

He slumps back in defeat, gulping air heavy with decomposition.
Always knew I could sink lower if I tried.
He laughs bitterly, then settles in to wait out the night.

From time to time, Hoyt hears the light rumbling of more soil breaking from the walls, sifting to the bottom, covering his outstretched legs; he can feel the bumping of worms underneath as they collide with his body and reroute. He pushes away the thought that he is in his grave. Nothing to do, nothing to drink, and all thought is ill-advised.

HOURS LATER, HOYT
wakes to the sensation that someone is looking down at him from above. He struggles to focus, but there is no moon to see by, the stars rubbed away by low-lying mist.

Gradually, he makes out a head hanging over the rim of the sinkhole.

The head is small, thick-necked, with flaps of long hair drooping down. Though he can’t see its eyes, he feels an opaque gaze on him.

“Hey,” he croaks uncertainly.

The presence starts to breathe fast. Staccato exhalations, like husky laughter:
Heh-heh-heh.

Hoyt’s hair stands up; his blood races as fear tightens around his heart.

A low growl forms in the thing’s throat, growing louder, like a train emerging from a tunnel.

Then a bark.

“Pete!” Nearly swooning with relief, he stands and calls the dog. “Hey, boy! Go get help.”

This is not a command Pete understands. He’s not a TV dog. If he were, he would run, get rope from Hoyt’s truck, clamp one end in its jaws, toss the other end down, and haul his master out of danger. But, Pete is stupid.

Or, alternatively, Pete is smart: there is no rope in Hoyt’s truck.

If the mutt can’t help him to safety, at least he can keep Hoyt warm. “Come on down!” He beckons vigorously. “Good dog! Jump!”

Crouching, Pete readies to leap. Then, gauging the distance down, he changes his mind. He whines an apology, does a couple of spins to denote frustration. Then the smell of night prey drifts by his nostrils. With a bound, Pete’s racing away to better options than spending the night stuck in a hole with a man who has no food. Pete is too smart for that.

Hoyt sits on the ground, leaning back against the wall again and closing his eyes. He hugs himself to preserve his body’s heat, every muscle tight with cold.

As he passes in and out of consciousness, the haze departs, uncovering the stern stars.

Whump.
He jerks awake.

The bank opposite Hoyt is calving like an iceberg.
Whump.
Another chunk of wall slides to the bottom.

He sees something white embedded in the bank. A white head. Small, like a child’s skull. And it has eyes.

He’s got to be dreaming. He yells, hoping to wake himself up. Instead, his bellowing causes the dirt to shift again, sifting away from the head to reveal its white neck. And he’s not dreaming.

Another layer of soil breaks away. Two small white hands appear, thrust out stiffly. They seem to reach for him.

Tamping down the terror building in his chest, Hoyt tells himself that if the thing is a skeleton, all it can do is frighten him. It can’t move: it’s inanimate.

Crawling to the opposite bank, he touches the white head. Its surface is rough and cool. As he comes closer, he can discern its features.

He
knows
that face! Roaring with fury, he grabs its neck, wrestling it from the dirt. Shoulders emerge—then a draped torso. Abruptly the soil releases the rest of it, and Hoyt falls backward, a four-foot, 100-pound chunk of heavy white granite on top of him.