Sisters (31 page)

She ran for the stairs at
the end of the hallway. Her only hope was to get up to the stage
level and then run for one of the front entrances.

As she neared the top of
the stairway, she tripped on her skirts and fell to her knees. As she
scrambled to her feet, she saw the trap-room door open, saw Rodman
come out. She ran up the few remaining stairs. He'd see her! Surely
he'd see her!

Just as she reached the top
of the stairway, a shot rang out, a bullet ricocheted off the wall.

What could she do? He was
so close now. If she ran across the stage and up the aisle of the
auditorium to one of the main entrances, he'd pick her off easily.

Almost without thinking,
she rapidly climbed a ladder hooked against the back wall of the
stage. She thought it would take her to the rigging loft. She wasn't
certain of it, but she was sure it was dark above, and she wanted the
darkness to hide in.

She reached the top of the
ladder and found herself on a suspension bridge which ran across the
back of the stage. She lay down on the bridge, hoping Rodman wouldn't
be able to see her.

He burst from the top of
the stairs, and from where she lay, she could see for the first time
what she had done to him. The hook must have sunk into the muscles of
his left shoulder, because his coat and shirt were ripped and
bloodied there. She thought she could even see red, gaping flesh.

He was breathing hard, his
eyes darting around. "Goddammit, where are you?" he
screamed. His eyes came to the ladder. She lay perfectly still. He
lifted his head and scanned the area above the stage. "Up there,
are ya?" He lifted the rifle. She could see it pained him to
hold it. He grimaced, and shots rang out.

Again, they were random,
scattered. He hadn't seen her! He didn't know exactly where she was.
He emptied the gun. He paused to load it, then lifted it to his
shoulder again. But this time he didn't shoot. She saw him lower the
weapon, then nod to himself.

"Well, you just stay
up there, hear?" And then, more quietly: "It'll be better
this way, anyhow. Look like an accident, maybe." He pulled a box
of matches from his pocket, slid it open, pulled one out, and struck
it on his boot. "See this?" He held the burning match up.
"Do ye see this? You seem to be havin' bad luck with fires."
He laughed and tossed the match into the side curtains. Its fringe
quickly caught fire, and Sophie could see flames.

Rodman walked to the side
of the stage and started down the stairs to the auditorium, keeping
himself turned so that the rifle still pointed to the stage. Did he
want her to run? Did he hope she'd try to escape so he could shoot
her?

She had to do something,
and she realized it was little use being quiet now. She got up and
ran across the suspension bridge, then across a short catwalk. She
threw herself into the rigging loft just as another shot rang out.
He'd seen her move, but he couldn't hit her now, not where she was.
And he wouldn't come up the ladder after her. He'd just leave her to
the rigging loft and let the flames do their work.

She looked around at a mass
of wheels, ropes, pulleys, and levers. She saw the windlasses, saw
which ones raised and lowered the pieces of scenery in the overhead
grooves, which one operated the drop curtain. She could lower the
curtain by herself, she knew. A child could do it, since the cord
attached to the curtain and running through the windlass was balanced
by a counterweight. And if she lowered the drop curtain far enough,
fast enough, it might smother the flames in the side curtain.

But what good would that
do? Rodman would simply come back and start another fire. Or perhaps
pursue her and gun her down.

Then she saw a windlass
which didn't seem to be attached to scenery or curtain. What could it
be for? And then she remembered the chandelier in the auditorium, a
huge heavy thing of brass and crystal. It hung over the parquet, and
this was the rope and windlass to lower and raise it.

She peered down from the
rigging loft and saw the stage was empty, but she could hear Rodman
still, hear his footsteps. He must be in the parquet, she thought. In
her mind's eye she could see him backing slowly up the aisle. She
pulled the boy's knife from the pocket, opened it, and sawed
frantically at the chandelier rope. She ran the knife back and forth,
back and forth, until she was almost through it, and suddenly it
gave. She heard a counterweight fall somewhere below, and then an
instant after, a great tinkling crash. And... yes, a cry of pain, and
surprise.

She'd got him!

But before she went to see
exactly what she had accomplished, she cut through the rope to the
drop curtain too. There was the sound of rope running through
pulleys, then a great dusty thump. She looked down and saw the
curtain had caught most of the flames.

She crossed the catwalk,
the bridge, climbed down, and went to the front of the stage. She
could see Rodman sprawled in the aisle, motionless, a great brass
section of the chandelier lying across his groin.

Slowly, exhaustedly, she
turned to the few flames still burning. She pulled a curtain down
from a nearby box and beat them out.

Then she limped down the
stairs, off the steps, and approached Rodman. Before she did anything
else, even before she went for help, there was something she was
determined to find out. His eyes were closed. He seemed unconscious.
She slapped him. "Rodman!" And then again, until he had
raised his eyelids a little.

"Did you kill my
sister?" she demanded.

He shook his head, and his
eyes rolled back.

She slapped him again.
Perhaps he had not understood her. "Did you kill my sister?
Helen Stevenson. Did you kill her?"

He looked at her, his eyes
swimming. "No," he said groggily.

"Who killed her?"

"I don't know. I don't
know. I never even heard of your sister."

"You're lying. You
hated her, all of you, because she helped the Wilsons."

"I never heard of
her."

"She was Baby Wilson's
friend. She tried to help her."

"Help... Baby?"
He struggled with a thought. "Was she... one of them temperance
ladies used to go out there?" He looked at Sophie, saw her nod.
"Hell, nobody cares about that. Christ, who'd care?"

She rocked back on her
heels, stunned. What Helen had been doing hadn't mattered to these
men, hadn't mattered to any of them. The thought focused her angle,
focused the hate she felt for the man on the floor. She raised her
hand and slapped him, and then again. His head jerked with the
repeated blows. His groans grew fainter.

It was the sound of her own
sobbing that finally brought her to herself. Her hand raised to
deliver another blow, she heard herself and stopped, horrified at
what she was doing. Beating a man who was probably dying. My Lord,
what had come over her?

She had to get out of her,
had to get help. She pulled herself to her feet and managed to
stagger up the aisle.

And at the foot of the
dress-circle stairs she ran into someone, quite literally bumped
right into him.

She looked up.

It was James.

And she fell into his arms.

"The boy," she said. "In the center trap. You must
get him out.

He looked at her, puzzled.

"They boy who drove
me. He was wounded. Please. He's in the center trap, and you must get
him out."

Other men were coming into
the auditorium now. There was Paul Bellavance, and one or two other
faces she thought she'd seen before. "The center trap!"
James called out. "There's a wounded man in there! Get him!"

He sat down on the
dress-circle stairs, holding her all the while. She buried her head
in his chest, glad he was here, glad for his nearness.

"Hey, this un's dead,"
someone called out.

She twisted around,
thinking they meant the boy, but no, the voice came from the man
bending over Rodman. Up on the stage, she could see them gently
lifting the boy from the trap. "He's been bleeding a lot,"
someone shouted. "But he's still alive."

She put her head back on
James' chest, glad it was over.

"I just got back,"
he said softly. "Mrs. Syms told me what happened out at the
Wilsons', said you'd gone to see the sheriff. But it didn't seem
right to me he'd want to meet you at the Inter Ocean, so I rode down
here. And I saw the empty phaeton--the horse had pulled it that far.
And then I thought I heard shots from up here. I shouted into the
hotel for help to follow me, and then rode up here."

"He must have been
waiting for me," Sophie said. "But how did he know we were
coming?"

"I'd guess he's the
one who called you. Probably just told Mrs. Syms he was the sheriff."

"Wouldn't she know his
voice?"

"No reason she would."
He seemed to sense that the explanation didn't fully satisfy her.
"Sophie, I don't think the sheriff was in on this, if that's
what you're thinking. Rodman wouldn't have wanted his help, for one
thing. Sheriff Milsap isn't the brightest fellow around, or the most
closed-mouthed. And Rodman wouldn't have needed him. He could manage
all by himself to keep you from talking about what you saw at the
Wilsons'."

"He wasn't the only
one I saw."

He looked down in surprise.
"Who else?"

"Huber, I think.
George Huber." Leaning against James, his arm around her, she
felt sleepy, so sleepy, but still she could tell something was
troubling him. "What is it, James?"

"I just don't
understand Huber's trying to harm you. Not after I told them to leave
you alone. Rodman either. How would he dare to do what he did to you
at the Wilsons'? But especially Huber. It just doesn't make sense."

Something was nagging at
Sophie too, but she was too tired to think what it was. Tomorrow. She
would remember tomorrow. And then she slept.

*

When she awakened the next
morning, the thought was fully formed in her mind: if Rodman hadn't
killed Helen, then who had? Not Huber, nor any of the big landowners.
Rodman had made her seen they hadn't sufficient motive. Helen's work
hadn't been important enough to them to warrant violence. Not
important enough--the idea made her angry, even though she knew that
was an irrational response.

She sat up on the edge of
the bed and rang for Connie. When the girl came, Sophie dressed
quickly despite her sore muscles. Her ankle, she thought, hurt hardly
at all. Perhaps it was simply a basis of comparison, she thought,
smiling wryly to herself. Now that the rest of her body had been
through a battering, a wrenched ankle had trouble getting attention.

Connie told her the sheriff
was coming by at nine a.m., but Sophie had trouble focusing on what
she would say to Milsap. In the forefront of her mind was an image of
Helen standing on the landing, her back to the stairs, Helen arguing
with a man. And Helen dead. Surely these things were connected. Who
had been with Helen? Who had reason to push her down the stairs?

Just before she went to
wait for the sheriff, she remembered the letter that she had found
from her mother. "Connie, the dress I had on last night? Where
is it?"

"Downstairs, ma'am. I
thought I'd try to clean it, but I don't know. It's all black down
one side."

"There's a letter in
the pocket. Would you get it for me?"

The girl returned quickly,
and when she had left, Sophie looked around for a place to put the
envelope. She saw the slim leather-bound copy of "A Midsummer
Night's Dream" on the bedside table, and she slipped the letter
between its pages.

*

The sheriff was an
overweight man in his mid-forties. The thin material of his light
blue shirt stretched tight around his middle, and even though the day
was not yet hot, there were dark perspiration ovals under his arms,
almost to his waist. As Mrs. Syms showed him into the drawing room,
he suddenly remembered he was still wearing his hat, and he snatched
it off his head. But then he couldn't think what to do with it, and
he awkwardly shifted it from one hand to the other.

"Mrs. Dymond, ma'am, I
understand you witnessed the incident at the Wilson homestead
yesterday."

"Yes, I was there."

"Well, ma'am, I wonder
if you'd give me some idea what you saw."

She recounted it all for
him, how she'd seen the Wilsons hanging from the cottonwood, the way
Rodman had dragged her with the rope, how he'd tied her up and tried
to use the fire to kill her.

"Was there anybody out
there you could actually identify? Besides Rodman, of course."

"I think George Huber
was one of them. I'm not absolutely certain, but there must be others
you can talk to. Someone who overheard them planning the expedition
or saw the group riding out there."

"Yes, ma'am," he
said, nodding so vigorously the sweat flew. "I already got one
fellow says Huber was in on it. I got a warrant out for him now."

"For Huber?"

Milsap nodded, and Sophie
asked another question quickly, hoping to catch him off-guard.
"Sheriff, did you call here last night?"

"Ma'am?"

She could tell from her
face he had no idea what she was talking about. "Never mind.
It's nothing important."

*

Amy Travers came not long
after Milsap left. She put out her hand, and Sophie took it, struck
once more by its heavy warmth. She deliberately kept hold of it a
moment longer than necessary in an effort to deny the uneasiness Amy
Travers aroused in her.

The schoolteacher's eyes
were swollen, the whites stained pink. "I hope you'll forgive my
coming by so early. Lydia suggested it."

"Yes, of course."

"She wanted me to give
you this." Miss Travers held out a book, and Sophie took it,
looking at the title. "The Friendships of Women," it was
called, by William Alger.