The Blackstone Commentaries (46 page)

It was after ten o'clock when Elmore settled in the chair at his desk, only the desk lamp on. With a sidelong glance at his master, the dog crept onto the huge sofa, scratched around on the old blanket there, then lay down with a sigh. The windows were open to the sounds of the street, the rumble of the parading vehicles on the square, the periodic cries and laughter. There would be no cavalcade of sirens that night, he reflected. No law-and-order theater. That was over and gone. The thought brought a brief wave of sadness. But he couldn't stay in that frame of mind—he was too wound up. He swung his feet onto his desk and leaned back, trying to make himself comfortable.

He dozed and dreamed he was at the window. The rain clattered against the glass while the sky flashed blue fire over the tops of the great oak trees and the courthouse. Below, Dugan stood on the back of a dump truck, a huge overturned barrel in his hands, its contents flaming down the gutters like white fire while silhouettes of men crawled up the hill toward the truck on their hands and knees, faces to the ground like dogs. Dugan was laughing, shaking the barrel and laughing, looking up at Elmore in his window the whole time, his face right outside the glass and huge, the skin pasty, the teeth sharp. Elmore snapped awake.

The dog, motionless on the couch, was watching the office door and listening. Elmore held his breath. He heard several car doors slam on the street below. He looked at his watch. It was 3:57
A.M
. The dog slid off the blanket and crept across the floor. He stuck his nose to the crack below the door and growled.

Less than two hours later, Elmore found himself shivering as the dampness of high, dew-soaked grass penetrated his slacks above his boots. A chill was in the air, and the mist hung dimly white and low in the valleys beyond the edge of the field in which he stood. He was looking east, where on the blue rim of a distant mountain a reddish line appeared and began to creep through the gaps of the trees, giving them shape. An old barbed-wire fence was outlined in the distance, its weathered posts leaning crazily as it wandered off the hill.

He was still in the clothes he'd been wearing when Cady and several other men burst into his office and got him. Now there were even more
men, many more than he would have imagined, all dressed in suits, guns cradled in their arms or slung over their shoulders, all kinds of guns, shotguns, rifles, an M-1 carbine, the faces not fat with too much money or food, a few mustached. No crossed eyes. He marveled that so many came so soon. There were women now, too. Some had been there when he arrived, staring at him brazenly when the men pulled him from the car. Other cars were still arriving.

The fire of the rising sun turned golden, blinding him for a moment, causing him to turn away. Soon its heat reached him, and he shivered again, knowing he wouldn't be cold much longer. He looked down at Phineas lying in the grass beside his boot, where he'd been for the last half-hour, calm and motionless except for the occasional turn of his head.
Like he knows what's going to happen
, Elmore thought, proud of him, knowing he could never have trained any dog that well. It had still been dark when the men led him and the dog across the field. He had only a vague idea where they were. They'd headed north out of Damascus, climbed a great deal, maybe ten cars in all, then turned off the main highway long before New Hope and climbed more, a narrow road crowded by enormous trees. The road had soon turned to dirt. No one talked. He recognized the man driving his car as Rachel's cousin Wilbur, a Grafton from up near Asheville. They'd met once at the Cadys' house. He was about Elmore's age and height, a thin man with curly blond hair, an easy, handsome smile and quick humor. He'd come through the office door right behind Rachel's father, looking just as grim, no one speaking a word.

It seemed Wilbur had been personally assigned to him while the others stood nearby, their quiet talk occasionally interrupted by the clink of a gun or cigarette lighter. The birds made a wonderful racket just at daybreak, like they were trying to yell up the sun. He looked around again, all the men in suits, the faces with their surface differences and underlying, unmistakable likeness.
Like the Hatfields or something
, he thought, watching the sunlight glint off the steel barrels. Elmore suddenly smiled as his mother came to mind.
Checking this one out, Claire?
His calm surprised him.

A breeze arose, swept up over the hillside, rippled the high grass, then passed over him, tickling his temples and carrying the smells of dank pine forests and creeks. He felt his soul fill and was almost moved to tears.

“Elmore here can't be all Yankee,” Wilbur said suddenly, his voice not loud nor excited, just the suddenness and proximity startling. “Brings his dog to his wedding.”

“As best man, no less,” someone else rumbled, another cousin. Elmore had never imagined there were so many. “I do admire his sense of priorities.”

“Hell, Wilbur, you'd been better off marrying your dog instead of what you did.”

“I heard you, Avery Mason!”

“Dear Lord, I didn't realize you were here, Nell!”

Quiet laughter drifted across the field.

A man's head appeared over the brow of the hill, the sun behind him, the fog filling the valleys below the blue ridges. It was like he was rising from the first day of creation. Elmore recognized the preacher from the little Bethel Harmony Church at New Hope, the pants of his dark blue suit pulled up over his navel, preacher-style. The whole man had barely come into sight when he stopped and stared at the group staring at him—at the guns, at the lawyer standing with his dog—and blanched.

“Who's getting married here,” Elmore said quietly, “me or that preacher?”

“He does look a tad peaked,” Wilbur agreed as Rachel's mother, dressed for church, it seemed, came hurrying up over the hill and took the preacher's arm. Showing none of the distress of the day before, she chatted lightly, bolstering him.

Then Rachel appeared on the arm of her father, although it was more like her father was holding her—a tight hold, if not quite a hammerlock. Wearing a plain yellow dress and evidently barefoot, a garland of white flowers having dropped cockeyed over her forehead, her short, dark hair askew, she was in a rage. The men grew silent and grave at the sight of her. “Whew, Elmore,” Wilbur whispered. “Maybe you'd best take off across this here field and let me shoot you and get it over with.”

But Elmore didn't hear him. He thought Rachel looked the loveliest he'd ever seen her. Soon she was beside him, not looking at him, just scowling, her father to her left, his hand still locked on her arm. “Can I let you go, daughter?” Elmore heard Cady whisper.

“I wouldn't,” she snapped.

Then he felt Cady move a step or two away and knew she'd been released.

The preacher, his thinning hair not carefully brushed as usual but rumpled and jutting almost straight up, stood in front of the couple holding his Bible, Rachel's mother a step or two behind him. The men and women began to ease into a semicircle behind Rachel and Elmore. “You're giving away the bride?” the preacher asked, his question ending in an inadvertent squeak as he addressed Rachel's father.

Cady nodded.

“The best man?” the preacher demanded, looking around. “Is there a best man?”

“The dog,” Wilbur said.

“Well, I …”

“Get on with it,” someone growled behind Elmore. The preacher swallowed hard.

“A ring? Is there a ring?” His voice jumped still another octave.

Rachel's mother stepped forward and handed a ring to Elmore. “This was your grandmother's, Rachel,” she said, looking at her daughter, not Elmore. Not yet. Then she walked over beside her husband and took his hand.

“You going to need a ring, too?” the preacher said to Elmore, eyeing him with sudden pity.

Elmore shook his head.

“Hell, he doesn't need no ring. He's got a dog.”

The preacher cleared his throat and began speaking the words.

Elmore felt Rachel move just slightly—certainly not that it could ever be proven—so she was suddenly touching him down his left arm and thigh. In that moment, he glanced down at Rachel's swollen belly, and a feeling of tenderness filled him to bursting.

“You really stepped in it this time, buster,” she said under her breath.

“I imagine,” Elmore Willis said.