The Ghost Belonged to Me (9 page)

When it was above the first flames, we could see a man at the controls. His head was out of the window. And if we could have heard anything, I think we'd have heard him barking like a dog. Or laughing. I still think I saw a laughing face, though I was too far off to be sure.

One of the bridge supports cracked like a rifle. And the rest of them took up the report. “Get back!” the motorman yelled. “The whole thing's going!” We all scrambled backward, and I fell on the wet ground cover and crawled up the bank into the trees. As I clawed the earth, I could feel other people's hands doing the same.

If it hadn't been for the spectacle behind us, I guess we'd all have gone to ground like moles. But up among the ferns and willows I looked back, like Lot's wife.

The streetcar was still rolling toward the middle of the trestle. And the track was sagging. The car began to dip. The bell clanged and clanged in fury while the supports fell one after another into the creek, landing with smacks.

Then it all gave out. The trolley seemed to miss its footing and stagger. The rails under it looped like wire. And the car heeled over. For a second you could see the dark roof as the car pitched sideways in a hail of scattered ties. And Amory Timmons dropped out of the motorman's window. He fell the length of the flames, looking like a lopsided starfish, turning in the air.

The trolley went end over end and hit the fallen supports in the creek. It burst open like a crate.

And the bell ceased clanging.

 

 

 

 

I
walked a midnight mile on trolley track barefoot after that, with the sights and sounds of death running through my mind.

It was an easy matter to get away from the little band of watchers down by Snake Creek. The girls set up a lamentation, and the men moaned and muttered. I worked my way up through the brush, and no one marked my leaving. When I got close to home, I was walking mostly out of habit, and never gave the barn a thought as I went by. All I wanted was my bed.

Shortly, I was flopped belly down across it, too worn out to turn back the quilt. I was scared, but too tired to taste the full flavor of it.

Then the door banged back, and the light went on. I flipped over and pulled my nightshirt down. There stood Lucille in the doorway, every nerve on end and looking like the queen of tragedy. Her eyes were mean slits.

“You repulsive little worm!” she rasped out. “You hateful little meddler! I've caught you at last!”

What now? I thought to myself. This is entirely too much after a hard night. “Lucille—”

“Hush! Keep your voice down. This is between you and me!”

“Lucille,” I said quieter, “I'll gladly plead guilty to whatever charges, but right now I'm a little tired and—”

“Guilty is the word!” said Lucille, making for my bed. “How dare you lurk up in that barnloft, spying, and in that ridiculous costume too! Tom Hackett bolted like a startled hare just when—I will kill you, Alexander, and that is a promise. You have ruined my last chance with Tom, and now you have a desperate woman to deal with.”

My thoughts tried to keep apace with Lucille's mouth. But they were not equal to the task. They must have fallen somewhat behind because she presently had me by my nightshirt and was hissing dangerously in my ear, “Deny it if you dare and add lies to your loathsomeness!”

“Deny what, Lucille?”

“That you were in the barn. Look at your nightshirt—and your feet. They're filthy. You were in that loft tonight, weren't you?”

“I can't deny that, Lucille, but—”

“Ha!” said Lucille and gave me a shake.

“—but I was not up there when—anybody else was.”

“A bald-faced lie!” she howled, forgetting to hiss. “You went up there to meet that red-necked little arachnid creature from across the tracks. That
Blossom!
And here's the proof!” Lucille whipped out of her wrapper pocket the paper rose and the note I'd left, the one that said,

“Oh I saw you under the porch at my party. You're sweet on her, which is repulsive in itself. But up in the barn at night!”

Since Lucille and Tom had crept up the loft themselves, by her own admission, I did not think she had any business to be passing judgment on the doings of others. I told her this, which was a mistake. She fulminated something fierce, which gave me the time to remember one of her opening remarks.

“Hold on a minute, Lucille, before you work me over,” I said, though my head was snapping back and forth from her shaking. “What is this about a ridiculous costume?”

“You
have the nerve to ask, who devised the whole hellish scheme! You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Rising up in the comer just as Tom and I—rising up in the corner in that nasty old green dress you must have dredged up out of a trunk—holding a candle under your chin to distort your features and giving us both such a turn—and sending us down the steps—I might well have fallen and broken my—and Tom making off into the night like a thing pursued—oh, Alexander, is there no limit to your spiteful perfidy?”

This disjointed account was clarifying somewhat. Evidently Tom and Lucille had been visited by the ghost of Inez Dumaine. Inez, I thought, Inez, you have been working overtime this night.

A great dismalness came over me. How could I explain to Lucille that she and Tom had been disturbed by a specter instead of me? Lucille lacks the imagination to follow that line of reasoning.

After a night of terror, I was pretty well resigned to dying at the hands of my own sister. But a voice from the door called out, “Lucille! Unhand him!”

She wheeled around, and I retreated to the far side of my bed. Mother and Dad stood in the doorway, looking like they hadn't just arrived. “Go to your room, Lucille!” Mother said. “Snuggling in the barnloft! Brawling in the house! Your party disfigured by that drunken oaf, Tom Hackett, who would ruin you and cast you to one side without a momentary qualm! That
—laxative playboy!
That you would so much as
contemplate
seeing him again after that party, much less allowing him to
lure
you into the barnloft! All your father and I, especially I, have done and all our well-meaning efforts came to this!”

Lucille looked in wonderment at Mother for an instant. Then she let out a screech and pounded from the room.

“You have saved your sister from a fate worse than death, Alexander, though your manner of doing so was rather showy. Nevertheless, one day she will thank you for it. But do not let those dirty feet of yours come in contact with the sheets. And go to sleep at once. It's past your bedtime!”

Mother turned on Dad then, like he might have contradicted her on some point. But he was clearly buffaloed by all the foregoing. Then in the distance came the sound of an ambulance bell. It rang from the direction of the Woodlawn Avenue extension. Out to pick up all that remains of Amory Timmons, I thought privately.

Mother harked at the far-off ringing, which has a calamitous sound, particularly at night. “And what tragedy does that portend?” she asked, very dramatic.

At that, the night breeze played up into a wind, lashing the elm branches around. A crackling sound came from the side yard, followed by the splintering of wood and a great crash. Dad unlatched the window screen and stuck his head out. Then he ducked back in and told us that Lucille's party pavilion had blown down.

Mother drew her wrapper around her neck and said darkly, “This night is full of omens.”

I was inclined to agree.

 

 

As a rule, Sunday stands pretty still in Bluff City. Of course, that particular Sunday was an exception. I woke up looking at my dirty feet, a pair of souvenirs of a busy night. There was a nettle rash on my legs too, from all those weeds I'd come through climbing away from Snake Creek. It was just a question of time before some busybody would link me up with the salvation of the streetcar passengers. And when this revelation came, it would open up a whole new field of inquiry.

The smell of Gladys's coffee wafted up from the dining room. There was no way of avoiding church because there never is. The Baptists were already setting to in their chapel over on Eldorado Street, and their old pump organ was wheezing a prelude. They are hardshell, but harmonious, and they raised up their voices in song: “Draw me nearer, O my savior, day by day.” We have given up being Baptists in favor of being Episcopalians, which is a step up socially but a step down when it comes to hymn-singing.

Not wishing to be conspicuous until it was inevitable, I got into my Sunday clothes and started down to the dining room unbidden. Lucille was at her place, puff-faced, with the
Pantagraph
folded open to Lowell Seaforth's article beside her plate of waffles.

“There now,” Mother was saying, “that nice young man from the paper did your party proud and omitted unseemly details, for which we owe him many thanks. It is up to you, my girl, to hold your head high and let the community know you are of a superior type who has seen the light regarding such people as the Hacketts.”

Dad was doggoned if he knew how all of a sudden—overnight so to speak—every one of the Hacketts had turned out to be such lowlifes. But he was given a couple of stricken looks and subsided.

I slid the newspaper out from under Lucille's elbow and read Lowell's article, thinking it was handsome of him to mention my name as one of the party-givers. Then I leafed to the front page for word of the trestle disaster, which was surely the biggest thing that had happened to Bluff City in living memory. But the news hadn't broken on that yet.

Gladys came in with my plate of waffles and remarked that the lawn looked like the Battle of Bull Run had been waged across it. At length, Mother said to Lucille, “Get your hat and gloves. You're going to church as usual.” The fight was pretty much out of Lucille. She kept darting me looks that spoke strongly of possible gratitude and certain revenge. I could see she was still unsettled in her mind. For that matter, so was I.

We drove the Mercer to church, and Mother nodded to everyone on foot along the way. Lucille kept her veil down until the last moment before she had to take communion.

 

 

“Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad,” said Father Ludlow in place of his prepared invocation, “that our brothers and sisters in this community were snatched from untimely and awful death.”

There was a mumbling in the congregation by those who knew about the bridge business telling their neighbors. “And let us pray for our benighted brother, Amory Timmons, whose madness hath delivered him from our realm to the seat of a merciful judgment.”

Dad stirred at that, but Jake McCulloch, the undertaker, leaned up from the pew behind and whispered into his ear. Then Dad slipped forward on the kneeler and offered a silent prayer for Amory's soul. I did the same, feeling bad that I hadn't thought of it before.

The thought of Inez Dumaine interrupted my prayers for Amory. I didn't know what to make of Inez, but I knew then as I know now that she is of the next world, not this, so I added a word or two in her behalf.

While I was doing all this praying, Father Ludlow was saying in the background, “... and a little child shall lead them.” Though I am not exactly little and no longer a child, I took this as a personal reference. I could begin to feel the hot breath of publicity on the back of my neck. And I knew full well that I'd have some explaining to do of matters very difficult to explain.

 

 

 

 

I
spent that long Sunday afternoon down among the snowball bushes, somewhat bemused. Up in the house Mother and Lucille were going at it hammer and tongs. Lucille was complaining in loud terms about how Mother had been throwing her at Tom's head since she was in short skirts. And Mother was responding that she had always thought Tom was a ne'er-do-well, a feckless masher, and a poor prospect.

Lucille said that, as an opinion, this was a new one to her. And Mother answered that Lucille had always been susceptible and had no more sense of decorum and propriety than a barnyard fowl. She also quoted Uncle Miles's history of the Hackett family without giving him any credit. They went over this ground a number of times, and the snowball bushes muffled very little of the noise.

Along toward midafternoon, I spotted Lowell Seaforth ambling up the lane with his straw hat on the back of his head. He looked weary, and I attributed that to his spending a sleepless night on the Snake Creek story. I parted the snowballs as he drew near the house.

“Well, Alexander,” he said in some surprise.

If he'd come for a word with me, I said, he might care to join me in the bushes where there was some prospect of privacy. He replied that there are few places he won't go for good journalistic material.

Lowell made himself comfortable against the porch foundation and came right to the point. He said that certain of the streetcar survivors had mentioned my name. “I take it that word of this hasn't reached your family since I'm conducting this interview under the porch.”

That was about the size of it, I told him. And as he is a first-rate newspaperman, it didn't take him long to learn from me that I was the same Alexander Armsworth who flagged the trolley with my nightshirt. When it came to modest heroes, Lowell said, looking up at the leaves, I took the cake. “Now, then, Alexander, just how did you know to give the alarm?”