(1995) The Oath (2 page)

Maggie wiped away the tears that blurred her vision and looked around the neighborhood for any haven, any sign of welcome. Maybe she could go to the Carlsons . . . No. She saw the parlor curtains of their turn-of-the-century home being drawn across the windows. The Brannons, perhaps? No. Across the street, she saw the porch light, then the living room light, of their white house blink out.

It was a clear July night, and Maggie realized that most of the neighborhood must have heard the argument. None of the neighbors would open the door to her; they wouldn’t risk Harold’s wrath.

Despite the warmth of the evening, Maggie felt cold, and she folded her arms close to her body. She looked down the steep hill toward the rest of the little, has-been town and felt no warmth from the tight rows of metal-roofed homes and aging businesses. The rooflines with their chimneys looked like night-blackened sawteeth against the moonlit mountainside beyond. There was hardly a light on anywhere.

Suddenly Maggie realized she was a stranger now, and to any stranger, Hyde River could be a cold and sharp-edged place.

She wandered fearfully down the hill toward the highway that ran through town, her hand going to her heart as if feeling a deep pain. She looked behind, then ahead, then into the black sky, where stars twinkled benignly between the high mountain ridges. She stared for a long moment at the Hyde Mining Company, an immense concrete citadel just across the river, now black against the sky. In her terror-crazed imagination, the windows of the old building were eyes and the huge doors mouths, and it was sizing her up for a meal. She was sure she even saw it move. She quickened her step, looking over her shoulder, then toward the sky again, as if some unseen monster lurked there.

She came to the Hyde River Road, the narrow, two-lane highway that ran through the core of the town and meandered south through thirty miles of deep valley to the town of West Fork, and beyond that, to the outside world. Just a few blocks up the highway, the town put on its best face. There, young businesses clustered around a four-way stop. Down the highway in the opposite direction was the old part of town. It had been through a lot more winters, had hung tough through a century of booms and busts, and made no apologies for its age. Maggie hurried up the highway, toward the newer section of town, through the four-way stop and past the small businesses, the True Value Hardware and the Chevron station, Charlie’s Tavern, still open, and Denning’s Mercantile. Beyond these, the town was a steadily decaying parade of ramshackle homes, boarded-up storefronts, dismembered pickup trucks, and rusted mine equipment. Finally she came to the McCoys’ mobile home, a windowed, metal shoebox with no wheels, perched and sagging on pier blocks and concrete-filled oil drums, the ruined roof now supplemented by heavy blue tarpaulins. Maggie could see Bertha McCoy peering out at her through her kitchen window. When their eyes met, Bertha’s face quickly disappeared.

Maggie approached the toy-strewn front yard. Griz and Tony, the McCoys’ two mongrels, barked at her, which set the other dogs in the neighborhood barking. A knock on the door by this time would be only a matter of courtesy; the McCoys had to know someone was there.

Maggie knocked, just a few timid taps, and Bertha called from inside, “What do you want?”

“Bertha? Bertha, it’s Maggie.”

“What do you want?”

Maggie hesitated, flustered. What she wanted was nothing she felt comfortable shouting through a door. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

Then came a man’s voice. “Who is it?” And Bertha’s voice replied, “Maggie Bly.”

“What’s she doing here?” the man’s voice asked. Then the two voices muttered in a hushed discussion while the door remained shut.

Finally the man called, “What are you doing here, Maggie?”

“I—” She looked around with fear-widened eyes. “I can’t stay out here.”

“Then go home.”

“I can’t. Harold—,” She had to say it. “—Harold kicked me out.”

Elmer McCoy, once a foreman for Hyde Mining, was well acquainted with Harold Bly, and Maggie could hear it in the strained tone of his voice. “Maggie, we’ve got no quarrel with either one of you, and we don’t want one now.”

Maggie pressed closely against the door as if for protection. All around, the town lay in the cold, gray colors of night, and to her, every darkened window, every shadow, seemed to be hiding something sinister.

“Elmer, if you could just let me in for a while . . .”

She could hear Bertha begging Elmer in a voice that quavered with fear. “Elmer, don’t let her in here!”

“Go away, Maggie!” he yelled through the door.

“Please . . .”

Elmer’s voice sounded frightened as he said, “Go away, you hear me? We don’t want your trouble.”

She turned away, and the dogs barked at her until she was out of sight.

EVELYN BENSON
stayed on the steep trail for miles, taking step after jarring, downhill step until at last the trail emptied onto the logging road she and Cliff had followed. Having made it this far, her desperation gave way to exhaustion, her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground on the side of the road, too numb with shock to weep, too emotionally spent to pray. By now the blood that soaked her clothing had mingled with sweat, and the night wind drew heat from her body until she began to shiver.

“
GO AWAY
!” Carlotta Nelson hissed from behind the door of the small, one-story house.

“Please, Carlotta! Let me in. I can’t stay out here!” Maggie cried, standing on the front porch and clinging to the knob of the closed door.

Carlotta Nelson and Rosie Carson, semi-cute and not quite young anymore, were still the town’s favorite ladies—and determined to stay that way.

“I can’t let you in here,” Carlotta replied, “not if Harold kicked you out. You ought to know that!”

“Carlotta, I’m scared!”

Carlotta, her long blonde hair pulled back in a loose braid, exchanged a worried look with Rosie, a petite, freckled redhead. Carlotta had her hand on the doorknob, not to open it, but to be sure it wouldn’t turn.

Rosie was near the door only because she could hide behind Carlotta. “Well—well, we’re scared too, you follow?” she shouted over Carlotta’s shoulder.

“Just let me in for the night,” Maggie pleaded. “I’m dead if I stay out here!”

Dead? Did she say dead? Carlotta shot a look of terror at Rosie, and Rosie shot it right back: Only a wooden door stood between them and the worst kind of trouble.

“That’s your problem,” Carlotta said, and now her voice was quavering. “And you can take it somewhere else, you hear? Now get out of here!”

Maggie was weeping again. “Please, let me in. I’ll leave in the morning, I promise!”

Her plea was met with silence.

Finally, Maggie turned and, in a stupor of fear, drifted down the porch steps to the main sidewalk, staying close to buildings, cars, and trees, continually looking over her shoulder, toward the sky and down the highway.

HAD HE
not been forced to slow down due to the poor condition of the road, the trucker would never have seen Evelyn in time. As it was, he had to brake quickly when his headlights caught her, lying like a bloody corpse on the road.

He brought his logging rig to a grinding, growling halt about ten feet away from the prone body. As he eased himself down from the cab, the trucker could already feel himself starting to shake. It was dark, he was alone, and there could be more to this situation than he could see in his headlights. He approached the motionless body warily, expecting the worst: a hunting accident or a bear attack; maybe a raped, mutilated body dumped by some pervert. He glanced over his shoulder. What if the attacker was still in the area?

“Hello?” he called tentatively.

Evelyn stirred and moaned into the ground. The trucker quickened his step. Reaching her, he stooped down and gently turned her over. She was limp, her eyes closed, her face waxen. He cradled her head and felt her neck. Her pulse was strong, her breathing normal.

“Ma’am, can you hear me?”

She awoke with a start.

Evelyn was not aware of who she was, where she was, or who was holding her. All that registered in her mind were the truck’s imposing grill, the rumbling diesel engine, and especially, the glaring headlights—they looked like eyes to her.

With a terrible shriek, she broke free from the trucker and leapt to her feet, staggering with exhaustion, stained with blood, her right hand wielding her knife, the broken blade flashing in the headlights. The trucker, fearful for his own safety, scrambled away from her, away from that blade. Stunned, he stood in the road watching the woman as, with crazed eyes and a cougarlike scream, she assaulted his truck with the knife, shrieking, kicking, lashing at the big machine, the blade clanging over the grill. Then realizing that she was going to hurt herself, the trucker leapt forward and grabbed her, pulling her away from the truck. She kicked and screamed and almost sliced his ear off.

VIC MOORE
, tall, bearded, and burly, didn’t need any trouble either. Finding work in Hyde Valley wasn’t easy these days, especially for a contractor. Well, he’d managed to keep food on the table, which said something for his strength and cleverness. He’d also managed to stay married to the same woman for going on six years, which in itself was quite an accomplishment—and said something for Carlotta Nelson’s ability to keep a secret. So things were going fine, thank you, and could only get better from here. At least, that was what he thought until that night.

He was just getting ready for bed, standing bare-chested in front of the bathroom sink, when he noticed what looked like a rash or some broken blood vessels directly over his heart. He leaned toward the mirror, trying to get a better angle to study the strange mark. It seemed to have a lacy, veinlike pattern to it and covered an area over his breastbone an inch or so wide and a little longer than the width of his hand. What in the world was this? he wondered.

From somewhere deep in his memory, an answer surfaced, and the heart just beneath that mark began to pound faster. Vic grabbed the edge of the sink to steady himself. His head began to swim as reason and logic fought against fear and denial. This mark, this blemish, couldn’t be what he thought it might be. He didn’t believe all that stuff he’d heard since he was a kid. No, he’d just pulled a muscle or something; broken a couple of blood vessels swinging a hammer or lifting a radial arm saw. He’d been working hard lately.

A loud knock at the front door made him jump. There was a moment of silence, followed by desperate pounding. Dottie, his wife, was in the shower, and he knew she couldn’t hear the knocking. Vic cursed the bad timing. Who in the world—?

He had to cover himself. He couldn’t let anyone see— Oh come on, he told himself, just put your shirt on. It’s no big deal.

He put on his shirt, which was hanging on a hook on the back of the bathroom door. For good measure, he grabbed his robe, too.

The pounding continued, and as Vic crossed his living room toward the front door, tying his robe as he went, he could hear a voice. “Hello! Hello, please, somebody!”

Uh-oh. It sounded like Maggie Bly.

He swung the door open. Maggie almost knocked him over as she pushed her way inside and held him, practically climbed him in terror.

“Vic, let me in, let me in!”

Vic was startled, then angry. “Maggie, what’re you doing? What is this?”

She held on to him, her eyes fixed on the front door as if something had chased her inside. Her words tumbled out like those of a frightened child. “Vic, you gotta let me stay here, I won’t be any trouble, let me stay here please, I can’t go out there!”

“Maggie, now calm down!” he hissed, forcibly breaking her hold on him. “And pipe down, will you? I’ve got Dottie and the kids here. You wanna get them all upset?”

Maggie tried to quiet down, but her voice was still high-pitched with terror. “Please, just don’t make me go out there . . .”

Vic looked toward the hallway leading to the bathroom. He could still hear the shower running. He was getting nervous. “What’s the matter? What happened?”

Maggie rubbed the area over her heart as if trying to ease a pain. “Harold kicked me out.”

Vic saw what she did as he heard what she said, and he was frightened. She leaned toward him. He backed away. “Easy, Maggie, easy. Harold kicked you out? What for?”

She stood there, just crying, not looking at him.

Vic insisted, “Why’d he kick you out?”

“I’ve never had this happen to me before . . .” she said, sidestepping the question.

Vic got the picture, and his face tightened with fear. He stepped to the door and swung it all the way open. “Out.”

Her death sentence. “Vic—”

“Out! Now!”

She clasped her hands in front of her imploringly. “Vic, don’t you know what’s out there?”

He lowered his voice to a whisper, hoping she would take the cue. “It’s gonna stay out there. You’re not bringing it in here.”

“I didn’t mean it—”

Vic’s speech accelerated as he grew more agitated. “Maggie, whatever you’re doing, it’s got nothing to do with me, and it’s got nothing to do with Dottie or my kids. Now get out of here!”

She hesitated, trembling, unable or unwilling to move. Vic knew he had to get her out of his house—and quickly. Reaching out, he grabbed her by the arm, then dragged her toward the door. She let out a cry.

“Shut up!” he hissed, and then he threw her out. He closed the door and bolted it.

The shower had stopped. A few moments later, Dottie, a lovely woman wearing a towel on her head and a robe, walked into the living room. “Who was that?” she asked her husband with some concern.

Vic had been standing in the middle of the room, looking at the door, waiting to see if Maggie would dare come back. As he turned to face his wife he couldn’t hide the fact that he was quite upset. “Stupid kids, throwing rocks.”

“What did you do?”

“I chased ’em off.”

“Did you see who they were?”

“Naw, it was too dark.”

She was about to ask another question, but he brushed past her, scratching an itch over his heart as he walked out of the room. He wanted to get to bed, to turn the lights out, and to put this day behind him. He didn’t want to answer any more questions.