Well, that’s Miller’s for you. That’s where things started to go haywire.
Funny thing is, even though I lived so close to John Lehmann, I got to talk to him mostly there at Miller’s. At home, right next to him, it was all farm business until the evenings. And then he had his family to attend to, with very little time at all to jawbone with me. I was alone, and like as not off doing things myself, chasing around, so mostly I saw and talked to him after growing seasons in the late mornings at Miller’s, and I sometimes think he wouldn’t of come there even then but for my sake, to befriend me and spend even just a little time with me. I always appreciated that.
I now and again think he knew, too, how very much I cared for Carrie down through the years. Maybe better than she did. But I never said a single word of it to either of them or to a person alive. I just would never have done that.
Over the seasons I sure liked the mornings I spent with him at Miller’s, but I especially liked those last few times. We used to sit and talk and drink that coffee. God, how I remember that!
It makes the loss of him all the more painful.
Some things, I guess, you’d end up going mad if you tried to keep inside of you. Just completely mad. And so I guess the best thing is to just tell the story, no matter how painful, to say what happened, get it out in the open finally and maybe get a handle on it. I have to admit, though, that John Lehmann’s story has me licked, and more than that—it’s got me scared, too.
Well, there isn’t a whole lot happening on a small farm in late October, except maybe finishing up your apples, and getting the ground ready for next year, that sort of thing, so for a couple of weeks this particular October I had been going just as regular as anything to Miller’s for breakfast and for talk. Mostly it was just to pass time.
For the first of those weeks John and Carrie occasionally came in, too, and we had some good mornings together. All the usual stuff, bragging about farming and hunting, and me teasing Carrie and finagling an invitation for a supper from her soon.
Carrie Lehmann, I’ve got to tell you, was the gentlest, kindest, most friendly woman I ever knew. That’s a certain thing. And it’s not the most important thing in the world, but she had such beautiful light blue eyes. Those last times I saw her over there at Miller’s are dear times to me yet. They seem now to me to be a kind of adding up of all the earlier times I was ever around her. Sort of like they were the real times and all the ones before were like dreams. I don’t know. I guess I can’t say it exactly like I mean it.
Then they began to not come to Miller’s so often. Winter wasn’t so very far off and we had a cold snap, and I guessed maybe it just was easier for them to stay home when that cold spell set in. There wasn’t anything too unusual in that.
But then there was that last time I saw Carrie. It had rained hard more or less on and off for about a week. It was cold and damp and all the water had pushed up the Susquehanna until it was as high as it’s ever been. I mean, it was high. And there we were in Miller’s, just like always.
But this particular time there was something really different about Carrie. I could see that right away. She hardly touched her coffee at all, hardly touched it at all, and she wouldn’t talk about any of the usual things no matter how we tried to get her to. And she fussed and she fretted.
“We’ve got to go back, John,” she said. “It’s time to go back home.”
Well, they had just come. I didn’t know quite what to think of that one, they had really just arrived not ten minutes before. And she seemed so nervous and so far away in her head when she talked. So I just stayed out of it.
“John, the water’s getting so high,” she pleaded. “I’m sure it’s nearly high enough. We had better go back. It’s not safe to be anywhere away from home when the water’s this high.” Her old blue eyes were glistening as she said quietly, “It’ll be right up next to the house. It’ll be high enough for it to…” She caught herself and looked down.
God, but she did seem scared of something.
John, he just sort of looked at her, like he didn’t know quite what to say either. And then he looked away. He tried to keep a little conversation going on with me, but you could see how helpless and embarrassed he was.
Carrie, she got real quiet, and she just sort of kept looking at John pleadingly. When she did finally talk again she just mumbled, and it was about the high water, how dangerous that was, and how easy it would be to break through. And they better get home to keep everything safe. How she was scared bad for the both of them. And crazy things like that. All in sort of low and broken sentences.
But I sure was feeling badly for John, and I was scared for Carrie. There was something wrong with her, all right. She wasn’t acting normal, not for her nor for anyone else, talking like that. She seemed so scared because of the rain and the water rising in the river.
John, he ended up putting his arm around her and leading her quietly out of Miller’s. And he bent over and kissed her head lightly once as he did. I was really touched by that display of love, him being so matter-of-fact and all. He never even looked back.
Well, John did come alone a few times more to Miller’s, but he seemed distant somehow. He just sat there, quiet. He never brought up Carrie, and he wouldn’t answer any questions about her when someone else did. And then he always just left, like he had decided it was a bad idea to come there in the first place. And he did that pretty nearly always right away.
We never did get to see Carrie no more. No sir, I never saw her alive after that day.
There was something strange in the air. I just had this funny feeling. You know how a person can get.
For instance, I used to sit out on the porch in the evenings, no matter how cool it got—I like the cold weather—and I could see over to John’s farm. Towards the end I noticed that there was always only a kitchen light on, never one upstairs. Never. And once when I wasn’t sleeping good I looked out my window at about three in the morning and that light was still on. Now no farmer stays up like that. It just is never done.
Then John stopped coming to the store.
Well, one thing led to another, and I got to thinking that something had gone sour over next door. I figured Carrie was real sick, or something like that. Hell, we were all old. And I decided to go over and see them and ask if I could help. Now, that may seem like the most normal thing in the world to most everybody, but you must understand this, around Garlock’s Bend a piece of interference like that is very serious business, because we tend not to trouble each other, not even to visit without first being asked. We respect each other and let each other alone. It’s just that we keep this feeling of distance, sort of.
Well, finally I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t have stayed away any longer even if I wanted to, and so I went over late one Saturday evening and knocked on John Lehmann’s door. There was no answer. That didn’t ring true to me, I knew better, and soon I was pounding hard on his door.
I was shocked when John finally opened it just a little. I could see into the room to his kitchen table. It was all cluttered with dirty dishes and spoiled food. There was more used dishes in the sink. And the whole kitchen just looked absolutely filthy. John, too, had a kind of wild, dirty look. His hair was going every which way, and he needed a shave. He looked like he was real confused.