For a moment Elly closed her eyes, gulping, unable to swallow the lump of fear that suddenly congealed in her throat. Was it possible? Could he have done it again? She opened her eyes and stared at her thumbs; they felt weighty and thrice their size as shock controlled her system.
Will watched the reactions claim his wife. He watched her struggle for control, watched her momentarily lose and regain it. When she lifted her eyes they were like two dull stones in a face like bleached linen.
"Will…?"
Though she spoke only his name, the single word was like a rusty blade in his heart.
Oh, Elly, Elly, not you, too.They could all think whatever they wanted, but she was his wife, the woman he loved, the one who’d given him reason to change, to fight, to live, to plan, to make something better of himself. She thought him capable of a thing like this?
After a life filled with disappointments, Will Parker should have been inured to them. But nothing-nothing had ever reduced him like this moment. He stood before her vanquished, wishing that he had been in that foxhole with Red, wishing he’d never walked into this clearing and met the woman before him and been given false hope.
On the porch a door slammed and Thomas called, "Mama, what’s wrong?"
Elly didn’t hear him. "W-Will?" she whispered again, her eyes wide, her throat hot and tight.
Aggrieved, he turned away.
The sheriff reached to the back of his belt for a pair of handcuffs and spoke authoritatively. "William Parker, it’s my duty to inform you that you’re under arrest for the murder of Lula Peak."
The awful reality hit Elly full force. Tears squirted into her wide, frightened eyes, and she pressed a fist to her lips. It was all happening so fast! The sheriff, the accusation, the handcuffs. The sight of them sent another sickening bolt through Elly.
At that moment Thomas eased up behind his mother. "Mama, what’s the sheriff doing here?"
She could only stand gaping, unable to answer.
But Will knew all about hurtful childhood memories and wanted none for Thomas. As the sheriff pulled his left arm back and snapped the cuff on, Will ordered quietly, "Thomas, you go see after Lizzy P., son." He stood woodenly, waiting for the second metallic click, cringing inside, thinking, Dammit, Goodloe, at least you could wait till the boy goes back in the house!
But Thomas had seen too many cowboy movies to misinterpret what was happening. "Mama, is he takin’ Will to jail?"
Taking Will to jail? Elly suddenly came out of her stupor, incensed. "You can’t just… just take him!"
"He’ll be in the county jail in Calhoun until bail is set."
"But what about-"
"He might need a jacket, ma’am."
A jacket? She could scarcely think beyond the frantic churning in her head that ordered, Stop him somehow! Stop him! But she didn’t know how, didn’t know her rights or Will’s. Tears slid down Elly’s cheeks as she stood by dumbly.
"Mama…" Thomas began crying, too. He ran to Will, clutched at his waist. "Will, don’t go."
The sheriff pried the boy off. "Now, young man, you’d best go in the house."
Thomas swung on him, pummeling with both fists. "You can’t take Will! I won’t let you! Git away from him!"
"Take him in the house, Mizz Parker," the sheriff ordered in an undertone.
Thomas fought like a dervish, swinging, fending off their efforts to calm or remove him.
"Get in the car, Parker."
"Just a minute, Sheriff, please…" Will went down on one knee and Thomas threw himself on the man’s sturdy neck.
"Will… Will… he can’t take you, can he? You’re a good guy, like Hopalong."
Will swallowed and turned entreating eyes up to Goodloe. "Take the cuffs off for a minute-please." Goodloe drew in a deep, unsteady breath and glanced at Elly sheepishly. At his hesitation, Will’s anger erupted. "I’m not runnin’ anyplace, Goodloe, and you know it!" The sheriff’s distraught gaze fell to the boy sobbing against Will’s neck and he followed his gut instincts, freeing one of Will’s wrists. Will’s arms curled around Thomas, the metal cuff dangling down the boy’s narrow back. Closing his eyes, Will clutched the small body and spoke softly against Thomas’s hair. "Yeah, you’re right, short stuff. I’m a good guy, like Hopalong. Now you remember that, okay? And just remember I love you. And when Donald Wade gets home from school tell him I love him, too, okay?"
He pushed Thomas back, wiped the child’s streaming face with the knuckles of his uncuffed hand. "Now you be good and go in the house, and help your mother take care of Lizzy. You do that for old Will, all right?"
Thomas nodded meekly, studying the ground at Will’s knee. Will turned him around and gave him a push on his backside. "Now, go on."
Thomas ran around his mother, sobbing, and a moment later the screen door slammed. Elly watched Will stretch to his feet, his image a blur beyond her streaming eyes. With a wooden face he willingly put both hands behind himself and allowed the sheriff to snap the cuffs in place once more.
"Will-oh, Will-what-oh, God…" Elly moved at last, but her speech and motion patterns had turned jerky. She cast her gaze around like a demented thing, reaching out a hand, pacing like a wild animal the first time it’s caged, as if not fully comprehending its inability to change a situation. "Sheriff…" She touched his sleeve but he ignored her plea, tending his prisoner. Abruptly she veered to her husband. "Will…" She grasped him, clutching the back of his shirt, her wet cheek pressed to his dry one. "Will-they can’t t-take you!"
Unbending he stared straight ahead, and ordered coldly, "Let’s go."
"No, wait!" Elly cried, overwrought, turning beetlelike from one man to the other, "Sheriff-couldn’t you-what’s going to happen to him-wait-I’ll get his jacket…" Belatedly she ran to the house, not knowing what else to do, returned panicked, to find both men already in the Plymouth. She tried the back door but it was locked, the windows up.
"Will!" she cried, pressing the jacket to the glass, already realizing what had caused his cold indifference, already repentant, needing to do something to show she’d been hasty and had reacted without conscious thought. "Here-here I b-brought your jacket! Please, take it!" But he wouldn’t look at her as she pressed the denim against the glass.
The sheriff said, "Here, I’ll take it," and hauled it in through his window and handed her, in exchange, the paint rag on which Will had earlier wiped his hands. "Best thing you can do, Mizz Parker, is get a lawyer." He put the car in gear.
"But I don’t know no lawyers!"
"Then he’ll get a public defender."
"But when can I see him?" she called as the Plymouth began to move.
"When you get a lawyer!"
The car pulled away, leaving Elly in a swirl of exhaust with her hand reaching entreatingly.
"Will!" she cried after the departing vehicle. She watched it carry him away, his head visible through the rear window. She twisted her fingers into the smelly rag and covered her mouth with it, hunched forward, breathing its turpentine fumes, fighting panic, staring aghast at the empty driveway.
The jail was in a stone building styled much like a Victorian house, situated just behind the courthouse where Will had gotten married. He held himself aloof from emotion during the booking procedure, the frisking, the walk down the echoing corridor, the cold metallic clang of the iron door.
He lay in his cell facing a gray wall, smelling the fetid odors of old urine and pine-scented disinfectant, on a stale-smelling pillow and a stained mattress, with ink on his fingertips and his belt confiscated and dullness in his eyes and the familiarity of his surroundings consciously shut out. He thought about hunkering in a ball but had no will to do so. He thought about crying but lacked the heart. He thought about asking for food, but hunger mattered little when life mattered not at all. His life had lost value in the moment when his wife looked at him with doubt in her eyes.