— If it’s mine, let it burn. Ain’t nothing there I care about. I need a drink.
But Bert was looking at me, his face twisted with some pointless apprehension that made so little sense that both of us piled into his car, revved the siren, and fishtailed out into Airline Highway, almost smashing into traffic coming from both directions as he humped across the neutral ground and laid thirty yards of rubber getting to the trailer court.
The trailer was in flames from one end to the other. Of course it was Bedlow’s. Bert’s face was working, and he tried to edge the car close to the end of it where there were the least flames.
— She’s back in Alex, I yelled at him. — She’s staying in a motel back in Alex. There’s nothing in there.
But my eyes snapped from the burning trailer to a stunted and dusty cottonwood tree behind it. Which was where the old station wagon was parked. I could see the tail pipe hanging down behind as I vaulted out of the car and pulled the flimsy screen door off the searing skin of the trailer with my bare hands. I was working on the inside door, kicking it, screaming at the pliant aluminum to give way, to let me pass, when Bert pulled me back. — You g. . . d fool, you can’t...
But I had smashed the door open by then and would have been into the gulf of flame and smoke inside if Bert had not clipped me alongside the head with the barrel of his .38.
Which was just the moment when Bedlow passed him. Bert had hold of me, my eyes watching the trees, the nearby trailers whirling, spinning furiously. Bert yelled at Bedlow to stop, that there was no one inside, an inspired and desperate lie — or was it a final testing?
— She is, I know she is, Bedlow screamed back at Bert.
I was down on the ground now, dazed, passing in and out of consciousness not simply from Bert’s blow, but from exhaustion, too long on the line beyond the boundaries of good sense. But I looked up as Bedlow shouted, and I saw him standing for a split second where I had been, his hair the color of the flames behind. He looked very young and strong, and I remember musing in my semiconsciousness, maybe he can do it. Maybe he can.
— ... And she’s got my boy in there, we heard him yell as he vanished into the smoke. Bert let me fall all the way then, and I passed out for good.
VII
It was late afternoon when I got home. It dawned on me that I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Huge white thunderheads stood over the city, white and pure as cotton. The sun was diminished, and the heat had fallen away. It seemed that everything was very quiet, that a waiting had set in. The evening news said there was a probability of rain, even small-craft warnings on the Gulf. Then, as if there were an electronic connection between the station and the clouds, rain began to fall just as I pulled into the drive. It fell softly at first, as if it feared to come too quickly on the scorched town below. Around me, as I cut off the engine, there rose that indescribable odor that comes from the coincidence of fresh rain with parched earth and concrete. I sat in the car for a long time, pressing Bert’s handkerchief full of crushed ice against the lump on the side of my head. The ice kept trying to fall out because I was clumsy. I had not gotten used to the thick bandages on my hands, and each time I tried to adjust the handkerchief, the pain in my hands made me lose fine control. My head did not hurt so badly, but I felt weak, and so I stayed there through all the news, not wanting to pass out for the second time in one day, or to lay unconscious in an empty house.
— Are you just going to sit out here? Joan asked me softly.
I opened my eyes and peered up at her. She looked very different. As if I had not see her in years, as if we had lived separate lives, heights and depths in each that we could never tell the other. — No, I said. — I was just tired.
She frowned when I got out of the car. — What’s the lump? And the hands? Can’t I go away for a few days?
— Sure you can, I said a little too loudly, forcefully. — Any time at all. I ran into a hot door.
She was looking at my suit. One knee was torn, and an elbow was out. She sniffed. — Been to a firesale? she asked as we reached the door.
— That’s not funny, I said.
— Sorry, she answered.
The children were there, and I tried very hard for the grace to see them anew, but it was just old Bart and tiny Nan trying to tell me about their holiday. Bart was still sifting sand on everything he touched, and Nan’s fair skin was lightly burned. Beyond their prattle, I was trying to focus on something just beyond my reach.
Their mother came in with a pitcher of martinis and ran the kids back to the television room. She was a very beautiful woman, deep, in her thirties, who seemed to have hold of something — besides the martinis. I thought that if I were not married and she happened by, I would likely start a conversation with her.
— I ended up taking the kids with me, she said, sighing and dropping into her chair.
— Huh?
— They cried and said they’d rather come with me than stay with Louise. Even considering the ducks and chickens and things.
Hence the sand and sunburn. I poured two drinks as the phone rang. — That’s quite a compliment, I said, getting up for it.
— You bet. We waited for you. We thought you’d be coming.
No, I thought as I picked up the phone. I had a gulf of my own. It was Bert. His voice was low, subdued.
— You know what? he was saying. — He made it. So help me Christ, he made it all the way to the back where... they were. Can you believe that?
— Did they find...?
Bert’s voice broke a little. — Yeah, he was right. You know how bad the fire was... but they called down from the state hospital and said she’s taken the baby, child... out. Said must have had somebody help...
— No, I said. — I didn’t, and as I said it I could see Dr. Tumulty rubbing his hands over nineteen years of a certain hell.
— Never mind, listen... when the fire boys got back there, it was... everything fused. They all formed this one thing. Said she was in a metal chair, and he was like kneeling in front, his arms... and they... you couldn’t tell, but it had got to be...
I waited while he got himself back together. — It had got to be the baby she was holding, with Howard reaching out, his arms around... both...
— Bert, I started to say, tears running down my face. — Bert...
— It’s all right, he said at last, clearing his throat. There was an empty silence on the line for a long moment, and I could hear the resonance of the line itself, that tiny lilting bleep of distant signals that you sometimes hear. It sounded like waves along the coast. — It really is. All right, he said. — It was like... they had, they was...
— Reconciled, I said.
Another silence. — Oh, s..., he said. — I’ll be talking to you sometimes.
Then the line was empty, and after a moment I hung up.
Joan stared at me, at the moisture on my face, glanced at my hands, the lump on my head, the ruined suit. — What happened while I was gone? Did I miss anything?
— No, I smiled at her. — Not a thing.
I walked out onto the patio with my drink. There was still a small rain falling, but even as I stood there, it faded and the clouds began to break. Up there, the moon rode serenely from one cloud to the next, and far down the sky in the direction of the coast, I could see pulses of heat lightning above the rigolets where the lake flows into the Gulf.
Ritual Murder
by Tom Dent
(Originally published in 1978)