She was back in the barroom, cleaning the stools with a rag that reeked of some powerful disinfectant. She didn’t hear him enter, and Arlen watched her work, scrubbing furiously at the nicked legs of the old bar stools.
“Blood get on those, too?” he said.
She gave a start, then saw who it was, and her eyes hardened and her hand tightened around the rag. A drop of the cleaning fluid dripped onto the floor.
“I thought I was paying you to fix things,” she said. “Not stand around in the dark watching me.”
“There are lots of things around here need fixing,” he said with a nod, stepping closer. “I’m just trying to get a sense of all of them.”
She hesitated a moment, down on her hands and knees, and then got to her feet with a small sigh and stood with her back against the bar.
“There was a fight. It’s not uncommon when those men get together. People get hurt.”
“People got hurt,” Arlen said, “but that was no fight.”
“I have no idea what happened,” she said. “I was upstairs, trying not to hear it. That’s what I always do.”
“I believe that, but you know damn well that whatever happened in here last night wasn’t a fight.”
“You think I should call the sheriff?” she said, scorn clear in her voice. “Or maybe call Judge Solomon Wade himself?”
“There are other people to call.”
She didn’t answer.
“If we’re staying here,” he said, “I’m going to need to be told the truth about some things.”
“Why?”
The abruptness of the question startled him. He leaned his head back, staring at her, and said, “Because I don’t want you to be mopping up me or Paul Brickhill next time around.”
“I don’t know why you’re staying,” she said. “You should go. Don’t you understand that? Even I understand it.”
“You want us gone?”
Her jaw trembled for an instant before she said, “You know that I don’t, you said it last night. If you’re gone, I’m alone again. With them.”
“If you don’t talk to me, you’re damn near that alone anyhow.”
“No,” she said. “I’m nowhere near as alone as that.”
You can’t leave them here, the woman from Cassadaga had told him. They need you.
“I can’t help you,” he said, “if you won’t speak the truth.”
“I’ve told no lies.”
“You’ve told nothing, period.”
“My problems are my own. I don’t need to share them.”
Her face floated there just before his, those smooth lines and endless eyes.
“But you’re right about this place,” she said. “It’s filled with trouble. I’m filled with trouble. You don’t need any of it, and Paul certainly doesn’t. The best thing for both of you would be to-”
He leaned down and kissed her. Lifted his hand to the back of her neck and kissed her on the lips just as smoothly and sweetly as he could.
She stepped back and struck him.
Her slap caught him high on the left side of his face. He stood where he was and stared as she hissed, “That’s what you want? Is that all you want?”
She moved away from him in a rush, went around the bar and through the swinging door into the kitchen, and then he was alone with the imprint of her slap stinging on his cheek.
20
HE COULDN’T SAY why he’d done it. Hadn’t been thought-out, planned. No, he’d just been looking at her face and seeing those lips and… hell, what a mistake.
He went outside and stared at the wires coming out of the generator and knew damn well that he wouldn’t make any progress without Paul there. He walked down to the dock and set to work tearing some of the damaged planking free and stacking it on the shore. He worked hard and angry, frustrated and embarrassed with himself for what had happened. What would the boy have thought if he’d seen it?
While he was working, he thought he heard a boat. A faint sound, but he’d have bet money it was the creaking of a set of oars working in their oarlocks. He straightened and stared up the inlet, but it curled away from him, and the trees with their draperies of Spanish moss screened what lay beyond. He waited for a time and didn’t see anything, and then he returned to work.
It was more than an hour before Paul and Thomas Barrett made it back. The panel van had been replaced by an old pickup that was so loaded with lumber, it flattened the tires.
“Enough for the dock and the generator shed,” Barrett told Arlen when he walked up to join them. “Won’t be enough for the boathouse, but it’ll do the rest.”
“That’s a start. Hey, Paul? Why don’t you look at that generator while I get this unloaded. I couldn’t make heads or tails out of that.”
“Your back’s feeling better?”
“Yeah,” Arlen said. Rebecca had come out on the porch to watch them, and he didn’t look her way.
Paul went off to the generator, and Barrett hung around to help Arlen with the boards. They unloaded the lumber and carried it down to the boathouse. By the time they got back from the last load, the generator was running again, and Rebecca Cady stood on the porch with a rare smile on her face.
“I’ll be able to use some eggs and milk tomorrow,” she told Barrett. “I can finally keep them cool again. He actually got it to work.”
Barrett left then, promising to return with the perishables the next day, and Arlen and Paul got to work rebuilding the enclosure for the generator. Paul insisted on making it wider than the original, which made sense because it allowed you to move around and access the thing if there were problems. He’d gotten the timing adjusted, and the cylinders were firing smoothly and accurately. Arlen watched it hammer away and thought there weren’t many men in the world who could put a thing like that back together without any training or experience with engines-hell, without so much as an instruction or a diagram. Looking at the generator, Arlen realized he was feeling a small surge of pride. That was undeserved-he couldn’t take any credit for the kid’s success. It was there all the same, though. He was proud of him.
At sunset they joined Rebecca on the back porch and ate dinner, Arlen sipping a cold beer.
“First I can really appreciate of the boy’s contributions,” he said to Rebecca. “Beer sure does taste better once it’s been chilled.”
Paul frowned when he said that, and Arlen assumed it was related in some way to drinking, but a few minutes later when Rebecca had gone inside in search of salt, Paul said, “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me that in front of her.”
Arlen stared at him. “Call you what?”
“The boy.”
Arlen raised his eyebrows and gave a little nod.
“That’s not how I want her to think of me,” Paul said. “Understand?”
“Sure,” Arlen said. “Won’t happen again.”
He was starting to worry about Paul’s infatuation, though. It was none of his business, but he didn’t for a minute believe Rebecca Cady did-or would-think of him as a man, let alone as a romantic interest. She treated him with affection, yes, but it wasn’t in the way the kid was hoping.
Rebecca had just stepped back out with saltshaker in hand when they heard a car pulling in. Arlen looked up at her and saw a shadow pass across her face. She set the salt down and went back inside but hadn’t even made it across the barroom when the front door opened and two men stepped through. What was left of the sun was shining off the windows and it was impossible to look through and see them clearly, but Arlen was certain the one who’d entered first was Solomon Wade, because he could see the outline of the white Panama hat. Wade said something to Rebecca, and then they came back out onto the porch.
The judge’s companion tonight was the man called Tate. He had a wide leather belt like the kind issued to police, with a holstered pistol hanging off one side and a sheathed knife on the other. Wade appeared to be unarmed, wearing dark pants and a shirt with suspenders, no jacket, wire-rimmed glasses over his eyes. He looked like a small-town banker.