Boys in the Valley(39)
Must have been at least . . . three boys that done it. A lookout, for sure. At least two to strangle him, catch him unaware, force the rope around his throat. A scout to run ahead, checking there was no one to see them when they towed the body through . . .
“Brother Johnson, if you please.”
Johnson’s thoughts snap like kindling at Poole’s sharp command. Without further delay, he grips Basil around the waist with one arm, lifts the loop over the top of the cross with the other, and pulls the limp body to his chest. He steps carefully, gently, down from the chair.
“He’s so light . . .” Johnson says, feeling strangely outside of himself, as if he’s watching the scene play out from afar. His shoe squelches into a pool of blood settled on the floor, and he winces in disgust. He puts his other arm under the boy’s legs, lays him down on the clean side of the altar like a sacrifice.
“I’m going to go check on the others, make sure Father White has them well secured in the dining hall. Please take the body to my chamber.” Poole shakes his head, sighs. “We’ll need you to build a casket, it seems.”
Poole turns to leave. Johnson looks at the body, the blood.
So much blood.
“Father?”
Poole turns, a questioning look on his face.
“I’m sorry, Father, but shouldn’t you at least look at the boy?”
Poole’s face is still as deep water. “I have looked, Brother Johnson. I’ve looked, and I’ve seen. Now take the body to my chamber. Use a blanket from the linens if you must, to cover him.” He starts to turn, then adds: “Please make it an old linen.”
Johnson’s face gets hot. His mind clouded and riled as a thunderstorm.
It’s not right, this isn’t right!
“Father Poole,” he says, surprised at the pleading in his voice. “At least give him last rites.”
Poole’s eyes flicker like sapphires, hard and cold and impenetrable. “Last rites? For someone who took his own life?”
“I’m sorry?” Johnson stammers, confusion and shock and anger conflicting within him like a storm. “Father, you think he did this to himself?”
“I do.” Poole’s stoic face remains unmoved. “And suicide is a mortal sin, Brother Johnson. Now . . .”
“He’s just a child . . .”
“He’s a sinner!” Poole screams, the serenity of his face coming apart like a shattered mask, revealing a boiling rage. “A blaspheming sinner who has desecrated my chapel!”
Johnson bows his head, the words hitting him like blows. Poole takes a moment to cool down, wipes his mouth, and turns his back to the scene. “Make sure no one sees you.” With that, Poole strides quickly from the chapel, leaving Johnson alone with Basil’s body.
He looks up at the cross, then down at the boy laid on the altar, thinking. Calculating probability. He searches the floor around the table, seeking the knife the boy must have used on his wrists . . . but finds nothing.
This is no suicide, you cold bastard.
“Who hung you up there, son?” Johnson says softly, studying the child’s puffy face. He lifts the frail, empty body, pulls it to his chest, not minding the blood which stains his black cassock, nor the tear that drains down his cheek. “Who would do such a foul thing?”
Basil, his face slack, his limbs limp and lifeless, does not answer.
25
WE DROP OVER THE CREST AND THE FARM DISAPPEARS, swallowed by white horizon.
For two hours, we stay mostly silent. Both of us enjoying the fresh air, the winding road, the hills and valleys of our trek.
As we go on, I’m increasingly thankful that John and Grace insisted on me keeping the cap and old pea coat. John told me, with a final pat on the shoulder, that the coat served him well during the Civil War, when he wore it aboard the iron-clad steamer, USS Philadelphia. Grace gave me the history of her father over the course of previous visits, how the Navy had retired him after the war ended, along with nearly everyone else serving at the time. She told me, without meeting my eye, how they bought the farm and moved out of the city when her mother grew ill, how John hoped the clean air and country life would revive her.
When Grace was six, they buried her mother in a small plot behind their house.
So yes, it felt good to have the coat, even if I felt a stab of guilt at accepting it. I felt like I was wearing a small part of John Hill’s history. A small part of his grief.
“Don’t worry, you’ll grow into it,” John said, and knuckled my hair affectionately. Tears stung my eyes when he’d done that. It was a fatherly thing to do. A kind of affection I’ve craved my whole life, a type of love that was taken away from me by the blast of a gun and a flame-soaked cabin.
It also makes me wonder, somewhat anxiously, if John knows my intentions with his daughter. This is both a sobering and . . . complicated thought. I also wonder if Andrew has the same inkling. A look of sadness passed over his face in that moment of fatherly warmth with John. It was fleeting, but it was there, nonetheless. It was the look of a child whose toy is being taken away. Or, more fairly, a father realizing his son is preparing to leave. Perhaps to never return.
My bookbag lies heavy beneath the coat, now holding a brand new volume from Grace’s library, along with a thick sheaf of handwritten pages. Our letters to each other have grown progressively longer over the years, become harder to hide amongst the pages. It’s a wonder Andrew hasn’t caught on to our secret correspondence . . .