The Curse Page 4

  To escape, she mumbled something about heating up the kettle and hurried into the kitchen where she gripped the edge of the stove and stared at her distorted reflection in the stainless exhaust hood.

  No, she thought, this isn't right at all. He must be drunk, telling that man, that stranger, all those things. There's something—she frowned, searching futilely for whatever it was that bothered her. Then she became angry when she realized what she was doing. It's not the city way anymore, she told herself, and you'll just have to get used to good-natured prying once in a while. Maybe, she answered herself as she returned empty-handed to the living room, but does he have to smile like that all the time?

  "Mr. McIntyre," she finally said, breaking into Syd's elaborate reconstruction of their decision to move, "the agent Syd was telling you about, he mentioned something to us about this area being a reservation once. Was he right, or was it just a line to make the place seem more mysterious?"

  McIntyre carefully smoothed the boys' short hair and shifted his buttocks farther back on the bench. He nodded, once, and she worried again that she had managed to offend him through not knowing what she was talking about.

  "A long time ago," he said slowly. "A decade or so after the Civil War, if memory serves this hardwood head of mine. A small one, it was. More accurately, merely a convenient holding place until. . . ." He grinned, then, and let the boys slide to the floor where they leaned against his legs, eyes wide and staring shyly around the room.

  How many times have they heard this, I wonder, she thought.

  "Shortly after 1865," McIntyre said with his face tilted toward the ceiling, "the government became afraid that what remained of the few Eastern tribes would try to emulate their Western brothers and do some damage to the white centers of population and industry. Accordingly, the bureaucrats lumbered their agencies into action and rounded up as many scattered families as they could find without actually combing every hill and valley. Delaware, Lenape, Algonquin, and others were persuaded by various means to settle temporarily in this valley until such time as more permanent and fertile accommodations could be found and made available. Some of them came willingly, while others chose to flee after citing past government records; these, as it turned out, were the more intelligent, and lucky."

  "We got wiped out bang," one of the boys said suddenly, and McIntyre quieted him with a stern pat on the head.

  Then he shrugged ruefully. "But it's true. Naturally you won't find any of this in the files of the Bureau—"

  "—Of Indian Affairs," Syd said, apparently miffed that he was slowly being eased out of the conversation circle. Terry exaggerated a pout and he glared at her.

  "Right, Syd. So, we have to rely on others to get the full story. Oral tradition among my own people—and in several others if you have the time to search and listen—this tradition tells us that in June of 1875 a complement of federal troops set all the families who'd managed to survive the previous winters into a stockade out where the meadow is now. Legend says it was on the hill, but no one knows for sure."

  "Bang," the boy said again, was echoed by his brother.

  "Bang," McIntyre said sadly. "Someone gave the order and the entire Indian community was massacred without explanation. They weren't given a chance to defend themselves, nor were they given an option to move elsewhere. Ironically," he said further as Terry was about to comment, "this also happens to be the place where supposedly a chief of greater antiquity than even myself was slaughtered by a race of men neither red nor white. Some say giants, some say creatures half animal, half god. At any rate, the legends don't ascribe a particularly joyful history to Prynne Lane and its environs."

  "My God," Syd said, his face as pale as if it had happened that afternoon.

  "How horrible," and Terry wined at the parlor liberal sound of it, winced even more when she thought it would make a hell of an exciting story for a new series she could write as well as illustrate.

  "Horrible, yes, but more then than now," said McIntyre. "Myself, I'm Shawnee, and although there were reputedly some of us here—which I am often inclined to doubt—I really don't feel like running out and scalping every white man I see. It would be hell on the neighborhood, believe me."

  He laughed, and Terry was glad to laugh with him.

  "The past is dead," Syd said, and McIntyre nodded rapidly. "Right! To resurrect it only means staring at fleshless bone."

  "Shawnee," Syd said, more to himself than the others. "It seems to me I remember back in college reading—"

  "Oh, Syd, come on!"

  "Insignificant," McIntyre said. "Besides, look at me, will you? Here I am trying to be the delightfully different version of the outdated welcome wagon, and here we are talking about scalpings and massacres and old squaws' bedtime stories."

  You brought it up, Terry thought, but you're right about one thing; it's a hell of a way to greet new neighbors.

  "What I would really like to say, what I came over in the first place to say, is that we are all glad to have you on The Lane, Syd and Terry. And as soon as you're

  finally settled in, and the bugs are out of the adjusting, the rest will be along to call me a liar and a thief, the neighborhood idiot and a garrulous old man who talks to bushes when there's no one around." He rose to his feet and, pulling the boys with him, was at the door and on the concrete stoop before Syd or Terry could catch up with him. "I'm diagonally across from you, in that gorgeously drab fake Cape Cod over there. If you need anything like tools and such, come on over or call. If I'm not there, my son or father will be glad to help you out."

  He leaned over and whispered to the twins who offered to shake Syd's hand, bowed stiffly to Terry, and rushed shrieking across the street. "Sometimes I think they should be tied down," she said.

  "I, too. But they do get on your nerves sometimes. Anyway, friends, I really am glad to meet you both. Welcome to The Lane, and I trust we can be your family."

  Like a soldier on parade, she thought as he turned away. She stayed at the door despite the snap of an October breeze and watched as he passed out of the range of their porch's yellow light. God, he must be fifty at least and he walks like a kid just out of college. She brushed at a wisp annoying her eye. And he doesn't make a sound—oh, brother! Listen to that, will you? I'm beginning to sound like people he must hate.

  Syd came up behind her, coat in hand, and draped a heavy cardigan over her shoulders. "A stroll, m'lady," he said and closed the door behind him. He searched for a moment in his pockets, then grinned. "No need to lock up, is there? Not with the chief guarding the fort."

  They moved across the lawn, listening to the crackle of an early frost.

  He really was silent, she thought as they turned toward Hawthorne. My God, maybe it's true!

  "Time?" she asked.

  He waited until they reached the first of The Lane's three streetlights, then glanced at his wrist. "Nine," he said.

  "Is that all? Lord, it feels like four in the morning."

  "Long day, angel."

  They passed a deserted lot cleared of everything but the brush. Several of the houses were already dark even though it was Saturday, and by the looks of at least three of them, she didn't think many were occupied at all. A puzzlement, then—something for her to consider when the house had settled itself. She tripped over a chunk of raised sidewalk, half turned when Syd caught her arm to balance her, and she saw a dark shape lying over the curb.

  "Oh," she said, and knelt.

  "What?"

  It was a rabbit, thick with winter fur that was blackly matted across its stomach. Its ears dipped into the street and as she reached to pull it completely back to the grass, she saw that its eyes were still open.

  "Poor thing," she said, straightening.

  "Car," Syd judged. "Maybe even a bike. Its neck looks crushed, too."

  "Please, Syd!" and she pulled him away.

  Another silence.

  "Nice of McIntyre to drop in on us like that," he said. "I was beginnin
g to wonder if we'd moved into a sideways tenement."

  "He never told us his first name, you know."

  "But we knew that already, angel. Enfallo told us a long time ago, that first day, remember?"

  "Yes, but he didn't tell us."

  An occasional car winked past the mouth of The Lane, its growl lingering with the after image of headlights. The air was fragile, almost crystal in its readiness to shatter under the soft blows of her white puffs of breath. She lifted two fingers to her mouth and pretended to smoke a cigarette. Then she glanced above the treetops and stopped, pointing.

  "I've never seen so many all at once. It's just like the planetarium, isn't it?"

  "No city lights to blot them out. Elementary physics, my dear."

  "Killjoy. Where's the soul of that romantic who I thought I'd married?"

  "On the drafting board with baby's diapers and dishwashing powder."

  "Well, just cut it out and look at them, dope. I can't believe there are so many of them just sitting up there doing nothing."

  "Maybe there's a book in that, angel."

  "Maybe. One of these days, though, I'm going to stop talking about it and write one." She grinned and punched his arm.

  "I thought you already wrote a couple?"

  "I have. That's why I just talk anymore."

  "Tell me something, angel my love, why are we whispering?"

  It's the night, Terry concluded long after the time to answer had passed. The night. No talking allowed. Listening only—to our shoes on the sidewalk, the television in that other ranch over there, the high-up drone of an airplane. She shook her head at the twilight's distortions created by the fringes of the streetlights. Then she leaned heavily against Syd's arm. He pulled her close.

  "Enfallo told me there was a murder around here last year."

  "So?"

  "Well, I thought it might bother you or something."

  "Then why did you tell me?"

  "Rather have you hear it from me than one of the neighbors. I just didn't want you to think I was keeping something from you, love. It doesn't bother you, does it?"

  "We're from the big city, remember? Why should I be surprised that people around here are any different than anywhere else?"

  "That's a lousy attitude for a woman who supposedly likes kids and has hope for this misbegotten world."

  She was cold. The breeze finally found gaps in her sweater, the wide bottoms of her pants. She began to shiver violently.

  "Let's get back before you catch your death."

  They turned, and she checked the sky one more time. "Let's do this a lot, Syd. It's quiet out here."

  "I know. Spooky, isn't it?"

  "I want to picnic in the field and hike through the woods and maybe see if there isn't a way we can afford a better camera so I can take some close-up pictures. I'll bet this place is unbelievable in the spring."

  "If your teeth don't stop chattering like that, you won't be around that long. You'll shake yourself to death."

  Not me, she said to the outlines of the trees made larger by the rising full moon; I've got plans you'd never even think I could dream up, Sydney, my love.

  And lying in bed—they had decided baptizing the bedroom was completely appropriate for the occasion—she could see a piece of the sky lighten in shades of silver gray. A cloud edged in black passed to one side of the moon, another fell into tendrils and regrouped. The breeze became a wind and led already fallen leaves in a hissing reel. As the rain began—pellets of ice, pebbles of hail—she rolled onto her side and watched the shadows on the wall fade into black.

  Chapter III

  You realize that this isn't exactly fair, Terry accused the view from the dining room window. According to all the films I've seen, not to mention the books and the slick-paper stories, the turning of the year is supposed to be something rather special. It's supposed to be that one romantically apocalyptic moment when whatever shroud one wore throughout the previous twelve months turns Cinderella-like to silk wraps and flowing chiffon. You, she thought in sudden anger, don't look a damned bit like any silk I ever saw.

  Snow responded to her melancholy by slapping against the window. There was nothing here of the softly gentle fluff of Christmas cards and Grandma Moses, or even the tremulous hesitation of tiny flakes generally characteristic, of a season's first fall. The storm, instead, was brittle, shoved by a deeply vocal wind and sounding like nails scratching against the glass. Even before the day's diffused gray light had faded, the yard and the field beyond had been covered by a gleaming coat of crusty ice; and the trees had already begun to lower their limbs as though trying to their bark.

  But then, she decided, why should New Year's Eve be any different from the rest of December? Ah, now, Theresa, you're feeling sorry for yourself again. Things aren't all that bad, girl. What was the name Aunt Bea used to call you—twit? If that means you're a stupid ass, she was doing all right.

  Well, it's still rotten, no matter how you look at it. Beauty is in the eye of the whatever, you know. Why not use this experience for one of your great impending epics and be done with it.

  "Oh, now this is beautiful," she said to the snow. "It's gotten so bad I'm even talking to myself."

  She stirred her tea idly, wincing at the sound of spoon grating against stoneware. Reflexively, she rubbed a heavy palm across her forehead even though her headache had finally been beaten back an hour before. The sweater she had caped over her shoulders slipped at the motion, and she grabbed for it, knew it would slip again and fastened the top but ignoring the choking sensation at her throat. It occurred to her then that a visit to the McIntyres might do her some good in shoring up her rapidly flagging morale and equally disintegrating nerves. But the thought of being in the same house, much less the same room, with the elder immediately changed her mind. Not that she had anything personal against Denver's father, was in fact fascinated by the age he claimed and the eras he had lived and suffered through. However, his constant muttering just this side of subvocal made her wonder how the rest of the family was able to endure it.

  The twins, of course, revered the elder Indian as though he were some manifested relic of a long-forgotten tribal god. Denver and his son William tolerated him—so Denver had said—because he was, after all, the patriarch of the family and consequently their honor-bound obligation. But they never explained his muttering, nor the colorful robes he insisted on wearing, even though the house was kept well above normal temperature. Once, she had dared to ask William about it and received only a look—a hands-off and ignore-it combination.

  She laughed and drank the tea despite the gradual loss of its comforting warmth. The elder aside, if there ever was an odd one, William was it. How completely unlike Denver he was and so were they all when she thought about it carefully—how completely different. Frail as a winter weed which made his height appear to equal his father's, and of a voice more suited to a pulpit than the small tavern he operated in the village. In fact, after her first few visits to the house, all at Denver's insistence, she refused to return while the son was there. His constant companion of gloom made her recall far too often the brooding melancholy of a quietly mad Heathcliffe.

  No wonder the boys so seldom smile, she thought. The old man's incomprehensible chanting, the father's morbidity—even Denver's role as the stoic. archetypal Indian scarcely lent an aura of good and bright cheer to the house.

  She shuddered and dismissed them all. Better to think of her own poor Syd, trapped in the city most of the day until the waiting finally drove him out into the Jersey wilderness. He had called her not five minutes before noon to tell her about a new and open-walleted account, got back an hour later to give her the bad news.

  "But Syd, damnit, it's New Year's Eve!"

  His voice was blurred against a background of storm-induced static. "Angel, what can I do, put a plug in the goddamned sky? Every reporter on the dial is apologizing all over the place for the lousy forecast. Not that that helps me a damned bit."r />
  "Syd!"

  "Don't worry, angel love. If this storm even hints about taking a breather, I'm off. You know where I can get any dogs?"

  At half-past two he called for the last time. "Hey, I'm going to make a run for it. Send out the Saint Bernard with the hundred proof and be sure there's a flare in the sky every ten minutes. If I'm not home by Sunday, marry Pritchard and get him to stock some beer in that store of his so he can make some money."

  "Are you sure you'll be all right?"

  "I'm too stupid, angel. Pray for five, but give me an hour more just in case the Yukon decides to join the Union."

  She had prayed, then, for five, followed it with a few uneasy words for six and was now working anxiously on seven. She had convinced herself that he would make it eventually, but her nerves were refusing to give her foundation. Sipping again, she looked up and frowned. The darkness outside wasn't helping her at all, nor were the floodlights that had been switched on to give the yard some depth, to give the world an anchor. They barely penetrated beyond the partially completed concrete patio outside the downstairs glass doors. Syd's project. His first. For a leisurely summer's eve.

  The sky is falling and bleeding white,

  God save us then from winter's night.

  "Ugh," she said. "Thank God I'm not trying to be a successful poet. We'd both starve to death."

  She laughed, brought her cup and saucer into the kitchen and switched on the ceiling light with her elbow. She sensed the cold ice of the stainless steel sink, kept her hands clear of the sides as she rinsed out the dishes. After another glance out the window that split the cabinets, she pulled the curtains shut, straightened the folds and hugged herself briefly. Her eyes, fighting her resolve, strayed to the wall clock: 6:55—and she immediately fell to pacing through the house, losing track gratefully of the number of times she switched the lights on and off in the bedroom, the study, the workshop, hoping the shadows driven into the corners would suddenly swirl magically and materialize into a laughing, lusting Syd.