A False Dawn

TWELVE

I closed Reverend Jane’s front door and wondered if Max could sniff the darkness on my clothes that probably clung to me like a curse. I could smell rain in the wind coming across the marshes. Two purple martin gourds hung from a pole, clanking into each other in the stiff breeze. The wind chimes were sounding like an angry bell ringers.

Max was unusually silent as I approached the car. Maybe a spell had been cast on her or me. “If I stink like a dungeon, Max, I’ll put the windows down to get some air in here and blow the ghosts out.” Her tail resumed its normal blur. Spell busted.

There was no car in front of the silver Airstream. I drove by the trailer and parked about one hundred feet away under the boughs of a live oak.

“Max, I’ll be right back. Anybody fly by on a broomstick — bite ‘em.” I pulled out my shirttail, hiding the pistol that was wedged under my belt.

The Airstream looked like an advertisement in a page from an old Saturday Evening Post. Circa, 1950’s. There was no mailbox. No address.

I strolled around the perimeter like a lost fisherman circling the small backyard, which was fifty feet from the river. A canoe was turned upside down, supported above the ground by two sawhorses.

The trailer had no rear door. Approaching the front door, I wasn’t sure whether to knock or kick through it. The only backup I had was a ten-pound dachshund. I knocked hard. I couldn’t hear anyone moving inside. As I turned the handle, the door opened with a squeak. I pulled out my pistol and entered.

The smell of burnt wood, dried grasses, and rich humus came from the shadows of the interior. The tiny living room had a worn rust-colored couch, unfinished wooden rocker and a bookcase. On the shelves were a dozen small canning jars, each sealed. Most were filled with tree bark, roots, leaves, soil, and dried berries.

I searched the premises. Not sure of what I was looking for or what I might find. Was he a sex offender? A murderer? Was he simply cut from a different branch?

The kitchen was smaller than most bathrooms. No sign of eaten food. No empty cans in the trash. The bar-sized refrigerator had no food in it.

There was a closed door leading to what I assumed was the only bedroom. My grip tightened around the Glock as I slowly turned the doorknob with my left hand. How many times in Miami had I felt the same thing? Entering a rat hole where a killer, high on drugs and adrenaline, was coiled like a snake. Would Billie be on the other side of the door with a bow pulled back, the tip of an ancient arrow ready to impale me to the wall? I raised the pistol and shoved the door open.

Dust danced in the streaming light coming from a single window. There was a cot next to one wall. A multicolored Seminole blanket folded neatly at the head of the cot. On the blanket was an eagle feather. I knelt down and looked carefully at the feather. I spotted a long gray hair on the blanket.

The room grew darker as storm clouds blocked the sun. There was a clap of thunder and rain began to beat the aluminum trailer like a thousand drumsticks. I sat on the cot, laid my gun down, and picked up the eagle feather. Holding it, my hand trembled. I could see dried blood at the base of the quill.

Later that night the rain tapered to a gentle drizzle. After I fed Max, I poured two ounces of Irish whiskey and took down a photograph of my wife Sherri from the old river rock mantle. I walked to the porch and sat. A whippoorwill sounded across the river. A sonata of frogs filled the rainy night air. Under a cone of light spilling from the kitchen onto the porch, I looked at Sherri’s face. I touched the image, my fingers moving across cold glass. I longed for her warmth, her smile, her laugh. God, how I missed her.

We were on a much-delayed vacation. Sailing from Miami to Key Largo. It was later in the afternoon and the sky was splashed in purples and gold. The sails stretched in a southeast wind. Eternity made a whoosh…whoosh…whoosh sound cutting through water, the setting sun reflecting the blush of a twilight sky. Sherri held the ropes near the bowsprit, her hair dancing in the wind. Suddenly, on both sides of the boat, two porpoises began leaping out of the water in unison.

Sherri laughed. “Look, Sean! Not only do they have a smile on their faces, it’s in their eyes. What a fabulous way they see the world around them.”

Six months later, she was in a hospital bed. Through her fight with ovarian cancer, the chemo treatments, an arsenal of pills, the constant blood work, her eyes never lost their light. The last week before Sherri’s death, she asked me to take her home. She wanted to be in our bedroom, surrounded by her books, little Max curled up next to her.

The night Sherri died I held her hand and wiped the perspiration from her face. She said, “Remember the dolphins, Sean?”

“I remember,” I said, trying to be strong when my insides were tearing apart.

“Remember their smiles…let it remind you how to smile. Somewhere…you’ve lost that…I miss it in you…promise me two things, Sean. Promise me you’ll move away from the dark side — the side you enter to try and make a difference. You need to reclaim yourself. And that’s where you will make the difference in the lives of others. And promise me you’ll watch over Max. She loves you almost as much as I do.” Her hand trembled as she stroked Max, who had snuggled next to her.

I leaned over and softly kissed Sherri’s lips. They were cool. She smiled one last time as I looked into her eyes and saw the light fade.

I placed her picture on the porch table, sipped the whiskey and felt it burn in my empty stomach. I called Max over to my chair and lifted her up. She licked my chin and lay down in my lap. I scratched her behind the ears and stared into my dead wife’s face.

I finished the drink and realized the rain had stopped. A slice of moon perched far beyond the live oaks. I sat there in the dark until after midnight watching fireflies play hide-and-seek along the banks of the river, their tiny lights reflecting in the dark current like meteor showers in the night sky.