Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 32, No. 13, Mid-December 1987

John Lehmann Alone by David Kaufman

I guess I should begin by saying that it’s not the easiest thing in the world for me to tell a story. I don’t really know much about that sort of business. I never went but to the fourth grade, and even then I didn’t hardly care for reading. I did like arithmetic a lot, though. Arithmetic’s not like other things. You’ve got something solid there. You always know what you have with an arithmetic problem.

It’s a funny thing to me now, it really is, but I didn’t want to do nothing but get out of school and go to work on my daddy’s farm. And I was let out early for need.

In those days, you see, you could leave school to help out at home if you were needed bad enough. That was the law then. Well, I couldn’t wait, and my daddy did need me, so I got to quit school very early in life and go to work for him. It was a happy day for me.

My mother was against it, she wanted me to go on at least to the eighth grade, but I insisted. I figured I knew better. So I finished the fourth grade, as I said, and then I quit.

The only reason I say all of this is because I went to school with John Lehmann. And we been friends for all these years since. That was nearly sixty years ago, so you can see that I knew him for a long time.

What happened to him and to his shouldn’t of happened to anybody.

Well, his daddy’s farm was right below my daddy’s farm, down low in the valley south of Garlock’s Bend, and so in time it turned out that his farm was right below mine, they both come down to us by rights. It was good bottom ground. And so wonderful for water because the Susquehanna cut right through it. It even flooded every dozen years or so, and that made the ground around there even better. There was a lot of water. That’s important to remember.

I never got married. John, he did, to a wonderful girl from over to Skinner’s Eddy, Caroline Jacobs, and they had kids, and time passed like it does for us all. The kids grew up and didn’t want to stay around Garlock’s Bend so they left and went down to Harrisburg for work. Carrie, his wife, she seemed to not quite care so much about things after that.

Now I always liked Carrie, don’t get me wrong about her. I really did. A whole lot more than liked. A whole lot more. In my own way, of course. I guess that in the end that’s important to remember, too.

Miller’s Store, where all this sort of comes to a head, you’ll have to understand about. It’s kind of the place in Garlock’s Bend where everybody goes. You can buy groceries there, and you can buy clothes there. And tools. And even light meals. You get so you don’t have to leave town very often. It’s an honest-to-goodness general store, in the middle of town right down along the river. I knowed it through four owners ever since the building was put up. And my daddy was one of the men who helped to do that. The current owner, Bill Miller, bought the store off his second cousin, Henry, who decided to retire pretty nearly thirty years ago now, and he’s run it ever since.

Generally it’s open by eight, only hardly nobody would ever be in there that early but Bill, fussing around with boxes and cans on the shelves, keeping things all straightened up. Not hardly ever anyone else, though. Not much happens early in Garlock’s Bend. It’s a town used to slow starts. But the people of the town and the hills around, too, consider Miller’s to be something of a meeting hall, so it is almost always open. Later in the morning there’s lots of them comes in. The talk is just plain satisfactory. And the coffee is special. So it’s not at all unusual at ten or eleven in the morning to see a fistful of men stuffed into orange hunting jackets all clustered around the homemade wooden tables, elbows on red-checkered tablecloths, sipping hot coffee rich with cream and sugar. Listening to young Dale Heberlein, the morning disk jockey from over at Towanda. Every one of them men laughing at Dale’s humor. With maybe a bought doughnut or some eggs and home fries, all peppered up. Add the smell of that coffee, maybe even some hand cut bacon, and it’s as good a way to start the day as there is.

Well, that’s Miller’s for you. That’s where things started to go haywire.

Funny thing is, even though I lived so close to John Lehmann, I got to talk to him mostly there at Miller’s. At home, right next to him, it was all farm business until the evenings. And then he had his family to attend to, with very little time at all to jawbone with me. I was alone, and like as not off doing things myself, chasing around, so mostly I saw and talked to him after growing season in the late mornings at Miller’s, and I sometimes think he wouldn’t of come there even then but for my sake, to befriend me and spend even just a little time with me. I always appreciated that.

I now and again think he knew, too, how very much I cared for Carrie down through the years. Maybe better than she did. But I never said a single word of it to either of them or to a person alive. I just never would have done that.

Over the seasons I sure liked the mornings I spent with him at Miller’s, but I especially liked those last few times. We used to sit and talk and drink that coffee. God, how I remember that!

It makes the loss of him all the more painful.

Some things, I guess, you’d end up going mad if you tried to keep inside of you. Just completely mad. And so I guess the best thing is to just tell the story, no matter how painful, to say what happened, get it out in the open finally and maybe get a handle on it. I have to admit, though, that John Lehmann’s story has me licked, and more than that — it’s got me scared, too.

Well, there isn’t a whole lot happening on a small farm in late October, except maybe finishing up your apples, and getting the ground ready for next year, that sort of thing, so for a couple of weeks this particular October I had been going just as regular as anything to Miller’s for breakfast and for talk. Mostly it was just to pass time.

For the first of those weeks John and Carrie occasionally came in too, and we had some good mornings together. All the usual stuff, bragging about farming and hunting, and me teasing Carrie and finagling an invitation for a supper from her soon.

Carrie Lehmann, I’ve got to tell you, was the gentlest, kindest, most friendly woman I ever knew. That’s a certain thing. And it’s not the most important thing in the world, but she had such beautiful light blue eyes. Those last times I saw her over there at Miller’s are dear times to me yet. They seem now to me to be a kind of adding up of all the earlier times I was ever around her. Sort of like they were the real times and all the ones before were dreams. I don’t know. I guess I can’t say it exactly like I mean it.

Then they began not to come to Miller’s so often. Winter wasn’t so very far off and we had a cold snap, and I guessed maybe it just was easier for them to stay home when that cold spell set in. There wasn’t anything too unusual in that.

But then there was that last time I saw Carrie. It had rained hard on and off for about a week. It was cold and damp and all the water had pushed up the Susquehanna until it was as high as it’s ever been. I mean, it was high. And there we were in Miller’s, just like always.

But this particular time there was something really different about Carrie. I could see that right away. She hardly touched her coffee at all, hardly touched it at all, and she wouldn’t talk about any of the usual things no matter how we tried to get her to. And she fussed and fretted.

“We’ve got to go back, John,” she said. “It’s time to go back home.”

Well, they had just come. I didn’t know quite what to think of that one, they had really just arrived not ten minutes before. And she seemed so nervous and so far away in her head when she talked. So I just stayed out of it.

“John, the water’s getting so high,” she pleaded. “I’m sure it’s nearly high enough. We had better go back. It’s not safe to be anywhere away from home when the water’s this high.” Her old blue eyes were glistening as she said, “It’ll be right up next to the house,” she said quietly. “It’ll be high enough for it to...” She caught herself and looked down.

God, but she did seem scared of something.

John, he just sort of looked at her, like he didn’t know quite what to say either. And then he looked away. He tried to keep a little conversation going with me, but you could see how helpless and embarrassed he was.

Carrie, she got real quiet, and she just sort of kept looking at John pleadingly. When she did finally talk again she just mumbled, and it was about the high water, how dangerous that was, and how easy it would be to break through. And how they better get home to keep everything safe. How she was scared bad for the both of them. And crazy things like that. All in sort of low and broken sentences.

But I sure was feeling badly for John, and I was scared for Carrie. There was something wrong with her, all right. She wasn’t acting normal, not for her nor for anyone else, talking like that. She seemed so scared because of the rain and the water rising in the river.

John, he ended up putting his arm around her and leading her quietly out of Miller’s. And he bent over and kissed her head lightly once as he did. I was really touched by that display of love, him being so matter-of-fact and all. He never even looked back.

Well, John did come alone a few times more to Miller’s, but he seemed distant somehow. He just sat there, quiet. He never brought up Carrie, and he wouldn’t answer any questions about her when someone else did. And then he always just left, like he had decided it was a bad idea to come in the first place. And he did that pretty nearly always right away.

We never did get to see Carrie no more. No sir, I never saw her alive after that last day.

There was something strange in the air. I just had this funny feeling. You know how a person can get.

For instance, I used to sit out on the porch in the evenings, no matter how cool it got — I like the cold weather — and I could see over to John’s farm. Towards the end I noticed that there was only a kitchen light on, never one upstairs. Never. And once when I wasn’t sleeping good I looked out my window at about three in the morning and that light was still on. Now, no farmer stays up like that. It just is never done.

Then John stopped coming to the store.

Well, one thing led to another, and I got to thinking that something had gone sour over next door. I figured Carrie was real sick, or something like that. Hell, we were all old. And I decided to go over and see them and ask if I could help. Now, that may seem like the most normal thing in the world to most everybody, but you must understand this, around Garlock’s Bend a piece of interference like that is very serious business, because we tend not to trouble each other, not even to visit without first being asked. We respect each other and let each other alone. It’s just that we keep this feeling of distance, sort of.

Well, finally I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t have stayed away any longer even if I wanted to, and so I went over late one Saturday evening and knocked on John Lehmann’s door. There was no answer. That didn’t ring true to me, I knew better, and soon I was pounding hard on his door.

I was shocked when John finally opened it just a little. I could see into the room to his kitchen table. It was all cluttered with dirty dishes and spoiled food. There was more used dishes in the sink. And the whole kitchen just looked absolutely filthy. John, too, had a kind of a wild, dirty look. His hair was going every which way, and he needed a shave. He looked like he was real confused.

He stood with the door opened only a little ways, kind of peeking out, like he was afraid I would try to come in. Right away then I knew something was wrong, because friends don’t do that to each other. He was shaking his head back and forth slowly, and already starting to close the door, almost as if he didn’t know me. “I’m forbidden to let anyone in,” he said. His voice was weak and full of fear. “I’m just not allowed to.”

“John,” I said. “You got to let me in.” Something was very wrong. “I’d like to talk to you, John,” I said. “John? Let me in.” I started to push on the door, but he got it closed before I could do anything. And then the kitchen light went out and the whole house was dark.

I just stood there for a minute or more, collecting myself. I was really scared. Well sir, next thing I did, I went all around the house and peeked in every window that I could, only I couldn’t see anything because all the lights was out. I tried to pull up on every window, but they were all locked. And then I tried all three doors and the cellar door, too, but I got nowhere.

It was as if no one had lived in the house for years, it was shut up so tight. I stood there in the dark, with just the silence and a little night wind blowing ever so easy.

The river was really coming up, rising up the slope in back of the house. It made an eerie slurping sound in the dark, sliding along heavy like it did.

My stomach was rolling with pain, and I was sweating, no matter the cold. I was really scared that something terrible had happened to Carrie and John. What it was I didn’t even want to guess.

I didn’t see any movement over at John’s all the next day or that night either. I thought about it off and on all day and decided against saying anything to anyone else just yet. Actually, it really wasn’t none of my business. And for all I knew, everything was like it always was with the both of them.

The next afternoon, then, I spied John out back going into his milkhouse. He was carrying a box of something that looked real heavy. Well, to me that was as good a time as any. I figured to go on over and talk to him while he was still in the milkhouse, maybe even block his way and keep him in there until he told me what was going on.

When I got to the doorway I could see him taking quarts of peaches from the box and letting them down easy into the water to cool them. He looked up at me as I stood there, for I blocked the light from outside, you see. He did not smile at me.

“Carrie always liked her peaches,” he said finally. He was cleaned up pretty good this time. He nodded. “And I do, too.” He shook his head carefully. “Got lots of them.” He reached me a quart. “You want to take one home?” Except that he didn’t seem too happy, it was almost as if it was the most normal day in the world to him. Just like nothing was unusual. I could hardly believe it.

“Look here,” I said, and I was trying to hold down both my Dutch temper and all my fears. “Just what is going on, John? Just what the hell is going on with you?”

“There ain’t nothing going on,” he said slowly, eyeing me carefully. I felt really awkward. It was his farm and all. I didn’t want him thinking I didn’t trust him. If you don’t trust a man, you got nothing good between you and him ever again. I didn’t want that to happen.

But I waited just a moment and then I decided to take the chance. “Where’s Carrie?” I asked.

He stood there quietly for a little bit, looking me over. And then I guess he decided I had the right. “In the house,” he said. “She’s been bad sick. Real bad.” He put the last of the peaches into the trough. “Well,” he said quietly, “you know how it is. Ain’t none of us getting any younger.” He tried a smile that didn’t quite work. “Ain’t that right?”

“Maybe somebody ought to come in,” I said. “Give you a hand. Lots of us would be proud to.”

“I don’t need no hand,” he said. “I don’t want no one helping.”

“Maybe Carrie needs a doctor,” I tried.

“No doctor,” he said. “Ain’t no doctor can help Carrie now.” Just as matter of fact as that.

“Well,” I said, “I could do something.” I said it as slowly and as clearly as I could. “Somebody should be helping you out.”

He dropped the empty box onto the floor. “I don’t want no help,” he said. “I don’t want nothing from nobody.” He almost seemed angry or something.

I looked at him for a long time. But there was nothing to see in his face.

“Okay,” I said, after what seemed like a couple of minutes of him staring at me and me at him. “If that’s how you want it, John.”

“That’s how I want it.”

“You know I consider you my friend.”

“I know that,” he said.

Well, there it is. That was the whole of our conversation that day. I shrugged my shoulders and left. I looked back once and saw him still standing in the doorway of the milkhouse, glaring out at me. And when he turned around I left and didn’t look back no more.

Now when you go over all this you have to remember that we are an isolated and a rural people, as I said, and we have our ways. If he wanted to be all by himself to take care of Carrie until she died, if that was what was happening to her, who was I or who was anyone, to stop him. May seem odd, but that’s how people our way are. We take care of our own. We mind our own beeswax. And if we don’t want no help, why, that is our concern entirely. I guess I understood that in him. I didn’t like it, but I understood it.

The idea of Carrie being on her way to dying just almost destroyed me is all. The thought of never even getting to see her again. That was an awful thing to think about. It wasn’t till a couple of days later, after going over and over it in my head, that I got the first feelings that maybe there was more still, maybe John was not telling me the full truth. Just all of a sudden I had that thought. And then I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

But it was obvious to me that he was nervous and frightened and not acting like himself at all. So I concluded that maybe the idea of him holding back wasn’t so farfetched.

Maybe Carrie wasn’t just sick.

Maybe it was far worse than that. Something was making him act peculiar. And I sure did want to find out what that was.

I sat on my porch swing that evening, kicking the swing easy and watching John’s place. I felt sneaky and miserable doing it, like I was some kind of a spy, but I just kept on staring over there. And as it started to get dark, only his kitchen light was on, just like always.

Sometimes when a thing’s going wrong, a body gets to having a compulsion. It just takes hold of him, and he can’t help but do the first thing that occurs to him. He’s just got to.

Well, that was what happened to me. All of a sudden I couldn’t sit still no more. I figured to go on over to John’s house and get inside somehow and see what was going on. Whether he wanted me to or not. Trust or not. I had to see if Carrie was still alive, see if she was sick, see what was up. Anything would be better than sitting on that old swing and looking at his kitchen light and wondering.

I moved down off my porch and started towards his house. My stomach had begun to churn with fear, although to be truthful I don’t know even yet exactly what I was afraid of. Maybe just of what I was about to do. Handy to his house I began to slow up. My upper lip got to feeling cold and clammy. And the closer I came to the bright light of John’s kitchen, the darker everything else around me seemed to be.

It was really strange and unusual that night. In spite of all the rain just earlier that evening and in the past weeks, the sky was so clear and so dark you could see stars right down to the horizon. There was some houses way off in the distance, with their lights on, and it was hard to tell what was lights from the houses and what was stars. You don’t often get that.

I stopped just outside his gate, stood there for a couple of long minutes before I even dared to go into his yard. And I guess I never knew how much noise a creaky old wooden gate could make until that night.

I got to the edge of the house and then, bent over nearly double and moving slow as I could, I snuck on over to the window. I stood up carefully at the corner of it and peeked in.

It seemed so bright inside. John was sitting alone at the kitchen table. He was looking right at the window, but I was sure he didn’t see me. He appeared to be in a daze. He nodded his head. He did it again, like he was listening. I couldn’t see anybody else in the room. There was a look of unhappiness on his face that I’ll never forget, and it appeared like he had been weeping. He was just painful to see, is all.

Well sir, all of a sudden he starts to shake his head no, just a little and then a little more, and next harder and harder, like he had had enough. And then he sort of throws the chair backward and jerks himself up real quick, till he was standing. He let out this long, low moan that got louder until it was a scream. And again he screamed.

Then he run out of the kitchen, wailing things all the while, but I couldn’t make out what any of the words were.

Well, I was shocked so bad I could hardly move. But then I knew I had to do something, and so I circled the house slowly in the dark, trying for a look inside. There wasn’t a light in any of the windows or anywhere else but the kitchen. I could hardly believe that. He had to be in there somewhere.

It was fully dark outside now, too, and I kicked a pail that I didn’t see or it was some other fool thing, and I was scared he would hear. Or maybe I was scared he wouldn’t hear, I don’t know. But when I stood quiet, there was still only the silence.

Around the back of the house I was surprised that the river had got so close up the bank there that I had to be careful I did not slip into it as I circled. I could hear it moving by ever so slowly and ever so quietly. And it was a lot closer. Massive is what the Susquehanna river was that night. Dark, and quiet, and massive. And somehow majestic. Big rivers are like that.

I guess maybe it had got to within three feet of the house. Real close anyways. And it was still rising. I could hear clumps of sod falling in, washing away. It was an awesome thing, being in all that dark and knowing that the river was hissing quietly by almost tight up against the house, like a giant, slowly coiling snake that had a life of its own. I could feel it going by as well as hear it.

So I carefully worked my way round back to the kitchen window again, and I looked in, pretty boldly this time. But there was nothing unusual in there, except for how filthy it all was.

I waited for about five minutes. No sign of John returning. Everything was quiet. I’ll tell you, I felt about as strange as I want to, just standing there. It could have been peaceful that night, except for what was going on in the house. Or what I feared was going on.

My stomach was really cramping up good by this time, and my hands were all cold, and my upper lip. It felt as if someone was sticking needles into the back of my neck.

I stood there for a few more minutes, trying to decide. And then just suddenly I knew what I had to do. Moving as quietly as was possible for me, I came round to the steps and eased up onto the porch. I stood in front of the door, hesitating.

My head was going this way and that. I wanted to run. But the Lehmanns were my friends, and I had to try to help, whatever the problem was.

I opened the door carefully. I moved inside, at first as quietly as I could, but then in consideration of John I decided to make as much noise as possible, so he wouldn’t think I was sneaking around in his house.

“John?” I called.

There was no answer.

“Where are you, John?”

Again there was no answer of any kind.

Then I got to be really frightened for him. I figured to try upstairs first, and I climbed up the steps to the bedrooms just as quickly as my old legs would take me, looked in one after another of them, but neither John nor Carrie was anywhere. Each room was clean and neat and all made up. Next I got myself up the narrow steps to his attic, and I searched around everywhere, but all I saw was old cribs and picture frames and boxes tied with faded ribbons. It looked like no one had even been in the attic for years.

I stood up there shaking, and I expelled all the air that had been building up in my lungs. I forced myself to relax, and then I worked my way, slowly now, back down to the kitchen. I cannot tell you how depressed I had become. Their marriage, our friendship, the passing of the years, the joy of the last few weeks with them — all of it was a big whirl in my mind. I don’t know what I expected to find up there, but I did expect to find something. Carrie was missing, that was for sure, and that was bad news. And John was not answering my calls.

Only the cellar was left.

I was tired enough by the time I got back to the kitchen that I had to sit down for a little. The table was cluttered with dirty dishes and empty quart jars. That depressed me even more, because it looked to me like John had been alone for a good while, eating peaches out of a jar like an old bachelor who no longer cared very much. Or maybe the peaches reminded him of Carrie, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it was not a good sign either way.

God, my head was awhirl with all these strange thoughts!

I suppose I sat at that table for another five minutes, trying to calm myself. The only sound was the slow even ticking of John’s Ansonia that Carrie brought him home from the Chicago World’s Fair.

But it was inevitable. I knew I had to go into the cellar. Wherever Carrie was, that was another story, but John, he couldn’t be anyplace else but down there.

So I moved into the hallway, switched on the light, and stood in front of the cellar door. I know now what it means to be shaking like a leaf. I was so scared of what was ahead of me. I forced myself to wait for even a few more minutes till I got a better hold of my nerves.

Finally I was ready. I eased open the cellar door just wide enough to squeeze through, and then I stood at the little landing at the top. It was pitch dark down there, pitch dark, and I switched the landing light on and off, but the bulb was burnt out or loose or something because no light would go on. I couldn’t hear anything or anybody downstairs.

“John?” I called out. “John?”

It’s strange to me now, but I remember I called his name gently, almost as a loud whisper. Reverently even, I don’t know. Like I was afraid to be too loud. That’s a remarkable thing.

There was no answer.

I pushed open the cellar door as wide as I could to let in some light.

And until my eyes got used to the darkness I just sat down on the second step from the top and waited.

Still I heard nothing, but I could not get it out of my mind that John was down there somewhere, and he just was not answering my calls. Why, I could not say.

Then little by little I started to see shapes, and before long I could see most of the cellar. I could make out the furnace and the air ducts, a cluttered work table, the churn, things like that. Not good, but I could see them.

Nothing was moving. And I decided that I had guessed wrong when I figured John Lehmann was down there.

But I wanted to be sure, and so I slowly and quietly eased myself, still sitting, one step at a time lower till I was maybe a third of the way down and could see all around the cellar, both in front of the steps and behind them.

And then, God help me, I did see something. I was not in any way prepared for what was over on the far side, the side of the cellar along the river. I would never have guessed it in a million years.

Everything was still only in shades of gray, nothing had any color, but by this time I could see lots of detail. Close to the river wall was an old brass bed, with rumpled bedclothes. I guessed soon enough that it was where John had been sleeping, it sure looked like it, down there in the cellar. Probably ever since Carrie had disappeared.

Then right away between the bed and the wall was a long mound, newly dug in the dirt floor. That took my breath away. I knew what it was all right. That mound was just long enough, and slightly rounded, and I knew what it was.

Lots of feelings went rushing through my head then. Fear, and anger, and pity, and hurt. And the inevitable, “Why?”

Aw-w, God, that scene did pain me so.

I could not imagine what the mound was doing down in the cellar. And why in the world he had buried her down there. She had died, sure enough, my fears were right, but Carrie belonged in a proper grave. She did. But here she was, down in a hidden pit in a moldy cellar. With a bed right next, and with the dark and mildew. It was such an awful place.

I do not think I can tell you just how sad and how alone I suddenly felt. With Carrie gone.

Then I was able to see John moving a little. I had missed him till that moment. He was kneeling at the head of the mound, with his hands clasped together. And he was trembling, I made that out. I didn’t quite see his face, but he had to mean what he was doing, kneeling down there like that. He was praying, is what.

I could hardly believe he did not hear the noises I was making, nor the shouting. But he paid no attention. It was as if I did not exist.

Well, he was right next to the wall. And the wall was right close to the river. And there is no way to tell what happened next but to say it right out.

All of a sudden I caught hold of a noise, low down and far off, a kind of vague rushing sound. Then it got to be like a grinding noise. It grew. And it kept on. It got louder and louder and closer and closer until I could tell it was coming from outside. And still it got louder. Soon it was a roar, a loud whirring roar that was deep in the river and coming towards the house and then, whatever it was, it crashed into the cellar wall and broke clear through and forced the water through the hole like a piston. And that water lifted John clear up and smashed him hard against the wall right in front of my eyes.

In just no time at all.

The water came thundering through the hole now, wailing through the hole, and it thrust every which way just violent, and I screamed and scrambled up the steps and out of the cellar just as the water pulled the steps away and filled the whole of the cellar. In only a few seconds. No more time than that.

And I run from the house as fast as I could just as the water swirled up out of the cellar and across the floor and out of the house.

I run till I couldn’t go no further, up a little hill just about a hundred yards from my house. I fell down on the ground and couldn’t move, I was so tired. I lay there aching and heaving and panting, and I was crying and scared out of my wits.

Then I sat up finally and forced myself to look. And what I saw didn’t even seem real to me. The water was spilling out of the house it looked like in slow motion now, out of the door and the first floor windows, with odd little gurgling sounds, slowly, slowly, as if it had almost found its level. But it surrounded the house as it came out, and the house became like an island in a sudden little lake that was connected to the river.

In nothing but the moonlight it was an eerie sight, let me tell you. The moon glistening easy on the water. And the house all black.

John was done for, that I knew. He was finished.

Well, the house started to creak and groan now, from the heavy tow of the river, and the pressure got to pulling at it and pulling at it until it started to come up and away. It began to break apart and splinter, with awesome tearing sounds, and it wasn’t too long before there wasn’t no house there at all. The house was gone, torn all to pieces.

And then all the pieces of it floated slowly away, almost like each piece took its own turn, until there wasn’t even nothing left to see. And the river smoothed down again, as if the house in the moonlight never even existed.

There was one great deep swirl in the water right out in front of me. It lasted for only a few seconds, and then it was gone too.

John and Carrie Lehmann and their farm had disappeared forever, just like that.

That’s the story.

I know how crazy it sounds, but there was a live thing in the water, that I know. I don’t know what it was, or where it come from, but something smashed a hole in John’s cellar, right through from the river, and the high water that come in took away the house and everything in it and left only that silent inlet when everything was gone. Right in front of my eyes. And there was that great swirl. Something alive did that. So I know what I’m talking about.

But there are lots of things I don’t know.

For instance, I know what happened to John. I know how he died. There is no question about that. But I don’t think I or anyone will ever know what happened to Carrie.

I hope she died natural. I know deep in my heart it wasn’t John that did it, I know him too well, but I just hope she died natural. I hope it wasn’t nothing else. I mean, I hope it wasn’t nothing she did, or caused to happen.

I’m sure as I’m sure I’m gonna die myself one day that she was down there, though. And whatever happened to her, John just went crazy with grief. It had to be that.

I never told anyone what I saw. Right away when it happened there was talk about the bad flood in the valley below Garlock’s Bend, about all the heavy rains, and about poor John and poor Carrie.

But I never told. I figured it was no one’s business but mine. It was me that seen it, and I had to deal with it in my own way.

Just about that time there was some trouble right up in Garlock’s Bend, in the church, and I was there through the whole of that one, too, but I hid the fact that some of it seemed so much the same to me.

I don’t know, I guess I thought that one problem at a time was enough. But partly I kept quiet on account of Carrie. She was scared about something, she said. And she wanted to get back home because of the high water. She said it wasn’t safe because of the high water. And she used a line about the water being high enough for “...it to...” What the it was, and what it could do, those are good questions.

She had to know something, or she wouldn’t have talked like that.

So, I guess somehow not to stir things up, I didn’t tell. Maybe, considering everything, that was wrong.

Maybe.

But then come all the maybes.

Maybe Carrie was innocent of anything bad, and I’m doing her a terrible injustice, thinking the evil things that go through my mind so often. I hope so. I hope to God she was innocent. I hope to God she was.

But maybe, just maybe she was involved in something or controlled by something or even just aware of something so wrong that I can’t even comprehend it. She had predicted the trouble to come, so at the very least, she knew of this thing in the water. She had to know of it. How she knew, and why, no one will ever get a handle on that.

Some things, I guess, it’s maybe even better not to understand. What good would it do anyway?

John now, I don’t know. That time we talked and I wanted to come in to see him, he did say that he was forbidden to let anybody in, he was “...just not allowed to.” Whatever that meant. He sounded so weak and so frightened. Somehow, though, I get the feeling that he knew a whole lot less than Carrie did.

All of this sounds crazy, and just even impossible, but there it is. I know it happened because I went through it, and I’m telling the truth. The sad thing is, I’m sure in my heart of hearts that I’ll never have the answers. That’s the terrible thing for me, not knowing the truth about Carrie.

But one thing is certain — something alive was in the water. That much I know. I know that. Something alive that come from the river.

My guess is it’s still there. Wherever it come from, it’s still out there somewhere. Waiting, maybe?

You get these little hints at Miller’s, like maybe a few other people have been through something, too, but they have decided to keep quiet.

There’s a thought could make anyone afraid.

Carrie’s been on my mind a lot lately. In my quiet times. Her and those ice blue eyes and all the passing years. And what I thought was lifelong innocence. And always I’m left with the questions that keep coming back. What did she know? What did she do? And why?

And the question of questions — what took her?

Well, whatever came for them out of the river, whatever it was that happened to them both, John did love her, no matter the cost to him in the end. He hung on like a man, too, and you can’t ask for more than that. Even if he died because of her, because of something she did, I believe he still loved her. I do.

And maybe, at the last, that’s partly why I’m so troubled by the whole story myself, why I have so many questions, why I feel so much dread.

I loved her too, you see.