Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 3, March 1990

The Time Between by J. A. Paul

There’s that time between day and night when it’s neither. In some parts of the world the time between is so short you can’t see it. Still, it must be there. It can’t be day and night at the same time, any more than there can be life and death at the same time. In between the two is a flutter of both or neither. I’m not sure which.

Lord, I miss Eleanor. I didn’t know a man could love a woman he’d been married to for twenty years as if it was their honeymoon. Even now, three years gone, it hurts just to think about her.

I tapped out my pipe. The entry was dated August, 1952, three years after my grandmother had been murdered by a drunken derelict. The old diary had been a surprise. It was hard to imagine grizzled old Grandpa writing down such thoughts. He wasn’t a man to say much.

I was tired. I had been up since four A.M., when the hospital had called to tell me Grandpa had collapsed at the local tavern. It had taken them hours to find my number. I had driven most of the morning, hoping to see Grandpa before he died, and although I made it, it hadn’t mattered much. He was no longer fully conscious. He didn’t know me. I stayed at the hospital till mid-afternoon when exhaustion sent me to rest at his old farmhouse.

It was a small town and word traveled fast. I was Grandpa’s only relative, a fact most of the townspeople knew, yet the kitchen table was laden with food. I got up to sample some of the baked beans, took a saucerful, and went back to the diary. It was by no means kept daily. Some entries were six months apart. It was an old fashioned blue cardboard covered looseleaf, quite full, to which pages could be added. There were fresh blank sheets at the back. I leafed through it, having nothing better to do with the remainder of the day. I hoped he would recognize me in the morning, that the phone would remain silent through the night.

Walter tried to fix me up on a date today. As if Eleanor could be replaced! He knows better. He loved her, too. I keep thinking I’ll see her again, I mean besides that God-awful last time out in the front yard that comes every night at dusk. I hear you can sell your soul to the devil and get anything you want in return. I want Eleanor walking beside me again, but old Lucifer ain’t made an offer.

A chill went up my spine. The entry was dated 1969. Grandma Eleanor had been murdered in the front yard in 1949. According to the entry, Grandpa had “seen” her moment of death every night for twenty years. Forty, if his hallucination continued. It was nightmarish. “Poor Grandpa,” I told the empty room.

“You talk to yourself, too? Must run in the family.”

I elevated three inches from the chair, heart pounding and hair on end.

“Didn’t mean to spook you,” said an old man from the other side of the screen door. “My name’s Walter Bethroe. You must be the grandson.”

Besides his appearance in the diary, my grandfather had mentioned Walter over the years. They had known each other forever. Although embarrassed at being caught redhanded talking to myself, I remembered my manners and let him in.

“I’m Howard Stintson,” I said.

He nodded and held out yet another foil-covered pot. “This here is pork and sauerkraut,” he said.

A man after my own palate.

“Join me?” I asked.

He did so, and except for my polite compliments on his meal, we ate pretty much in silence. From the looks of him, he and Grandpa were very much two of a kind. Walter was sturdy and weatherbeaten and, like Grandpa, alert for a man closing in on eighty. Over coffee he came out of his reverie.

“I’m gonna miss Thomas. I surely am.”

I nodded but remained silent. What could I say? Grandpa’s heart had been weak for years. He was dying and we both knew it. Walter had reached an age where few friends, if any, remained. His loss would run deep.

“It’ll be dusk soon, almost time,” Walter said.

“For what?” I asked. There were no animals to feed, I had checked.

“We ought to clear the table before all this food goes bad,” was all he said.

We put pots and bowls in the, refrigerator, dirty dishes in the sink. Walter neatly ran soapy water and left them to soak.

“You best sit down, boy,” he said.

Did he want a card game? It was okay with me. He pulled up the window shade and looked outside.

“What do you know about your grandmother’s death?” he asked.

The question surprised me. I would have thought he would tell anecdotes about Grandpa, if he wanted to talk at all. I thought back to what my father had told me. Familiarity with the story somewhat lessened its gruesome quality. “In 1949, Grandma was axed to death by an Indian. No one knew who he was. He was assumed to be a drifter who had too much to drink, saw a pretty woman, and for some reason went berserk. Grandpa had come in from the fields just after the killing and at the sight of Grandma went wild. He beat the Indian to death.”

Walter nodded. “That’s the way I told it,” he said.

I didn’t recall his presence being mentioned.

“You were there?” I asked.

“Only at the end,” he answered. He folded his arms on the table and cleared his throat. “I don’t know how to tell all this, boy. You’ll likely think Thomas is crazy. He isn’t, no matter how it sounds. I saw him at the hospital early this morning and I promised him I’d tell you the truth. There’s something he’s going to do tonight. If he does it, you might think you’d lost your mind. It would only last a few minutes, but he wants to spare you that. If he can’t manage it, he still wants you to know the whole story.”

“Manage, what?” Frankly I was a bit jealous that he had been there while Grandpa was still lucid.

“You’ll see for yourself,” said Walter pointing to the front yard. “It’s Eleanor’s death. It happens all over again. I saw it myself, years ago. Afterwards, I never came visiting at twilight again. Mornings or after dark, yes. Never again at dusk.”

This was too much. Though it matched with what was in the diary, I was more inclined to understand Grandpa’s mental aberrations than Walter’s. It was Grandpa’s wife who had died a horrible death. The trick his mind played for years afterward was strange, but probably an understandable result of psychological trauma. I didn’t feel the same about Walter’s claiming to have seen the crime again. I re-evaluated my former assessment of his mental capacities. There seemed to be only one remark in all he had said to which I might logically respond.

“I don’t think Grandpa will be able to accomplish anything, Walter. He was in pretty bad shape when I left.”

He said nothing.

I looked outside. Whatever they hoped I might see wasn’t readily apparent. My car was parked under the thick old oak. There was a fence needing paint and a few cracks in the asphalt. There was nothing peculiar about any of it.

Walter rubbed his hands across the worn checkered oilcloth.

“I’ll tell you how it was in the beginning,” he said finally. “Tom, Eleanor, and me, we all grew up together. Eleanor was beautiful and sweet, and Thomas and I both loved her. We had a fight over her nearly every week from the time we were fourteen. People used to bet on which of us she’d marry. For sure it would be one of us. We were both from landed people, had ambitions to enlarge our property and better ourselves. We were churchgoers and decently educated. We were handsome, too, if I do say so. It was odd, what with the competition for Eleanor, but we were also the best of friends. If the truth be told, I thought Eleanor was favoring me. And then he came.”

For a moment the old man was silent. I suppose he was lost in his memories. I was grateful the conversation had taken a normal turn.

“Who came?” I prompted.

“The Indian. Fleet. Half Indian, anyway. His ma had named him Fleet-footed something or other, but when they came here everybody shortened it to Fleet. They were from somewhere up by Lubec. We understood that his father was a Norwegian sailing man. He had his ma’s coloring, though. His skin was dark, and his eyes and hair were black. He was full of fire and the girls in town near fainted when he was around. At the annual fair he knocked the rest of us boys off our pins in everything from horse racing to pistol matches. Eleanor wouldn’t run after him like the other girls. She was too proud for shenanigans like that, and as it turned out, she didn’t have to. Soon as Fleet saw Eleanor, it was like all the rest became invisible. Crazy about her, he was. Worse even than Thomas or me. What came as the surprise, though, was that she returned his feelings. You’d think it would’ve ended happy for them, but you got to remember it was still the twenties. No self-respecting family would allow their daughter out the door with a poor, half-breed Indian. Suddenly Eleanor didn’t go anywhere without her ma. I guess they figured she’d get over him. Thomas and I sure figured it that way. Well, to make it short, Thomas and Eleanor’s family both belonged to the same church, which gave Thomas the inside track over me. Eleanor was a good girl, the kind who listened to her family. The marriage was arranged and Thomas was in heaven. Can’t say I blame him. I would have been, too.” The old man stopped for a few moments to shake his head sadly.

“Trouble was,” he continued. “Eleanor never was the same after that. She hardly ever smiled. The marriage took place and Fleet went back north somewhere. A year or two later your pa was born and she got a bit better, but still not the same.” He stopped again and looked at me guiltily. “Son, I never thought to say it, and I hope you forgive me. About your pa, and your ma, too, though I never met her. I sure am sorry.”

Both my parents had been killed in an auto crash about three years before. It was kind of him to mention it. “Thank you,” I said.

The sun outside was definitely fading.

“I’d best hurry,” said Walter. “Fleet started to come. back. It wasn’t often. He just turned up every couple of years or so, stayed out in the woods somewhere for a few days, then disappeared again. I guess it was to see how Eleanor was doing. Lord knows, no one but us three ever saw him. He didn’t socialize none. As it turned out, he must’ve been waiting till Eleanor was ready. I guess Eleanor was waiting till your pa went off to college. Don’t fault her, though. She was only seventeen when she was forced to marry a man she didn’t love. Thomas knew it was just a matter of time till she went off with Fleet. Years, maybe. But coming just as sure as old age. It was bad for Thomas, but son, I think we all knew it was worse for Fleet. He just kept coming back and going away, like the tide. It didn’t look like he ever took a wife of his own. The woman he wanted belonged to another man. He was a sorry sight to see in them years. Pitiful.”

I was shocked. It was pitiful, all right. However, my pity was reserved for the man who had spent twenty years married to a woman who didn’t love him, my grandfather.

“It was late spring of 1949,” Walter went on. “Thomas had a mare in foal. Like most farmers, he had a sixth sense about when the foal was coming. In those days, we used to have continuous barns, which means that out from the house was a lot of connected outbuildings. Nearest the house was the woodshed. In Thomas’s yard that connected to an old carriage house, which went on to connect to the corn shed, cow shed, dairy, and barn. In other words, you could be out in the barn and pretty far away, and enclosed, too. Eleanor didn’t know that Thomas had come in early that day to see to his mare. He’d have no reason to make any noise, and every reason to be quiet and soothing. He told me later that he heard a couple of cars, but hadn’t thought anything of it. It was dusk when he got finished. He walked back through the buildings and came out the side of the woodshed which opened to the yard. The first thing he saw was Eleanor’s things in the back of an old black Ford. I’ve often wondered why she waited till that hour before leaving. Thomas always came in from the fields about that same time. The only thing I can figure is that it took them longer to get her belongings than they thought it would. Anyway, Thomas saw the car first, then Eleanor and Fleet, and all three kind of froze. Now if he had come upon them someplace else, the story might have ended different. Thomas wasn’t naturally a violent man. But he was in the woodshed, and the axe was right to hand. Sure, he says he knew for years that Eleanor was going, but it wasn’t right that he had to see it happening right in front of him like that. It was too much for any man to bear. He picked up the axe and charged out at Fleet like a bull gone mad.”

I sat like stone, certain of the outcome of the story. Walter passed a hand through his sparse hair.

“My house,” he continued, “is but a quarter mile down, the other side of the road. In those days we didn’t turn on the TV the minute we walked in the door. It was quieter then. I heard a roar. It made my blood run cold. I’d never heard the like of it before. I rushed outside. It seemed to have come from Thomas’s direction. I didn’t even think to use my car. I just ran.

“Back here, Thomas was running at Fleet and Eleanor was trying to get in front of him to protect him. When Thomas saw Eleanor in the way, he tried to change the direction the axe was heading, but in that same fraction of a second, Fleet tried to protect her, too. He shoved her aside, right into the downswing. I won’t describe that further. I was running down the road when I heard the next scream. I think that was Fleet. Thomas was bent over Eleanor trying to pull out the...” The old man gulped and took a breath. “Anyway, Fleet went mad. He pulled Thomas off with a rage that would scare the devil himself. Trouble was, for all his strength he swung wild, like he didn’t know what direction to hit. I guess the thing that counted most was that Thomas was beyond feeling physical pain. Nothing short of a bullet would have stopped Thomas that night. I know. I tried. By the time I came running down that there driveway, Thomas was banging Fleet’s head against the oak. It took me forever to pull him off. It took me even longer to convince him Eleanor was dead. He kept trying to get to her. Landed a few good ones on me before I got through to him. I got him into the house. At the time I naturally wasn’t sure just which one had killed Eleanor, but I had no problem about which one I wanted to blame. I grabbed a bottle of whisky and went back out and poured it on Fleet. I brought Eleanor’s clothes inside and threw them in the bedroom closet. Thomas was numb, sitting like one of them statues, except his face was bloody and swollen. I left it alone for the sheriff to see. Then I called him and told everybody the story you know. Nobody but the four of us knew how those two had waited twenty years. Nobody remembered Fleet. Nobody questioned my version. Thomas might have said something at the beginning, but it was weeks before he could say anything at all. Nor did he ever say anything about what I did. About six months later, though, he asked me to come here at dusk. I guess he wanted me to know that he never meant to hurt Eleanor. I thought he’d gone crazy when he told me what I’d see. Afterwards, I thought I had.”

Well, I hadn’t. I looked out again at the benign front yard. The two men had fed each other’s imagination for forty years. Especially if Walter’s current version was true, which I believed. Only a shared sense of guilt could prompt identical hallucinations. It was too late to help Grandpa. Maybe I could still help Walter.

“My grandmother’s death was an accident,” I said. “The Indian’s probably qualified as self defense. Grandpa’s lifting the axe, in all probability, would have been attributed to temporary insanity. You should put your mind at rest, Walter.”

“It is, son. I have no regrets about what I did.”

“Then what is this all about? Even if I did see the whole thing, what difference would it make?”

“None,” he replied. “But Thomas says we won’t see it the way it was the first time. It’s going to come out different.”

“How?”

“He’s going to change it. Anyway, that’s what he thinks. He tried before, but he said he couldn’t get through from the living side. Then he figured it out, he said. But first, you got to understand Thomas. He was guilty about robbing them of the life they were supposed to have together. He said he had Eleanor for twenty years when he shouldn’t have had her at all, and he was given a fine son in the bargain. He thought it only right for her and Fleet to have their time together like they always wanted.”

“They have eternity together,” I said coldly.

Walter smiled and shook his head. “Thomas didn’t see it that way.”

“Listen,” I said using my most reasonable tone of voice. “No matter what my grandfather wanted to do, you mustn’t expect miracles. History is unchangeable.”

“Thomas said that between life and death is a time we don’t understand, when each side could get through to the other. If they met at the right time and place, they could change what happened the first time. He used to want to kill himself just to get it done and over with, but he couldn’t figure a way that wasn’t too fast. It had to come natural; then he had to hang on till dusk so he could meet them when they came again. Tonight’s probably the night. We’ll see.”

What could I say to this old man? Even if he relived the killings, I certainly wouldn’t. Changing history was even more preposterous. When the time came, should I humor him? Lie? I followed his gaze to the diminishing light of the front yard. Suddenly I hoped his imagination would allow him to see whatever he wished.

My first impression was puzzlement, my second disbelief. My Chrysler was gone. I experienced that disoriented feeling which comes from witnessing something either tragic or impossible. My car was there a minute ago. Now it wasn’t. The paved driveway was gone. Now a dirt drive led out to a gravelly road. The oak stood slimmer. Under it was parked an ancient dusty black Ford. The car doors were open. Boxes and articles of women’s clothing were visible. Near the car, two people materialized. One was a tall man whose face was more bone than flesh. The hollows of that face caught and held the shadows that fell around him. His eyes, dark as a moonless midnight, were captured by the woman facing him. He was about to help her into the car. I tried to look at Walter, I suppose to assure myself that I wasn’t dreaming, or maybe to prove that I was, but found I was unable to do anything but stare at the unfolding scene. Outside, the two people hesitated, then turned together toward something beyond my vision. Only when the woman turned would I admit who she really was. It was my grandmother, Eleanor. I was amazed by her youth. She had seemed so much older in the family album. Here, she was no more than four or five years older than I. Her golden brown hair was in a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She wore an ankle-length dark brown skirt, and though she stood very erect, she barely reached the shoulder of her companion. Her eyes, when I finally saw them, were haunted and sad.

I didn’t hear the roar Walter had heard, but I felt it. It isn’t possible to describe this, but I “heard” it with a different, foreign, sense. I couldn’t bear to watch the scene he had drawn so painfully clearly, and again I tried to look away. I couldn’t. I was transfixed.

Another man appeared. He was not as tall as the first, but he was broader. His eyes were shocking in their intensity, his mouth a grim, bloodless line. He held an axe. Eleanor’s face now streamed with tears. She stepped in front of the gaunt man, and I saw her mouth forming pleas. From behind, the Indian grasped her shoulders and moved her out of harm’s way. My grandfather, for of course it was he, flew at his enemy like a majestic, crazed eagle. Massive and enraged, he raised the axe. Again Eleanor threw herself in front of the man she so obviously loved. Grandpa, eyes on fire, was now but a few feet away from the man who was thief of all he held dear. The axe stopped in mid-air. The scene froze.

If I should live a century beyond a normal life span, it won’t feel as long as the moments that followed. My chest was constricted. I was sure my heart had stopped. My fingers gripped the table edge. I watched Grandpa’s face soften, and his shoulders sag. I saw the axe fall harmlessly to the ground, and watched as he used the handle to lean upon. I never knew such pity existed as I felt when I witnessed resignation consume him. The Indian didn’t hesitate. He swung Eleanor into the car as another man appeared, racing down the road. The third man stopped at the foot of the drive as the car turned right and drove out of sight. Of course it was a younger version of Walter, the man sitting next to me. He went to my grandfather, who was still standing in the yard, and they stood quietly together as night fell around them.

A highway light appeared and, with it, the outline of my car. I was grateful that a small part of reality had made an appearance.

“He did it,” Walter whispered.

The phone rang. My world was back. I practically knocked it off the hook. “Stintson residence,” I answered in a foreign voice. It was the hospital, of course. Grandpa was dead. I stumbled to his desk and my hands shook as I turned the pages of his diary. It looked the same. Why shouldn’t it? Not once had he said that Eleanor was dead. I turned to the blank pages at the back and grabbed a pen.

“That’s right, boy,” said Walter. “Write it down quick before we forget.”

Forget? Not likely. My problem is the memories crowding out all else. I remember Fleet who taught me to cast and fish in the turbulent Atlantic waters from a small island off the coast of Maine. I remember the small, happy bungalow on that island where I spent many youthful summers in the company of Grandma Eleanor and the rugged, rangy man who adored her. I remember attending his funeral, following so shortly the death of my parents. I had loved him more than the quiet, isolated man I had called Grandpa Tom, whom I now loved and understood more than I ever thought I might. Most of all, I remember, and must continue to remember, that these memories had not existed one half hour before. Two lifetimes had not existed.

I wonder about the impact of these events, and decide that except for the disappearance of some dusty old newspaper copy, there will probably be none.

Walter has memories of his own to contend with. He’s at the sink methodically washing and rinsing the dishes. “Don’t want Eleanor coming back to a mess,” he says.

I remember that Grandpa sent Eleanor a letter, telling her the house is hers, that she must come home as soon as he’s gone. I know now the reason for this. He wants Walter to look after her.

“Write it down, boy,” Walter keeps repeating as my fingers try to fly over the pages. “You and me are the only ones who’ll know what Thomas did. We mustn’t forget.” He’s now washing cabinet doors and counter tops. A thought occurs to me as I look up at him.

“Walter, did you ever marry?”

“Me? No. Keep writing, boy.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll write till it’s finished.”