The Kingdom of Bones

FIFTY

After Sayers had quit the hospital, he set out on foot for the River Road. He rode a streetcar to the end of the line and then struck out toward the river country beyond. Even hitching a ride on a wagon, it took him most of a day to get to the Patenotre plantation.

The grass in the long driveway was all beaten down, and in places it had been churned into raw dirt. As he walked toward the house, he saw that the gates were wide open. When he went through them and stood before it, he glanced down and found that he’d acquired a dog.

The animal followed him as he circled the house. He was looking for a way in. When he climbed the outside stairs to the upper deck, he found that someone had neglected to secure one of the doors. The dog followed him, and promptly set off on its own to explore. He could hear its claws on the boards as it trotted elsewhere in the house, occasionally crossing his path in some hallway or on some landing.

The tour told him little. It was an old place with no life invested in it. He descended the main staircase under the domed skylight, and sensed no presence other than his own and that of the animal that had followed him.

When it came time to leave, the dog was at the door waiting.

He left the place more secure than when he’d found it, and walked out into the grounds behind. It was there, near a row of cabins, that he met a young black man of around eighteen or nineteen. He was in baggy field hand’s clothes, leading a horse by its bridle.

The young man stopped and watched him until he’d drawn close enough to hail.

“Ain’t nobody here,” the young man said.

“You’re somebody.”

“But it ain’t me you’re looking for.”

“Who am I looking for?”

“Same woman the sheriff’s men came looking for? They didn’t find her, neither.”

They started to walk together down the track. Sayers said, “Why do you think that is?”

“’Cause there ain’t nobody to find.”

Sayers looked at the horse he was leading. It was a dapple gray. He said, “Yours?”

“What of it?” the young man said.

“Woman I’m looking for hired a wagon, and a horse just like that one along with it. Nobody’s seen either since.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” the young man said. “This one’s mine.”

“You got papers for it?”

“Horse don’t read,” the young man said. “Keep looking. But don’t waste your time looking here. Try on down the river.”

Sayers looked at him sideways. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Out past the next bend. About three, four miles. Look for a yeller church. That’s what I’d do.”

“Thanks,” Sayers said.

He had an hour or two of daylight left. He started to work his way outward through the estates on the River Road, staying off the road itself and sticking to paths and dirt tracks.

Shortly after leaving Patenotre land, he came upon the burned-out remains of a wagon in a lane. Nothing remained but the ironwork among the ashes. But it was recent; the smell of the burning still hung in the air, and it would take a rain or two to wash it away.

He’d expected to lose the stray’s company when he reached the limit of its territory, but the dog stayed with him. It kept a slight distance in case he should suddenly turn and run it off, but otherwise it seemed happy to tag along.

Most of the big houses along here had burned just like the wagon, or else they’d been pulled down or had their roofs taken off. Occasionally, there’d be one that still had a family living in it, but they’d be like survivors camping in the ruins of an older civilization. The houses showed all the signs of having been abandoned by those who’d built them, their planks springing and with goats and chickens wandering in and out.

The land that he crossed was still being worked, but the big estates had been divided up into smaller holdings. Subsistence was now the aim, where once had come forth riches.

As darkness fell, he settled for the evening in the abandoned shell of an overseer’s house. He lit a fire in the empty grate, then broke out the provisions he’d brought.

He didn’t see the dog for a while, but then it came back carrying something dead, which it settled down with and tore up while he was eating. By now it was too dark for him to see what it had caught. The dog would retch on the bones and gristle, cough them up for further chewing, and eventually strangle them down again. This process seemed not to bother it at all.

Afterward, Sayers wrapped himself up in the blanket that he’d been sitting on, and bedded down with his pack for a pillow.

Sleep was a strange journey. It was as if he rolled off ledges into deep crevasses of insensibility, to be borne back up again by some rising force. He’d come so close to waking that his senses returned for a few moments, although the power of movement did not.

During one of these brief episodes, he was aware of the dog sitting in the doorway of the ruined cabin, looking up at the full moon. It turned its head to look back at him. Then he rolled off into the depths again.