Nathaniel

  NATHANIEL

  by John Saul

  PROLOGUE

  The night closed in like something alive, its warm dampness imbuing the house with an oppressive atmosphere that seemed somehow threatening to the child who sat in the small front parlor. There was something in the air she could almost touch, and as she sat waiting, she began to feel her skin crawl with the peculiar itching that always came over her late in the summer. She squirmed on the mohair sofa, but it did no good—her cotton dress still clung to her like wet cellophane.

  Outside the wind began to rise, and for a moment the girl felt relief. For the first time in hours, the angry sound of her father's voice was muted, covered by the wind, so that if she concentrated hard, she could almost pretend that that sound was a part of the rising storm, rather than a proof of her father's fury and her mother's terror.

  Then her father was looming in the doorway, his eyes hard, his anger suddenly directed toward her. She cringed on the sofa—perhaps if she made herself smaller he wouldn't see her.

  "The cellar," her father said, the softness of his making it no less threatening. "I told you to go to the cellar."

  "Father—"

  "Storm's coming. You'll be safe in the cellar. Now go on."

  Hesitantly, the child stood up and began edging toward the kitchen door, her eyes flickering once, leaving her father's angry face to focus on the door behind him, the door beyond which her mother lay struggling with the pains of labor. "She'll be all right," he said.

  Not reassured, but knowing argument would only increase her father's wrath, the girl pulled a jacket from a hook and struggled to force her arms through its tangled sleeves. Then, shielding her eyes from the driving wind with her right arm, she left the house and scuttled across the yard to the cyclone cellar that had been carved out of the unyielding prairie earth so many years ago. Once she glanced up, squinting her eyes against the stinging dust. In the distance, almost invisible in the roiling clouds, she could barely make out the beginnings of the storm's angry funnel.

  More terrified now of the storm than of her father's anger, she grasped the heavy wooden door of the cellar and hauled it partway open, just far enough to slip her body through the gap. She scrambled down the steep steps, letting the door drop into place behind her.

  For what seemed like an eternity, she sat in the near-total darkness of the storm cellar, her ears filled with the sounds of the raging winds.

  But sometimes, when the howlings of the storm momentarily abated, she thought she could hear something else. Her mother, calling out to her, begging her to come and help her.

  The girl tried to ignore those sounds—it was impossible for her mother's voice to carry over the storm. Besides, she knew what was happening to her mother and knew there was nothing for her to do.

  When the baby came, and the storm had passed, someone—her father or her brother—would come for her. Until then, she would stay where she was and try to pretend she wasn't frightened.

  She curled herself up in a corner of the cellar and squeezed her eyes tight against the darkness and the fear.

  She didn't know how much time had passed, knew only that she couldn't stay by herself any longer, couldn't stay alone in the cellar. She listened to the wind, tried to gauge its danger, but in the end she wrapped the jacket close around her thin body, and forced the cellar door open. The wind caught it, jerked it out of her grasp, then tore it loose from its hinges and sent it tumbling across the yard. It caught on the barbed wire fence for a moment; then the wire gave way and the wooden door hurtled on, flipping end over end across the plains, quickly disappearing into the gathering dusk. The girl huddled at the top of the steps for a few moments. There was a light on in the house now, not the bright lights she was used to, but the glow of a lantern, and she knew the power had gone out. The flickering lamplight drew her like a moth, and she braced herself against the driving wind, leaning into it as she began making her way back across the yard. She was disobeying, she knew, but even facing Pa's anger was better than staying alone any longer.

  Still, when she reached the house, she couldn't bring herself to go in, for even over the howling wind she could hear her father's voice. His words were unintelligible but his anger was terrifying. The girl crept around the corner of the house, crouched low, until she was beneath the window of the room in which her mother lay.

  Slowly, she straightened up, until she could see into the room. On the nightstand stood an oil lantern, its wick turned low, its yellowish light casting odd shadows. Her mother looked almost lifeless, resting against a pillow, damp hair clinging to sallow skin, her eyes wide, staring balefully at the towering figure of her father. And now she could hear the words. "You killed him."

  "No," her father replied. "He was born dead."

  The little girl watched as her mother's head moved, shaking slowly from side to side as her eyes closed tight. "No. My baby was alive. I felt it moving. Right up until the end, I felt it moving. It was alive, and you killed it."

  A movement distracted the girl, and her eyes left her mother's tortured face. Someone else stood in the corner of the room, but until he turned, the girl didn't recognize him.

  It was the doctor, and in his arms he cradled a tiny bundle wrapped in a blanket. A fold of the blanket dropped away; the girl saw the baby's face, its eyes closed, its wizened features barely visible in the flickering lantern light.

  By its stillness, she knew it was dead.

  "Give it to me!" she heard her mother demand. Then her voice became pleading. "Please, give it to me…"

  But the doctor said nothing, only refolding the blanket around the baby's face, then turning away once more. Her mother's screams filled the night then, and a moment later, when the girl looked for the doctor again, he had retreated from the room. Now that they were left alone, her father was regarding her mother with smoldering eyes.

  "I warned you," he said. "I warned you God would punish you, and He has."

  "It was you," her mother protested, her voice weakened by pain and despair. "It wasn't God punishing me, it was you." Her voice broke, and she began sobbing, making no attempt to wipe her tears away from her streaming eyes. "It was alive, and you killed it. You had no right— you had no right…"

  Suddenly the girl saw the door open, and her brother appeared. He stood still for a moment, staring at their mother. He started to speak, but before he could utter a word, their father turned on him.

  "Get out!" Then, as the girl watched, her father's fist rose into the air, then swung forward, catching the side of her brother's head, slamming him against the wall. Her brother crumpled to the floor. For a time that seemed endless to the watching girl, he lay still. No one spoke. Then, slowly, he rose to face their father.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His eyes glowed with hatred as he stared at his father; then he turned away and stumbled out of the little room.

  The girl backed away from the window, unconscious now of the wind that still battered at her, her mind filled only with the sights and sounds she instinctively knew she should not have witnessed. She should have obeyed her father and stayed in the storm cellar, waiting for someone to come for her.

  She started back toward the storm cellar. Perhaps, if she tried very hard, she could blot all of it out of her mind, pretend that she had seen and heard none of it, convince herself that she had never left the cellar, never witnessed her mother's pain and her father's fury. And then, ahead of her, a few feet away, she saw her brother and cried out to him.

  He turned to face her, but she knew he didn't see her. His eyes were blank, and he seemed to be looking past her, looking out into the storm and the night.

  "Please," the girl whispered. "Help me. Please help me…"

  But if her brother heard her, he
gave no sign. Instead, he turned away, and as if he was following the call of some other voice the girl couldn't hear, he left the house and the yard, disappearing into the prairie. A moment later he was gone, swallowed up by the storm and the night. Alone, the girl made her way back to the cyclone cellar.

  She crept down the steps through the gaping hole where the door had been, and went back to her corner. She drew the jacket tightly around herself, but neither the jacket nor the doorless cellar could protect her.

  Through the long night she huddled there, the storm and the scene she had witnessed lashing at her, torturing her, boring deep within her soul.

  After that night she never spoke of what she'd seen or what she'd heard. She never spoke of it, but she never quite forgot.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Are you my grandpa?"

  Michael Hall gazed uncertainly up into the weathered face. He had never seen the man before, yet he recognized him as clearly as if he were looking into a mirror. He tried to keep his voice steady, tried not to shrink back against his mother, tried to remember all the things his father had taught him about meeting people for the first time: Stand up straight, and put your hand out. Look the person in the eye. Tell them your name. He'd forgotten that part. "I—I'm Michael, and this is my mother," he stammered. He felt his mother's grip tighten on his shoulders, and for just a moment was afraid he'd done something wrong. But then the man he was talking to smiled at him, and he felt his mother's hands relax a little.

  He looks like Mark. He looks just like Mark. The thought flashed through Janet Hall's mind, and she had to make a conscious effort to keep from hurling herself into the arms of the stranger who was now moving closer to her, an uneasy smile failing to mask the troubled look in his eyes. Barely conscious of the airport crowd that eddied around her, Janet found herself focusing on the lean angularity of her father-in-law's figure, the strength in his face, the aura of calm control that seemed to hover around him as it had around his son. Unconsciously, her hand moved to her waist and she smoothed her skirt in a nervous gesture.

  It's going to be all right, Janet told herself. He's just like Mark, and he'll take care of us.

  Almost as if he'd heard Janet's private thought, Amos Hall leaned down and swung his eleven-year-old grandson off his feet, his farmer's strength belying his own sixty-seven years. He hugged the boy, but when his eyes met Janet's over Michael's shoulder, there was no joy in them.

  "I'm sorry," he said, dropping his voice to a level that would be inaudible to anyone but Janet and Michael. "I don't know what to say. All these years, and we only meet when Mark—" His voice faltered, and Janet could see him struggling against his feelings. "I'm sorry," he repeated, his voice suddenly gruff. "Let's get your baggage and get on out of here. We can talk in the car."

  But they didn't talk in the car. They drove out of North Platte and into the vast expanse of the prairie in silence, the three of them huddled in the front seat of Amos Hall's Oldsmobile, Janet and Amos separated by Michael. The numbness that had overcome Janet from the moment the night before when she had been told that her husband was dead still pervaded her, and the reality of where she was— and the why of it—had still not come fully into her consciousness. She had a feeling of being trapped in a nightmare, and every second she was waiting for Mark to awaken her from the dream and assure her that everything was all right, everything was as it had always been.

  And yet, that was not to be.

  The miles rolled past. Finally, Janet made herself glance across to her father-in-law, who seemed intent on studying the arrow-straight road ahead, his eyes glued to the shimmering pavement as if, by concentration alone, he, too, could deny the reality of what had happened.

  Janet cleared her throat, and Amos's eyes left the road for a split second. "Mark's mother—"

  "She never leaves Prairie Bend," Amos replied, his gaze returning to the highway. "Rarely leaves the house anymore, if truth be known. She's getting along, and the years—" He paused, and Janet could see a tightness forming in his jaw. "The years haven't been as kind to her as they might," he finished. Then: "Funeral's gonna be tomorrow morning."

  Janet nodded mutely, relieved that the decision had been made; then, once more, she let herself fall into silence.

  An hour later they arrived at the Halls' farm. The old two-story house was not large, but it seemed to Janet to have a sense of itself, sitting solidly on its foundation, surrounded by a grove of elms and cottonwoods, protected from the vast emptiness of the plains that stretched to the horizon in every direction save one, where a stand of trees marked the route of a river making its way eastward, to flow eventually into the Platte.

  "What's the name of the river?" Michael suddenly asked, and the question pulled Janet's attention from her father-in-law.

  "The Dismal," Amos replied as he brought the car to a stop in front of the house. A moment later he was taking Janet's baggage out of the trunk. With a suitcase in each hand, he mounted the steps of the front porch, Janet and Michael trailing behind him. Suddenly the door opened and a figure appeared on the threshold, a woman, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, as though her life had been spent in constant battle with the unrelenting prairie.

  She was seated in a wheelchair.

  Janet felt Michael freeze next to her, and took him by the hand.

  "We're back," she heard Amos Hall saying to the woman. "This is Mark's Janet, and this is Michael."

  The woman in the wheelchair stared at them in silence for a moment. Her face, worn with age and infirmity, had a haggard look to it, and her eyes, rimmed with red. seemed nearly lifeless. But a moment later she smiled, a soft smile that seemed to wash some of the years away from her countenance. "Come here," she said, spreading her arms wide. "Come and let me hold you."

  The numbness Janet had been feeling since last night; the numbness that had insulated her every minute today and allowed her to maintain her self-control as she packed their bags, ordered a cab, and got herself and Michael from Manhattan to the airport; the numbness that had sustained her through the change of planes in Omaha, the arrival in North Platte, and the drive to Prairie Bend, drained away from her now.

  "He's dead," she said, her voice breaking as for the first time she truly admitted to herself what had happened. Dropping Michael's hand, she stumbled up the steps and sank to her knees next to Anna Hall's wheelchair. "Oh, God, what happened to him? Why did he die? Why?"

  Anna's arms encircled Janet, and she cradled her daughter-in-law's head against her breast. "It's all right, child," she soothed. "Things happen, sometimes, and there's nothing we can do about them. We just have to accept them." Over Janet's head, her gaze met her husband's for a moment, then moved on, coming to rest on Michael, who stood uncertainly at the foot of the steps, his eyes riveted in worried fascination on his mother. "You, too, Michael," Anna gently urged. "Come give Grandma a hug, and let her take the hurt away."

  The boy looked up then, and as his eyes met her own, Anna felt a flash of recognition surge over her frail body. In the boy, she saw the father. And as she saw her son in her grandson's eyes, she began to feel fear.

  Amos Hall led Janet and Michael up the narrow staircase to the second floor, where three large bedrooms and a generous bathroom opened off the hallway that bisected the house. He opened the door to the first bedroom, then stood aside to let Janet pass him. "You'll be in here. Used to be Laura's room."

  "Laura?" Janet echoed, in a voice that sounded dazed even to herself. "Who's Laura?"

  Amos frowned, his eyes clouding. "Mark's sister. Until she got married, this was her room." He paused a moment, then, as if he felt an explanation was necessary, spoke again. "I was going to turn it into a den, or a study. I just never got around to it."

  Janet gazed at the room, taking in its details with apparent calm, while she frantically searched the corners of her memory for the information she knew must be there, that had somehow slipped away from her.

  The name Laura meant nothing to her.

&nbs
p; The whole idea of Mark having had a sister meant nothing to her.

  But that was ridiculous. If Mark had had a sister, he must have talked about her sometime over the years. She'd simply forgotten. Some kind of amnesia, maybe: somehow, during the last few hours of shock, it must have been driven from her mind.

  "It's just fine," she said at last, careful not to let her voice betray her confusion. She glanced around the room once more, this time forcing herself to concentrate. There was nothing special about the room; it was simply a room, with a bed, a chair, a nightstand, and a dresser. A chenille bedspread covered the slightly sagging mattress, and there was a braided rug covering most of the pine floor. Ill-fitting curtains hung at the window, and an image of a Sears catalog suddenly came into Janet's mind. A second later, she made the connection: the curtains were identical to the ones she had had in her own room when she was a little girl, the ones her mother had ordered from the Sears catalog, in a size close to, but not quite right for, the windows. Her mind churned on, and the rest of the memories flooded back, the memories she'd deliberately suppressed, hoped never to look at again:

  The fire, when the old house she'd been born in had burned to the ground, consuming everything she loved— her parents and her brother, too—leaving her to be raised by a series of aunts who somehow had always found reasons to pass her on to someone else until, at last, she'd turned eighteen and gone to live by herself in New York. A year later, she'd married Mark.

  And now, once again, here were those mail-order curtains, bringing back those memories. She sank onto the bed, one hand reflexively coming up to cover her eyes as she felt them fill with tears.

  "Are you all right?" she heard her father-in-law ask. She took a deep breath, then made herself smile.

  "I'll be fine. It's just that—that—"

  But Amos Hall stopped her. "Lie down for a little while. Just lie down, and try to go to sleep. I'll take care of Michael, and later on we'll talk. But for now, just try to get a little sleep." Taking the boy firmly by the hand, Amos left the room, closing the door behind him.