The Honey Witch

Chapter XXIV





Throughout the random, often horrific images plaguing the whiskey-coated fits of sleep, I, in the same senseless gloom, was dimly aware of a presence shadowing the bedside windowpane. Whether moon, phantom-eyed opossum or vigilant Fitch, the presence attended the night from the moment of intoxicated collapse, to the moment of morning light.

When some semblance of focus filtered through the blur of waking consciousness, I found Sheriff Roland Jones straddling the back turned chair not three feet from the bedside.

“Mornin’, Broughton,” Roland Jones greeted rather sardonically, rolling a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Bit chilly out. You’ll need your jacket. Jackson, bring this man his jacket.”

From out of the kitchen, a tall and expressionless trooper sporting brown tinted sunglasses tossed the requested item toward the bed. I expertly caught the jacket, despite the pounding inside my skull and the ache in my left ribcage.

My senses were dulled from so many layers of exhaustion, it was a struggle to speak.

“Am I under arrest or something?” I pressed my fingers against my forehead in a futile attempt to stop the relentless pressure. “What are you doing here?”

“Appears you had quite a night of it,” replied the sheriff dryly.

You have no idea this side of hell, I thought bleakly, stumbling out of bed. I reached for the china pitcher set on the paint chipped chest of drawers, and poured the water into the accompanying bowl, splashing the cool liquid on my face. On the side table next to the bed, stood a half-empty bottle of flat Coca-Cola. I didn’t care. I popped the loose cap and drank it.

“Best get your jacket on,” Roland Jones instructed, rising from the chair and pushing it aside. The sound of wood sliding against wood grated in my ears.

“Look,” I said, grabbing my jacket from the bed, “whatever it is, I’ll talk to you in a minute. I’ve got to get some air.”

Sheriff Jones gestured a satirical, Be my guest, as I passed wordlessly through the door.

The air outside the door was, indeed, chilled and did not help the searing throb inside my head. I slipped my jacket on and stepped to the back side of the cabin, wondering vaguely if I had an audience should I scheme to make a run for it. It wasn’t going to happen. I could scarcely make it to where I stood.

Returning inside, I found Jones waiting with two state troopers and one other.

“Hey,” greeted Aaron soberly. I nodded reservedly and noticed my travel cases were set near the doorway.

“Am I under arrest or what?” I inquired again, still fighting for coherency. How intensely I wished for one of Pennock’s hot mugs of rich, black coffee.

Without warning, I found myself forcefully pressed against the wall, my wrists cuffed with equal aggression at my back. The voice of Roland Jones rasped inside my ear.

“You ever come back here, ever,” he warned, “and I will guarantee more than an arrest. Do I make myself very clear, Dr. Broughton?”

“On what cause, precisely?” I asked deliberately. I couldn’t quite decipher whether I was actually trying to be difficult or, if I simply could not decode my way through the murkiness between Jones’ threat, and the fractures of a whiskey-coated hangover.

I felt the goad of his fist against my left kidney, which caused the ache in my rib to pierce through my entire chest wall. I held my breath against the jarring spasm.

“What cause would you prefer, Yank?” he asked menacingly. “I think I could come up with one or two. Do I need to be more clear?”

“Oh, I think you’ve made your point very clear,” I replied temperately.

“Then we understand each other,” he said, apparently satisfied with my response. He took hold of my arm and swung me around. Pressing my shoulder against the wall, he instructed: “Now, we are going to leave quietly and take an uneventful drive to Knoxville, where you will get on a plane and forget you ever heard of Porringer Hill and maybe even the state of Tennessee.”

He gripped my forearm, but was delayed in leading me through the doorway at Aaron’s request.

Jones nodded sedately and waited with his two henchmen outside the door.

“It’s the only way,” explained Aaron.

“Is she all right?” I asked. “What did you tell him?”

“Yes, she’s all right,” he assured me. “Clem and Merilee will stay with her for awhile...and Jolene. I told Jones nothing. Just said we had a little trouble. Sorry about all this. It’s the only way to assure you get out of here without incident.”

“I’m too exhausted to argue any of this right now,” I responded truthfully. “I suppose if there is any measure of regard to be weighed, it is that I leave while I still have breath in my body.”

“There’s a ticket at the airport,” said Aaron. “It’s a serious situation. I made you look a little psychotic, I’m afraid. You can never return, under any circumstance. Put this all behind you.”

“Put this all behind me?" I responded acridly. "Go to hell, Westmore.”

His mouth stretched into a thin, I thought rather resigned, line. He nodded toward the waiting officers and said quietly: “I never considered the complications. I never thought you would come to care for her.”

“No,” I countered disdainfully. “You didn't think I'd live long enough for you to worry. But then you had second thoughts. A wicked collusion is one thing, but bloody sacrifice quite another. If you’re looking now for absolution, look elsewhere.”

Sheriff Roland Jones took hold of my arm and led me behind the two silent officers, who each carried my traveling gear ahead. Passing the mercantile, I spied Jesse Lee sitting on the railing; Grammy Nana on the rocking chair; Clara with her carriage; Sam Pennock behind the screen door with his matronly wife, Adelaide, and the salient Jolene Parker sitting on the steps next to Jemmy and Coobie.

Jemmy stood up and raced in our direction. “Whatcha doin’, Yankee Doctor?” he asked with an anxious excitement. “Why you goin’ with the sheriff? You goin’ away, Yankee Doctor? Where ya goin’? I thought you was stayin’ here with Possum. Why ya goin’?”

“It’s ok, Jemmy,” I replied patiently. “Go sit with the others now.”

I then heard the last haunting lilt I was ever to hear of Jemmy Isaak’s voice: “When ya comin’ back? Don’tcha like us here no more, Yankee Doctor? When ya comin' back?”

“Jemmy Joseph, come stand by your daddy now,” I heard Jolene command the child. “Time for Mr. Boston to go back to his own, is all.”

I heard the scramble of Jemmy’s feet ascend the worn steps of Pennock’s porch. I glanced toward Jesse Lee, who nodded a silent acknowledgment in return. I caught the swaggering swing of Jolene Parker’s crossed legs, as she leaned back against the top step, with a noncommittal gaze in my direction.

At the back of the renovated church, I was unceremoniously deposited in the backseat of the county’s official Suburban. Jones sat behind the driver’s wheel and drove the vehicle toward the Cutler, following the shallow creek down to the dry road, passed Bernie Lloyd’s, who waved his hat from inside his pen of piglets. We turned opposite from Halstead Mill and entered the interstate on the silent drive toward Knoxville.





~*~