The Promise of Light by Paul Watkins Read Free Book Online Page B

he didn’t want you to know.”
    “Tell me!” My shout punched off the walls and left behind a shuddering silence.
    “I heard he spent some time in prison.” Willoughby got up from his rocker and walked into the kitchen. His fingers scraped in the pie tin as he gathered together some crumbs. “You should leave well enough alone.”
    “What did he mean about the grey dog?”
    The scraping stopped in the kitchen. “There’s something in my memory that speaks of a grey dog. Some awful godless thing.”
    “It doesn’t matter, then.” I could hear the old man’s raspy breathing.
    “Perhaps not, but the thought of being followed by a grey dog at the hour of my death does something to me in my bones.”
    The scarecrow’s gloved fingers twitched in the wind. It was as if the last spark of my father’s life still rested somewhere in the widespread arms, ready to strike out at crows when they dropped squawking from the trees.

CHAPTER 3
    A man with pale-blue eyes stood on the doorstep. He was wearing a Panama hat.
    “Hello, Thurkettle. What can I do for you?” After Willoughby left, I had fallen asleep with my head on the table. Now the wood grain was printed on my cheek.
    Thurkettle tried to smile, but only bared his teeth. He worked for the Maxwell family. Harley Maxwell, the family’s only son, was my friend at university. Thurkettle wasn’t their butler or chauffeur or gardener, but at one time or another I had seen him being all these things. The Maxwells spent their summers in Newport, just across the bay.
    Thurkettle tried to smile again, jaw muscles straining from the effort. “Mr. Maxwell is inviting you over for lunch.”
    “Why couldn’t he come here and invite me himself?” I looked over Thurkettle’s shoulder at the Ford in the driveway.
    “Mr. Maxwell is practicing his fly-fishing cast on the lawn, sir. He did not wish to be disturbed.”
    “I swear to God, Thurkettle. I don’t know how you put up with it.”
    Thurkettle’s smile flickered on and off, as if he was hooked up to some faulty electric current. “Well, sir.” He sounded as if he might have more to say. But that was all of it.
    I walked out and stood with him on the doorstep. I looked down at the top of his head. He was going a little bald on top, and combed his hair forward to hide it, while the rest of his hair had all been combed toward the back. “For once, you’re not going to call me ‘sir.’ You’re going to come in and have a drink of Dunhams. Powerful stuff. Come in for a drink.” I set my hand on his shoulder and guided him inside. I wanted someone to talk with. It didn’t matter who, but I felt as if someone was playing tricks on me. Of all the people to send here to my door. If I’d had a thousand people to choose from, stone deaf, blind, and dumb, Thurkettle would have been last on the list.
    His neck hunched down as he stepped into the house. He held his hat against his chest. “I was sorry to hear about your father, sir.”
    “How did you hear about that?” Suddenly I didn’t want a drink. The taste of old whiskey had come back into my mouth, its fire long since out. The bitterness it left behind was even a little like soot.
    “It was in the paper, sir.” Thurkettle fanned his eyes across the living room, at the bare mission-oak furniture that my father had preferred.
    “I haven’t seen a paper in a while, Thurkettle.” I didn’t want to go to Belmar. That was the name of the Maxwell’s summer house. It was a place so big, it had a name that people mentioned as if of course you had to know what they were talking about. And so big, that BELMAR was blocked in iron letters on the gate that cut off their driveway from the rest of the world.
    “Mr. Maxwell has expressed some urgency, sir. He asked me to drive you both ways.” Thurkettle looked suddenly hopeful, as if giving me a ride would make the difference.
    “It might do me some good to get out of the house.” I wished he would sit down and talk