Page 149 of The Reformatory

Sweeting shook his head. “Us,” he said.

The water, so still before, churned like rapids against Haddock’s knees while the treetops swayed above, a sudden and impossible storm. Colonel growled and barked, confused and wild-eyed, but he was moving toward Sweeting as if for protection. Smiling at Haddock with perfect white teeth, Sweeting laid his hand across Colonel’s head to scratch him behind his ears.

“Colonel knows me from the kennel,” Sweeting said. “Colonel knows us.”

The new cool fog hanging low over the creek should have been enough to warn Haddock to move out of the water, but it was too late now. He felt a small, short-lived victory when he put the rest together: Stephens had emptied out the haints’ ashes in the creek, so he’d been standing in their midst the whole time. Who knew how many spirits were conspiring against him now?

Could Lucy be with them too? Haddock felt the greatest terror of his life as he thought he saw his baby sister’s face framed beneath the bubbling water, laughing at him. Other faces shimmered beneath the pale creek water—some he remembered, some he didn’t—but Lucy’s was his greatest torment, a long-ago promise finally fulfilled.

Too late, Haddock turned to run toward the safety of the bank.

“Git him, boy,” Sweeting said, his voice mimicking Haddock’s, nearly buried by the water’s roiling.

Colonel splashed after Haddock with savage growls, his sweet nature twisted by the haints, unrecognizable. Between awkward, stumbling steps in the water, Haddock reached over his shoulder to try to shoot the dog, which he now knew he should have done as soon as he’d seen Sweeting petting him. But Colonel sank his teeth into Haddock’s wrist before he could squeeze the trigger. Haddock dropped his Colt in the dizzying blaze of pain as Colonel’s teeth raked through his skin, snapping the bones of his fingers and wrist. Haddock roared with agony as he stumbled and fell into the hostile creek. One or two of his fingers might be gone, but he couldn’t tell for sure in his hand’s pulsing agony.

All he saw was fur and Colonel’s bloody muzzle.

Haddock started to say, “NO, boy—” as he choked on the bitter water clogging his mouth, but Colonel’s teeth clamped across his neck and stole his words, and his throat, clean away.

42

Gloria hadn’t known dogs could feel shame until she saw Haddock’s bloodhound, coat drenched soupy red, dragging itself out of the creek. The dog was shaking as much as she. Gloria raised a wobbly arm as she climbed over brush to get closer to the dog and Robbie, ready to shoot the animal if she had to, but the blood-spattered dog didn’t look her way. It didn’t sniff at Mrs. Hamilton’s brother, who was now groaning and stirring on the bank as he raised himself to a sitting position. She knew the sheriff would put down any dog who killed a man, but she didn’t have the heart to shoot the dog that had saved them. The dog trotted off to the woods, back the way he and his master had come, tail slung between its legs. Whatever strange fever had sparked the dog’s attack against the Reformatory’s warden had passed.

She’d felt the fever too. For a minute, maybe two, the world had slid off-kilter to a place where still waters churned white with foam and tree branches whipped without wind. Somehow, in the confusion, the dog had gone mad. Or come to its senses. Or… something.

But the other dogs were still coming, and she could not expect a miracle twice.

Gloria wanted to help Mrs. Hamilton’s brother, but first she went to the edge of the creek to look after Robbie, who was staring at the mess left floating there. Gloria looked quickly away from the gore so it wouldn’t sear her memory—although she would never forget the sight of a man’s neck so thoroughly shredded. Robbie was standing only feet from the mess, still staring. He had not looked away once during the attack—had not seemed to hear her calling for him.

“Robbie!” she said. For the first time, his eyes snapped up—but only his eyes. He looked so much like he wasn’t himself that Gloria tensed, afraid that whatever fever had gripped the dog might have infected her brother too. “Don’t look!”

But his eyes went right back down to the mutilated corpse barely held together by clothing, half floating in the water.

“Hey!” Crutcher half called, half groaned. “I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t shoot him when I had the chance.” He let out a vigorous yell of pain as he used his rifle to try to prop himself up. His shirt was a bloody mess too, but not as bad as the one in the creek.

Gloria ran to him. “Are you all right?” she said, an empty question that ignored obvious answers. But she didn’t know how to ask if he was dying.

He nodded, biting his lip. “Yeah,” he said. “Mostly got my shoulder. I had to play dead. I’m sorry. I thought he might try it; I was waiting… and I turned just enough”—he heaved, peeking beneath his shirt at his wound—“just enough so he’d think he got me.”

“Why’d his dog do that?” Gloria said, hoping he might know.

His eyes glimmered as if he might have the answer for the strange things she had seen, but he only said, “I don’t know, but I praise God he did. You and Robert… you need to go. Now. They’re close. They’re at the creek by now, moving faster in the water. Stay in the water too. I’ll point them the wrong way to give you time. Do you know where you’re going?”

Gloria nodded. “My godmother’s waiting.”

He smiled a sickly, pained smile. “That’s good. Get far away, as fast as you can. Go.”

“Thank you,” Gloria said.

His face wrenched with pain. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t do nearly what I should have. Should’ve shot him first. I knew what he was deep down. Didn’t want to believe the stories.”

“Robert has proof, I think,” Gloria said.

“Keep it,” he said. “Take it with you. Don’t give it to the sheriff. Take it to—”

“The NAACP,” Gloria said, thinking of John Dorsey. She imagined what Thurgood Marshall would do with evidence that the Reformatory was hurting and killing children. Or Robert’s testimony that Haddock had shot his own man and tried to kill him in the woods. Or an envelope filled with atrocities.

“I was gonna say the governor,” Crutcher said with the same pained smile. “But that works. No doubt who your father is! Go on, now. They’re almost here.” He swatted her away with his good arm. He’d said Haddock only hit his shoulder, but he was sweating a river and looked ready to collapse. She tried to decide if he would be all right… and thought he would. The intuition didn’t blaze as strongly as when she’d known that Haddock had murder in his heart, but it felt real enough. He would recover. He would survive. Maybe they all would.