Quent Cordair
April's Justice
First published by The Atlantean Press, 1994.
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Four hours later, she picked up a lantern, lifted the bar away and turned the doorknob. The wind ripped the door from her hand and slammed it against the inside wall, a sheet of stinging snow whipping around her and into the house. Leaving the rifle on its rack above the hearth, she pushed her way into the storm and struggled to pull the door shut behind her. She couldn't do it until the wind slackened momentarily.
There was already about a foot of snow on the ground, and it had drifted twice as high against the side of the house. Leaning into the gale she waded out to the firewood, swept the snow off with the sleeve of her coat and loaded her arms with as much wood as she could carry. She stumbled back to the house, chiding herself for not having thought to stack extra on the porch ahead of time. After the fifth such trip, she pushed the door shut and sunk down against it, exhausted from the effort, thoroughly soaked, and chilled to the bone.
She stacked the wood next to the fireplace, took off her wet clothes and hung them in front of the fire to dry. She changed into the warmest wools she had, pulled the rocking chair close to the fire and huddled there with a cup of hot cider.
The china rattled against her teeth. The fire was hot against her face; her body was dry, and the house was as warm as ever, but she still shivered. The storm had gotten to her. She picked up her sewing, but her fingers wouldn't hold steady. She tried a book instead.
The wind screamed through the shutters outside, and she thought she heard one of the horses whinny. Hopefully, the animals were okay, but she wasn't going back outside. Watching the fire helped. It warmed her soul like the cider warmed her insides. She watched the changing patterns in the red-hot coals and the lick of the yellow and orange tongues of flame. She needed a dog. Maybe in the spring she could find a puppy. It would need to be a big dog, maybe a Shepherd or a Lab.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
The cider spilled over her lap and the cup burst into pieces that scattered across the stone hearth. She froze in fear. She couldn't move.
Oh, my God. I have to move. I must move now!
She stood and grabbed the rifle and swung it around towards the door. She raised it to her shoulder and her thumb automatically clicked off the safety.
Good, that's good, April.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
Her heart stopped. Impossibly, the iron bar was leaning against the wall, beside the door. She had forgotten to put it back after bringing in the wood. There was no other lock on the door. None had been necessary. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
The shuttered windows precluded anyone from seeing in, but she couldn't see out either. If she ran to put the bar across the door, it would take both hands to lift, and she would have to put down the rifle. She wasn't going to do that. There was nothing left now but for the doorknob to turn.
Shoot him, April. Shoot him now!
It was a beautiful summer evening in the West Virginia mountains, the kind of evening that made a person never want to leave. Mama had fixed a wonderful smelling roast for supper, with their own fresh vegetables. Papa had come in from his field work, and the two were already seated when April came in from a swim in the creek. She went straight to the stove and was about to serve herself a plateful of the roast when the man stepped in through the open doorway.
Strangers stopping by wasn't a rare thing that summer. The papers said the country was in a recession, and there were plenty of men out of work. Many of them passed along the road on their way to look for work in the mines, or on their way back from finding out that there wasn't any work. Mama had fed many a hungry man in exchange for cleaning the barn or some other such chore. Papa wouldn't have minded except that she never turned anyone away, regardless their apparent character. She didn't check after them on the assigned work, and not a few of them weaseled a meal without lifting a finger. Mama would only shrug and say, "Judge not that ye be not judged."
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
The brass doorknob vibrated at each sound. There was a scratch near the right edge of it. She waited for the scratch to move, up or down.
The man who walked into their house that afternoon had looked like any other to April, but her father had seen something different. Unfortunately, her father was seated at the far end of the table, against the wall, in the wrong part of the room to do anything but hope his daughter would listen to him.
"Get the rifle, April."
Unquestioningly, she had reached above the hearth and taken the rifle from its place. The weapon was identical to the one her father had used in the Great War to kill Germans. It was loaded, as usual, and he had taught her how it worked, but she had fired it only once. The recoil had knocked her on her back and she hadn't touched it since. She looked down, remembered about the safety and clicked it off. She cocked it to make sure a round was in the chamber.
"Shoot him, April. Shoot him now!"
Her mother was beyond shock. "Put that gun down, April! God forgive us! Don't mind my husband—he was in the war and sometimes—"
The man was walking towards April, watching her eyes.
"Shoot him, April. You have to do it—now!"
She looked at her mother, then at the approaching man. Her finger wouldn't pull the trigger. She started crying. "I can't, Papa!"
The man grabbed the rifle from her hands and laughed.
"You should have listened to your old man, young lady. He's a pretty good judge of character." He swept the gun around and shot her father through the chest.
"And your dear charitable mother must be eager to meet her maker too." He shot her, then he turned to April.
"Now don't you worry, angel—" he took her chin in his hand—"I'm going to take you on a little trip to heaven too, and if you behave yourself, you'll live to remember it for a long, long time. And I think I'd like that." She refused to remember the rest.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
I'm ready this time, Papa. Oh yes, I'm ready. She was glad she had left the bar off the door. She wanted to shoot him. She needed it. Her mouth was dry. Why hadn't the scratch moved yet? How long had he been knocking? It should happen any time now. She looked at the clock. It was ten after nine. All you've got to do is turn the knob, stupid.
Her arms were getting tired. Carefully, she pulled the rocking chair around to face the door. She sat, put her feet on the edge of the chair and pulled her knees up beneath her elbows.
The posse had caught up with the man three days later. They had hung him on the spot and left him swinging. When April found out, she rode the twenty miles to the place, alone, and shot five holes through the body. It hadn't helped.
The townspeople helped her bury her parents beneath the tree in the south meadow. She hadn't told anyone what he had done to her, but they all knew. She saw it in their eyes and heard it in their voices when she had to go into town. The young men were the worst. It was the way they watched her body, imagining themselves in the man's place.
It was twenty after nine. He hadn't knocked in the last ten minutes. She frowned. Why hadn't he tried the doorknob? Had he gone to the barn to look for a weapon? Maybe it wasn't the murderer. But no one in their right mind would be out in this storm. She dried her damp hands on her skirt and waited.
Ten minutes later, she couldn't stand it any longer. She got up and approached the door carefully.
"Who is it?"
No answer.
"Who's there?"
Only the screeching wind. She took a deep breath and put her hand on the doorknob. In a single motion, she turned it, pulled, and leapt back to aim the rifle.
The only thing at the door was the howling storm. She peered out. The snow was scuffled in front of the door. Someone had indeed been there, but she could see nothing more through the thick curtain of white. She put on her coat and lit the lantern. He wasn't going to get away this easily. He had been too close to get away. She walked out into the night with the lantern held high in her left hand and the rifle tucked under her right arm, her finger on the trigger.
The wind was blowing too fiercely for anything like footsteps to survive, but there was a faint trail, a sort of shallow trench leading away into the blackness beyond the lantern's circle of light. The trail went in the direction of the road. She followed it a little way and looked behind her. The house was already lost in the darkness. She had to hurry or her own trail would be covered by the drifting snow. A few years ago there was a man in the valley who, in a blizzard like this one, had wandered in circles for hours before dying ten feet from his own front door. Part of her tried to hurry, but it had to fight the other part that was scared to death of what she was hurrying towards. She couldn't see more than two feet ahead.
She was thinking that she must be on the drive by now when she tripped over something and fell, dropping the rifle and the lantern as she went. She knew what the thing was even before she hit the ground. Mercifully, the lantern had landed upright and stayed lit. She quickly found the rifle, and turned it on the object.
It was indeed a man, lying face down in the snow. She nudged him in the back with the rifle's muzzle. He didn't move. She used the muzzle to scrape away some of the snow from the man's back. He wore no coat. The shirt was black-and-white striped. She scraped the snow off the bare left arm. The skin looked whitish, making a sharp contrast to a small, stylishly crafted tattoo of a falcon.
Shoot him, April. Shoot him now!
"Yes, Papa."
Looking at the frostbitten skin of the frozen arm, a thought tried to cross her mind, but she forced it away. Laughing aloud, she put the rifle's muzzle to the back of the man's head and said feverishly to the night:
"This is for Papa, for Mama, and for me."
The frozen trigger felt warm against her finger. The nightmare would now be over. She felt the momentary resistance, then the familiar give. The thought tried to surface again, but it was easier to ignore.
There was a different fear now, a tiny thing, but it was about to explode and tear her mind to shreds. It was something worse than what the other man had done to her, worse than what any man could do—and she was doing it to herself. She knew that if she killed that nagging thought, her mind would never work for her again. It would die too, and she would never be a woman again, much less human.
After killing the thought with the man, she would turn the gun on herself.
She hated to do it, but she thought it: He hadn't turned the doorknob.
Not having her consent, this alleged murderer and rapist had refused to try to enter her home, even though the alternative meant freezing to death. No, he hadn't even turned the doorknob. He hadn't turned the doorknob.
She leaned down and brushed the snow from his face. His eyebrows and eyelashes were crusted with ice. His cheeks and lips were colorless. She put her ear to his back. His heart was still beating.
She laid the gun aside and set the lantern in the snow. Lifting his feet, she tried to pull him. The body wouldn't budge. She went around to his head and tried to lift him from under the arms. He was too heavy. She looked back in the direction of the house, exasperated. The trail was disappearing.
She pushed him up onto his side and lay down in front of him, facing the same direction. By clutching his trousers and squirming down into the snow, she managed to roll his body on top of her own. Holding his wrists, she pulled her knees up under her. She rested for a moment, gathered all her strength and will, and struggled to her feet. He was now laying against her back, his arms over her shoulders, his feet dragging heavily on the ground. She took a step. Then a second. She was going in the wrong direction. A step at a time, she circled the lantern and picked up the trail to the house, trying desperately to keep her balance. She knew that if she slipped, she wouldn't be able to lift him again.
The lantern had to be left behind. It's light was soon gone. April stumbled on into night, hoping she was still headed towards the house. She thought it strange that a blizzard of snow could be pitch black. The wind was bitterly cold, and her legs trembled beneath the dead weight of her burden. She tried to think of summer, of lying on a rock by the river, being baked by the sun.
Her foot stubbed against something, and she nearly fell. It was the front porch step. She managed the step itself, but as she tried to step onto the porch, her foot slipped on the slick wood. The full weight of the body fell on top of her. She managed to drag him, sliding, across the icy porch, and she pulled him into the house and shut the door against the storm.
Stripping off his clothes, she laid him naked on a pile of blankets in front of the fireplace to thaw. She stoked the fire and put more cider on the stove. After changing her own clothes again, she found some chicken stock and set to making a soup.
Eventually, his body and face began to regain their color. His eyes moved beneath the lids. She looked around, but remembered that the rifle was still out in the snow somewhere. Well, she wasn't going out to look for it. Not tonight. She went over to the man and, after allowing herself another good look at his body, draped part of a blanket over him. His eyes remained closed. She filled a cup with the soup and sat down in front of the fire beside him. With a towel, she dried the melted ice and snow from his face. Lifting his head gently into her lap, she put the cup to his lips. Soon, he was able to swallow a few sips.
He opened his eyes.
It was another late evening, and April sat in the rocking chair by the fire, doing her sewing. Over the years, eight additional rooms had been built around the original two, but it was the same rocking chair, and the same fire. Her granddaughter, Cindy, sat on the sofa nearby, staring moodily into the embers. Cindy was eighteen now, the second daughter of April's third son.
"Grandma, there just aren't any good men left out there. Every time I think I've got the right one, he turns out to be something different altogether. If he's not lying to you outright or trying to take advantage of you, he's putting on some kind of front. You just can't trust them. I hate men."
April smiled to herself. She had hidden him away for two months, until the crime was confessed by a man caught committing another such atrocity.
"Would you like to hear a story, Cindy?"
"Sure!"
"Shhh, we must keep our voices down or we'll—"
But it was too late. Grandpa had been snoring softly in his armchair, an open book lying across his chest. His chin nodded, and he opened his eyes. He saw the way his wife was looking at him, and he smiled and dozed off again. Every time he opened those eyes, April fell in love with her Justice all over again.
"Cindy," she said softly, "let me tell you a little story about how I met your grandpa."
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