Toni Morrison - Paradise

"Dovey!"

"That's what Steward says, and if he believes it-"

"I don't care if they're-" Soane couldn't imagine worse. Both became quiet.

"Lone said K. D. is out there."

"He would be."

"You think Mable knows? Or Priscilla?" asks Dovey.

"Doubt it. Hadn't been for Lone, would we?"

"It'll be all right, I guess. Aaron and Pious will stop them. And the Beauchamps. Even Steward won't mess with Luther." The sisters laughed then, small hopeful laughs, soothing themselves as they sped through glorious dawn air.

Consolata wakes. Seconds earlier she thought she heard footsteps descending. She assumed it was Pallas coming to nurse the baby lying beside her. She touches the diaper to see if a change is needed. Something. Something. Consolata goes chill. Opening the door she hears retreating steps too heavy, too many for a woman. She considers whether or not to disturb the baby's sleep. Then, quickly slipping on a dress, blue with a white collar, she decides to leave the child on the cot. She climbs the stairs and sees immediately a shape lying in the foyer. She runs to it and cradles the woman in her arms, smearing her cheek and the left side of her dress with blood. The pulse at the neck is there but not strong; the breathing is shallow. Consolata rubs the fuzz on the woman's head and begins to step in, deep, deeper to find the pinpoint of light. Shots ring from the next room.

Men are firing through the window at three women running through clover and Scotch broom. Consolata enters, bellowing, "No!" The men turn.

Consolata narrows her gaze against the sun, then lifts it as though distracted by something high above the heads of the men. "You're back," she says, and smiles.

Deacon Morgan needs the sunglasses, but they are nestled in his shirt pocket. He looks at Consolata and sees in her eyes what has been drained from them and from himself as well. There is blood near her lips. It takes his breath away. He lifts his hand to halt his brother's and discovers who, between them, is the stronger man. The bullet enters her forehead.

Dovey is screaming. Soane is staring.

"This dying may take a while." Lone is desperate for Doublemint as she stanches the white woman's wound. She and Ren have carried her to the sofa in the game room. Lone can't hear a heartbeat, and although the neck pulse seems still to be there, too much blood has left this woman with wrists small as a child's.

"Has anybody gone for Roger?" she shouts.

"Yes," somebody shouts back.

The noise outside the room is giving her a headache along with a fierce desire to chew. Lone leaves the woman to see what is being done to salvage a life or two from the mess.

Dovey is weeping on the stairs.

"Dovey, you have to shut up now. I need a thinking woman. Come in here and get some water; try to get that girl in there to drink it." She drags her toward the kitchen where Soane is.

Earlier, Deacon Morgan had carried Consolata into the kitchen, holding her in his arms for the time it took the women to clear the table. He laid her down carefully, as though any rough gesture might hurt her. It was after Consolata was comfortable-Soane's raincoat folded under her head-that his hands trembled. Then he left to help with the wounded men. Menus, unable to get the knife from his shoulder, was whinnying in pain. Harper's head was swelling, but it was Arnold Fleetwood who seemed to be suffering a concussion. And Jeff's broken jaw and cracked wrist needed attention. Other Ruby people, stirred by the first caravan, had arrived, increasing twofold the disorder and the din. Reverend Pulliam removed the knife from Menus' shoulder and had great difficulty trying to get both Jury men and the Fleetwoods to agree to go to the Demby hospital. A message came from Deed Sands' son that Roger's return from Middleton was expected this morning, and soon as he got back his daughter would send him along. Pulliam was finally persuasive and drove the hurt men away. Male voices continued to boom. Between loud accusations and sullen if quieter defense, under the onslaught of questions and prophecies of doom, it was a half hour or so before anyone thought to ask what had happened to the other women. When Pious did, Sargeant indicated "out there" with a head motion.

"Run off? To the sheriff?"

"Doubt that."

"What, man?"

"They went down. In the grass."

"You all massacred those women? For what?"

"Now we got white law on us as well as damnation!"

"We didn't come here to kill anybody. Look what they did to Menus and Fleet. It was self-defense!"

Aaron Poole looked at K. D. who had offered that explanation.

"You come in their house and don't expect them to fight you?" The contempt in his eyes was clear but not as chilling as Luther's. "Who had the guns?" asked Luther.

"We all did, but it was Uncle Steward who-"

Steward slapped him full in the mouth, and had it not been for Simon Cary, another massacre might have taken place. "Hold that man!" shouted Reverend Cary and, pointing to K. D., "You in trouble, son."

Pious banged his fist on the wall. "You have already dishonored us. Now you going to destroy us? What manner of evil is in you?" He had been looking at Steward, but now his gaze took in Wisdom, Sargeant and the other two.

"The evil is in this house," said Steward. "Go down in that cellar and see for yourself."

"My brother is lying. This is our doing. Ours alone. And we bear the responsibility."

For the first time in twenty-one years the twins looked each other dead in the eyes.

Meanwhile Soane and Lone DuPres close the two pale eyes but can do nothing about the third one, wet and lidless, in between. "She said, 'Divine,' " Soane whispers.

"What?" Lone is trying to organize a sheet to cover the body. "When I went to her. Right after Steward… I held her head and she said, 'Divine.' Then something like 'He's divine he's sleeping divine.' Dreaming, I guess."

"Well, she was shot in the head, Soane."

"What do you think she saw?"

"I don't know, but it's a sweet thought even if it was her last."

Dovey comes in, saying, "She's gone."

"You sure?" asks Lone.

"Go look for yourself."

"I will."

The sisters cover Consolata with the sheet.

"I didn't know her as well as you," Dovey says.

"I loved her. As God is my witness I did, but nobody knew her really."

"Why did they do it?"

"They? You mean 'he,' don't you? Steward killed her. Not Deek."

"You make it sound as though it's all his fault."

"I didn't mean to."

"Then what? What did you mean?"

Soane does not know what she means, other than how to locate a sliver of soap to clean away any little taint she can. But it is an exchange that alters their relationship irrevocably. Bewildered, angry, sad, frightened people pile into cars, making their way back to children, livestock, fields, household chores and uncertainty. How hard they had worked for this place; how far away they once were from the terribleness they have just witnessed. How could so clean and blessed a mission devour itself and become the world they had escaped?

Lone has said she would stay with the bodies until Roger got there.

Melinda asks, "How will you get back? Your car is out at our place." Lone sighs. "Well, the dead don't move. And Roger's got a lot of work to do." As the car pulls away, Lone looks back at the house. "A lot of work."

He had none. When Roger Best got back to Ruby, he didn't even change his clothes. He gunned the motor of the ambulance/ hearse and sped to the Convent. Three women were down in the grass, he'd been told. One in the kitchen. Another across the hall. He searched everywhere. Every inch of grass, every patch of Scotch broom. The henhouse. The garden. Every row of corn in the field beyond. Then every room: the chapel, the schoolroom. The game room was empty; the kitchen too-a sheet and a folded raincoat on the table the only sign that a body had been there. Upstairs he looked in both bathrooms, in all eight bedrooms. Again the kitchen, the pantry. Then he went down into the cellar, stepped over the floor paintings. He opened one door that revealed a coal bin. Behind another a small bed and a pair of shiny shoes on the dresser. No bodies. Nothing. Even the Cadillac was gone.