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VII.

I was alone in my room, retired there because with the rain coming down in such terrific sheets, there wasn't much to be done. There was no way to navigate, not with any effectiveness. In weather like that, when God Himself is against you, there's nothing to be done but wait out His wrath and hope for the best.

I dropped the anchor and took one of those French bottles to my cabin.

I still had one left for Nancy.

But the other would keep me company for the night. Let the rain fall and let the boat sway. So long as the tiller lines held and the anchor didn't slip, I counted it a small blessing. There were only a few of us on board anyway. Let them wait another day. All I wanted was a night when I could drink enough to sleep through my dreams.

I started early—immediately after supper. After the war camps, I never did skip a supper. Every single one was a blessing and I thanked the Lord for every bite.

In my cabin I removed my boots and unfastened my waistcoat, because it was too warm and too tight. At first, when the war ended, I thought I should eat myself strong again; I didn't want Nancy to see me all sticks for arms, and bones for legs. Perhaps I went too far the other way. Perhaps I had grown too soft.

I had a small couch covered in brown cotton and stuffed with horsehair. It was firm and I could lean while putting my feet up. It was more civilized than drinking in bed.

I didn't have any wine glasses, and I'm not sure why. I think they all were broken, or downstairs, or there had never been any to begin with. But I had short tumblers for scotch, so I poured a blood-purple shot for myself and drank it that way. It was more civilized than drinking from the bottle.

I listened to the rain and I was happy. In only a few short days, I would see my wife again. It had been—years. More years than I could think to count, but fewer than it felt, I'm sure. These things happened. People were parted, and people came home.

Tennessee was never a home of mine, but it would suffice. Home is where the heart is, as they say—and Nancy was there. We could stay or we could leave. We could go back and try to salvage what was left, or we could go somewhere else and start fresh. I would let her decide.

I don't know how much time passed from the time I lifted the bottle to the time I set it down. I don't know where the time went.

When I awakened, the rain was still battering down on the roof, and against the windows, and I was still open-shirted and bootless, on the divan. I'd slept and I hadn't dreamed of hunger, and chill. I glanced down at the bottle—determined to remember the label, and interested in acquiring more one day.

But between the busy splatter of the raindrops outside, I could hear something else—once in a while, and loud. It sounded like a sharp blow, or a rap. When first I heard it, I thought I imagined it. Bang. Like something solid, dropped and landing hard. I waited and listened, and then it came again. Bang.

I sat up and set the bottle aside.

Bang.

It came from down below, by the wheel.

Bang.

No—not by the wheel. The next deck up, at least. Bang. Again. It came accompanied by a ringing noise this time—a twang, where something else had been struck. I thought perhaps the jackstaff, since it stands so tall. I heard a quick jingle as if from a chain or cable, and we often ran a flag up the staff.

Bang.

Like a drum, but not quite. Like a boxer jumping on a mat, but not quite.

More like a boxer, I thought. More like someone jumping. But it couldn't be someone, of course. The collisions came too far apart; no one could jump so high, to make such loud landings at such lengthy intervals. He'd have to be jumping from deck to deck around the Mary Byrd, and of course that wasn't possible. Of course.

I don't know why it frightened me so—or rather, I don't know how I knew to be frightened.

There was something frantic about it, about the way it dashed to and fro from deck to deck, front to back. Occasionally it would strike against something and be dazed, then resume again. It made me think of a cat my wife once had; in the evening, shortly before bedtime, it would transform from a lazy beast to a mad terror of a creature. It would tear around the house as if its tail were on fire before settling down and turning in for the night with the rest of us.

I've seen dogs do it too, when they're cooped up too long or kept on a chain.

Outside in the rain there was a flash of lightning followed soon by a sharp rumble of thunder. The rainstorm had gone from pattering to booming, and I was glad for my decision to stop and stay. The water was getting rough for a river, and when I stepped to my window to peer outside, I couldn't see a thing beyond the rail.

Thunder cracked again—this time like a whip the size of a river. The storm was right above us.

Beside my bed there was a lantern mounted on a swing-arm hinge. It was a mariner's style, and made for a man at sea, not on a river. When the boat moved, the force of gravity would hold the flame level—or that was the idea. It worked well enough, and I liked the look of it. It struck me as a sturdy, stable thing with an ingenious design, so I left it lit.

The other two, by the mirror and beside the door, I extinguished. Despite the rain, these boats are made more of wood than anything else—and the engines are fed coal. Fires happen, and we were moored away from the banks. On board, we had a pair of small rowing yawls for emergencies or the crew's quick shore runs, but if there were ever any real, quick trouble, we'd never get them into the water in time.

Bang.

Thunder answered it, so loud and so harsh that Mary rocked a little harder against the waves—her windows rattling in their frames. Downstairs near the galley, I thought I heard a crash. It must have been dishes, or plates. I remember, I thought—I'll ask Laura in the morning.

But then there was a new sound, another sound—not the thunder, and not the intermittent banging. It came louder than both, and twice as nerve-shattering.

I clapped my hands over my ears, trying to keep it out.

It roared, or howled, or scraped across the boat in a long, anguished cry that must have come from a living throat—but what, I couldn't guess. My mind raced, playing games with itself. I knew that sounds can be deceiving—especially at night, and in the rain, and when a man is tired and slow from wine.

I'd heard mountain lions that sound for all the world like a woman screaming for help, and inmates at a sanitarium who bayed like hounds. I'd heard my own boat make startling pops, cracks, and cries—just the settling of a ship with a few years on her. I knew how strange and frightening the unknown may seem. I knew not to panic.

But how could I help myself? The cry went on and on—challenging the thunder, daring the sky to fall.

I pressed my hands tighter around my head, but nothing could keep the hideous keening at bay.

Then it came in—through the window. There was an explosion and the world caved in. The rain came in, and the howl came with it.

I barely had time to see it, but time stretched for me and I remember every detail. I remember every second as if it happened over an hour—the stinging splash of water, the moaning wind, and the groan of a sagging timber support where the window had burst free of its place. I saw light glinting off of something shiny and round; it took me a moment to realize they were eyes. They were gold eyes, shot through with red and bulging from a face like none I'd ever seen.

I remember there were teeth, and there was hair. I thought at first, "It must be a man, surely," but before my mind could make the words I knew I was mistaken. No man, no ape. No thing I had ever seen before, nor heard legend of.

It lunged at me, flinging water and broken glass from its hair. It opened its mouth and fired that horrible cry—a screaming, miserable thing that did not slow or cease until it fitted that gaping jaw around my neck, and it drowned its whistling scream in my throat.

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Framed