“He’s not dying … are you, John ?” Brutal said. His eyes flashed Dean a warning.
“Course not, I didn’t mean actually dyin” – Dean gave a nervous little laugh – “but, jeepers . .”
“Never mind,” I said. “Help us get him back to his cell.”
Once again we were foothills surrounding a mountain, but now it was a mountain that had suffered a few million years, worth of erosion, one that was blunted and sad. John Coffey moved slowly, breathing through his mouth like an old man who smoked too much, but at least he moved.
“What about Percy?” I asked. “Has he been kicking up a ruckus?”
“Some at the start,” Dean said. “Trying to yell through the tape you put over his mouth. Cursing, I believe.”
“Mercy me,” Brutal said. “A good thing our tender ears were elsewhere.”
“Since then, just a mulekick at the door every once in awhile, you know.” Dean was so relieved to see us that he was babbling. His glasses slipped down to the end of his nose, which was shiny with sweat, and he pushed them back up. We passed Wharton’s cell. That worthless young man was flat on his back, snoring like a sousaphone. His eyes were shut this time, all right.
Dean saw me looking and laughed.
“No trouble from that guy! Hasn’t moved since he laid back down on his bunk. Dead to the world. As for Percy kicking the door every now and then, I never minded that a bit. Was glad of it, tell you the truth. If he didn’t make any noise at all, I’d start wonderin if he hadn’t choked to death on that gag you slapped over his cakehole. But that’s not the best. You know the best? It’s been as quiet as Ash Wednesday morning in New Orleans! Nobody’s been down all night!” He said this last in a triumphant, gloating voice. “We got away with it, boys! We did!”
That made him think of why we’d gone through the whole comedy in the first place, and he asked about Melinda.
“She’s fine,” I said. We had reached John ‘s cell. What Dean had said was just starting to sink in: We got away with it, boys … we did.
“Was it like … you know … the mouse?” Dear asked. He glanced briefly at the empty cell when Delacroix had lived with Mr. Jingles, then down a the restraint room, which had been the mouse’s seeming point of origin. His voice dropped, the way people’s voices do when they enter a big church where even the silence seems to whisper. “Was it a…” He gulped. “Shoot, you know what I mean – was it a miracle?”
The three of us looked at each other briefly, confirming what we already knew. “Brought her back from her damn grave is what he did,” Harry said. “Yeah, it was a miracle, all right.”
Brutal opened the double locks on the cell, and gave John a gentle push inside. “Go on, now, big boy.
Rest awhile. You earned it. We’ll just settle Percy’s hash”
“He’s a bad man,” John said in a low, mechanical voice.
“That’s right, no doubt, wicked as a warlock,” Brutal agreed in his most soothing voice, “but don’t you
worry a smidge about him, we’re not going to let him near you. You just ease down on that bunk of yours and I’ll have that cup of coffee to you in no time. Hot and strong. You’ll feel like a new man.”
John sat heavily on his bunk. I thought he’d fall back on it and roll to the wall as he usually did, but he just sat there for the time being, hands clasped loosely between his knees, head lowered, breathing hard through his mouth. The St. Christopher’s medal Melinda had given him had fallen out of the top of his shirt and swung back and forth in the air. He’ll keep you safe, that’s what she’d told him, but John Coffey didn’t look a bit safe. He looked like he had taken Melinda’s place on the lip of that grave Harry had spoken of.
But I couldn’t think about John Coffey just then I turned around to the others. “Dean, get Percy’s pistol and hickory stick.”