Comes the Blind Fury Read Free

lunch!”
    Two blocks past the school, Cal slowed the car nearly to a stop. “I wonder if I should stop in and speak to Carson?” he mused.
    “Is that the clinic?” Michelle asked. Her voice revealed that she didn’t think much of it.
    “Compared to Boston General, it isn’t much, is it?” Cal said. Then, barely audibly, he added, “But maybe it’s where I belong.”
    June glanced quickly at her husband, then reached out to squeeze his hand. “It’s just right,” she assured him. The car came to a full stop, and the three Pendletons looked at the one-story building, no larger than a small house, that contained the Paradise Point Clinic. On the weatherbeaten sign in front, they could barely read the name of Josiah Carson, but Cal’s own name, in freshly painted black letters, stood out clearly.
    “Maybe I’ll just pop in and let him know we got here all right,” Cal suggested. He was about to get out of the car when June’s voice stopped him.
    “Can’t you go later? The van’s already at the house, and there’s so much to do. Dr. Carson won’t be expecting you to stop. Not today.”
    She’s right, Cal told himself, though he felt a twinge of guilt. He owed Carson so much. But still, tomorrow would be soon enough. He closed the door and put the car in gear. A moment later the clinic disappeared from sight, the village was suddenly behind them, and they were on the road that paralleled the cove.
    June let herself relax. Today, at least, she wouldn’thave to see the old doctor who had suddenly become such a major force in her life, a force she neither liked, nor trusted. A bond had sprung up between her husband and Josiah Carson, and it seemed to be growing stronger each day. She wished she understood it better—all she knew, really, was that it had to do with that boy.
    That boy who had died.
    Resolutely, she put it out of her mind. For now, she would concentrate on Paradise Point.
    It was a pretty drive, deep forests on the inland side, and a narrow expanse of grass and bracken separating the road from the crest of the bluffs that dropped precipitously to the tiny bay below.
    “Is that our house?” Michelle asked. Silhouetted against the horizon, a house stood out starkly from the landscape, its mansard roofline and widow’s walk etched against the blue sky.
    “That’s it,” June replied. “What do you think?”
    “It looks great from here. But what’s the inside like?”
    Cal chuckled. “About the same as the outside. You’ll love it.”
    As they approached the house that was to be their new home; Michelle let her eyes wander over the landscape. It was beautiful, but, in a way, strange. She found it difficult to imagine actually living with all this space. And the neighbors—instead of being right through the wall, they were going to be almost a quarter of a mile away. And, she noticed excitedly, with a graveyard between them. An actual, for-real, old-fashioned, broken-down cemetery. As the car passed the graveyard, Michelle pointed it out to her mother. June looked at it with interest, then asked Cal if he knew anything about it. He shrugged.
    “Josiah told me it’s his old family plot, but that they don’t use it anymore. Or, I guess, he doesn’t plan to use it. Says he’s going to be buried in Florida, and doesn’t give a damn if he never sees Paradise Point again.”
    June laughed out loud. “That’s what he says now. But wait’ll he gets there. Bet you a nickel he hotfoots it right back up here again.”
    “And tries to buy the practice back from me? And the house? No, I think he’s really looking forward to getting away from here.” He paused a moment, then: “I think that accident shook him up more than he’s let on.”
    Suddenly the laughter left June’s voice. “It shook us all up, didn’t it?” she said quietly. “And we didn’t even know the boy. But here we are. Strange, isn’t it?”
    Cal made no reply.
    Their new home—Josiah Carson’s old home.
    His new