Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  “We found Matheson, didn’t we? We found the tarot cards and the doll.” She kept her voice firm, but there had been many days and nights when she’d let herself fear the same thing—but only for a moment or two, and then her resolve returned. “I believe this is leading us to someone—someone very important.”

  “You mean you want to believe it.”

  “I mean I do believe it!” she snapped. “How could I go on if I didn’t?”

  Paul sighed deeply; he was tired, his beard itched and he knew he smelled like a cage of monkeys in a zoo. How long had it been, he wondered, since he’d had a bath? The best he’d been able to do in the last few weeks was scrub himself halfheartedly with ashes and snow. For the past two years, they had danced around the subject of the glass ring’s fallibility like a couple of wary boxers. Paul himself could see nothing in the ring but colors, and he’d asked himself many times if the woman he was traveling with—indeed, had come to love and respect—wasn’t making the signs up, interpreting them as she saw fit in order to keep them on this lunatic quest.

  “I believe,” she told him, “that this is a gift. I believe I found it for a reason. I believe it’s leading us for a reason. And everything it shows us is a clue to where we need to go. Don’t you under—”

  “Bullshit!” Paul said, and he almost stomped on the brake, but he was afraid the Jeep would skid right off the road. Sister looked at him, her face with its hideous growths mirroring shock, anger and disillusion. “You saw a fucking clown’s face in that damned thing, remember that? You saw a beat-up old Conestoga wagon or something; and you saw a thousand other things that just don’t make any sense! You said go east because you thought the visions or dream-walk pictures or whatever the shit they are were getting stronger; and then you said go back west again, because the visions started fading and you were trying to focus in on the direction. After that you said go north, and then south—and then north and south again. Sister, you’re seeing what you want to see in that damned thing! So we found Matheson, Kansas! So what? Maybe you heard something about that town when you were a kid! Have you ever considered that?”

  She was silent, clasping the glass circle closer to her, and finally she said what she’d wanted to say for a long, long time. “I believe,” she told him, “that this is a gift from God.”

  “Right.” He smiled bitterly. “Well, look around. Just look. Have you ever considered the possibility that God might be insane?”

  Tears burned her eyes, and she looked away from him because she’d be damned if she’d let him see her cry.

  “This whole thing is you, don’t you see that?” he continued. “It’s what you see. It’s what you feel, and what you decide. If the damned thing is leading you somewhere—or to somebody—why doesn’t it show you right out where you’re supposed to go? Why’s it playing tricks with your mind? Why does it give you these ‘clues’ in bits and pieces?”

  “Because,” Sister answered, with just a slight waver in her voice, “just getting a gift doesn’t mean you know how to use it. The fault’s not with the glass ring—it’s with me, because there’s a limit to what I can understand. I’m doing the best I can, and maybe ... maybe the person I’m looking for isn’t ready to be found yet, either.”

  “What? Come on!”

  “Maybe the circumstances aren’t right yet. Maybe the picture’s not complete, and that’s why—”

  “Oh, Jesus!” Paul said wearily. “You’re raving, do you know that? You’re making up things that aren’t true, because you want them so much to be true. You don’t want to admit that we’ve wasted seven years of our lives searching for ghosts.”

  Sister watched the road unfolding before them, leading the Jeep into a dark, dead forest. “If you feel that way,” she finally asked, “then why have you been traveling with me all this time?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I wanted to believe as much as you do. I wanted to think there was some method to this madness—but there’s not, and there never was.”

  “I remember a shortwave radio,” Sister said.

  “What?”

  “A shortwave radio,” she repeated. “The one you used to keep those people in your cabin from killing themselves. You kept them going and gave them hope. Remember?”

  “Okay. So what?”

  “Didn’t you yourself at least hope there’d be a human voice on that radio? Didn’t you tell yourself that maybe the next day, or the next, there’d be a signal from some other survivors? You didn’t go through all that just to keep a handful of strangers alive. You did it to keep yourself alive, too. And you hoped that maybe one day there’d be something more than static on that radio. Well, this is my shortwave radio.” She ran her hands over the smooth glass. “And I believe it’s tuned to a force that I can’t even begin to understand—but I’m not going to doubt it. No. I’m going to keep on going, one step at a time. With you or without—”

  “What the hell... ?” Paul interrupted as they came around a curve. Standing in the middle of the road, beneath the overhanging trees, were three large snowmen, all wearing caps and mufflers, with stones for their eyes and noses. One of them appeared to be smoking a corncob pipe. Instantly Paul realized that he could not stop in time, and though he put his foot on the brake the wheels skidded through the snow and the Jeep’s front fender banged into one of the snowmen.

  The jolt almost threw Paul and Sister through the windshield, and Hugh made a croaking sound in the back as the collision rattled his teeth. The Jeep’s engine stuttered and died. Sister and Paul saw that where the snowman had been was now a pile of snow around a disguised roadblock of scrap metal, pieces of wood and stones.

  “Shit!” Paul said when he could find his voice. “Some fool’s put a damned—”

  A pair of legs and scuffed brown boots slammed down on the Jeep’s hood from above.

  Sister looked up and saw a hooded figure in a long, tattered brown coat with one hand wrapped around a rope that was tied in tree branches over the road. In the figure’s other hand was a .38 pistol, aimed through the windshield at Paul Thorson.

  More figures, scurrying from the woods on all sides, were converging on the Jeep. “Bandits!” Hugh bleated, his eyes wide with terror. “They’ll rob us and cut our throats!”

  “Like hell they will,” Sister said calmly, and she put her hand on the butt of the shotgun that was wedged beside her seat. She pulled it up, aiming it at the figure on the hood, and was about to fire when both of the Jeep’s doors were wrenched open.

  A dozen pistols, three rifles and seven sharpened wooden spears thrust into the Jeep at Sister, and an equal number of weapons threatened Paul. “Don’t kill us!” Hugh shouted. “Please don’t kill us! We’ll give you anything you want!”

  Fine for you to say, since you don’t own a damned thing! Sister thought as she stared into the bristling wall of firearms and spears. She calculated how long it would take her to turn the shotgun and fire at the bandits—and she knew she’d be history as soon as she made a sudden movement. She froze, one hand on the shotgun and the other trying to protect the glass ring.

  “Out of the Jeep,” the figure on the hood commanded. It was a young voice-;—the voice of a boy. The pistol shifted toward Sister. “Get your finger off that trigger if you want to keep it.”

  She hesitated, peering up at the boy’s face, though she couldn’t make out any features because of the coat’s cowl. The pistol was aimed as steadily as if the boy’s arm was stone, and the tone of his voice was all deadly business.

  She blinked and removed her finger from the trigger.

  Paul knew they had no choice. He muttered a curse, longing to get his hands around Hugh Ryan’s neck, and got out.

  “Some guide you are,” Sister told Hugh. She took a deep breath, exhaled and stepped out.

  She towered over her captors.

  They were children.

  All of them were thin and dirty, the youngest about nine or ten and the oldest maybe sixteen—and all of them
stared as one at the pulsing glass ring.

  56

  HERDED BEFORE A YELLING, rowdy gangof twenty-seven boy bandits, Paul, Sister and Hugh were prodded with the barrels of rifles and sharp spear tips through the snowy woods. About a hundred yards from the road, they were commanded to stop, and they waited while a few of the boys cleared brush and branches from the mouth of a small cave. A rifle barrel pushed Sister inside, and the others followed.

  Beyond the opening, the cave widened into a large, high-ceilinged chamber. It was damp within, but dozens of candles were set about and burning, and at the center of the cavern a small fire glowed, the smoke curling up through a hole in the ceiling. Eight other boys, all of them skinny and sickly-looking, were waiting for their compatriots to return, and when the bags were flung open the boys shouted and laughed as Sister’s and Paul’s extra clothes were scattered. The bandits grabbed up ill-fitting coats and sweaters, draped themselves with woolen scarves and caps and danced around the fire like Apaches. One of them uncorked a jug of the moonshine that Hugh had brought along, and the shouts grew louder, the dancing wilder. Adding to the raucous clamor was the noise of wood blocks clapped together, rattling gourds and sticks beating a rhythm on a cardboard box.

  Hugh balanced himself precariously on his crutch and single leg as the boys whirled around him, stabbing at him with their spears. He’d heard stories of the forest bandits before, and he didn’t like the idea or being scalped and skinned. “Don’t kill us!” he shouted over the tumult. “Please don’t—” And then he went down on his rump as a tough-looking ten-year-old with shaggy black hair kicked his crutch out from under him. A gale of laughter followed him down, and more spears and guns poked at Paul and Sister. She looked across the cave and saw through the haze of smoke a small, thin boy with red hair and a chalky complexion. He was holding the glass ring between his hands, staring at it intently—and then a second boy grabbed it away from him and ran with it. A third boy attacked that one, trying to get his hands on the treasure. Sister saw a throng of raggedly dressed boys jostling and fighting in the exhilaration of the hunt, and she lost sight of the glass ring. Another boy shoved her own shotgun in her face and grinned at her as if daring her to make a move. Then he whirled away, grabbed the jug of moonshine and joined the victory dance.

  Paul helped Hugh up. A spear jabbed Paul in the ribs, and he turned angrily toward his tormentor, but Sister grasped his arm to hold him back. A boy with the bones of small animals tied in his tangled blond hair thrust a spear at Sister’s face and drew it back just short of impaling an eyeball. She stared at him impassively, and he giggled like a hyena and capered away.

  The boy who’d taken Paul’s Magnum danced past, hardly able to hold the heavy weapon in a two-handed grip. The jug of moonshine was being passed around, inflaming them to further frenzy. Sister was afraid they were going to start firing their guns at random, and in a confined place like this the ricochets would be deadly. She saw the glimmer of the glass ring as one boy grabbed it from another; then two boys were fighting for it, and Sister was sick at the thought of the glass ring lying shattered. She took a step forward, but the darting of a half-dozen spears kept her back.

  And then the horrible thing happened: one of the boys, already dizzy with moonshine, lifted the glass ring over his head—and he was tackled from behind by another boy trying to grab it. The ring flew from his hands and spun through the air, and Sister felt a scream welling up. She saw it falling, as if in terrible slow motion, toward the stone floor, and she heard herself shout “No!” but there was nothing she could do. The circle of glass was falling ... falling ... falling.

  A hand grasped it before it hit the floor, and the ring glittered with fiery colors as if meteors were exploding within it.

  It had been caught by the figure in the cowled coat who’d landed on the Jeep’s hood. He was taller than the others by at least a foot, and as he approached Sister the boys around him parted to give him room. His face was still obscured by the cowl. The shouting and noise of clapping wood blocks and drumbeats faltered and began to fade as the tallest boy walked unhurriedly through the others. The glass circle flared with a strong, slow pulse. And then the boy stood in front of Sister.

  “What is this?” he asked, holding the ring before him. The others had stopped dancing and shouting, and they began to crowd around to watch.

  “It belongs to me,” Sister answered.

  “No. It used to belong to you. I asked you what it is.”

  “It’s—” She paused, trying to decide what to say. “It’s magic,” she told him. “It’s a miracle, if you know how to use it. Please—” She heard the unaccustomed sound of pleading in her voice. “Please don’t break it.”

  “What if I did? What if I was to let it fall and break? Would the magic spill out?”

  She was silent, knowing the boy was taunting her.

  He pulled the cowl back to reveal his face. “I don’t believe in magic,” he said. “That’s just for fools and kids.”

  He was older than the others—maybe seventeen or eighteen. He was almost as tall as she was, and the size of his shoulders said that he was going to be a large man when he grew up and filled out. His face was lean and pallid, with sharp cheekbones and eyes the color of ashes; in his shoulder-length dark brown hair were braided small bones and feathers, and he looked as dour and serious as an Indian chief. The fine, light brown hairs of a beard covered the lower part of his face, but Sister could see that he had a strong, square jaw-line. Thick, dark eyebrows added to his stern countenance, and the bridge of his nose was flattened and crooked like a boxer’s. He was a handsome young man, but certainly dangerous. And, Sister realized, he was neither a kid nor a fool.

  He regarded the glass ring in silence. Then: “Where were you going?”

  “Mary’s Rest,” Hugh spoke up nervously. “We’re just poor travelers. We don’t mean any—”

  “Shut up,” the boy ordered, and Hugh’s mouth snapped closed. He locked stares with Paul for a few seconds, then grunted and dismissed him. “Mary’s Rest,” the boy repeated. “You’re about fifteen miles east of Mary’s Rest. Why were you going there?”

  “We were going to pass through it on our way south,” Sister said. “We figured we’d get some food and water.”

  “Is that so? Well, you’re out of luck, then. The food’s almost gone in Mary’s Rest. They’re starving over there, and their pond went dry about five months ago. They’re melting snow to drink, just like everybody else.”

  “There’s radiation in the snow,” Hugh said. “Drinking melted snow will kill you.”

  “What are you? An expert?”

  “No, but I’m—I was—a doctor, and I know what I’m talking about.”

  “A doctor? What kind of doctor?”

  “I was a surgeon,” Hugh said, pride creeping back into his voice. “I used to be the best surgeon in Amarillo.”

  “A surgeon? You mean you operated on sick people?”

  “That’s right. And I never lost a patient, either.”

  Sister decided to take a step forward. Instantly the boy’s hand went to a pistol at his belt under the coat. “Listen,” Sister said, “let’s cut this screwing around. You’ve already got everything we own. We’ll walk the rest of the way—but I want that glass ring back. I want it now. If you’re going to kill me, you’d better do it, because either you give me the ring or I’m taking it from you.”

  The boy remained motionless, his hawklike stare challenging her.

  Here goes! she thought, her heart hammering. She started to reach toward him, but suddenly he laughed and stepped back. He held the ring up, as if he might drop it to the cavern’s floor.

  Sister stopped. “Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t.”

  His hand lingered in the air. Sister tensed, ready to go for it if the fingers opened.

  “Robin?” a weak voice called from the back of the cave. “Robin?”

  The boy looked into Sister’s face for a few seconds longer
, his eyes hard and shrewd; then he blinked, lowered his arm and offered the ring to her. “Here. It’s not worth a shit, anyway.”

  She took it, relief coursing through her bones.

  “None of you are going anywhere,” the boy said. “Especially not you, Doc.”

  “Huh?” Terror lanced him.

  “Walk to the back of the cave,” the boy commanded. “All of you.” They hesitated. “Now,” he said, in a voice that was used to being obeyed.

  They did as he said, and in another moment Sister saw several more figures at the rear of the chamber. Three of them were boys with Job’s Mask in varying stages of severity, one of them hardly able to keep his misshapen head upright. On the floor in a corner, lying on a bed of straw and leaves, was a thin brown-haired boy of about ten or eleven, his face shining with the sweat of fever. A dressing of greasy-looking leaves had been plastered on his white chest, just under the heart, and blood had leaked out around it. The wounded boy tried to lift his head when he saw them, but he didn’t have enough strength. “Robin?” he whispered. “You there?”

  “I’m here, Bucky.” Robin bent beside him and brushed the wet hair from the other boy’s forehead.

  “I’m hurting ... so bad.” Bucky coughed, and foamy blood appeared at his lips. Robin quickly wiped it away with a leaf. “You won’t let me go out where it’s dark, will you?”

  “No,” Robin said quietly. “I won’t let you go out where it’s dark.” He looked up at Sister with eyes that were a hundred years old. “Bucky got shot three days ago.” With gentle fingers, he carefully peeled the plaster of leaves away. The wound was an ugly scarlet hole with puffy gray edges of infection. Robin’s gaze moved to Hugh, then to the glass ring. “I don’t believe in magic or miracles,” he said. “But maybe it’s kind of a miracle that we found you today, Doc. You’re going to take the bullet out.”