Part VII - Funeral Pyre Chapter 4: Thunder Lizards
Two o'clock passed, and the Cutlass kept going into the white whirlwinds.
Didi was at the wheel, her face a bleached mask of tension. The Cutlass, traveling at thirty miles an hour, was alone on I-80. Laura had driven for several hours back in Nebraska, between Lincoln and North Platte, and she'd gotten good at guiding the car with one hand and an elbow. The snowstorm's intensity had strengthened near North Platte, the wind broadsiding the car like a bull's charge, and Laura had pulled over to let somebody with two hands drive. The last tractor-trailer truck they'd seen had been turning off at Laramie, ten miles behind them, and the snowswept highway was climbing steadily toward the Rocky Mountains.
"Should've stopped at Laramie," Didi said. This had been her refrain ever since they'd left its lights. "We can't keep going in this. " The wiper in front of her face shrieked with effort as it plowed the snow away, while the wiper on Laura's side had ground to a halt just east of Cheyenne. "Should've stopped at Laramie, like I wanted to. "
"She didn't," Laura said.
"How do you knowi She might be back in Nebraska, sleeping in a warm Holiday Inn!"
"She'll go as far as she can. She'll go until she can't drive anymore. I would. "
"Mary might be crazy, but she's not a fool! She's not going to get herself and David killed out here! Look! Even the trucks can't make it in this!" Didi dared to unhinge the fingers of her right hand from the wheel and point to the tractor-trailer rig that was abandoned on the shoulder, its emergency lights flashing. Then she gripped the wheel hard again, because a gust of wind slapped the Cutlass and fishtailed it into the left lane. Didi let off on the accelerator and fought the car straight again, her heart pounding and a coil of fear deep in her belly. "Jesus, what a mess!"
The snowfall, made up of flakes the size of half dollars, was spinning into their headlights on almost a horizontal plane. Laura was scared, too, and every time the tires slipped and slid she felt her heart rise to her throat and lodge there like a peach pit, but the violence of the wind was keeping the snow from piling up on the pavement. Patches of ice glistened on the highway like silver lakes, but the road itself was clear. She scanned the snowy darkness, her broken hand mercifully numb. Where are youi she thought. In front of us, or behindi Mary wouldn't have turned off I-80 for a secondary route because the road atlas they'd gotten at their last gas-and-food stop showed no other way west across the state but I-80's broad blue line. Somewhere on the highway, probably in Utah by now, Mary Terror was cleaving the night with David at her side. an overnight stop in Laramie would only increase the distance between Laura and Mary by at least four hours. No, Mary was on her way to find Jack. The storm might slow her down to a crawl, but she wasn't going to stop unless she was forced to, either by hunger or weariness.
Laura had her own cure for the latter. She swallowed another Black Cat tablet - "the truck driver's friend," the man behind the counter at the Shell station had said when they'd asked for something strong - and followed it with a sip of cold coffee. and then Didi shouted "Christ!" and the Cutlass swerved to the right as its tires hit an ice patch, and the last of the coffee went all over Laura's lap.
The car skidded out of control as Didi tried to muscle the wheel back toward the center line. It slammed into the guardrail, the right-side headlight exploding. The Cutlass scraped along the rail, sparks flying back with the snow-flakes, and then the car shuddered as the tires gripped gravel and responded to Didi's hands. The Cutlass swerved away from the guardrail and onto the highway again, casting a single beam of light before it.
"Should've stopped at Laramie. " Didi's voice was as tight as her face, a pulse beating quickly at her temple. She had cut the speed to just under thirty. "No way we can keep going in this!"
The highway was getting steeper, the Cutlass's engine rattling with the strain. They passed two more abandoned cars, almost completely shrouded in white, and after another minute Didi said, "Something in front of us. "
Laura could see flashing yellow lights. Didi began to slow down. a blinking sign emerged from the blowing snow: STOP ROaD CLOSED. a highway patrol car was there, too, its blue lights going around. Didi eased the Cutlass to a halt, and a bundled-up state trooper holding a flashlight with a red lens cap walked around to the passenger side and motioned for Didi to lower her window.
Mary's eyes opened. She heard the shrilling of the wind outside and the crackle of burning wood in the fireplace. Beads of sweat shivered on her skin.
The young hippie was sitting cross-legged five feet from her, his chin supported by his palms and his elbows on his knees.
Mary sucked in her breath and sat up. She looked at Drummer, who was in baby dreamland, his eyes moving behind the thin pink lids and the pacifier gripped in his mouth. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, her coat over her thighs and hips to hide the bloodstains. "What is iti" she asked, her brain still fogged with fever and her voice thick.
"Sorry," the hippie said. "Didn't mean to wake you. " He had a Yankee accent, a voice like a reedy flute.
"What is iti" she asked again, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her bones throbbed like bad teeth, and her thigh felt sticky-wet. She looked around. Most of the people in the lobby were asleep, but a few were still playing cards. Rachel Jiles was sleeping in a chair, and her cowboy husband was talking on the CB radio. Mary returned her attention to the young hippie, who was maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. "You woke me up. "
"I went to the bathroom," he said as if this were important news. "When I came back, I couldn't sleep. " He stared at her, with his spooky, ashy eyes. "I swear I know you from somewhere. "
Mary heard the ringing of alarm bells. She slipped the shoulder bag's strap off her arm. "I don't think so. "
"When you came in with your baby. . . I thought I recognized you, but I couldn't figure it out. Real weird seeing somebody you think you know but you can't figure out from where. Know what I meani"
"I've never seen you before. " She glanced at Sam Jiles. He was putting on his coat, then his gloves and hat.
"You ever been to Sioux Falls, South Dakotai"
"No. " She watched Sam Jiles awaken his wife with a gentle nudge, and he said something to her that got her on her feet. "Never. "
"I'm a reporter on the paper there. I write a music column. " He leaned forward and held out his hand. "My name's austin Peevey. "
Mary ignored the hand. "You shouldn't sneak up on people. It's not cool. " The front door opened and closed: the cowboy had gone out into the storm. Rachel Jiles lifted the coffee dispenser's lid and peered inside, then left the lobby area.
austin Peevey withdrew his hand. He was smiling with his thin-lipped mouth, a little tuft of sandy hairs on the point of his chin. "are you somebody famousi" he asked.
"No. "
"I swear your face is familiar. See, I've got like tons of old records and tapes. I'm into, like, sixties stuff. I was trying to figure out if I'd seen your face on a record jacket. . . you know, like Smith or Blue Cheer or some old band like that. It's right here" - he tapped his skull - "but I can't see it. "
"I'm nobody. " Mary summoned up a yawn and delivered it into his face. "How about leaving me alone now. "
He stayed where he was, ignoring what she'd said as she'd ignored his hand. "I'm going to Salt Lake City for a record collectors' convention. It's my vacation. Thought I'd drive it and see the sights, but I didn't count on getting stuck in a snowstorm. "
"Look, I'm real tired. Okayi"
"Oh, sure. " The leather of his brown boots squeaked as he stood up. "I've seen you before, though. Somewhere. You ever go to record conventionsi"
"No. "
Rachel Jiles had returned with a pitcher of water, which she poured into the coffeemaker. Then she unscrewed a jar of Maxwell House and sifted coffee into the filter. It clicked in Mary's head that new arrivals were coming from the interstate.
"Listen, I don't know you and you don't know me. Let's keep it that way. "
"Maryi" Now Rachel was walking over, and Mary felt rage gnawing at her insides. "You want a cup of fresh coffeei"
"No. I'm trying to rest. "
"Oh, I'm sorry. " She cast her voice into a whisper. "I see David's out like a light. "
"Cute kid," Peevey said. "My dad's name is David. "
Her patience reached its end. "Let me get some goddamned sleep!" she shouted, and both Rachel and the young hippie drew back. The force of Mary's voice woke Drummer up with a start, his pacifier popped from his mouth, and a wail blossomed. "Oh, shit!" Mary's face contorted with anger. "Look what you've done!"
"Hey, hey!" Peevey lifted his hands to show his palms. "I was only trying to be friendly. "
"Fuck it! Move on, man!" Mary picked up Drummer and started desperately trying to rock him back to sleep.
"Oh!" Rachel winced as Peevey turned and began to walk away. "Mary, such terrible language!"
Peevey took another step and stopped.
Mary felt her heart slam. She knew. Whether the kid had suddenly put together the names Mary and David, whether her description in a newspaper story had become clear in his mind, or whether the word terrible had translated into Terrell or Terror, it was impossible to say. But austin Peevey stood very still, his back to her.
God spoke next, right in her ear: "He's tagged you. "
Peevey started turning toward her again. Mary zipped open the shoulder bag and slid her hand down amid the Pampers, her fingers closing on the Magnum's grip. Peevey's face had gone chalky, his eyes wide behind his hornrims. "You're. . . " he said, but he couldn't get it out. "You're. . . you're the woman who stole -"
Mary pulled the automatic out of her bag, and Rachel Jiles gave a shocked gasp.
"- the baby," Peevey finished, taking a backward stagger as the gun pointed up at him.
Mary hooked the bag's strap over her shoulder again and stood up with the crying baby held in her other arm. as she did, such fierce pain ripped through her thigh that it robbed her breath for a few seconds and left her dizzy. Oily sweat clung to her face, a damp bloodstain in a large crescent on her jeans. "Stand back," she told them, and they obeyed.
The front door opened.
The cowboy entered first, snow caught on the brim of his hat and on his shoulders. Behind him were two women shivering in thick sweaters, their faces reddened by the cold.
"- get these big 'uns in February," Jiles was saying. "The skiers like 'em when they're over and done with. "
Laura heard a baby crying. She knew that sound, and her gaze tracked it like a hawk on the wing. The broad-shouldered woman holding the infant stood twenty-five feet away.
Her eyes locked with Mary's. Time slowed to a nightmare crawl, and she heard Didi say, "Oh. . . my. . . God. . . "
Mary Terror was frozen. It was a majesty of bad karma, a weird acid trip bursting its paisley seams. There they were, the two women Mary despised most on earth, and if she had not felt such overwhelming, white-hot hatred she might have laughed at the twisted joke. But there was no time for laughter, and no time for freaking out. She turned the pistol on Laura.
The Indian woman let loose a shriek and attacked Mary, grabbing at the hand that held the gun. The Magnum went off an instant after Laura and Didi had flung themselves to the oak-planked floor, and a hole the size of Sam Jiles's fist punched through the door in a spray of splinters. The cowboy scrambled behind the registration desk, as Mary and Rachel fought for the gun. Laura reached beneath her double sweaters for her own automatic in the waistband of her jeans, but as she tried to yank it out, something snagged in the folds.
The sleepers were awake. "She's got a gun!" somebody shouted, as if the sound of a Magnum going off could be mistaken for a kernel of corn popping.
Mary held on to Drummer with one arm and clenched the gun in her other hand as Rachel Jiles tried to force her fingers open. Her husband came up from behind the registration desk, his hat off, his blue eyes wild, and an ax handle in a two-handed grip. Mary kicked the Indian woman in the shin as hard as she could with her left foot, and Rachel let go and staggered back, her eyes squeezed shut. Mary saw Laura struggling to pull a gun from her waistband, Didi crawling for cover behind a big urn full of dried wildflowers. She was aware of Sam Jiles swinging the ax handle at her like a baseball bat, and she fired a shot at Laura without aiming as the cowboy released his grip and the ax handle came spinning at her.
The bullet tugged at Laura's K-Mart sweater, passing across her right side like a burning kiss and then slamming into the wall. a heartbeat after that, the ax handle thunked into Mary Terror's left shoulder, about three inches from Drummer's skull, and knocked her to the floor. She held on to Drummer, but her hand lost the gun. It skidded over beside Rachel Jiles, who had gone down and was gripping her splintered shin.
The cowboy came over the registration desk, and Mary grabbed the ax handle. He got a kick in at her, hitting her shoulder near where the first blow had been, and the air hissed between her clenched teeth. Pain shivered through her, and then it was her turn: she swung at one of the man's knees with the ax handle, striking it with a noise like a grapefruit bursting open. as Jiles cried out and limped backward, Mary came up off the floor in a surge of desperate power. She swung at him again, this time hitting him on the collarbone and reeling him against the registration desk.
Laura wrenched the automatic free. She saw the fury in Mary's eyes, like that of an animal who has heard the noise of a cage springing shut. Didi was scrambling across the floor after the fallen Magnum. Laura saw Mary look from one to the other, trying to decide whom to attack. and then the big woman suddenly wheeled around, took two long strides, and smashed the ax handle down upon the CB radio, turning technology to junk in an eye blink. The communication to the pigs taken care of, Mary turned again, her teeth gritted in her sweating face, and hurled the ax handle at Laura.
as it came flying at her, Laura shielded her head and curled her body up into a ball. The ax handle hit the floor beside her and skidded past.
"Stop!" Didi shouted, aiming the gun at Mary's legs.
Mary ran. Not toward the front door, but the way Rachel had left the lobby to get water for the coffee. She grunted with pain as she dragged her bad leg behind her, and she burst through a pair of double doors into a long hallway with more doors on both sides. People were coming out, alerted by the noise. as Mary half ran, half limped and Drummer wailed in her grip she rummaged in her shoulder bag until her hand found the. 38 revolver. The sight of the gun cleared the hallway of human obstruction, and Mary kept going with tears of torment clouding her eyes.
In the lobby, Didi was helping Laura to her feet and some of the others were going to the aid of Sam and Rachel Jiles. "Call the troopers, call the troopers," Jiles was saying as he clutched his broken collarbone, but the CB radio was way past saving. "This way!" Didi pulled at Laura, and Laura followed her into the corridor Mary had taken.
"She's bleeding!" Didi said, pointing to drops of scarlet on the floor. She and Laura were about halfway down the corridor, a few people nervously peering from their doorways, when both heard David crying. The sound stalled them, and suddenly Mary Terror leaned out from around a curve in the hallway and an overhead light glinted off the revolver in her hand. Two bullets fired, one hitting the wall to Laura's left and the second putting a hole through a door next to Didi and spraying the side of her face with splinters. Didi fired back, the slug smashing the glass of a fire alarm at the hallway's curve and setting off the siren. Then Mary was gone, and Didi saw a green sign overhead: EXIT.
"Don't shoot at her!" Laura shouted. "You might hit David!"
"I hit what I was aiming at! If we don't shoot back, she'll just stay in one place and take us to pieces!"
Didi crouched along the wall, watching for Mary to re
appear around the curve. But on the other side the corridor was empty, and there was a safety door with a glass inset and snow whirling beyond in the exterior floodlights. Blood spattered the floor.
Mary was out in the storm.
Didi went out first, expecting a bullet and throwing herself on her stomach into the snow. No bullet came. Laura emerged cautiously through the door into the freezing wind, the automatic clenched in her fist. The snow aged them within seconds, turning their hair white as grannies.
Didi's eyes narrowed. "There," she said, and she pointed straight ahead.
Laura saw the figure, just at the edge of the light, limping frantically through the blowing snow toward the monsters of the Dinosaur Gardens.
amid the prehistoric beasts, in the swamp of snow, Mary trudged on. She had left her gloves and the warm, fleece-lined coat behind. Drummer was zipped up in his parka, but the wind was tearing through her sweater. Her hair was white, her face tight with cold. Her thigh wound had split open, and she could feel the hot rivulets of blood oozing down her leg and into her boot. The crust of her forearm wound had also opened again, the bandage wet and red drops falling from her fingertips. But the cold had chilled her fever and frozen the beads of sweat on her face, and she felt that God was somewhere very close, watching her with his lizard eyes. She was not afraid. She had lived through worse injuries, both to the body and the spirit, and she would live through this. Drummer's crying came to her, a high note tattered by the wind. She zipped up his face as best she could without smothering him, and she concentrated on keeping her balance because it seemed that all the world was in tumultuous motion. It seemed the dinosaurs were roaring - the cries of the doomed - and Mary lifted her head toward the iron sky and roared with them.
But she had to keep going. Had to. Jack was waiting for her. ahead, at the end of the road. In sunny, warm California. Jack, with his face a blaze of beauty and his hair more golden than the sun.
She could not cry. Oh no. The cold would freeze her eyelids shut if she did. So she blocked out the pain and thought of the distance between herself and the Cherokee on the mountain road. Two hundred yardsi Three hundredi The monsters towered over her, grinning. They knew the secrets of life and death, she thought. They were crazy, just like her.
She looked back, could make out the two figures advancing on her against the lights from the Silver Cloud Inn. Laura Clayhead and Benedict Bedelia. They wanted to play some more. They wanted to be taught a lesson in the survival of the fittest.
Mary crouched down against a dinosaur's curved tail, the beast twelve feet tall, and she positioned herself so she was shielded from most of the wind and she could watch them coming. They would be on her in a couple of minutes. They were walking fast, those two, on healthy legs. Come on, she thought. Come to Mama. She cocked the revolver, propping her arm up on the monster's tail, and she took careful aim. Her damned hand was jittering again, the nerves all screwed up. But the figures were good targets against the lights. Let them get closer, she decided. She wanted to be able to tell Clayhead from Benedict. Let them get real close.
"Where'd she goi" Laura shouted to Didi, but Didi shook her head. They went on twenty more yards, the cold gnawing at them and the wind shrieking around the dinosaurs. Mary was lost from sight, but her ragged trail through the snow was clear enough. Didi leaned her head close to Laura's and shouted, "Her car's got to be parked on the road down there! That's where she's going!" She thought of the blood in the corridor. "She could be hurt pretty badly, though! She could have fallen and passed out!"
"Okay! Let's go!"
Didi caught her arm. "One other thing! She could be waiting for us in there!" She nodded toward the monsters of the Dinosaur Gardens. "Watch your ass!"
They went on, following Mary Terror's tracks through mounds of snow as high as their knees. The brutal wind howled into their faces and stung them with bits of ice. They passed between dinosaurs, snow caught on the curves of the mountainous spines and foot-long icicles hanging from the jaws like vampire fangs. It had occurred to Didi that she didn't know how many bullets remained in the Magnum automatic. Two had been fired in the inn; the gun probably held four or five if the magazine had been full. But shooting at Mary would be playing Russian roulette with David, a fact that Laura already feared. Even a shot at Mary's legs might go wild and hit him. If I were Mary, Didi thought, I'd find a place to set up an ambush. We've got the inn's lights behind us and the wind in our faces. But there was no choice but to follow the trail, and both Didi and Laura saw black spots of blood on the snow.
The furrow Mary had left behind her curved toward a tableau of dinosaurs frozen in an attitude of combat, fangs bared and claws swiping the air. The road wasn't too far beyond it. There was no sign of Mary but the trail, and snow was already blowing over it. Didi didn't like the looks of the dinosaur tableau; Mary could be hiding behind any one of the statues. She stopped, and grabbed Laura's shoulder to stop her, too. "I don't want to go through here!" she said. "Go around it!"
Laura nodded and started walking to the right of the monsters, heading for the road. Didi was two paces behind, her shoulders hunched against the wind and her body starting to shiver uncontrollably. Ice chips struck her cheeks, and she turned her head slightly to the left to protect her eyes.
That was when she saw the figure stand up from behind the tail of one of the thunder lizards, about a dozen feet away.
The big woman's face was ghastly white, snowflakes snagged in her hair. Didi could see the shine of the Silver Cloud Inn's lights in her eyes, a glint of light leaping like an electric spark from the yellow Smiley Face button on her sweater. Mary held a bundle in the crook of her left arm, her right arm outstretched and the revolver at the end of it. The gun was pointed at Laura, who hadn't yet seen the danger.
Didi had an instant of gut-wrenching terror, and she realized exactly how Mary had earned her name. Mary's expression was a white blank, without triumph or anger just the sure knowledge of who held the upper hand.
Didi's shout would be lost in the wind. There was no time for anything else. She threw herself at Laura, hitting her with a solid shoulderblock, and at the same instant she heard Mary's gun go off: crackcrack.
Laura went down on her stomach into the snow. Didi felt the bite of a bullet at her throat, and something hit her in the chest like the kick of a mule. The pain choked her, her finger spasming on the Magnum's trigger and the bullet going up into the sky. Then Laura had twisted her body, and as Mary fired again, snow kicked up where she'd been a second before. Laura saw the woman standing there, behind the dinosaur's tail, and she had an instant to make her decision. She took aim and pulled the automatic's trigger.
The bullet hit its mark: not Mary Terror, but the larger target of the dinosaur's gray-scaled hip. Chips of concrete flew up, and Mary dodged behind the monster's body. Laura got up and threw herself against the shelter of a stegosaurus's concrete-plated back. She looked at Didi, who lay on her side. Darkness was spreading around her. Laura started to crawl back to her friend, but she was stopped short when a bullet hit one of the dinosaur's spine plates next to her head and ricocheted off with a scream.
On her knees, Mary fumbled in her shoulder bag for the box of. 38 shells she'd taken from the dead man's gun cabinet. Her fingers were stiffening up and slick with icy blood. She got two more bullets into the revolver and lost two into the snow. But she was freezing, her strength going fast, and she knew she couldn't stay out in this cold much longer. Benedict Bedelia was down, the other bitch behind cover. Getting to the Cherokee was going to be tough, but it had to be done. There was no other way out.
It was time to get moving, before her legs were useless. She fired another shot at Laura, the bullet knocking a second chunk off the stegosaurus's hide, and then she stood up with Drummer and began to struggle toward the road again.
Laura peered out from her refuge and saw Mary limping through the snow. "Stop!" she shouted. "STOP!" The wind took h
er voice, and she stepped out from cover and aimed her pistol at the other woman's back.
She had a vision of the bullet passing through Mary's body and ripping into David. She lifted her gun and fired it into the air. "STOP!" she screamed, her throat raw. Mary didn't look back; she kept going with a crippled but determined stride through the white drifts.
Laura started after her. Three strides and she stopped, the gun hanging at her side. She looked at Didi, lying in a black pool. Then at Mary again, the figure drawing steadily away. Back to Didi, steam swirling up from the blood.
She turned toward Didi, walked to her side, and knelt down.
Didi's eyes were open. a creeper of blood spilled from her mouth, her face plastered with snow. She was still breathing, but it was a terrible sound. Laura looked at Mary, limping away with Drummer in her arms, about to leave the Dinosaur Gardens and reach the road.
One of Didi's hands rose up like a dying bird, and clutched the front of Laura's shoplifted sweater.
Didi's mouth moved. a soft groan emerged, taken quickly by the wind. Laura saw Didi's other hand twitch, the fingers grasping at the pocket of her jeans. There was a message in Didi's pain-shocked eyes, something she wanted Laura to understand. Didi's fingers kept clawing at the pocket with fading strength.
The pocket. Something in Didi's pocket.
Laura carefully worked her hand into it. She found the car keys and a folded piece of paper, and she brought them out together. Unfolding the paper, she made out the cracked bell of the Liberty Motor Lodge. The distant lights of the Silver Cloud Inn helped her see the names of the three men written on it, above a Smiley Face.
Didi pulled her close, and Laura bent her head down.
"Remember," Didi whispered. "He's. . . mine, too. "
Didi's hand let go of the sweater.
Laura knelt in the snow, beside her sister. at last she lifted her head, and looked toward the road.
Mary Terror was gone.
Perhaps two minutes passed. Laura realized Didi was no longer breathing. Her eyes were filling up with snow, and Laura closed them. It wasn't a hard thing to do.
Somewhere the bells of freedom were ringing.
Laura put the piece of paper into her pocket and stood up, the gun and keys in her hand. Streaks of ice were on her face, but her heart was an inferno. She began to trudge away from the dead woman, after the walking dead who had her baby. The wind hit her, tried to knock her legs out from under her, spat snow in her face, and wrenched her hair.
She walked faster, pushing through the snow like a hard-eyed engine. In another moment she roused up everything within her that could still pump out heat and she began to run. The snow grabbed at her ankles, tripped her up, and sent her sprawling. Pain tore through her broken hand, the bandages dangling down. Laura got up again, fresh tears on her face. There was no one left to hear her crying. Her companion now was agony.
She kept going, plowing the snow aside, her body shivering and her jeans and sweater and face wet, her hair white beyond her years, and the beginnings of new lines at the corners of her eyes.
She kept going because there was no going back.
Laura left the snowfield and the Dinosaur Gardens, where the prehistoric creatures were frozen for all time, and she started down the road to the car that would now carry a solitary traveler.
Mine Page 42