They were, he thought suddenly, so old. So damned old. The last time he had seen them they had been teenagers, priming themselves for graduation, for letting loose on the world what energy and dreams they had. And now their journey, whatever they had suffered, had stolen all that. Had brought them to him.
And he couldn’t heal them.
He couldn’t give them back what they had lost.
He should have been angry. He should have demanded an explanation of their expectations so he could ... what, Casey? Tell them how wrong they’ve been? Tell them what a waste of time this was?
He slowed. No anger, only a deep wrenching sadness that settled on his shoulders and made his chest and legs heavy. That made him stare at the ground as he walked, because the sun was too damn bright in his eyes.
Lisse moved on to catch up with the kids—he couldn’t think of them as anything but that—and John couldn’t find anything useful to do with his hands. They burrowed into his pockets, fussed with his hair, rubbed his face, his chest, the back of his neck.
Casey couldn’t stand it any longer. “You think it’s bullshit, too?”
Bannock shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know because I don’t know what’s going on, not really.”
“Yeah, you do.”
A lopsided smile. “Then maybe I still don’t want to believe it.”
“No one does, John. It’s the nature of the beast.”
At the top of the bend they watched the others talking in the street. Cora pulling at the ragged cut she’d made of her hair, as if demonstrating a sacrifice she’d made, Reed hanging back as he spoke to Lisse, Lisse herself bowing her head and kicking at invisible pebbles on the tarmac.
As Casey approached, they separated, Cora glaring defiantly at him.
“I am not,” she said, “staying in there.” She pointed at his house.
Casey nodded his understanding, held up a hand to keep her where she was, and went inside, opened a kitchen drawer, and pulled out two sets of keys. Back on the street he tossed one to her. “These are for that one,” he said, indicating with his chin the house directly across from his. The other set he gave to John, told him he could stay in the house next to his.
“The electricity and water are still on. Bedclothes and things are up to you, for however long you plan to stay.”
“What about the owner?” Reed asked, his tone anxious to keep things calm.
“He won’t care. And if he does, I’ll fix it.”
Cora immediately went to John’s car and stood at the trunk impatiently, until John unlocked it. She grabbed a battered duffel bag from inside and lugged it across the street. “Come on, Reed. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
With an apologetic shrug, he grabbed his own bag and followed.
Casey couldn’t think of anything to say despite the urge to run after them and shake them both until they at least pretended they understood.
Then, at the foot of the porch steps, Cora turned and yelled, “Hey, Chisholm, I forgot—merry Christmas!” before she disappeared inside.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t respond.
Without bothering to close the trunk lid, Lisse took the keys from John and drove the car down to the house they would use. After she parked, she only looked back once before beginning the chore of unpacking her own things, pausing as she did to watch a pair of black-mask gulls soar low over the yard, complaining to themselves.
John poked at the hedge, pulled his hand back with a mild curse. “Sharp,” he said.
Casey smiled. “That’s what thorns do.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” He examined a drop of blood gleaming on the heel of his hand, wiped it off on his coat and stepped away, his head darting toward him and away like a bird examining something odd on the ground.
“Think of this, Casey,” he said at last. “I had my son, and you had that woman.”
Don’t, Casey thought.
“We both know which one is riding now. No brain surgery there.”
Don’t.
“But did you ever wonder if there was somebody else? When you heard about all those people dying in the streets, all those old folks and all those children, did you ever wonder if there was someone marked for the one who spread the disease? Now that you’ve seen me, are you wondering if that person, whoever it is, if that one survived too?”
Casey finally looked at him, his expression blank, uncaring.
“We’re here, Casey. God knows why, but we’re here. What are you going to do if that other one shows up? Are you going to tell him that he’s wasted his time too?”
“Not my problem anymore,” he said flatly. “And it’s not yours either.”
John walked away, half turned as he did, and said, “Maybe so. Maybe you’re right. I’ll believe you a lot better, though, if you can tell me with a straight face that you haven’t heard the horses.”
* * * *
PART 5
* * * *
1
1
T
he car was so dark it seemed to absorb the night.
When it reached the first leg of the Camoret Causeway, the driver said, “Just a few more minutes, Mr. Stone.”
In the backseat a man held a crystal glass half filled with rye. In his more playful moments, he called it rotgut, just to see if anyone knew what he was talking about. He wore a dark suit, a dark cashmere topcoat, on the seat beside him a derby he brushed clean every night. The suit was Saville Row, the shoes Italian, the shirt French, the leather gloves Spanish, the watch one of a kind from a small shop in Montreal.
“Remind me,” he said, his voice baritone smooth.
“Cutler,” the driver answered. “Norville Cutler. His partner is the mayor, Jasper Cribbs. An obstacle to what they implied was a land development deal. An old man and his retarded son.”
“An old black man, right?”
“Yes.”
Stone held the glass up, examined its contents. “Are we politically correct these days, Dutch?”
The driver’s laugh was a series of high-pitched chokes and wheezes.
“I didn’t think so. I assume they have local boys?”
“Yes, sir, they do. Apparently, not as effective as they’d like.”
“Obviously.” He took a sip, and mock-shuddered. “Is there a timetable?”
“They’d prefer Monday.”
“What’s the matter with tomorrow?”
“It’s Christmas.”
“So?”
The driver shrugged.
“And I suppose the next day is out because it’s Sunday.”
“I suppose so, sir.”
“Oh well. They pay the bills, they can call some of the shots.” He laughed. “As it were.”
The car slid over Hawkins Island and rumbled onto the next leg. Starlight shone off the sea on either side; Camoret’s lights shone like stars straight ahead.
“The local law,” the man said.
“A sheriff who’s on his way to retirement.”
“Ah, my favorite kind.”
“One deputy on our side, the others too scared to stand one way or the other.”
“Ah, my favorite kind.”
The driver wheeze-laughed. .
“Local opposition?”
“We’re not going to be lynched, sir, if that’s what you mean. Evidently there’s been a lot of noise, the usual kind—people complaining about land being taken off the tax rolls, suspected big money moving to take over the island, a few editorials in a weekly newspaper not big enough to wrap a fish in ... that’s about it.”
“This,” the man said, “is almost too easy.” He took another sip. “We’d best be careful, Dutch. We don’t want to get overconfident or careless.”
“No, sir.”
“Right. So turn on the radio.”
“It’ll still be Christmas carols.”
“I don’t care. I’m in a good mood now. They won’t spoil it. In fact, I’m feeling right in the mood.”
“I think so.”
“Call him.”
The driver used one hand to dial a number on a cell phone, then handed it over his shoulder. The man in back took it with murmured thanks and held it to his ear, sipping as he waited for the connection to be made.
Then: “Mr. Cutler, Merry Christmas. This is Santa Claus, about to land on your lively little paradise in the sea.”
* * * *
2
Casey stood far from the church, under the wide branches of a tree old enough to be his great-grandfather. There was a sharp-edged moon, there were diamond stars, there was enough chill in the air for it to be no other season than winter. It would have been perfect had there been any snow.
He hadn’t planned to be here.
He didn’t want to be here now.
Earlier that evening, however, he had been standing in the living room, a sandwich in his hand, and he had seen the kids rush out of the house and across the street. By the time they reached Bannock’s car, John and Lisse had joined them, and they all got in and they all drove away.
Not one looked in his direction.
Not one had spoken to him since he’d left them on Wednesday.
He knew, though, that they had been discovering the island. Driving down the harbor to check out the boats, the houses on the Hook’s slope, the handful of restaurants down there; walking up and down the main business district, checking the shops, having a late lunch at Betsy’s, last night having a drink first at the Tide, then at the Edward Teach. As far as he knew, they had never mentioned his name, except to say they knew him back when and had dropped in to see how he was doing.
Junior told him this.
Early this morning he had ridden up on his scooter, a large bag of warm food in the carrier.
“Mrs. Nazario,” he said when Casey met him at the steps. “She says you are supposed to be eating. I think she’s mad at you, Mr. Chisholm. I think Mr. Nazario isn’t mad at you, but I think she’s really mad at you, Mr. Chisholm.”
“I’m sorry if she is,” he’d said.
Then, his left hand fluttering around his left shoulder, he looked at the houses and said, “There are people around, they say they know you. Do they know you, Mr. Chisholm? Do they really know you from the time when you didn’t live here but lived somewhere else?”
He had nodded, said nothing.
Junior told him what his father had told him, what he had heard in the luncheonette. “I know they think I don’t hear good, but I do. I think they don’t know I know.”
Casey smiled. “Yeah, Junior, I know the feeling.”
Junior had shaken his head. Flapped his arms. “Lots of new people here, I can’t keep sense of them all. Does your friend have a fancy coat and hat?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Boy, one of them does. Funny hat.” He tugged at his own, this one with flaps he never tied under his chin, but just as vibrantly red. “Really funny hat. Funny face, too. Holes in it, Mr. Chisholm. Got holes in it all over. His friend has a mustache this big, too.” He stretched his arms out as far as they would go. “Funny.”
Casey smiled again.
When Junior left, wishing him a merry Christmas and hoping Santa Claus would visit and bring him lots of stuff, he had returned to the house and sat in the living room. The television stayed off; he didn’t think he could stand seeing another day of dying.
He tried to read, but somehow the book’s language didn’t seem to be English.
He tried singing to himself, but somehow he’d forgotten just where all the notes were.
He fixed a leak in the kitchen sink, scrubbed the bathtub and the bathroom sink, swept the floors and vacuumed the rugs, and spent too damn much time standing at the living room window, wondering if maybe he should make the first move.
When they all left, he ate the rest of the sandwich, used the dust pan and a brush to wipe up the crumbs, and decided to make an early night of it. If he turned on the TV, there’d only be church services and five different versions of A Christmas Carol, not one of them his favorite, the one with Alistair Sim.
A few minutes before eleven, he put on his coat, grabbed his gloves, and went out.
Fresh night air might help him think, although what he had to think about, he surely didn’t know.
Things; that’s all, things.
Before he knew it, he had found the tree, and the spot beneath where he could watch and not be seen. Far beyond the reach of the nearest street lamp.
The carillon had played “The First Noel” and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” and he had sung along with them, under his breath, watching his breath slip into the night and fade. He noticed how many cars were parked along the street, and wondered how many others had been driven to the mainland and parked on streets similar to this.
How many people were left on Camoret Island?
A stir of annoyance at himself.
So what are you doing, Casey? Standing out here in the cold like a Dickens orphan? You feeling sorry for yourself, boy? You feeling a little lonely? You hoping Cora or Reed will come running out of the church and straight into your arms, beg your forgiveness, and drag you back inside where you’ll take your place at the altar while the congregation applauds and weeps and welcomes you home?
What are you looking for, you stupid son of a bitch? You looking for a damn miracle?
Or just a good reason to die.
* * * *
He waited a while longer—for what, he didn’t know—then decided it was time to head back. If he kept well to the side of the road and used the trees wisely, they’d never know he’d been here. No embarrassing questions, no need to lie.
Assuming, of course, they bothered to talk to him.
A last look, a sour smile, and he turned to leave, hadn’t left the protection of the tree when he saw a car glide toward him from the north. Its headlights turned the interlocking branches into cage bars, but they didn’t touch him as he pressed closer to the trunk.
This late at night, he couldn’t help wondering why the vehicle was moving so slowly. Almost as if its occupants needed the time to check things out. Except, since it was halfway to midnight, there wasn’t much to see—Christmas lights on the houses, the lights spanning Midway much farther down, and that was about it.
The engine barely made a sound.
As it passed his spot, he tried to see inside, but all the windows were tinted; he couldn’t even see the dashboard’s glow. And once past the church and the bulk of parked cars, it sped up abruptly and vanished, leaving only a blurred taillight trail behind.
A shrug, a tilt of his head, and he began the trip home. Long strides and swinging arms, not bothering to look behind him because he figured he’d hear any cars first and have plenty of time to get out of the way. Or hide.
He quickened his pace when the carillon sang again, “Joy to the World,” sounding distant and small.
Midnight, then.
Merry Christmas.
“Stop it,” he whispered harshly. “Stop it, no one’s listening, no one cares.”
He broke into a trot when he reached his front walk, had the door closed behind him just as John’s car pulled up, made a U-turn, and parked. Lisse got out first, the kids climbing out of the back. Their voices were loud, exuberant, and he watched them give over to a round of hugs before separating.
Only John looked his way, and might have come to the door had not Lisse grabbed his hand, laughed, and pulled him away.
When the street was silent again, Casey took off his coat and gloves, tossed them onto the couch, and went upstairs. He made to pass the storeroom, changed his mind, and went in, crossed over to the closet, and stared at the door.
It was open.
Less than an inch, but it was open.
This time
he didn’t curse it, or kick it, or turn his back to it. He closed it gently with the fingers of one hand, pushing until he heard the latch catch, then reluctantly took his hand away.
It’s the season, he told himself as he headed for bed; it’s the season, and the sentiment, it’s nothing you haven’t been through before. Forget it. Ignore it. Sleep in tomorrow, eat, read, and before you know it, Christmas will be gone.
Riders in the Sky - [Millennium Quartet 04] Page 29