Will tried to speak, could not at first find his voice, then said simply “Mm hm.”
“That’ll be good for the spuds. Especially if we have a dry year.” Suddenly the moon slid full and powerful into a gash in the cloud-cover. He looked over Will’s head and saw a dark form caught against a bush at the edge of the water. The pale shafts of three cane arrows glowed in the moonlight. By the bulk of the body it could be no one else but Freeway.
Frost led Will slowly back again through the graves, among the markers made visible but ghostly by the moon. He said “You can go and sleep at Arthurlaing’s tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Just for tonight.”
“Where’s Noor?”
“She’ll be along. She’s fine.”
They walked back to the domicile. At the steps Frost squatted and held both of Will’s hands. He said “You’re a brave boy, Will. I’m proud of you. Very proud.” He stood and kissed Will on the head and said “You go in now.”
He crossed the muddy ground to the barns and took down Beauty’s rope halter. Beauty snorted as he approached her, and he could smell the sweet breath. He led her out and beside the fence and stepped up onto a two-by-four and sat onto the broad back.
Will had gone in. Frost did not stop to look into the window of his apartment. He did not even turn toward it. He rode up onto the bridge.
There were no bodies now, but Beauty tossed her head, and Frost felt her shiver as she trod through the sheets of blood. Noor and Tyrell stood together on the eastern sidewalk. Frost stopped beside them.
Tyrell said “The cockroach got away.”
Frost said nothing. He looked at Noor for a long time, as his granddaughter looked back. Finally he nodded, and she did as well. Then he looked down at his hands and seemed startled that they were empty. Tyrell handed him his sword. Noor stepped forward and held her spear for him to take. But as he reached for it she took his hand in her free hand and kissed the calloused palm and held it against her wet cheek. Then she let him take the spear, and Frost clucked and twitched the reins.
He did not pause by the rickshaw. But at the bottom of the bridge people were approaching, and Frost stopped and waited and said “Don’t be afraid. It’s only me. Frost.”
A woman’s voice replied “We want to go to your farm.”
“Didn’t they leave guards?”
“They ran away.”
“Yes, go.”
And they passed, young Snow and the other women of Wing’s farm. Having stopped, Frost looked back up the bridge. There was only one figure now at the top of the bridge. He could not tell if it was Tyrell or Noor.
He rode east along Marine Trail, well above the river. He passed the pale rectangular facades of vanished commerce that at first lined the way. In the intervals when the moon revealed the river below he sometimes saw outlined against the water the chimneys of houses whose wood had long ago been burned for fuel. He saw rows of steel wall studs like the plainest of skeletons. In the obscure parking lots from time to time he caught a glimmer of windshield glass through a mound of blackberry. He let Beauty find the trail, and he let her plod eastward at her own slow pace, swinging and planting the immense hooves.
From the north, from the easternmost wilderness of Town, came a constant high-pitched wailing of coyotes. He heard also the ceaseless flow of water in creeks and ravines eroded into the slopes north of the trail. He crossed long stretches of mud lying on the old road, and three times he had to dismount and lead Beauty over wide mud hills, as both the man and the horse sank to their knees. Once Frost heard a portion of earth let go and grumble slowly down the slope to his right. A little further on he stopped and looked back and waited for the moon. When it slipped for half a minute into a slash in the clouds he glimpsed a figure a few hundred yards behind. Perhaps someone following. He sniffed, rubbed his cold nose and continued.
He slipped one hand under his poncho as he rode, to warm against his stomach. In the other he gripped the reins and the sword and the spear. He passed Wing’s Bridge with the rain starting up again and eventually came to Skaggers’ Bridge and recrossed the river in the dark.
52
Frost studied the house from the top of the driveway. The two-storey building from the good times was dark. But to the left, in two of the low sprawling additions, windows were lit. The larger of the two additions was joined to the rear of the smaller one and protruded beyond it. In the single window of the part that protruded there was a strong but wavering light of candles. The much weaker light in the window of the closer and smaller addition seemed to originate from those same candles. There was a smell of wood smoke.
Frost let Beauty pick her way down the weed-grown drive but then had to urge her on until she stood beside the tall set of front door concrete steps. He slipped off her back onto one of the steps and went stiffly down and turned toward the carport and left the horse standing there. At the back end of the carport the white piano was dimly visible. The door from the carport into the basement opened quietly, as if the hinges had been oiled regularly. For a minute Frost stood staring into the dark of the basement. Then he leaned his spear against the wall outside and, holding only his sword, stepped through the door.
The darkness was not complete. A ragged hole in in the far wall was lit by weak light from the first addition. The illumination was not strong enough to show Frost a way across the sixty feet of basement. He stepped carefully, feeling ahead with his feet and with the sword. There was a skittering of rodents’ feet nearby, above the floor, perhaps on a table. There was a lingering smell of dirty bodies and garments. The hole in the wall was covered with a sheet of clear poly that twisted the light as Frost came closer. He reached, touched the poly, waited, listened. He heard the distant rain and the whoosh of his own blood in his ears, nothing else. With the back of his hand he slowly pushed the plastic aside. It was very loud. He stepped over the concrete foundation and let the plastic fall closed behind him.
He now stood on an earth path that led erratically between heaps of objects piled shoulder high. Here, there was enough light for him to move steadily forward. He did not turn his head to observe the skewed silhouettes of wide-screen televisions. He ignored the laptop computers stacked like bricks, and the armchairs tumbled together like wrestlers unable to budge. He stepped past a tangle of coffee tables giving off a smell of rot, past floor lamps and lawnmowers spaced like sentinels, past fishing rods reaching into the poor light, past washers, driers, electric ranges, leaf blowers, vacuum cleaners, table saws.
The path turned sharply to the right. Twenty feet ahead was the entrance to the second addition. There was no doorway, just an open space in the wall, and the stronger light. Frost stopped. The rain was loud above his head, with drops falling regularly and with varying sounds on the expanse of commodities all about. He went to the opening in the wall and stopped again. Ahead the earth path was lined every four feet or so with burning candles, large free-standing ones, Christmas candles. Among the mounds of goods there was now a lot of chrome: toasters, bathtub taps, century-old antique bread boxes, tables and chairs with chromed legs; and the light of the candles danced upon these objects. The air was suddenly very warm.
Frost crept forward. At the third candle the path turned left. Here Frost waited again and listened. There were fewer drops splashing upon the commodities. He heard a crackle of burning wood.
“Is that you, Frost? Come on around here so’s we can talk.”
Langley’s anxious and aggressive whine.
“No point in hidin’ back there. None at all.”
On Frost’s left, split cordwood was stacked head high, with a dozen mobile phones heaped on a protruding chunk of fir. He leaned forward, looked past the wood. He pulled his head back. He gave a small grunt. He leaned back against the piled wood and closed his eyes. A mobile phone dislodged and fell against a piece of cordwood and burst open, and the battery bounced from Frost’s muddy sandal.
Langley said “Come on, Frost, fo
r Christ sake. It’s only us.”
Frost pushed himself away from the cordwood and transferred the sword to his left hand and wiped his right hand against his shirt under his poncho and took the sword in his right hand again. He shook his head. He stepped forward.
Langley said “Well, there you are. Welcome to my place.”
He was seated in a stuffed black leather armchair, in jeans and the T-shirt that said Pink Floyd. Blood stained the entire left shoulder and sleeve of the shirt, and Langley’s arm, resting on an arm of the chair, was streaked with blood that had been partially wiped or washed away but was now dried. His legs were spread wide, and Grace was seated on the floor between them, with her back against his crotch.
Grace’s legs were stretched straight out on the earth. She wore a green silk dress with a low neckline. The light of the candles and light escaping from the butterfly-shaped damper of an airtight heating stove that stood a few feet to Langley’s left made the fabric of the dress seem to move, although Grace was as still as a stone. She wore three strands of pearls. She had no shoes. The bottoms of her feet were dirty. Her hands rested flat beside her.
Langley said “You can see how it is, Frost.”
In his right hand he held a knife, the blade of which was pressed against Grace’s throat. It was a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade that seemed to reflect more light than was possible.
He said “My god damn soldiers that were here took off on me. Ain’t that somethin’? Unless Grace here chased them off.” He closed his legs a little and jostled Grace and said “Did you chase them off, darlin’?” But he did not look away from Frost.
The three were silent for a minute as Frost stared at Grace. Her grey hair had been pulled straight back in an attempt to match the refinement of the green dress. But the face had gone entirely to skull and a slack covering of skin. She let her head droop forward over the blade. Lifted it. Looked again at Frost. Let it fall. Lifted it. There was no expression on her face beyond the weight of drowsiness. The only life in the eyes was from the candle flames. On her throat, along the edge of the knife, there was a thin line of blood.
Frost sighed. His shoulders slumped. He shrugged, shook his head a little. He stood there with rainwater trickling from his poncho, down his wrists and dripping from his fingertips and from the tip of his sword. He looked away from Langley and Grace, looked down at the worn earth floor dotted with a few tiny puddles. He stepped forward.
Langley said “That’ll do, Frost. You best stay back a bit. That’s a long sword you got in your hand.”
Frost stopped, lifted his head, looked around. A wide circle of piled artefacts surrounded Langley’s stuffed armchair and the stove. To Frost’s left, on top of the stacked cordwood, sat a device with a metallic finish. It had a prominent black handle that protruded below a row of buttons and the word Cuisinart. Frost reached with his left hand, touched it.
Langley said “Yeah. That’s my espresso maker. Ain’t it somethin’? It come from the Church Gang.”
Frost tugged very slowly on the black handle until the device fell at his feet. The handle popped loose. It was attached to a sort of cup.
Langley called “Hey! Don’t you go bustin’ my stuff!” He sat up straight in his chair. The knife must have slipped a little against Grace’s throat, because a narrow film of blood crawled down behind the pearls and between her breasts. Yet she did not move, and her empty expression did not change.
Langley said “Shit, I don’t care about that stuff anyway. I’ve decided to leave it all behind. You want my stuff, Frost? You can have it. I got stuff you ain’t even dreamed of. What about this woman? What about Grace? You want Grace? You want Grace alive? That’s fine by me. If I can leave my stuff behind I can leave this woman. She’s nothin’ to me anyway. In business she’s what we call a bargainin’ chip. But I do like that dress. And them pearls.”
Frost bent, picked up the black handle of the espresso-maker, sniffed the cup-like end of it, let it fall. He still did not look at Langley. Sticking to the edge of the empty circle of earth, he walked slowly along the perimeter formed by the piled commodities, the appliances, the furniture, the electronic gadgets.
“Anyway, it’s all yours, Frost. Stuff, woman, dress, pearls, the whole kit and caboodle. All’s you got to do is hand over that there sword. That’s more than a fair trade, sounds like to me. I’ll say goodbye to Grace down the trail a piece and head off in search of a new business venture. We’ll be done with each other once and for all.”
Frost stopped at the stove. Using a fold of his poncho he pinched the handle of the lid and pivoted it open. He stared down into the flames, which painted the dripping white beard and the creased skin and the rain-specked glasses with an intense light.
“That there’s my airtight. You feel how warm it makes a place?”
Without closing the lid Frost stepped back and kicked the stove. It rocked on its feet. The light of the flames shook against the ceiling of criss-crossed boards and tarpaper and roofing shingles. The stovepipe came noisily apart. From the section that was still attached to the stove smoke poured into the room.
Langley said “Now don’t go burnin’ this place down! You ain’t goin’ crazy here, are you? I hear you go crazy sometimes. Well, if you want this here woman to stay alive you better start thinkin’ a little clearer and stop wreckin’ my stuff!” His voice had the angry whine of a wasp. “Jesus, look what you done! We’re going to choke on smoke. I know what you’re doin’. You’re tryin’ to shake me up. Bustin’ my stuff. But I’m past getting’ shook up. I’m, past it, Frost. So let’s get this here deal done so’s we can both hit the road. Just give me your god damn sword.”
Frost spoke at last. He looked directly at Langley. His voice was tired and rough. “I should’ve done this a long time ago.”
“What? You should’ve done what?”
“Done what I’m going to do. Good people would still be alive. It’s my fault they’re not.”
“Hey! Hey, listen! You ain’t going to do nothin. You want to talk about fault – well, listen to this. It’s goin’ to be your fault when this here woman’s throat is cut open! That’s what’s going to be your fault. And it’s going to be your doin’ if she lives! Ain’t that clear? What the hell could ever be clearer than that?”
Frost stared at Grace. She had turned her head to watch the business at the stove. This must have caused Langley’s knife to bite, because the ribbon of blood crawling down her chest was an inch wider.
But the dead eyes had changed. They had come to life. She smiled fully, openly. She said “Frost.”
Frost started, as if from an electric shock. He let out a ragged sob. He waited another minute, watching Grace, watching the eyes and the smile, which did not change. Then he looked away and took the blade of his sword in his left hand and let go of the handle with his right. He waited again, staring at the ground. He coughed from the smoke. He stepped forward, holding the weapon out, offering it. He nodded to Langley.
“That’s better, Frost. Now we’ll be done with this business.”
Frost stepped closer. Langley leaned to take the sword.
Grace lifted her hands from the earth floor. Frost looked puzzled, then afraid. Grace stopped smiling. She closed her eyes. She pushed both hands hard against the blade of the knife. She twisted her head, once left, once right.
Blood sprayed across Frost’s legs and hissed against the stove. He shouted “No!” and reached toward Grace. But Langley pulled the knife away and drew back his foot and pushed Grace with it, and she fell sideways and lay there looking with fading eyes into her own pooling blood.
Langley stood. He gaped at his bloodied jeans and hiking boots. He said “Jesus!”
Frost reached toward Grace, bent his knees to kneel, but Langley hacked at him with the knife. Frost dropped the sword. He stumbled away and fell to his knees but rose again and staggered backward. His left arm hung limp at his side. His poncho was sliced open and there was a deep gash below his shou
lder, with blood pulsing from it. As Frost glanced at the wound, blood started dripping from his fingertips.
Langley said “I guess we got to do this the messy way.” His own left arm also hung useless. He ignored the sword at his feet, stepped past it. He coughed from the thickening smoke and blinked his eyes and wiped them with the back of the hand that held the knife.
Frost moved along the wall of goods to a place beside the stove. There was a chrome-edged table with a matching chair lying on it. Frost tugged at a leg of the chair, but it was snagged firmly on something and would not come loose.
Langley stepped rapidly toward Frost.
Frost grabbed a leg of the table itself and pulled viciously, and it slid out from under the things heaped on it, which crashed one upon the other. Frost dragged the table between him and Langley, but Langley kicked it against Frost and leaned and hacked with the knife again and opened a profound gash across his chest. Frost moved to his right, but Langley stepped sideways and stood in Grace’s blood and blocked the way. Frost went back behind the table and searched again among the commodities, but there was nothing he could grip with his one working hand.
With a foot Langley found a leg of the table and nudged it out of his way. Frost held the opposite leg. Then he heaved his end of the table upward and threw himself against it between the legs. But the table twisted and did not hit Langley squarely. Frost`s glasses flew from his face. Langley elbowed the table aside and lunged and sank the length of the blade into Frost`s abdomen and jerked it out.
Frost gave a long choked cry. He doubled over and twisted and hobbled away.
Since Tomorrow Page 34