“Yeah. There was smoke in the air.”
Hugh nodded. “Smoke. Chimneys. Fires for people trying to keep warm. I think the field you’re searching for—if there is such a place—may be near Mary’s Rest.”
“How far is Mary’s Rest from here?” Sister asked Robin.
“Seven or eight miles, I guess. Maybe more. I’ve never been there, but we’ve sure robbed a lot of people who were going in and out. That was a while back, though. Not so many travel this way anymore.”
“There’s not enough gas in the Jeep to make that distance,” Paul reminded Sister. “I doubt if we’d make a mile.”
“I don’t mean seven or eight miles by road,” Robin corrected. “I mean that far overland. It’s southwest of here, through the woods, and the going’s rough. Six of my men scouted a trail over there about a year ago. Two of them made it back, and they said there wasn’t anything worth stealing in Mary’s Rest. They’d probably rob us if they could.”
“If we can’t drive, we’ll have to walk.” Sister picked up her satchel and slipped the glass ring into it. Her hands were shaking.
Robin grunted. “Sister,” he said, “I don’t mean any disrespect, but you’re crazy. Seven miles on foot wouldn’t be what I’d call a real fun thing to do. You know, we probably saved your lives stopping your Jeep like we did. You’d be frozen to death by now if we hadn’t.”
“We have to get to Mary’s Rest—or at least I do. Paul and Hugh can decide for themselves. I’ve come a hell of a lot further than seven miles to get here, and a little cold’s not going to stop me now.”
“It’s not just the distance, or the cold. It’s what’s out there in the deep woods.”
“What?” Hugh asked uneasily, hobbling forward on his crutch.
“Oh, some real interesting wildlife. Things that look like they were hatched in some mad doctor’s zoo. Hungry things. You don’t want one of those things to catch you out in the woods at night.”
“I should say not,” Hugh agreed.
“I have to get to Mary’s Rest,” Sister said firmly, and her set expression told Robin her mind was made up. “All I need is some food, warm clothes and my shotgun. I’ll make out okay.”
“Sister, you won’t make a mile before you get lost—or eaten.”
She looked at Paul Thorson. “Paul?” she asked. “Are you still with me?”
He hesitated, glanced toward the gloomy light at the cave’s entrance and then at the fire the boys were starting by rubbing two sticks together. Damn! he thought. I never could do that when I was a Cub Scout! It might not be too late to learn, though. Still, they’d come so far, and they might be so close to finding the answer they sought. He watched the fire spark and catch, but he’d already decided. “I’m with you.”
“Hugh?” she prompted.
“I want to go with you,” he said, “I really do. But I have a patient.” He glanced at the sleeping boy. “I want to know what—and who—you find when you get to Mary’s Rest, but… I think I’m needed here, Sister. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt useful. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She’d already decided to talk Hugh out of going, anyway; there was no way he could make the distance on one leg, and he’d only slow them down. “I do understand.” She looked at Robin. “We’ll want to be leaving as soon as we can get our gear together. I’ll be needing my shotgun and the shells—if that’s all right with you.”
“You’ll need more than that to make it.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll want to return Paul’s gun and bullets to him, too. And we can use whatever food and clothes you can spare.”
Robin laughed, but his eyes remained hard. “We’re supposed to be the robbers, Sister!”
“Just give us back what you stole from us, then. We’ll call it even.”
“Anybody ever tell you you were crazy?” he asked.
“Yes. Tougher punks than you.”
A faint smile spread slowly across his face, and his eyes softened. “Okay,” he said, “you’ll get your stuff back. I guess you’ll need it more than us.” He paused thoughtfully, then said, “Hold on,” and he went over to his bed of leaves. He bent down and started going through a cardboard box full of tin cans, knives, watches, shoelaces, and other items. He found what he was looking for and returned to Sister. “Here,” he said, placing something in her hand. “You’ll need this, too.”
It was a small metal compass that looked like it might have come from a CrackerJack box.
“It works, too,” he told her. “At least, it worked when I took it off a dead man a couple of weeks ago.”
“Thanks. I hope it’s luckier for me than it was for him.”
“Yeah. Well… you can have this, too, if you want it.” Robin unbuttoned the brown coat from around his throat. Against his pallid skin he was wearing a tarnished little crucifix on a silver chain. He started to take it off, but Sister touched his hand to restrain him.
“That’s all right.” And she pulled her woolen muffler away from her neck to show him the crucifix-shaped scar that had been burned there in the Forty-second Street theater long before. “I’ve got my own.”
“Yeah.” Robin nodded. “I guess you do.”
Their coats, sweaters and gloves were returned to Paul and Sister, along with their guns, bullets for Paul’s Magnum and shells for Sister’s shotgun. A can of baked beans and some dried squirrel meat wrapped up in leaves found their way into a duffel bag that was returned to Sister, along with an all-purpose knife and a bright orange woolen cap. Robin gave both of them wristwatches, and a search of another cardboard box of booty yielded three kitchen matches.
Paul siphoned the last of the gasoline from the Jeep’s tank into a small plastic milk jug, and it barely wet the bottom. But the jug was securely sealed with tape and put down into the duffel bag, to be used to strengthen a fire.
It was as light as it was going to get outside. The sky was dingy, and there was no way to tell where the sun was. Sister’s watch said ten twenty-two; Paul’s said three thirteen.
It was time to go.
“Ready?” Sister asked Paul.
He looked longingly at the fire for a moment and then said, “Yeah.”
“Good luck!” Hugh called, hobbling to the mouth of the cave as they started out. Sister lifted a gloved hand, then pulled her collar up around the muffler at her throat. She checked the compass, and Paul followed her toward the woods.
Sixty-one
A decent wish
“There it is.” Glory pointed to the hulk of a gray-boarded barn half hidden within a grove of trees. Two other structures had collapsed, and from one of them protruded a crumbling red brick chimney. “Aaron found this place a while back,” she said as Josh walked with her toward the barn and Mule tagged along. “Nobody lives out here, though.” She motioned toward a well-worn trail that went past the decayed structures and deeper into the forest. “The Pit’s not too far.”
The Pit, as Josh understood it, was the community’s burial ground—a trench into which hundreds of bodies had been lowered over the years. “Jackson used to say a few words over the dead,” Glory said. “Now that he’s gone, they just toss ’em in and forget ’em.” She glanced at him. “Swan came mighty close to joinin’ ’em last night. What’d she think she was doin’ out there?”
“I don’t know.” Swan had lapsed into unconsciousness when they’d gotten her to the shack. Josh and Glory had cleaned her hands and bandaged them with strips of cloth, and they could feel the fever radiating from her. They’d left Aaron and Rusty to watch over her while Josh fulfilled his promise to find shelter for Mule, but he was half crazy with worry; without medicine, proper food or even decent drinking water, what hope did she have? Her body was so broken down with exhaustion that the fever might kill her. He remembered her last words to him before she’d faded away: “Josh, I’ve gone blind.”
His hands gripped into fists at his sides. Protect the child, he thought. Sure. You’ve done a real fine job of t
hat, haven’t you?
He didn’t know why she’d slipped out of the shack last night, but it was obvious she’d been digging in the hard earth. Thank God Mule had had the sense to know she was in trouble, or today they’d be taking Swan’s body to the—
No. He refused to think about that. She’d get better. He knew she would.
They passed the rusted remains of a car—minus doors, wheels, engine and hood—and Glory pulled the barn’s door open. It was dark and chilly inside, but at least the wind was blunted. Soon Josh’s vision grew accustomed to the gloom. There were two stalls with a little straw on the floor and a trough in which Josh could melt some snow for Mule to drink. On the walls hung ropes and harness gear, but there were no windows an animal might crawl through. It seemed a safe enough place to leave him, and at least he’d be sheltered.
Josh saw what looked like a pile of junk on the other side of the barn and walked over to examine it. He found some broken-up chairs, a lamp without bulb or wiring, a small lawn mower and a coil of barbed wire. A mouse-eaten blue blanket covered more junk, and Josh lifted it away to see what was underneath.
“Glory,” he said softly. “Come take a look.”
She walked over beside him, and he ran his fingers across the cracked glass screen of a television set. “I haven’t seen one of these in a while,” he said wistfully, “I guess the ratings are pretty low these days, huh?” He punched the on-off button and started to turn through the channels, but the knob came off in his hand.
“Not worth a damn,” Glory said. “Just like everything else.”
The TV was supported on some sort of desk with rollers on it, and Josh picked up the set, turned it around and pulled the pressboard off to reveal the tube and the jungle of wires within. He felt about as dumb as a caveman, peering into a magic box that had once been a commonplace luxury—no, necessity—for millions of American homes. Without power, it was as useless as a stone—probably less so, really, because a stone could be used to kill rodents for the stewpot.
He set the TV aside, along with the other junk. It was going to take a smarter man than he to make juice run through wires and boxes show pictures that moved and spoke again, he mused. He bent down to the floor and found a box full of what looked like old wooden candlesticks. Another box held dusty bottles. He saw some pieces of paper scattered on the floor and picked up one. It was an announcement, and the faded red letters said Antique Auction! Jefferson City Flea Market! Saturday, June 5! Come Early, Stay Late! He opened his hand and let the announcement drift back to the floor and settle with a noise like a sigh amid the other pieces of yesterday’s news.
“Josh? What’s this thing?”
Glory was touching the desk with the rollers on it. Her hand found a small crank, and as she turned it there was the rattling noise of a chain moving over rusted gears. The rollers turned as achingly as old men revolving in their sleep. A number of rubber-cushioned pads were activated by the hand crank, coming down to press briefly against the rollers and then return to their original positions. Josh saw a small metal tray affixed to the other end of the desk; he picked up a few of the flea market announcements and put them in the tray. “Keep turning the crank,” he said, and they watched as the rollers and pads grasped one piece of paper at a time, fed them through a slot into the depths of the machine and delivered them to another tray at the opposite end. Josh found a sliding panel, pushed it back and looked into an arrangement of more rollers, trays of metal type and a dried-up series of spongy surfaces that Josh realized must have once been ink pads.
“We’ve got us a printing press,” he said. “How about that? Must be an old knocker, but it’s in pretty good shape.” He touched the close-grained oak of the press’s cabinet. “This was somebody’s labor of love. Sure is a shame to let it sit out here and rot.”
“Might as well rot here as anywhere else.” She grunted. “That’s the damnedest thing!”
“What is?”
“Before Jackson died… he wanted to start up a newspaper—just a little handout sheet. He said havin’ some kind of town newspaper would make everybody feel like more of a community. You know, people would take more of an interest in everybody else instead of shuttin’ themselves away. He didn’t even know this thing was out here. ’Course, that was just a dream.” She ran her hand across the oak next to Josh’s. “He had a lot of dreams that died.” Her hand touched his and quickly pulled away.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Josh could still feel the heat of her hand against his own. “He must’ve been a fine man,” he offered.
“He was. He had a good heart and a strong back, and he didn’t mind gettin’ his hands dirty. Before I met Jackson, I had a pretty rough life. I was full up with bad men and hard drinkin’. Been on my own since I was thirteen.” She smiled slightly. “A girl grows up fast. Well, I guess Jackson wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty on me, ’cause I’d sure be dead if he hadn’t turned me around. What about you? You have a wife?”
“Yes. An ex-wife, I mean. And two sons.”
Glory turned the hand crank and watched the rollers work. “What happened to ’em?”
“They were in south Alabama. When the bombs hit, I mean.” He drew a deep breath, slowly released it. “Down in Mobile. There’s a naval station in Mobile. Nuclear submarines, all kinds of ships. Was a naval station there, at least.” He watched Mule chomping at the straw on the floor. “Maybe they’re still alive. Maybe not. I… I guess it’s bad for me to think this, but… I kind of hope they died on the seventeenth of July. I hope they died watching television, or eating ice cream, or lying in the sun at the beach.” His gaze found Glory’s. “I just hope they died fast. Is that a bad thing to wish for?”
“No. It’s a decent wish,” Glory told him. And this time her hand touched his and did not retreat. Her other hand wandered up and gently brushed the black ski mask. “What do you look like under that thing?”
“I used to be ugly. Now I’m downright loathsome.”
She touched the hard gray skin that sealed the right eyehole. “Does that stuff hurt?”
“Sometimes it burns. Sometimes it itches so much I can hardly stand it. And sometimes…” He trailed off.
“Sometimes what?”
He hesitated, about to tell her what he had never told either Swan or Rusty. “Sometimes,” he said quietly, “it feels like… my face is changing. It feels like the bones are moving. And it hurts like hell.”
“Maybe it’s healin’.”
He managed a weak smile. “Just what I need: a ray of optimism. Thank you, but I think I’m way beyond healing. These growths are about as hard as concrete.”
“Swan’s got the worst I’ve ever seen. She sounds like she can hardly draw a breath. Now, with that high fever she’s runnin’—” She stopped, because Josh was walking toward the door. “You and she’ve been through a lot together, haven’t you?” she asked.
Josh stopped. “Yes. If she dies, I don’t know what I’ll—” He caught himself, lowered his head and then lifted it again. “Swan won’t die,” he resolved. “She won’t. Come on, we’d better get back.”
“Josh? Wait—okay?”
“What is it?”
She worked the printing press’s hand crank, rubbing her fingers against the smooth oak. “You’re right about this thing. It’s a shame for it to sit out here and rot.”
“Like you said, here’s as good a place as any.”
“My shack would be a better place.”
“Your shack? What do you want that thing for? It’s useless!”
“Now, yes. But maybe not always. Jackson was right: It’d do wonders for Mary’s Rest to have some kind of newspaper—oh, not the kind people used to get thrown in their yards every afternoon, but maybe just a sheet of paper to tell folks who’s bein’ born, who’s dyin’, who’s got clothes to spare and who needs clothes. Right now people who live across the alley from each other are strangers, but a sheet of paper like that might bring the whole town togethe
r.”
“I think most people in Mary’s Rest are more interested in finding another day’s worth of food, don’t you?”
“Yes. For now. But Jackson was a smart man, Josh. If he’d known this thing was sittin’ here in a junkpile, he’d have toted it home on his back. I’m not sayin’ I know how to write or anything—hell, I have a hard enough time speakin’ right—but this thing might be a first step toward makin’ Mary’s Rest a real town again.”
“What are you going to use for paper?” Josh asked. “And how about ink?”
“Here’s paper.” Glory picked up a handful of auction announcements. “And I’ve made dye from dirt and shoe polish before. I can figure out how to make ink.”
Josh was about to protest again, but he realized a change had come over Glory; her eyes were excited, and their sparkle made her look five years younger. She has a challenge, he thought. She’s going to try to make Jackson’s dream come true.
“Help me,” Glory urged. “Please.”
Her mind was set. “All right,” Josh answered. “You take the other end. This thing’s going to be heavy.”
Two flies lifted off from the top of the printing press and darted around Josh’s head. A third sat motionlessly on the television set, and a fourth buzzed slowly just below the barn’s roof.
The press was lighter than it looked, and getting it out of the barn was relatively easy. They set it down outside, and Josh went back in to tend to Mule.
The horse nickered nervously, walking around and around the stall. Josh rubbed his muzzle to calm him the way he’d seen Swan do so many times. He filled the trough with snow and put the blue blanket over Mule to keep him warm. A fly landed on Josh’s hand, its touch stinging him as if the thing had been a wasp. “Damn!” Josh said, and he slapped his other hand down on it. A twitching, green-gray mess remained, but it still stung, and he wiped it off on his trousers.
1987 - Swan Song v4 Page 61