Once you made it clear such questions wouldn’t be answered, I thought, but I bit my tongue. What’s done is done. Instead, I said, “You know she’s dead now.”
“You got inside information on that, or you just guessing?”
I thought about that. My heart was sure that, yes, she was dead, and I had been visited by her spirit. My head wasn’t so sure. I knew that both heart and head can be deceived, especially when you’re feeling desperate; and what could be more desperate than a young child who wants his mama? Even when—maybe especially when—he’s never known her.
“No,” I said finally, “I don’t know for sure. I’m just guessing. Call it a feeling.”
He stood, emptied his glass. “Sorry, but I am working,” he said, nodding toward the game room. “And the cards call. Nice to see you again. Sorry to hear about your friend.”
I watched his narrow figure walk back into the game room, thinking, that’s so typical. A big revelation, a heartfelt apology, and like a switch was thrown, that’s done, good, back to business as usual, bye, seeya.
40. WOLF
I walked back slowly toward the Tower. Meeting my Pa had been weirder than any trip I’d taken to meet with the Wolf Spirit. I would have thought I’d be angry and bitter toward him. I was, but not as much as I’d have expected. Seeing him from an adult perspective changed that. I understood a lot more about people and life than when I’d last seen him over twenty years ago. When you’re a child your parents are like gods. And even though as you get older you realize they’re not, you still carry some of that with you. On some unconscious level you still expect your Pa or your Ma to be superhuman, heroic. When they prove to be merely flawed human beings, it’s like they betrayed you personally. Tonight I had looked at my father the way I’d look at any man I’d met in my travels. And while he wasn’t any paragon, he also wasn’t a monster. Just a tired old gambler, doing the best he could. It took some of the fire out of my anger.
I’d also realized that in my younger mind, Pa had suffered severely by comparison to my mother. Oh, there was anger and disappointment about her leaving us, sure. But without regular day-to-day exposure, I was able to keep my happy fantasies of what she might have been like, to build a mental image of a perfect goddess. Her occasional appearance as a spirit, ghost, vision, or whatever the hell she was, did nothing to tarnish that image. You might think my Pa’s account of her having attended the Academy might have polished that image even further, but the truth was, it brought her down to earth for me. She hadn’t finished her course at the Academy, had never taken the tats or been granted the coat and the sword. She’d dropped out—to have a family, sure, but apparently when she abandoned us, she didn’t go back to it. And if Pa was to be believed, she was a drinker, and could be cruel sometimes.
Reaching City Plaza, digesting all this new information, these new feelings, I wasn’t ready to go indoors yet. Now that Summersend was over the Guy had been disassembled and the fountain had become a fountain again. I sat on the rim of the circular pool, listening to the sound of the falling water behind me, and the faint music and voices that trickled up State Street from the Tankard a block away. The sound suddenly got louder for a moment, as several figures came out of the basement entrance, seeming to grow up out of the sidewalk. They milled around in the street for a moment, saying their goodnights, I imagined, and then drifted apart like slow pool balls dispersing from a cue.
As my anger at my Pa had deflated some, my compassion toward him had grown. Like I say, he had this ability to be totally concerned, totally focused on the person he was with—caring and concern that seemed to vanish the moment you were out of his presence. I’d always seen this as a failing, thought it was false or insincere. Now I realized it was quite sincere; I could remember times when he’d seriously put himself out for someone, despite the fact he might still forget them afterward. It was, I realized, like having a peculiar existential blind spot. Or perhaps lack of peripheral vision would be a better description. If it wasn’t immediately in front of him, it really didn’t exist. I’d learned long ago that I had to take my Pa for what he was, appreciate the attention and caring when I was with him, and not expect more than he could give. But I now realized my frustration with the support he couldn’t provide had interfered with my appreciating what he could.
“Hey,” said a voice. I’d been peripherally aware that one of the figures that had come out of the Tankard was drifting up State in my direction, but I hadn’t been focused on it. Now I looked up to see Robles standing beside me. She was in civvies, or what passed for them with her: cargo pants and a leather jacket. Her usually skullcap-tight hair was unbound, floating about her face like black foam, and I was surprised at how long it was.
“Evening,” I said. “Been out celebrating the Beast’s demise?”
“That, and raising a glass or two to the dead,” she said. In my grief over Rok, I’d forgotten the guards had lost people tonight as well. Seven, all told. She sighed. “Had a couple of drinks, whipped some arse at pool. You play pool?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I like pool better than cards. It doesn’t depend on luck or percentages. It’s all about your skill and accuracy.”
She raised an eyebrow at my tone. “Guess you don’t feel much like celebrating. I’m really sorry about Rok. He seemed like a standup guy.”
“Yeah. He was...” I groped for words, or even a word, that would come close, but found none. “My friend,” I finished lamely. She sat down beside me on the fountain’s rim. “I’m sorry for your loss, too.”
“Yeah, thanks,” she said. “You’d think it would get easier.” She shook her head. “It was their choice. You always know it could happen to any of you, at any time. You try to be okay with that, but it’s hard, especially when the good ones get taken. Armstrong, he was a good guy. Not a great guard, but a decent human being. Hell, even guys like Remming... He was a dick, but he didn’t deserve to go like that.”
“Nobody does.”
“Yeah, guess you got that right.” She peered at me in the lamplight of the plaza. “How long you know him? Rok, I mean?”
“We were partners along the rails for ten years. Known him closer to fifteen.”
“That’s a long time. No wonder you’re sitting out here grieving alone.”
“I’m not, really,” I said. “Oh, yeah, it started out that way. But just now I was thinking about my father.” She didn’t say anything, but her look was questioning. “Ran into him down at the...” I realized I hadn’t noticed the name of the place. “Well, some bar and gaming house down that way.” I gestured.
“I didn’t know you were from Bay City.”
“I’m not,” I said. “Just coincidence we were both here.” I explained a little about my Pa, and my upbringing on the road, Pa’s aversion to the Railwalkers, and all that ‘ooky-spooky’ stuff.
“Y’know,” she said, “I could never do what you do. Dealing with spirits, and the dead and stuff. Not that ghosts scare me. I’m not like your dad, wanting to avoid any contact with it. But I don’t want to know about death. Death, and what comes after, if there is anything. If I don’t just turn off like a light, I want the next thing to be a surprise. It’s like, you walk down a strange street in a strange city, you don’t know what you’re going to meet there. Could be you get shot dead, could be you meet somebody who will be your best friend forever. There’s just no telling. Until you actually walk down that street, you don’t know. The possibilities are infinite. That’s how I want to go, when the time comes. It should be like walking down that strange street. Infinite possibility, and you just roll with whatever comes along.”
Her hands were on her thighs. I reached over and covered her left with my right. “Let’s hope,” I said, “that you don’t find out too soon.” Sounded to my own ears like a tacky line, but it was what I was thinking.
She leaned toward me, smiling. “I intend to be around a while,” she said. “But y’know, if it happened tomorrow, I could be okay with
that. I got no regrets.”
Ooo-kay. She not only didn’t pull her hand away, she leaned into me. I realized my heart was speeding up a little. How long had it been since I’d been with a woman? And was I doing the right thing, moving in that direction? It’s a classic, of course; when confronted with death, we want to affirm life. And what better way to do that than with sex? Was it really Robles turning me on, or was I just jerking my knee in reaction to all the death around me? Or was I just plain horny? Did it really matter? I looked into her eyes and thought I saw similar thoughts racing behind them. Yeah, I thought, given a little time, we’d have ended up here eventually anyway. All the emotions stirred up by the death surrounding us just stepped up the schedule a little.
“Let’s go to my place,” she said.
We did.
41. AUDEN
Rainer Auden stepped out of the front door of the CA Tower and looked around. Down State Street he could see the spill of light and hear the music and raucous voices coming from the Tankard, where guards often gathered. He didn’t want to go home, but he wasn’t in the mood for the company of other guards. He took a deep breath of the night air, walked down the steps, and started down First. What he really wanted, he thought, was some down time in a neighborhood bar. He didn’t want to talk to the bartender, shoot the shit with the regulars about the latest news or yesterday’s victory for the Crushers. And he sure as shit didn’t want to field questions about the Beast. He didn’t want to participate in camaraderie and community. He just wanted to sit somewhere and bathe in that atmosphere, undisturbed by the patrons who created it.
It was a strange mood, Auden reflected. He didn’t really want a drink any more than he wanted actual company, which surprised him. A couple of blocks along, he heard the music coming from Taffy’s. Auden remembered that the old Armenian who ran the place, for all he served up all sorts of drinks to his clientele, was famous as a teetotaler himself. He stopped, hesitated for a moment, and then stepped into Taffy’s.
Taffy’s was an Irish bar. The proprietor, Tavtag Nahigian, though of Armenian descent, loved Celtic music, and had opened an Irish bar hoping to attract Celtic musicians to play there. In this he was fairly successful. It was only after Taffy’s had been established for some time that Tavtag, whom everyone had by that time come to call “Taffy,” discovered that “Taffy” was not actually an Irish name but a derogatory term for a Welshman. By that time, Taffy’s was well established, and Tavtag declined to change the name.
The place was fairly crowded, and the band was in full swing, playing a jig now, or a reel—something fast and danceable. Auden hardly knew one type of Celtic tune from another, though he enjoyed listening to them. A number of people were dancing in what little space there was between the low stage and the ring of tables. He made his way to the bar, saw Taffy was working, and got the man’s attention. The little round Armenian pointed his prominent nose in Auden’s direction and approached with a wry smile.
“What can I get for you, Investigator Auden?” he asked.
Auden leaned close and spoke quietly. “You got one of them fake beers, the non-alcoholic kind?
“Oh-dat!” said Taffy. “We got dat, yes! Can do!” He turned away to fill a mug for the Investigator.
Auden snorted and forced a smile onto his face. Truth was, he resented the barkeep’s smug condescension. “Oh-dat” meant “ODAT,” the Anti-Alcohol Association’s slogan, an acronym for “One Day At a Time.” Auden didn’t consider he was getting with the program, back on the wagon, he just didn’t feel like drinking tonight. Maybe, he thought, if he was lucky, he wouldn’t feel like drinking tomorrow night, either. The barkeep was right, he realized in spite of himself: Deal with what’s here and now, and worry about tomorrow when it gets here. One day at a time. His resentment dissipated, and his smile, when Tavtag returned with the near-beer, was more genuine.
Auden leaned against the bar and surveyed the room. The band took a short break, and when they reassembled Auden noticed the personnel had changed. The slightly heavyset fellow with thinning hair and scruffy beard who had been playing the drum had been replaced by Railwalker Morgan. The drum she played was wide and flat—Taffy, in one of his instructional moods, had once told Auden the name of it, though he couldn’t remember it now. Like the other fellow, she played it with a short drumstick with a head on both ends, which Auden remembered was called a tipper. They launched into something fast and raucous.
Though Auden didn’t know much about music, he did know something about human nature, social groups, and pecking orders. Listening and watching, he could tell the rest of the band was a tight-knit group of friends who were used to jamming together, and Morgan was the newcomer. The regulars, he thought, were testing her and challenging her with the way they played, introducing weird sudden changes of tempo and rhythm, segueing into unusual local versions of commonly known tunes. The Railwalker, however, was up to the task, and stayed right with them, never missing a beat.
After a little while the dynamic changed. Morgan had apparently passed the test. She and the other musicians seemed to quit playing “can you top this” and settled down to enjoying making music together. More people were crowding the dance floor, and Auden found himself smiling, his toe tapping. He also found his glass was empty. He turned back to the bar, avoided the eye of the younger bartender, and caught Taffy’s. The old Armenian refilled his glass of fake beer and moved off again.
Eventually the music stopped, there was a round of applause, and then a shuffling. As the sound of conversation began to grow, there was suddenly a startlingly loud, high, bell-like tone. Auden whipped his head around to find the source of the sound.
It was Morgan’s drum. She sat alone on the stage now, the drumstick discarded, and she began to play the drum by hand, with finger rolls and snaps high and clear near the rim, and deep bass tones resounding from the center. In her hands the frame drum became an almost melodic instrument, and though the deep beats and high tones came fast and numerous, the overall pattern they created was of a slow, somber song. Morgan began to hum, and then to sing wordlessly, a slow, sad melody.
The bar fell quiet as Morgan played and sang, even the rattle and clink of glasses and bottles fading to silence. Her tuneful murmurs became discernible words, and as she sang, Auden realized he’d heard the song a time or two before. It was an old traditional lament called “Lowlands,” the story of a woman who dreams of her man’s death at sea to awaken and find her dream has been prophetic.
He made no sign,
no word he said,
Lowlands...
Lowlands awa’ my John,
and then I knew,
my love was dead,
lowlands awa’...
But of course, Auden thought, the name in her head was not John.
She finished the song. The silence that followed was a palpable object in the air. A single tear escaped Morgan’s eye. She turned upstage, away from the crowd, to wipe it away. Someone began to clap, and then another and another, until the applause was thunderous. Morgan stood, nodded to them all with a small, rueful smile, and stepped down from the stage to return the drum to its owner.
“Thanks,” she said quietly. Fending off congratulatory remarks, she stepped to the bar and ordered a double scotch. Soon enough the jam band had regathered on the low stage and begun to spin more lively, dancing tunes again.
Auden pushed away from the bar and began making his way slowly toward the back of the room. He smiled and nodded at the few people he knew, but kept moving, not stopping to get engaged in conversation.
Railwalker Morgan sat alone at a small table in a dark corner in the back. She was looking down, and looked like she was writing something on an object in her lap. Her tunic was draped on the back of her chair, her shirt sleeves rolled. On the table before her sat a half-empty glass of liquor and a dark lump that, in another moment, Auden was able to identify as a loose braid of hair. He realized with a start that her hair was shorter now. She’d ev
idently cut off her braid—and probably just recently, or it wouldn’t be sitting on the table. As he got closer, he realized it wasn’t a pen or pencil in her hand, but a knife, which she held by the blade, using the point to score something into a surface below the table level.
The woman was kind of a bitch, he thought; but she had just lost her husband. He ought to at least offer condolences. She was absorbed in her task, and the noise level was relatively high. Auden didn’t want to surprise her, so he shifted an empty chair noisily as he approached, and she looked up.
“Railwalker,” he said with a nod.
“Investigator Auden.”
She’d stopped what she was doing, and placed her left hand palm down on the edge of the table. Her right still held the knife by the blade, like a pen. He looked again at her left hand. Blood was gathering on the table.
If he’d stopped to think about it, he wouldn’t have laid hands on a Railwalker, but Auden’s move was instinctive. He leaned over and grabbed her left hand, turning it over. The bare forearm was scored up and down with cuts, blood running freely from them. The cuts looked like some sort of runes or an alphabet Auden wasn’t familiar with.
In an instant she twisted the captured hand around, and then she was holding him, his wrist gripped in her left hand, the knife flipped over in her right, held in a fighting grip, point at his throat. “Don’t push your luck, grackle,” she said.
He stared into her eyes for a long, silent moment. Finally he said, “Why do you people call me that? I never understood that.”
Morgan released her grip and sat back, chuckling. “Grackle’s a bird the ignorant could take for a crow,” she said. “It’s a term for Railwalker wannabes.”
Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman Page 28