Lisse yells at him from the driver’s seat. The engine is running, she’s turned the vehicle around, and Mag is hysterical in the back, screaming for Kyle, for her father, for God.
“Kyle,” John says, then grabs him around the waist and hauls him away, feet dragging while Kyle whispers Sharon’s name over and over again.
The explosion stops them briefly.
Royal hits the fence in full stride, breaking through it without stumbling, as if it were paper, splinters and shards and full-length planks tumbling into the wind and carried off, dropping to the ground and trampled by the hooves that run them over.
The first stable disintegrates in sections.
Part of a wall, part the roof, the doors blow outward, adding straw and tack to the wind.
“In,” John orders, dumps Kyle into the back, knocking Mag to the seat, and yells at Lisse to get out.
When she hits the accelerator, he nearly tumbles out, grabs the top of the windshield and hangs on as they jounce and shudder over the branches still littering the blacktop. At the gate she doesn’t slow down at all, but swings right, tires protesting, skidding and smoking to the opposite shoulder until she regains control and heads for the bridge.
“Where?” she shouts.
“Just keep driving. The trees will slow them down. They’ll have to bunch together.” Then he grabs the back of the seat and checks on Kyle and Mag. They’re coated with dust and dead leaves and needles, holding each other, so deep in shock he doesn’t think they’d respond if he asked how they were.
The Jeep bounces as it shoots over the bridge, and suddenly he thumps Lisse’s shoulder and yells, “Stop here! Stop here!”
She does, braking hard, Mag moaning panic in back as he scrambles from his seat and races around the back and across the front yard of the house that used to be his. Two people stand together on the porch, but it’s Patty he needs to talk to, Patty he needs to ask.
So intent is he that he doesn’t see her body until he’s halfway up the walk.
He blinks, and makes to kneel, changes his mind because he sees the way her neck is turned.
Dory steps away from her father, and when she does he can see the body of an old man lying beside a chair, his chest and neck gleaming with blood. Garza has a straight razor in his hand, stained, still dripping.
“My God, Dory, why?” he says, forgetting everything else, pointing to the dead man, pointing to his wife.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess we felt like it.”
He stares at her, searches her face for anything that will tell him she didn’t mean what she’d just said.
I felt like it, stan hovinskal had told him.
it’s all part of the plan ruesette argo had said.
“Patty,” he whispers, part in sorrow, part in rage, then cocks his head and hears the thunder, and hurries back toward the Jeep. He has the answer he didn’t want.
“Go,” he tells Lisse.
Dory calls his name.
When he looks, she grins and says, “Sorry, Ace, I think you’re a little late.”
The Jeep jerks, nearly stalls, and as it pulls away, he watches Dory put her arm around her father’s waist, pulls him close and hugs him warmly.
The razor in his hand.
Then Kyle warns, “Hey, watch the bend,” and John faces front just as Lisse screams into the turn, and the Jeep skids again. Fishtailing slowly. Spinning slowly. So slowly he can see each one of the lightning-shot trees in the dry marsh across the way, each of the pines and oak George had planted to keep people from seeing his house until they reached it, the road behind, the road ahead, and the blur of all things between.
“Damn,” Lisse says, grinning as the Jeep straightens and stops, facing the wrong direction. “Not bad for a New Orleans waitress, huh?”
He wants to kiss her, he wants to smack her, instead he gestures urgently, ordering her to turn around and get this thing moving again before it’s too late.
It isn’t until she does that he sees the limousine parked in front of George’s house.
“Stop!” he says when they draw abreast.
“Again?”
“Stop, damnit!”
She balks, but they haven’t yet gone to speed, so he jumps from the Jeep, runs a few steps to keep from falling over, then runs for the house. Lanyon Trask is on the porch with one of his giants, kneeling beside George, whose head is covered with blood. Trask’s arms are flailing at several crows on Trout’s back and legs, while the giant swings a chair leg at others swooping through the porch. Alongside the walk the second giant lies on his stomach, hands cupped protectively over his head while a half dozen more birds try to reach his face.
John doesn’t think about the fact that they’re not making a sound except for an occasional soft squawk.
Without thinking, he stops by the prone man and kicks at the birds, yelling at them, cursing them, stumbling back when he’s joined by Kyle and Lisse, and Mag heads for the porch shrieking madly.
Within seconds the birds are gone, fleeing as he spins and punches at their faces, at their wings.
Panting, feeling the sweat in his hair and on his face, he looks to the porch. Trask, his white suit stippled and darkly smeared, looks back and shakes his head.
“Damn,” John says.
Then, “Damn!” he yells.
He points at the groaning giant, then at Lisse and kids. “Help him up, get on the porch.”
He points at Trask. “Stay there.”
“John?”
He can’t hear her, not really. All he can hear is the thunder, and a peculiar silence, a familiar silence that stays with him when he returns to the road and stands in the middle, facing the bend.
floating
he’s floating
Vibrations that shake his knees, and dust billows over the trees, thunderhead dark, shot through vivid streaks of blue.
Casey, he thinks, you damn well better be right.
floating
When the palomino appears in the turn, the herd just behind and squeezed onto the blacktop, all he can think of is Levee Pete and Alonse the giant... ... and the herd stops.
He watches.
They stand at the turn behind Royal, shifting, anxious, and he can see the muscles bunch and release, bunch and release, can see the large dark eyes, the ears laid back, the froth at their mouths, the bared teeth, the raised hooves that paw and slice the road while the dust settles on their shoulders.
He can see Joey on Royal’s back; he can see the boy’s uncertain frown when he thumbs his hat back.
“Your mother’s dead,” John says.
“I saw it,” Joey answers. Not a tear in those big blue eyes.
It’s the silence that keeps John talking; all those horses, and not a sound.
“This is it,” he says, pointing at the ground. “Right here. Right now.”
“You can’t stop me, John,” Joey tells him, adjusting his hat, adjusting his belt. “You know you can’t. You know.” He strokes Royal’s neck, smooths the sweep of his mane. “You gonna write about me, Daddy?”
“Stop it, Joey.”
“You gonna tell everybody who you think I really am, Daddy?”
“Joey, knock it off.”
“They should have killed you, you know, the big man with the pretty hair, and that silly pirate.” The little cowboy shakes his head. “You should be dead.”
John spreads his arms—well, take a look, kid, because I’m not.
The horses shift, bunched close together, and one nudges the palomino, forcing it to take a step.
John tries not to smile at Joey’s startled expression— they’re not supposed to do that; they’re supposed to wait, because I’m boss.
“Go away,” John says at last.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Joey giggles; then he laughs; then he takes off his hat and slaps the palomino’s shoulder; then he puts the hat back on and says, “Do you know who I am, John?”
/>
John braces himself; it’s coming.
“I’m Daddy’s little boy.”
* * * *
And the palomino charges.
From dead stop to full gallop, and the herd is just behind.
* * * *
It happens so swiftly that they scarcely seem to move, heads bobbing, teeth bared, filling the road from side to side, the dust smoke rising, Joey grinning, and pulling his sixgun to his hand.
John doesn’t move.
He’s floating.
All he sees are Royal’s eyes, and Joey’s eyes, and Royal’s teeth and Royal’s hooves bearing down on him, aiming for him, reaching out to take him down.
He doesn’t move.
He’s floating.
His arms are at his sides, and his fingers spread and curl, and he holds his breath—blue eyes—and narrows his eyes—Levee Pete—and as Joey grins and cocks the hammer, John swings his arms up violently, and in that floating second before they ride him down he sees the terror in Royal’s eyes, sees it rear, sees it topple sideways into the herd, throwing Joey into the smoke, and the hooves that thunder past him, and the cloud that cloaks him with grit and dust and droplets of blood.
He can’t stop himself; he cries, “Joey!” as he coughs and chokes while the dust-smoke tries to blind him, as he fights to keep his feet when a shoulder strikes him and spins him around, when a haunch slams him and something butts him and another shoulder almost knocks him to his knees.
He wants to run, but he can’t; there are too many, and they’re too strong, and he can’t see, and he’s suffocating, and he wishes, maybe prays, that he won’t fall because then it’s done.
* * * *
And when they’re gone, he still can’t move.
* * * *
When the floating stops and the silence is normal and the dust smoke disperses and his breathing is ragged, he still can’t move.
But he can weep, which he does, because the road he faces is empty.
Nothing here but him.
His lips twitch, and he gulps a breath, and he turns and sees the herd spreading across the empty field down the road, nuzzling through the dead corn stalks for something fresh to eat. Twelve of them; no more than twelve. The palomino isn’t there.
He spits dust and wipes his eyes, turns suddenly and sighs.
Nothing back there, either, but an old cowboy hat in the road, its chin strap torn and broken.
* * * *
Part 5
* * * *
1
1
T
here is a silence at Cornman Center. A respectful hushed quiet. Only the murmuring of conversations in rooms with open doors, the occasional squeak of a nurse’s shoe on the polished floor, the soft voice of speakers hidden in the walls paging someone, the squeak of a wobbly wheel as a food cart is pushed down an empty hall.
Dr. Bergman, pouches and smudges under his eyes, stands at the nurses station in the psychiatric unit and scans a patient’s chart before replacing it in the rack.
“All quiet?” he asks the nurse in charge, and she grins at the tone in his voice.
“Yes, Doctor,” she answers patiently, as she has every twenty minutes since her shift began. “Everyone’s quiet.”
“Even Mrs. Grauer?”
“Especially Mrs. Grauer.”
“Thank you, Lord,” he mutters to the ceiling, and walks away with a see-you-later wave.
But he doesn’t leave; he doesn’t want to; he doesn’t dare.
He knows it, he feels it in his bones that haven’t had a decent rest since the beginning of the week, that as soon as he steps one foot outside, all hell’s going to break loose. It’s silly. It’s probably crazy. But maybe one more night on the cot. Just in case. You never know.
* * * *
2
Halfway into a dream about what it’s like to fly, Kyle starts awake and stares at the hospital bed. At the wires. At the monitors. At the clear liquid in the plastic bag hanging from the IV stand. He rubs his eyes; nothing’s changed.
Tomorrow, he promises himself, he’s going to bring his own chair. This molded plastic garbage is breaking his stupid back. But there’s no way he’s not going to be here when Sharon wakes up. Even if her mother and brother get sick of seeing his stupid face, he will be here. He needs to be. He has to explain why he left her back there, and maybe she’ll understand, and maybe she won’t hate him.
The weird thing is, you look at her and she doesn’t look that bad. Left arm in a cast-and-sling, right leg in a cast, a couple of now-fading bruises on her face, and one long bandage across her forehead that covers a gash that, the doctor said, is going to leave one beaut of a scar.
She does not look as if she was trampled by a hundred horses.
A cough at the doorway. He looks up, grins. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Mag says quietly, easing into the room. “Hey, Shar, how you doing?” She drags the other chair from the wall by the door and settles beside the bed, reaches out and strokes Sharon’s unmarked hand. “Raining today, do you believe it?”
“She can’t hear you,” Kyle tells her.
Mag nods. “Sure she can. You got to talk to her, Kyle, you know. That’s what brings them out of it.”
Uncomfortable because he suspects she’s right, he confesses that he really doesn’t know what to say, that he feels a little silly talking to himself.
“Who cares? In the first place, you’re talking to her, not yourself, you jerk. So tell her about the Kentucky game, how you sacrificed the one chance you ever had to meet a Kentucky blue grass chick just because of her.’.’ A sly look over, and a grin. “Hey, you’re blushing.”
“I am not.”
“Sure you are.”
“No, I’m not.” A lie, because he can feel it. “So how’s your mom?”
“Are you kidding? A bump on the head, that’s all.” Mag rubs her arm absently. “They’re saying he’s a hero, you know.”
“Now who’s a jerk? Sure he is. From what I saw in the paper, what I heard, they should give him a medal, a million dollars, and ... and ... I don’t know, something else.”
Her shoulders lift, her head turns away, and he’s right beside her, touching her hair until she turns and stands and hugs him so tightly he can hardly breathe.
“He almost died,” she says into his chest. “The stupid bastard almost died.”
“But he didn’t,” he reminds her softly. “He didn’t, we didn’t. That’s what counts.”
An embarrassed moment later they break apart, take their seats, and Mag brushes her fingers over Sharon’s wrist. “They’re saying it was a tornado or something.”
He nods; he’s heard. After a week of listening, he almost believes it himself.
Her eyes are puffed and bloodshot. “It wasn’t, was it? I mean ... we know different. Right?”
He doesn’t answer; he can’t.
So she takes a breath, and takes another, and tells Sharon all about the storm, as if it were just a storm, and how the ranch is a mess but not to worry because the horses are okay and need her back real soon.
She doesn’t tell her that no one lives there anymore.
She doesn’t tell her what happened to the Fish Man.
Kyle listens, and wonders, and after a few minutes chimes in with some things of his own, eventually teasing her about her height, a few cracks about basketball and the weather up there, and desperately searches her face for a sign that she’s heard and when she wakes up she’s gonna deck him.
When she doesn’t, he sighs, stretches, and announces he’s got to get something to eat before he starves. Mag, after a kiss to Sharon’s cheek, follows him into the hall.
They stand there, not moving.
It’s funny, he thinks, how it’s only been a week, and they’ve nothing left to say.
“Want to come?” he asks, not very sincerely.
“Nope. Gotta get home, listen to my mother brag on the old man.”
Finally he says it: “So
why aren’t we bragging on Mr. Bannock? Why haven’t we said anything about him, what he did for us?”
Like the storm, they have no answer, and after a fumbling good-bye, a brief hug, they part.
In the Mood - [Millennium Quartet 02] Page 32