1988 - Stinger

by Robert McCammon

  “I don’t care if they’re in Timbuktu! Those damned things could’ve crashed into my house!” Vance’s obstinacy and slowness infuriated her; if it had been her decision, Vance would never have been reelected sheriff, but he’d ingratiated himself to Wint over the years and had easily beaten the Hispanic candidate. She saw clear through him, though, and knew that Mack Cade pulled his strings; and, like it or not, she realized Mack Cade was now Inferno’s ruling power.

  “Better calm down. Take a nerve pill. That’s what my ex-wife used to do when—”

  “She saw you?” Celeste interrupted.

  He laughed, hollowly and without mirth. “No call to get nasty, Miz Preston. Don’t suit a lady like you.” Showed your true stripe, didn’t you, bitch? he thought. “So what is it you’re sayin’?” he prodded. “You want to file a disturbin’ the peace charge against some unknown persons in three helicopters, point of origin unknown and destination unknown?”

  “That’s right. Is it too much of a job for you?”

  Vance grunted. He couldn’t wait for the woman to be tossed out on her ass; then he was going to start digging up those cashboxes old Wint must’ve hidden. “I think I can handle it.”

  “I hope you can. That’s what you’re paid for.”

  Lady, he thought, it sure ain’t you who writes my ticket! “Miz Preston,” he said quietly, as if speaking to a retarded child, “you’d best get on inside now, out of this hot sun. You don’t want your brain gettin’ baked. Wouldn’t want you to have a stroke now, would we?” He gave her his best, most innocent smile.

  “Just do it!” she snapped, and then she turned away from the railing and stalked back into the house.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Vance gave a mock salute and got behind the wheel again, his wet shirt immediately leeching to the seat. He started the engine and drove away from the hacienda, back to Cobre Road. The knuckles of his large, hairy hands were white on the steering wheel. He turned left, toward Inferno, and as he picked up speed he shouted out the open window, “I ain’t your goddamned monkey!”

  * * *

  4

  The Visitor

  “I guess this means we walk,” Jessie had said while Celeste Preston was waiting on her balcony for Sheriff Vance. Her nerves had calmed down somewhat, and Stevie was no longer crying, but Jessie had gotten the truck’s hood opened and seen at once that a flat tire was the least of their problems.

  The engine had been pierced by the same object that had put a hole in the hood; metal had been flayed open like a flower, and whatever had passed through had driven itself right into the depths of the engine block. There was no sign of what it had been, but there was a smell of scorched iron and charred rubber and the engine was hissing steam from its wound. The truck would do no more traveling for quite some time—possibly the thing was ready for Cade’s junkyard. “Damn!” Jessie said, staring at the engine, and instantly regretted it because Stevie would remember the word and spring it on her when she least expected it.

  Stevie was looking at the direction the fiery thing and the helicopters had disappeared in, her face covered with dust except for the drying tracks of tears. “What was it, Mama?” she asked, her green eyes wide and watchful.

  “I don’t know. Something big, for sure.” Like a tractor-trailer truck flying through the air and on fire, Jessie thought. Damnedest thing she’d ever seen in her life. It might’ve been an airplane about to crash, but it hadn’t had any wings. Maybe a meteor, but it had looked metallic. Whatever it had been, the helicopters had been chasing it down like hounds after a fox.

  “There’s part of it,” Stevie said, and pointed.

  Jessie looked. On the ground about forty feet away, in the midst of chopped-down cactus, was a piece of something sticking up from the sand. Jessie walked toward it, with Stevie right behind. The fragment was the size of a manhole cover, a strange hue of dark, wet-looking blue green. Its edges were smoking, and Jessie felt the heat coming off it before she got within fifteen feet. In the air there was a sweet odor that reminded her of the smell of burning plastic, but the stuff had a metallic sheen. Just to the right was another chunk of the material, this one shaped like a tube, and more smaller pieces lay nearby, smoke rising from all of them. She said, “Stay here” to Stevie and approached the first fragment a little closer, but its heat was intense and she had to stop again. Its surface was covered with small markings arrayed in a circular pattern, a series of Japanese-like symbols and short wavy lines.

  “It’s hot,” Stevie said, standing right beside her mother.

  So much for obedience, Jessie thought, but this was not the time for discipline. She took her child’s hand. Whatever had passed this way and thrown pieces off in its passage was unlike anything Jessie had ever seen before, and she could still feel the static electricity that had crackled through her hair. She glanced at her wristwatch: the digits had all returned to zeros, flashing erratically. In the blue sky, the jet contrails all aimed toward the southwest. The sun was beginning to beat down on her unprotected skull, and she searched for her cap. It was a red speck about seventy yards on the other side of Cobre Road, blown there by the helicopters’ rotors. Too far to walk when they should be going in the opposite direction, toward the Lucas place. They had their canteens, thank God, and at least the sun was still low. There was no need to stand around gawking; they had to get moving.

  “Let’s go,” Jessie said. Stevie resisted her for just a couple of seconds, still looking at the manhole-sized piece of whatever it was, and then allowed herself to be tugged along. Jessie went back to the truck to get her satchel, which contained her wallet and driver’s license as well as a few veterinary instruments. Stevie stood gazing up at the contrails. “The planes sure are high,” she said, more to herself than to her mother. “I’ll bet they’re a hundred miles—”

  She heard something that stopped her voice.

  Music, she thought. But not music. Now it was gone. She listened carefully, heard only the noise of steam from the broken engine.

  Then there it was again, and Stevie thought she knew what the sound was but she couldn’t exactly remember. Music, but not music. Not like the kind Ray listened to.

  Gone again.

  Now slowly, softly returning.

  “We’ve got a ways to go,” Jessie told her. The child nodded absently. “You ready?”

  Stevie knew what it was: it hit her quick and clear. On the front porch of the Galvin house, before Jenny had moved away, hung a pretty thing that sounded like a lot of little bells ringing when the wind stirred it. Wind chimes, she remembered Jenny’s mother saying when Stevie had asked what it was. That was the music she was hearing, but no wind was blowing and there weren’t any wind chimes around, anyway.

  “Stevie?” Jessie asked. The little girl was just staring at nothing. “What is it?”

  “Can you hear that, Mama?”

  “Hear what?” Nothing but the damned engine spouting.

  “That,” Stevie insisted. The sound was fading in and out again, but it seemed to be coming from a certain direction. “Hear it?”

  “No,” Jessie’s voice was careful. Did she hit her head? Jessie wondered. Oh Lord, if she’s got a concussion…!

  Stevie took a few steps toward the blue-green smoking thing out in the cactus. The wind-chimes noise immediately weakened to a whisper. Not that way, she thought, and stopped.

  “Stevie? You okay, honey?”

  “Yes ma’am.” She looked around, walked in another direction. Still the sound was very faint. Not that way, either.

  Jessie was getting spooked. “It’s too hot to play games. We’ve got to go. Come on, now.”

  Stevie walked toward her mother. Stopped abruptly. Took another step, then two more.

  Jessie approached her, took off the child’s cap, and ran her fingers through the hair. There was no knot, no sign of a bruise on the forehead either. Stevie’s eyes were a little shiny and her cheeks were flushed, but Jessie figured that was just from the heat and e
xcitement. She hoped. There was no sign of injury that she could see. Stevie was staring past her. “What is it?” Jessie asked. “What do you hear?”

  “The music,” she explained patiently. She had figured out where it was coming from, though she knew also that such a thing couldn’t be. “It’s singing,” she said, as the clear strong notes swept over her again. She pointed. “From there.”

  Jessie saw where she was pointing to. The pickup truck. Its torn-up engine, the hood still raised. She guessed the noise of steam and bubbling fluids from gashed cables might be construed as a weird kind of music, yes, but…

  “It’s singing,” Stevie repeated.

  Jessie knelt down, checking her daughter’s eyes. They were not bloodshot, the pupils looked to be fine. Checked her pulse. A little fast, but otherwise okay. “Do you feel all right?”

  That was her mama’s doctor voice, Stevie thought. She nodded. The wind-chimes sound was coming from the truck; she was certain of it. But why couldn’t her mother hear? The fragile music pulled at her, and she wanted to walk the rest of the way to the truck and keep searching until she found where the wind chimes were hidden, but her mother had hold of her hand and was pulling her away. With each step, the music faded just a little more.

  “No! I want to stay!” Stevie protested.

  “Stop this foolishness, now. We’ve got to get to the Lucas place before it gets really hot out here. Stop dragging your feet!” Jessie was trembling. The events of the past few minutes were catching up to her. Whatever that thing had been, it could’ve easily smashed them to atoms. Stevie’d had flights of fantasy before, but this was certainly neither the time nor the place. “Stop dragging!” she ordered, and finally the little girl was walking under her own power.

  Ten more steps, and the wind-chimes music was a whisper. Five more, a sigh. Another five, a memory.

  But it had penetrated deep in Stevie’s mind, and she could not let it go.

  They walked away, following the dirt road to the Lucas place. Stevie kept looking back at the pickup truck until it was a dusty dot, and only when it was out of sight did she remember that they were on their way to see Sweetpea.

  * * *

  5

  Bordertown

  “Day of reckonin’!” Vance said as the patrol car sped east on Cobre Road. A belch rose from his gut like thunder. “Yes sir, day of reckonin’s comin’ right soon!” Celeste Preston was going to be out on her rear end before long. Miss High-and-Mighty was going to wish she could get a job swabbing spittoons at the Bob Wire Club, if he had anything to say about it.

  The car was moving past the remnants of the mine. Back in March, a couple of kids had climbed over the fence, gone down into the crater, and gotten themselves blown to flyspecks when they found some undetonated dynamite left in drill holes in the rock. In the mine’s final weeks, the blasting had been as constant as doom’s clockwork, and Vance figured more live sticks were probably down there, but nobody was dumb enough to go dig them out. What was the use, anyway?

  He reached to the dash and lifted the radio’s microphone. “Hey there, Danny boy! Come on back to me, hear?”

  The speaker crackled as Danny Chaffin responded. “Yes, sir?”

  “Get on the horn and call around to… uh, let’s see here a minute.” Vance flipped down the visor, took the county map that was clipped to it, and unfolded it on the seat beside him. He let the car have its own mind for a few seconds and it weaved toward the right shoulder, scaring the sense out of an armadillo. “Call around to Rimrock and Presidio airstrips. Ask ’em if they’re flyin’ any choppers this mornin’. Prissy Preston’s in an uproar ’cause her hair got mussed.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Hold on,” Vance added. “Might as well go out of the county too. Call up to Midland and Big Spring airports. Hell, call Webb Air Force Base too. That oughta do it.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’m gonna take a swing through Bordertown and then I’ll be on in. Any more calls?”

  “No sir. Quiet as a whore in church.”

  “You got Whale Tail on your mind there, boy? Better quit drillin’ that thang ’fore you fall in!” Vance laughed. The idea of Danny getting it on with Sue “Whale Tail” Mullinax tickled him giddy. Whale Tail was about twice the kid’s size; she was a waitress at the Brandin’ Iron Cafe on Celeste Street, and he knew about ten guys who’d dipped their wicks into her flame. So why not the boy too?

  Danny didn’t answer. Vance knew talking about Whale Tail like that got his goat, because Danny Chaffin was a moon-eyed kid, wet as oceans behind the ears, and didn’t realize Whale Tail was stringing him along. He’d learn. “Check ya later, Danny boy,” Vance said, and returned the mike to its cradle. Rocking Chair Ridge was coming up on the left, and along Cobre Road the houses and buildings of Inferno shimmered in the harsh light.

  It was too early for trouble in Bordertown, Vance knew. But then again, you never could tell what might set off those Mexicans. “Hispanics,” Vance muttered, and shook his head. They had brown skin, black eyes and hair, they lived on tortillas and enchiladas, and they jabbered south-of-the-border lingo; to Vance, that made them Mexicans, no matter where they’d been born or what fancy name you called them. Mexicans, pure and simple.

  Nestled in its slot underneath the dashboard was a Remington pump shotgun, and beneath the passenger seat was a Louisville Slugger. That ole baseball bat was just made to bash wetback skulls, Vance mused. Especially the skull of one smart-ass punk who thought he called the shots over there. Sooner or later, he knew, Mr. Louisville was going to meet Rick Jurado, and then—boom!—Jurado was going to be the first wetback in outer space.

  He drove past Preston Park to Republica Road, turned right at Xavier Mendoza’s Texaco station, and headed across the Snake River bridge onto the dusty streets of Bordertown. He decided to drive over to the Jurado house, on Second Street, maybe sit in front and see if anything needed correcting.

  Because after all, Vance told himself, correcting was the sheriff’s job. By this time next year he’d no longer be a sheriff, so he might as well do as much correcting as he could. He winced at the thought of Celeste Preston ordering him around like a shoeshine boy, and he put his foot down on the accelerator.

  He stopped the car in front of a brown clapboard house on Second Street. Parked at the curb was the boy’s banged-up black ’78 Camaro, and along the street were other junkers that even Mack Cade wouldn’t take. Laundry drooped on backyard lines and chickens pecked around some of the grassless yards. The land and houses belonged to a citizens’ committee of Mexican-Americans, and the nominal rent went back into the town’s fund, but Vance was the law here as well as across the bridge. The houses, most of which dated from the early fifties, were clapboard and stucco structures that all looked to be in need of painting or repair, but the Bordertown fund couldn’t keep up with the work. It was a shantytown, the narrow streets sifted with yellow dust and the hulks of old cars, washing machines and other junk standing around like the perpetual monuments of poverty. The majority of Bordertown’s thousand or so inhabitants had labored at the copper mine, and when that shut down the skilled ones had gone elsewhere. The others held on desperately to what little they had.

  Two weeks ago, a couple of empty houses at the end of Third Street had caught fire, but the Inferno Volunteer Fire Department had kept the blaze from spreading. Scraps of gasoline-soaked rags had been found in the ashes. Just last weekend, Vance had broken up a fight between a dozen Renegades and Rattlesnakes in Preston Park. Things were heating up again, the same as last summer, but this time Vance meant to bottle up the trouble before any citizens of Inferno got hurt.

  He watched a red bantam rooster strutting across the street in front of his car. He hit the horn, and the rooster jumped up in the air and lost three feathers. “Little bastard!” Vance said, reaching into his breast pocket for his pack of Luckies.

  But before he got a cigarette out, he caught a movement from the corner of his eye. He looked
to his right, at the Jurado house, and he saw the boy standing in the doorway.

  They stared at each other. Time ticked past. Then Vance’s hand moved as if it had a wit of its own, and he pressed the horn again. The wail echoed along Second Street, stirring up the neighborhood dogs to a frenzy of barks and wails.

  The boy didn’t move. He was wearing black jeans and a blue-striped short-sleeved shirt, and he was holding the screen door open with one arm. The other hung at his side, the fist clenched.

  Vance hit the horn once more, let it moan for about six long seconds. Now the dogs were really raising hell. A man peered from a doorway three houses up. Two children emerged onto the porch of another house and stood watching until a woman urged them back inside. As the noise died away, Vance heard the sound of shouted, Spanish cursing—all that lingo sounded like cursing to him—from a house across the street. And then the boy let the screen door shut as he came down the sagging porch steps to the curb. Come on, li’l rooster! Vance thought. Come on, just start some trouble!

  The boy stopped right in front of the patrol car.

  He stood about five-nine, his brown arms muscular, his jet-black hair combed back from his forehead. Against the dark bronze of his face his eyes were ebony—except they were the eyes of an old man who has seen too much, not the eyes of an eighteen-year-old. They held a cold rage—like that of a wild animal catching a hunter’s scent. Around both wrists he wore black leather bracelets studded with small squares of metal; his belt was also made of studded leather. He stared through the windshield at Sheriff Vance, and neither of them moved.

  Finally, the boy walked slowly around the car and stood several feet from Vance’s open window. “You got a problem, man?” he asked, his voice a mixture of Mexico’s stately cadence and west Texas’s earthy snarl.

  “I’m on patrol,” Vance answered.

  “You patrollin’ in front of my house? On my street?”