Swan Song Read online

Chapter 20

 

  "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 youi You have a wifei"

  "Yes. an ex-wife, I mean. and two sons. "

  Glory turned the hand crank and watched the rollers work. "What happened to 'emi"

  "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 fori"

  "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 thingi"

  "I used to be ugly. Now I'm downright loathsome. "

  She touched the hard gray skin that sealed the right eyehole. "Does that stuff hurti"

  "Sometimes it burns. Sometimes it itches so much I can hardly stand it. and sometimes. . . " He trailed off.

  "Sometimes whati"

  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 youi" 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. "

  "Joshi Wait - okayi"

  "What is iti"

  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 shacki What do you want that thing fori 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 together. "

  "I think most people in Mary's Rest are more interested in finding another day's worth of food, don't youi"

  "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 paperi" Josh asked. "and how about inki"

  "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.

  "You'll be okay out here," Josh told the jittery horse as he rubbed its neck. "I'll check on you later, how about thati" as he closed the barn door and latched it he hoped he was doing the right thing leaving Mule out there alone. But at least this place - such as it was - would protect Mule from the cold and the bobcats. Mule would have to hold his own against the flies.

  Together, Glory and Josh lugged the press down the road.

  Sixty-two

  Under a darkening sky, two figures struggled through a forest of dead pines where the wind had sculpted snowdrifts into barriers five feet high.

  Sister kept close watch on the CrackerJack compass and pointed her nose toward the southwest. Paul followed at a few paces, carrying the duffel bag slung over his shoulder and watching their rear and flanks for the furtive movements of animals; he knew they were being tracked and had been tracked since they'd left the cave. He'd seen only quick glimpses of them, hadn't had time to tell what they were or how many, but he could smell the spoor of beasts. He kept the . 357 gripped in his gloved right hand with his thumb on the safety.

  Sister figured they had less than an hour of light left. They'd been traveling for almost five hours, according to the wrist-watch Robin had given her; she didn't know how many miles they'd covered, but the going was excruciating, and her legs felt like stiff lengths of timber. The effort of struggling across rocks and over snowdrifts had made her sweat, and now the sound of the ice in her clothes brought up the memory of Rice Krispies cereal - snap, crackle and pop! She remembered that her daughter used to like Rice Krispies: "Make it talk, Mama!"

  She forced the ghosts of the past away. They had seen no sign of life but the things that prowled around them, watching them hungrily in the deepening twilight. When darkness fell, the beasts would get bolder. . .

  One step, she told herself. One step and then the next gets you where you're going. She said it mentally over and over again, while her legs continued to carry her like the laboring movement of a machine. She held her satchel close, and her left arm had cramped and locked in that position, but she could feel the outline of the glass ring through the leather, and she drew strength from it as surely as if it was her second heart.

&n
bsp; Swan, she thought. Who are youi Where do you come fromi and why have I been led to youi If indeed it was a girl named Swan that the dreamwalk path had brought her to, Sister had no idea what she'd say to the girl. Hello, she practiced, you don't know me, but I've come halfway across this country to find you. and I sure hope you're worth it, because Lord, I want to lie down and rest!

  But what if there was no girl named Swan in Mary's Resti What if Robin had been wrongi What if the girl was only passing through Mary's Rest and might be gone by the time they arrivedi

  She wanted to pick up the pace, but her legs wouldn't allow it. One step. One step and then the next gets you where you're going.

  a scream from the woods to her left almost shocked her out of her boots. She whirled to face the noise, heard the scream become the shrill wail of a beast and then a muttering, chuckling noise like a hyena might make. She thought she saw a pair of greedy eyes in the gloom; they gleamed balefully before receding into the forest.

  "We haven't got much more light," Paul told her. "We should find a place to camp. "

  She gazed toward the southwest. Nothing but a tortured landscape of dead pines, rocks and snowdrifts. It looked like a cold day in Hell. Wherever Mary's Rest was, they were not going to reach it today. She nodded, and they started searching for shelter.

  The best they could find was a narrow niche in a hollow surrounded by rough-edged boulders. They pushed the snow away to expose the earth and form a three-foot-high snow wall circling them, then Paul and Sister went to work gathering dead branches to start a fire. around them, shrill cries echoed from the woods as beasts began to gather like lords at a feast table.

  They made a small pile of branches and ringed them with stones, and Paul dribbled a little gasoline on the wood. The first match he scraped across a stone flared, fizzled and went out. That left them with two. Darkness was falling fast.

  "Here goes," Paul said tersely. He scraped the second match across the rock he was kneeling over, his other hand ready to cup the flame.

  It flared, hissed and immediately began to die. He quickly held the weakening flame against a stick in the pile of branches, kneeling over it like a savage praying at the altar of a fire spirit.

  "Catch, you little bastard," he whispered between clenched teeth. "Come on! Catch!"

  The flame was all but gone, just a tiny glint dancing in the dark.

  and then there was a pop! as a few drops of the gasoline caught, and flame curled up around the stick like a cat's tongue. The fire sputtered, crackled and began to grow. Paul added more gas.

  a gout of flame leapt up, fire jumping from stick to stick. Within another minute they had heat and light, and they held their stiff hands toward the warmth.

  "We'll get there in the morning," Paul said as they shared the dried squirrel meat. The stuff tasted like boiled leather. "I'll bet we've only got about another mile. "

  "Maybe. " She pried the lid off the can of baked beans with the all-purpose knife and scooped some out with her fingers. They were oily and had a metallic taste but seemed okay. She gave the can to Paul. "I just hope this kiddie compass works. If it doesn't, we could be walking in circles. "

  He'd already considered that possibility, but now he shrugged his shoulders and scooped the beans into his mouth. If that compass was one hair off, he realized, they could have already missed Mary's Rest. "We haven't gone seven miles yet," he told her, though he wasn't even sure of that. "We'll know tomorrow. "

  "Right. Tomorrow. "

  She took first watch while Paul slept next to the fire, and she kept her back against a boulder with the Magnum on one side of her and the shotgun on the other.

  Under its hard carapace of Job's Mask, Sister's face rippled with pain. Her cheekbone* and jaw were throbbing. The searing pain usually passed within a few minutes, but this time it intensified to a point where Sister had to lower her head and stifle a moan. again, for the seventh or eighth time in the last few weeks, she felt sharp, cracking jolts that seemed to run deep beneath the Job's Mask, down through the bones of her face. all she could do was clench her teeth and endure the pain until it passed, and when it was finally gone it left her shivering in spite of the fire.

  That was a bad one, she thought. The pains were getting worse. She lifted her head and ran her fingers across the Job's Mask. The knotty surface was as cool as ice on the slopes of a dormant volcano, but beneath it the flesh felt hot and raw. Her scalp was itching maddeningly, and she put her hand under the hood of her parka to touch the mass of growths that encased her skull and trailed down the back of her neck. She longed to dig her fingers through the crust and scratch her flesh until it bled.

  Slap a wig on my bald head, she thought, and I'd still look like a graduate of gargoyle school! She balanced precariously between tears and laughter for a few seconds, but the laughter won out.

  Paul sat up. "Is it my watch yeti"

  "No. Couple of hours to go. "

  He nodded, lay back down and was asleep again almost at once.

  She continued to probe the Job's Mask. Feels like my skin's on fire underneath there - whatever skin I've got left, she thought. Sometimes, when the pain was acute and her flesh beneath the Job's Mask felt like it was boiling, she could almost swear that the bones shifted like the foundations of an unsteady house. She could almost swear that she felt her face changing.

  a glimpse of movement on the right brought her attention back to the business of survival. Something made a deep, guttural barking noise off in the distance, and another beast replied with a sound like that of a baby crying. She laid the shotgun across her lap and looked up at the sky. Nothing but darkness up there, and a sensation of low, hanging clouds like the black ceiling of a claustrophobic's nightmare. She couldn't remember when she'd last seen the stars; maybe it had been on a warm summer's night, when she was living in a cardboard box in Central Park. Or maybe she'd stopped noticing the stars a long time before the clouds had blanked them out.

  She missed the stars. Without them, the sky was dead. Without them, what was there to make a wish oni

  Sister held her hands toward the fire and shifted against the boulder to get more comfortable. a hotel suite this was not, but her legs weren't aching so much now. She realized how tired she was, and she doubted she could have continued another fifty yards. But the fire felt good, and she had a shotgun across her lap, and she would blast hell out of anything that came within range. She put her hand on the satchel and traced the glass ring's outline. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow we'll know.

  She leaned her head against the rock and watched Paul sleeping. Good for you, she thought. You deserve it.

  The fire's soft heat soothed her. The forest was silent. and Sister's eyes closed. Just for a minute, she told herself. It won't do any harm if I just rest for a -

  She sat bolt upright. Before her, the fire was down to a few red embers, and the cold was slipping through her clothes. Paul was huddled up, still sleeping. Oh, Jesus! she thought as panic snapped at her. How long was I outi She was shivering, her joints throbbing with the cold, and she got up to add more branches to the fire. There were only a few small ones left, and as she knelt down and arranged them in the embers she sensed a quick, catlike movement behind her. The flesh tightened across the back of her neck.

  and she knew with sickening certainty that she and Paul were no longer alone. Something was behind her, crouched on a boulder, and she'd left both weapons where she was sitting. She took a deep breath, made up her mind to move, turned and lunged for the shotgun. She picked it up and spun around to fire.

  The figure sitting cross-legged atop the boulder lifted his gloved hands in mock surrender. a rifle lay across his knees, and he was wearing a familiar, patched brown coat with a cowl protecting his head.

  "Hope you enjoyed your nap," Robin Oakes said.

  "Whazziti" Paul sat up, blinking. "Huhi"

  "Young man," Sister said hoarsely, "I was about one second
from sending you to a much warmer place than this. How long have you been sitting therei"

  "Long enough so that you ought to be glad I don't have four legs. If one person goes to sleep, the other has to keep watch or you're both dead. " He looked at Paul. "and by the time you woke up, you'd be bobcat meat. I thought you two knew what you were doing. "

  "We're okay. " Sister took her finger off the trigger and put the weapon aside. Her insides felt like quivering jelly.

  "Sure. " He glanced over his shoulder and called toward the forest, "Come on in!"

  Three bundled-up figures emerged from the woods and scrambled up onto the boulder with Robin. all of the boys carried rifles, and one of them lugged another of the canvas bags that Robin's highwaymen had stolen from Sister.

  "You two didn't make such a good distance, did youi" Robin asked her.

  "I thought we did damned fine!" Paul was shaking the last of the sleep out of his head. "I figure we've got about another mile in the morning. "

  Robin grunted disdainfully. "More like three, most likely. anyway, I sat down and started thinking, back at the cave. I knew you'd make camp somewhere, probably screw that up, too. " He appraised the boulders and the wall of snow. "You've got yourselves trapped in here. When that fire went down, the things in the woods would've jumped you from all sides. We saw a lot of them, but we stayed downwind and low to the ground, and they didn't see us. "

  "Thanks for the warning," Sister said.

  "Oh, we didn't come out here to warn you. We followed you to keep you from getting killed. " Robin climbed down the boulder, and the other boys did the same. They stood around the fire, warming their hands and faces. "It wasn't hard. You left a trail that looked like a plow had gone through. anyway, you forgot something. " He opened the other duffel bag, reached into it and brought out the second jug of moonshine that Hugh had given Paul. "Here. " He tossed it to Sister. "I think there's enough left for everybody to have a swig. "

  There was, and the moonshine's fire heated Sister's belly. Robin sent the three boys out to stand guard around the camp. "The trick is to make a lot of noise," Robin said after they'd gone. "They don't want to shoot anything, because the blood would drive the other animals crazy out there. " He sat down beside the fire, pulled his hood back and took his gloves off. "If you want to sleep, Sister, you'd better do it now. We'll have to relieve them on watch before light. "

  "Who put you in chargei"

  "I did. " The firelight threw shadows in the hollows of his face, glinted off the fine hairs of his beard. His long hair, still full of feathers and bones, made him look like a savage prince. "I've decided to help you get to Mary's Rest. "

  "Whyi" Paul asked. He was wary of the boy, didn't trust him worth a damn. "What's in it for youi"

  "Maybe I want some fresh air. Maybe I want to travel. " His gaze flicked toward Sister's satchel. "Maybe I want to see if you find who you're looking for. anyway, I pay my debts. You people helped me with one of mine, and I owe you. So I'll get you to Mary's Rest in the morning, and we'll call it even, righti"

  "Okay," Sister agreed. "and thank you. "

  "Besides, if you two get killed tomorrow, I want the glass ring. You won't be needing it. " He leaned against the boulder and closed his eyes. "You'd better sleep while you can. "

  a rifle shot echoed from the woods, followed by two more. Sister and Paul looked at each other uneasily, but the young highwayman lay motionless and undisturbed. The noise of rifle fire continued intermittently for another minute or so, followed by the angry shrieks of what sounded like several animals - but their cries were fading as they retreated. Paul reached for the moonshine jug to coax out the last drops, and Sister leaned back to contemplate tomorrow.

  Sixty-three

  "Fire!. . . Fire!"

  The bombs were falling again, the earth erupting into flames, humans burning like torches under a blood-red sky.

  "Fire!. . . Somethin's on fire!"

  Josh shook loose from his nightmare. He could hear a man's voice shouting "Fire!" out in the street. at once he was on his feet and striding to the door; he threw it open, looked out and saw an orange glow reflected off the clouds. The street was empty, but Josh could hear the man's voice off in the distance, raising the alarm: "Fire! Somethin's on fire!"

  "What is iti What's on firei" Glory's face was stricken as she peered out the door beside him. aaron, who could not be separated from Crybaby, pushed between them to see.

  "I don't know. What's over in that directioni"

  "Nothin'," she said. "Just the Pit, and - " She stopped suddenly, because both of them knew.

  The barn where Josh had left Mule was on fire.

  He pulled his boots on, put on his gloves and his heavy coat. Glory and aaron raced to bundle up as well. Red embers burned in the stove's grate, and Rusty was sitting up from his bed of rags; his eyes were still dazed, and cloth bandages were plastered to the side of his face and the wound at his shoulder. "Joshi" he said. "What's goin' oni"

  "The barn's on fire! I locked the door, Rusty! Mule can't get out!"

  Rusty stood up, but his legs were weak and he staggered against the wall. He felt like a deballed bull, and he was furious at himself. He tried again but still didn't have the strength to even get his damned boots on.

  "No, Rusty!" Josh said. He motioned toward Swan, who lay on the floor under the thin blanket that aaron had given up. "You stay with her!"

  Rusty knew he'd collapse before he got ten paces from the shack. He almost wept with frustration, but he knew also that Swan needed to be watched over. He nodded and sank down wearily to his knees.

  aaron darted on ahead, and Josh and Glory followed as fast as they could. Josh found some of the speed he had once shown on the football field at auburn University in making the two hundred yards between the shack and the barn. Other people were out in the street, running toward the fire as well - not because they wanted to extinguish it, but because they could get warm. Josh's heart almost cracked; over the roar of flames that covered all but the structure's roof, he could hear Mule's frantic cries.

  Glory screamed, "Josh! No!" as he barreled at the barn door.

  Swan said something in a soft, delirious voice, but Rusty couldn't make it out. She tried to sit up, and he put his hand on her shoulder to restrain her. Touching her was like putting his hand to the stove's grate. "Hold on," he said. "Easy now, just take it easy. "

  She spoke again, but her speech was unintelligible. He thought she said something about corn, though that was all he could even halfway understand. Now the remaining eyehole in the mask of growths was almost sealed over. She'd been fading in and out of consciousness since Josh had brought her in at daylight from the field, and she'd alternately shivered and thrashed free of the blanket. Glory had wound cloth bandages around Swan's raw hands and tried to feed her some watery soup, but there wasn't a thing any of them could do for her now except try to make her more comfortable. Swan was so far gone she didn't even know where she was.

  She's dying, Rusty thought. Dying right in front of me. He eased her back down again, and he heard her say something that might have included "Mule. "

  "It's all right," Rusty told her, his own swollen jaw making speech difficult. "You just rest now, everythin's gonna be all right in the mornin'. " He sure wished he could believe that. He'd come too far with Swan to watch her fade away like this, and he cursed his own weakness. He felt about as sturdy as a wet sponge, and his mama sure hadn't raised him to live on rat meat soup. The only way he could get that stuff down was to pretend it came off the bones of little bitty steers.

  a loose board popped out on the shack's porch, beyond the closed door.

  Rusty looked up. He expected either Glory, aaron or Josh to enter - but how could that bei They'd just been gone a few minutes.

  The door did not open.

  another board popped and whined.

  "Joshi" Rusty called.

  There was no
reply.

  But he knew someone was standing out there. He was too familiar with the noise the loose boards made when stepped on, and he'd already sworn he was going to find a hammer and nails somewhere when he got his strength back and tighten those bastards down before they drove him batty.

  "anybody therei" he called. He realized somebody might be coming to steal the few items Glory possessed: her needles, her cloth or even the furniture. Maybe the hand crank printing press that occupied a corner of the room. "I've got a gun in here!" he lied, and he rose to his feet.

  There was no more sound of movement beyond the door.

  He walked to it on unsteady legs. The door was unlatched.

  He reached for the latch and he sensed a terrible, gnawing cold on the other side of the door. a dirty cold. He started to slip the latch home.

  "Rusty," he heard Swan rasp.

  The entire door suddenly crashed inward, tearing off its wooden hinges and catching him squarely on his bad shoulder. He cried out in pain as he was flung backward and to the floor halfway across the room. a figure stood in the doorway, and Rusty's first impulse was to leap to his feet to protect Swan; he got as far as his knees before the agony of his reopened shoulder wound made him pitch forward on his face.

  The man walked in, a pair of muddy hiking boots clumping on the floor. His gaze swept the room, saw the wounded man lying in spreading blood, the thinner figure curled up and shivering, obviously near death. and there it was, over in the corner.

  The printing press.

  That wasn't a good thing, he'd decided when the flies had brought him back images and voices from all over Mary's Rest. No, not good at all! First you had a printing press, and then you had a newspaper, and after that you had opinions and people thinking and wanting to do things, and then. . .

  and then, he thought, you were right back to the situation that had gotten the world where it was right now. Oh, no, not good at all! They had to be saved from making the same mistake twice. Had to be saved from themselves. and that was why he'd decided to destroy the printing press before anything was printed on it. That thing was as dangerous as a bomb, and they didn't even realize it! and that horse was dangerous, too, he'd reasoned; a horse made people think about traveling, and wheels, and cars - and that led right up to air pollution and wrecks, didn't iti They'd thank him for setting the barn on fire, because they could eat cooked horsemeat in just a little while.

  He was glad he'd come to Mary's Rest. and just in time, too.

  He'd seen them come to town in their Travelin' Show wagon, had heard that big one hollering for a doctor. Some people just had no respect for a quiet, peaceful town. Well. . . respect was going to be taught. Right now.

  His boots clumped toward Swan.

  Josh hit the flaming barn door with the full force of two hundred and fifty pounds, Glory's scream still ringing in his head.

  For a bone-jarring second he thought he was back on the football field and had run smack dab into one of those huge linebackers. He thought the door wasn't going to give, but then wood split and the barn door caved in, carrying him into the midst of an inferno.

  He rolled away from burning timbers and got to his feet. Smoke churned before his face, and the awful heat almost crushed him. "Mule!" he shouted. He could hear the horse bucking and shrieking but couldn't see him. Flames leapt at him like spears, and fire was starting to fall like orange confetti from the roof. He charged toward Mule's stall, his coat beginning to smolder, and the smoke took him.

  "My, my," the man said softly. He'd stopped just past the thin figure on the floor, his attention drawn to an object on the pine wood table. He reached out with a slender hand and picked up a mirror with two carved faces on its handle, each looking in a different direction. He intended to admire the new face he'd created, but the glass was dark. a finger traced the carved faces. What kind of mirror had a black glassi he wondered - and his new mouth twitched just a fraction.

  This mirror gave him the same sensation as the ring of glass. It was a thing that should not be. What was its purpose, and what was it doing herei

  He didn't like it. Not at all. He lifted his arm and smashed the mirror to pieces against the table, and then he twisted the double-faced handle and flung it aside. Now he felt so much better.

  But there was another object on the table, too. a small leather pouch. He picked it up and shook its contents into his palm. a little kernel of corn, stained red with dried blood, fell out.

  "What is thisi" he whispered. a few feet away, the figure on the floor quietly moaned. He gripped the kernel in his hand and slowly turned toward the sound, his eyes red and gleaming in the low firelight.

  His gaze lingered on the figure's bandaged, clawed hands. a swirl of heat shimmered around the man's right fist, and from within it there was a muffled pop. He opened his hand and pushed the bit of popcorn into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully on it.

  He'd seen this figure yesterday, after he'd watched their wagon being torn apart. Yesterday the hands had not been bandaged. Why were they bandaged nowi Whyi

  across the room, Rusty lifted his head and tried to focus. He saw a tall, slender man in a brown parka approaching Swan. Saw him standing over her. Pain wracked him, and he was lying in a puddle of blood. Gonna pass out again, he knew. Gotta move. . . gotta move. . .

  He began crawling through his blood.

  His good eye almost blinded by the smoke, Josh saw a swirl of motion ahead. It was Mule - panicked, rearing and bucking, unable to find a way out. The blanket on his back was smoking, about to burst into flames.

  He ran to the horse and was almost trampled under Mule's hooves as the horse frantically reared and came down again, twisting in one direction and then the other. Josh could only think of one thing to do: He lifted both hands in front of the horse's muzzle and clapped them together as hard as he could, like he'd seen Swan do at the Jaspin farm.

  Whether the noise brought Swan to mind or just snapped his panic for a second, Mule stopped thrashing and stood steady, his eyes watering and wide with terror. Josh wasted no time; he grabbed Mule's mane and pulled him out of the stall, trying to lead him to the door. Mule's legs stiffened.

  "Come on, you dumb fool!" Josh yelled, the heat scorching his lungs. He planted his boots in burning straw, his joints cracking as he hauled Mule forward. Pieces of flaming wood fell from above, striking him on the shoulders and hitting Mule's flanks. Cinders spun before his face like hornets.

  and then Mule must have gotten a whiff of outside air, because he lunged so fast Josh only had time to throw his arms around the horse's neck. His boots were dragged across the floor as Mule powered through the flames.

  They burst through the opening where the barn door had been, out into the cold night air with sparks trailing from Josh's burning coat and the flames in Mule's mane and tail.

  The man in the brown parka stood looking at those bandaged hands. "What have y'all been up to while my back's been turnedi" he asked in a deep-South drawl. The printing press was forgotten for the moment. a mirror that showed no reflection, a single kernel of corn, bandaged hands. . . those things bothered him, just like the glass ring did, because he didn't understand them. and there was something else, too; something about the figure on the floor. What was iti This is a nothing, he thought. a less-than-zero. a piece of shit passing through the sewage pipe of Mary's Rest.

  But why did he sense something different about this figurei Something. . . threatening.

  He lifted his right hand. Heat shimmered around the fingers; one of them burst into flame, and the flame spread. In another few seconds his hand was a glove of fire.

  The solution to things he did not understand was very simple: Destroy it.

  He began to reach down toward the growth-encrusted head.

  "No. "

  It was a weak whisper. But the hand that clamped around the man's ankle still had strength in it.

  The man in th
e brown parka looked at him incredulously, and by the light of the flaming hand Rusty saw his face: heavily seamed and weather-beaten, a thick gray beard, eyes that were so blue they were almost white. Touching the man sent freezing waves through Rusty's bones, and he wanted more than anything on earth to draw his hand back, but the cold shocked his nerves and kept him from passing out. Rusty said, "No. . . don't you touch Swan, you bastard. "

  He saw the man smile faintly; it was a pitying smile, but then it passed the point of pity.

  The man reached down and clamped his burning hand to Rusty's throat.

  and Rusty's neck was encircled with a noose of fire. The man lifted him off the floor as Rusty screamed and kicked, and the fire pumped out of that hand and arm like napalm, sizzling Rusty's hair and eyebrows. His clothes caught, and he realized at a cold center within his pain and panic that he was becoming a human torch - and that he had only seconds to live.

  and then after him, it would be Swan's turn.

  Rusty's body jerked and fought, but he knew he was finished. The smell of himself afire made him think of the greasy French fries at the Oklahoma state fair when he was a kid. The flame was going bone-deep now, and as his nerves began to sputter the pain locked up, as if a point of no return had been passed.

  Mama said somethin', Rusty thought. Said. . . said. . .

  Mama said fight fire with fire.

  Rusty embraced the man with the burning sticks of his arms, entwining his fingers at the man's back. The fingers melded like chains, and Rusty thrust his flaming face into the man's beard.

  The beard caught fire. The face bubbled, melting and running like a plastic mask, exposing a deeper layer the color of modeling clay.

  Rusty and the man whirled around the room like participants in a bizarre ballet.

  "Lord God!" shouted one of two men who were looking in, drawn by the open doorway on their jaunt to the burning barn. "Lord God a'mighty!" The second man screamed, backed up and fell on his rump in the mud. Other people were running over to see what was happening, and the man in the burning rags of a brown parka could not thrust the flaming dead man away from him, and his new disguise was ruined, and they were about to see his true face.

  He gave a garbled roar that almost shook the cabin and ran through the doorway out into the midst of them. He was still roaring as he ran up the street on melting legs in the embrace of a charred cowboy.

  Glory helped Josh pull out of his burning coat. His ski mask was smoking, too, and before she could think twice about it, she reached up and yanked it off.

  Dark gray growths, some the size of aaron's fists, almost completely covered Josh's face and head. Tendrils had interlocked around his mouth, and the only clear area except for his lips was a circle in the crust through which his left eye, now bloodshot from the smoke, stared at Glory. His condition wasn't as bad as Swan's, but it still made Glory gasp and retreat a step.

  He had no time to apologize for not being a beauty. He ran for Mule, who was bucking wildly as other onlookers scattered, and grabbed up a handful of snow; he clutched Mule's neck and crushed out the flames in his mane. Then Glory had a handful of snow and was pressing it to the horse's tail, and aaron had some, too, and many of the other men and women were scooping up snow and rubbing it against Mule's sides. a thin, dark-haired man with a blue keloid grabbed Mule's neck opposite Josh, and after a minute of struggle they got the horse calmed down enough to stop bucking.

  "Thanks," Josh told the man. and then there was a roaring and a rush of heat, and the barn's roof fell in.

  "Hey!" a woman standing closer to the road called out. "There's some kinda commotion back there!" She pointed toward the shacks, and both Glory and Josh could see people out in the street. Shouts and cries for help drifted to them.

  Swan! Josh thought. Oh, God - I left Swan and Rusty alone!

  He started to run, but his legs betrayed him and he went down. His lungs were grabbing for air, black motes spinning before his eyes.

  Someone took his arm, started helping him up. a second person supported his other shoulder, and together they got Josh to his feet. Josh realized Glory stood on one side of him, and on the other was an old man with a face like cracked leather. "I'm all right," he told them, but he had to lean heavily on Glory. She stood firm and started guiding him along the road.

  a blanket had been thrown on the ground about thirty feet from Glory's shack. Smoke curled from under it. a few people stood around it, motioning and talking. Others were crowded around Glory's front door. Josh smelled burned meat, and his stomach clenched. "Stay here," he told aaron. The boy stopped, Crybaby gripped in his hand.

  Glory went with Josh into the shack. She put her hand over her mouth and nose. Hot currents still prowled back and forth between the walls, and the ceiling was scorched black.

  He stood over Swan, trembling like a child. She had pulled her knees up to her chest, and now she was motionless. He bent down beside her, took one wrist and felt for her pulse. Her flesh was cold.

  But her pulse was there - faint but steady, like the rhythm of a metronome that would not be stilled.

  Swan tried to lift her head but had no strength. "Joshi" It was barely audible.

  "Yes," he answered, and he pulled her to him, cradling her head against his shoulder. a tear scorched his eye and ran down along the growths on his cheek. "It's old Josh. "

  "I. . . had a nightmare. I couldn't wake up. He was here, Josh. He. . . he found me. "

  "Who found youi"

  "Him," she said. "The man. . . with the scarlet eye. . . from Leona's pack of cards. "

  On the floor a few feet away were fragments of dark glass. The magic mirror, Josh knew. He saw Rusty's cowboy boots, and he wished to God that he didn't have to go outside and see what was smoking under that blanket in the mud.

  "Swani I've got to go out for a minute," he said. "You just rest, all righti" He eased her down and glanced quickly at Glory, who had seen the puddle of blood on the floor. Then Josh stood up and made himself go.

  "We threw snow on him!" one of the onlookers said as Josh approached. "We couldn't get the fire out, though. He was too far gone. "

  Josh knelt down and lifted the blanket. Looked long and hard. The corpse was hissing, as if whispering a secret. Both arms had snapped off at the shoulders.

  "I seen it!" another man offered excitedly. "I looked in through that door and seen a two-headed demon a-runnin' around and around in there! God a'mighty, I ain't never seen such a sight! Then Perry and me started hollerin', and that thing come a-runnin' right at us! Looked like it was fightin' itself! Then it split in two and the other one run that way!" He pointed up the street in the opposite direction.

  "It was another man on fire," a third witness explained, in a calmer voice. He had a hooked nose and a dark beard, and he spoke with a Northern accent. "I tried to help him, but he turned up an alley. He was too fast for me. I don't know where the hell he went, but he couldn't have gotten too far. "

  "Yeah!" The second man nodded vigorously. "The skin was meltin' right offa him!"

  Josh lowered the blanket and stood up. "Show me where he went," he told the man with the Northern accent.

  a trail of burned cloth turned into an alley, continued for about forty feet, turned left at another alley and ended at a pile of ashy rags behind a shack. There was no corpse, and the footprints were lost in the ravaged ground.

  "Maybe he crawled under one of these shacks to die," the other man said. "There's no way a human being could live through that! He looked like a torch!"

  They searched the area for another ten minutes, even squeezing under some of the shacks, but there was no sign of a body. "I guess wherever he is, he died naked," the man said as they gave up the search and went back to the street.

  Josh looked at Rusty again. "You dumb cowboy," Josh whispered. "You sure pulled a magic trick this time, didn't youi"

  "He was here," Swan had said. "He found me.
"

  Josh wrapped Rusty up in the blanket, lifted the remains in his arms and got to his feet.

  "Take him to the Pit!" one of the men said. "That's where all the bodies go. "

  Josh walked to what was left of the Travelin' Show wagon and laid Rusty in it.

  "Uh-uh, mister!" a husky woman with a red keloid covering her face and scalp scolded him. "That'll draw every wild animal for miles!"

  "Let them come, then," Josh replied. He turned toward the people, swept his gaze across them and stopped at Glory. "I'm going to bury my friend at first light. "

  "Bury himi" a frail teen-age girl with close-cropped brown hair shook her head. "Nobody buries anybody anymore!"

  "I'm going to bury Rusty," Josh told Glory. "at first light, in that field where we found Swan. It'll be hard work. You and aaron can help me, if you like. If you don't want to, that's all right, too. But I'll be damned if I'll - " His voice cracked. "I'll be damned if I'll throw him into a pit!" He sat up on the wagon's frame beside the body to wait for daylight.

  There was a long silence. Then the man with the Northern accent said to Glory, "Ladyi Do you have any way to fix your doori"

  "No. "

  "Well. . . I've got a few tools in my shack. They're not much. I haven't used them in a while, but. . . if you like, I'll take a shot at fixing your door. "

  "Thank you. " Glory was stunned by the offer. It had been a very long time since anyone had offered to do anything in Mary's Rest. "I'd appreciate whatever you could do. "

  "If you're gonna stay out here in the cold," the woman with the red keloid told Josh, "you'd better get yourself a fire lit. Better build one right here on the road. " She snorted. "Bury a body! That's the damnedest thing I ever heard of!"

  "I got a wheelbarrow," another man offered. "I reckon I could run it up there and pluck some hot coals out of that fire. I mean. . . I got better things to do, but. . . sure would be a shame to let all those good hot coals go to waste. "

  "I sure would like a fire!" a short man with one eye missing piped up. "It's cold as hell in my shack! Listen. . . I've got some coffee grounds I've been saving. If somebody's got a tin can and a hot stove, I guess we could brew it up. "

  "Might as well. all this excitement's got me as jumpy as a flea on a griddle. " The woman with the red keloid brought a small gold watch from the pocket of her coat, held it with loving reverence and squinted closely at the dial. "Four twelve. First light won't show for five hours yet. Yep, if you're gonna watch over that poor soul, you're gonna need a fire and some hot coffee. I got a coffee pot at my mansion. ain't been used in a while. " She looked at Glory. "We can use it now, if you like. "

  Glory nodded. "Yes. We can brew the coffee on my stove. " "I have a pickaxe and shovel," a gray-bearded man in a plaid coat and a tan woolen cap said to Josh. "Part of the shovel blade's broken off, but it'll do to bury your friend. "

  "I used to be a wood carver," someone else spoke up. "If you're going to bury him, you'll need a marker. What was his namei"

  "Rusty. " Josh's throat choked up. "Rusty Weathers. " "Welli" The feisty woman put her hands on her hips. "We got things to do, seems like. Let's quit shirkin' and get to workin'!"

  almost three miles away, Robin Oakes stood in the twilight at the campfire's edge where the three boys slept. He was armed with a rifle and had been carefully watching for the movement of animals too close to the fire. But now he stared toward the horizon, and he called out, "Sister! Sister, come over here!"

  It was a minute or so before she made her way to him from her sentry post on the other side of the fire. "What is iti"

  "There. " He pointed, and she followed the line of his finger to see a faint orange glow in the sky above the seemingly endless expanse of forest. "I think that's Mary's Rest. Nice of them to start a fire and show us the way, huhi"

  "It sure is. "

  "That's the direction we'll be headed when it gets light enough to see. If we keep a good pace, we ought to make it in a couple of hours. "

  "Good. I want to get there as fast as we can. "

  "I'll see to it. " His sly smile promised a rough march.

  Sister started to return to her area of patrol, but she had a sudden thought and stopped at the edge of the firelight. She took the CrackerJack compass from her pocket, lined herself up with the glow on the horizon, and checked the needle.

  It was far enough off southwest that they might have bypassed Mary's Rest by six or seven miles. Sister realized that they'd been very close to being lost if Robin hadn't seen that glow in the sky. Whatever it was, she was thankful for it.

  She continued her patrol, her eyes searching the darkness for any lurking beasts, but her mind was on a girl named Swan.

  ELEVEN

  Daughter of Ice and Fire

  Sixty-four

  First light came shrouded in a dense fog that lay close to the alleys and shacks of Mary's Rest, and a funeral procession moved quietly through the mist.

  Josh led the way, carrying Swan in his arms. She was protected from the chill by a thick sweater and coat, her head resting against Josh's shoulder. He was determined not to let her out of his sight again, for fear of whatever had come after her the night before and set Rusty ablaze. Man with a scarlet eye, Devil or demon - whatever it was, Josh was going to protect Swan with his final breath.

  But she was both shivering and hot with fever, and Josh didn't know if he could save her from what was killing her from the inside out. He prayed to God that he wouldn't soon have to dig a second grave.

  Glory and aaron followed behind Josh, and right behind them the handyman with the Northern accent - whose name was Zachial Epstein - and the gray-bearded man in the plaid coat - Gene Scully - carried between them a crudely constructed pine wood box that resembled a child's coffin. all that remained of Rusty Weathers had fit inside it, and before the lid had been nailed shut Josh had put his cowboy boots in with him.

  Others who'd watched over Rusty's body during the night followed as well, including the woman with the keloid-scarred face - an ex-carnival roustabout from arkansas named anna McClay - and the man who'd provided the coffee grounds, whose name was John Gallagher and who'd been a policeman in Louisiana. The teen-age girl with close-cropped brown hair had forgotten her last name and just went by Katie. The young man who'd been a wood carver in Jefferson City was named Roy Creel, and he limped along on a crooked left leg that had been badly broken and never properly set; in his arms he carried a pine wood plank that had RUSTY WEaTHERS carved into it in scrolled letters. Bringing up the rear was Mule, who stopped every few yards to sniff the air and paw at the hard ground.

  Fog shrouded the field and clung close to the earth, and the wind was still. The reek of the pond didn't seem so bad today, Josh thought - or maybe that just meant he was getting used to it. Walking through the mist was like entering a ghostly world where time had halted, and the place might have been the edge of a medieval settlement six centuries before. The only sounds were the crunching of boots in the snow, the rush of breath pluming from their mouths and nostrils and the distant cawing of crows.

  Josh could barely see ten feet ahead. He continued up through the low-lying mist into the field for what he took to be about forty or fifty yards before he stopped. This was as good a spot as any, he decided, and a whole hell of a lot better than the Pit. "Right here will do," he told the others. He carefully laid Swan down a few feet away. anna McClay was carrying the shovel and pickaxe; he took the shovel from her and scooped the snow away from a rectangular area a little larger than the coffin. Then he took the pickaxe and began to dig Rusty's grave.

  anna joined in the work, shoveling the earth to one side as Josh broke it loose. The first six or eight inches was cold and clayey, full of a network of thick roots that resisted Josh's pickaxe. anna pulled the roots up and tossed them aside, to be boiled in soup. Beneath the top layer of earth the dirt became darker, crumbly and easier to move. Its rich odor reminded Jo
sh, oddly, of a fudge cake his mother had baked and left to cool on the kitchen windowsill.

  When Josh's shoulders got tired, John Gallagher hefted the pickaxe and took over, while Glory shoveled the dirt aside. and so they alternated the work like that for the next hour, digging the grave deep enough so that the wild animals wouldn't disturb it. When it was ready, Josh, John and Zachial lowered the coffin into the earth.

  Josh looked down at the pine wood box. "Well," he said, quietly and resignedly, "I guess that's that. I wish there was a tree out here to bury you under, but there's not enough sunlight to throw shade, anyway. I remember you told me you dug graves for all your friends back at that train wreck. Well, I figured it was the least your friend could do for you. I think you saved Swan last night; I don't know from who - or what - but I'm going to find out. That I promise you. " He lifted his gaze to the others. "I guess that's all I've got to say. "

  "Joshi" Glory had gone into the shack to get something from under her mattress before they'd come out here, and now she drew it from the folds of her coat. "This was Jackson's Bible," she told him, and she opened the dogeared, battered old book. "Can I read something from iti"

  "Yes. Please. "

  She found the part she was looking for, on a page that was crinkled and hardly legible anymore. "Lord," she began reading, "let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleetin' my life is! Behold, Thou hast made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is nothin' in Thy sight. Surely every man stands as a mere breath! Surely every man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nought are they in turmoil; man heaps up, and knows not who will gather. "

  She rested her hand on aaron's shoulder. "and now, Lord, for what do I waiti" she read. "My hope is in Thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions. Make me not the scorn of the fool. I am dumb, I do not open my mouth; for it is Thou who hast done it. Remove Thy stroke from me; I am spent by the blows of Thy hand. When Thou dost chasten man with rebukes for sin, Thou dost consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely every man is a mere breath!"

  Josh heard the crows cawing, way off in the distance. The mist was undisturbed by wind, and Josh could only see the immediate area around Rusty's grave.