Neal Barrett Jr. (9 page)

“It’s like them horses, I reckon,” Howie said, the bitterness clear in his voice. “The army’s going to get everything first. Soldiers are going to eat, even if their folks back home have got to starve. And if they win out there and make it back, what are they goin’ to find? Dust farms, and maybe half their family gone. What’s the war
good
for? I ain’t found anyone able to tell me that.”

Jones looked startled, an expression that grew into a smile so radiant Howie could feel it across the table.

“Cory, for a moment I saw the Lord come and stand right beside you. I swear this is so. Why, I could see your face ringed in the Light!” He shook his head in wonder. “And you know why this happened to you, boy? I’ll tell you why for sure. Because the words you spoke just now are the very words of Lawrence himself. Exactly his words—how suffering and pain have got to vanish from the land. How this terrible and hopelessly futile war must come to an end.
What’s the war good for?
That’s what Lawrence said. The same as you, Cory, God bless you, son.” He reached across the table and grasped Howie’s hand. “You have a destiny to meet, I’ll tell you that. The Lord has touched you and made you one of His own.”

“Well, now—I sure don’t know about that.” Howie shifted restlessly in his chair, wishing he were somewhere else. The preacher looked as if he might start to cry, and Howie felt awful just sitting there listening to crazy talk about God and shining lights.

“It’s the truth,” Jones said. He looked fiercely at Howie. “I know what you’re thinking; I can see Satan trying to close your mind right now. Oh, surely I can. But he won’t do it, Cory. God’s set His hand on you, and when He does, why, He never lets go.”

Howie started to answer, but the words died some-where on the way. He looked past Jones and saw the girl coming toward him across the room. He saw thick yellow hair the color of butter, tumbling down her shoulders, saw the striking blue eyes that seemed to look right through him, the high cheeks and full red lips, and the way the gown clung to her form.

Howie felt weak all over. He couldn’t look anywhere else. It struck him then that Jones was maybe right. Maybe Satan wanted to bring him down. If he did, this is who he’d send to do the job. He wouldn’t have a chance to get away, and wouldn’t even want to try.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
he girl kept smiling, looking right at him. He suddenly realized she wasn’t passing by. She was coming right to his table! Howie’s heart nearly stopped. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

Then the girl leaned down and pecked Ritcher Jones on the cheek.

Howie blinked. He sure hadn’t expected that.

Jones looked up in surprise. A broad grin creased his features. “Sister Lorene! God be praised!” He stood and took her hands, held her out from him, and looked her up and down. “My, it’s been some time. And you’re still as pretty as a picture. Come now, sit down here, girl. Tell me how you’ve been.”

The girl blushed shyly and slipped into a chair. Jones looked at Howie, apparently puzzled to find him there.

“Good heavens, now where are my manners?” The preacher laughed at himself. “Sister Lorene, this is Cory. A fine traveling companion and a friend.”

“I’m pleased, Lorene said gently.

“Yes, ma’am,” Howie said, trying to find his tongue. “I’m—I’m pleased, too.”

Howie bounced up quickly, then sat down at once. He realized how foolish he looked, but the girl simply smiled, setting him at ease. Lord, that voice! It sounded like someone pouring
Sister
Lorene? Howie was a lot more interested in the Light than he’d been a few moments before.

“We were so concerned about you,” Lorene said. She touched a hand to her throat and sighed. “You were gone so long, Brother Jones. I’m afraid we feared for the worst.”

“Now God watches over His children,” Jones chided. “You know that’s so.” He winked broadly at Howie. “Though I
will
say the journey had its moments. Cory here will vouch for that.”

“Yes, sir.” Howie cleared his throat. “You could sure say it did.”

Lorene showed him a curious smile, then turned at once to Jones. She had news for the preacher, word about people that Howie didn’t know. Brother Earnest and Sister Amelia had a small chapel going in Alabama Port. It seemed to be doing rather well, considering the rowdy nature of the local townsfolk. Lorene had trained Brother Lew to handle local administrative matters for High Sequoia. There was rather bad news concerning Brother Emil. He had been brutally attacked on the waterfront by a drunken band, felled while doing the Lord’s work. His injuries were quite serious, and Lorene had sent him back to California the week before.

Ritcher Jones’s face clouded at the news. “Such is the fate of those who love the Lord, I greatly fear. A fine boy, too. I shall remember him in my prayers.”

Howie couldn’t take his eye off Lorene. All the time the pair talked he studied her face, the high cheeks and flawless skin, the little curl at the corner of her mouth when she spoke. She sat straight and proper, and her dress was as modest as could be. Still, there was a woman underneath all that, Howie knew, and his mouth went dry at the thoughts that were forming in his head.

“Cory, is this your first time in Alabama Port?”

“What? Yeah, I guess so.” Howie came to his senses. “I mean, it sure is. I never been here before.”

“Yes. I see.” Lorene smiled faintly and looked at her hands. Howie felt the color rise to his face. Oh Lord, he’d ruined it all now. The girl had caught him straight out; she knew exactly what was going through his mind.

Lorene stood, and said goodbye to Ritcher Jones.

“Cory, it was very nice meeting you,” she said politely, scarcely looking in his direction. Gathering her skirts, she moved gracefully across the room.

“A very lovely young lady,” said Ritcher Jones. “Yes, sir,” Howie said. “She seems real nice.”

“A truly fine person.” Jones sighed, and brought the tips of his fingers together. “Dedicated, too, I’ll say that.

She walks in the Light of the Lord.”

Howie muttered an answer. He didn’t want to risk a look at Jones. Not now. The way Lorene walked had impressed him, too, but a totally different image had come to mind.

S
leep wouldn’t come. For a long time he sat on his bed and stared out the window. The night was sultry and oppressive; there was not enough breeze to stir the thin curtains. Howie wished his window faced the east. He could see the bay then, and the ships.

In spite of the late hour, Alabama Port was still very much alive. From his perch on the fourth floor, he could see a great deal of the town. Lanterns winked in the night.

There were lights in taverns, in homes, and in the streets. He followed a line of streetlights west until they came to an end. Past that was the dark, the beginning of open country again. There might be a few farmers out there, but they wouldn’t be burning any light. Fuel for a lamp cost money; a farmer did what he needed to do by the sun, and when he was done he went to bed.

There weren’t any campfires, either, Howie saw. Only a man who didn’t value his life would call attention to himself these days. It wasn’t smart to let everyone know where you were.

The idea of that struck Howie and brought him quickly out of his thoughts. Lord, he was doing the very same thing. He surely was. Not out in the woods, but it wasn’t much different—worse, if you thought about it some. The town was full of troopers and folks from all over. And a man with one eye brought attention to himself. Why, he could walk outside in the morning and run smack into someone who knew who he was. Someone who knew his name, and how he’d lost his eye. Take that Captain Ricks. He’d asked a bunch of questions for no good reason at all. And looked at him funny to boot.

Howie was filled with sudden anger at himself. “What the
hell
am I doin’ in this place?” he said aloud. He stood abruptly and walked to the far end of the room. He pressed his hands against the walls and closed his eyes. Turned and went back, grasped the window sill, and stared restlessly out into the night.

The truth was, he didn’t have any business here at all. He had followed Jones to Alabama Port simply because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. And that was a damn fool reason—less than
no
reason, for a fact.

He thought about the girl. She hadn’t been much off his mind since supper. Lord, but she was pretty. She made Howie hurt all over—the kind of hurt he’d put aside for some time. There hadn’t been room for pleasure in his life. But maybe that could change. Of course it wouldn’t be Lorene—you could
think
about a girl like that, but that’s as far as it would go. There were other girls, though, Plenty of ’em in Alabama Port. And the way Jones talked, they weren’t against a little sin now and then. , . .

Howie swept the thoughts aside. Damn it all, there wasn’t any time for that now. He had to get
out
of this place! Go somewhere. Anywhere there weren’t a bunch of people thick as flies.

He remembered he had mentioned to Jones he had business in the north. Fine. In the morning, he’d tell the preacher that’s what he had to do. Thank him for the room and the meal and get on his way.

Howie peeled off his clothes and stretched out on the bed. He felt better already, knowing this was the right thing to do. And there were girls most everywhere you went. Maybe not girls with blue eyes and yellow hair, but in a while he might forget about that.

By the end of spring he had left the foothills of the high range behind. One day he turned and saw the distant peaks were only thin blue shadows on the horizon. Ahead, the land stretched flat and hard, and he knew he had reached the edge of the great southern desert of Mexico…

He couldn’t remember when he had seen another person. He followed a dry riverbed and lost count of the days. Each one ended and began much the same as the one before. Until the morning when he awoke, sat up, and saw the man….

He was walking east to west, trailing a small herd of stock. Howie counted eight—hardly enough to count it as a herd. The man was black, just as black and shiny as pitch. Howie had never seen a black man before—except the one they had stuffed at the Bluevale Fair.

“How’d you lose the eye?” the man said.

“A feller cut it out with a knife.”

“You fight him back?”

“There wasn’t much way I could.”

After supper, the man took what was left of the beans and the bread and carried it out of camp into the brush. Howie was horrified. The man was giving the food to his stock! The meat jumped right in and dipped the beans out of the pot with their hands.

“Mister,” Howie said, “it ain’t none of my business, but I never seen a man feed good beans and bread to his stock.”

“They ain’t exactly stock,” the man said. “They just kinda ’pear to be.”

“That don’t make sense,” Howie said.

“I’m just telling you,” the man said. “They was wandering around half starved. Picking up leaves and bugs. Got all this far, though. Halfway ’cross the country.”

Howie thought about that. It didn’t strike him right. “Now how do you know that? Where they come from and all.”

“One of ’em told me, is how. Rest has got their tongues cut, but this one of ’em talks.”

Howie stared. “Meat—you heard meat talking? Mister, I ain’t arguing with a man that’s feeding me breakfast. But if something talked to you, then it sure ain’t meat. “

The man showed him a humorless grin. “Well, that’s what I’m saying, now ain’t it?”

“It don’t make sense,” Howie said. “It don’t make any sense at all.”

Then Howie looked up from the campfire, and there was Ritcher Jones, sitting at a table with a fine white cloth. Howie thought this was a peculiar thing to see, a man in the desert all dressed up nice, a table with a cloth and shiny plates and tall glasses that caught the light. Jones winked at Howie and jabbed his fork into a steak, and Howie saw the meat was still raw, that it wasn’t cooked at all. The preacher sliced deep with his knife and blood squirted in his eye. Jones laughed aloud and sliced again. Blood splattered in his face and pocked his clean white shirt. Howie yelled for Jones to stop, but he didn’t seem to hear. The preacher cut and sliced and the red pulsed out until Howie couldn’t see the man’s face or his arms or hardly anything at all. Howie screamed and-

-sat up straight, clutching at the sheet and staring wildly at the dark. He heard the tail end of his fear, the awful sound that came with him from the dream.

Howie groaned and put his feet on the floor. He could taste his own sweat. He stumbled to the dresser and splashed water in the bowl and drenched his shoulders and his face. He left the bed alone and got a straightback chair and pulled it up to the window. A slight breeze touched his skin, but it was too hot to do any good.

I’m not sleeping anymore, Howie thought. I ain’t going through that.

He wondered how long you could really stay up. Probably a pretty long time. The only thing was, you did that and things started getting spooky anyway. People talking in your head. Sparks of light that weren’t there.

He thought about Lorene. The way she looked, what she said. Everything he could recall. He thought about Kari. Had Kari ever known Lorene? Likely not. Lorene might have been too young. She was maybe close to his age, Kari a little older than them both. He hadn’t seen Kari in, what? Somewhere over a year. Hell, how long had she been gone from High Sequoia before that?

Howie’s eyes grew heavy and closed. He shook himself awake. Knew he couldn’t keep that up. That he’d fall asleep again. Go right back where he’d been.

“Well by God you’ll have to come and get me,” Howie said between his teeth. “I sure ain’t goin’ on my own.”

Heat lightning blossomed in the west, and Howie counted till the thunder reached his ear. Pa had taught him that. You could tell how far the lightning was, and whether it was coming or going away. Heat lightning was all it was, just noise and no rain, and the day when it came would be dry as the one before.