Riders In The Sky Part 14

"Junior," he says quietly.

Junior blinks very slowly and points at the round face of the thermometer fixed to the oven's side. "Mr. Nazario, is that Fahrenheit or centigrade?"

Hector gasps so loudly Junior drops the broom. Its clatter sounds like snapping wood.

"Oh, no," Junior says, fumbling for the broom, backing away at the same time, face contorted as if he's ready to cry. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hector, I'm sorry. Did I say something bad?"

3.

Earlier, only a few minutes past noon; under a soft blue sky and small wandering clouds and a breeze comfortable in the sun and winter-cool in the shadows: Cora soon enough grows weary of walking. She's been walking for what seems like hundreds of years, and all she wants to do now is find a place, a cave, a hideout, a something that will let her sit down for more than a couple of hours at a time, to he down for more than one lousy night. She doesn't bother trying to figure out just when the end came; it doesn't make any difference. One day she was working out ways to pick Chisholm out of a zillion people in a city, the next she's ready to pack it in and go ... away.

Not home.

There is no home.

She's left Reed on the bench, unable to look at him anymore, knowing that he's finally realized she's reached the brink. He'll have to work it out for himself, whatever it is he's going to do. She, however, is done. Finished. Over. Through. It had taken them a while to understand that Chisholm wasn't just running, he was hiding, and whoever first said this was a big country didn't know jack s.h.i.t, because it wasn't a big country, it was a G.o.dd.a.m.n monster, and two ordinary people haven't got a hope in h.e.l.l of finding someone in it if that someone doesn't want to be found.

The worst thing is, she knows Reed will try. He'll really try to pretend that he's given up, too, and that he'll go wherever she wants. In the end, though, he'll still be looking, and she'll know it, and sooner or later they'll have the fight to end all fights, and she'll lose him.

"Oh, G.o.d," she whispers. "Oh, my G.o.d."

She's left the riverside tourist area, all those old warehouses made into something else, all those new sidewalks and streets and signs and stuff; what she sees now are buildings of brick and wood and a couple of them mixed, and they look as tired as she feels. No tourists here. A guy on a street corner, leaning against a lamppost, drinking out of a brown bag; two guys in the doorway of a barred-window liquor store, arguing quietly; little old ladies, most of them black, hustling with heads up and shopping bags in hand; a few kids cutting school, earphones on, jiving-did they still call it jiving?-to whatever music they have stuck in their pockets; the smell of old beer and old urine and old vomit, exhaust and rubber and once in a while the sickening wash of fresh paint.

No one gives her more than a glance.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out she looks as miserable as they do.

This, she thinks, is a b.i.t.c.h of a way to spend her formative years, and she giggles. Aloud. High-pitched, almost keening.

And still no one looks.

She hesitates, not wanting to go too far, not wanting to get lost. Across the way is a low and clean yellow building whose entrance faces the corner, its windows bricked over, and on the roof a neon cross in blue and red. There's a sign over the door, but she can't read it clearly, Tabernacle of Something Something. Pa.s.sing it is a tall black man, and a child who barely comes to his waist, colorful bows in her hair. They're laughing, the little girl skipping ahead and waving her arms, then racing back and grabbing the man's hand and holding it for a while before rushing off again, examining store windows or the warped stained plywood where store windows used to be, finding something in the gutter and tossing it away as soon as the man scolds her.

Cora watches, and is surprised to feel something she hadn't felt in a long, long time: envy, and she wonders if Reed ever thinks about Maple Landing, about his family, about their friends. Lately she has, all except for the family part. Tries to anyway, except for the family part, but he keeps popping up.

Cora, get supper; Cora, what the h.e.l.l you doing wearing clothes like that, you look like a s.l.u.t; Cora, come here, girl, you're in real bad trouble; Cora, come here. Come here, girl, Daddy won't hurt you. G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Cora get your a.s.s- The unexpected blast of a horn makes her jump, eyes wide and a hand to her chest as she realizes she's stepped off the curb, almost into the path of a dusty old car. Reflex brings her free hand up in a screw-you-watch-where-you're-going gesture, but she can't catch a breath as she backpedals to the sidewalk, and she bends over for a moment, hands on her knees, mouth open, gulping and swallowing, glaring at the automobile and wishing, in that same moment, the d.a.m.n thing had hit her.

Her vision is blurred, not quite tears filling her eyes, but she can see a man leaving the tabernacle, and her mouth opens even wider.

d.a.m.n, she thinks; d.a.m.n.

He's tall, broad, long wavy black hair, dressed in black. By the time she straightens and slaps the tears from her eyes, the man has walked away, moving down the side street, his back to her.

"Oh my G.o.d," she whispers, and without thinking, without looking, dashes across the street.

"Hey!" she screams. "Hey, wait up, it's me, Cora!"

At the same time, the car that nearly hit her darts to the curb and a man scrambles out, clinging to the open door. He calls, "Casey! Hey, Casey!" and Cora stumbles to a halt not far behind him.

"Casey! Hey, it's me!"

The big man looks back over his shoulder, puzzled, and Cora sags.

It's not him.

Of course it's not him, you idiot. You think he's gonna show up out of nowhere, out of some stupid yellow for G.o.d's sake sidewalk church just because you're feeling sorry for yourself?

The man from the car shrugs an embarra.s.sed apology, the big man in black waves a no problem, and Cora decides she'd better head back. Reed is probably worried half to death about her, and she might as well get this it's-over stuff over with. Then the man from the car turns to her, and she can't help herself-she stares.

Wow, she thinks; he looks just like- "Excuse me," he says, moving toward her slowly. He's tall, lanky, heavy brows and unruly hair. "Did you say your name was Cora?"

She backs up warily. Doesn't nod, doesn't shake her head.

"Cora Bowes?" He stops, glances at the car, looks back at her. "Bowes, is that right? Cora Bowes?"

Far up the street, the little girl laughs, and her father laughs with her.

"Who ... who wants to know?" she demands.

"I..." The man shakes his head, pushes a shock of hair off his brow. "You thought" he jerks a thumb over his shoulder-"you thought that man was Casey Chisholm."

She can barely breathe; she can barely see.

A woman steps out of the car, stares at her over the roof. "John?"

The man holds out a hand, palm up. "I'm not going to hurt you, Cora. But... you did think he was Casey, right?"

She nods before she can stop herself.

He smiles, a broad and relieved smile that makes her grin in return. *That," he says, pointing to the woman, "is Lisse Montgomery. My name ... I'm John Bannock, and if you're really Cora Bowes from New Jersey, then I think you and I have to talk."

4.

Deep in the eastern Alabama hills a stout black woman stands in front of a shack whose foundation is a series of cracked and stained cinder blocks. At her feet lies a young man, not much more than a boy, whose skin is cracked and red, pustules covering his face and arms, eyes swollen shut, streaks of dried blood spreading from his nose. In the shack's doorway lies a girl child, naked, skin so taut it seems every bone in her body is trying to break through.

A little boy in a cowboy suit stands in the middle of what used to be a hardscrabble garden. Most of the plants have withered, and when he touches the last one with a finger, it vibrates and snaps, its leaves black-brown before they hit the ground.

"This is boring," Joey says, pushing at his cowboy hat until it hangs down his back by a thin rawhide string.

"I know, child," Eula says, pulling on her white, lace-cuff gloves. "I know."

They look to Susan, who leans against the long white Continental, arms folded across her chest. She watches the sky; she says nothing; but she's frowning.

Red had come by to see her; her, not the others. Met her deep in the woods and told her he had things to do, a couple of things to see to, some arrangements to make.

"What kind of arrangements?"

"Want to make things easier, that's all. Even the odds a little."

She had almost lost her temper. "Even the odds? Against us? What kind of talk is that?"

He had leaned over from his saddle, that awful smile there and gone. "You were beaten once. They were too. Kind of like to make sure that don't happen again."

"But it can't." She had looked fearfully to the sky. "How can it?"

He had straightened, creaking leather, his voice low and deep. "You were beaten," he said again, and there was green fire in his eyes. That smile. She had backed away and watched as that great black horse took Red into the woods.

Now she watches the sky. Frowning. Wondering.

Even the odds a little.

The idea makes her nervous.

5.

In the Edward Teach, Ben Pellier is trying to explain to Mariana Cribbs-who is too d.a.m.n distracting in her tight jeans and a T-shirt that's cut off just above her navel-why he's put a cover over old Peg so early in the day.

"That's silly," the young woman says. Her blond hair is piled in curls and ringlets around her head, something she saw in the movies last week.

Ben figures she's used at least two cans of hair spray to keep it all up there. Has to be; not a single strand has moved since she walked in.

She sashays down to the end of the bar, tries to look up under the bottom of the floral cloth draped over the cage. "He's lonely, Ben. He wants to see his friends." She lifts the cloth a little. "Hey, bird. Hey, Peg. Pretty bird, you want some light?"

Ben says nothing. He waits until Mariana suddenly gives up, dusting her hands on her hips, looking at him with a strained smile. He nods.

She hears.

Old Peg, sitting in his cage.

Squawking softly to himself.

6.

John Bannock can't believe his luck. One day before Thanksgiving, and out of an entire city ... h.e.l.l, an entire section of the whole entire country, he runs across not just one, but two people searching for Casey Chisholm.

And to make things even more incredible, they just happen to be from where Casey used to live.

Once all the introductions had been made, the exclamations of surprise and shock, he had taken the kids-and they surely weren't much more than that-to the small hotel west of town where he and Lisse had booked a room. He could tell they were hungry, and by the way Lisse had fussed over an impatient Cora, he had known they were nearing the end of their rope. A decent meal was in order, some peace, some normality, so they had sat in the restaurant, and he watched their reluctance, and their suspicions, give way to the temptations of the menu.

As they ate, he noticed that Reed was the one who told most of their story, while Cora was the one who kept asking questions he didn't yet want to answer. An interesting pair. He couldn't figure out how they'd stuck together for so long.

The only time, in fact, that Cora's smile seemed genuine was when Lisse called him Prez, and the girl had said, "That's it! You look like Lincoln a little. You know that? Bet you're sick of hearing it, too, right? Boy. Hey, Reed, doesn't he look like Abe Lincoln?"

By the time their second helping of dessert had been cleared away, however, Cora had grown silent and Reed hadn't done a very successful job of trying to hide the yawns that threatened to split his cheeks wide open. Without asking, John had booked a second room, hustled them off without much more than perfunctory debate, and after splashing a little cold water on his face, brought Lisse to the hotel bar, where they found a booth shadowed enough to be private, close enough to the bar itself so he could keep an eye on the large-screen TV near the center of the back wall.

He can't believe his luck.

Lisse, a sweater draped over her shoulders, turns a mint julep slowly in her hands without picking it up. "They never make them right," she complains mildly, nodding at her drink. "You get outside the Deep South, they look awful pretty but they taste awful."

"I thought we were in the Deep South."

She snorts. "John, you got a lot to learn. Louisiana is Deep South. This place ... it's way too North. Too many people from the North living here."

He smiles, touches her arm.

She is luck too. Fate, maybe. Maybe Destiny. She had been a waitress in a New Orleans hotel when they'd met, and somehow-even now he couldn't really explain it- they'd ended up traveling together. Nearly dying together. She could have left him any time over the past couple of years, but she hadn't. And that's something you just don't question.

A trio plays desultory jazz in a corner-ba.s.s, drums, keyboard-but not loudly enough to m.u.f.fle the TV, which shows news footage of a riot outside an arena in a city he didn't catch. Cops and kids. And the kids seem to be dressed pretty much the same; a uniform of sorts. Like an army.

"I've been thinking, Prez," Lisse says, sitting back, arms extended to keep hold of her gla.s.s.

He looks at her and rolls his eyes, moans, looks to the ceiling, and mouths a fake prayer. Looks back at the auburn hair dusting her shoulders, curls and waves that shift and shimmer in the dim light.

"Oh, hush," she says lightly. "We got those kids now, we got to start making a plan."

"I thought we had a plan."