Riders In The Sky Part 2

Although there is the storm, and the distance between him and her, she can hear him as clearly as if he were whispering in her ear: "Spare the rod, Claire," he tells her. "You know the rest."

They ride through the light from the single bulb on that high pole, and she isn't amazed and isn't frightened and isn't the slightest bit bewildered when she thinks she sees the light pa.s.s through them both, thinks she sees tiny flares of scarlet fire splash from the hooves, thinks she hears those hooves striking the earth as if it were dry and laced with iron.

Thinks she sees them vanish before they reach the other side, nothing now but the mist, twisting, curling, drifting away into the dark.

It's the rain and the wind; it's the lightning and the thunder; it's the rage she feels at the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who've ruined her final good-bye.

So she leaps from the carousel and races toward her men, screaming at them, shrieking, ordering them to get moving, find weapons and get moving because no one, especially not a bunch of drunken half-witted sons of b.i.t.c.hes is going to take away the only thing she has left.

Her good-bye.

Her farewell.

And when Marco asks her what she wants done when they find those hick freaks, she looks back toward the midway and she doesn't hesitate at all when she says, "Kill them, Marco. Kill them all."

2.

1.

A.

lmost autumn; just past noon.

A light warm wind that carries the scent of sea and pine, a faint touch of mudflat and marsh, just the slightest hint of a flower that has bloomed past its time; a high afternoon sun bright but not bright enough to haze the color of the sky, a handful of high island clouds that take their own sweet time drifting west to east; gulls in the air, pelicans on wharf pilings, a young blue heron picking its away across shallow water beneath gnarled cypress and twisted mangrove, while something dark shifts in the reeds, and the surface ripples.

A single story, wood-and-stone schoolhouse, its windows open, the voices of teachers and children; several score houses, mostly wood, a few brick or stone, windows open, the voices of radios and televisions, here and there someone on the phone; pedestrians on the main street, pleased they can still wear shorts and short sleeves, taking their time, no hurry at all, while the locals count their blessings there are any tourists at all.

Camoret Island, in the eye of the storm.

2.

The Camoret Sheriff's Department was housed in a single-story brick building on the north corner of Midway Road and Landward Avenue, a T intersection that marked, within a yard or two, the geographic center of both town and island. The recessed entrance was trimmed in scalloped wood painted white, with double gla.s.s doors propped open to lure the sea breeze inside. Above the arched lintel was a sign that announced the building's function in fancy gold letters outlined in black. There were no windows in front, or on either side. In back there were six: one for the sheriff's private office, two for the main room, and below them, along the top of the high reinforced foundation, there were three, narrow and barred, one for each of the cells in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Sheriff Vale Oakman figured that after fifteen years he knew the place so well he could be struck blind tomorrow and still find his way around without once barking a shin.

Today, however, he could see all too well.

He stood to one side in the entrance recess and pressed his lips together in order to stifle a decidedly unprofessional groan. For a moment he considered retreating to the street, pretend he hadn't been here. But it was too late, and his eyes closed in a brief silent prayer that this isn't a sign of how the week was shaping up.

It was Monday, and Mondays were supposed to be reasonably peaceful, a natural extension of Sundays when, in the main, nothing happened at all. It was supposed to be a time to shift out of his weekend gears, a gentle and painless transition into the rest of the week. A time for paperwork. For checking the wanted notices the state and Feds piled on his desk like slush, marking the trails of the gangs that had begun to swarm out of the cities across the landscape.

For working out, lately, the details of his retirement.

It was not, by G.o.d and first thing after a big leisurely lunch and his monthly attempt to charm the ap.r.o.n off Gloria Nazario, for seeing the likes of for G.o.d's sake Dub Neely.

Y'know, he thought, still unable to bring himself to step over the threshold; you know, it's not like you couldn't squash him if you wanted. I mean, it's not like you couldn't pound the jerk through the floor.

Oakman was a man of average height who seemed to be constructed out of nothing but spheres and cylinders, head to torso, arms to legs, with a loose-fitting tan uniform that made him appear even larger. But only strangers and tourists ever considered him overweight; everyone else knew that most of that round was muscle, not fat. At least it was something they liked to believe. And for the most part, it was true.

Thinning black hair barely long enough to lie down, greying black eyebrows, and a small sharp smile that barely moved his cheeks at all. A twinge in his left knee now and again when the damp settled in, especially in winter; his night vision when driving not quite up to par; a tendency to be short of breath when he climbed too many stairs or walked for too long.

But Jesus, Vale, you can still squash the little creep.

Or get the h.e.l.l away.

From where he stood in the recess, no one could see him from either of the high-back benches set along the walls left and right. Beyond a waist-high gated railing were four blondwood desks, the first and largest facing the doorway-Verna Dewitt's, and it was her job to give him any one of a number of signals they had developed over the past dozen years, most of them warnings to turn around and get gone, trouble's brewing and you're not gonna like it.

Usually it was Mayor Cribbs on his high political horse, or some agitated outraged tourist, or, on occasion, some joker reporter from the mainland who wanted to know, like they all wanted to know, what the real scoop was, the real deal, what it was really like to be the sheriff in charge of a whole d.a.m.n island.

Once in a great while it was Norville Cutler, looking for a sly favor or uncirculated news or just a few minutes alone to pa.s.s the time of day ... and to remind him, mayor or no mayor, law or no law, who was really in charge of the way things went.

On Mondays it was never Dub Neely.

The world, he decided sourly, is coming to a G.o.dd.a.m.n end.

So, resigning himself to the inevitable, he lowered his head, blew out a slow breath to keep his temper in check, and finally stepped inside.

"Morning, Sheriff."

Verna greeted him brightly, too loudly, with a big old smile only he knew was mocking. She was a thin woman, close enough to skinny not to make much difference, whose uniform was never without unnervingly sharp creases. She wore black-frame gla.s.ses attached to an elastic cord, a different color every day, and today her hair was bundled into a clumsy chignon that only served to accentuate the hard angles of her face and the length of her neck.

Her desk was the largest because it also held the dispatch radio connecting the office to Vale and his three deputies. And when she kept it turned down, like it was now, the faint static buzz sounded like summer flies endlessly batting themselves against a window pane. A lazy sound. For Vale, the perfect description of the way things ought to be.

Except, apparently, today.

Verna hadn't warned him about Dub because Dub was already waiting impatiently at the gate, leaning hard against the waist-high railing. His clothes were a direct contrast to Verna's uniform, especially where his belly pushed against a shirt that might once have been white and obviously hadn't seen an iron in a couple of weeks. A water-stained suede vest, a sloppily knotted tie yanked away from his neck, and sand-and-mud smeared clodhoppers that always seemed to want tying.

If you didn't know him by sight, you definitely knew him by smell-personal hygiene wasn't his strong point, but liquor or beer on his breath was. Neither was so overpowering that you couldn't stand to be near him; the smell was more subtle than that, and therefore more unsettling. Oakman knew that half the time you couldn't help wondering if maybe it was actually you who desperately needed the wash or the toothpaste.

"Dub," he greeted flatly, taking off his Stetson, nodding as he wiped a thumb across his brow.

Neely nodded back sharply, his pallid face mottled, brow and cheeks red with anger. "Sheriff. About d.a.m.n time you got here. I want to report a crime."

"Hey, we all got to eat sometime, Dub." Oakman patted his stomach. "Some of us more than others."

The small joke didn't work.

Neely sneered. "Place could go to h.e.l.l and you wouldn't know it. I'm a taxpayer, you know. My hard-earned money pays your salary. And your G.o.dd.a.m.n food bills."

"Then I want a raise."

That didn't work either.

"d.a.m.nit, Sheriff, I'm here to report a crime and you're making fun of me."

"No," Vale told him patiently, "I'm not, and I'm truly sorry if I come across that way. I'm still shaking off the weekend, you know how it goes." He shifted his stance, hat at his waist, an att.i.tude of respectful, serious listening. "Go ahead, Dub. What's the problem?"

"Not a problem, it's a crime, d.a.m.nit, ain't you listening? She,"-Neely swept a grime-streaked hand toward the deputy receptionist-"insisted I had to wait on you. Wouldn't do it herself."

"Well, she," Vale reminded him curtly, "is Miz Dewitt to you, Dub." He edged the shorter man aside with a well-placed hip, unlatched the gate, and was through and had it closed before the shorter man could follow. As he glared down at an uncontrite, fighting-hard-not-to-giggle Verna, he said, "What kind of crime we talking about here?"

"Murder," Neely answered, his voice low.

Vale closed his eyes, sighed, turned, and said, "Whose murder, Dub? Where?"

"Don't remember his name. The guy who came here a summer or two ago. The giant. He's on the beach." Neely frowned, moistening his lips as he concentrated. "Wasn't breathing, best I could figure, and there was blood all over the place." He shuddered. "Awful stuff, Sheriff. Awful. You should have seen it." He lowered his voice again. "I think a gang got him, you know? They're hiding in the marsh. I told you about that a hundred times. They're hiding in the marsh, and now they done us murder."

Vale made his way around the desks to the back of the room, where a large area map hung on the wall between the two windows whose blinds were at half-staff. From a distance, Camoret Island resembled a large blunted arrow pointing toward Spain, its somewhat crooked shaft aimed toward the Georgia coast just north of Savannah. He traced its curved outline without speaking. Nodded thoughtfully. Grunted softly. Looked over his shoulder and said, "Dub, we got umpteen miles of beach here, not counting the marina and the wetlands. You want to tell me just where you found this alleged body?"

Neely frowned as he squinted across the room before, at last, he shrugged helplessly. "Don't remember."

Of course not, Oakman thought; that would be too easy.

"Think you can show me?"

Neely shrugged again and began to fuss with his tie. "Think so. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe."

"Verna, anyone else report a one-man ma.s.sacre this morning?"

"No, sir, Sheriff."

"I ain't lying, Sheriff," Neely snapped. "I know what I saw."

"I know, Dub, I know. Like the camels you saw around South Hook last June."

"Well-"

"And the UFO over North Beach. They was fixin' on an invasion, as I recall."

"Yeah, but-"

"I won't bother to remind you about the giant."

"Well, d.a.m.nit, Sheriff, you know that one is true. I was lying down, and he is d.a.m.n big, scared the living h.e.l.l outta me, coming up on me like that. How the h.e.l.l was I to know he was just looking for work?" He patted his chest gingerly with two fingers. "My heart ain't been the same since, you know. Least little thing gets it racing so bad I see spots and nearly fall over. His fault. All his fault."

The sheriff nodded. "And now you say he's murdered."

"Blood, too. Don't forget the blood."

"Aw, Jesus, Dub." Vale shook his head, slapped his hat back on, and told Verna he was taking Dub and the Jeep for a ride on the beach. Then he shoved Neely through the doorway none too gently, and said over his shoulder, "And if by some miracle Chisholm drops by, tell him he was murdered last night and would he have the decency to stick around so Mr. Neely here can make an ID when we get back."

As Verna sputtered into high-pitched laughter, he squinted at the late September sun and sighed yet again.

Mondays.

Son of a b.i.t.c.h, he didn't even have his Mondays anymore.

3.

Midway Road wasn't exactly the most imaginative name in the world for a street, but Vale was glad it at least wasn't called something like Rising Surf Avenue or Wafting Breeze Boulevard. That sort of nonsense was prevalent enough in the coastal towns; the one thing he didn't need here was what Gloria called cutesy-poo for the tourists. There was plenty of that already in the dumba.s.s names of some of the shops, half of which start with "Ye" or had es at the end of words that never had them in the first place.

Still, he didn't half love this town, and a good part of that had to do with the drive.

A half mile from his office the shops and trees gave way to houses and trees, and lawns still green, gardens still blooming. Few of the buildings were big this close to town center, but none were ramshackle, none in desperate need of repair or paint. Enough shade speckling the road to keep the temperature at a decent level, a decent breeze to cool the sweat when the shade didn't work.

It was the same in the other direction, and a good enough excuse to keep him out of the office as much as he could.

"Where we going, Dub? Come on, you gotta give me a hint, okay?"

"The whales, I think. Yeah, I think it was at the whales."

"You sure?"

"I guess."

"And you're sure it was Casey Chisholm."