Riders In The Sky Part 24

"Fine," she says shortly.

Red grins at her-it's there and it's gone.

The horse lowers its head, sweeps it around abruptly to stare at Joey, who gasps and backs away so quickly he falls on his rump, nearly rolls down to the water. He jumps up, muttering, brushing at his jeans, straightening his gunbelt, fussing again with his hat.

"Here, child," Eula says, and pats her leg until he stands beside her. One arm goes around his shoulder; she hugs him once, tightly.

Red pushes his hat back, crosses his hands over the saddle horn, leans over, and whispers something when the horse shies and stamps and lashes its tail. When it's quiet, he smiles-there and gone-and takes a deep breath.

Closes his eyes.

Opens them and says, "Be pleased to know it's time to hit the trail."

Susan says nothing, but her expression is smug; Eula nods; Joey whoops and hollers and breaks into a war dance until he slips on the damp gra.s.s and nearly knocks Eula down. This time she grabs the back of his neck and holds him at her side.

Red's face is impa.s.sive. "You know where you have to be. You know when you have to be there. There is no rush. We have plenty of time. I took care of a few things." He sniffs, rubs the back of his neck. "Don't believe I'll see you again before then."

"Even the odds?" Susan says.

Eula looks at her, puzzled.

"Maybe," Red says.

"What do you mean, maybe?" Susan, isn't pleased. "Either you did or you didn't."

Eula draws herself up. "What are you two talking about? What odds?"

Red gives her the smile. "Just trying to make sure you don't get all bruised again, Miz Korrey."

Eula's expression tells him she's not sure if he's mocking her or not, but she says nothing, only grunts softly.

"And on the way?" Susan asks. "On the way?"

Red frowns at her. "You know."

She scowls back. "That's not right."

"It's the way it is. What can I tell you, but it's the way it is."

"My palomino," Joey says, impatiently shaking off Eula's hand.

"Waiting on you, pardner."

Joey nods thoughtfully. "And can I hurt him? Can I hurt John Bannock?"

Red grins. "Son, when it's time, you can do all the hurting you want to. Any way you want to." He holds up a finger. "But nothing before then, you hear me, son?" His head turns. "You hear me, Susan? You listening? Nothing before then."

The horse steps back, snorting, tossing its head.

Red's voice lowers, the sound of a dark wind blowing before thunder. "It's my time, you understand?" Staring hard until she has to look away. "You'll have yours again, but now it's my time."

A tug on the reins, a clucking noise, and the horse begins to turn down the slope.

"Red," Eula says.

He looks over his shoulder, nothing visible under the brim but cold green eyes.

Eula glances at Susan, then straightens her shoulders. "How is it written? How will it be? I wasn't supposed to get no hurting, you know. It wasn't supposed to happen. So how is it written?"

No one moves.

No one speaks.

Until at last he says, "There is no written, Miz Korrey. There is no written."

"But the Book-"

"Man writes," he told them all, "but it's only words. They mean nothing. Not to us."

"That's no answer," she complains.

And he says, "Oh, yes, Miz Korrey. Oh, yes, it is."

He rides across the water, not a ripple, not a splash.

Scarlet fire in scarlet ribbons wind from the great black's hooves.

Emerald sparks from its nostrils scatter over the lake.

This time the water boils.

PART 4.

1.

1.

A.

n autumn wind blows across a Tennessee hillside, husking through the dying gra.s.s, slipping around headstones whose words are worn, whose surfaces are laced with spider-leg cracks. Dead flowers on distant graves shudder and lose their petals. Sharp blue sky and clouds like thin smoke. Trees in their colors spinning leaves into the air.

Casey stands alone beneath a weather-bent sycamore, hands in his pockets, shoulders up against the wind, hair stabbing at his eyes. White hair, not black, but still thick, still barely reaching his shoulders; he's long since given up trying to swipe it away.

He watches a small group of mourners standing beneath a sagging faded canopy. A few old women huddled in black, a few old men in black suits or dark suits, their ties knotted, their faces reddened, hair slicked, old shoes polished as best they could be. No young ones; no one younger than fifty. There are chairs, but no one uses them. The time has pa.s.sed to sit in the presence of the dead.

Their bodies block what he knows is there-a coffin none of them, or the woman inside, could have afforded in this life. On the gently curved lid, a trio of flowers picked from the dead woman's garden only that morning, having lasted this long some said just to be where they are. A simple wreath propped on a wobbly tripod stand wrapped in green paper. A spray of lilies in a cheap gla.s.s vase that's much too short for the length of the stems.

On the far side of the grave, a giant of a man in a black frock coat and gleaming black boots, his face masked by shifting shadow, holds in his left hand an open Bible, his right hand pa.s.sing tenderly over the coffin now and then. He doesn't look at the Good Book; he doesn't need to, he only holds it for the others. His voice reminds Casey for no reason at all of a river that flows in the lightless recesses of a cavern-deep and slightly rough, musical without song. He gestures toward the valley, toward the mist-covered hills that make up the horizon and the mist that covers the green valley floor; he gestures, and he speaks, and the old men and the old women nod, and whisper, "Amen," and close their eyes against the tears they thought they had already shed.

Casey orders himself to turn away, that he doesn't need to see this, that he's seen it already, but he doesn't turn and he doesn't stop listening and somewhere below his heart he feels the twisting of a knife.

I don't need this.

I don't want this.

The wind grows stronger, the mist dances and thins, settles and thickens, and the air is streaked with a thousand flying leaves like a flock of tiny birds determined to peck the eyes from his head. He ducks away, hisses when a sharp edge lays open a cut on his cheek. And one on his forehead. And another over the thick eyebrow above his left eye.

"I don't need this!" he yells, and one old man dressed in old black looks over his shoulder, scowling, shaking a finger, and looks back to the grave.

"d.a.m.nit, I don't want this!" Casey shouts, and an old woman dressed in the best black dress she owns looks over her shoulder, sunken cheeks quivering, the scarf around her head fluttering in the wind. She says nothing, but she doesn't have to, and Casey snaps a curse at her, shows her his back, and glares at the valley that dares look so peaceful on a day like this, with a wind like this.

While the leaves dart at him again, and again cut his face.

Finally he protects his eyes with his hands and leans against the tree, listening to that voice, to the soft sobs and the soft moans and far up the hillside the not-so-soft sound of horses racing down from the crest.

Don't look, it's only a dream.

The voice, the sobs, hooves pounding the turf.

Don't look.

He can't help it.

"Lord, no," he whispers, and begins to run, slapping away the leaves, leaning into the wind, because there is a herd up there, one hundred or more horses of all colors and breeds, stampeding down the slope, kicking over headstones, digging gra.s.s up in great spraying clumps, heading straight for the funeral under the faded canopy over there.

He calls a warning, but no one listens.

He stumbles, spins in an awkward circle, runs again and wonders why the living h.e.l.l they can't hear the beasts that are only a few yards away, heads tossing, manes rippling, steam puffing from their nostrils and foam bubbling from their mouths. He waves his arms and yells; he waves his arms and the leaves blind him; he sees a stump and veers around it, doesn't see the exposed root that sc.r.a.pes along his ankle, causing him to falter, to fall, and for a few feet he's on all fours before he's up again. Still running. Still yelling. Until something happens to his legs and he's on the ground again, sprawled and watching helplessly- While the herd sweeps through the funeral, snapping the canopy posts, trampling the wreath, shattering the vase, slamming aside the old men and the old women, swallowing them in their midst, and all he can see now is a red-tinged cloud and the horses and falling shadows, and all he can hear are the women, who are too old to scream for very long as they're broken.

Blood on his face and agony in his legs,, he watches the herd continue headlong down the hill and vanish into the valley covered by the mist.

I don't need this, he thinks.

I don't want this, he begs.

And when the wind takes the dust, there is nothing left but the canopy lying torn and twisted on the ground, covering the mourners, who don't move at all.

The coffin is gone.

The man in black is gone.

Casey knows he can walk, but he crawls instead, keeping well away from the flapping canopy shroud, wincing as the leaves continue to shred his cheeks; swallowing bile, swallowing blood, until he reaches the lip of the fresh open grave. He knows that if he looks he'll see either the man in black or the dead woman's coffin, or, he thinks, he'll see himself.

Down in the mist a horse screams, and there is thunder.

He settles back on his heels, searching the sky, refusing to give the dream the satisfaction of showing him the all too obvious.

The wind pushes trickles of dirt into the hole.

The canopy ripples, its edges snapping like frayed pennants.

The smell of fresh-turned earth; the stench of crushed flowers.

He searches the sky, bows his head, leans forward, and looks.

The grave is empty.

I don't want this.

Nothing's there.

I don't need this.

And a voice says, "Yes, you do."

2.

"No," Casey protested.

"You need it," the voice insisted, and he felt something cool and wet slide into his mouth.

He choked, swallowed the water, and said, "d.a.m.n."