Riders In The Sky Part 38

Idly he digs at the sand with the toe of a shoe, smooths the hole over, and starts another. Looks up once when he thinks he hears a siren, dismisses it as the wind.

You're stalling, he tells himself.

He nods; he knows.

He's gotten real good at that over the years. Pretty much one of the world's experts, he reckons.

And today, like each Christmas since the day he left Maple Landing, would have been pretty much like every other day, if it hadn't been for those d.a.m.n kids and that d.a.m.n Bannock and his lady with the stunning auburn hair. All right, maybe not so terribly ordinary, but d.a.m.nit, certainly not filled with so much pain.

It isn't fair.

It isn't right.

He's out of it.

He had lost.

you're stalling, Chisholm He digs another hole, and smooths it over; he wriggles his back against Daddy's head to find more comfort; he watches his foot, studies the sand, listens to the gulls and the crows, until he can find no more excuses to keep his head down.

When he looks up, at the sea, at the cloudless sky, at the mist that rises above the jetties each time a wave thunders against them, at the beach that stretches southward as far as he can see, at the birds that ride the wind ...

When he looks up, he inhales, holds it, lets it out, and finally shakes his head slowly. Says, "Good afternoon, Lord, happy birthday," and it sounds so ridiculous, so phoney, so trite, so unconscionably false, that he wonders if finally he's stepped over the line.

Whether he has or not, though, it doesn't stop him from weeping.

5.

He stands in the middle of Midway Road, hands on his hips, staring hard at the house across from his. He has been standing there, virtually unmoving, for almost an hour; whenever the urge to give up makes him shift, he tells himself-patience, boy, patience.

He's aware of movement off to his right and behind him-Bannock and the woman leaving their place and standing in the yard. Neither greets him or calls to him, but he can feel them watching.

Patience, boy. Patience.

When it happens, it happens fast: Cora slams the porch door open and stomps down the stairs, her head shaking, one hand slashing at the air as if wielding a sword.

"What do you want?" she yells. She wears no coat, only a shirt and jeans and tired sneakers on her feet. "What the h.e.l.l do you want from me?"

Reed is far behind her, tentative, carrying a sweater in his good hand. Casey sees smudges under his eyes, and his cheeks, once full, are sunken now and pale.

"What do you want?" she shouts, her stride shorter, growing uncertain.

He doesn't move.

He stands there and watches her sternly, the way he used to watch the teenager who had all the ideas that got all her friends in trouble, the one who was sullen and bitter and had only three real friends, Reed the only survivor.

Her head doesn't make it anywhere near his chin, but she plants herself in front of him and takes a swipe at his chest. "What do you want?" she demands, breathing heavily, eyes narrow, lower lip on the verge of trembling.

He glances over her head at Reed, and he winks.

Startled, Reed can't stop himself from grinning.

Cora slaps his chest again, once with each hand, and after the second one he grabs her wrist.

"Let go of me."

But she doesn't struggle.

Softer: "Please, d.a.m.nit, let go of me."

"Don't swear," he scolds softly.

"Ain't swearing," she says, repeating one of his lessons. "It's cursing. You want swearing, I'll swear you into the G.o.dd.a.m.n ground."

As soon as she realizes what she's done, she looks up at him, and the lip finally trembles.

"Reverend Chisholm?"

For a long time, he doesn't answer. She expects the truth, because he's never before given her anything else. The problem now is, he's not sure what the truth is.

So he says, with a small smile, "Maybe."

It's honest, and it's enough.

She collapses against him, hugs him as tightly as she can, and he can't see if she's crying, but he wouldn't bet on it. Cora Bowes seldom cried, at least not in front of him. That's a weakness, and she's spent a lifetime trying to purge herself of them all.

"Maybe," he whispers as he puts his arms around her, rests his chin in her hair. "Maybe."

2.

1.

T.

hey spent most of Sunday at Casey's house, sprawled in the living room, a bath towel draped over the TV screen so no one would be tempted. He sat on the couch and listened to their stories, which they seemed determined to make either as harrowing or as comic as they could. They talked over each other, bickered, filled in gaps, contradicted, and once begun, didn't bother to try to hide the pain.

Midway toward sunset, he and John drove down to Betsy's, discovered it closed and moved on to the Tide, a coral-colored stucco building on the left side of the road, a mural of a huge cresting wave stretching from one side of the entrance to the other. The menu was far larger than anything Hector and Gloria delivered, but Casey cautioned him that the food, while decent to not too bad, didn't hold a candle to the Nazarios' Cuban touch. They ordered enough to feed an army, ordered a little more, and dumped it all in the backseat.

When Casey paid and John protested, Casey said, "I've had nothing else to spend it on in a long time. Let it be."

Let me tell you something, honey, Lisse had said to him during one of John's pauses, you ain't seen nothing until you've seen those crows with those awful blue eyes. Killed one man we know about, the one who got him started writing, can't begin to guess how many others there were. Couldn't really hear their wings, either. There were a whole bunch, a couple dozen or more, but you couldn't hear them flying.

And the horses.

Don't get me started about the horses.

She frowned when Cora said something to her, then shrugged helplessly. I don't know, dear, she said. I don't know what was the worst part. Maybe because it all was, you know what I mean?

Yes, I guess you do.

She shifted in the uncomfortable silence, and raised an eyebrow. No, I take that back. It's his snoring, that's the worst part. The man can wake the long dead and make them wish they were dead again. The trouble is, when he falls asleep he's deaf as a post.

Reed, giggling, wanted to know if they were married.

Not yet.

She nudged John hard, and he blushed.

See? she said, her eyes bright. Softy, the man's a softy. Except when he's asleep and deaf. Then you can poke him all night, it's like kicking a log.

Married? I don't know. Maybe next year.

And Reed had muttered, if there is a next year.

Casey didn't tell her he had already seen the birds.

They hadn't quite reached the church, when John glanced in the rearview mirror and said, "Uh-oh."

Casey checked over his shoulder and groaned.

It was a sheriffs department cruiser, lights twirling; headlamps flashing. John pulled over and rolled his window down.

"What's the procedure here?"

"I don't know. All I own is a bike. I walk the rest of the time." Then he said, "Oh, c.r.a.p," when he saw Deputy Freck climb out of the car, hitching at his gunbelt, straightening his sungla.s.ses.

John already had his license out, wiggled a finger to get Casey to pull the registration and insurance from the glove box, along with the rental contract.

"Afternoon, gentlemen," Freck said, leaning over, his face filling the window. "Sorry to bother you. Just need to ask a couple of questions."

"Anything you say, Officer," John said politely.

"No kidding." He smiled without parting his lips. "Where were you yesterday afternoon, con?"

Casey didn't answer.

"Hey, con, I'm talking to you. Where were you yesterday afternoon?"

"Ex-con," Casey said, refusing to face him. "And I was at the beach most of the time. Why?"

"You got witnesses?"

"Why?"

Freck leaned an elbow on the door, shook his head as if he were weary of dealing with recalcitrant fools. "You gonna tell me you haven't heard?"

"Don't have a phone and there's no paper, Deputy," he said. "And I'm no psychic, either."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned. Well, Chisholm, seems like somebody blew up the Lucky Deuce yesterday. And you wouldn't know anything about it, would you."

Casey did look then. "Rick's boat? Somebody blew up Rick's boat? What the h.e.l.l for?"

"My, my, don't the man catch on fast. So you were on the beach, that right? No witnesses, that right?"

"A couple of crows."

"All day?"

"No. The rest of the time I was with my friends."

The deputy nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe-"

"Look, Freck," Casey said, his patience gone, "if you want me to make a statement of my whereabouts, say so and we'll go to the office. Otherwise" he jerked a thumb over his shoulder-"we've got our dinner back there, and I don't want it to get cold."

Freck inhaled slowly, deliberately, as he looked up and down the street. Then he said to John, "Mister, you look to me like a reasonable man. h.e.l.l"-he took off his sungla.s.ses-"you look like somebody I know. But if this little routine stop here has annoyed you, maybe you'd best think twice about hanging around with ex-cons."

With his sungla.s.ses back on, he touched a finger to the edge of his hat brim in a mock salute, and ambled back to his patrol car. When he left, it was with a squealing U-turn.

John watched him go, in the side mirror. "Something going on here I should know about, Casey?"

"When we get back," he answered. "When we get back."