Riders In The Sky Part 50

"Why didn't you sit inside?" he said, opening the pa.s.senger door.

"Too warm, Case. I'd be asleep in less than a minute, and you'd never get me up again, not for a week."

On the way home, John said, "Casey, is this their doing? I mean, is this the start?"

"To the first," he said, "I think yes. I don't know about the other."

"Casey, what are we going to do? We're exhausted, we're beat up ... what are we going to do?"

"You want a sermon or do you want an answer?"

"An answer. No offense, but I'll sleep during the sermon."

Casey laughed, leaned back, closed his eyes. "I have no idea, John. I have absolutely no idea."

Although he couldn't see them when he walked through the door, he knew they were all here, scattered throughout the house. The kids were in the living room, watching television, Cora on the couch next to Reed, who sported a cast from wrist to elbow and a new sling; someone was upstairs taking a shower, someone else paced the hallway impatiently.

Beatrice was in the kitchen, pouring coffee into cups she had lined up on the counter.

"I'm sorry," she said. A wave toward the front. "No one wanted to be alone tonight."

I did, he answered silently, and went to the back door. There was nothing out there but the night, and the feel of the wind as it careened around the houses.

"Casey," she began, and he waggled a hand to hush her.

"John already asked me, and I don't know."

"Why here, then? So many places, why here?"

He laid his palm against the pane, felt the cold, the tremor of the wind.

"Ask G.o.d."

"I did. He's not answering, so I'm asking you."

He smiled, and saw his reflection smile back.

"Bea, this is no time for philosophy, for dancing with angels on the heads of b.l.o.o.d.y pins. It's here because it's here?. And if I had an explanation, it wouldn't satisfy you anyway. It's here because it's here."

"And we are... what, then? The last bastion of hope against Armageddon?" He heard the coffeepot rattle as she placed it on its stand. He almost didn't hear her ask, "Am I going to die, Casey? Is this my last night?"

The door shook in its frame when the wind punched it.

He put his other hand on the gla.s.s and lowered his head.

"Listen to me," he said.

A very long time ago, a very good man, who happened to be my bishop, told me I had a great violence inside. One of the reasons he sent me to Maple Landing, in fact. One of the reasons I accepted the a.s.signment without arguing.

Momma, she tried to control me, and G.o.d bless her, she did her best, but she couldn't.

The bishop was no better at that than she was.

I killed a man tonight, Bea, and d.a.m.n near throttled another. I lost my temper ... I lost control... and a man is dead because of it. The odd thing is, no one mourns him but me.

Maybe Whittaker's death is my fault too, and the Teagues, maybe others I don't even know about yet.

But forgive me, Bea, if I sound cold and uncaring, but I can't worry about that now. I just can't. I've been given something to do, and I've tried like h.e.l.l to give it back, and it turns out I can't. I thought I could do it-give it back, go away-I thought I had done it, yet... here it is. Bad penny keeps turning up no matter how far I fling it.

d.a.m.n thing just keeps turning up.

He raised his head and looked through the pane at the blackness outside. Lowered his arms. Turned around and saw the others in the kitchen. Watching him. Listening.

He touched his collar, touched his cross.

These ... do not make me special. I am not special. I am no more special than any of you, and you can't think of me that way if we're to do what we have to do.

But we are different, somehow we're different and that's why we're here.

Don't ask me if you'll live, because I don't know. Don't ask me if you're going to die, because I don't know that either. Don't ask me for miracles, because miracles are reserved for the special, not the different. Don't ask me to bless you, because ... I killed a man tonight.

But if you're wondering now, right now, after all this, how we can take on those Riders, how we can possibly win, then I'll remind you that I and my friends once stopped a woman in a great white car, and John there once stopped a boy on a great and dark palomino, and Trey Falkirk, bless his soul and rest it, did the same in the desert.

I...

He couldn't speak.

I...

He couldn't smile.

Go to bed, he finally told them. All of you, go to bed. Try to get some rest, I know you won't get any sleep. If you're going to stay here, there's my bed too, someone take it. I have some hard thinking to do, and I doubt I'll get to use it. Go on now, scoot. Don't worry about me sneaking off. For all your miserable sins, I'll still be here come daybreak.

They crowded through the door, not looking at him, not speaking to him, not speaking to each other. When he was alone, he grabbed the nearest chair and fell into it, limp, exhausted, not entirely sure he'd be able to get up again.

He listened to the wind.

He listened as the house, bit by bit, fell silent.

And then he listened to the silence.

7.

1.

H.

e stands at the end of a long rough jetty, nearly one hundred yards from the safety of the sh.o.r.e. Rhythmic explosions from twenty feet below as the cold December sea tears itself apart against the uneven boulders. His hands are in his pockets, only once in a long while slipping away to clear the cold spray that drips from his face. He wears a black denim jacket over a thick dark sweater; faded jeans, worn sneakers. With no hat for protection his hair ducks and twists in the wind.

He faces the horizon and looks at the water and sees nothing but waves rolling steadily toward him. Rising as if taking his measure, falling as if needing less distance before they can rise again, and crest, and drive him at last into the slick and jagged brown-black stone.

Clouds low and heavy.

Feathers of rain in the distance.

Every few minutes, a flare of lightning, and thunder warns.

He has been here for hours, since the winter sun first rose, and finally there's a long deep breath, a long and slow exhalation while his eyes close and his shoulders slump and his lips move in a silent prayer he fears won't be answered.

Far behind him, on the beach, people wait, huddled and shivering. Watching. Afraid that he won't turn around, that he'll forget they are there, that he will instead take that next step. Into the sea. That after all this time and after all he has told them he will be lost to them, and they'll be lost.

Yet none move to join him, and none move to speak to him, and none move to help him because there is nothing they can do. They can only stand there. Waiting. And watching. While the cold stiffens their limbs and discolors their faces and takes their breath and turns it into ghosts the wind blows back into their dark and fearful eyes.

Every few minutes someone will look at someone else, a raised eyebrow, a pulled-in lip, a tilt of a head, a confused shrug. With nothing to say to the man on the jetty, they have nothing to say to each other as well. Not anymore. It's all been said and it's all been done, and there's no sense in doing anything else.

Just wait.

Ignore the bloodstains, ignore the cuts and bruises, pay no attention to the rough bandages and heavy cast and deeply aching muscles and sharp aching bones and the sure and certain knowledge that what they've been through so far can't possibly shine a light on what they know is to come.

A tall man, lank and bowed, turns to stare at the trees that line the miles of sand that face the ocean. Nothing moves there but the branches, needled or bare. Nothing moves but clumps of violently trembling sawgra.s.s that tops the few dunes he can see from where he stands. Nothing moves, and he turns back, expecting nothing more, a quick smile and a soft grunt when the woman beside him slips her arm around his waist.

Two children, young girls, flank a woman who wears a weighted veil over her face, only her eyes exposed. The three hold hands and dare the wind to knock them down.

A young man and a young woman stand close without touching.

There are others. Not many.

And apart from them all is a woman who holds the neck of her thin coat closed at her throat. A scarf over her hair flutters as if trying to break loose and fly. Of them all she is the only one whose eyes are red and puffed from weeping. Yet her back is straight and her chin is up, and alone among all the others she has no trouble with a smile.

Alone among all the others, she seems to know, and she is ready.

2.

scarlet fire emerald sparks * * * *

Acting Sheriff Verna Dewitt sits at her old desk-she can't bear to use Vale's office-and listens as the state cop tells her for at least the zillionth time that for such a small island, the son of a b.i.t.c.h is pretty d.a.m.n big, but not to worry, they'll leave a presence on the mainland end of the causeway, no way those guys are fool enough to try to leave by boat in this weather. If they try to get off, they'll be caught.

They shake hands and she walks him to the door, says, "Wait, I forgot."

The captain seems impatient, but he's too polite to walk away.

"The waves," she tells him. "They'll be plenty d.a.m.n big now, so watch it crossing. The trick," she continues before he can interrupt, "is to wait for the second one."

He frowns. "What?"

"The second one. Don't ask me why, it's some kind of thing to do with the bottom, but in a storm like this, there'll be one huge wave washing over the road, and some people figure it's okay, and they gun it. Don't. There's always a second big one, sometimes bigger than the first. That one'll knock you clear to Carolina. When that one's gone, then you gun it." She smiles sweetly. "Got it?"

He tips his cap. "Thanks, Sheriff. Appreciate the tip."

"No problem," she answers. And when he's gone, she turns to Salter and says, "Stupid son of a b.i.t.c.h didn't believe a word I said. That man's going to drown, Dwight, I swear to G.o.d."

"He's the last one, huh?"