Riders In The Sky Part 8

No, she answers anyway, everything is not okay, but thanks for asking.

Beside her a woman sleeps, her head resting against the window. Her face is covered with a soft cotton veil that begins just below her eyes, and every so often, in her dreams, she twitches, moans, a finger brushing the veil as if making sure it's still there. In the backseat are two girls, one now twelve, the other now thirteen, with the most improbable names the driver has ever heard in her life- Moonbow and Starshine. Equally improbable is the way they've managed to sleep for so long, curled tightly against each other, making no noise at all.

The driver smiles, flexes her fingers, ducks and twists and tilts her head to stretch and ease her neck, rubs each shoulder in turn.

Once in a while, although not so frequently anymore, she turns to say something to her husband, and it isn't until she sees the veil that she remembers that her husband's gone. That she's a widow. That he was murdered.

She blinks each time, and bites softly on her lower lip. These days there are no tears; they were shed and are gone. These days there's only anger, the only reason she's in the car, forever driving.

In the morning the girls will wake and want to know if they're there yet.

In the morning she'll have to tell them that she doesn't know.

She has to force herself to remember how long it's been since they left Las Vegas for the second time, and most of the time she doesn't bother because it doesn't matter. A month, a year, who cares, her husband is dead, and so is the man who tried to save him, and all that's left now is the progression of the sun, rise and set, and the procession of traffic that pa.s.ses them every day, and the wondering if this town, this city, this farm, this crossroads, will be the place.

If her husband were here, he'd know.

But he's not.

All she can do is head east.

And trust the dreams.

3.

On the far side of the hill, the sky glowing above it in spite of the rain, the road becomes a switchback, and the driver takes it slowly, carefully, wondering why in h.e.l.l they just didn't make the thing straight. Up and over, none of this twisting and turning and mentally crossing a few fingers that some idiot isn't barreling down on her from the opposite direction because, really, there's no place to pull over. No shoulders, just trees, and a narrow two-lane road.

Actually she doesn't really mind it, but it seems such a waste, all that work following someone's pioneer winding trail instead of heading directly into the next valley, no curves, no obstacles; they haven't even named the road, so the pioneer's work was all for nothing.

She sighs.

She sniffs.

The rain eases, and mist begins to form tiny clouds that drift between the tree trunks onto the road.

Beside her, a large woman bundled in a green coat hums softly in time to the windshield wipers' sweep. Some kind of gospel tune, the driver supposes, but she doesn't know what it is, and she doesn't want to ask because Eula Korrey, for some d.a.m.n reason or other, expects them to know the name of every blessed tune in the book, and spirals off into a pouting huff when she discovers they don't.

And don't particularly care.

A soft noise behind her, and she checks the rearview mirror. She can't see very well, there are no lights along the road, but she can make out a small figure tucked under a blanket. On the back shelf is a cowboy hat; she has a feeling the little guy has left his boots on.

"Be dreaming," Eula says quietly, white-gloved hands folded in her lap.

"I guess so."

"You know what he dreams of?"

"No, and I don't ask."

Eula shifts, and the driver, whose name is Susan, sees a flicker of pain across the woman's gleaming black face.

"You still aching? It's been over a year."

Eula nods carefully. "This ain't the way it's supposed to be, getting all banged up like that." She shakes her head in anger, in confusion, brushes a finger across the green felt hat that lies between them. "Ain't the way, nossir. Not the way it was written."

"It doesn't make any difference how it was written," Susan answers calmly. "It's written a lot of different ways. Sometimes they get to fight us, and sometimes they get to win. For a while."

"Maybe. But I'll bet none of them talk about us getting all banged up."

Susan grins, suddenly laughs and catches herself quickly before she wakes the boy up.

The last turn at the bottom is the sharpest, and she slows the car to the pace of a fast walk, is ready to stomp the accelerator to shoot across the valley, when Eula straightens and says abruptly, "Look."

It takes a moment, but Susan finally sees, and brings the car to a halt, leans back, and says, softly, "Joey, wake up. Come on, cowboy, rise and shine."

The headlights have pushed some of the dead time to the side, and at their farthest reach she can see a lone figure waiting in the middle of the road. He sits on a great black horse, rain dripping from his hat. He doesn't squint at the light, he only nods and leans over the animal's neck, pushes a hand through its long mane and sits upright again. The horse bares its teeth, works the bit, and begins to move slowly toward the car.

Eula fusses with her grey hair, pulls the hat into her lap. "Sit up, boy," she tells Joey without looking around. "Sit up, now, child. Time to pay attention."

Feeling oddly at ease, and just as oddly anxious, Susan stares straight ahead as horse and rider pa.s.s the car; she looks in the rearview mirror to watch them turn around, the red glow of the taillights reflected in the horse's large eyes. When they stop beside her door, she presses a b.u.t.ton and the window slides down.

"Evening, ladies," the rider says, touching two fingers to his hat brim.

The boy says nothing; the women nod, mutter, "Good evening, Red," and wait, paying no attention to the cold rain that bounces through the open window. He doesn't bend over, they can't see his face, but they can hear his voice and that's all that matters.

Red ignores the rain as well, peering into the dark beyond the headlights. His left hand holds the reins; his right hand rests on his thigh. The horse snorts and tosses its head, steam in clouds from mouth and nostrils.

"He knew," Red says, sounding pleased, patting its neck. "Soon as he saw me, he knew."

"I want to ride him," the boy says, his voice loud in the silence.

"Hush," Eula scolds.

"Well, I do," Joey says, pouting.

Red swings easily out of the saddle then, and for just a second they can hear the sharp sound of sharp spurs. And the stamp of a hoof. Susan isn't positive, but she thinks she caught the brief reflection of a single flame in the windshield.

Red pushes back his hat, and rests his arms on the window's shelf. A quick grin for the boy, and a shake of his head. "Not now."

The boy slumps dejectedly, head down.

"Sit up," Eula snaps. "Pay attention, child."

The boy does what he's told, but it's clear he's still pouting.

"Nice automobile," Red says to Susan, nodding his appreciation. "Good way to travel. If you have to travel this way."

The car is an old and long, white Lincoln Continental, with a hood ornament in the shape of a charging silver horse. The engine is nearly silent.

"I like it," she answers stiffly. She doesn't look at him. She doesn't want to see his eyes. It's bad enough she can feel his breath on her cheek.

"How're you feeling, Miz Korrey?" he asks. "You healing up all right?"

Eula purses her lips, unsure, before she answers, "It ain't supposed to hurt. I still got bruises, you know. Susan here, her face ain't healed yet either." She turns her head. "Ain't written that way."

Quick grin, here and gone.

"No, I don't guess it is," he tells her gently, so gently she stiffens and looks away. "But that's the way it is. That's the way of it." A long pause. "You understand, Miz Korrey?"

"Yes sir, I do," she answers. A smile of her own. "Don't gotta like it, though."

He laughs and nods. "It'll get better," he promises. "Much better." He steps back from the car, and before they realize what he's done, there's the sharp ring of his spurs and he's in the saddle again.

And all they hear is that voice.

"It's almost time."

Susan can't help herself; she has to know: "How?"

Another pause; the sound of rain on the roof.

"We ride in, we take over, just the way it's supposed to be." A pause that might have been a silent laugh. "Don't fret. I'll tell you when."

"Are we alone?"

"We're always alone. But no, there'll be some help, I think. Gotta check that out directly."

"Will they fight us? Again?"

"They'll try," he says, a quiet laugh in his voice. "Won't be much fun, otherwise."

At last Susan smiles, confidence returned. "But we'll win, Red, right? This time we'll win."

He doesn't answer.

He rides away.

Mist on the road, rain skating down the windshield, and she watches him ride away, droplets of scarlet fire splashing from the horse's hooves.

PART 2.

1.

1.

D.

eep autumn; Tuesday; just past morning.

High clouds and a slow breeze and a sun already drifting past its peak; waves and tide are high, the last fierce signs of a hurricane just gone, one that shied away from the coast but left its winds behind; small twigs on the roads, a handful of dead branches, here and there a few shingles trapped in a gutter; a road crew working on the hanging traffic light at Midway and Landward; the sound of chainsaws; the sound of hammers.

A handful of surfers gather on the beach, gauging height and courage and the size of their boards; two beachcombers with metal detectors, each with a burlap sack flung over a shoulder; gulls swarming the flotsam the waves have left behind, dropping sh.e.l.ls onto the jetty rocks, then scrambling for the meat; photographers still and video do their dances for the right angle, an impromptu party ranging across a pair of dunes, a child crouching intently over a tide pool while his father looks on, smiling.

A dead bird in the woods; still twitching.

2.

The house wasn't the smallest that Casey had ever lived in, but sometimes it felt like it. It was a two-story, low-ceiling square of no particular design, with a screened-in porch that faced Midway Road, and a slightly canted chimney above a peaked slate roof. What faded paint was left on the clapboard looked either blue or grey, depending on the sun, on the rain, on the way the trees gave or took away the shade. The yard, while not garden magazine lush, was at least neat-front, sides, and back-and there was a hedge along the road with thorns an inch or two long, thick as a man's thumb.

He hated tr.i.m.m.i.n.g that d.a.m.n hedge, and he had the bandages to prove it. It was, he reckoned, a continuing test of his resolve, and his threshold of pain. Still, he decided as he stepped back and let the pruning shears swing idly at his side, it looked pretty good. Fairly even along the breast-high top, the corners as crisp as they were ever going to get, and most of the leaves still hung on.

A point in his favor then: he hadn't killed the stupid thing yet.

All in all, a decent morning's work.

His free hand reached over his head in a bone-snapping stretch; a satisfied groan, a handkerchief across his face to take the sweat away before he tucked it back into his hip pocket. Several cars pa.s.sed the house in both directions; he didn't recognize them, and none greeted him. A police cruiser drifted south with a quick press of its horn, and he waved without looking, halfhearted at best.