Swan Song (56 page)

She didn’t know how long the attacks went on. She concentrated only on her work, and soon she came to the last five seeds.

At the first smear of light in the east, Josh sat up in the front room of Glory Bowen’s shack and realized that Swan was gone. He called the woman and her son, and together they searched the alleys of Mary’s Rest. It was Aaron who ran out to the field to look, and he came back yelling for Josh and his mama to come quick.

They saw a figure lying on the ground, huddled up on its side. Pressed close to it was Mule, who lifted his head and whinnied weakly as Josh ran toward them. He almost stepped on the crushed carcass of a bobcat with an extra clawed foot growing from its side, saw another thing that might have once been a bobcat lying nearby, but it was too mangled to tell for sure.

Mule’s flanks and legs were crisscrossed with gashes. And in a circle around Swan were three more animal carcasses, all crushed.

“Swan!” Josh shouted as he reached her and dropped to his knees at her side. She didn’t stir, and he took her frail body into his arms. “Wake up, honey!” he said, shaking her. “Come on now, wake up!” The air was bitterly cold, but Josh could feel the warmth that radiated from Mule. He shook her harder. “Swan! Wake up!”

“Oh, my Lawd Jesus,” Glory whispered, standing just behind Josh. “Her… hands.”

Josh saw them too, and he winced. They were swollen, covered with dried black blood and dirt, the raw fingers contorted into claws. In the palm of her right hand was a leather pouch, and in her left palm was a single, withered kernel of corn mired in the dirt and blood. “Oh, God… Swan…”

“Is she dead, Mama?” Aaron asked, but Glory didn’t answer. Aaron took a step forward. “She ain’t dead, mister! Pinch her and wake her up!”

Josh touched her wrist. There was a weak pulse, but it wasn’t much. A tear fell from the corner of his eye onto her face.

Swan drew a sharp breath and slowly released it in a moan. Her body trembled as she began to come up from a place that was very dark and cold.

“Swan? Can you hear me?”

A voice-muffled and far away-was speaking to her. She thought she recognized it. Her hands were hurting… oh, they were hurting so much. “Josh?”

The voice had been barely a whisper, but Josh’s heart leapt. “Yes, honey. It’s Josh. You just be still now, we’re going to get you to where it’s warm.” He stood up with the girl in his arms and turned to the clawed-up, exhausted horse. “I’m going to find you a warm place, too. Come on, Mule.” The horse struggled to his feet and began to follow.

Aaron saw Swan’s dowsing rod lying in the snow and retrieved it. He prodded curiously at a dead bobcat with a second neck and head growing out of its belly, then he ran on after Josh and his mama.

Up ahead, Swan tried to open her eye. The lid was sealed shut. A viscous fluid leaked from the corner, and her eye burned so fiercely she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. The other eye, long sealed, throbbed in its socket. She lifted a hand to touch her face, but her fingers wouldn’t work.

Josh heard her whisper something. “We’re almost there, honey. Just a few minutes more. You hang on, now.” He knew she’d been very close to death out there in the open-and might still be. She spoke again, and this time he understood her, but he said, “What?”

“My eye,” Swan said. She was trying to speak calmly, but her voice shook. “Josh… I’ve gone blind.”

Sixty - [Seeds]

Lying on her bed of leaves, Sister sensed movement beside her. She came up from sleep and clamped her hand like a manacle on somebody’s wrist.

Robin Oakes was kneeling, his long brown hair full of feathers and bones and his eyes full of light. The colors of the glass circle pulsated on his sharp-boned face. He’d opened the satchel and was trying to slip the ring out of it. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and Sister said, “No.” She put her other hand on the ring, and he let her have it.

“Don’t get bent out of shape,” he said tersely. “I didn’t hurt it.”

“Thank God. Who said you could go rummaging around in my bag?”

“I wasn’t rummaging. I was looking. No big deal.”

Sister’s bones creaked as she sat up. Murky daylight was showing through the cave’s entrance. Most of the young highwaymen were still asleep, but two of the boys were skinning a couple of small carcasses-rabbits? squirrels?-and another was arranging sticks to build the breakfast fire. At the rear of the cave, Hugh was sleeping near his patient, and Paul was asleep on a pallet of leaves. “This is important to me,” she told Robin. “You don’t know how important. Just leave it atone, okay?”

“Screw it,” he said, and he stood up. “I was putting that weird thing back, and I was going to tell you about Swan and the big dude. But forget it, deadhead.” He started to walk over and check on Bucky.

It took a few seconds for what the boy had said to register: “Swan. Swan and the big dude.”

She hadn’t told any of them about her dreamwalking. Hadn’t said anything about the word “swan” and the hand prints burned into the trunk of a blossoming tree. How, then, could Robin Oakes know-unless he had gone dream-walking, too?

“Wait!” she cried out. Her voice echoed like a bell within the cavern. Both Paul and Hugh were jolted from their sleep. Most of the boys awakened at once, already reaching for their guns and spears. Robin stopped in mid-stride.

She started to speak, couldn’t find the words. She stood up and approached him, holding the glass circle up. “What did you see in this?”

Robin glanced over at the other boys, then back to Sister, and shrugged.

“You did see something, didn’t you?” Her heart was pounding. The colors of the ring pulsated faster as well. “You did! You went dreamwalking, didn’t you?”

“Dreamwhat?”

“Swan,” Sister said. “You saw that word written on the tree, didn’t you? The tree that was covered with blossoms. And you saw the hand prints burned into the wood.” She held the glass in front of his face. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “Not any of that stuff.”

She froze, because she could see that he was telling the truth. “Please,” she said. “Tell me what you saw.”

“I… slipped it out of your bag about an hour ago, when I woke up,” he said in a quiet, respectful voice. “I just wanted to hold it. Just wanted to look at it. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and after what happened with Bucky… I knew it was special.” He trailed off, was silent for a few seconds as if mesmerized again. “I don’t know what that thing is, but… it makes you want to hold it and look down inside it where all those lights and colors shine. I took it out of your bag, and I went over and sat down.” He motioned toward his own bed of leaves on the far side of the cave. “I wasn’t going to keep it very long, but… the colors started changing. They started making a picture-I don’t know, I guess it sounds kind of crazy, right?”

“Go on.” Both Paul and Hugh were listening, and the others were paying close attention as well.

“I just held it and kept watching the picture form, kind of like one of those mosaics they used to have on the walls of the orphanage chapel: If you looked at them long enough, you could almost swear they came alive and started moving. That’s what this was like-only it suddenly wasn’t just a picture anymore. It was real, and I was standing on a field covered with snow. The wind was blowing, and everything was kind of hazy-but damn, it was cold out there! I saw something lying on the ground; at first I thought it was a bundle of rags, but then I realized it was a person. And right next to it was a horse, lying down in the snow, too.” He looked sheepishly over at the listening boys, then returned his gaze to Sister. “Weird, huh?”

“What else did you see?”

“The big dude came running across the field. He was wearing a black mask, and he passed about six or seven feet right in front of me. Scared the hell out of me, and I wanted to jump back, but then he’d gone on. I swear I could even see his footprints in the snow. And I heard him yell ‘Swan.’ I heard that as sure as I hear my own voice right now. He sounded scared. Then he knelt down beside that person, and it looked like he was trying to wake her up.”

“Her? What do you mean, her?”

“A girl. I think he was calling her name: Swan.”

A girl, Sister thought. A girl named Swan-that’s who the glass ring was leading them to! Sister’s mind was reeling. She felt faint, had to close her eyes for a moment to keep her balance; when she opened them again, the colors of the glass circle were pulsating wildly.

Paul had stood up. Though he’d ceased to believe in the power of the ring before Hugh had saved the young boy, he was now almost trembling with excitement. It didn’t matter anymore that he couldn’t see anything in the glass; maybe that was because he was blind and would not look deeply enough. Maybe it was because he had refused to believe in anything much beyond himself, or his mind was locked to a bitter wavelength. But if this boy had seen a vision in the glass, if he’d experienced the sensation of “dreamwalking” that Sister talked about, then might they be searching for someone who really was out there somewhere? “What else?” he asked Robin. “Could you see anything else?”

“When I was going to jump back from that big dude in the black mask, I saw something on the ground almost in front of me. Some kind of animal, all crushed and bloody. I don’t know what it was, but somebody had done a number on it.”

“The man in the mask,” Sister said anxiously. “Did you see where he came from?”

“No. Like I say, it was kind of hazy. Smoky, I guess. I could smell a lot of smoke in the air; and there was another smell-a sick kind of smell. I think there might have been a couple of other people there, too, but I’m not sure. The picture started fading and drifting apart. I didn’t like that sick smell, and I wanted to be back here again. Then I was sitting over there with that thing in my hands, and that was all.”

“Swan,” Sister whispered. She looked at Paul. His eyes were wide and amazed. “We’re looking for a girl named Swan.”

“But where do we look? My God, a field could be anywhere-one mile away or a hundred miles!”

“Did you see anything else?” Sister asked the boy. “Any landmarks-a barn? A house? Anything?”

“Just a field. Covered with snow in some places, and in others the snow had blown away. Like I said, it was so real I could feel the cold. It was so real it was spooky… and I guess that’s why I let you catch me putting that thing back in your bag. I guess I wanted to tell somebody about it.”

“How are we supposed to find a field without landmarks?” Paul asked. “There’s no way!”

“Uh… excuse me.”

They looked over at Hugh, who was getting up with the aid of his crutch. “I’m really in the dark about all this,” he said, once he’d gotten himself steadied. “But I know that what you believe you see in that glass you take to be a place that truly exists. I imagine I’m the last person in the world to understand such things-but it seems to me that if you’re looking for that particular place, you might start with Mary’s Rest.”

“Why there?” Paul asked him.

“Because back in Moberly I had the opportunity to meet travelers,” he replied. “Just as I met you and Sister. I assumed travelers might show some pity for a one-legged beggar-unfortunately, I was usually incorrect. But I remember one man who’d come through Mary’s Rest; he was the one who told me the pond there had gone dry. And I remember… he said the air in Mary’s Rest smelled unclean.” He turned his attention to Robin. “You said you smelled a ‘sick’ odor-and you also smelled smoke. Is that right?”

“Yeah. There was smoke in the air.”

Hugh nodded. “Smoke. Chimneys. Fires for people trying to keep warm. I think the field you’re searching for-if there is such a place-may be near Mary’s Rest.”

“How far is Mary’s Rest from here?” Sister asked Robin.

“Seven or eight miles, I guess. Maybe more. I’ve never been there, but we’ve sure robbed a lot of people who were going in and out. That was a while back, though. Not so many travel this way anymore.”

“There’s not enough gas in the Jeep to make that distance,” Paul reminded Sister. “I doubt if we’d make a mile.”

“I don’t mean seven or eight miles by road,” Robin corrected. “I mean that far overland. It’s southwest of here, through the woods, and the going’s rough. Six of my men scouted a trail over there about a year ago. Two of them made it back, and they said there wasn’t anything worth stealing in Mary’s Rest. They’d probably rob us if they could.”

“If we can’t drive, we’ll have to walk.” Sister picked up her satchel and slipped the glass ring into it. Her hands were shaking.

Robin grunted. “Sister,” he said, “I don’t mean any disrespect, but you’re crazy. Seven miles on foot wouldn’t be what I’d call a real fun thing to do. You know, we probably saved your lives stopping your Jeep like we did. You’d be frozen to death by now if we hadn’t.”

“We have to get to Mary’s Rest-or at least I do. Paul and Hugh can decide for themselves. I’ve come a hell of a lot further than seven miles to get here, and a little cold’s not going to stop me now.”

“It’s not just the distance, or the cold. It’s what’s out there in the deep woods.”

“What?” Hugh asked uneasily, hobbling forward on his crutch.

“Oh, some real interesting wildlife. Things that look like they were hatched in some mad doctor’s zoo. Hungry things. You don’t want one of those things to catch you out in the woods at night.”

“I should say not,” Hugh agreed.

“I have to get to Mary’s Rest,” Sister said firmly, and her set expression told Robin her mind was made up. “All I need is some food, warm clothes and my shotgun. I’ll make out okay.”

“Sister, you won’t make a mile before you get lost-or eaten.”

She looked at Paul Thorson. “Paul?” she asked. “Are you still with me?”

He hesitated, glanced toward the gloomy light at the cave’s entrance and then at the fire the boys were starting by rubbing two sticks together. Damn! he thought. I never could do that when I was a Cub Scout! It might not be too late to learn, though. Still, they’d come so far, and they might be so close to finding the answer they sought. He watched the fire spark and catch, but he’d already decided. “I’m with you.”

“Hugh?” she prompted.

“I want to go with you,” he said, “I really do. But I have a patient.” He glanced at the sleeping boy. “I want to know what-and who-you find when you get to Mary’s Rest, but… I think I’m needed here, Sister. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt useful. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” She’d already decided to talk Hugh out of going, anyway; there was no way he could make the distance on one leg, and he’d only slow them down. “I do understand.” She looked at Robin. “We’ll want to be leaving as soon as we can get our gear together. I’ll be needing my shotgun and the shells-if that’s all right with you.”

“You’ll need more than that to make it.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll want to return Paul’s gun and bullets to him, too. And we can use whatever food and clothes you can spare.”

Robin laughed, but his eyes remained hard. “We’re supposed to be the robbers, Sister!”

“Just give us back what you stole from us, then. We’ll call it even.”

“Anybody ever tell you you were crazy?” he asked.

“Yes. Tougher punks than you.”

A faint smile spread slowly across his face, and his eyes softened. “Okay,” he said, “you’ll get your stuff back. I guess you’ll need it more than us.” He paused thoughtfully, then said, “Hold on,” and he went over to his bed of leaves. He bent down and started going through a cardboard box full of tin cans, knives, watches, shoelaces, and other items. He found what he was looking for and returned to Sister. “Here,” he said, placing something in her hand. “You’ll need this, too.”

It was a small metal compass that looked like it might have come from a CrackerJack box.

“It works, too,” he told her. “At least, it worked when I took it off a dead man a couple of weeks ago.”

“Thanks. I hope it’s luckier for me than it was for him.”

“Yeah. Well… you can have this, too, if you want it.” Robin unbuttoned the brown coat from around his throat. Against his pallid skin he was wearing a tarnished little crucifix on a silver chain. He started to take it off, but Sister touched his hand to restrain him.

“That’s all right.” And she pulled her woolen muffler away from her neck to show him the crucifix-shaped scar that had been burned there in the Forty-Second Street theater long before. “I’ve got my own.”

“Yeah.” Robin nodded. “I guess you do.”

Their coats, sweaters and gloves were returned to Paul and Sister, along with their guns, bullets for Paul’s Magnum and shells for Sister’s shotgun. A can of baked beans and some dried squirrel meat wrapped up in leaves found their way into a duffel bag that was returned to Sister, along with an all-purpose knife and a bright orange woolen cap. Robin gave both of them wristwatches, and a search of another cardboard box of booty yielded three kitchen matches.