Tales from the Nightside (20 page)

I don't know my own son, he thought.

A part of his mind told him to stop feeling sorry for himself; the problem wasn't a new one.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself.

You sound like one of Miriam's soap operas.

I don't.

He's an ordinary boy who needs time. He's seen war.

He's had five years, and so, by the way, have I.

And when he slept, he dreamed of a slight mound in a path supposedly cleared and the sound he felt and heard before waking screaming in a hospital in Japan with a leg raw and twisted. He had refused amputation. He needed the leg.

When he opened his eyes, it was dark. He tried to fall asleep again, but a rising wind nudged him back to wakefulness. Finally he swung out of bed and dressed quietly. He was hungry and thirsty. Cautiously, he crept into the kitchen to fix a snack and unaccountably remembered a rancher he knew in passing who had a string of Shetlands he rented to pony rides during the summer fairs. Maybe, he thought, he could persuade this man to part with I one of his animals on credit. It would be easy enough to explain what had happened to Pinto. The man would have to help him. Slowly the idea grew, hurrying his actions, making him grin at himself. Without stopping to drink the coffee he had poured, he hastened down the hall to David's room.

It was empty. His boots were gone, and his jacket. There was a hint of panic before Aaron realized that David, still mourning, had probably gone out to the barn to Pinto's stall. Snatching his coat I from the closet, he rushed outside, gasping once at the cold air and I the strong wind that slid across the now-frozen ground. A digging I pain in his thigh caused him to slow up, but long before he'd fling open the barn door, he knew the building would be empty. He stood in the barnyard, aimlessly turning, seeking a direction to travel until he saw the faint orange glow over the trees. He stared, hands limp at his sides, squinting, thinking, denying all the fears that founded his nightmares. He knew his century and still refused to believe what he had seen on the jungled mountain, dreaded what he might see if he followed the light.

It was just before dawn...

...and Lieutenant Jackoson was the only squad member still awake, the others sleeping in luxurious safety for the first time in days. Night noises. Night wind. He was drowsy and rubbed the blur from his eyes. Curiosity prodded him; he rubbed his eyes again. The fire burned sullenly at the side of the grave. The boy was naked, now, and standing...

...running over the ice-crusted ground, Aaron was pushed from behind by the wind. He ignored his leg as long as he could, concentrating on the wavering line of trees ahead. Then, just inside the tiny wood, his foot pushed through a hidden burrow and he slammed to the ground. Palms, knees, forehead stung. When he tried to stand, his leg wrenched out from under him, and he cried out. Before him, trunks and branches, brush and grass, twisted slowly in the light of the fire, weaving darkness within darkness. Aaron pushed himself to one leg, his teeth clamped to his lips and, using the trees for support, hobbled toward the clearing. His left leg went numb, the pain felt only from the hip, and finally he collapsed.

Not now, he begged, not now!

He crawled, forearms and one foot, seeing his breath puff in front of his face, seeing his hands turn a dry red from the cold. Then there was a break in the pine, and he saw the boy...

...on his father's grave, shuffling slowly from side to side, humming to himself as he stared at the mound beneath his feet. The tribe had reassembled, squatting in the shadows, silent. The pit fire cracked...

...on the rise, and the smell of burning pine pierced the brittle air. And between himself and his son, Aaron saw...

...the prisoner seemingly rooted in place, turned so his face hidden. The boy, not looking up, not acknowledging the world's existence, muttered something and the man shuddered...

...beneath his heavy fur-trimmed hunting jacket. There was a rifle, useless now, dangling from one hand. Aaron tried to push himself up, to stand, but the agony was too great, and at the moment all he wanted was the heat from the fire that silhouetted the boy...

...shuffling faster, mumbling in rapid bursts while the prisoner swayed, slipped back, then lurched forward. Slowly, toward the grave, in the light of the fire. Jackoson thought he was dreaming.

...but the cold was too real, and he wondered how the boy, so lately his son, could stand the wind that whipped the flames from side to side and drew...

...the prisoner toward them, stiff-jointed like a grotesque marionette. The jungle...

...the clearing was quiet, and Aaron could hear the boy, chanting now, urging, taunting the big man forward. Aaron tried shouting, but his throat was too dry, his mind unable to break loose his tongue. All he could see was the rifle glinting. Sorrentino moved. Lumbered. Silent.

Prisoner/rancher reached the grave.

The boy, still chanting, reached out, palms up, waiting until the other grasped them (the rifle dropping soundlessly). A pair now, circling in slow motion. Dirt shifted beneath their feet. Aaron watched...

...more drowsy still from the fire's heat and the boy's monotonic voice, still undecided whether or not he was dreaming

...numb from the cold and drawing blood from his lips as he fought the pain enshrouding his thoughts. He lay flat on the ground, his head barely raised, his eyes glazed.

The boy abruptly dropped his hands and stepped down from the grave.

The prisoner waited, standing, and made no attempt to resist when the shaman's hand/pony's teeth reached through the earth and took hold.

Jackoson slept, thought he was dreaming.

Aaron fainted, thought he was screaming.

David, smiling, picked up a shovel.

It was no more than a week past midsummer when I came home from playing and my mother said to me, Jaimie, how’d you like to go to the fair tonight? Well, I looked at her, wondering if something had gone wrong, but she seemed no worse or no better than she always did since dad died. Her hair, not yet gone grey, was pushing into a knob at the back of her head, and there was always little bits like feathers flying about in the breeze she made rushing from one place to another. She seemed no more tired than usual, though her hand was shaking a little when she lifted the kettle from the burner. So I looked around the kitchen thinking maybe she’d been down to the King’s Arms and had carried home a pint or two. But there was nothing there, either.

“Jaimie,” she said again, “don’t you hear me, son? I said, do you want to go to the fair tonight?”

“Why Mum,” I said, “do you have a caller coming?”

I grinned, taking away the bite of what I way saying, and she waved me a quick no while she poured the tea and laid out the scones.

“I just want you to get out of the house for a while. You’ve been staying in every night past supper, and it’s not like you.”

I shrugged and sat at the table. “I don’t want to go,” I said.

“And why not, if you don’t mind me asking?”

I shrugged again and fiddled with my spoon. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to go, that’s all.”

“Michael down the road is going,” she said. “You could stay by him if you’re afraid, you know.”

“I’m not afraid,” I said, a bit angrier than I wanted. “And I am so big enough to cross the road, you know.” Then I saw the tease in her eyes. “Ain’t I been taking care of you this past year, then?”

She sat down opposite me and took my hand, patted it once when she saw I didn’t go for that, and leaned back. She tucked at her hair, brown like mine only longer, and fluffed the dress around her front as if it was too tight. “You have indeed been doing that, Jaimie,” she said, “and to look at you now, nobody’d think you haven’t even seen a dozen winters.”

“Well, what do you mean by that?”

“I mean, Jaimie, that your friends aren’t your friends anymore. I never see your old chums coming round, and you’re getting a hard look a child shouldn’t have your age. You go to school, you come right back and change and go to Mr. Harrow’s for the errands he has for you, then back to eat and straight on to bed.” She shook her head and let it drop forward slowly like it was too heavy for her to hold up anymore. “It isn’t like we need the money, what with your dad’s pension, and it isn’t what I want for you, Jaimie. And I know he wouldn’t want it, either.” She jerked her head in the direction of the picture on the wall next to the Queen’s, and then she pushed a pound note to me, and when I didn’t take it up straight away, she laid it in my palm and closed my fingers around it.

“Go,” she said. “Stay until after dark and see the lights. Then

come on back and tell me what they look like. Michael’ Ill be by about half-past eight.”

It was ended then, and whether I wanted to go or not, she had already made the decision and there was nothing I could do about it. She’s funny that way, she is. And when I come to think about it, I decided I wouldn’t mind spending a few pennies at that.

So, when Michael came around practically dragging that girl of his, I was dressed and scrubbed and ready. The girl — Charley, they called her because her stupid name was Charlene — takes my hand right off, and before I knew, it was hustling me between them to the fair.

In case you don’t know the place, there’s a roundabout directly past the town’s center, and two roads coming off it have between them this big field of grass that stretches toward Windsor and climbs up a hill into a lot of trees. Off the road on the left is Egham, where I live, and off the road on the right that goes to Windsor is the Thames. Well, dead in the middle of this field was a large circle of caravans with their inside walls open for games of chance and things like that. There was a Big Wheel, some rides for kids littler even than me, and on the side of the circle with its back to the river was a wagon that was supposed to have a scary Fun House. Only it wasn’t scary, I went through twice, and I know. There was a lot of people, it being Saturday night and all, and as soon as Michael and Charley walk me into the place where all the colored lights were, they patted me on the head, said ta and made me promise to look for them once an hour to see that I was all right.

This didn’t bother me, though, because they know I can pretty much take care of myself, and I didn’t always care for the way Charley liked to mother me.

So I changed my quid for pennies in the gambling arcade and played a few of the machines and lost a bit, then did a ride on the bumper cars, which wasn’t much fun because there was no one there I knew good enough to really bump into. I tried throwing some hoops around these blocks of wood to win a goldfish for my mother, threw a couple of darts at some balloons, and just was mucking about when, during my wandering, I saw this small wagon tucked in sort of by the side of the Wheel. There was this sort of old man sitting on a chair under a sign that said he could make me a ten if I wanted to pay.

“Hey, mister,” I said to him. He looked up and smiled. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and his eyes kind of looked like my dad’s when he’d had one pint too many, but I didn’t smell nothing in the air. So I took a step closer and asked him what a ten was and how much did it cost.

“Well, lad,” he said, reaching into his hip pocket and pulling out a pipe what looked like it’d been dropped a hundred times from the top of Windsor Castle. “I’ll tell you something you don’t know,” he said, “a ten is whatever you want it to be. You want it to be a special wee gift for your mum, then that’s what it’ll be. You want it to be something not so fine for the chappie what steals your lunch, then that’s what it’d be, too.”

He laughed, then, and I backed away a bit. I wasn’t scared or nothing, you see, but when you get to be the man of the house at my age, you got to learn pretty quick who wants to do you out of a fiver and whose hand you’d better shake quick before he slips it into your pocket.

“That don’t make sense what you said,” I told him. “That’s silly.”

“No, it don’t make sense,” the old man admitted, sucking on that pipe and staring at the blue smoke coming out of the bowl. “And that’s the gem of it, you see. It don’t make sense, and that makes it better than some flippin’ doll or a bag with a goldfish in it, don’t it?”

I didn’t really know what he was saying, but there was something about him that wouldn’t let me get away. It was then he waved me closer, and I realized we’d been near shouting all the time to be heard over the people laughing and shouting, and the music and the noise. So I moved right beside him, and he reaches into a sack by his feet and pulls out a big handful of little boxes no bigger than my thumb.

“Tens,” he said. “They cost tenpence each,” and he laughed, and I could see his yellow teeth and smell the dead leaf smell of his tobacco. I kind of gave a shudder, and he stares at me before holding up the boxes. “They’re numbered, you see,” he said, “one through twenty. The odd ones are for your enemies, the others for your friends.”

I tried to look close, but he pulled them back just enough so I couldn’t touch. For tenpence maybe I could get something nice for mum, I thought, and I was going to pick out number twelve when I looked into his face. He was still smiling, the old man was, but there was nothing behind it, and when I saw those eyes the color of the river at night, everything kind of went away and I just stood there. Then I got awfully hot, and I started to feel dizzy and sickly like I’d had too many sweets. I felt myself holding out a hand and saw him picking out the pennies before he grabbed my other hand and dropped a box into it.