The Cypress House (47 page)

    
McGraths.
Tate and one of his sons. They came up the inlet by boat, and Tolliver came in
by car. I went out to talk to Tolliver. While I was doing that, the McGraths
snuck around from the inlet. I heard Paul shout
.

    The
voice stopped then, and Arlen squeezed the boy's shoulders and said, "Tell
me. Keep telling me."

    
I
pulled the gun and ran back. Tolliver drew his, but he didn't shoot, he just
chased me, and I came back inside and they had Paul and I fired twice. I didn't
hit anything. I had a bead on Tate, I was ready to kill him, but Tolliver got
to me first. Tackled me. Then Tate was on me. I think Tolliver intended to take
me alive, but I'd fired at Tate, and so when he came, he came with the knife.

    The
voice was fading, like a radio signal going steadily weaker, and Arlen leaned
closer to the dead boy's face and squeezed his shoulders.

    "What
happened to Paul?" he said. "Please tell me."

    
They
took him
.

    "Is
he dead?" Arlen's voice was louder now, but he couldn't help it. The
moment had taken on the feel of a fever dream. A sudden, terrible headache had
sprung to life in his skull, and his face was bathed in cold sweat. The world
was unsteady around him. It was hard, holding the line open. It was damn hard.

    
Not
yet.

    "Where
is he?"

    
With
the McGraths
.

    "Why
haven't they killed him?"

    
They
need to find out who he talked to. Who's involved. They'll wait for Wade. He'll
want to be there for the questioning
.

    "Who
told them?" Arlen said. "Was it Barrett?"

    
Don't
know
.

    The
voice was so damn faint, so hard to hear. He squeezed Owen's shoulders and
realized he was now hanging directly over the body. A drop of sweat fell from
his chin and onto the dead boy's face.

    "Tell
me what to do," he said. "Can he be saved?"

    
I
don't know. You have to get my sister away. They'll come for her next. For you,
and for her. They'll come for you all. He won't let anyone stand now. Not after
this
.

    "She's
gone. I've sent her away. She's driving north."

    Arlen's
breath was coming fast and ragged now. The physical toll was something he
didn't understand, but it was fierce, his body responding as if he were pushing
through a long, arduous march. His muscles ached and his head throbbed and that
chilled sweat ran from every pore.

    
Good,
Owen said. She can't stay here. Neither can you
.

    "But
Paul . . ."

    
I
don't know. Maybe. There's still time. But there's also more death to come.
More than mine. If you stay, death stays with you. I'm certain of it. Follow my
sister. Go with her now, and go fast
.

    Arlen
thought about that as the waves broke and the wind pushed off the Gulf in puffs
and put a crisp skim over the pool of blood beneath him.

    "Paul
is with the McGraths ?" he said.

    
Yes.

    "And
he is alive?"

    
Right
now. But there's so much death around him
.

    "Can
you get me to them ?" Arlen said. "Can you guide me ?" He was
speaking with his lips almost at the boy's ear now, could smell the coppery
scent of blood. Each time Owen spoke, the voice was fainter.

    
I
can
.

    The
headache flared with a sudden, unbearable agony, and he had to release his hold
and lean away from the body. The pain relented then, but he was awash in
perspiration and felt a trembling exhaustion through every muscle, an odd dizzy
sensation on top of it all, as if he'd gone too long with too little air.

    "I'm
sorry," he said, leaning forward and grasping the boy's shoulders one more
time. "I'm so sorry."

    
I
know.
A whisper now, scarcely audible.

    "I'll
set it right," Arlen said. The wind rose in another sweeping gust and
sprinkled a few raindrops across the porch, and suddenly he felt alone and was
aware, for the first time in several minutes, that he was staring into a dead
man's eyes. The reality of that had just vanished for a time; he hadn't been
seeing much at all, really, just hearing it. It was like entering a trance, but
now something had pushed him away from it, back into reality.

    "You're
slipping from me," he said.

    
I
can't hold here long,
Owen Cady's voice whispered from somewhere outside of
time and place.
You don't know how to keep me here.

    "I'm
trying."

    
Yes.
But you can't do it yet
.

    So
soft. Almost gone. Arlen said, "You take care. Wherever it is you're
bound, ride easy."

    That
was all. Arlen could feel it when he left. The sweating stopped, dried quickly
on his skin, and the sounds of the real world returned, the calls of the gulls
and the rustle of the palm fronds and the creak of the shifting house.

    His
father could hold the dead with him longer. Could find them easier. How had he
done it?

    
You
could have asked him, Arlen thought, but you didn't. You refused to believe a
word of his tales, and now what guidance you might have had is gone. You've got
his parting words—an instruction that you have to believe, and a promise that
love lingers. That's all. You'd best make it enough
.

    Paul
was still alive. Temporarily at least. They'd taken him, but they'd taken him
alive. He might still die today. But if Paul went, Arlen would see that he
didn't go alone.

    He
straightened up from the body. He didn't want to leave Owen here untended but
saw no other choice. He went inside the inn, thinking he'd fetch a blanket and
cover him with it. The smallest of token gestures, but it was something. He had
taken maybe ten steps through the dark room before he glanced at his own
reflection in the mirror behind the bar and came to a stop.

    The
man looking back at him from the glass was a skeleton. He stared at it,
motionless, and then he slowly lifted his hand to test the image. The man in
the mirror moved with him, bone fingers fluttering in the glass. Arlen wet lips
that had suddenly gone dry, and when he did it, the man in the mirror flicked a
black tongue out and ran it over bare, unprotected teeth.

    
If
you stay, death stays with you, Owen had said. I'm certain of it
.

    He
turned from the mirror and looked out the window, to the drive from where
Rebecca had left not long ago.

    
Follow
my sister,
Owen had told him.

    But
he'd also said that Paul was still alive.

    Arlen
kept his eyes away from the mirrors as he crossed the room and found the keys
for the convertible. Kept his eyes away from the mirrors as he went upstairs
and retrieved a blanket. Kept his eyes away from the mirrors when he came back
down and went outside. He knelt at Owen's side and closed his eyelids one final
time, then draped the blanket over him and wrapped it so that the wind would
not tug it free. When he was finished, he rose and gathered both rifles and
looked them over. Springfield M
1903
model. Twin guns. Rebecca and Owen's
father had probably purchased a pair of them at the same time he'd bought the
two pistols. They were good weapons. They'd ended plenty of lives over the
years. Such was the standard of good weapons.

    He
tugged open the bolts and made sure each rifle was already loaded with five
.30-caliber
shells. The guns could bury those bullets a foot deep into the trunk of a pine
tree from six hundred yards away. The last time Arlen had held one, it had a
bayonet fixed to the barrel.

    He
slammed the bolts closed and hefted a rifle in each hand and gave a final look
down at the covered corpse near his feet. Then he walked off the porch and
around the house and out to the convertible. The clouds were dark and ponderous
overhead, but no rain fell. He laid the guns in the backseat and got behind the
wheel and started the engine. It was a powerful motor, would be a fast car. He
didn't know where he was going, but Owen had said he could guide him, and he
believed that. He saw no reason for a dead man to lie.

    Before
he put the car into gear, he moved his eyes to the rearview mirror. The light
was strange and shifting under the clouds, but his eyes looked like they had a
skim of frost over them. He took a matchbook from his pocket and lit a match
and held it up to his face, leaned closer to the mirror.

    His
eyes were filled with white smoke. It drifted out of the sockets and mingled
with the smoke from the match and swirled up into the sky and the storm clouds
above. He took a long look at his own eyes, and then he blew out the match and
dropped the car into gear and pressed firmly on the gas.

    The
clouds thickened and continued to hide the sun, but the rain held off. It was
as if the storm were being kept at bay, and angry about it. The skies contained
menace that hadn't been able to break through, just bathed the world below in
shadow and trapped the heat and humidity close to the ground. Arlen took the
dirt road all the way to the end, came out at the T-intersection with the paved
road and thought,
What now?

    He
turned left. There was no conscious decision, no reason for going left instead
of right, he just looked in each direction and felt his foot leave the brake
and return to the gas when his eyes locked on the windswept gray moss that
dangled from cypress trees ahead to the north.

    
He's
guiding me, he thought. Owen's guiding me
.

    He
didn't know how, but he felt confident in it, had a strange assurance that this
was the right route, that it would lead him to Paul.

    The
wind picked up as he drove under the cypress grove, and a piece of Spanish moss
drifted down in a lazy arc and landed in the passenger seat beside him. It was
just past one now but so dark it felt like dusk. The arrival of the Cuban boat
was still eight hours away. If it showed up at all. He had a feeling it would
not, that word would have been passed somehow, and everything Barrett and the
others waited for would not transpire.

    Rebecca
was on this same road, somewhere well ahead of him. She would have a few hours
at least before they began to look for the truck.

    
And
then I'll catch up with her,
he tried to think, but a single glance in the
rearview mirror revealed the smoke in his eyes.

    He
would not see her again.

    It
was an agonizing thought. He'd never feared death. Had, at times in his life,
longed for it. But those were in days past, days before her.

    It
was right for him to bear such a loss, though. It was needed. He thought of how
he'd laid his hands on Owen Cady's shoulders and looked into his dead eyes and
heard his voice so clearly, heard the truth from him, and he remembered his
boyhood trip down to the Fayette County sheriff and the way his father's blood
had pooled in the dust, and he knew that all things circled back in time. You
paid for your sins, and he would pay for his today.

    As he
drove down the road, he reached into the backseat and moved one of the rifles
up front with him, braced it against his leg with the barrel pointed down and
the stock and trigger close at hand.

    The
car drove beautifully; Solomon Wade had a fine taste in machines. Arlen was
holding it close to seventy. Twice he passed other cars moving at half that
speed, saw drivers lift hands in annoyance and surprise, and blew by them and
continued on. He'd gone at least five miles headed due north, passing two
intersections without much pause, certain somehow that they held no
significance, before he reached a four-way and again found himself turning left
without thought or reason. The pavement soon disappeared and he banged onto a
dirt road. The water from the previous night's rains had not drained well here,
and he splashed through deep puddles and spun the tires through soft mud.
Thunder rippled to the south, but there was no lightning and the wind was
still. He tried to keep the speed up, but the road was deeply pocked and
rutted, and he was afraid he'd rattle the wheels right off the car. He felt one
solitary raindrop find his forehead as the road narrowed into what looked like
a thin green tunnel. The strange bird-of-paradise plants pressed close, their
wide green fronds stretching toward the sky in search of sunlight.