The Marbury Lens (18 page)

Once our horses made it to the top of the mountain range, the air became damp, and fanned us with a constant breeze from the west. It felt like there was an ocean out there, I thought, even though all we could see was the constant white haze that made the horizon vanish as though we were riding toward the end of the world.

And the end of the world was constantly receding away from us, tempting us:
You’ll have to try harder if you want out of Marbury.

On the other side of the divide we found more water. Things grew here.

It had been two days since the ambush of the soldiers in the pass, and we all shared a tenuous confidence that, maybe, we were no longer being pursued. All three of us were weary and sore from the riding, so when we found a suitable place in the basin of a flat canyon, we agreed to settle in and camp for at least a day, so we could rest the horses and think about our next steps.

The shape of the canyon followed the bending path of a wide stream. There were thick stands of cottonwood and willow along the banks, and signs that game lived here, too. It was the most decent place any of us could remember seeing, but we also knew that we couldn’t stay here by ourselves for too long.

We had to keep moving.

There would always be more Hunters.

We kept the horses on lines that were long enough to allow them to eat and drink. Ben unloaded the bags, still full of what we’d taken from the train. We hadn’t stopped for rest or food for more than a few hours at a time since the ambush. Griffin, barefoot as always, scrambled to the riverbank, stripped off his guns and pants, and jumped into the water while the dog, eyeing him, stuck trembling forepaws into the stream and yipped confused and pleading cries at the boy.

Ben unhooked his gun belt and sat next to me. We leaned our backs against a smooth and split-trunked cottonwood, facing out toward the river so we could watch Griffin while he swam and thrashed in the water.

“I could fall asleep right here,” I said.

“I’m not going to lie, Jack, this is about the nicest place I ever seen in my life, I think.”

“Yeah.”

Beyond those tall mountains, in the colorless world of Marbury, we had stumbled into something green and alive, if only pale and temporary.

I watched as Griffin’s head disappeared beneath the slate surface of the river, counted silently to myself, and saw him pop up again, fifty feet downstream. The anguished dog howled at him, but Griffin laughed and slapped rooster tails from the water. He spit a mouthful into the air and waved a scrawny arm at us. “Hey! Come on! You two stink like shit, anyhow! I never seen water like this. Ever!”

“Give us a minute, Griff,” I said.

I unlaced my boots and pulled my socks off.

“You know, I really did bring that bottle of whiskey along,” Ben said. “You think we should have some?”

“I don’t know.”

“We came a long way. Henry would be proud of what you did.”

“Would he?”

“It’s like he said. I don’t know why, but he did say it. You really don’t remember, do you?”

“Not too good,” I said.

“Well, you were like his son, Jack. His favorite. He trusted you more than anyone in the world.”

“I wish he never did.”

“He always said that you were the same as him. That you both came from the same sorry place. Don’t you remember that?”

And I said, “What could possibly be sorrier than this?”

Suddenly Griffin began jumping and screaming. “A fish! I saw a fucking fish! Get a fucking gun, Ben, there’s fucking fish in here!”

Ben and I laughed.

Ben took off his boots and socks, began emptying the pockets of his fatigues. “I guess we can wash our clothes out if we get in there with him. You know he’s not gonna let us rest till we do, anyway.” Then he gave me a confused look and said, “Do you shoot at fish?”

“You don’t shoot fish,” I said. “I can figure out a way to catch one, though. And maybe I’ll have just a little bit of that whiskey, too.”

Ben stood up and went over to the suitcase he’d tied into a saddlebag, opened it, and looked across the shore at Griffin, who had his eyes pinned down on the surface of the water like a cat that had cornered the prey he’d been stalking.

“Don’t shoot nothing, Griffin,” he said. “We’re coming in with you in just a minute. And get over there and empty your pockets out, too, so you can wash your pants!”

There were some bullets in my pockets. I took off my gun belt and lay my knife down beside it. Then I pulled out the foil pouches of food that I’d intended to give the nun and that crazy man two nights before. Ben saw them.

“You didn’t give them the food,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“It’s good you didn’t say nothing to the kid.”

The water was good, the only pure and refreshing thing I’d run across since that first day in this place when I found Henry Hewitt’s head staked to a wall. From where I stood, waist-deep in the middle of the stream, I could see Seth, waiting in the spot where Ben and I left the half-filled whiskey bottle, just watching us as we swam or chased each other. But when I looked at him again, he flattened out and disappeared beneath the trees.

And I felt so certain then that Seth was going away.

So we washed all our clothes, but the bloodstains on Ben’s pants left permanent black splotches; and when we were all tired in the water, I promised to show the boys how to fish.

Using a hook I’d made out of a safety pin that I tied to thread from Griffin’s first aid kit, and with nothing more than a piece of a white medical cotton ball as our bait, we caught two fish. I cut them up with my knife and we sat naked on the shore and ate the meat raw while our clothes hung on willow limbs, drying in the heat of the afternoon.

Neither of the boys had ever tasted fish before, and Griffin said he preferred it to candy.

“Could we live here?” he asked.

“I think we haven’t come far enough, Griff,” I said. “We could stay here maybe a couple days and see how things go.”

Ben threw a scrap over to Griffin’s dog. “How far do we need to go?”

“I don’t know. I think we’re heading the right way, though. The air feels like there’s an ocean if we keep going down country. We’ll find people there. I have a feeling.”

“Regular people,” Ben said.

“Okay,” Griffin said. “You been right so far, Jack. If we find people, maybe they’ll be all kinds of ’em. Maybe they’ll be some girls, too.” Then he leaned over to look at the place on my chest where I’d been bitten. “That looks better now. Does it hurt anymore?”

“Itches.”

“That’s good.”

The dog let out a bark. We all tensed, listening, watching, trying to get a sense of what was out there. He moaned a threatening growl and his ears shot up in twinned points.

Something was moving toward us from behind the trees.

Then I saw them.

There were two of the things out there.

They froze when the dog barked a second time, but I could clearly see the red blaze that showed through from one of their marks.

It was Conner.

Knocking.

The sound of the door latch turning.

“Dude, are you fucking sleeping in the tub?”

I opened my eyes, had to think about where I was.

Conner stood over me.

He reached into the stall and shut the water off.

“It’s freezing cold, Jack. Were you doing that shit again?”

I touched my face. No glasses.

It was like I’d just bounced there. That’s the only way to explain it: Marbury was getting more and more just like here. As easy as walking into another room. Changing a channel on the TV.

This is real.

You fucked up again, Jack.

I need to get back there.

“No, I…I…”

“Jack? Conner, is everything all right?” Nickie’s voice from the other side of the door.

“He’s okay,” Conner said. “I think he fell asleep in the tub.”

He looked pissed off.

I rubbed my face. It was coming again, the nausea, but I couldn’t make my legs move.

Conner bent down, grabbed a hand tightly around my arm. It didn’t feel helpful at all, not like Conner. It hurt me. He put his face right next to mine and whispered, “You were doing that shit again, weren’t you?”

He tried pulling me up.

“No, Con. I swear, I…I fell asleep.”

“Look at you. Your lips are fucking blue, Jack. Get up.”

As soon as I straightened up, I leaned over the side of the tub and vomited into the toilet.

“You did it, didn’t you?”

“No.”

Where did I put those goddamned glasses?

Conner just looked at me and shook his head.

He knew I was lying to him.

You’re a fucking liar, Jack.

“Get dressed, asshole,” he said. “The girls are ready to leave.”

Conner never sounded like that to me. It felt like I’d been punched in the face.

I deserved it, though.

Fuck you, Jack.

He threw a towel down over my head, and exhaled a disgusted sigh.

“You told me you’d get rid of those fucking things, Jack. Look what it’s doing to you. Look at your fucking self!”

Then Conner left. He shut the door, but I could hear him on the other side as he told Nickie, “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He fell asleep in the tub. He swears he’s okay, and he’ll be out in a minute.”

I felt terrible, mostly for how I’d let Conner down, how he knew I was lying to him. He had to think that Jack didn’t give a shit about him, that all I cared about was screwing my head up with those glasses.

I wiped my face with the towel. I looked so pale standing there, my muscles locked and quivering from the cold.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

No.

“Jack?”

It was Nickie, her hand rapping on the door.

I exhaled.

Fuck you, Jack.

It cracked open, and she peeked an eye in at me.

Nervously, I held the towel up in front of my belly. It hung loosely, a narrow drape between my knees.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She ducked back behind the door like I’d scared her.

“It’s okay.” I twisted the towel’s ends into a skirt around my waist.

“If you aren’t feeling well, we can stay in,” she said.

I felt like such an idiot. I looked down at my clothes, erupting from the top of my open pack. The door. My clothes. I didn’t know what to do. I pulled the door open so she could see me.

“I’m okay. Really.” I tried to smile. “Remember, I told you how tired I was. I just kind of dozed off, I think.”

Nickie gazed straight into my eyes, her face showing a confident smile. Her eyes lowered, tracking down the length of my body, and she made no attempt to conceal her stare.

I was so embarrassed. My hand nervously clawed the knot at my hip as though I were somehow certain my cover was about to fall away. The look on her face made me feel so weak and out of control, and I was suddenly aware of something beginning to strain against the flimsy towel that hung doubtfully around my waist. I tried putting my left hand over the conspicuous bulge.

If I could have killed myself on the spot, I wouldn’t have thought twice about doing it.

“Oh,” she said, and there was a slight surprise to her tone. “Are these yours?”

Then she bent forward, her head so near my waist that I could feel the cool air that moved from her swinging hair onto the hand I kept pressed against my dick. Nickie reached down and picked up the glasses that were peeking out from beneath my discarded shorts on the bathroom floor.

“Groovy, Jack.” She laughed. “Purple.”

I nearly collapsed from the rush and confusion.

“No, Nickie—”

And I helplessly stood there, in sickened paralysis, one hand trying to hold down my irreconcilable penis, and the other keeping my towel in place, watching as she unfolded the glasses and slipped them onto her beautiful face.

“Nickie.”

As she turned to look at me, I could see the lenses come to life, like they were blowing holes straight through Nickie’s head, and lighting up another world.

The woods.

I can see Conner standing there.

And Griffin.

He’s running from something. Fast, like he’s afraid. He’s naked and wet from swimming, his pants still hanging where we’d left our clothes on the quivering fingers of a willow tree.

Running.

Look away, Jack.

I reach up and put my hands on the frames.

“Come on, Nickie. Don’t mess around.”

As I pull them away, I see him.

Freddie Horvath.

He’s there, too.

Freddie Horvath did something to my brain.

Help.

I could hear Griffin’s voice, crying out.

He needs help.

Nickie smiled, a puzzled look creasing her eyebrows together. “Don’t tell me you can actually see through those things, Jack.”

“Um. Yeah.” I brushed the towel down smooth over my crotch.

Nothing going on down there now after Jack saw that shit.

Then I folded the glasses up without looking at them again, wrapped them in a pair of underwear, stuffed them as far down into my pack as I could.

Freddie Horvath is there.

He saw me.

Griffin needs help.

I swallowed, straightened, made sure the towel would stay put. “Did you see through them?”

Nickie shrugged. “I couldn’t see a thing. Pitch-black. Nothing.”

I sighed. “Oh.”

Relief.

Maybe.

“Now come on,” she said, and rubbed her hand on my chest. “Rachel and I are starving. But you really should put on some trousers, or at the very least, something substantial enough to cover up…uh, your bumpy parts, Jack.”

Then she smiled, winked at me, and whirled out of the bathroom.