The Night People (22 page)

“Why do you want to see them?” he asked, lying beside her on his stomach.

“Why? Because we should honor the dead, I guess. No matter what they were in life.”

The darkening scene before them was lit suddenly by a blinding flash of lightning that seemed to play among the trees, and the thunder which followed immediately blended into the torrent of rain on the leaves. He turned to face this strange girl at his side, and saw a second flash of lightning whiten her skin with an eerie glow. In that instant she might have been a witch or a murderess, but in the next she was only a girl named Janie Mason. He slipped his arm gently around her taut body.

“Do you come here often with men?” he asked, not really caring. His wife was a lifetime away just then, in another world.

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Does it matter if I killed them?”

Thunder crashed above the trees. He shifted position and drew her closer. “You didn’t kill anybody.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. I’ve met a few murderers in my time, and you’re not one of them. How did it happen?”

She stared out at the rain, seeing perhaps something that was beyond his vision. “My father caught them together, and then he killed them.”

He nodded. It was the oldest story in the world, brother against brother; as old as Cain and Abel. “Tell me about the day they died. Tell me why you buried them yourself, rather than call the police.”

“Yes,” she said vaguely. “The day they died.” She fell silent then, and for a time there was only the sound of the rain. Nothing else moved, not the birds nor the animals. All waited in silence for the rain to stop. “The day they died,” she began finally, breaking the silence. “The day they died the sun was shining, and it was in the spring. I remember I was out in the fields, working with my father, and my uncle was back in the house with mother.”

“And what happened?” he urged.

“There was something—some sound that I didn’t even hear. But Father did. His ears perked up a bit, like a dog hearing one of those high-pitched whistles. He turned and stared at the house, and then without a word he put down the posthole digger he was using and walked back across the field. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stayed there, working, until I heard Mother scream.”

“You knew then what it was.”

“No, not really. I couldn’t imagine it being anything more serious than a mouse.”

“Farm wives don’t scream at mice.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“How was it done? How did he kill them?”

She stared out at the rain. “With an ax, like the Bordens.”

“Except that the Bordens were probably killed by Lizzie, their daughter.”

Overhead, the lightning crackled again, then the thunder swept over them with a roar, coming like a giant wave on some distant beach, but the rain began to let up a bit as the storm moved somewhere beyond them. “I didn’t kill anybody,” she said.

“I know you didn’t. I told you that. But what about the funeral? Wasn’t there a police investigation?”

“There are no police in Random Corners. I would have had to call in the state troopers.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“There were reasons.” She stared into his eyes. “A mystery may exist for strangers like yourself that is only a passing curiosity to local residents. No one here ever worried that the police weren’t called, or that there was no formal funeral for them.”

“How many people live here?”

“Only about a dozen, and they mind their own business. They don’t like strangers, especially police.”

“Would that include me?”

“Maybe.”

The rain had almost stopped, and he pulled himself out of the little cave. She followed, and he stood for a moment facing her.

“Did it happen like you say?” he asked.

“Yes. My father found them like that and killed them.”

“And you buried them.”

“Yes.”

“All three, right? Just like that.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t think any girl could bury her parents and uncle by herself like that, and simply go on living here. What’s the truth, Janie? One of those graves is empty, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” Her face froze at his words.

“Your father didn’t kill himself, did he? His grave is empty, isn’t it?”

“I have a shovel if you want to dig,” she told him. “I keep it back in the cave.”

“Why? To dig them up, or to bury more?”

She didn’t answer. She had disappeared back into the cave, and when she reappeared she held a rusty, long-handled shovel in one hand. “Here, dig if you want to!”

“I don’t want to,” he said. “I’ve got to be getting back.” Somewhere overhead he caught the sound of a passing jet, and for a moment he was back in the world of reality. Then the sound gradually faded, leaving him facing this strange girl with the shovel she held outstretched to him.

“Dig,” she said again.

He took the rusty shovel from her and plunged it into the wet earth of her father’s grave. “If I lived here, I’d know. Wouldn’t I, Janie?”

“Yes.”

“I’d know what everyone in Random Corners knows—that your father killed them and then buried them back here, with an extra, empty grave for himself.”

Her frightened eyes darted from his face, back toward the woods through which they’d come. He followed her gaze and saw a sudden shaft of sunlight catch the rain-drenched leaves; that, and something more—a man, walking toward them, with a woodsman’s ax hanging loosely from his right hand.

“No,” Janie whispered, the word catching in her throat.

“I’d know that your father was still right here in Random Corners, Janie. I’d know that, even though his name was Henry, everybody called him Harry when they shopped at his little store and gas station.”

The tired man with the lantern jaw stepped into the clearing and paused, facing them with his ax. “How much does he know, Janie?”

“Everything,” she sobbed. “He knows your grave is empty, and he knows you never went away.”

“Hello, Mr. Mason,” Hampton said quietly, feeling the smooth wood of the shovel’s handle against his sweating palms. “You warned me she was mixed up, but I wouldn’t listen, would I?”

“My wife and brother were evil,” he said quietly. “Removing them was God’s justice, not mine. It was a kindness, really, and everyone in town knew it. That’s why nobody ever told the police. I made an extra grave for myself, and moved down to the store, and nobody ever told.” He shifted the ax and started to raise it. “Until now.”

“Don’t kill him, Daddy!” the girl screamed. “He won’t tell anyone!”

But the ax kept coming, until it was level with Henry Mason’s head. “He’ll tell the whole country on the TV. That’s what he came here for in the first place.”

Hampton saw the ax coming at him, and he dodged to one side as the blade caught the padded shoulder of his jacket. Then, in a motion he’d practiced on the golf course a thousand times, he brought the long-handled shovel around in a wide arc before Henry Mason could swing his ax again. He was aiming at the weapon, or the man, or both—and the edge of the shovel caught Mason along the left temple with a dull, clanging sound.

It hardly seemed that the blow was enough to kill a man, but perhaps Henry Mason had lived too long already.

“We’ll have to call the police,” Hampton told the girl.

She looked up from the ground, where she held her father’s head in her arms. “What good will that do? We’ll bury him in his grave, and no one will ever know.”

“We can’t do that, Janie!”

“We can. We will. You were just a stranger passing through. Why should you suffer for this?”

Why, indeed?
Suddenly he was anxious to be back with his family, back to the relative normalcy of New York, where at least madness came in more familiar varieties. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Don’t think about it. We’ll do it.”

He stood staring down at the body of the man he had killed. Then, after a time, he shifted his gaze to the waiting gravestone. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he knew, too, that it was the only way out for him. No one had come to Mason’s first funeral, and no one would miss him now. The people of Random Corners never asked questions.

He bent and picked up the shovel.

T
OKAY MET HER FOR
the first time in one of those little roadside diners along Route 60 near the Arizona-New Mexico border. She must have been in her early twenties, though there was something about her boyish figure and innocent face that made her appear much younger. She was traveling with her teen-age brother, a somber youth who walked with a limp.

Her name was Liz Golden, she said, and her brother’s name was Randy. They were driving to Hopworth for a scorpion fight. Tokay had been only mildly interested until she opened the cigar box on the counter between them and he saw the four-inch-long bluish-green scorpion nestled in some loose sand and pebbles.

“My God!” he gasped. “That thing could kill you!”

She smiled at his ignorance. “Not really, though the sting is very painful. The Mexican
Centruroides
has been known to cause deaths, but this is a
Hadrurus hirsutus.
It’s called a Giant Hairy Hadrurus for obvious reasons.”

“And what did you say you were going to do with it?”

“In Hopworth they’re having an illegal scorpion fight tomorrow night. Scorpions only sting in self-defense, and of course the poison has no effect on members of the same species, but they can sometimes be goaded into doing battle with their pincers.”

“That’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard,” Tokay said. “Actually I’ll be quite near to Hopworth tomorrow. I should come over and see it.”

“Bet on our scorpion,” Randy urged. “He never loses.”

“That’s right,” the girl agreed. “Big ones like this have larger pincers, and they’re easier to handle besides. Their sting isn’t nearly as venomous as the smaller species.”

“Have you ever been stung?”

“Oh sure! I carry scorpion antivenin with me for emergencies.”

He was glad when she closed the lid of the cigar box. He finished his coffee and rose to leave. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said. “My name’s Tokay. I’m a professor of archaeology.”

“Are you going to Hopworth to dig?” the boy asked.

“I hope the digging’s all been done,” he answered. “I’m just going to talk to an old friend of my father’s.”

It was nearly noon when he pulled away from the diner. He had several hours more driving before he reached his destination, and he wanted to get there before nightfall.

He saw the church steeple while he was still some distance away, and he pulled up by a cultivated field where a young Mexican was pulling weeds. “Is this the Mission of San Felipe?” he called out.

“It is,” the Mexican answered. His expression was curious, as if he wondered what had brought Tokay here.

“I have come to see Father Payne. Is he at the mission?”

The Mexican glanced toward the mission tower, where a high window caught and reflected the final glow of the setting sun. “Yes, he is always there. He never leaves.”

“Thank you.” Tokay drove on to the church down the road.

By the time he reached it a white-haired man in a black cassock was there to meet him. “Welcome, traveler. I am Father Payne of the Mission of San Felipe. Are you going far?”

“I have reached my destination,” Tokay said. He told the priest his name. “My father was an archaeologist who visited you many years ago.”

Father Payne bowed, showing a bald circle on the top of his head. “I admired your father. Is he in good health?”

“He died last year. But could we speak inside?”

“Visitors are always welcome. Come in!”

Tokay followed the black-robed man inside, silently marveling at the stonework of the mission. It was indeed as his father had described so many times. “I noticed the Mexican down the road. Is he in your employ?”

Father Payne shook his head. “Not really. He does some chores in return for his lodging, but I expect he’ll move on soon. But tell me of your father. I’ll remember him in my prayers.”

Tokay leaned back in his chair and accepted a small glass of wine the priest offered. “I learned many things about archaeology from my father,” he said. “Chief among them was the beauty of this church, and of the old church over the hill. He urged me to come back here after he died, to see it for myself.”

The old priest’s eyes twinkled. “And to take back the Spanish scrolls? That is what your father always wanted from me, and what I would never give him—the account of the early discovery of this land, handwritten by the Spanish explorer Coronado.”

“I won’t pretend I haven’t heard of them. They’ve been translated and reproduced in books.”

The conversation was interrupted by the sudden entrance of the Mexican. Father Payne looked up. “What is it, Jugo?”

“The light,” the Mexican said. “I see the light by the old ruins again.”

Father Payne frowned. “Are you certain?”

“I see it!”

“All right. I will come.” He turned to Tokay. “Some trouble. An intruder, perhaps. You must excuse me.”

“Could I help?”

“Do you have a weapon?”

“A revolver in my car.”

“Bring it, then.”

Tokay followed them out of the church and paused at the car long enough to get the gun. Darkness had come quickly, as it often did in desert regions, and he could feel the drop in temperature.

“This way,” the priest said, guiding him with a flashlight that cast an eerie glow across the sand.

“Where are we going?”

“Over the hill to the ruined church. As your father must have told you, it crumbled in an earthquake long ago. The new one was built on firmer ground.”

They went the rest of the way in silence, until at last they stood before a ruined steeple partly buried in the sand. From somewhere within came a glimmer of light. As they entered through a crumbling doorway, Jugo cautioned, “Be careful of scorpions. They nest here.”

“Scorpions?” Tokay hesitated, remembering the girl in the diner.

“There’s no danger,” the priest assured him.

The light that had attracted them came from below. Tokay held his pistol tightly as they descended the old steps to the ruined church’s lower level. Suddenly a bearded man with long dark hair appeared. He dropped his flashlight and leaped back in alarm when he saw them. “Why are you here?” Father Payne demanded. “Who are you?”