The Walking (34 page)

He left early the next morning but not as early as he'd originally planned. The days were getting shorter already, in anticipation of fall, and when Hattie got up to make breakfast, the sky outside was still dark. It was almost an hour's ride to the section of canyon near Isabella's cave, but he didn't want to take any chances and be caught there before the sun arose, so he dawdled, playing for time until there was a definite lightening in the sky above the eastern walls.

There was no problem on the way out. In spite of all his worries, he inexplicably found himself occupied with the mundane thoughts of haberdashery while passing through the dreaded section of canyon, and by the time it registered that Isabella was entombed somewhere on the far side of this marsh, he was already past the line of her cave.

He spurred his horse on, quickly galloped until that area of the canyon was hidden behind a curve of the landscape.

The rest of the trip Qver was uneventful, his day and night in Randall were f'me, and he easily found everything he needed.

He miscalculated the timing on his trip home, however, and before he'd even reached the mouth of Wolf Canyon, he realized that it would be dark well before he reached the marshy area in front of the buried tomb. He briefly considered making camp and starting from here in the morning, but Hattie and Robert were expecting him today, and he didn't want to worry them. He'd also been away from his business for six days, and he couldn't really afford to be gone even as long as he had been. He needed to get back to work.

Besides, he'd be traveling along the opposite wall of the canyon, just as he had on the trip out.

Leland had never been formally taught in the magic arts, growing up in the post-Isabella days, but he instinctively wove a spell of protection around himself, something that, while not perfect, would at least afford him some defense on his journey.

He'd brought with him a lantern, but in the cavernous open space of the middle canyon the light illuminated only the section of trail immediately before him, throwing all else into even deeper gloom. He wanted to put down the fear he felt to imagination, but the horse seemed spooked and jittery, too, and as they traveled farther into the darkness, into the increasingly cold night, it became ever more difficult to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary. He thought of Samuel Hawks........ It was more something' l felt.

Leland felt it, too, and though he knew he would never be able to describe it, he understood now what his friend had meant. For the horror that enveloped him, that seemed to seep inside him to his very bones, was the most terrifying thing he had ever experienced. The air itself seemed wrong, the texture of the breeze unnatural. All of his senses were assaulted, and he saw shapes in the blackness, heard soft sounds that should not have been here, smelled wafting odors unlike any he had ever come across, and he tasted in his mouth the foulness of the grave.

And then she appeared.

Her cave was miles away, on the east bluffs, but, as he'd somehow known, hers was a boundary that spanned the entire width of the canyon, and she appeared to him as he tried to cross it on his way home.

At first it was just a light, not greenish like most spirit illuminations but red, like blood. It hovered above the marshy weeds and cattails and slowly solidified into a figure that was almost but not quite human. He kicked his horse, yelled at it, tried to will the animal forward, but his mount refused to budge, as if held under a spell. The red figure floated toward him, wailing terribly in a cry that was somehow translated by his brain into images:

--Hattie dead and dismembered, lying amid the expelled contents of an outhouse.

--Robert nude in the sand, legs spread, screaming, his lap and the ground beneath it covered with blood, his genitals being gnawed on by Grover's head, which was bodiless and sporting raccoon legs.

The figure's own head dislodged from its ethereal form, turning black in the process. He had thought nothing could be blacker than the canyon at night, but the head was, and despite the darkness, it retained all of its horrible features. He could see clearly the face of a beautiful woman, long flowing hair on a face that was the most exquisite he had ever seen.

And the most evil.

The laugh that issued from the lightless jet lips sounded like the tinkling of bells.

Leland leaped off his horse and ran. If the steed was stupid enough to remain, so be it, but he was not about to sacrifice his life because of the incapacitation of a pack animal. He ran down the trail toward town, carrying the lantern, but with all of his supplies and materials still in saddlebags on the horse. He heard a wail, but screamed himself to cover the sound, to keep the images out of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the black head and the red body reconnect.

He had never run so fast in his life, and he expected at any moment to be grabbed from behind or pushed over or even levitated into the air.

Nothing like that happened, however, and by the time he was out of breath and had to stop, choking and wheezing next to a paloverde tree, there was no sign of anything unusual either before or behind him.

Even the lantern seemed to illuminate a larger area of ground, and the night seemed neither as black nor as cold as it had by the marsh.

He stood there for a moment waiting, looking back, expecting to see at any moment his horse emerge from the gloom, but there was no sign of the animal, no sound, and it occurred to him that the steed had been a sacrifice.

He started toward town, as quickly as his sore muscles and tired lungs would allow. This was it, Letand decided. He might be his father's son, but he was not his father, and home or no home, he was going to go back, get Hattie and Robert, pack their things, and as soon as the sun came up, get the hell out of Wolf Canyon as quickly as he could. Forever. He never wanted to see this place again.

Miles had flown to the East Coast and the Midwest, but he had never before been in this part of the country. He was surprised at how cinematic the Southwest was, how closely it resembled those magnificent vistas of western movies. He liked driving through this country, he found, and despite the sparse vegetation and almost complete absence of human habitation, he could see himself retiring here, buying a couple of acres and building a little house.

The ride was long, and they were awkward with each other at first, but when the radio faded out they were forced to talk, and somewhere between Kanab and Page their conversation grew comfortable.

"Who's your favorite Beatle?" Janet asked as they drove through the eroded, Georgia O'Keeffe-like hills that were a prelude to Lake Powell.

"What?"

"That's supposed to be the best Rorschach test around.

You can learn everything you need to know about a person by finding out who their favorite Beatle is. Isn't that what they say?"

"John," he told her.

She smiled. "Good choice."

"Yours?"

"Paul. But I like men who like John."

He glanced over at her. "I'm seeing someone, you know. That's who I

called from your apartment." \020"I'm not hitting on you. I'm just saying that, as a general role, I get along better with men who like Lennon. And since we have a long trip in front of us, that's probably a

She laughed.

They talked of trivialities, kept the conversation light. By unspoken consent they avoided discussing what they were doing. It would have made the trip too long, put on them an undue pressure that might dissuade them from completing their journey. They needed to get away from that for a while, and they let the talk drift from movies to television to other equally innocuous topics.

By late afternoon they reached the turnoff. A small brown road sign announced: WOLF CANYON LAKE--22 MILES.

They had not seen another car for the past hour, had not seen a town since Willis, the little city in Arizona's Central Mountains where they'd gassed up, gone to the bathroom, and gotten oversized drinks from a surprisingly modern Jackin-the-Box.

He felt uneasy being this far away from civilization-from help

--and he wished he had brought his cell phone, but who knew if it would even work in a godforsaken area like this?

They grew silent. The road to the lake was two lanes, like the highway, but the lanes were smaller and the lines more faded. The asphalt itself seemed washed out, and huge holes in the pavement that had to have been years in the making made Miles swerve from side to side.

They came out of a series of small sandy hills into a flat barren floodplain, and far ahead, on the side of the road, black against the pale sand, he could see a man walking toward some low cliffs. He recognized that walk, even from this far away, the unnatural rhythm, the unvarying speed, and his heart lurched in his chest .... Janet saw the figure, too. "Is that She did not finish the sentence and he did not answer. They were coming up fast now on the figure.

This close, his eyes confmned what his gut already knew.

It was Bob.

His father was striding purposefully along the gravel shoulder, not trying to attract attention to himself but not trying to hide, either.

He was simply walking forward, head fixed, arms unmoving. Miles did not know what to do, whether to stop or slow down, and in a panic he ended up speeding past. The wind from their passage blew Bob's hair and caused the clothes to flap about on his frame.

Miles slowed the car afterward but did not stop, and he looked over at Janet, who was white-faced and staring at him. He knew she was thinking of her uncle. He was remembering the alien ness of his dad's movements, the complete influence inability his actions, to communicate with his father or in any way

He did not want to stop the car, he realized. He couldn't do anything for Bob, and the best tack would be to either follow alongside him, or wait for him at the lake to see what he would do next.

Miles chose waiting at the lake. He did hot relish the idea of slowly accompanying his father down the road. Why was his father walking to the lake? What was going to happen when he got there?

He kept driving, glancing at his father in the rearview mirror until they were off the plain and into the far bluffs and the ragged walking figure could no longer be seen.

They passed others on the road, six of them, men and women, scattered over a stretch of miles. All dead. All walking.

Janet's voice was low, subdued. "It's like in New Mexico," she said, .,There's this little church outside Santa Fe

that's supposed to cure people. It's built on what they call 'miracle dirt," and every Easter, Catholics from all over make a pilgrimage there. You can see them walking up the highway from Albuquerque. They walk hundreds of miles just to touch the dirt and pray at the church."

She looked out the car window, shuddered. 'that's what they remind me of. People making a pilgrimage."

"Dead people making a pilgrimage." ...... "To Wolf Canyon." .::..

They looked at each other, and Miles felt an unfamiliar tingling in his midsection. It was a strange sensation, and he thought for a second that he was having a heart attack, since there seemed to be a strange sort of flutter beneath his breastbone. But then it was gone, and he put it down to fear and stress. Perhaps this was considered a "panic attack." Hell, if anyone deserved to panic, it was him.

The land sloped down, and ahead they could see the lake, shimmering in the sun. The pavement ended, the road devolving into a narrow dirt trail defined by twin tire ruts that zigged and zagged for no discernible reason through the sparse desert vegetation toward the water. Aside from the occasional saguaro or paloverde tree, all of the plants here were low and pale gray, and the rental car bounced along between them on insufficient shock absorbers before finally reaching a dirt parking lot that abutted the northernmost cove of the lake.

To his surprise, an old Jeep was pulled next to a long wooden rail made to look like a hitching post. Miles parked several car lengths away, then shut off the ignition and looked over at Janet. "We're here."

"What do we do now?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

Janet unlocked and opened her door. "I guess we should get out and look around." She glanced over at Miles. "Before they come.

The two of them got out of the car and walked around the front of the vehicle to the railing. Stretched out before them, Wolf Canyon Lake continued almost to the horizon, bounded on the sides by a series of high rocky hills and sandstone bluffs. It had been overcast in Cedar City when they left, and Janet had not brought sunglasses. She stood squinting against the reflected glare on the water. Somewhere under there, Miles thought, was a ghost town, and he found himself wondering if there were still bodies down there, if not all of the corpses had been retrieved.

Maybe the bodies at the bottom were walking, too. Like his father.

Maybe that's where his father was headed. But why? She's here.

He looked south toward the far end of the lake. He could not see it from this spot, but he assumed that was where the dam was.

She's going after the dam builders, too.

Nothing quite made sense. There were huge gaps in his knowledge, and if he could fill in those gaps he might reach some understanding of what was going on, but until then he was in the dark, able to guess at some of the more obivous elements of what was happening but completely unable to see the larger picture.

"Let's walk down," Miles said. He stepped over the low railing and held Janet's hand to help her across. The two of them started down a barely discernible, gently sloping path that led to the water's edge.

They were at the end of the path, standing on the sandy lake shore, when Miles discovered they were not alone. He saw movement in his peripheral vision, and when he looked to the right he saw a young man sitting on a rock next to the water--a satchel, rolled-up sleeping bag, and scuba gear spread out on the sand beside him. This was clearly the

As the man stood up and looked at him walked

"Hey, Miles said. How is it going? "

"All right."