Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  Swan paused, waiting for more. When it didn’t come, Swan said, “I’d still like to know. Are you? My mama used to say that anybody who had second sight or could tell the future had to be evil, because those things come from Satan.”

  “Did she say that? Well, I don’t know if I’d call myself a witch or not. Maybe I am, at that. And I’ll be the first to tell you that not everything I see comes true. In fact, I’ve got a pretty low score for a seer. I figure life is like one of those big jigsaw puzzles you have to put together, and you can’t figure it out—you just have to go at it piece by piece, and you try to jam wrong pieces in where they don’t fit, and you get so weary you just want to hang your head and cry.” She shrugged. “I’m not sayin’ the puzzle is already put together, but maybe I have the gift of seein’ which piece fits next. Not all the time, mind you. Just sometimes, when that next piece is real important. I figure Satan would want to scatter those pieces, burn ’em up and destroy ’em. I don’t figure Old Scratch would like to see the puzzle neat and clean and pretty, do you?”

  “No,” Swan agreed. “I don’t guess so.”

  “Child, I’d like to show you something—if that’s all right with you.”

  Swan nodded.

  Leona took one of the lamps and motioned for Swan to follow. They went along the hallway, past the closed door where Davy slept, and to another door at the end of the hall. Leona opened it and led Swan into a small pine-paneled room full of bookshelves and books, with a square card table and four chairs at the room’s center. A Ouija board sat atop the table, and underneath the table was a multicolored five-pointed star, painted on the wooden floor.

  “What’s that?” Swan asked, pointing to the design as the lamplight revealed it.

  “It’s called a pentacle. It’s a magic sign, and that one’s supposed to draw in good, helpful spirits.”

  “Spirits? You mean ghosts?”

  “No, just good feelings and emotions and stuff. I’m not exactly sure; I ordered the pattern from an ad in Fate magazine, and it didn’t come with much background information.” She put the lamp on the table. “Anyway, this is my seein’ room. I bring ... used to bring my customers in here, to read the crystal ball and the Ouija board for ’em. So I guess this is kinda my office, too.”

  “You mean you make money off this?”

  “Sure! Why not? It’s a decent way to make a livin’. Besides, everybody wants to know about their favorite subject—themselves!” She laughed, and her teeth sparkled silver in the lamplight. “Looky here!” She reached down beside one of the bookshelves and brought up a crooked length of wood that looked like a skinny tree branch, about three feet long, with two smaller branches jutting off at opposite angles on one end. “This is Crybaby,” Leona said. “My real moneymaker.”

  To Swan it just looked like a weird old stick. “That thing? How?”

  “Ever heard of a dowsing rod? This is the best dowsing rod you could wish for, child! Old Crybaby here’ll bend down and weep over a puddle of water a hundred feet under solid rock. I found it in a garage sale in 1968, and Crybaby’s sprung fifty wells all over this county. Sprung my own well, out back. Brought up the cleanest water you could ever hope to curl your tongue around. Oh, I love this here booger!” She gave it a smacking kiss and returned it to its resting place. Then her sparkling, impish gaze slid back to Swan. “How’d you like to have your future told?”

  “I don’t know,” she said uneasily.

  “But wouldn’t you like to? Maybe just a little bit? Oh, I mean for fun ... nothin’ more.”

  Swan shrugged, still unconvinced.

  “You interest me, child,” Leona told her. “After what Josh said about you, and what the both of you went through ... I’d like to take a peek at that big ol’ jigsaw puzzle. Wouldn’t you?”

  Swan wondered if Josh had told her about PawPaw’s commandment, and about the grass growing where she’d been sleeping. Surely not, she thought. They didn’t know Leona Skelton well enough to be revealing secret things! Or, Swan wondered, if the woman was a witch—good or bad—maybe she somehow already knew, or at least guessed that something was strange from Josh’s story. “How would you do it?” Swan asked. “With one of those crystal balls? Or that board over there on the table?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Those things have their uses, but ... I’d do it with these.” And she took a carved wooden box from a place on one of the shelves and stepped over toward the table where the light was stronger. She put the Ouija board aside, set the box down and opened it; the inside was lined with purple velvet, and from it Leona Skelton withdrew a deck of cards. She turned the deck face up and with one hand skimmed the cards out so Swan could see—and Swan caught her breath.

  On the cards were strange and wonderful pictures—swords, sticks, goblets and pentacles like the one painted on the floor, the objects in assorted numbers on each card and presented against enigmatic drawings that Swan couldn’t fathom—three swords piercing a heart, or eight sticks flying through a blue sky. But on some of the other cards were drawings of people: an old man in gray robes, his head bowed and a staff in one hand, in the other a six-pointed glowing star in a lantern; two naked figures, a man and woman, curled around each other to form a single person; a knight with red, flaming armor on a horse that breathed fire, the hooves striking sparks as it surged forward. And more and more magical figures—but what set them to life were the colors impressed into the cards: emerald green, the red of a thousand fires, glittering gold and gleaming silver, royal blue and midnight black, pearly white and the yellow of a midsummer sun. Bathed in those colors, the figures seemed to move and breathe, to perform whatever range of action they were involved in. Swan had never seen such cards before, and her eyes couldn’t get enough of them.

  “They’re called tarot cards,” Leona said. “This deck dates from the 1920s, and each color was daubed in by somebody’s hand. Ain’t they somethin’?”

  “Yes,” Swan breathed. “Oh ... yes.”

  “Sit down right there, child”—Leona touched one of the chairs— “and let’s see what we can see. All right?”

  Swan wavered, still uncertain, but she was entranced by the beautiful, mysterious figures on those magic cards. She looked up into Leona Skelton’s face, and then she slid into the chair as if it had been made for her.

  Leona took the chair across from her and moved the lamp toward her right. “We’re going to do something called the Grand Cross. That’s a fancy way to arrange the cards so they’ll tell a story. It might not be a clear story; it might not be an easy story, but the cards’ll lock together, one upon the next, kinda like that jigsaw puzzle we were talkin’ about. You ready?”

  Swan nodded, her heart beginning to thump. The wind hooted and wailed outside, and for an instant Swan thought she did hear a dark voice in it.

  Leona smiled and rummaged through the cards, looking for a particular one. She found it and held it up for Swan to see. “This one’ll stand for you, and the other cards’ll build a story around it.” She placed the card down on the table in front of Swan; it was trimmed in gold and red and bore the picture of a youth in a long gold cape and a cap with a red feather, holding a stick before him with green vines curled around it. “That’s the Page of Rods—a child, with a long way yet to go.” She pushed the rest of the deck toward Swan. “Can you shuffle those?”

  Swan didn’t know how to shuffle cards, and she shook her head.

  “Well, just scramble ’em, then. Scramble ’em real good, around and around, and while you’re doin’ that you think real hard about where you’ve been, and who you are, and where you’re wantin’ to go.”

  Swan did as she asked, and the cards slipped around in all directions, their faces pressed to the table and just their golden backs showing. She concentrated on the things that Leona had mentioned, thought as hard as she could, though the noise of the wind kept trying to distract her, and finally Leona said, “That’s good, child. Now put ’em together into a deck again, face down,
in any order you please. Then cut the deck into three piles and put ’em on your left.”

  When that was done, Leona reached out, her hand graceful in the muted orange light, and picked up each pile to form a deck once more. “Now we start the story,” she said.

  She placed the first card face up, directly over the Page of Rods. “This covers you,” she said. It was a large golden wheel, with figures of men and women as the spokes in it, some with joyous expressions at the top of the wheel and others, on the wheel’s bottom, holding their hands to their faces in despair. “The Wheel of Fortune—ever turnin’, bringin’ change and unfoldin’ Fate. That’s the atmosphere you’re in, maybe things movin’ and turnin’ around you that you don’t even know about yet.”

  The next card was laid across the Wheel of Fortune. “This crosses you,” Leona said, “and stands for the forces that oppose you.” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, Lordy.” The card, trimmed in ebony and silver, showed a figure shrouded almost entirely in a black cloak and cowl except for a white, masklike and grinning face; its eyes were silver—but there was a third eye of scarlet in its forehead. At the top of the card was scrolled, intricate lettering that read—

  “The Devil,” Leona said. “Destruction unleashed. Inhumanity. You have to be on guard and watch yourself, child.”

  Before Swan could ask about that card, which gave her a shiver, Leona dealt the next one out, above the other two. “This crowns you, and says what you yearn for. The Ace of Cups—peace, beauty, a yearning for understanding.”

  “Aw, that’s not me!” Swan said, embarrassed.

  “Maybe not yet. But maybe someday.” The next card was laid below the hateful-looking Devil. “This is beneath you, and tells a story about what you’ve been through to get where you are.” The card showed the brilliant yellow sun, but it was turned upside down. “The Sun like that stands fot loneliness, uncertainty ... the loss of someone. Maybe the loss of part of yourself, too. The death of innocence.” Leona glanced up quickly and then back to the cards. The next card, the fifth that Leona had dealt from the scrambled pack, was placed to the left of the Devil card. “This is behind you, an influence passin’ away.” It was the old man carrying a star in a lantern, but this one was upside down, too. “The Hermit. Turned upside down, it means withdrawal, hidin’, forgettin’ your responsibilities. All those things are passin’ away. You’re goin’ out into the world—for better or worse.”

  The sixth card went to the right of the Devil. “This is before you, and says what will come.”

  Leona examined the card with interest. This one showed a youth in crimson armor, holding an upraised sword while a castle blazed in the background. “The Page of Swords,” Leona explained. “A young girl or boy who craves power. Who lives for it, needs it like food and water. The Devil’s lookin’ in that direction, too. Could be there’s some kinda link between ’em. Anyway, that’s somebody you might run up against—somebody real crafty—and maybe dangerous, too.”

  Before she could turn the next card over, a voice drifted through the hallways: “Leona! Leona!” Davy began coughing violently, almost choking, and instantly she put the cards aside and rushed out of the room.

  Swan stood up. The Devil card—a man with a scarlet eye, she thought—seemed to be staring right at her, and she felt goose bumps come up on her arms. The deck that Leona had put aside was only a few inches away, its top card beckoning her to take a peek.

  Her hand drifted toward it. Stopped.

  Just a peek. A small, itty-bitty peek.

  She picked up the top card and looked.

  It showed a beautiful woman in violet robes, the sun shining above her, and around her a sheaf of wheat, a waterfall and flowers. At her feet lay a lion and a lamb. But her hair was afire, and her eyes were fiery too, determined and set on some distant obstacle. She carried a silver shield with a design of fire at its center, and on her head was a crown that burned with colors like trapped stars. Ornate lettering at the top of the card said THE EMPRESS.

  Swan allowed herself to linger over it until all the details were impressed in her mind. She put it down, and the deck’s next card pulled at her. No! she warned herself. You’ve gone far enough! She could almost feel the Devil’s baleful scarlet eye, mocking her to lift one more card.

  She picked up the following card. Turned it over.

  She went cold.

  A skeleton in armor sat astride a rearing horse of bones, and in the skeleton’s arms was a blood-smeared scythe. The thing was reaping a wheat field, but the sheaves of wheat were made up of human bodies lashed together, nude and writhing in agony as they were slashed by the flailing scythe. The sky was the color of blood, and in it black crows circled over the human field of misery. It was the most terrible picture Swan had ever seen, and she did not have to read the lettering at the top of this card to recognize what it was.

  “What are you up to in here?”

  The voice almost made her jump three feet in the air. She whirled around, and there was Josh standing in the doorway. His face, splotched with gray and white pigment and brown crusted burns, was grotesque, but Swan realized in that instant that she loved it—and him. He looked around the room, frowning. “What’s all this?”

  “It’s ... Leona’s seeing room. She was reading my future in the cards.”

  Josh walked in and took a look at the cards laid out on the table. “Those are real pretty,” he said. “All except that one.” He tapped the Devil card. “That reminds me of a nightmare I had after I ate a salami sandwich and a whole box of chocolate doughnuts.”

  Still unnerved, Swan showed him the last card she’d picked up.

  He took it between his fingers and held it nearer the light. He’d seen tarot cards before, in the French Quarter in New Orleans. The lettering spelled out DEATH.

  Death reaping the human race, he thought. It was one of the grimmest things he’d ever seen, and in the tricky light the silver scythe seemed to slash back and forth through the human sheaves, the skeletal horse rearing while its rider labored under the blood-red sky. He flipped it back onto the table, and it slid halfway across the card with the demonic, scarlet-eyed figure on it. “Just cards,” he said. “Paper and paints. They don’t mean anything.”

  “Leona said they tell a story.”

  Josh gathered the cards into a deck again, getting the Devil and Death out of Swan’s sight. “Paper and paints,” he repeated. “That’s all.”

  They couldn’t help but hear Davy Skelton’s gasping, tormented coughing. Seeing those cards, especially the one with the grim reaper, had given Josh a creepy feeling. Davy sounded as if he were strangling, and they heard Leona crooning to him, trying to calm him down. Death’s near, Josh knew suddenly. It’s very, very near. He walked out of the seeing room and down the hall. The door to Davy’s room was ajar. Josh figured he might be able to help, and he started into the sickroom.

  He saw first that the sheets were splotched with blood. A man’s agonized face was illuminated by yellow lamplight, eyes dazed with sickness and horror, and from his mouth as he coughed came gouts of thick, dark gore.

  Josh stopped in the doorway.

  Leona was leaning over her husband, a porcelain bowl in her lap and a blood-damp rag in her hand. She sensed Josh’s presence, turned her head and said with as much dignity as she could muster, “Please. Go out and close the door.”

  Josh hesitated, stunned and sick.

  “Please,” Leona implored, as her husband coughed his life out in her lap.

  He backed out of the room and pulled the door shut.

  Somehow he found himself sitting before the fireplace again. He smelled himself. He stank, and he needed to get some buckets of water from the well, heat them in the fire and immerse himself in that bath he’d been looking forward to. But the yellow, strained face of the dying man in the other room was in his mind and would not let him move; he remembered Darleen, dying in the dirt. Remembered the corpse that lay out there on somebody’s porch steps in the moaning dar
k. The image of that skeletal rider running riot through the wheat field of humanity was leeched in his brain.

  Oh God, he thought as the tears started to come. Oh, God, help us all.

  And then he bowed his head and sobbed—not just for his memories of Rose and the boys, but for Davy Skelton and Darleen Prescott and the dead person out in the dark and all the dead and dying human beings who’d once felt the sun on their faces and thought they’d live forever. He sobbed, the tears rolling down his face and dropping from his chin, and he could not stop.

  Someone put an arm around his neck.

  The child.

  Swan.

  Josh pulled her to him, and this time she clung to him while he cried.

  She held tight. She loved Josh, and she couldn’t bear to hear his hurting sound.

  The wind shrieked, changed direction, attacked the ruins of Sullivan from another angle.

  And in that wind she thought she heard a dark voice whispering, “All mine ... all mine.”

  SIX

  Hell Freezes

  Dirtwarts

  The waiting Magnum

  Zulu warrior

  The elemental fist

  Dealing with the Fat Man

  Paradise

  The sound of somebody being reborn

  34

  TORCHES WHIPPED IN THE cold wind on the desert flatland thirty miles northwest of Salt Lake City’s crater. Some three hundred ragged, half-starved people huddled on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, in a makeshift city of cardboard boxes, broken-down automobiles, tents and trailers. The torchlight carried for miles over the flat terrain and drew scattered bands of survivors who were struggling eastward from the ruined cities and towns of California and Nevada. Every day and night groups of people, their belongings strapped to their backs, carried in their arms, lugged in suitcases or pushed in wheelbarrows and grocery carts, came into the encampment and found a space of hard, bare earth to crouch on. The more fortunate ones came with tents and knapsacks of canned food and bottled water and had guns to protect their supplies; the weakest ones curled up and expired when their food and water was either used up or stolen—and the bodies of suicides floated in the Great Salt Lake like grim, bobbing logs. But the smell of the salt water in the wind drew bands of wanderers as well; those without fresh water tried to drink it, and those suffering from festered wounds and burns sought its cleansing, agonizing embrace with the single-minded desire of religious flagellants.