Chariot - [Millennium Quartet 03]

by Charles L. Grant

  What they didn’t say, what they meant was, be grateful it isn’t the Sickness. We’ve been lucky so far, let’s count our blessings.

  He stepped off the porch, glaring now.

  He had read Moonbow’s note right after breakfast, too late to catch either girl before they’d left for school. He’d been tempted to drive over there, drag them out of class, and interrogate the hell out of them. Instead, he decided to be just angry, not stupid, and be thankful that the note had driven away the last of the shakes his nightmare had left behind.

  He didn’t much believe in dreams, not as much as his mother had, but that particular one had shaken him— because it had really happened, the cowboy and the knife. But in the dream, watching it as if it were a scene in a film, he realized, or admitted, for the first time that what had happened couldn’t have happened.

  you’re supposed to be dead

  A raucous used-car commercial blared through the front window, startling him, and he turned with a muttered curse, went inside, and shut the television down. A tap of his hand against his leg, and he was outside again. Off the porch, heading up the street, letting his anger flare once again.

  The house next to his was empty, as was the one opposite it, but he looked anyway at the blind windows, the sand piling against the doorsills, trying to recall who had lived there and shaking his head when he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure, but he thought they had been empty when he’d returned to stay.

  The next house on the right had all the shades down, Cable and Steph asleep for at least another four or five hours.

  He angled left, not sure what he would say, right hand slapping his leg lightly to dispel the anger as much as he could, disperse some of the energy. By the time he reached the porch he was, if not calm, at least in control.

  The inner door was open, the screen door locked. He could see straight through the front room into the kitchen, dimly, the back door little more than a rectangular glare. He knocked on the frame and stepped back, glancing up and down the street, pursing his lips in a silent whistle.

  He was patient.

  At last he smiled, because he knew she was watching.

  “Hey,” he called softly. “Come on, Jude, it’s only me.”

  The back door’s glare vanished as she moved out of the tiny back room where, in a better time, washers and dryers would have been; now she used it as her bedroom, little more than a nunnery cell.

  He took another step back as she approached, the screen’s mesh keeping her outline indistinct.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey yourself.” Her voice was soft, faintly harsh as if speaking were difficult, and slightly muffled by the thin cloth mask that covered her face from below the eyes to her neck. This wasn’t the kind, of surgical mask he saw periodically in town, people from outside who weren’t used to walking around without some kind of protection no matter how feeble. It was loose, thin, reminding him each time of an Arabian woman’s veil.

  “You coming out?” he said, another step back so he could lean against the post. “Nobody around, Jude. Get some air for a change.”

  He didn’t push; it all depended on how the night had gone. No sleep, and she’d stay inside, a tall, slender ghost in a place too small to haunt. If she rested, and if there were no strangers, she might, only might, come out to join him.

  He had learned fairly quickly, and painfully, not to push.

  The door creaked as she unlocked it.

  He grinned. “It walks.”

  “Funny,” she said sourly, slipping onto the porch, reaching around to test the latch to be sure she could slip back in. Taller than he, what figure she had was cloaked by a long formless white dress with only the slightest scoop at the neck; no belt or sash, no trim. Long dark brown hair down to her waist, so straight he sometimes wondered if, like kids in the old days, she ironed it once in a while.

  Large, round, amazing sable eyes.

  “I like the Hollywood look,” she said with a nod to his sunglasses. “Very you.”

  “My action star mode.”

  She grunted a laugh, then narrowed her eyes. “What’s the matter? You didn’t sleep well?”

  A jerk of his head for a shrug. “Bad dream, no big deal. And . . .” He scratched under his nose with the flat of a finger. “I spooked myself, too.”

  “How nice.”

  “Not very. I thought I saw Lil riding up the street last night. On a horse. The whole deal—sight, sound, smell.”

  She didn’t respond for a moment. Then: “Flashbacks, huh? Stuff you took in college?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Right.” He tapped his leg thoughtfully. “I would have sworn it then, Jude. You put a Bible in my hand last night, I would have sworn I’d really seen her.”

  But all she said was, “Strange days, action hero. Strange days.-”

  Not, he thought, what I want to hear, lady.

  They watched the empty street in comfortable silence, until she pushed at her hair and said, “You’re going in today.” Not a question; a faint whiff of condemnation.

  “All day.” He shifted to rest his back against the post, cross his feet at the ankles. Face down the street to catch anyone coming in. “You need anything else at the store?”

  “You just said you’ll be gone all day.”

  “I can come back, Jude. No big deal, you know that.”

  “Your karma thanks you.”

  He almost said, my karma sucks big time in case you hadn’t noticed, but he only gave her a noncommittal nod. “Just let me know if you want something.”

  “What if you meet that man?”

  He pushed a hand over his hair, thinking maybe, before the heat finally reached furnace levels, he’d get it trimmed. Buzz cut. Crew cut. Marine cut. Hell, maybe shave it all off and be done with it.

  “Did you see him last night?”

  She nodded, but offered nothing except, “He frightened the. girls.”

  “Apparently,” he said, feeling anger stir again, “he’s been to at least one of the hotels a couple of times. Guy I know told me last night.” He grunted. “He, the guy I know, was not very happy. He said . . .” He laughed shortly. “He said the old man was spooky.”

  “You don’t know him?”

  “Jude, I don’t know anybody.”

  She didn’t respond.

  He laughed again. “I thought it was, you know, somebody connected. If you know what I mean. That maybe I’d ticked somebody off for some reason or other. You know, a contract, stuff like that.”

  Which, when he said it aloud, sounded awfully damn stupid.

  “I doubt that,” she said, humor in her voice. “You should have seen him, Trey—older than God, for crying out loud, a really bad rhinestone cowboy.”

  “With a British accent.”

  “Oh yeah.” This time she laughed aloud. “With an English accent.” A gesture with a long-fingered hand. “He was very polite, very upper class, but after a while Moonbow didn’t like his vibes. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was that crack about the dragon. I—”

  When she stopped herself, blinking rapidly in realization, he waited a moment before nodding. “I know. It didn’t hit me right away either.” He passed a finger lightly over his cheek. “So how does he know about the dragon?” A sweep of his hand to the street. “We’re the only ones. Maybe not even all of them. You guys anyway.”

  Too quickly he turned to face her, and she started, automatically reaching for the latch. When she realized what she had done, she let the hand fall as she lifted a shoulder in an apologetic shrug. Habit. Flight was a habit, and not one she was about to break any time soon.

  He had seen the face behind the veil only once, when a gust had caught it and flapped it up over her eyes and it clung to her hair. No matter how little she thought of how he made ends meet, he had become someone special when he hadn’t blinked, hadn’t flinched, hadn’t made a sound. All he had done, before she could duck away, was brush the veil off her head to let it fall back into place.
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  She had changed it since then, weighted it, so the wind could ruffle it but never lift it.

  “How does he know?” he wondered softly, looking back at the empty street rippling with cloud shadows. “How the hell does he know?”

  “Wait around until he comes back, and find out.”

  “Can’t.”

  Again she kept her silence.

  “Anyway, if he wants me all that badly, he can damn well find me.”

  Nothing.

  He lowered his sunglasses just enough and met her gaze over the tops, steady, without emotion. His thumb pushed the glasses up again, and he stepped off the porch.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t look back.

  “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Last night, all day today? You’re getting ready to leave again, aren’t you?”

  Finally he shook his head, glanced over his shoulder. “Can’t, Jude.”

  “Of course you can,” she snapped as she yanked open the door. “You do it all the time.”

  “Nope. Not now. Can’t.”

  A hesitation. Doubt. A painful clearing of her throat.

  He half turned this time, a hand up to stop her from speaking, to save her voice. He opened his mouth, caught himself, and closed it. You don’t know, he wanted to tell her; you don’t know what it’s like

  * * * *

  when you step into your backyard a few days after you first rent the house almost four years ago, no plans to do anything with it, no grass or garden or even a chair and umbrella table. You just want to see what it’s like back there with its tufts of grass that look more like spikes, and cacti whose names you’ll eventually learn from a book one afternoon because you’re monumentally bored, and a pair of half-dead Joshua trees way in the back.

  You don’t see the rattlesnake.

  When you hear it, it’s too late.

  There’s not much you remember because it happens too damn fast. One minute you’re crouched by a cactus, wondering if those spines are really as sharp as they say, the next you’re staring into this obscene, terrifying face, listening to rattles like thunder. You forget you’re in a crouch when you start to back away, and you fall on your rump.

  A frozen eternal second before you panic and scrabble backward as fast as you can, feet pushing and hands pulling, and the snake strikes and there’s a sharp pain just above the top of your right boot and the panic trebles, you roll over, get to your feet, race back to the door, explode into the kitchen, slam the door, drop into the chair, and prop your leg on the table. Breathing so hard you almost pass out. Sweat blinding you, hands trembling violently, fingers scratching at your jeans to pull the leg up. You’re dying; you know you’re dying, and you can’t remember what to do next, scenes from a million movies flash through your mind—cutting the wound, sucking out the poison—and it takes you a while before you notice there’s only a small scratch on your calf, before you look closer and see the burr that latched onto your leg and stabbed you when you panicked.

  Release and relief in a single yell, and it isn’t until months later that you admit to yourself that the burr wasn’t there until you retreated; and you retreated because the rattler bit you, and no one-will ever know because you don’t know yet yourself that

  * * * *

  there’s something about the city she’ll never understand, and if you try to tell her, she’ll think you’re crazy.

  “Trey?”

  “Nothing,” he said wearily. “Nothing. You’re right. Not enough sleep.” Then he straightened and gave her his best smile. “And I’m not leaving, Jude. Just racking up a few shekels for a rainy day.”

  A pointed look at the sky. “By then you’ll be at least a billionaire.”

  “I wish.”

  She cleared her throat again, tilted her head to tell him she couldn’t talk much longer. He gave her a hey that’s okay wave and started across the yard.

  “Be careful of the hedge,” she said, actually giggling.

  He stopped, turned his head slowly, and said, “What?”

  “The girls decided we had to have a hedge, too.”

  Then, surprisingly, she blew him a quick kiss and ducked inside, the white of her dress fading behind the screen, another ghost.

  That the girls weren’t around didn’t matter; he made a show of returning to what would have been the front walk if the builders or Jude had bothered to put one in, and went into the street, feeling inordinately giddy. A big grin on his face. For the hedge or the blown kiss he couldn’t be sure, but that too didn’t matter.

  His mood had lifted, and he whistled his way back to his house, two-stepped inside, and took a quick and cool shower. Put on the uniform, laughed aloud when he was halfway to the door before remembering his jacket, and decided that if he ran into the old man, he wouldn’t slug him first for upsetting his friends.

  He would have sung, very loudly and very badly, several bars of the chariot song if he hadn’t paused at the front door to make sure he had his keys, looked up, and saw Eula Korrey.

  * * * *

  2

  Green.

  In the midst of the drab sand and drab houses, the lifeless grass and cacti waiting for one lousy drop of rain, me first thing Trey had noticed about her, the first thing anybody had noticed about her, was the green.

  There had been other colors surely, but no one remembered them with any clarity.

  It was green; always green.

  Today was no exception.

  The temperature, an hour shy of noon, had already begun to flirt with ninety, and Eula wore a green, light coat that reached to her knees, exposing the matching green dress beneath. A green felt hat, its brim rolled up, its crown low and round. A dark green purse whose strap was hooked over the arm she held beneath her breasts. Green shoes with solid low heels. Green linen gloves with dark green lace trim at the cuffs.

  Freneau once called her the emerald in Emerald City.

  She wasn’t terribly short, but her bulk made her seem so, and she was the first one to let people know that she knew full well she was fat. Yet the way she walked, the way she held herself, the weight she carried seemed the perfect weight for her.

  Trey stepped back from the open door, just in case she looked in his direction. Down at the end of the street a taxi waited. It was the way she always traveled, never asking for rides, never asking to borrow someone’s car.

  She certainly never asked him.

  It was always a taxi, and it always waited at the end of the street.

  And she always sang softly to herself as she walked to her ride. He could hear her now, words indistinct, hanging in the heat, but the rhythm and verve were there, her head bobbing slightly, her stride keeping time. As always. Practicing, no doubt, for her next engagement.

  The driver scrambled out to open her door, and she nodded to him gratefully, graciously, giving him a huge broad smile. She paused before she got in and looked back suddenly. Trey started; although he knew she couldn’t see him through the screen, he would have sworn she knew he was there. The smile broadened, she nodded absently at something the driver said, and backed in, green shoes last to disappear into the car.

  The driver slammed the door shut, looked around, shook his head as if to wonder why a woman like that could live in a neighborhood like this, and took his place behind the wheel. He drove away slowly but dust rose anyway. Without a breeze to stir it, it just floated there.

  Hanging in the heat.

  When the sound of the engine faded, Trey stirred, reminding himself that he had more important things to concern himself with today than an old fat woman’s inexplicable animosity. There was a stash to be added to— big time, if he could manage it—and the more immediate mystery of the old man and his companion.

  Suddenly he laughed aloud.

  “You know,” he said as he hurried to the truck, “you drop dead today, you sure can’t say your life has been dull.”

  * * * *


  She had moved in at the end of last summer, and for a while, everyone stepped lightly. She had certainly been friendly enough, always a smile and a pleasant greeting nod, yet only the kids didn’t seem nervous around her. It never occurred to them to attempt to find out if she was militant or sensitive or political or apprehensive; all they cared about was the hard candy she kept in her purse, an endless supply always shared with a deep-throated laugh.