Chariot - [Millennium Quartet 03]

by Charles L. Grant

  Still a hundred yards up the street, feeling only a hand’s breadth away.

  “Get inside,” he said tightly. “Jude, get the girls inside.”

  “Trey—”

  The wind prowled down the street.

  “Don’t argue. Please. Just do it.”

  The temperature began to rise, already warm, climbing toward hot.

  “Trey, I can’t.”

  He saw her at the door, saw the key in the lock, and saw her strain to turn it over, saw her shoulders slump in failure.

  “It closed,” Moonbow told him. “I saw it. It just closed, all by itself.”

  “So break the window.”

  The cloud finally engulfed Eula’s house, stretched across and swallowed Roger’s as well, swirling closer to his neighbors as they stood in a line, watching him watching them. Swinging their clubs. Shifting their weight. Lillian paraded in front of them, putting her horse through its paces while spinning the club over her head in taunting slow circles.

  He heard Jude grunt as she lifted the lawn chair, heard her grunt louder when she swung it against the window, and he braced himself for the crash, looked over when he didn’t hear it.

  She tried again, this time succeeding only in snapping off the back legs and splitting the back.

  Starshine and Moonbow clutched each other tightly, huddled against the door, faces buried on each other’s shoulder.

  “They can’t,” Jude said, pleading, stepping to the edge of the porch, dragging the chair with her. A look to the girls, to her friends up the street. “They wouldn’t.”

  He knew what she meant, and he knew that as long as he was still here, Eula’s people would kill them all, children or not. But he had a gun and they had none, and even though he wasn’t a practiced shot, if he aimed and fired quickly, too quickly for them to scatter, surely he’d be able to even the odds a little. Surely one bullet would find its mark.

  Even one out of the way would be better than nothing.

  He flexed his fingers around the revolver’s grip. Without looking, he said, “When I start shooting, you and the girls run.”

  “What? Where?”

  ‘Jude, come on, it’s the only chance we have.”

  “Momma, no,” Starshine begged.

  “Head for the highway. Get on the access road, you’ll be able to run faster, and head for the highway.”

  “Momma?” Moonbow, crying.

  “I’ll try to get that damn horse or Lillian first.” A no-other-choice shrug that Hicaya mimicked, provoking the others to laugh. “With all the commotion, you should have a pretty good head start.”

  “They have guns too,” Starshine reminded him, her voice struggling to sound brave. “Why don’t they have them now? Why are they carrying those other things?”

  He didn’t know; right now he didn’t care. The longer they argued, the less chance any of them had of getting out of this alive. So he said, “Ready,” swung the revolver up, aimed at the pinto, and pulled the trigger.

  * * * *

  Nothing happened.

  * * * *

  He tried again, and a third time, stared stupidly at the gun with the same awful empty feeling he had when, an elevator dropped too fast. No safety to flick on or off, maybe the bullets were duds, but the odds against all them being that way were too high for credence.

  Hell, he thought, and let his arm drop; oh, hell.

  Eula again; it had to be. Which was why they all had their weapons and all he had was a useless chunk of metal.

  The cloud shifted, bulged, seemed to nudge Lillian and the others forward, keeping their line, swinging their clubs. No longer smiling. A pack of arrogant hyenas moving in for the kill. Swaggering and slow.

  Trey flipped the gun over to hold it by the barrel, thinking he might be able to get in one good blow before he was taken down. Better yet. . . if he charged them, took them off-guard with a suicide move, Jude and the girls still might have a chance for at least one of them to get away.

  His left hand absently, automatically, patted his chest, rubbed it, and froze when it felt the comforting lump beneath his shirt. His pulse quickened, and slowed; images and ideas tripped over each other; a distant vague hope surged. . .and remained.

  * * * *

  Yes, Mr. Falkirk, you’re still protected, in a way.

  Me? he had asked, and she had answered, not exactly, but close enough.

  * * * *

  God, he wished he had more time. Just a few minutes, enough so he could stop worrying about them and think clearly for a change. Think about how Eula would have kept him here, in a virtual cocoon, while she went about her business, spreading gospel music and the Sickness, all in one breath, had not the Harps came along and told him things the old woman didn’t want him to know. She could have driven him out, then, easily, and let the outside world do its work, but she hadn’t, and he suspected anger had somehow gotten the best of her.

  Anger, and the arrogance he saw in the others.

  In the way Cable waved to him while holding his club in front of his face; in the way Lillian kept the horse prancing, dancing sideways, dancing back, head bobbing and tail high and arched; in the way Ricardo feinted a charge, and dropped back, feinted again, and dropped back, the look on his face as dark as the dark glove he used to wear; in the way Muriel and Stephanie strutted.

  In the way the shadow rider in the cloud refused to come out.

  “Trey,” Jude whispered loudly, “someone’s coming.”

  “I can see them.”

  And she said, “No, not there.”

  * * * *

  5

  Eula’s people stopped, and the pinto reared, came down hard and pawed at the ground, throwing dirt behind it that the wind caught and spun away.

  A finger tapped Trey’s left arm, and Sir John said, “My dear fellow, I’m terribly sorry I’m so late, but that damn car broke down and we had to walk the whole way.”

  Trey looked at him without expression, too startled to speak, and saw Lady Beatrice trudging around the corner. She gave him a half-hearted wave which he acknowledged with a wary nod.

  “Why?” he said, returning his attention to Cable and the others.

  Harp took off his hat, touched at his hair, and put it on again. “A certain responsibility, my boy. You either understand it, or you don’t.”

  Lillian swung her mount around and headed into the sand-cloud, abruptly reversed direction, and returned to her front position, gesticulating angrily; he could hear her voice, but not the words.

  “Any minute now,” Sir John remarked. “Blasted wind.”

  Trey tried to keep an eye on Lillian while at the same time watching Jude and the girls hurry toward Beatrice. He wondered how far away the car was; he wondered if it would make a difference. “You know, Sir John, no offense, but you’re a little old for this.”

  “Curious. That’s precisely what my dear wife said not an hour ago.”

  Trey couldn’t hold back a quick laugh, which felt so good he did it again, because for the duration of that laugh he almost believed the odds had actually been lowered. Until he looked at Harp’s face and saw the strain there, and the checked fear, and the unmistakable age.

  “I am quite all right, Mr. Falkirk,” Harp said, keeping his gaze steady and straight ahead. “You are the one you need to concern yourself about. This is all going to move quite fast once it begins.”

  “No kidding. And how do you propose we take on five angry people with clubs, one horse, and Eula back there? My gun doesn’t work.”

  “Perhaps not,” he said. “But this one does.” And he pulled out his own, the one he had used against Trey.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Once again, not quite.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “The chariot, my boy. Use the chariot. That’s what it’s for.”

  “That doesn’t work either.”

  Harp shook his head in dismay, while Lillian trotted the horse back and forth across th
e street. Building up speed. Building up resolve.

  Sand and dirt scratching across walls; a window exploding deep within the cloud; a beautiful bright blue sky and a full warm sun.

  Harp grabbed Trey’s arm, rapped a knuckle against his chest where the gold chip lay, then pushed him toward the pickup. “Use it, Mr. Falkirk. There’s, no time left. You must use it.”

  He was right.

  Cable apparently couldn’t stand the waiting any longer, couldn’t stand seeing the quarry just ahead, helpless in conversation with an old man in silver snakeskin boots. He looked back into the cloud, made a sharp the hell with it gesture, and broke into a run. Keeping the club low. Glaring, grinning, gaining speed with each step. The others hesitated until he was a good fifty yards ahead, but when they ran as well, they weren’t nearly as fast, weren’t by their attitudes nearly as confident. Someone, Trey figured, had noticed the old man’s gun.

  “Go!” Harp ordered, lifted his chin, and waited.

  Trey had no idea what to do, how he was going to get the pickup to work effectively without any tires. But whatever it was, he had to do it, and do it now, because Cable had reached his own house and Trey could see the twisted smile, the anticipation as he raised his club.

  Oh, God, he thought, and slammed his palms onto the hood.

  “Please,” he said urgently. “I need you, old buddy. Will it be all right? Can we—”

  Harp stood sideways, straightened his arm, aimed, and fired.

  The retort echoed in the wind.

  Cable took the bullet in his heart, took two more, steps, and dropped, the club skidding and bouncing along the ground until it stopped at the mouth of Trey’s drive.

  There was no key in the ignition, but the black pickup shuddered.

  Sprinting ahead of the others, Stephanie screamed, inhuman, enraged, and Harp waited patiently until she reached her husband before he aimed, and fired, and dropped her on Cable’s back.

  The pickup shuddered, and Trey didn’t dare lift his hands, or look over his shoulder.

  We need you, he thought desperately; I know this isn’t right, but we can’t wait much longer.

  Another shot, he heard Harp say, “Damn,” and assumed the man had missed. Two more in quick succession, followed by a woman’s shriek, a man’s groan, the sound of two bodies hitting the ground.

  Then hoofbeats, a shot, and a long silence in the moaning wind. Trey couldn’t help it, he turned with one hand still on the hood and saw Lillian swing her club like a mallet as she passed on Harp’s left, catching him in chest and chin, the pinto’s haunch catching him as well and spinning him around as he fell.

  Trey shouted.

  He heard Beatrice scream.

  He saw Lillian race up the street toward the cloud, crying out her triumph as she twisted around on the horse’s back and rode facing the animal’s tail. Grinning. Grinning madly. Pointing, at him as if to say, you’re next.

  * * * *

  Beatrice reached the old man before he did, kneeling, cradling his head in her lap, her hands cupping his cheeks. He stood at their side, trying to shield him from the sun and the wind, the dust clouding the air. There wasn’t much blood, and there was too much; the way he tried to breathe betrayed the collapse of ribs and lungs.

  Harp peered up at him, turning his head slightly in a futile attempt to see better. “She was right, you know.” A quivering smile at his wife. “She’s always right.”

  “John,” he said, swallowing hard, and heard the hoof-beats, thunder on the wind.

  He reached down and grabbed the gun from Harp’s hand, turned and fired in the same motion, blasting Lillian from the pinto’s back. The horse reared, shaking its head wildly, then ran over her body and vanished into the cloud still moving toward them.

  Damn, he thought, staring dumbly at the gun; damn, I did it.

  A weak scrabbling at his leg, and he knelt, not daring even a glimpse of Beatrice’s face if he wanted to keep his own composure.

  “You know now,” Harp said, gulping air for each word.

  Trey looked at the chariot, quivering as the engine raced, standing on four full tires.

  He nodded, passing a thumb over the chip, the talisman.

  The old man shuddered, closed his eyes, opened them again. “I don’t know where they are, those men you must meet. I don’t...know if—”

  “Hush, John,” Beatrice said, stroking his brow with one finger.

  “My hat.”

  “Here,” and she placed it on his chest.

  He grabbed it with both hands, sighed and smiled. “My indulgence. Even now, she grants me my small indulgence.”

  Trey searched for Jude and found her, standing in the street with her daughters. White dress. White veil. Small and fragile against the sky.

  Behind him, the steady scrape and claw of the wind.

  No time; no time left.

  “John,” he said apologetically, shifting to stand.

  “Quite all right, Mr. Falkirk, quite all right. We understand. Leave now and you’ll be fine.”

  “No,” Trey said. “I, uh...I wanted to thank you.”

  Harp worked his lips, widened his eyes, pulled the white straw cowboy hat closer to his chin. “Oh, my dear fellow,” he said. And closed his eyes. And died.

  * * * *

  6

  Trey touched the hat, touched the back of Beatrice’s hand, and rocked up to his feet.

  You can do it, you know, he said to all his doubts; you can get them into the truck and get the hell out, bury Sir John and take your chances trying to find those men.

  But when he looked down at the old man’s body, looked into Beatrice’s eyes, he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  Options.

  Choices.

  Do one, and Eula carries on, and the man on the boulevard keeps adding new numbers until the sandwich board is too small, until he runs out of fresh paint.

  Do the other...

  “Mr. Falkirk,” Beatrice said, “I can’t read your mind, but I know what you’re thinking.”

  He nodded.

  No more time.

  “Can she take my place? Can Jude do it for me? Whatever it is?”

  “Yes, Mr. Falkirk, I believe she can. If she will.”

  “You’ll...you’ll...”

  “Yes. Any way I can.”

  He nodded.

  No more time.

  He trotted down the street, the girls racing toward him and hugging him, weeping silently, almost knocking him over. As if they knew. He lifted his head, and Jude came closer, tentative, unwilling.

  “Listen to Lady Beatrice,” he told her, “and don’t forget the strongbox. You’ll need it, every dime.” He took the gold casino chip from around his neck, squeezed and rubbed it once for luck, and before she could stop him, he placed it around hers.

  And before she could stop him, he lifted the veil and kissed her.

  “No,” Moonbow whispered when he pulled gently away.

  “She’ll kill you if I don’t,” he said.

  “I don’t care,” she answered, and Starshine said, “Me neither.”

  “Well, I do,” he said, and heard the wind and smiled. “Good news,” he told them as he turned away. “Damn chariot’s a-comin’.”

  * * * *

  4

  T

  rey grabbed the girls’ suitcases from the back and dropped them onto the porch, took the strongbox and set it next to them, got behind the wheel and whispered, “What do you say? Can we go?”

  A brief tremor rocked the truck, and he pulled into the street, faced the cloud and gunned the engine, just as the cloud billowed and the wind howled and the sand raked across the windshield and tried to scour the black from the hood.

  He took his foot off the brake.

  He saw the dark rider, inside wheel and race away.

  Funny, he thought as he rode the chariot in after her; funny how it is sometimes

  * * * *

  when you finally think you’ve got it all
figured out, and you finally think you’ve got yourself pretty well set for the rest of your life, not all that exciting but not all that dull either, and something comes along and someone comes along and the next thing you know you’re driving blind in a freak sandstorm, holding the steering wheel so tight your fingers want to cramp, tempted to use the wipers even though you know they won’t help, habit making you turn the radio on but there’s nothing there but static, and the scratch and scrape and claw of whatever it is you’re in trying to get in with you.