Angel went to her bedroom and retrieved a few articles of clothing and some pictures. She did the same in Howie’s room. Gordie noticed that none of the pictures were of her parents. He asked about that.
“It’s Howie’s opinion that the Fury killed most of the good people first. It was not our fate to die. The Fury is using the weak people. If my parents are that weak – or bad, as the case may be – I don’t want to remember them. Maybe you and Sunny can take care of us once this is over?”
Gordie smiled, mildly astonished at the astuteness of the young.
“I can tell by the way you look at each other that you care for each other. Howie can sometimes be a pain in the butt, but I’m not much trouble,” she said with a hint of a smile.
Sunny put an arm around the child’s shoulders. “That’s a good idea, Angel. We’ll leave it up to Gordie.” Woman and child looked at him.
Gordie stepped forward and put his arms around the both of them. “Why not?” he said.
Outside, in the bright sunlight, they quickly joined Bergman in the car and drove away.
“I hope I never see that house again,” Angel said. “I want this to be over.”
“It will be,” Gordie told her. Sooner than we both think, he mentally added.
“It’s heading your way,” the speaker crackled.
The car suddenly stopped in the street, the motor dead.
OUT FOR A PLEASANT LITTLE DRIVE, RIVERA?
“Yeah. I planned a picnic, but we couldn’t find a suitable spot.”
MY DEAL STILL STANDS, GUNFIGHTER. HUMP THE KID AND YOU CAN WALK FREE.
“Hang it up, Fury,” Gordie told him.
YOUR ASS, GREASEBALL.
“It’s gone,” the words came out of the speaker.
The car’s engine roared into life.
“Why doesn’t it just go ahead and kill us and take our knowledge?” Bergman asked. “Is this just a game to the Fury, or is it somehow prevented from killing the stronger – if that is indeed what we are?”
A cold, very clammy feeling enveloped them all. And all knew what it was from viewing the reruns of Sand’s life. The Force.
“Listen to me,” the heavy voice tingled their ears. It was so heavy it was almost painful. “I will help you through Sand. The door is close, but the way is dangerous. Once you enter the door, there is no turning back. You might exit in another time frame. If you do, remember this: you cannot alter history. I will contact you again when you are very nearly out of time.”
“Wait!” Gordie called.
“I am waiting. I am always waiting when death is imminent.”
“If we do make it clear, the press will be all over us. What do we tell them?”
“The truth. Always the truth.”
“As we perceive it?” Bergman asked.
The Force chuckled darkly. “Even the very ignorant know when they are lying to themselves. Anything else is a myth, conceived in the minds of those who must justify what they do on your miserable planet.”
“Why us?” Angel asked. “Why are you helping us?”
The pressure throbbed for a moment. “Sand is a very convincing speaker.”
The pressure left them. Gordie put the car in gear and rolled on up the street. Back at the office, he told the others what the Force had said.
“I don’t care if we end up in the middle of Apache country in the 1870s,” Norris said. “At least we’ll be alive.”
“I’ll advise Martin,” Megan said. “Let him decide how much, if any, is released to the press.”
“It’s here!” Howie called.
PLANNING AND SCHEMING, EH? GOOD. I LIKE THAT. KEEPS ME ON MY TOES, SO TO SPEAK. ALTHOUGH ME ON MY TOES WOULD BE A RIDICULOUS SIGHT TO SEE.
Capt. Hishon took a chance. “I’d like to see you,” he said.
WOULD YOU NOW? I THINK NOT, TIN SOLDIER. PERSONALLY, I CONSIDER MYSELF TO BE A HANDSOME BEING. OTHERS, HOWEVER, DO NOT. BUT WHEN THE END COMES, I MIGHT GRANT YOU YOUR WISH. IT WOULD BE AMUSING TO SEE YOU GO MAD.
It left with such a rush, it crackled the hair of everyone in the room.
“Where is it, Howie?” Gordie asked.
“Thunder Mountain. It keeps returning there.”
Troops had been brought in from Fort Carson. They closed all the roads within a twenty-five-mile radius of Willowdale, and sealed off the area.
Martin Tobias could not, legally, run the preachers out of the valley, anymore than he could run the press out, but he did order the rattlesnakes of Harold Jewelweed confiscated.
“You done violated my constitutional rights, ah haw!” Harold puffed up.
“Please remind me to apologize . . . at some future date.”
Motels as far away as Denver were jammed full of reporters, diplomats, government officials, and the curious; schools and civic centers and gyms were packed with those evacuated.
Fury enlarged its territory again, spreading itself out another quarter-mile in all directions. But this time, Gordie was ready for it.
“It’s moved back to the mountain, Sheriff,” Howie called.
“Let’s go, people!” Gordie shouted the words as he hit the door, the military and Mack and Watts right behind him.
They fanned out, planting explosives all over the town. Lee and several others were gathering up all the old tires they could find—oftentimes taking them off vehicles parked alongside the street. Anything that would produce a thick smoke.
“We can detonate many of these electronically,” Maj. Jackson said. “But the majority of them will have to be hand set.”
“That’s where Mack and me come in,” Watts said. “We’ll go through the drill one more time, Major. Just before you people pull out.”
“Bump Howie, Jane,” Gordie said. “Let’s see if we’re still clear.”
“Clear, Sheriff,” the deputy said.
“Tell him to notify Martin Tobias that we’re making our break at eight o’clock tomorrow evening. It’ll be full dark. That gives us—and those outside the Fury’s perimeter – thirty-four hours. Let’s get back to work, people.”
President Marshall looked at the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He glanced at his watch. “We drop in thirty-three hours, forty-seven minutes. Eight-thirty tomorrow evening. Alert the crew.”
“Yes, sir.” The general left the room.
The president turned his gaze to the secretary of state. “The secrecy lid still on tight?”
“As tight as I’ve ever seen it.”
“I am absolutely amazed that we haven’t had worldwide panic. Astounded by it.”
“We’ve had a lot of speculation. Martin is to be commended for the fine job he’s done.”
“You’re going to be late for your press conference,” the president was reminded.
President Marshall shook his head. “There won’t be any press conferences until this . . . incident is over.”
“The press isn’t going to like that.”
“I don’t particularly care what the press likes; not at this juncture. What have you been able to come up with on this Saunders person?” That was directed at the attorney general.
“He got the shaft, legally speaking,” the attorney general replied. “But that didn’t give him the right to go out and kill half a dozen people and castrate another young man.”
“What did these people do to bring down the wrath of this young man?”
“Killed his pregnant wife. The baby was stillborn.”
The president grunted. True justice did out in this case. “Can he be exonerated?”
“No. That’s impossible. He was never tried. But he is, somehow, showing his side of the story to those trapped in Willowdale. They’re videotaping it. We’ll have to go that route.”
“Is he agreeable with that?”
“Jesus Christ, sir. The man is dead! What can he do about it?”
The president pointed a finger at the attorney general. “You just make damn sure his side of the story gets told. We’ll leave the rest u
p to the people who see it.”
“Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir.”
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death.
Swinburne
Those survivors had agreed not to venture out until unless they absolutely had to. Howie announced that only the sentries were still in place. The Fury was resting on Thunder Mountain.
The television clicked on and Watts said, “Here it is. Now maybe I’ll know for sure what happened.”
The others gathered around the set, standing, sitting in chairs, sitting on the floor. The sound of a phone ringing came out of the set’s speakers. Sand was alone in the den.
Sand reached for the phone. The Force gripped him. “Be strong,” it whispered. “For I am now more of you than you are of me.”
Music began in Sand’s head. Softly, only a faint melody in the back of his mind. It would soon build to a thunderous crescendo.
Robin’s mother said, “Sand, let me speak to Robin.”
“She isn’t here, Mrs. Lee. I thought she was at your house.”
“She left here hours ago!” the woman’s voice became very high-pitched. “Sand, where is she?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Lee.” Someone was knocking at the front door. “Hang on for a second. Calm down.”
He ran to the door, jerking it open. Watts stood on the front porch, a grim expression on his face. The Force became more a part of the young man as Sand spun in a whirlwind ride, a lonely maddening spin; an invisible calliope played a jumble of melodies, an angry roaring in his head. Mussorgsky, Beethoven, Wagner. Night on Bald Mountain. Lenore. Götterdämmerung.
Sand fought the thundering until the sounds faded.
“Robin,” Sand found his voice.
“Yes,” Watts replied, his voice sounding very distant to the young man. It was distant. A dark river lay between them. “There’s been an ... accident, Sand. About ten miles outside of town. It’s bad, son. She’s . . .”
“Dead.” Sand said flatly, filling in the blanks of life’s complicated crossword puzzle. His last puzzle. Only a few more squares needed to be filled.
“I am truly sorry,” Watts said, thinking: what a stupid, totally inadequate phrase.
Sand pointed to the phone. “Mrs. Lee’s on the line. You tell her the news.”
“Now is the time,” the Force spoke.
Watts looked around him, certain he had heard a voice. He walked to the phone like a man stepping through a mine field. Sand slipped into a jacket and ran to his car.
A dozen or more cars were parked around the base of a hill. Red lights gave the night a carnival atmosphere. Bobbing flashlights and dark figures moved about. Sand noticed Robin’s Olds in a ditch, both left wheels stuck in the mud, the door to the driver’s side open, the interior light burning dimly as the battery wore down. He could not make the connection between his wife’s death and her car stuck in the mud. And where was his breed, Bruno? Robin never went anywhere without the quarter-breed wolf. He was very protective of her.
The roaring music began in his head, all mixed in with that strange pressure that seemed to constantly grip him of late. Then . . . silence. Loud in the absence of noise. He felt cold, detached from reality. And alone.
“You are not alone,” the Force told him. “We are now as one.”
An ambulance moaned and wailed in the background, the red lights and the siren cutting a scar into the night.
Why hurry? Sand thought. She’s gone.
“Wrong,” the Force corrected. “She is merely waiting for you.”
Sand walked slowly up the hill, to the first level of lights, stopping when he saw Morg, standing alone.
“You hadn’t oughta go up there, Sand. Man, it’s awful.”
“Come on,” Sand said. “Walk with me.”
A state patrol officer stopped them a dozen yards from the brightest blaze of lights. “The captain is right behind you, Sand. Said for you to wait for him.” He looked at Morg.
“I ran you out of here once.”
“I come back.”
Sand knew the trooper could not hear the muted roarings in his head, raging like a huge orchestra under the baton of a mad conductor.
“I’ll take it from here,” Watts spoke from the darkness behind the men. Robin’s father, Carl, stood with the captain, his big hands clenched into fists of silent rage. Watts said, “Follow me and be careful where you walk. Don’t step in any roped-off areas. We’re still trying to unravel this one.”
Sand walked ahead of the others, ignoring Watts’s call to wait. He ran toward the blanket-covered, lifeless, almost shapeless lump on the cool ground. Sand’s face seemed carved out of granite. All but his eyes; God, they ached.
The roaring in his head became louder, more crazed, less definable. Kneeling down, he lifted the blanket and looked into the face of death.
Robin was chalk-white, her lips a light blue. Sand felt a wetness soaking through the knees of his jeans. He was kneeling in a thick puddle of blood. He turned his head to one side and vomited.
There was a tiny object between Robin’s legs, her maternity skirt hiked up around her waist. She had miscarried. Sand was kneeling in the midst of twin death.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Sand dropped the blanket over Robin. Watts and Carl and Morg stood a few yards away, out of respect for Sand. A cold, white hand protruded from under the blanket. It was clenched in a small fist. Prying open the fist, Sand discovered a fistful of hair, blood, and bits of flesh. He slipped that into his jacket pocket and stood up.
The police were not going to handle this one.
“Good,” the Force said, becoming more and more a part of Sand. “This time, justice will truly prevail.”
“I don’t want to see her like this,” Carl said. The big man had tears in his eyes.
The four of them walked back down the hill. Watts said, “I’m going to level with you, and tell you what we have so far: The Patrol got a call this evening, about seven-thirty. The caller refused to give her name. She said a car had gone off into the ditch at the Steeleville exit and six or seven young men were chasing a young woman up a hill. She said the young men were clearly drunk; laughing and shouting and having a good time. She said the young woman was screaming and crying.
“There are several Steeleville exits, so by the time my man checked this one – with the help of the sheriff’s department – it was almost eight-thirty. He found the Olds, lights on, motor running, in the ditch. Where it is now. He said as he walked up the hill, looking for the woman, there was a, ah, strong odor.”
“Blood,” Sand said.
Watts looked at him. That strong sensation of pressure that lingered around Sand was even stronger. Watts could not imagine what it might be. “Yes. The men found Robin. The doctor just gave me a preliminary cause of death. A combination of things killed her. From the bruises on her stomach, she was apparently kicked or struck with some object several times. She miscarried, and that, combined with internal injuries, shock, fright . . . all contributed to her death.”
Watts sighed heavily. “Anyway, on the way back down the hill, my man literally stumbled over the second body.”
All eyes clicked toward Watts, unblinking. Waiting.
“The young man’s name is, was, John Murry. Student at State. His . . . throat is gone. Completely ripped out. Done by a large animal with very powerful jaws and long fangs.”
“Bruno got one of the cocksuckers, anyway,” Sand said. “But where did he go?”
Watts grimaced. “We don’t know that Murry had anything to do with Robin’s death, although that appears to be the case. As to that quarter-breed wolf of yours, the trooper found him. He had been hit on the head with a club. We have the club, the animal is gone. Obviously, he was only stunned. When he regained consciousness, according to tracks around the body, he inspected Robin, found her dead, and ran back into the mountains. Where,” he looked squarely at Sand, “any wild animal belongs.”
“Visser vous,” Sand told him.
“I won’t even ask what that means.”
“It means screw you.”
Sand looked toward the mountains, looming dark all around him. He had found Bruno in the mountains, and could almost feel the breed’s eyes on him now. The breed had tasted the so-called civilization of man, and found it not to his liking. Sand knew the feeling. Bruno was again running wild and free. Where he would remain, unless some stupid redneck shot him.
Back at his car, Sand said to Carl, “I’ll be at the funeral home.” To Watts: “And I don’t want any goddamned autopsy.”
“Sand,” Watts said, “We have to – ”
“I’m with Sand,” Carl said. “I mean it, Al. No knives on Robin. I’ll fight you on this if I have to, and if I have to, I’ll enlist the help of Julie von Mehren.”
Watts looked pained at the mention of the rich old lady. “I’ll speak to the DA, Carl.”
Sand did not leave the funeral home that night. He sat alone in the waiting room, drinking a dozen cups of bitter coffee—and waiting, listening to the music in his head.
It was full dawn when the attendant wheeled in the casket, and left Sand alone with his dead dreams.
He walked to the casket and looked down. Robin was lovely. But she was dead. Cold. Behind the veil. Standing on the Stygian shore.
“She is waiting,” the Force spoke, and the voice was Sand’s.
Outside, Morg waited for his friend. He had sat on the curb all through the night. Waiting. Maintaining his lonely vigil. He knew that if the cops didn’t find out who killed Robin, and do it damn quick, Sand would find out and kill them. Morg would be there to help his friend. Since Jane’s death, Morg had wandered around in a fog of loneliness. But now he had something he could do. And if both he and Sand died – and Morg was sure they would – doing the deed, or after it . . . who was left to care?
You take a life through injustice, you give a life.
Morg waited.
The director of the funeral home walked in to speak with Sand. “The boy was stillborn, Mr. Saunders. What do you want done?”
“Buried beside his mother. Fill in all the holes.” His rage, his sense of loss, his frustrations, his hold on his temper, all lay just below the surface, ready to explode in a bloody rage. His head thundered with music. His voice shook with emotion.
Darkly The Thunder Page 25
