“You’re not going to like this,” Watts said. “But I may as well give it to you straight, no matter how it rubs you the wrong way.
“You may fire when ready, Gridley.” Music raged in Sand’s head.
“Marlson and the others who run with him came to see me early this morning. They are all clear in this matter, Sand. They saw Robin’s car parked by the side of the road and stopped to help. To see if anything was wrong.”
“Of course, they did,” Sand said with a smile. “Being the type of concerned citizens that they are.” Clair de Lune played softly in his head.
“The polygraph tests were inconclusive, Sand. But the operator thinks that they are telling the truth.”
“Compulsive liars can pass polygraph tests, Captain.”
“I know that, Sand. Damnit, I know that. I’m not going to drop this thing, boy. You have my word on that.”
“Wonderful. What else did these concerned citizens have to say?”
“They said Robin was already dead. When they got too close to her, the breed jumped Murry and the rest of them panicked. They got themselves together and finally came to see me.”
The Force that was Sand chuckled darkly. “Why did they wait two days?” The Tragic Overture rudely pushed Clair de Lune out to sea.
“They’d been in a fight – so they said. They were afraid I’d think they’d been fighting with some of your bunch. Truthfully, Sand, they had been in a small scrape. I checked it personally. One boy was cut up, scratched on the face and neck.”
Sand smiled and said nothing.
“It works, Sand. It’s fitting together. But I won’t drop it. I promise you that. If they did it, I’ll find out. And they’ll be punished.”
“If they did it, and if you find out, will they die?”
“Goddamnit, Sand, the law doesn’t work that way, and you know it.”
“How unfortunate for the innocent.”
“Sand, you told me a few days ago that you and Robin were planning on leaving this area. Are you leaving alone?”
“To be sure. I shall be gone within twenty-four hours. Probably sooner than that. I will probably never ... well, shall we say, personally bother you again. Not in the flesh.”
“That is a damn strange remark, son.”
“And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.”
“I’m familiar with Poe, Sand. Boy, you are taking this very calmly. That worries me.”
Brahms played in Sand’s head. Lovely. Bits of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland came to him: I’ll be the judge, I’ll be the jury. I’ll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.
Sand laughed just as the phone rang. Watts was suddenly aware of that strange sensation filling the room. Heavier, stronger than he had ever felt it. It was not evil, Watts thought, then thought himself a fool for thinking it. But it was . . . dark, he finished in his thoughts.
Sand hung up the phone and slowly turned. “That was Carl Lee on the phone, Captain. Robin’s mother went berserk. They have her in restraints at the hospital. She is to be transported to a private mental hospital.”
“Dear God,” Watts said.
The Force whispered to Sand. Sand smiled.
Watts heard the whisper. Dismissed it as the wind. The thought came to him: Nevermore.
He shook his head. “Where is your friend Morg?”
“Like me, waiting. We shall be ... leaving together.”
“Where are you two going?”
“After a time, to a place that is quiet. Sort of. It’s not that far a journey. There, we might ponder the mysteries of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings.”
The Force laughed. Something very nearly tangible moved in the room. Sweat broke out on Watts’s forehead.
“Is the house too warm, Captain?”
“Weird,” Watts muttered. He sighed. “When are you two leaving, Sand?”
“Soon, Captain. But the time of our final departure will be up to you. I shall leave you with this bit of philosophy from Baudelaire: There exists only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. Do you understand that?”
“Not really.”
“It’s very simple. To know, to kill, to create.” Sand smiled. “You will, I believe, Captain, soon experience all three.”
Watts grimaced, shook his head, and walked from the house. He called over his shoulder, “Good-bye, Sand.” He closed the door, strangely relieved to be out of Sand’s presence.
“Very good,” the Force spoke to Sand. “You are a very intelligent young man. Now we’ll see to it that justice is truly served.”
“I’m with you.”
The room rocked and pulsed with heavy laughter.
Sand and the Force began speaking to each other, switching from one language to another. Morg came in through the back door. He stood for a time, wondering who his friend was talking to. Sand noticed him and fell silent.
“My man got it,” Morg said.
Sand smiled. He pointed to something only he could see, and said, “Il est toujours sur mon dos ...”
“Speak American, Sand. I can’t understand a damn word you’re sayin’ ”
“Yet,” the Force said.
Morg looked around him.
“But your time is only minutes away.”
“Buzz off!”
The Force chuckled.
Sand told Morg what Watts had said.
Morg waved his hand and cussed. “Them rich shits is lyin,’ man. There wasn’t no fight. That was a put-up job to get the heat off Marlson and his bunch. Marlson and them others stopped at a beer joint over the pass. They was pretty shook up. Talkin’ about bein’ in a fight and all that. ’Cept there wasn’t no fight, nowhere, that night. It was all put-up, and that’s firm.”
“You have their names.”
“You know them.”
“Yeah. Marlson, Branon, Lenton, Jeffery, Murphy, Center, and Alexander. Bruno took care of Murry.”
“Right. My pal says if you want to crack one open, it’s Jeffery. He’s a real fish, scared out of his gourd.”
Morg stood for a moment, listening in amazement as Sand spoke in a language he could not understand, and to a ... whatever the hell it was, that he could not see. Morg shivered as laughter rang out. But it did not come from Sand.
Then the Force spoke to Morg. “I have reviewed your future. You have none. You are now able to converse with us.”
Morg looked wildly around him. “I know I ain’t got no future. What’s that got to do with the price of potatoes?”
The Force laughed. “I like you. You’re crude, but I like you.”
“Morg,” Sand said. “Which one did Robin mark?”
“You talkin’ to me or that . . . other thing?”
“You.”
“She mauled Jeffery. Sand, you still got that spare piece?”
Sand found the .45 and handed it to Morg. “You know we’re gonna get our tickets punched, don’t you?”
“It don’t make a shit to me no more, Sand. I’m . . . kinda like you now. Got no place to go, and no one to care about seein’ me, if I got there.” He smiled. “Well, one place, where she is.”
“I know,” Sand said gently.
Laughter echoed throughout the house as the hall clock chimed out the hour and then quit working, its mainspring broken.
Time had stopped for Sand and Morg.
Morg shoved the .45 auto behind his belt. Sand did the same with an identical .45. “You ready to go, Morg?”
“Oui, mon ami.”
Sand smiled at Morg’s startled look.
“Man, I don’t know no Frog talk!”
“You do now,” Sand said.
They started conversing in fluent French.
“All language is as one,” the Force told them. “But French is such a refined and gentle language, don’t you think?”
“That goddamned thing’s gonna get on my nerves,” Morg said.<
br />
“Au contraire,” the Force spoke with a chuckle.
“Stick it in your ear,” Morg told him.
The men stepped out into a star-filled, moon-hung night, the storm having blown past. They walked to Sand’s Mercury and blasted through the night, an almost visible current sailing along with them.
Carl Lee had sent his remaining daughter, Linda, to stay with friends. He had spoken with Watts. Now he sat in the den of his home and knocked back straight shots of bourbon.
He stilled the ringing telephone, listened for a moment, and then broke the connection by tearing the cord apart. He hurled the phone across the room, shattering it against a wall.
That had been the hospital. His wife had just suffered a series of strokes, one right after the other. Extensive brain damage. Chances of recovery: none.
Carl drained the bottle, then went into his bedroom for his pistols.
Chapter Twelve
When the screen darkened, Watts stood up and walked to a boarded-up window, gazing out the gun slit. The others, sensing that he wished to be left alone, did not follow.
“What’s with Colonel Watts?” Pat asked.
“He’s preparing himself to die,” Bos told her. The college jock had matured a great deal over the past few days, making himself a promise that once out of here, he would knuckle down to more serious college work.
“Gordie,” Lee said, walking up to where the sheriff was sitting with Sunny, “what about the prisoners we have left in lock-down?”
“We’re taking them with us. They’re a worthless crew, but I can’t just leave them here to die.”
“Do we chain them?”
“No. We’ll get them out at the last minute. We tell them nothing until we’re at the door.”
“What if they try to make a break for it?”
“That’s their problem. If they step off that path Sand talked about . . .” He shrugged his shoulders and left it at that.
Lee nodded and walked off. Gordie waved Dr. Anderson over. “How is Robin?”
“She’s much better. I told you she was a tough little girl.”
“Howie? Where’s the Fury?”
“On the mountain,” the boy called.
The sheriff looked at his watch. “We’ve got about twenty-one hours left. Pass the word: before we leave in the morning, stash anything you want to take out in the knapsacks. Do nothing out of the ordinary. Those that normally remain here, do so. I’ll get word to them when it’s time to bug-out.”
Anderson nodded and walked away.
Sunny took Gordie’s hand. “I’m more scared now than ever before,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what we’re going to face, when we walk through that door.”
“Think of it as freedom, Sunny, and don’t dwell on it. Look, we might not have much time to talk tomorrow. So let’s get some things said now – not necessarily in their order of importance. I’ve fallen in love with you, and the emotion came pretty damned fast. You think you could be happy with a hick-town sheriff?”
She smiled at him. “Oh, yes, Gordie. I think we could be very happy together.”
“With Angel and Howie, we’ve got a built-in family.”
“They’re good kids. I’m looking forward to raising them.”
“You’re used to life in the fast lane, Sunny. Small towns can be very dull.”
“I’ve got a lot of books to write, Gordie. I think it’ll probably take me about fifty years to get them all completed.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “You got a deal.”
“We’re going to be cutting it very close,” Martin told the military commanders. “We’ve got to give those people in town every break we can afford. At seven o’clock tomorrow evening, we start evacuating out of here. And we do it with no fuss. Very quietly. Anyone who doesn’t want to go, leave them.”
“They’ll die,” it was pointed out by a three-star general.
“That is their problem. We’re not here to hold their hands. Order them out one time, then walk off.”
“You’re a hard man, Mr. Tobias,” the three-star said. “You ever think about running for president?”
“It has crossed my mind a time or two.”
“You’ve got my vote.”
Watts stood in front of the TV in the office. “Do it, Sand,” he said. “We’re running out of time.”
I was born out of time, Al, the words popped into Watts’s head.
“I know it. And I’m sorry for all the things I didn’t do – back when.”
There was nothing you could have done, Al. You’ll understand that in a few hours.
Watts sat down in front of the set. “Bring me up to date, son.”
VENDETTA
Allen Jeffery did not live on campus. He had a nice apartment off campus – compliments of mommy and daddy – in a secluded complex. When he looked up from his TV, he looked into the cold, hard eyes of Sand and the equally hard-looking Morg. Allen fainted.
When he awakened, he was in an old line shack deep in the mountains. Moonlight streamed in through the broken windows and the holes in the roof.
Jeffery pulled himself up, sitting with his back to a rotting wall. “You won’t kill me, will you?” His voice shook with fear. He stank of fear. “I didn’t do anything to your wife.”
“You were there, weren’t you?” Sand asked.
A sly look crept into the young man’s eyes. “Why . . . no. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t. I thought you knew that.”
Sand hit him in the mouth with a gloved fist.
Jeffery screamed and spat out blood. “Yes, yes! I was there. But I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t my fault or my idea. I swear it!” His fright overwhelmed him. He soiled his underwear. The smell of him filled the shack.
“You tell me what happened,” Sand said. “And you tell me the truth. Not that bullshit you people told Watts.”
The Force whispered the thoughts that were in Sand’s head.
Sand replied in French.
“Yeah,” Morg said. “Se taire.” He laughed. “Man, this is wild.”
Jeffery’s eyes were wide and scared. “What was that other voice?” he shouted. “Oh, God help me. You people are with the devil!” he screamed his fear.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” the Force said. “Why must I always be associated with that creature? No, no, young man. You are badly mistaken.”
“Then who are you?” Jeffery screamed as he pissed his pants.
“Why,” the Force breathed, “I am you. I am he. I am him. I am all things in all people. Even, regretfully, a part of such as you. I am many things to all people. I am old loves and old fears, old hates, and everything both good and bad. I am present in all people at all times. But especially vocal when death is imminent. You’d better tell all that you know of this matter. It would save you a great deal of pain.”
Jeffery fainted.
The deep timber was silent as Morg slapped Jeffery back to his senses.
In the line shack, a dark form moved amid the shadows. It was almost human in shape. Almost.
“I’ll tell all that I know, if you promise you won’t hurt me,” Jeffery spoke, his eyes darted from Sand to Morg to the flitting shape.
“Oh, my,” the Force whispered. “I believe he wants to strike a bargain.” The whisper became a howling roar.
Sand cursed Jeffery until he was breathless. A wild beast was uncaged within him. It leaped to the surface, crying out in an ancient tongue. Sand hit Jeffery in the mouth, slamming him against the rotted shack wall. The wall collapsed. Jeffery fell outside, Sand jumping after him. He picked the young man up and threw him back into the shack.
Sand stared at Jeffery. His eyes were not human. They seemed to glow. Even Morg backed off.
“I warned you,” the Force said. His form was becoming more definite to Jeffery.
“I know who you are now,” Jeffery said.
“Yes, you do.”
“All right,�
� Jeffery moaned. “I’ll tell you.”
A wolf howled in the night. Sand smiled. The Force laughed darkly as thunder rumbled in the distance.
“Eight of us,” Jeffery said, then named them. “We took a blood oath to get you, Sand. I mean literally cut ourselves and mixed the blood. We all tasted it. We were frat brothers, you know.”
The Force snickered.
“We were rolling that afternoon, looking for girls and drinking beer and chasing it with whiskey. Two cars of us. We got drunk. Just as we were leaving Willowdale, we saw this souped-up Olds. Your car, somebody said. Somebody else said we ought to have some fun and scare your wife.” Blood dropped from his lips, plopping onto the floor, amid the bird droppings and rat shit. “I didn’t know she was going to have a baby.”
“She was in her ninth month and in maternity clothes, you sorry bastard!” Sand yelled at him.
“But we were drunk!” Jeffery screamed.
“Stop trying to excuse what you did. Tell it!”
“By all means,” the Force said. “And do pick it up a bit, please. So far, it’s all been rather mundane.”
Jeffery’s eyes were wild as the Force became a recognizable shape. And it knew what it was.
Death.
“B ... Bill Marlson was driving the car I was in. He was the drunkest of us all, and he gets mean when he gets drunk. He’s never forgiven you for whipping him that night. He’s tried to kill you before. Did you know that?”
“He ran down Boom Boom, too, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Why? She never hurt anybody in her life.”
“She was a friend of yours, that’s why.”
“You all knew about that?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t going to the police ever enter your mind?”
“We belonged to the same fraternity,” Jeffery said. “Brothers don’t rat on each other.”
“And these kind of assholes run the government and big business?” Morg questioned. “I’m glad to be leaving.”
“Are you going somewhere?” Jeffery asked, anything to buy a little more time.
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