The Walking

by Bentley Little

  "It's there," Gordon said, pointing. '

  Miles walked over to the desk. On top of a manual typewriter was what looked like handwritten notes on a yellow legal pad.

  "What do you make of it?"

  The note was a list of names Liam had obviously drawn up. Miles picked up the pad and quickly scanned the list.

  His gaze locked on a name in the middle, his pulse racing. Montgomery Jones. He turned toward Marina and her husband. "What is this?"

  Marina faced him, looking pale. 'that's what we want to know."

  "Did you ask your father about it?" ' "He won't talk." She took a deep breath. "I recognized that one guy's name, the one who was killed, and that's why I called you. Gordon and I thought that there might be some connection between the woman or whoever's stalking Dad and the person who killed that man."

  "Do you think we should go to the police?" Gordon asked.

  "Definitely," Miles said. "But don't get your hopes up. It can't hurt to let them know, put them on alert, but they probably won't do anything. In the meantime, I'll try to track down the names on this list. Obviously, your father knows of some connection between all these people. He seems to

  think he knows why this other man was killed and why he's being stalked--"

  "But he won't tell."

  'then, you need to try and get him to tell. He might not be the only one in danger here. These others might be at risk as well.. Tell him that by not cooperating, he may cost some of these people their lives."

  "We'll try," Gordon promised. "But he's stubborn."

  Miles looked at the fist again, frowned. He thought Graham had kept all mention of Montgomery Jones' death out of the press. He turned toward Marina. "You said you saw his name in the paper?"

  "No. On TV. Extra."

  Extra? Graham had kept news of the killing out of the legitimate media, but it had made its way onto tabloid television? "I remembered his name because I couldn't forget the way he died." She shivered.

  "Filled up with ice and drowned? What a horrible way to go."

  "Filled up with ice and drowned? What are you talking about?"

  Something suddenly occurred to him. He cocked his head. "Who are you talking about? Derek Baur." Derek Baur?

  There were two of them.

  Miles felt his pulse rate accelerate again. "Another man on this list, Montgomery Jones, was also killed recently. Torn in half. Up by the Whittier Narrows dam."

  Marina looked at her husband, all of the color draining from her face.

  "I don't know what's happening or what this is all about, but I suggest you get your father out here so we can try to talk some sense into him."

  She nodded and hurried off down the hall.

  "Can I take this to photocopy?" Miles asked Gordon. "I'll give it back to you."

  "Take it and keep it"

  "You'll need it to show the police."

  Gordon nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Okay." He ran a hand through his hair. "Jesus."

  "We'll get to the bottom of this," Miles promised. Gordon looked as though he was about to say something, but at that moment Marina pulled Liam into the room. She faced Miles. "Tell him!" she demanded, pointing at her father. "He won't listen to me. Maybe he'll listen to you."

  "Two of the men on this list are dead," Miles said. "One, Montgomery Jones, was torn in half over in Whittier. I saw the body. I was there. The other than, Derek Baur

  In Michigan, and than he was somehow filled with ice and drowned. If you know anything about either of these deaths, you'd better speak up because you and the other people on that list may be in danger, too."

  Liam shook his head.

  "Damn it, Dad!"

  "Well, you obviously know of something that all of these people have in common. There's some reason you put them on this list. If you could just tell. us--"

  "No."

  He was surprised by the vehemence of the old man's response. It was impossible, he knew, and it made no sense, but Liam was acting guilty, as though he were in some way responsible for the deaths.

  Miles spoke to him as though addressing a small child. "Your daughter hired me to find out who has been harassing you, who has been stalking you. I'll find out with or without your assistance, but your help would be greatly appreciated. It would also be in your own best interest since you are the subject of this harassment. It also appears that

  your life is in danger: I have agreed that your daughter and son-in-law should go to the police with this list--"

  "No!" He glared at Marina. "You have no right!"

  She was practically in tears. "Stop being so stubborn!" she screamed at him. "This is your life we're talking about!" yes. he. shouted back. "My life!"

  Miles backed off, staying out of it. Marina and her father yelled at each other for several more minutes before he finally stalked off. A door slammed down the hall.

  Marina ran out of the room crying.

  "I'll find a copy shop, make a quick Xerox, and bring this back," Miles told Gordon. "After that, I'll try to track these people down. You go to the police."

  Gordon nodded.

  "I have some personal business to attend to this afternoon, but I'll give you a call later this evening and we'll see where we stand."

  'thanks," Gordon said.

  Miles offered him a wry smile. 'that's what I get paid for."

  He drove off, found a Sav-On Drugstore, made an overpriced 25-cent copy of the list, and brought it back. Marina, who was now settled and sipping coffee in the kitchen, looked at him before he left, her eyes still red. "I'm sorry about my father," she said. "He's just so stubborn. Maybe he'll break down a little later. But she was wrong, Miles thought, driving home. He'd gotten a look at the old man's face when he'd described to him the deaths of the two men. Her father wasn't stubborn. He was scared.

  The kids were gone, off to a lunch meeting with Gordon's agent, and Liam made sure there was no one waiting for him outside, made sure the street was free of unknown vehicles and pedestrians, before venturing out of the house. He'd promised Marina he wouldn't leave the yard, but he'd broken a lot of promises lately, and the more he broke the easier it was to do.

  There'd been six calls last night. It was the same woman, and though he knew he'd never heard her voice before, he could not shake the feeling that he knew who she was. Or that he should. Her identity bugged him, and he'd lain awake long after he'd finally taken the phone off the hook, trying to figure out where he should know her from and why.

  Her last call, at midnight, had been the worst. "I'll pull your cock out through your asshole," she'd said, and for some reason her voice at that moment had reminded him of his mother's.

  He'd given up nothing to either that obnoxious private dick---and the word served double duty here--or the police detective who came by later. They'd tried to crack him, and Marina had jumped all over him, yelling, crying, using every piece of emotional artillery at her disposal, but he had refused to cooperate. He didn't know what was happening, but he knew it was connected with the dam, with the town, and what had happened all those years ago in Arizona.

  That was why he didn't want any cops or detecti poking their noses into this.

  That was why he wanted Marina kept completely out of it.

  Liam walked down the treet toward Pacific Coast Highway and the beach.

  He desperately needed a smoke, but needed to buy a pack of cigarettes.

  For the past twenty years Marina had bought into the lie that he'd quit smoking--just

  as her mother had--and he did not want her to find out that he hadn't.

  So he'd waited until she was out of the house. The liquor store was only a few blocks away, on PCH, and he'd be able to walk there, have a leisurely smoke, and walk back before Marina and Gordon even reached their restaurant. Hell, he could probably sneak a few backyard puffs after his own lunch and have time to rinse his mouth out with Listerine before they returned.

  As usual, the coast highway was crowded. Cars were zooming by
almost too quickly to see, and even though it was December and chilly, the beach was crowded with wet suited surfers and narcissistic body builders On this side of the highway, the typical assortment of the drunk and the displaced, the homeless and the unemployed, were sitting on broken benches or lying on dead grass in the unmaintained lot that was supposed to be a park.

  Liam walked past the park, past Bunny's Bar, past the alley, to the entrance of the liquor store. He bought a pack of Marlboro Lites, took one of the books of free matches from the open box next to the register, and lit up as soon as he stepped outside.

  He breathed deeply, inhaled. The sun on his face, warm smoke in his lungs. it didn't get any better than this. He looked up, exhaled into the air.

  And tilted his head down to see a squat dirty woman wearing several layers of filthy ragged clothes standing directly before him.

  It was as if she'd appeared out of nowhere, and only the calming influence of the cigarette kept him from visibly reacting. Though he'd never seen the woman before, there was an expression of familiarity on her face, something that made him think she had been looking for him, and he felt the first faint stirrings of fear in his chest.

  He looked around, muscles tensing as he tried to spot anyone suspicious on the sidewalk or in the storefronts.

  The woman pointed an accusatory finger at him. "How many were there?" she demanded.

  He shook his head.

  How many were there? I don't know what you're talking about," Liam said, backing away. But he did. She'd come out of the blue, her words apropos of nothing, yet he understood to what she was referring and it frightened him to the bone. He should have listened to his daughter.

  He never should have left the house.

  He walked around the woman, back the way he'd come. Ahead in the park he could see several raggedy men looking in his direction, waiting for him to approach. There was something threatening in the way they stood, and he turned up the alley, deciding to take a long cut home. He wasn't sure what was happening, but once again he thought of the dam, the town, and he found himself hurrying between the buildings, anxious to get away from these homeless people.

  Halfway up the alley, he almost tripped over a bum's legs sticking out from behind a trash dumpster. He stopped short, and the bum looked up at him, smiling with brown tobacco stained teeth. "Wolf Canyon," he rasped.

  Liam tossed his cigarette and started running. His heart was pounding, and right now he wanted only to get home. A dark shape lurched at him from the back entrance of an apartment complex, and he had time to register that it was probably female before his feet were carrying him up the alley and past the ill-kept backyard of an old house that had been converted into a beauty salon.

  He heard shouts, running footsteps, and he glanced over his shoulder as he ran. Five or six homeless people were following him now, and though his lungs were hurting from lack of breath and it felt as though his heart was going to attack him, he increased his speed. He was embarrassed, ashamed of his fear and cowardice, but he knew his feelings were legitimate. What was going on here made no sense on any rational level, but made perfect sense in the fun house universe in which he'd found himself since receiving that first threatening phone call.

  The increasingly loud sounds of footfalls made him speed up yet again.

  His muscles were straining, and he knew he could not keep this up for any length of time. He burst out of the alley and onto a residential street, the street next to his own, and that gave him an extra burst of energy.

  He did not stop or slow down to see if he was still being followed.

  Though he knew how ridiculous he must look, he ran with all his might, wheezing and panting past well-manicured lawns and spotless driveways toward the end of the block. He did not know why he was being chased or how these street people were connected to the dam, to the town, to what had happened, but he accepted that they were. He was not one to dismiss things that weren't supposed to be able to happen--not after all he'd seen.

  He reached his street, reached his house. Dashing up the walk, he finally allowed himself a quick look behind him. As he'd half expected, no one was following. They'd either given up, or he'd lost or outrun them. He exhaled deeply, an honest-to-God sigh of relief.

  Then an extraordinarily tall man wearing a torn T-shirt and woolen earmuffs rounded the far corner onto the street, and Liam ducked quickly inside the house, heart pounding. Wolf Canyon.

  He locked the door leaned against it, trembling. The phone rang a second later, making him jump, but he made no effort to answer it, and though he stopped counting at fifty, the ringing continued on.

  Then

  Jeb Freeman bedded down for the night in a ravine.

  He'd been traveling all day, stopping only for two short rests, heading south as he had been for the past week. His feet hurt. Sam, his mount, had died two days ago, and Jeb had been walking ever since, carrying his own bedroll and saddlebag. He'd been hoping to make it as far as the mountains by nightfall, but the terrain was rougher than he'd expected, and it became clear near sundown that he would not reach his goal today. He would have preferred to remain up top, to not have to waste time hiking down into the ravine and back up again tomorrow morning, but the winds here were fierce at night, and since he no longer had a tent, the only way to stay out of them was to stay below them.

  There were a few dead branches on the rocky sandy floor, swept there by the last flash flood, and he gathered them up. He made a circle of stones, then placed half of the branches inside, dumping the other half a few feet away. He laid out his bedroll. A hard piece of almost un chewable salt pork was his supper, and he washed it down with a single.

  sip of warm water from his canteen.

  Nightfall lingered up on top, but it came swift and sure in the ravines, and his camp was swathed in darkness even as the western sky above remained orange.

  There was no sound but the birthing winds above, no scuttle of rats, no cawing of birds, no noise from anything

  alive. Not only were there no people in this forsaken country, there were not even any animals. Crouching down, he sprinkled a pinch of bone dust on the branches, dramatically waved his hand over them, and spoke a few words. The fire started.

  He sighed. Reduced to performing parlor tricks without an audience.

  He made the fire turn blue, then green, but it did not dispel the melancholy that had come over him. He had always been something of a loner, but he had never really been alone before. Not truly alone. If he had not always had living companions, he had always been able to communicate with dead ones, to conjure up the spirits of those who had passed on, to discuss his life with those who had finished theirs.

  But here he was too far out. No people had lived here, no people had died here. He could communicate with no one. He was all by himself.

  He stared into the rainbow-colored fire, surrounded by silence.

  Eventually, he went to sleep.

  Above the ravine, the night wind howled.

  He met William the next day.

  Jeb felt him before he saw him, sensed his presence, and he was filled with a grateful anticipation that was almost joy. He could not remember the last conversation he'd had, and it had been weeks since he'd even seen another human being.

  And this man was one of his own.

  Jeb continued south, his pace swifter than it had been since Sam's death. The land here was raw and hard and open, not blunted and covered and soft like the land in the East. It was what made the west frightening. And exciting. 20The world here seemed to go on forever, and only the lack of companionship had kept it from being a paradise.

  A person was dwarfed by this landscape, but Jeb did not need to see the man to know where he was. He could feel him, and when he sensed that the man had stopped, was waiting for him to catch up, Jeb increased his speed even more, practically running across the flat ground toward the mountains.

  He found the man sitting underneath a low tree at the mouth of a canyon, hi
s horse drinking from a muddy pool. The man stood, shook the dust off his clothes, and walked forward, hand extended. "Glad to finally meet you," he said. "I'm William. William Johnson. I'm a witch."

  William, it turned out, had been aware of his presence for days, and Jeb chose to think that it was because his own skills were rusty, because he hadn't been using them lately, that he had not been aware of William until he was practically upon him.

  He had met other witches before, but in towns, in cities, and there'd always been a sort of implied acknowledgment of their kinship, a tacit understanding that they recognized each other but were not going to consort with each other so that no suspicions would be raised.

  But out here they were all alone, with no one else around for hundreds of miles, and he and William were able to speak openly about things that had always before been only hinted about or left unsaid. It was a strange and unsettling experience, and at first Jeb was wary about saying too much, being too explicit, for fear that William was trying to trick him into revealing incriminating details about himself, trap him into giving away secrets. He knew intellectually that that was not the case--William was a witch just like himself--but the emotional prohibitions were still there, and only after his new companion had told his story, had revealed far

  more than Jeb would have ever dreamed of sharing with a stranger, did Jeb feel comfortable enough to relax and really talk.

  They had a lot in common. William had traveled throughout the territories, living for a time in various settlements, keeping to himself when he could, providing help when asked. He d removed unwanted pregnancies, performed small healings, made the infertile fertile. And he'd been punished for it: harassed, attacked, exiled.

  Much as Jeb had himself.

  They'd both tried their best to fit in, and had both been found out every time, persecuted for their natures, for who they were and could not help being, by the intolerant men and women who claimed to be speaking for God.

  He told William about Carlsville, about Becky, the girl he'd loved who had betrayed him. He had never told this to anyone else, but he already felt closer to William than he had to anyone since.." well, since Becky, and it felt good to talk about it, to clear his chest.