Bitten

by K. L. Nappier

  "Why don't you come home, now, for a little while?"

  He stretched the pay phone cord taught as he reached to an empty table and crushed the butt into the ashtray sitting there.

  "You know I'd like that ... but ..."

  "Please. I think ... if you'll listen for a minute, don't say anything and just listen. Maybe ... maybe it's time we talked about things again."

  He went rigid, his voice tense. "What things?"

  "You know exactly." Another sigh. "God, it's my fault, I know. This has gone on too long --"

  "It's not time. The only reason this was a close call for them or me is because they chanced across my path. It was a fluke."

  "And now they know about you! They're going to come looking for you ..."

  "They can look all they want, they won't find me."

  "Don't kid yourself. They --"

  " It was a fluke. All right?"

  The faint crackle of the phone connection was the only answer for a while. Just when he was going to ask, "Are you there," he heard, "Sure. Okay." Acquiescence, not conviction.

  His throat was tightened by a twinge of heartbreak. "Come on, don't say it like that. Haven't we been doing this long enough for you to trust me?"

  Love and concern came reaching toward him. "Don't you trust me , after all this time? Please, let's talk about this. We need to understand what our next move should be. Please . Come home."

  He leaned his elbow against the wall, his forehead in his hand. He could use a rest, what little there could be before the next First Night. He hadn't been home in a very, very long time.

  He stated the obvious. "I'll need to find a good mark to turn its attention ... you know ... in time for First Night."

  "I understand. I'll start looking."

  "I'm sorry ... I'm sorry you have to do that again ..."

  "Just come home."

  He started to fish out another Lucky, and then stopped himself. "Okay."

  "Good. Good. Get here as soon as you can. You need money?"

  "Yeah. I'm a little low, so, yeah." Over the phone line, he heard a background of static crackle and distant voices.

  "Something's coming over the Ham. I better go. Call me back in fifteen minutes and tell me where to wire the cash."

  "Okay. Hey ... did the package I sent before I left the states make it there?"

  "It's waiting for you on the table."

  Still feeling piqued, he couldn't resist goading. "Why don't you unwrap it? Set it on the shelf with the others?"

  "Those are your trophies, not mine."

  He fished out that Lucky, after all. "I've never seen it that way, myself."

  A hesitation, a final sigh, then: "Hurry home."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tohatchi, New Mexico

  Spring, 1950

  Early Evening. Last Quarter Moon.

  Mina was waiting beside the truck, all but wringing her hands as David and Max stepped off the Greyhound, nothing left to them but the Goodwill clothes on their backs and a small duffle holding an extra change between them. Max was off the bus first. Mina hurried over and hugged him tightly.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry it went badly."

  She didn't know the half of it yet, but Max didn't have the gumption to tell her. He just nodded, sliding his hands beneath the long, black braid that draped her back and held her close. As David came up, Mina moved to him and pulled him into her arms, hugging him even more tightly than she had Max. David clung to her, his eyes squeezed shut.

  Finally Max asked her, "Have you heard from anyone?"

  "Yes, but later for that," she said as they walked to the truck. "Have you eaten?"

  Max and David shook their heads.

  "You want to go inside Chuli's? He's still open."

  "No. Let's just go home."

  "We're sorry we couldn't get a telegram to you sooner," David said. "I hope you weren't too worried."

  "Neither could be helped ... my worrying or you getting a message to me."

  The first telegram, from the Bahamas, had read Both alive. Trip gone bad. Total failure and worse. The second, from the U.S. east coast, had just given their arrival date and time.

  Their misery must have clung to them like a shroud, because Mina was quiet the whole drive home, not asking a single question. She reheated a lamb roast in the oven and they all filled their plates. Max and David ate ravenously. When they were done, finally -reluctantly- they filled Mina in. She sat through it, looking stricken.

  When Max had run out of words, when it seemed David could only sit with his head in his hands, Mina asked, "How'd you get out of the country?"

  "Skirted past Imbert," Max replied. "Washed up as best we could behind some family's shack at their pump, then stole an old military issue motorcycle and headed to Puerta Plata. Bribed the cook on a freighter with a couple of the silver cartridges we still had on us and our vests' silver plating. That got us to Freeport. From there we sold the handguns and the rest of the cartridges and bullets. That gave us what we needed to bribe our way back into the U.S. We had to be thrifty, but the way we looked, we fit in better at flop houses and soup kitchens anyway."

  "You still would," Mina said.

  Max tried to smile but didn't do a very good job of it. He couldn't stop thinking of Mezz, abandoned in the cellar. He kept thinking of Sister Veronica, lost in the forest. He wondered endlessly about the people crushed under the Luperón Beast's path. Wondered if any were still alive. If there was another twinned lineage that would emerge in the town. A triplet. A quad.

  What a miserable fuck-up he was. A miserable fucking fuck-up. Him and David both.

  Mina said something and Max tried to focus. "What?"

  "I said get that out of your head right now. Both of you."

  Max looked down at his plate and pushed it away with his thumb. "So you're a mind reader now?"

  "I don't have to be. It's all over your faces." She propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward. "Convince me you could have done something different and I'll join your blame game."

  Max shrugged and crossed his arms. "Could've not gone at all, for starters."

  Mina nodded in mock agreement. "You should have consulted your crystal ball before you left."

  "You weren't there, Mina." David said.

  "Cousin, are you pulling that 'you can't know, you're not a hunter' bullcrap on me? That hasn't shut me up in years."

  "We've never failed this badly before," David shot back. "To have to run like beaten dogs, knowing we've left that ... monstrosity behind to emerge again ..." He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face. "I need to get into Stanislov's journals." He sighed. "And I need a good sweating in the lodge."

  Shit. Journals. Sweat lodges. Eight long years, only to come up against a freak that none of them knew how to fight. Max rose from his chair. "Sweat all you want, David. Me? I've done plenty already."

  "No journals or sweating for anybody tonight," Mina said. "You can start fresh tomorrow, once you both get some rest--"

  "Bullshit! I mean it, this is it for me, I'm done! I don't know what the hell that was we left back there, but I know we're no match for it. We're old! We're slow!" He turned on David. "We've been through those journals backwards and forwards and there's nothing in 'em that comes close to what we saw. Bullshit on the journals! Bullshit on trying to figure this one out, I'm just ... I'm done with it."

  He didn't really know where he was going, now or later, but he wound up on the house's wrap-around porch for the time being. On his second circuit, David met him at the front door. Max stared at him a moment, then stepped down to sit on the porch steps. David settled next to him.

  Max looked toward the manicured desert of their front yard, losing color in the dusk. Finally he said, "I can't any more, David. I can't. I've got to ... go. Somewhere. Any damn where." He closed his eyes. "Shit. The mess we made this time."

  "But how can we stop?" David asked, his voice thick. "There's too much left unanswered. Wh
at are we up against? And what about how we found Mezz, poor Mezz? Max ... he'd been tied up before he was taken .... "

  David leaned into his hands and rubbed his face again, as if trying to scrub the image from his sight. He let go and looked at Max.

  "How can we stop?" he asked again.

  "Listen ... you and me, we're old and just getting older. And all these years ... I dunno ... when I think about it, I guess I've been fooling myself. Not that I ever thought we could beat it, but .. I thought we were at least making a difference." He turned to look at his friend. "Instead, it's getting stronger, David. It's becoming greater."

  "So your solution is to stop? Can you really do that? Knowing what you know, knowing what's out there, what will always be out there?"

  "I thought I knew what was out there. Until Luperón." Max looked up into the coming night, mercifully moonless. He could barely keep from weeping when he said, "Jesus, David. Why didn't it kill us? Why didn't it just tear us into so many pulpy bits?"

  He closed his eyes, felt the heat of tears threatening, and heard David's voice, weary and defeated:

  "Just our bad luck, I guess."

  * * *

  The lunch crowd at Chuli's, in as much as it could be called a crowd, looked up as Max walked in. Some of the people went quiet. Between the rumors and the occasional trouble that Max and David's proximity caused, the locals were always wary when they came into town.

  Chuli was sitting behind the cash register, his elbows propped atop the old wood and glass display case that never held anything but the restaurant's telephone and a couple of boxes of Wrigley's Gum and Tootsie Pops. Max nodded in greeting and Chuli nodded back, adding a noncommittal, "Max, how are things."

  The tribal elder's expression made it clear he didn't really want to know. He and Tohatchi's three other merchants were the only ones that ever said more than a few words to Max. The necessity of enterprise.

  Max was used to it. He by-passed the tables and went for an empty stool at the counter. He ordered a sandwich, glass of milk, a slice of peach pie and ate his lunch with his back to everyone. After a minute or two, things went back to normal.

  While he was eating, he almost changed his mind, almost decided not to make the call. But as Chuli rung him up at the register, he slid a couple of extra bills over the scratched glass top and said, "I need to use your phone, if that's all right."

  Chuli took the bills, already knowing the call would be long distance. Max never made a local call. "Sure."

  Max dialed the operator, gave her the number and very nearly hung up on the

  third ring. But Doris picked up.

  "Mrs. Tebbe," she said brusquely.

  "That's how you answer your phone nowadays? I feel like you've just fired me and I don't even work for you."

  "Max! How are you! Where are you calling from? Don't tell me Tohatchi finally got phone lines to the compound?"

  Max couldn't believe he was smiling. The healing power of Doris. "Nah," he said, "I came into town with David. I asked him to drop me here before he headed into Gallup to check on the shop. Thought I'd make myself busy getting some supplies. Just finished lunch at Chuli's and thought I'd give you a call."

  He closed his eyes, almost wincing at his shallow excuse. He hoped Doris wouldn't ask why he hadn't just gone with David into the larger town. If she thought it was odd, she wasn't letting on.

  "Gallup's the oldest shop, right? Jewelry business good as usual?"

  "There and the two in Albuquerque both."

  "When did you get back from the last hunt? Mina wrote that you were in some godforsaken place ... Cuba, Haiti ... How'd it go?"

  He must've hesitated longer than he realized. Or maybe it was just that Doris knew him too well after all this time. "What is it, Max? Tell me."

  He waited too long again. The worry ramped. "Max ...?"

  He cleared his throat. "Up for a visit?"

  No hesitation on her end: "Give me a day to clear a few things up and then I'm on my way. Did I mention in my last letter? One of the companies I consult for referred me to a couple of real power houses ..."

  "No ... what I meant was ... how 'bout I pay you one?"

  That one did cause her to hesitate. "You want to come here ?"

  Max's face burned like a school boy's. "Unless it's a problem ..."

  "Come on, Max, you going coy on me? Of course you're welcome. It's just ... I've never known either of you to leave Tohatchi except to hunt."

  He went for a little bravado. "I'm branching out. Expanding my horizons."

  Doris laughed, and then turned serious. "Are you going to tell me what going on?"

  He fiddled with the phone cord. "I'll call you as soon as I have a flight schedule."

  "Answer's no, then." More gently, she added, "Okay. It'll be good to see you."

  "Same. I better go. Don't want to tie up Chuli's phone."

  "Max?"

  "Yeah ..."

  "Just you? No Mina ... no David ...?"

  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes a minute. "Just me," he said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Doris Tebbe's House on Mission Avenue

  San Buenaventura, California

  Spring, 1950

  Midday. New Moon.

  She looked great. The dark red of her hair was threaded with a little more white than the last time he's seen her, but on her it worked. When he dropped his bags to accept her hug, the lenses in her reading glasses accented new creases at the corners of those small, cool eyes of hers. He kind of liked those, too.

  She released him and backed off to look him up and down. He took the chance to score some points. "You're hair's different."

  Even a hardballer like Doris had a little coquette in her. She smiled and touched the nape of her neck, giving him a brief profile, so his ruse seemed to work. He really couldn't remember if her hair was different or not, other than he knew she didn't wear snoods any more. Hell, no woman wore snoods nowadays. Whole new decade, brand new styles. Women .

  "You like it? It's the poodle cut. Stupid name, good style."

  "Yeah." He did like it, even though he missed the days when women wore their hair longer. But Doris had a nice neck, a really nice neck, and the style left the back of it bare. Really nice.

  Max cleared his throat. "You look like Lucille Ball."

  Doris's eyebrows arched and he wondered if he'd just blown it. "I have never met a bullshitter as shitty at it as you."

  "No. Really. You do."

  "Pick up your bag and get in the house before you burn my lawn with all that manure." Hair like Lucille Ball's, attitude like Kate Hepburn's.

  "No. Really ..." he said, following her inside. She led him through the house, on their way to the guest room. "So this is where you finally settled. City name's sure a mouthful."

  "The locals just call it Ventura."

  The house was all Doris. Practical, no nonsense. But good taste. The living room had black lacquered woods, maroon fabrics, pale yellow on the walls. Not very big, but Doris wouldn't be interested in more space than she needed.

  "Your place is nice."

  "Got it for a song," she said, "with all the attention and money going outside the city limits these days. The local papers like to call it 'the suburban lifestyle.'"

  She opened the door to her guest room and stepped back so Max could go in. Leaning against the door jamb she asked, "Ever been to one of these suburbs?"

  Max tossed his bag on the bed. "Seen pictures in the magazines."

  "Bleak as hell," she said. "Nothing but box houses, bare dirt and staked saplings."

  "They're new, Doris. Gotta let the grass sprout and the trees grow."

  She shook her head. "Reminds me too much of Tulenar. Had lunch?"

  "On the plane."

  "How 'bout a beer?"

  Max feigned shock. "In the middle of the day? You bet."

  He followed her into the kitchen where she opened the Frigidaire, pulled out the brews, then stopped by a drawer
to get the opener. They sat at the kitchen's little oak table and touched bottle necks in a toast.

  "Welcome back to California," Doris said after a sip. "I don't think you or David have been here since the end of the war. Or a little before then. '44, maybe?"

  She went quiet as Max took a long pull from his own beer. He took another long one before noticing the way she was watching him.

  "Thirsty?" she asked.

  Max cleared his throat. "The plane ride dried me right out."

  Doris smiled that thin, knowing smile that always amused or irritated Max, depending on if she aimed it at him or somebody else. He took one more long drink, just to mess with her, and then said, "At least you could let me get a little tight before we start getting serious."

  Doris considered him a while, probably just to mess right back with him, then said, "Sure, drink up. I'll get you another as soon as you 'kill the spider.'"

  She wasn't more than a quarter done with her own by the time Max drained the bottle. When she put the fresh beer in front of him, Max watched her sit and said, "I sure have missed you."

  Her brows arched. "You better take it slower with this one."

  "That's not the beer talking. It's been too long between visits. Anyway you, me, David ... we gave up all that polite, dance-around-what-we-really-should-say crap 'way back when, didn't we?"

  "I thought we had."

  Max made a show of looking at his watch. "For cryin' out loud, Doris. I've been here less than thirty minutes. What the hell makes you think I've got something particular on my mind, anyway?"

  "Phone call instead of a letter. Wants to come here instead of me go there. Comes here alone --"

  "Shit, David's not joined to my hip--"

  "Yes, he is. You're like Siamese twins in a sideshow. Never farther from each other than you need to be in case you have to act fast."

  "Y'know, it's a new age. Everything's just a car or plane ride away--"

  "And while I know this is a vacation for you, and while I remember a time or two when we've both knocked 'em back pretty good in Albuquerque, I've never seen you go at it quite like this in the middle of the day--" Doris mimicked Max by looking at her own wristwatch "-less than thirty minutes after getting anywhere."