1987 - Swan Song v4

by Robert McCammon

  “Where are we?” the girl asked from the tent’s interior. She’d been curled up in her sleeping bag, listening to the restless whine of the wind. Her speech was garbled, but when she spoke slowly and carefully Rusty could understand it.

  “We’re at a house. Maybe we can use their barn for the night.” He glanced over to the red blanket that was wrapped around three rifles. A .38 pistol and boxes of bullets lay in a shoe box within easy reach of his right hand. Like my old mama always told me, he thought, you’ve gotta fight fire with fire. He wanted to be ready for trouble, and he started to pick up the .38 to hide under his coat when he approached the door.

  Swan interrupted his thoughts by saying, “You’re more likely to get shot if you take the gun.”

  He hesitated, recalling that he’d been carrying a rifle when that bullet had streaked across his cheek. “Yeah, I reckon so,” he agreed. “Wish me luck.” He zipped the flap again and got down off the wagon, took a deep breath of wintry air and approached the house. Josh stood by the wagon, watching, and Killer relieved himself next to a stump.

  Rusty started to knock on the door, but as he raised his fist a slit opened in the door’s center and the barrel of a rifle slid smoothly out to stare him in the face. Oh, shit, he thought, but his legs had locked and he stood helplessly.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” a man’s voice asked.

  Rusty lifted his hands. “Name’s Rusty Weathers. Me and my two friends out there need a place to shelter before it gets too dark. I saw your light from the road, and I see you’ve got a barn, so I was wonderin’ if—”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “West of here. We passed through Howes Mill and Bixby.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ left of them towns.”

  “I know. Please, mister, all we want is a place to sleep. We’ve got a horse that sure could use a roof over his head.”

  “Take off that kerchief and lemme see your face. Who you tryin’ to look like? Jesse James?”

  Rusty did as the man told him. There was silence for a moment. “It’s awful cold out here, mister,” Rusty said. The silence stretched longer. Rusty could hear the man talking to someone else, but he couldn’t make out what was being said. Then the rifle barrel was suddenly withdrawn into the house, and Rusty let his breath out in a white plume. The door was unbolted—several bolts were thrown back—and then it opened.

  A gaunt, hard-looking man—about sixty or so, with curly white hair and the untrimmed white beard of a hermit—stood before him, the rifle held at his side but still ready. The man’s face was so tough and wrinkled it resembled carved stone, and his dark brown eyes moved from Rusty to the wagon. “What’s that say on the side there? Travelin’ Show? What in the name of Judas is that?”

  “Just what it says. We’re… we’re entertainers.”

  An elderly, white-haired woman in blue slacks and a heavy white sweater peered warily over the man’s shoulder. “Entertainers,” the man repeated, and he frowned as if he’d smelled something bad. His gaze came back to Rusty. “You entertainers got any food?”

  “We’ve got some canned food. Beans and stuff.”

  “We’ve got a pot of coffee and a little bit of salt pork. Put your wagon in the barn and bring your beans.” Then he closed the door in Rusty’s face.

  When Rusty had driven the wagon into the barn, he and Josh untied Mule’s traces so the horse could get to a small pile of straw and some dried corncobs. Josh poured water into a pail for Mule and found a discarded Mason jar for Killer to drink water from. The barn was well constructed and kept the wind out, so neither animal would be in danger of freezing when the light went out and the real cold descended.

  “What do you think?” Josh asked Rusty quietly. “Can she go in?”

  “I don’t know. They seem okay, but a mite jittery.”

  “She can use the heat, if they’ve got a fire going.” Josh blew into his hands and bent over to massage his aching knees. “We can make them understand it’s not contagious.”

  “We don’t know it’s not.”

  “You haven’t caught it, have you? If it was contagious, you’d have caught it long before now, don’t you think?”

  Rusty nodded. “Yeah. But how are we gonna make them believe that?”

  The rear flap of the wagon’s canvas dome was suddenly unzipped from the inside. Swan’s mangled voice said from within, “I’ll stay here. There’s no need for me to scare anybody.”

  “They’ve got a fire in there,” Josh told her, walking toward the rear of the wagon. Swan was standing up, crouched over and silhouetted by the dim lamplight. “I think it’s all right if you go in.”

  “No, it’s not. You can bring my food to me out here. It’s better that way.”

  Josh looked up at her. She had a blanket around her shoulders and shrouding her head. In seven years, she had shot up to about five feet nine, gangly and long-limbed. It broke his heart that he knew she was right. If the people in that house were jittery, it was for the best that she stay here. “Okay,” he said in a strangled voice. “I’ll bring you out some food.” Then he turned away from the wagon before he had to scream.

  “Pass me down a few cans of those beans, will you?” Rusty asked her. She picked up Crybaby and tapped the cans with it, then moved over to pick up a couple. She put them into Rusty’s hands.

  “Rusty, if they can spare some books, I sure would be grateful,” she said. “Anything’ll do.”

  He nodded, amazed that she could still read.

  “We won’t be long,” Josh promised, and he followed Rusty out of the barn.

  When they had gone, Swan lowered the wooden tailgate and put a little stepladder down to the ground. Probing with the dowsing rod, she descended the ladder and walked to the barn door, her head and face still shrouded by the blanket. Killer walked along at her booted feet, tail wagging furiously, and barked for attention. His bark was not as sprightly as it had been seven years earlier, and age had taken the bounce out of the terrier’s step.

  Swan paused, laid Crybaby aside and picked Killer up. Then she cracked the barn door open and cocked her head way over to the left, peering out through the falling snow. The farmhouse looked so warm, so inviting—but she knew it was best that she stay where she was. In the silence, her breathing sounded like an asthmatic rasp.

  Through the snow, she could make out that single remaining tree by the spill of light from the front window. Why just one tree? she wondered. Why did he cut the rest of them down and leave that one standing alone?

  Killer strained up and licked into the darkness where her face was. She stood looking at that single tree for a minute longer, and then she closed the barn door, picked up Crybaby and probed her way over to Mule to rub his shoulders.

  In the farmhouse, a fire blazed in a stone hearth. Over the flames, a cast-iron pot of salt pork was bubbling in a vegetable broth. Both the stern-faced elderly man and his more timid wife flinched noticeably when Josh Hutchins followed Rusty through the front door. It was his size more than the mask that startled them, for, though he’d lost a lot of flabby weight in the last few years, he’d gained muscle and was still a formidable sight. Josh’s hands were streaked with white pigment, and the elderly man stared uncomfortably at them until Josh stuck them in his pockets.

  “Here’re the beans,” Rusty said nervously, offering them to the man. He’d noted that the rifle leaned against the hearth, well within reach if the old man decided to go for it.

  The cans of beans were accepted, and the old gent gave them to the woman. She glanced nervously at Josh and then went back to the rear of the house.

  Rusty peeled off his gloves and coat, laid them over a chair and took his hat off. His hair had turned almost completely gray, and there were streaks of white at his temples, though he was only forty years old. His beard was ribboned with gray, the bullet scar a pale slash across his cheek. Around his eyes were webs of deep cracks and wrinkles. He stood in front of the hearth, basking in its wond
erful warmth. “Good fire you got here,” he said. “Sure takes the chill off.”

  The old man was still staring at Josh. “You can take that coat and mask off, if you like.”

  Josh shrugged out of his coat. Underneath he wore two thick sweaters, one on top of the other. He made no move to take off the black ski mask.

  The old man walked closer to Josh, then abruptly stopped when he saw the gray growth obscuring the giant’s right eye.

  “Josh is a wrestler,” Rusty said quickly. “The Masked Mephisto—that’s him! I’m a magician. See, we’re a travelin’ show. We go from town to town, and we perform for whatever people can spare to give us. Josh wrestles anybody who wants to take him on, and if the other fella gets Josh off his feet, the whole town gets a free show.”

  The old man nodded absently, his gaze riveted on Josh. The woman came in with the cans she’d opened and dumped their contents into the pot, then stirred the concoction with a wooden spoon. Finally, the old gent said, “Looks like somebody beat the ever-lovin’ shit outta you, mister. Guess that town got a free show, huh?” He grunted and gave a high, cackling laugh. Rusty’s nerves untensed somewhat; he didn’t think there would be any gunplay today. “I’ll fetch us a pot of coffee,” the old man said, and he left the room.

  Josh went over to warm himself at the fire, and the woman scurried away from him as if he carried the plague. Not wanting to frighten her, he crossed the room and stood at the window, looking out at the sea of stumps and the single standing tree.

  “Name’s Sylvester Moody,” the old man said when he returned with a tray bearing some brown clay mugs. “Folks used to call me Sly, after that fella who made all them fightin’ movies.” He set the tray down on a little pine wood table, then went to the mantel and picked up a thick asbestos glove; he put it on and reached into the fireplace, unhooking a scorched metal coffee pot from a nail driven into the rear wall. “Good and hot,” he said, and he started to pour the black liquid into the cups. “Don’t have no milk or sugar, so don’t ask.” He nodded toward the woman. “This is my wife, Carla. She’s kinda nervous around strangers.”

  Rusty took one of the hot cups and downed the coffee with pure pleasure, though the liquid was so strong it could’ve whipped Josh in a wrestling match.

  “Why one tree, Mr. Moody?” Josh asked.

  “Huh?”

  Josh was still standing at the window. “Why’d you leave that one? Why not cut it down with the others?”

  Sly Moody picked up a cup of coffee and took it over to the masked giant. He tried very hard not to stare at the white-splotched hand that accepted the cup. “I’ve lived in this house for near ’bout thirty-five years,” he answered. “That’s a long time to live in one house, on one piece of land, ain’t it? Oh, I used to have a fine cornfield back that way.” He motioned toward the rear of the house. “Used to grow a little tobacco and some pole beans, and every year me and Jeanette would go out in the garden and…” He trailed off, blinked and glanced over at Carla, who was looking at him with wide, shocked eyes. “I’m sorry, darlin’,” he said. “I mean, me and Carla would go out in the garden and bring back baskets of good vegetables.”

  The woman, seemingly satisfied, stopped stirring the pot and left the room.

  “Jeanette was my first wife,” Sly explained in a hushed voice. “She passed on about two months after it happened. Then one day I was walkin’ up the road to Ray Featherstone’s place—about a mile from here, I guess—and I came across a car that had gone off the road and was half buried in a snowdrift. Well, there was a dead man with a blue face at the wheel, and next to him was a woman who was near ’bout dead. There was a gutted carcass of a French poodle in her lap, and she had a nail file gripped in her hand—and I don’t want to tell you what she did to keep herself from freezin’. Anyway, she was so crazy she didn’t know anything, not even her own name or where she was from. I called her Carla, after the first girl I ever kissed. She just stayed, and now she thinks she’s been livin’ on this farm with me for thirty-five years.” He shook his head, his eyes dark and haunted. “Funny thing, too—that car was a Lincoln Continental, and when I found her she was decked out in diamonds and pearls. I put all that junk away in a shoe box and traded it for sacks of flour and bacon. I figure she didn’t need to ever see ’em again. People came along and salvaged parts off the car, and by and by there was nothin’ left. Better that way.”

  Carla returned with some bowls and began to spoon the stew into them.

  “Bad days,” Sly Moody said softly, staring at the tree. Then his eyes began to clear, and he smiled faintly. “That there’s my apple tree! Yessir! See, I used to have an apple orchard clear across that field. Used to bring in apples by the bushel—but after it happened and the trees died, I started cuttin’ ’em down for firewood. You don’t want to go too far into the forest for firewood, uh-uh! Ray Featherstone froze to death about a hundred yards from his own front door.” He paused for a moment and then sighed heavily. “I planted them apple trees with my own hands. Watched ’em grow, watched ’em burst with fruit. You know what today is?”

  “No,” Josh said.

  “I keep a calendar. One mark for every day. Worn out a lot of pencils, too. Today is the twenty-sixth day of April. Springtime.” He smiled bitterly. “I’ve cut ’em all down but the one and thrown ’em in the fire piece by piece. But damned if I can put an axe to that last one. Damned if I can.”

  “Food’s almost ready,” Carla announced. She had a northern accent, decidedly different from Sly’s languid Missouri drawl, “Come and get it.”

  “Hold on.” Sly looked at Rusty. “I thought you said you were with two friends.”

  “I did. There’s a girl travelin’ with us. She’s…” He glanced quickly at Josh, then back to Sly. “She’s out in the barn.”

  “A girl? Well, Christ A’mighty, fella! Bring her in here and let her get some hot food!”

  “Uh… I don’t think—”

  “Go on and get her!” he insisted. “Barn ain’t no place for a girl!”

  “Rusty?” Josh was peering out the window. Night was fast descending, but he could still see the last apple tree and the figure that stood beneath it. “Come here for a minute.”

  Outside, Swan held the blanket around her head and shoulders like a cape and looked up at the branches of the spindly apple tree; Killer ran a couple of rings around the tree and then barked halfheartedly, wanting to get back to the barn. Above Swan’s head, the branches moved like skinny, searching arms.

  She walked forward, her boots sinking through five inches of snow, and placed her bare hand against the tree’s trunk.

  It was cold beneath her fingers. Cold and long dead.

  Just like everything else, she thought. All the trees, the grass, the flowers—everything scorched lifeless by radiation many years ago.

  But it was a pretty tree, she decided. It was dignified, like a monument, and it did not deserve to be surrounded by the ugly stumps of what had been. She knew that the hurting sound in this place must have been a long wail of agony.

  Her hand moved lightly across the wood. Even in death, there was something proud about the tree, something defiant and elemental—a wild spirit, like the heart of a flame that could never be totally extinguished.

  Killer yapped at her feet, urging her to hurry whatever she was doing. Swan said, “All right, I’m rea—”

  She stopped speaking. The wind whirled around her, tugging at her clothes.

  Could it be? she wondered. I’m not dreaming this… am I?

  Her fingers were tingling. Just barely enough to register through the cold.

  She placed her palm against the wood. A prickling, pins-and-needles sensation coursed through her hand—still faint, but growing, getting stronger.

  Her heart leaped. Life, she realized. There was life there yet, deep in the tree. It had been so long—so very long—since she’d felt the stirring of life beneath her fingers. The feeling was almost new to her again, and she rea
lized how much she’d missed it. Now what felt like a mild electric current seemed to be rising up from the earth through the soles of her boots, moving up her backbone, along her arm and out her hand into the wood. When she drew her hand away, the tingling ceased. She pressed her fingers to the tree again, her heart pounding, and there was a shock so powerful it felt as if fire had shot up her spine.

  Her body trembled. The sensation was steadily getting stronger, almost painful now, her bones aching with the pulse of energy passing through her and into the tree. When she could stand it no longer, she pulled her hand back. Her fingers continued to prickle.

  But she wasn’t finished yet. On an impulse, she extended her index finger and traced letters across the tree trunk: S… W… A… N.

  “Swan!” The voice came from the house, startling her. She turned toward the sound, and as she did the wind ripped at her makeshift cape and flung it back from her shoulders and head.

  Sly Moody was standing between Josh and Rusty, holding a lantern. By its yellow light, he saw that the figure under the apple tree had no face.

  Her head was covered by gray growths that had begun as small black warts, had thickened and spread over the passage of years, had connected with gray tendrils like groping, intertwining vines. The growths had covered her skull like a knotty helmet, had enclosed her facial features and sealed them up except for a small slit at her left eye and a ragged hole over her mouth through which she breathed and ate.

  Behind Sly, Carla screamed. Sly whispered, “Oh… my Jesus…”

  The faceless figure grabbed the blanket and shrouded her head, and Josh heard her heartbreaking cry as she raced to the barn.