1987 - Swan Song v4

by Robert McCammon

  The music faltered and ceased with a last fiddle whine. “How do,” a man in a dark green coat said, stepping away from the woman he’d been dancing with. He was wearing a Braves baseball cap, and underneath its brim almost all of his face was scarred by an ugly brown keloid; but he was smiling, and his eyes were bright.

  “Hello,” Sister replied. The faces here were different from others she’d seen. They were hopeful, joyful faces, in spite of the scars and keloids that marred many, in spite of the protruding cheekbones and sunken eyes that spoke of long hunger, in spite of the pallid skin that had not felt the sun in seven years. She stared at the pale green plants, mesmerized by their motion as they swayed in the wind. Paul walked past her and bent over to reach toward one of them with a trembling hand, as if he feared the delicate wonder might evaporate like smoke.

  “She says not to touch ’em,” the black man who’d been scraping the washboard said. “She says to let ’em be, and they’ll take care of themselves.”

  Paul drew his hand back. “It’s been… a long time since I’ve seen anything growing,” he said. “I thought the earth was dead. What is it?”

  “Corn,” another man told him. “Stalks just came up almost overnight. I used to be a farmer, and I thought the dirt wasn’t fit to plant in, too. Thought the radiation and the cold had about finished it.” He shrugged, admiring the green stalks. “I’m glad to be wrong. ’Course, they’re not too strong yet, but anything that grows in that dirt—well, it’s a miracle.”

  “She says to let ’em be,” the black musician continued. “Says she can seed a whole crop field if we lets these first ones ripen, and we stands guard and keeps them crows away.”

  “She’s sick, though.” The husky woman, who had a vivid red keloid on her face, laid aside the cardboard box she’d been beating time to. “She’s burnin’ up with fever, and there ain’t no medicine.”

  “She,” Sister repeated. She heard herself speaking as if in a dream. “Who are you talking about?”

  “The girl,” Anna McClay said. “Swan’s her name. She’s in pretty bad shape. Got that stuff on her face even worse than you do, and she’s blind to boot.”

  “Swan,” Sister’s knees were weak.

  “She done this.” The black musician motioned toward the young cornstalks. “Planted ’em with her own hands. Everybody knows it. That Josh fella’s tellin’ the whole town.” He looked at Sister, grinned and showed a single gold tooth in the front of his head. “Ain’t it something?” he said proudly.

  “Where have you folks come from?” Anna asked.

  “A long way off,” Sister replied, close to tears. “A long, long way.”

  “Where’s the girl now?” Paul took a few steps toward Anna McClay. His own heart was pounding and the faint, rich odor of the stalks had been sweeter than the smell of any whiskey he’d ever poured into a glass.

  Anna pointed at Mary’s Rest. “That way. In Glory Bowen’s shack. It ain’t too far.”

  “Take us there,” Paul urged. “Please.”

  Anna hesitated, trying to read their eyes like she used to do with the marks strolling on the carny midway. Both of them were strong and steady, she decided, and furthermore they would take no shit. The gaunt boy with the long hair full of feathers and bones looked to be a real hell-raiser, and the other kids appeared pretty tough, too; all of them probably knew very well how to use the rifles they were carrying. She’d already seen that the man had a gun tucked down in the waistband of his trousers, and the woman most likely was packing iron as well. But both of them had a need in their eyes, too, like the glimmer of a fire that burned deep inside. Josh had told her to be wary of strangers who wanted to see Swan, but she knew it was not for her to deny that need. “Come on, then,” she said, and she walked toward the shacks. Behind them, the fiddler warmed his hands at the fire and then began playing again, and the black man scraped merrily at his washboard as the celebrants danced.

  They followed Anna McClay through the alleys of Mary’s Rest. And, as Sister turned a corner about five or six paces behind the other woman, something shot out into her path from the mouth of another alley. She had to draw up sharply to keep from stumbling and falling, and suddenly she had a sensation of numbing cold that seemed to draw the breath from her lungs. She instinctively whipped the shotgun from its holster beneath her coat and stuck it into the leering face of a man who sat in a child’s red wagon.

  He stared up at her through deep-set eyes, and he lifted one hand toward the satchel that Sister held under her arm. “Welcome,” he said.

  Sister was aware of a series of clicks, and the man’s fathomless eyes moved to look past her. She glanced back and saw that Paul had his Magnum in his hand. Robin was aiming his rifle, and so were the other three boys. They all had a deadly bead on the man in the red wagon.

  Sister stared into his eyes; he cocked his head to one side, the grin widening to show a mouthful of broken teeth. Slowly he withdrew his hand and laid it across the stumps of his legs.

  “That’s Mr. Welcome,” Anna said. “He’s crazy. Just push him to one side.”

  The man’s gaze ticked between Sister’s face and the satchel. He nodded. “Welcome,” he whispered.

  Her finger tightened on the shotgun’s trigger. Tendrils of cold seemed to be sliding around her, gripping her, slithering down through her clothes. The shotgun’s barrel was about eight inches from the man’s head, and Sister was seized with an impulse to blow that hideous, grinning face away. But what would be under it? she wondered. Tissue and bone—or another face?

  Because she thought she recognized the cunning glint in those eyes, like a beast patiently waiting for the moment to destroy. She thought she saw something of a monster who’d called himself Doyle Halland in them.

  Her finger twitched, ready to fire. Ready to unmask the face.

  “Come on,” Anna said. “He won’t bite you. Fella’s been hangin’ around here a couple of days, and he’s crazy, but he ain’t dangerous.”

  The man in the red wagon suddenly drew a lungful of air and released it in a quiet hiss between clenched teeth. He lifted his fist and held it up before Sister’s face for a few seconds; then one finger protruded to form the barrel of an imaginary weapon aimed at her head. “Gun goes bang,” he said.

  Anna laughed. “See? He’s a looney!”

  Sister hesitated. Shoot him, she thought. Squeeze the trigger—just a little harder. You know who it is. Shoot him!

  But… what if I’m wrong? The shotgun’s barrel wavered.

  And then her chance was gone. The man cackled, muttered something in a singsong rhythm and pushed himself past her with his arms. He entered an alley to the left, and Sister stood watching the demented cripple go. He did not look back.

  “Gettin’ colder.” Anna shivered, pulling her collar up. She motioned ahead. “Glory Bowen’s shack is this way.”

  The man in the red wagon turned down another alley and pushed himself out of Sister’s sight. She let out the breath she’d been holding, and the white steam floated past her face. Then she returned her shotgun to its sheath and followed the other woman again, but she felt like an exposed nerve.

  Another bonfire was burning on the main street of Mary’s Rest, casting warmth and light over twelve or fifteen people who stood around it. The ugliest, most swaybacked old horse Sister had ever seen was tied to a post on the front porch of one of the shacks; the horse was covered with a number of blankets to keep him warm, and his head was nodding as if he were about to fall asleep. Nearby, a small black boy was trying to balance a crooked stick on the ends of his fingers.

  Two men, both armed with rifles, sat on the shack’s cinder block front steps, talking and drinking hot coffee from clay mugs. Their attention turned from their quiet talk to Anna.

  “Folks here say they want to see the girl,” Anna told one of them, a man in a plaid coat and tan cap. “I think they’re all right.”

  He’d seen their weapons, and now he rested his own rifle across his
knees. “Josh said no strangers were allowed in.”

  Sister stepped forward. “My name’s Sister. This is Paul Thorson, Robin Oakes, and I can vouch for the other boys. Now, if you’ll tell me your name, we won’t be strangers anymore, will we?”

  “Gene Scully,” he answered. “Are you folks from around here?”

  “No,” Paul said. “Listen, we’re not going to hurt Swan. We just want to see her. We want to talk to her.”

  “She can’t talk,” Scully said. “She’s sick. And I’ve been told not to let any strangers through that door.”

  “You need your ears cleaned out, mister?” Robin, smiling with cold menace, stood between Sister and Paul. “We’ve come a long way. We said we want to see the girl.”

  Scully rose to his feet, ready to swing the rifle’s barrel up at them. Beside him, Zachial Epstein also nervously stood up. The silence stretched. And then Sister gritted her teeth and started to climb the steps, and if the men tried to stop her, she thought, she was going to blast both of them to hell.

  “Hey, Anna!” Aaron called suddenly. “Come look at the magic!”

  She glanced over at him. He was still playing with that dumb stick. “Later,” she told him. Aaron shrugged and started swinging it like an imaginary sword. Anna returned to the problem at hand. “Listen, we don’t need any more shit around here. And nobody needs to get riled or hurt, either. Gene, why don’t you just go on in and ask Josh to come speak to these folks?”

  “We want to see Swan.” Anger reddened Paul’s face. “We’re not going to be turned back, lady!”

  “Who’s Josh?” Sister asked.

  “Fella who’s been travelin’ with the girl. Takin’ care of her. Her guardian, I guess you’d say. Well? Do you want to state your business to him, or not?”

  “Bring him out.”

  “Go get him, Gene.” Anna took the rifle from him and immediately turned it on the strangers. “And now you folks can dump all that hardware in a neat pile next to the steps, if you please. You too, kiddies—I ain’t your mama! Drop ’em!”

  Scully started into the shack, but Sister said, “Wait!” She opened her satchel, attracting the direct interest of the rifle the other woman had, but she took care to move slowly, without threat. She reached past the glass ring into the bottom of the satchel, fished out what she was after and handed it up to Anna. “Here. Give this to Josh. It might mean something to him.”

  Anna looked at it, frowned and passed it back to Scully, who took it and went in.

  They waited. “Some town you’ve got here,” Robin said. “How much rent do the rats charge?”

  Anna smiled. “You’ll be glad we’ve got plenty of rats after you taste some cooked up in a stew, smartass.”

  “We were better off back in the cave,” he told Sister. “At least we had fresh air. This place smells like somebody’s shit bucket over—”

  The door opened, and a monster walked out. Gene Scully followed behind. Robin just stood and stared, his mouth agape, because he’d never seen anybody so ugly before. The big dude was easily the size of three regular men.

  “Jesus,” Paul whispered, and he couldn’t help but be repelled. The man’s single eye fixed on him for a few seconds, then moved to Sister.

  She didn’t budge. Monster or not, she’d decided, nobody was going to stop her from seeing Swan.

  “Where did you find this?” Josh asked, holding up the object Gene Scully had given him.

  “In the parking lot of what used to be a K-Mart. It was in a town in Kansas called—”

  “Matheson,” Josh interrupted. “I know the place, from a long time ago. This belonged to a friend. But… do I know you?”

  “No. Paul and I have been traveling for years, searching for someone. And I think the person we’ve been led toward is in that house. Will you let us see her?”

  Josh looked again at what he held in his hand. It was one of Leona Skelton’s tarot cards, the colors faded, the edges curled and yellowed. The legend on the card said THE EMPRESS.

  “Yes,” Josh said. “But just you and the man.” And he opened the door to let them enter.

  Sixty-six

  Things that could be

  “You sure?” Glory asked as Josh shut the door. She was stirring a pot of root soup on the stove, and she eyed the two strangers cautiously. “I don’t like the looks of ’em.”

  “Sorry,” Paul told her. “I left my tuxedo at the cleaners this morning.” The room smelled like sassafras, and the stove was putting out a lot of heat. A couple of lanterns were set in the room, and by their smoky light both Paul and Sister could see what appeared to be blood stains on the floor.

  “We had some trouble here last night,” Josh explained. “That’s why we have to be so careful about strangers wanting to see Swan.”

  Sister went cold, in spite of the room’s comfortable warmth. She was thinking of that grinning cripple in the child’s red wagon. If it was him, he could be wearing any face. Any face at all. She wished she had that moment back, wished she’d blown the mask right off his skull to see what was hiding behind it.

  Josh turned up a lantern’s wick and examined the tarot card again. “So you found this in Matheson. Okay. But how did this card lead you here?”

  “It wasn’t the card that brought us. Tell me: Is there a tree somewhere that’s in blossom, with Swan’s name burned into the trunk? I remember smelling apples. Is it an apple tree in bloom?”

  “Yes. But that’s back about fifty or sixty miles from here! Did Sly Moody send you after us?”

  She shook her head, reaching into the satchel. “This sent us here,” she said, and she withdrew the glass circle.

  The colors leaped and pulsed. Glory gasped, dropping her spoon as her hand fluttered to her mouth. The walls glittered with lights. Josh stared at it, transfixed by its beauty, and then he laid the Empress card down on the table.

  “Who are you?” he asked softly. “Why are you looking for Swan—and where did you find that?”

  Sister said, “I think we have a lot to talk about. I want to know everything about you, and everything about Swan. I want to hear everything that’s happened to you, and I want to tell you our stories, too. But right now I have to see her. Please.”

  With an effort, Josh pulled his gaze away from the glass ring and looked into Sister’s face. Looked long and deep, saw the tribulations and hardships there; but he also recognized tenacity and a will of iron. He nodded and led Paul and Sister into the next room.

  A single lantern backed with a shiny piece of tin hung on the wall, casting a muted golden glow. Swan lay on Glory’s iron-framed cot, on the mattress that was stuffed with rags and papers. She was covered with a number of blankets that various people had donated, and her face was turned away from the light.

  Josh walked to the bedside, lifted the blankets and gently touched Swan’s shoulder. She was still burning up with fever, yet she shivered and held the blankets. “Swan? Can you hear me?”

  Her breathing was harsh. Sister’s hand found Paul’s and clenched it. In her other hand, the shades of the glass ring had turned to silver and gold.

  “Swan?” Josh whispered. “Someone’s come to see you.”

  She heard his voice, summoning her back from a nightmare landscape where a skeleton on a skeletal horse reaped a human field. Pain shot through the nerves and bones of her face. “Josh?” she replied. “Rusty… where’s Rusty?”

  “I told you. We buried him this morning, out in the field.”

  “Oh. I remember now.” Her voice was weak, drifting toward delirium again. “Tell them… to watch the corn. Keep the crows away. But… tell them not to touch it yet, Josh. Tell them.”

  “I have. They’re doing what you say.” He motioned Paul and Sister closer. “Someone’s here to see you. They say they’ve come a long way.”

  “Who… are they?”

  “A man and a woman. They’re here right now. Can you speak to them?”

  Swan tried to focus her mind on what he was
saying. She could sense someone else in the room, waiting. And there was something more, too; Swan didn’t know what it was, but she felt her skin tingling as if in anticipation of a touch. In her mind she was a child again, staring with fascination at the fireflies’ lights as they glowed against the window screen.

  “Yes,” she decided. “Will you help me sit up?”

  He did, propping a couple of pillows up to support her. As Josh stepped away from the cot Paul and Sister had their first view of Swan’s growth-covered head. Both eyeholes were now sealed up, and there were only small slits over her nostrils and mouth. It was the most horrifying Job’s Mask that Sister had ever seen, much worse even than Josh’s, and she had to fight off a shudder. Paul flinched, wondering how she could breathe or eat through that hideous crust.

  “Who’s there?” Swan whispered.

  “My name is…” She lost her voice. She was scared to death. Then she drew her shoulders back, pulled in a deep breath and stepped to the side of the cot. “You can call me Sister,” she began. “There’s a man named Paul Thorson with me. We’ve—” Sister glanced quickly at Josh, then back to the girl. Swan’s head was cocked to one side, listening through a tiny hole at her ear. “We’ve been looking for you for a long time. Seven years. We missed you in Matheson, Kansas; I believe we probably missed you in a lot of places and never knew it. I found a doll that belonged to you. Do you remember it?”

  Swan did remember. “My Cookie Monster. I lost it in Matheson. I used to love that thing when I was a little girl.”

  Sister had to listen hard to understand everything she was saying. “I wish I could’ve brought it to you, but it didn’t survive the trip.”

  “That’s all right,” Swan said. “I’m not a little girl anymore.” She suddenly lifted her bandaged right hand and felt in the air for the woman’s face. Sister drew away, but then she realized that Swan wanted to know what she looked like. Sister gently grasped her slender wrist and guided the hand over her facial features. Swan’s touch was as soft as smoke.

  Her fingers stopped when they found the growths. “You’ve got it, too.” Swan’s fingers continued across Sister’s left cheek, then down to her chin. “Feels like a cobblestone road.”