Casey waited.
“It isn’t natural,” Todd repeated softly.
“Cora.” Casey looked at her again. “You okay? All set up?”
Startled, she nodded, seemingly unaware that Reed had taken her hand. Her feet were hooked around the spindles, squeezing, her thigh muscles taut.
Casey watched her for a moment, watched them all and saw them wondering. He would have sent the kids away, but by Reed’s expression, all that would have done was make things worse.
Whatever things were.
“What about it, Doc?” he asked. “You’re the man of science around here. What about it? Are we talking miracles or what?”
Mel flopped a hand in his lap. “I’ll be honest, Case. After today, I think I’m out of my province here.” He pushed a palm back across his hair. “I think ... I think this is more in your line of work now.”
“Maybe, maybe not, Mel,” he answered gently. “But that’s not what I asked you.”
Farber didn’t move, but it was clear he wanted to squirm, to leave, that he regretted leaving the sanctum of his clinic. As with Todd, Casey felt for him, but offered no help.
Mel nodded once, decisively. “Okay. Okay. Todd’s right. We have more explanations, more rational explanations, than we know what to do with. And there’s no reason at all why we should be bothering you about it.” He clamped a hand on Todd’s leg to stop it from bouncing. “So tell me about the bell, Casey. I know you didn’t find anyone up there, or any kind of rigged mechanism, so tell me about the damn bell.”
* * * *
3
In the small workshop behind Tully’s hardware store, Beagle sat on a three-legged chair in the corner, tongue poking from the corner of his mouth, evidently glad to be at last inside, out of the heat.
“Nuts,” Moss told him. “She’s nuts; why the hell am I doing this? She’s out of her goddamn mind.”
On the workbench were three sections of two-by-sixes. It had taken him the better part of three hours, and a couple of mashed fingers, but he had managed to rig four spotlights to each section.
“Somebody come up to me and told me that’s the woman I’m gonna marry, I’d punch him in the mouth.”
Beagle cocked his head.
When Moss was finished, he was supposed to have four sections in all. Then he was supposed to take them down to the meadow and lay them out in a big square. Then he was supposed to rig them all to a battery so they would light, and not die, when Mabel threw a switch.
“You really think space guys are going to see this?”
Beagle whimpered.
“Dumbest thing I ever heard of.” He spat dryly and wiped a rag over his sweaty scalp. “Somebody finds out about this, boy, they’re gonna wrap her in white and haul her ass away. Then they’re going to come for me.”
Still, he kept working.
Since the bell had rung that afternoon, she had plunged into a frenzy that unnerved him, and he would have agreed to build a spaceship of his own just to get away from all that energy. It was like she had turned into another person. Even her eyes were different. Burning, sort of. Looking at him and not really seeing him.
He nearly whacked his hand while setting a brace, and decided it was time he took a break. He and Beagle went through the store to the bench outside, sat, and watched the shadows born of the setting sun.
“Awfully quiet,” he said.
Beagle wagged his tail.
He wondered if Arlo was still hiding in the bar. Not that it mattered. If he went in there now, he probably wouldn’t come out until he couldn’t walk. Vinia had left like her beehive was on fire, and he hadn’t seen her since. He could see Nate Dane in the Moonglow, alone in a booth, a glass of water cupped between his hands.
On the air he could hear Enid still preaching, or whatever the hell it was she was doing. She sounded damn hoarse. She sounded like her husband.
Suddenly she was silent.
“Awfully quiet.”
Mabel appeared in the grocery doorway, hands mad on her hips. “You done?” she called.
He shook his head.
“Then hurry!”
“Taking a break,” he called back. “Gimme a break. It’s an oven in there.”
She took a step toward him, raised a hand in disgust, and went back inside, slamming the door.
He waited a second longer, just in case she changed her mind, then rose, said, “Screw it,” and headed for the bar.
* * * *
After his fourth glass of water, and it not looking like anyone was coming back very soon, Nate slid out of the booth and went into the restroom. He looked at his reflection, lifted the toilet lid, and threw up.
* * * *
Kay sat on her high stool behind the counter, waiting for customers she knew in her gut wouldn’t come. No one would come today, not even Enid. The poor woman had driven all her listeners away when spittle began to fly from her mouth. Kay had watched her, wanted to go out and shake some sense into her, but she hadn’t moved, only listened, and felt Nate’s fumbling hands. When the street emptied, she decided that as soon as the sun was down, she would leave. It wouldn’t take very long—a few clothes, what little jewelry she had, check-book, the register cash. She would leave and not come back, and Casey would wonder for a while, but he wouldn’t wonder long. Eventually they would have one of their damn meetings, and someone new would take over the store.
Maybe Sissy and Ed, they could offer home delivery on one of their horses.
She giggled while she wept.
* * * *
Dimitri sat with his sister as far under the backyard trees as they could, holding hands, watching the still water in the pool, listening to the silence.
“Is Momma okay?” Sonya asked, chin up, fighting the tears.
“Sure.”
“She was yelling.”
“But it wasn’t that kind of yelling. She was just telling people things.”
“I don’t know what she said.”
“She said what we saw at the church, that’s all.”
She looked up at him, eyes brimming. “What did we see, Dimmy? What did we see?”
“The wind.” He nudged her playfully. “Just the stupid wind.”
They watched the house for signs of movement.
She nudged him back. “What about the bell?”
Dimitri didn’t answer right away. He tugged at a strand of hair and stared at the water, wishing Poppa were home and not at the store somewhere, getting supper like he said he would. He wished the birds were back. He wished Cora were here to dive-bomb the pool and make him laugh. He wished he really knew what was wrong with his mother.
He stood, and pulled Sonya to her feet.
“Where are we going?”
“To see Reverend Chisholm.”
“Why?”
They left the hot shade and crossed the yard.
“I don’t know. Just because.”
* * * *
Arlo sat at the bar, an empty beer bottle in front of him. It was the first one he had had since leaving the church and the bell. It had taken him forever to get the courage to drink it, forever more to finish it, and now it took forever for him to wait for Bobby the Beautiful Barmaid so he wouldn’t have to get himself another.
“Peace,” he said to the bottle. “Love. All that shit.”
Bobby wasn’t coming back.
He had a feeling.
Then Moss came in and said, “Christ Almighty, Arlo, I’m thirsty.”
The world doesn’t change.
Arlo pointed listlessly at the liquor ranged on the shelf. “Help yourself, man, help yourself.”
* * * *
4
The fire demon waited in the living room.
Diño Escobar watched it from the kitchen doorway. Smiling. Gloating. Stepped toward it, and embraced it, and didn’t feel a thing.
He heard it, though.
He heard it screaming.
And he heard it tell him, wait.
; * * * *
5
Listen, Casey said, keeping his voice low as if afraid the clouds would overhear, but unable to keep all the anger from his voice, only hoping they would think it was something else.
Listen, I have to be honest with you. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why the bell rang, or anything else. I do know these are strange times. Todd said weird shit’s going on, and he’s right. It’s not new, though, it’s happened before. The Millennium comes along and people go nuts. The religion, it doesn’t matter which one, comes apart a little, and that little goes off on a tear, like Chicken Little, except it isn’t the sky that’s falling. It’s everything. Before you know it, you’ve got an infection. People catch it, it doesn’t matter how smart or dumb they are. They see signs and portents, faces in the sky and faces on the wall and faces where no faces ought to be. They give it up, everything they own, and they climb a mountain to wait for the end.
But it doesn’t end.
Not then.
So they come down from the mountains and go about their business, feeling, I bet, a little foolish, a lot angry, wondering who they can trust to tell them what’s what.
I’m thinking out loud here, so bear with me a bit.
Used to be—maybe still is, for all I know—you went to a house on Sunday afternoon. A man in the parlor, he’s playing something on a guitar, folks are listening, maybe keeping time with a hand or a toe. Over there in the dining room you’ve got another man, he’s playing an old piano, louder, maybe not, and folks are keeping time. Out in the kitchen there’s a couple of them, maybe a guitar and a banjo this time. Keeping time.
Out on the porch there’s a fiddler, and he’s the best of the lot. He’s playing a waltz, kind of sad, kind of slow, and on the lawn kids are dancing, while on the porch and under the trees grown-ups are watching and smiling and nodding and letting the dinner settle down in their bellies. Soon the guitar in the living room picks up the tune, and the piano in the dining room, and those boys in the kitchen. Autoharp, maybe, and maybe some old guy pulls a Jew’s harp from his pocket, you got a harmonica going, the next thing you know, a dozen couples are on the grass, listening to the symphony.
Waltzing to a tune nobody knows, nobody ever wrote down.
When it ends, they say their pieces and head on home.
Come again, hear? Next Sunday, same time, maybe another place.
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is the symphony waltz.
I don’t know who started it this time, the fiddler or the guitar player. But it seems to me, now that I’m talking, that these last few months, maybe even years, they’ve all started playing the same tune.
If it was just the people—all the killing and the burning and the lies and the drugs—I’d be sad, but I wouldn’t be afraid. People get stupid now and then, and then people get smart. I never did believe we were anything like lemmings.
It’s more than the people now, though.
It’s like ... I don’t know ... it’s like everything, every living thing has started listening. And dancing.
Look at the moths.
Look at the birds.
I don’t know why the bell rings like that, Mel.
I wish I did.
I wish to God every day that I was the man you all think I am, or want me to be.
You think I’m mad?
Damn right I am.
Madder than I can ever remember being in my life.
I wish to God I could make sense of a drought that doesn’t end and bells that ring and birds that fall out of the sky and bees that rise from a tree and everything else. If I could, then maybe you wouldn’t look at me the way you do. If I could, then maybe I’d get some sleep at night.
Of course, maybe it’s only Mabel’s aliens on the way. I wouldn’t mind that. It might be fun.
But if it’s not...
If it’s true what people are saying, that this is the Millennium that ends it all...
Then the fiddler’s on horseback.
And he’s riding this way.
* * * *
6
There were several attempts to talk, to make comment, to respond, but finally they saw his face, saw the creases, and began to leave, one by one. Saying nothing, their expressions etched and shadowed with disappointment.
Only Helen stayed behind, moving to the swing where she used her heels to rock her back and forth.
“Do you really believe that, Case?”
He hadn’t moved. “Believe what?”
“The end of the world is coming.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, excuse me, but it certainly sounded like it.” She nodded toward the road. “And if they’re not scared, they think you’re out of your mind.”
“What I said was, what I wanted to say was that I don’t know, Helen.” He rubbed his face with the heels of his hands. “I honest to God don’t know.”
“You’re supposed to know.”
“Why? Because I’m a preacher? I’m supposed to have a direct line to God? He’s supposed to let me in on all His secrets?”
“That’s pretty much it, yes.”
“You’ve been watching those TV evangelists too much. They don’t know any more than I do.”
“What if they do?”
She patted the swing lightly until he sat beside her. Her hand in his was hot, sweaty, and he could see moist diamonds gathering around her neck, darkening the ends of her hair.
“Nice shirt,” she said, straightening his collar.
“Thanks.”
She tilted her head this way, that way. “It’s not you.”
“It is now.”
Her hand left his; he didn’t try to take it back.
“Casey?”
They faced west along the length of the porch. The sun had dropped below the Pennsylvania mountains, slowly laying strips of black across the clouds.
“The other night I was outside, you know? I had to get out of the house, Tessa and Bobby sometimes drive me crazy. I was coming back to bed and I heard a horse on the street.”
He didn’t look.
“I couldn’t see it, Case. It wasn’t that dark, and I couldn’t see it.”
Another voice said, “Dimmy saw it.”
They jumped and turned, saw Reed standing below the railing, grinning.
“Sorry.”
“Young man,” Casey said, half closing one eye, “you are not supposed to eavesdrop on your elders.”
“I wanted to tell you something,” he answered, all innocent except for that grin. “I heard you talking, that’s all.”
“What about the horse?” Helen asked.
Reed told them about the afternoon he thought the heat had gotten to Dimitri, how the boy had panicked, screaming about a horse chasing him down the middle of the street.
Except there wasn’t any horse; there was only Mrs. Racine.
“And if you don’t believe me, you can ask him yourself.”
He snapped a thumb at the gate, and they saw Dimitri and his sister staring at the broken hinges. Casey stood and called them, beckoning with a smile that eventually got them moving. He met them on the steps, hunkering down, leaning a shoulder against the post. Reed didn’t take the easy way; he climbed over the railing and sat beside Helen.
“You know,” Casey said, “you’re not supposed to be walking down the road all by yourselves. You know how the tourists drive, they don’t bother to look.”
Sonya told him it was okay, she was with her brother, and besides, Cora wasn’t around, and was it true that all the birds had gone away because there wasn’t any food left to feed them?
“I expect so,” he answered carefully, just as solemnly as she had asked the question.
“Then why can’t we buy food to give them?”
“We could,” he admitted. “I don’t think it would be enough, though.”
While Sonya considered it, he looked to Dimitri, who looked back without blinking.
Dimitri took his time nodding.
“Reed here was telling me about the horse.”
Symphony - [Millennium Quartet 01] Page 23
