Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

  really lucky. I came back to work a week ago, and then . . .

  something else happened." Winton unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it open,

  and lifted his undershirt to reveal his bare chest. "The scars."

  Father Wycazik shivered. Though he was close to Winton, he leaned

  closer, staring in amazement. The man's chest was unmarked. Well, not

  entirely unmarked, but the entry wounds had already healed until they

  were just discolored spots as big as dimes. The surgeon's incisions had

  almost vanished thin lines visible now only on close inspection. This

  soon after major trauma, some swelling and inflammation should have been

  evident, but there was none. The minimal scar tissue was pale

  pink-brown against dark-brown skin, neither lumpy nor puckered.

  "I've seen other guys with old bullet wounds," Winton said, his

  excitement still restrained by a rope of fear. "Lots of them. Gnarly,

  thick. Ugly. You don't take two .38s in the chest, undergo major

  surgery, and look like this three weeks later or ever."

  "When's the last time you visited your doctor? Has he seen this?"

  Winton rebuttoned his shirt with trembling hands. "I saw Dr. Sonneford

  a week ago. The sutures hadn't been removed long before, and my chest

  was still a mess. It's only been the past four days that the scars

  melted away. I swear, Father, if I stand at a mirror long enough, I can

  see them fading."

  Finishing with his shirt buttons, Winton said, "Lately, I've been

  thinking about your visit to the hospital Christmas Day. The more I've

  gone over it in my mind, the more it seems your behavior was peculiar. I

  remember some of what you said, some of the questions you asked about

  Brendan, and I start wondering. . . . One thing I wonder about-one

  thing I've got to know -is whether Brendan Cronin ever healed anyone

  else."

  "Yes. Nothing as dramatic as your case. But there's an other. I'm . .

  . not at liberty to reveal who," Stefan said. "But this isn't why you

  called the rectory, Winton. Not to show Brendan how well you've healed.

  Your voice was so full of urgency, even panic. And what about all these

  policemen with the Mendozas ... ? What's happened here, Winton?"

  A mercurial smile appeared on-and quickly faded fromthe man's broad

  face, followed by a transient glimmer of fear. Emotional turmoil was

  also evident in his voice. "We're cruising. Me and Paul. We get a

  call. This address. We get here, find a sixteen-year-old kid high on

  PCP. You know what they're like on PCP sometimes? Crazy. Animals.

  Damn stuff eats brain cells. Later, after it's over, we find out his

  name's Ernesto, son of Mrs. Mendoza's sister. He came to live here a

  week ago because his mother can't control him any more. The Mendozas ...

  they're good people. You see how they keep this place?"

  Father Wycazik nodded.

  Winton said, "The kind of people take in a nephew when he's gone wrong,

  try to set him straight. But you can't set a kid like that straight.

  You break your heart trying, Father. This Ernesto, he's been in trouble

  since he was in fifth grade. Juvenile arrest record. Six offenses. Two

  of them pretty serious. We get here, he's naked as a jaybird, screaming

  his head off, eyes bugged out like the pressure in his head's going to

  blow his skull apart."

  Winton's gaze unfocused, as if he were seeing back into time and had as

  clear a view of that scene as when he had first encountered it.

  "Ernesto's got Hector, the little boy you probably saw when you came in,

  he's got him down on the sofa, holding him, and he's got a goddamn

  six-inch switchblade at Hector's throat. Mr. Mendoza ... well, he's

  going crazy, wanting to rush Ernesto and take the knife, but scared

  Ernesto will slash Hector. Ernesto's screaming, he was blissed on angel

  dust. He's PCP-crazy, and you can't talk sense to him. We drew our guns

  because you don't just walk up to some doped-out freak with a knife and

  shake hands. But we didn't want to try to shoot him because he had the

  knife at Hector's throat, Hector was crying, and Ernesto could've killed

  the kid if we made the wrong move. So we tried to talk him down, talk

  him away from Hector, and we seemed to make headway, cause he started to

  take the knife off the boy. But then all of a sudden, Jesus, he slashed

  quick, cut Hector's throat almost from ear to ear, deep"-Winton

  shuddered-"deep. Then he raised the knife over his head, so we shot him,

  I'm not sure how many times, blew him away, and he fell dead on top of

  Hector. We pulled him off, and there was little Hector, one hand trying

  to close up the hole in his throat, blood spurting between his fingers,

  eyes already glazing over.........

  The cop took a deep breath and shuddered again. His eyes came back into

  focus, as if he needed to retreat from the horror of the past. He

  looked toward the window, beyond which the gray winter daylight sifted

  like soot over the gray Uptown street.

  Stefan's heart had begun to pound, not because of the bloody horror that

  Winton had described but because he could see where the cop's story had

  to be leading, and he was eager to hear the miracle described.

  Looking at the window, Winton continued. His voice grew shakier as he

  spoke: "There's no first aid for that kind of wound, Father. Severed

  arteries, veins. Big arteries in the neck. Blood pumps out like water

  from a hose, and you can't use a tourniquet, not on a neck, and direct

  pressure won't seal up a carotid artery. Shit, no. I knelt on the

  floor beside the sofa, and I saw Hector was dying fast. He looked so

  little, Father, so little. That kind of wound, they're gone in two

  minutes, sometimes a lot less, and he was so little. I knew it was

  useless, but I put my hands on Hector's neck, like somehow I could hold

  the blood in him, hold the life in him. I was sick, angry, scared, and

  it just wasn't right that a boy so little should die that way, that

  hard, not right he should die at all, not right, and then . . .

  then.. . ."

  "And then he healed," Father Wycazik said softly.

  Winton Tolk finally looked away from the gray light at the window and

  met Stefan's eyes. "Yes, Father. He healed. He was soaked in his own

  blood, seconds away from death, but he healed. I didn't even know what

  was happening, didn't feel it happening, nothing special in my hands.

  Wouldn't you think I'd feel something special in my hands? But the

  first I realized that something incredible was happening was when the

  blood stopped spurting against my fingers, and the boy shut his eyes at

  the same time, which was when I thought he was dead for sure, and I just

  . . . I shouted, 'No! God, no!' And I started to take my hands away

  from Hector's throat, to look at it, and that's when I saw the wound was

  ... the wound was closed up. It still had a raw, ugly look to it, an

  awful line where the knife cut deep, but the flesh was knit together

  into a bright red scar, a healing scar."

  The big man stopped speaking because shimmery lenses of tears had formed

  over his eyes. He was overcome once more. If he'd been racked by grief,

  he probabl
y would have suppressed it, but this was something even more

  powerful: joy. Pure wild disbelieving joy. He could not contain several

  explosive, wrenching sobs.

  With hot tears in his own eyes, Father Wycazik held out both hands.

  Winton took them, squeezed them tight, and did not let go as he

  continued: "Paul, my partner, saw it happen. So did the Mendozas. And

  two other uniforms arrived just as we shot Ernest: They saw it, too. And

  when I looked at that red line across his throat, somehow I knew what I

  had to do. I put my hands on the boy again, covered up the wound again,

  and I thought about him being alive, sort of wished him alive. My mind

  was in high gear, and I made the connection with Brendan and me, the

  sandwich shop. I thought about how the scars on my chest had been

  disappearing the last few days, and I knew somehow it's connected. So I

  kept my hands on his throat, and in a minute or so he opened his eyes,

  he smiled at me, you should've seen that smile, Father, so I took my

  hands away again, and the scar was there but lighter. The boy sat up

  and asked for his mother, and that's ... that's when I went to pieces."

  Winton paused and gulped some air. "Mrs. Mendoza took Hector into the

  bathroom, stripped him out of his bloody clothes, bathed him, and all

  the time more people from the department kept showing up. Word was

  getting around. Thank God, the reporters haven't cottoned to it yet."

  For a while the two men sat facing each other in silence, gripping

  hands. Then Stefan said, "Did you try to bring Ernesto back?"

  "Yes. In spite of what he'd done, I put my hands on his wounds. But it

  didn't work with him, Father. Maybe because he was already dead. Hector

  was only dying, not yet gone, but Ernesto was dead."

  "Did you notice odd marks in your hands, on your palms?

  Red rings of swollen flesh?"

  "Nothing like that. What would it've meant if there'd been rings?"

  "I don't know," Father Wycazik said. "But they appear in Brendan's

  hands when ... when these things happen."

  They were silent again, and then Winton said, "Is Brendan ... is Father

  Cronin some kind of saint?"

  Father Wycazik smiled. "He's a good man. But he's no saint."

  "Then how did he heal me?"

  "I don't know precisely. But surely it's a manifestation of the power

  of God. Somehow. For some reason."

  "But how did Brendan pass along this power to heal?"

  "I don't know, Winton. If he did pass it along. Maybe the power isn't

  yours. Maybe it's just God acting through you, first through Brendan

  and then through you."

  At last Winton let go of Father Wycazik's hands. He turned his palms up

  and stared at them. "No, the power's still here, still in me. I know

  that. Somehow. I feel it. And not just ... not just the power to

  heal. There's more."

  Father Wycazik raised his eyebrows. "More? What else?"

  Winton frowned. "I don't know yet. It's all so new. So strange. But

  I feel ... more. It'll take time for it to develop."

  He looked up from the pale palms of his callused black hands,

  awe-stricken and fearful. "What is Father Cronin, and what has he made

  of me?"

  "Winton, get rid of the notion there's anything evil or dangerous about

  this. It's entirely a wondrous thing. Think of Hector, the child you

  saved. Remember what it was like to feel life regaining its hold in his

  small body. We're players in a divine mystery, Winton. We can't

  understand the meaning of it until God allows us to understand."

  Father Wycazik said he wanted to have a look at the boy, Hector Mendoza,

  and Winton said, "I'm not ready to go out there and face that crowd,

  even though they're mostly my people. I'll stay here a while. You'll

  come back?"

  " I've got other rather urgent business this morning, Winton. I have to

  get on with it soon. But I'll be in touch with you. Oh, you can be

  sure of that! And if you need me, just call St. Bette's."

  When Stefan left the bedroom, the waiting crowd of policemen and lab

  technicians fell silent as before. They parted in his path as he

  crossed to the dinette table, where little Hector was now perched on his

  mother's lap, nibbling happily at a Hershey bar with almonds.

  The boy was small, even for a six-year-old, with delicate facial bones.

  His eyes were bright and full of intelligence, proof that he'd suffered

  no brain damage in spite of losing most of his blood. But even more

  astonishing was the fact that his lost blood had evidently been

  replaced, without need of transfusions, which made the boy's recovery

  even more miraculous than Tolk's. The power in Winton's hands seemed

  greater than it had been in Brendan's.

  When Father Wycazik stooped down to be at eye-level with Hector, the

  child grinned at him. "How are you feeling, Hector?"

  "Okay," the boy said shyly.

  "Do you remember what happened to you, Hector?"

  The child licked chocolate from his lips and shook his head: no.

  "Is that a good candy bar?"

  The boy nodded and offered Father Wycazik a bite.

  The priest smiled. "Thank you, Hector, but that's all yours."

  "Mama might give you one," Hector said. "But don't drop any on the

  carpet. That's big trouble."

  Stefan looked up at Mrs. Mendoza. "He really doesn't remember . .

  .?"

  "No," she said. "God lifted the memory from him, Father."

  "You're Catholic, Mrs. Mendoza?"

  ,,Yes, Father," she said, crossing herself with her free hand.

  "Do you attend Our Lady of Sorrow? Yes, well, that's Father Nilo's

  parish. Have you called him?"

  "No, Father. I didn't know if . . ."

  Father Wycazik looked up at Mr. Mendoza, who stood on the other side of

  his wife's chair. "Call Father Nilo. Tell him what's happened, ask him

  to come. Explain that I'll be gone when he gets here but that I'll talk

  to him later. Explain that I've much to tell him, that what he sees

  here isn't the whole story."

  Mr. Mendoza hurried to the telephone.

  Looking up at one of the detectives who had come close, Stefan said,

  "Have you taken pictures of the boy's throat wound?"

  The detective nodded. "Yeah. Standard procedure." He laughed

  nervously. "What am I saying? There's nothing standard about this."

  "Just so you have photographs to prove this happened," Father Wycazik

  said. "Because I think soon there will be little or no scar."

  He turned to the boy again. "Now, Hector, if it's okay, I'd like to

  touch your throat. I'd like to feel that mark."

  The boy lowered the candy bar.

  Father Wycazik's fingers were trembling when they touched the fiery scar

  tissue and moved slowly around the boy's neck from one end of the wound

  to the other. A strong pulse beat in the carotid arteries on each side

  of the slender young throat, and Stefan's heart leapt when he felt the

  miracle of life. Death had been defeated here, and Stefan believed he

  had been privileged to witness a fulfillment of the promise which was at

  the root of the Church's existence: "Death shall not last; unto you

  shall be given life everlasting." Tears rose in the priest's
eyes.

  When at last Stefan reluctantly took his hand away from the boy and

  stood, one of the policemen said, "What's it mean, Father? I heard you

  tell Mr. Mendoza this wasn't the whole story. What's happening?"

  Stefan turned to look upon the assembly, which now numbered twenty. In

  their faces, he saw a longing to believe, not particularly in the truths

  of Catholicism or Christianity, for not all were Catholics or

  Christians, but a deep-seated longing to believe in something greater

  and better and cleaner than humankind, an intense yearning for spiritual

  transcendence.

  "What's it mean, Father?" one of them asked again.

  "Something's happening," he told them. "Here, elsewhere. A great and

  wonderful something. This child is part of it. I can't tell you for

  sure what it means or that we've seen the hand of God here, though I

  believe we have. Look at Hector on his mother's lap, eating candy, and

  remember God's promise: "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow

  nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things

  are passed away." In my heart of hearts, I feel that the former things

  are about to pass away. Now I must go. I've urgent business."

  Somewhat to his surprise, even though his explanation had been vague,

  they parted to make way for him and did not detain him further, perhaps

  because the miracle of Hector Mendoza had not been vague-had in fact

  been emphatically specific-and had already given them more answers than