The Echelon Vendetta

by David Stone

  380 | david stone

  He cocked the Colt.

  He smelled eucalyptus and a nameless spice on the wind.

  The world changed.

  The sky grew very bright and he could feel the electric hum of the Milky Way on the back of his hands as it shimmered in the night sky. All the tall grasses around him turned into golden snakes, writhing and coiling. There were strange voices in their hissing, a song he could not quite understand, although the meaning seemed to float just beneath the surface of his mind, and he felt that if he concentrated on the song, the meaning would suddenly be revealed, and that revelation would be shattering, would open his soul to God and make him perfect.

  Under the singing of the snakes he heard the clicking of the beetles busy in Moot Gibson’s grave. Irene was beside him now, quivering, as a tall broad shape, surrounded by a corona of emerald green light, rose up out of the long grass on the far side of Moot Gibson’s tomb. All the golden snakes faded away into silence, into a perfect stillness, so complete that Dalton could hear his own heart beating, a ragged fitful drumming.

  “You’re the man from Venice,” said the figure across the grave, the deep voice low but carrying, a whisper full of menace and power.

  “I am. You killed Porter Naumann.”

  Pinto shook his head and green flies buzzed up in a great cloud around him. He spoke out of the swarm, in the buzzing voice of a hive. “Peyote killed him. He could not survive the question.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Rabbits are for eating. Who cares about them? Why should we talk? You have nothing to tell me. You have been given the breath of Peyote. I scattered it on the wind, while you sat there and dreamed about Italy. I could tell you to shoot yourself now, with that Colt in your hand, and you would do it. I could tell you to strangle that she-dog and you would do it. I told your friend to tear his face off and

  the echelon vendetta | 381

  he ran away to do it. In a while I will tell you go to sleep and when you wake up I will have found something interesting to do with you.”

  Now Pinto’s voice was no longer the voice of a swarm. It had changed into a deep drone, like a huge organ. He felt Pinto’s spirit walking around in the bridges and streets of his skull, his boots echoing off the bone the way they had echoed off the cobblestones in the streets of Venice. His mouth was stuffed with cold wet clay, as if he were lying beside Moot Gibson already, and there were shining green beetles feeding in his brain.

  Dalton slid a careful hand into his jacket pocket, closed it around the disposable hypodermic needle.

  “Where’s your spirit friend?” Pinto asked. “The green man.”

  Dalton searched for his voice, found it at last, a dry croak. “He’s gone away.”

  “Too bad. He was with you in Venice.”

  “He saved me from your spider.”

  “You liked the spider? Here, a gift—”

  He threw something across the rock mound, something green and on fire, spinning legs of green fire. It landed with a thump on the ground at Dalton’s feet—a huge green spider.

  Dalton squeezed his fist tight around the needle in his pocket, drove the tip deep into the palm, pressing the plunger. The Narcan rushed into his system, flooding it, driving everything before it.

  Dalton stepped forward and crushed the green spider into the earth with the sole of his boot, feeling it pop under his sole.

  Irene ran up the rock mound and launched herself at Pinto. Pinto slashed at her with a knife—Dalton saw the blood drops spray sideways across the sky, a constellation of rubies.

  He lifted the Colt up. The gun kicked back. The muzzle flared, an expanding corona of fire that blazed like Andromeda.

  Two.

  Three.

  382 | david stone

  Four.

  Five.

  Six rounds off, the big Colt leaping in his hands, his shoulders jerking back. Then the hammer, clacking and clacking and clacking on the empty chambers. Dalton stood there for a timeless period, blinking, his retinas still imprinted with the flaring galaxy of the muzzle blast, and then he stepped up onto the top of Moot Gibson’s grave and looked down at the sweetgrass on the far side.

  There was nothing there.

  In the starlight Dalton could see a swath of crushed grasses, leading away into the open plains. He stepped off the mound and knelt down beside Irene. Her mouth was open and she was panting rapidly. He touched her ribs. Her heartbeat was faint but steady. The wound along her side gaped, and pink ribs showed. Dalton used his belt to wrap her chest, pinching the wound shut.

  He patted her, stood up, took a ragged breath, and passed into the long grass with a hiss and a rustle, following Pinto’s path. In the distance he could hear the sound of someone racing through the grass, and when he looked into the middle distance he could see a black shape, stumbling now.

  He reloaded the Colt.

  Kept walking.

  Far overhead a crow soared, a black flutter against the star field. Down on the starlit grass plain beneath the crow’s wings, the crow saw two dark figures moved through the waving grass, one man stumbling and staggering, the other man following, moving easily, coming on.

  The crow wheeled higher and flew off toward Culebra.

  AFTER A LONG TIME Pinto reached a stand of cottonwoods by an arroyo where the Little Apishapa used to run. By now Pinto’s boots

  the echelon vendetta | 383

  were full of blood and they squelched as he staggered forward toward the stand of trees, their bare branches pale in the starlight.

  Pinto reached the clearing and fell forward against the trunk, wrapping himself around it, his bloody hands leaving black smears on the rough bark. He let his body slide to the ground, twisted; the pain in his belly was ferocious, like a wolf ripping at his guts.

  He got his back against the tree and pulled out the long ivory-handled stiletto he wore in a sheath at his belt. Far out in the grassland he could see the tall figure of the man pursuing him.

  Pinto lifted the Ruger, aimed the muzzle at the figure, pulled the trigger, a dry click. He threw the pistol down, laid the stiletto across his blood-soaked thighs, pulled in a long breath, and waited.

  A few minutes later, Dalton walked out into the little clearing around the cottonwood tree, the Colt out, the muzzle steady.

  Pinto looked up at him, his eyes dark, but two pale glints inside them. When he opened his mouth to speak, a black bubble formed, broke, and a ribbon of blood ran down his chin.

  He began to laugh, a dry rattle.

  “You know where you are?” asked Dalton.

  “Yes. I am at my altar. This is where I tasted the government people. This is where I took the woman again and again. Her bones are here. And the two others.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “I like it here. It smells . . . good.”

  He pulled in a snuffling breath, like a dog taking a scent.

  It ended in a wet cough.

  “Three in my belly. You are a good chaser. I thought I had you, back in Wyoming, but you got onto the roof. I had to let you go.”

  “Here I am.”

  Pinto lifted the stiletto, turned it in the starlight.

  Dalton could see the blue flicker along its edge, and beyond it Pinto’s bloody smile in the darkness.

  384 | david stone

  “I breathed your friend in. While he died. In that little churchyard. I leaned over him and sucked out his soul. He lasted a long time while I used this on him. I breathed him and I tasted him. He died hard. His pain was great. My face was the last thing he saw in this life.”

  “Why the women?”

  “Rabbits are for eating. And I needed the pictures. While he was still with Peyote, I showed him what I had done to his wife. He took that with him when he died. I could see it in his face. It was... fine.”

  Pinto leaned forward, put a hand on the ground, got a knee under him, and pushed himself to his feet, bracing his back on the cottonwood trunk. His
chest was heaving and his long silver hair hung down limply over his brutal face. He was drenched in blood from his chest to his knees; Dalton could smell his blood across the clearing. The stiletto glinted in his right hand and he lifted it into the starlight.

  “I make no excuses. They killed my sister and her baby. Not that I cared much for them. But they were mine and not to be killed by anybody else. And killing all those people, that was pleasant. Did you find the one in Butte, the one I left alive? I enjoyed him very much.”

  Pinto jerked his arm.

  Dalton moved to the left.

  The stiletto hummed through the air.

  Dalton brought the Colt up, but before he could squeeze the trigger, Pinto jerked suddenly forward. His chest blew wide open. Dalton saw thousands and thousands of glowing green maggots flying out of his body. Bits of lung and bone spattered wetly on Dalton’s boots.

  From a long way away came the thunderclap sound of a heavy rifle, and then wind again, sighing in the sweetgrass.

  Dalton walked over and looked down at Pinto.

  the echelon vendetta | 385

  His eyes were open and his mouth was working. Dalton bent down over him. “Bill Knife says there are very bad

  spirits here.” Pinto was staring up at him. “The spirits of the people you hung in the trees here.” Pinto’s eyes grew wide. A bubble of blood burst from his lips. “I’m going to send you to them, Pinto. They are waiting.” Pinto opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out of it was

  a river of black blood. Pinto moved his head weakly, one hand raised, palm out, his eyes glimmering wetly in the starlight. Dalton placed the muzzle of the Colt against Pinto’s forehead, pressed down hard, and squeezed the trigger. His face was the last thing Pinto saw in this life.

  HE WAS STILL THERE, standing beside Pinto’s corpse, when the old men came silently out of the sweetgrass, three of them, two carrying long Winchester rifles, their faces barely visible in the starlight.

  One of them stepped forward, looked down at Pinto’s body, and

  then up at Dalton. “You okay, son? Not shot?” “Not shot. I’m not quite right in the head.” “Pinto laid his powder on the wind. You’ll be okay in a while.” “Why did you shoot him? I had the Colt.” Bill Knife looked down at Pinto’s body. “He knew how to make

  Goyathlay speak again. But we saw that he had maggots in his head. He killed young Wilson Horsecoat, just over there, a blood-simple boy, but he was kin to us, and he was a Comanche. Pinto never killed a Comanche before. So we figured it was time for him to go. Where’s the dog?”

  “She’s back at the grave. Pinto cut her up pretty bad.”

  386 | david stone

  “He did? Well, we’ll go take a look at her. I got a question?” “Sure.” “If the dog lives, can I have her? I do like a snake-mean dog.” Dalton gave the matter some thought. “Tell you what. I’ll trade you.” “For what?” “An ax.” “Don’t have an ax. Will a hatchet do?” “That’ll do.”

  the echelon vendetta | 387

  The morning of the eighth day...

  monday, october 22 carmel highlands home pacific coast highway carmel, california

  4 p.m. local time

  alton drove slowly up the long curving driveway, through the wrought-iron gates, and into the cobblestoned courtyard, coming to a stop at the foot of a wide curving staircase. Dr. Cassel— a tall, white-haired woman with a high, clear forehead, sharp brown eyes, and a hawklike nose—stood at the top of the stairs, her pale-pink linen dress ruffling in the ocean wind. Behind her the carved Spanish doors stood open under a broad portico, the old mission-style hospital rising up behind, pink adobe walls and carved wooden window frames, balconies, vines climbing up, heavy with bright red and blue flowers.

  As he climbed out of the car, she smiled and came down the steps to meet him, her slender hand out, heavy gold on her wrist. She folded him into her frail birdlike body and kissed him in the French manner, a touch of the lips on the left cheek, and then the right, while holding his shoulders with her surprisingly strong grip. She smelled the way the sea did, salt and cypress, flowers and the tangy

  scent of cedar smoke.

  “Micah, so wonderful to see you.”

  Her expression altered as she looked up at him.

  “You look terrible. Where have you been? No, no—I know you can’t tell me. Come upstairs, I have a table set on the veranda. Have you eaten? You really need to...”

  She talked away at him, a stream of comforting trivial chatter while she walked him up the stairs and into the cool dark of the lobby, the floor of polished terra-cotta tiles gleaming in a shaft of sunlight coming in from the seaward sunroom, curved dark beams rising up into the darkness above, the smell of fresh flowers, coffee, a few patients staring down at them from the upper landings in that detached appraising way that the very sick or the very old have, the feeling of having stepped aside, of being raised above the bittersweet onrushing tide of everyday life. Dalton waved at the bent figure of an old man in a navy blue blazer and pressed gray slacks, a crisp white shirt. The old man may even have recognized Dalton—he lifted an empty pipe with a thick gold band and waved back to Dalton, smiling broadly.

  Dr. Cassel walked him out through the greenhouse solarium and onto a wide flower-filled stone veranda encircled by thick pillars of pale pink marble.

  Down the cliff and through the cypress trees, the broad Pacific boomed and roared, green waves curling up and crashing down against the cliffs, white spray flying, while beyond this the thunder and boom of the endless sea, rolling away to the uttermost ends of the world.

  She sat him down at a green-painted wrought-iron table with a pink linen tablecloth and poured him a glass of wine from a dripping silver decanter, another for herself, and sat back to smile at him over the rim of her goblet.

  392 | david stone

  “I was so sorry to hear about Porter. He was a lovely man.” “He was.” “Will there be a funeral? I don’t mean to pry. I know how deli

  cate these things are in ...in the company.”

  “There isn’t, usually. But we’ve arranged a little ceremony in Cortona. That’s where the body is. The Carabinieri have been holding it for us. A Major Brancati, he has arranged for a mass at the church of San Nicolò—”

  “I know it. That scruffy little hut, without a steeple, high up in the town. Why there, for all love?”

  “It’s where Porter died,” said Dalton, pressing down the image that the words brought flowing into the top of his mind. Dr. Cassel saw the pain in his eyes and regretted the question.

  “Well, that’s very lovely of the police there. Was Major Brancati

  a friend?” “He became one. He was a great help in the investigation.” “When do you leave?” “The mass will take place on the Wednesday. The thirty-first. Then

  I’ll fly back with Porter’s body on the first of November. There’ll be a ceremony inside Langley and he’ll go to his family’s vault in Alexandria.”

  “So many deaths. His entire family?” “Yes. And too many others.” “But you . . . you found the man? The killer?” “We did.” There was a silence, and it drew out. They sat there together and

  watched the Pacific churning, the soft light far out on the sea. Finally, Dr. Cassel spoke. “Micah, are you sure? About Laura?” He continued to look out at the ocean for a time, his face unread

  able, thinking about Porter Naumann’s ghost, half-expecting to see him materialize in the shining ocean light that filled the broad sun-

  the echelon vendetta | 393

  lit patio—perhaps a little disappointed—and then he reached for his

  glass.

  “I am. I’ve thought about nothing else for days.”

  “It was a terrible, terrible thing. And so very much sadness...”

  Her voice trailed away and Dalton let his mind follow hers. Racing through the front hall of his house in Quincy and out into the snowstorm, Laura’s white stricken face, her hands clutching at him as he bru
shed by her, the emerald green carriage, the bundle of bright green blanket, and the two-foot-long icicle, tapered and glittering, falling like a lance from the overhanging eaves.

  The baby pierced right through, the bright red blood bubbling up. Then the police, the hospital. The heavy silence of the empty halls in the half-light of dawn. Then came the recriminations, the accusations and counteraccusations, the searing guilt.

  And months after their separation, the long silence, the unanswered calls in the middle of the night, her last message to him— asking him to come home.

  The sealed garage and the dusty Cadillac running ...running...

  “Would you like to go and see her, Micah?”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and then they got up and walked through the glass doors and back into the cool, dark interior. Up the curving stone stairs and down the long hall, their steps echoing, and into a bright sun-filled room, painted white, the gauzy curtains flaring inward on the warm wind off the sea, and Laura on her bed.

  Pale, shrunken, turned on one side, in a pink-floral nightgown, her thin red hair brushed, her powdery white cheeks shining in the sunlight—the hiss and pump and chuff of the breathing tube, the machine in the stainless-steel shelving beside her, clicking and beeping and wheezing.

  Dalton knelt down beside her and touched her cheek. Her lips were dry and cracked and the ventilator tube looked huge, obscene, where it punched through her throat. On the far side of the bed an

  394 | david stone

  IV rack dripped fluids into her, and another tube ran out from under the sheets, draining into a tall plastic bottle.

  Her eyes were closed—they looked sewn shut, like a mummy’s, and the lids were pale blue.

  “Shall I leave you for a while?” asked Dr. Cassel.