All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By (39 page)

"What was it like, the effigy?" Nhora asked.

"An antique dress, a wig, some snakeskin wrapped around a cross of iron."

"Was it supposed to be—me?"

"That's obvious. Still, it's quite unusual for someone other than a god to be depicted in the holy of holies—"

She came stalking back to him, mad and frightened. "I swear to you I have nothing to do with voodoo rituals!"

"Nhora, I believe you."

"Oh, yes, you say that but your eyes look kind of sick and it's not just because you knocked yourself silly down there, you look as if you're afraid I'll touch you."

"I'm grateful for your quick thinking; I admire you tremendously and I've accused you of nothing sinister, so please don't go flying off the handle at me."

Nhora's face was dark red with anger; she was out of touch with reason as she raged, "I just want to know who's picking on me! And if I don't find out I'll get the sheriff, I'll come back myself with a can of gasoline and burn it, all of it!"

She brushed past him and went flying along the rutted wagon road to the top of the levee. The ignition keys were in the Chevrolet. Jackson backed it around and drove slowly after Nhora.

As soon as he stopped the car beside her, she got in. She wouldn't look at him. She was stiff with suppressed grief, eyes swollen but tearless. He drove on.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have attacked you. I guess I was getting back because you scared the wits out of me. I couldn't stand seeing you hurt. Going to the river was a bad idea."

"No, it wasn't."

Nhora smiled then, gratefully, gave him a glance. "How many of us have you told about yourself, Jackson?"

"You're the first."

"Why?"

"For the first time it's important—no, essential—that I separate reality from illusion at the beginning of a relationship, instead of saying nothing and encouraging the usual bad end, a spasm of conscience that's merely an excuse for skipping town with heavy heart and a full baggage of ego-serving remorse. But I can't give up my unsanctioned practice of medicine. My life is, and will be, based on self-deception, and I warn you that it's a habit of narcotic tenacity."

"You haven't deceived me," she said calmly. "We all lead unresolvable lives, Jackson. As for bad ends, I've had them, and I can't afford another one either. I still want you."

"Come what may. Nhora—delicate question, but I must ask—I saw the way you responded to Champ last night, and I know you care about him. I wondered if—"

"Yes. I did make love to him. Once. The night after Boss died. We were alone, bewildered, so deeply wounded by the murders, by the terrible revelations in Clipper's diary, that sleep was impossible. It was a way of sharing pain, diluting it. I'm not ashamed, but I wouldn't want to do it again. Even with Nancy dead, I haven't given a thought to the possibility of—Champ and me."

They jolted over a bump in the road and Nhora slipped easily to his side, clung to him. She sighed.

"I've been thinking about something, since we were at Old Lamb's. It can't be coincidence."

"What is that, Nhora?"

"The day Clipper went crazy in the chapel, something else strange happened near there—on Railroad Ridge, which overlooks the town of Gaston and the military school. A little boy named—Jimmy, I think—was on the ridge picking flowers for his sick mother. A terrible thing happened to him in the woods. No one is sure what it was, he died just a few hours afterward. But he told his brother that a huge ball of light came out of the woods at him. There was a wind strong enough to tear the clothes from his body. He was burned, yet there wasn't a mark on him. I saw Jimmy at the hospital soon after it happened. Tried to comfort him. He was in such pain that when I touched him he fought and screamed—I accidentally scratched him, there was blood and skin under my nails."

She looked at her nails now; they were dirty and broken.

"It wasn't determined how the boy died?"

"No. Do you remember what I told you about the chapel bell, swinging as if it were caught in a small tornado?"

"Yes."

"That was happening about the same time Jimmy ran into—whatever the light was, on the ridge. The next day I went to visit Jimmy's father and brother. We walked, in a drizzle, up the ridge and found the approximate spot where Jimmy had been gathering flowers. The flowers were all dead. Everything in a circle about fifty feet in diameter was withered, devastated, as if by frost. Even to the tops of the trees, dead leaves in May. I stood in the center of the circle, and looked across at the chapel on the campus a mile away."

"This was near a railroad line? Perhaps a piece of ordnance was stolen from a train, carried uphill by the thieves and abandoned in the woods. A timing device may have set it off just as Jimmy—"

"Don't you see? The same thing happened at Old Lamb's tonight! That powerful, withering light, Arabella blinded, the little girl dying like Jimmy in Virginia, twisted out of shape, her bones all but snapping from convulsions. Horrible."

"There are similarities between the events, but we're nearly seven hundred miles from Virginia, and two years distant in time. I don't see why you insist there has to be a connection—"

"I don't know either, but I feel so—guilty, as if I
should
know, as if the explanation's perfectly obvious and I'm willfully overlooking it."

Jackson started to shake his head, but pain in the back of his neck gave him pause.

"Nancy died in some mysterious way—
you're
not satisfied that she had a heart attack. It's as if we've been struck by lightning, again and again, wherever we go—the wrath of the gods. Why? Because of Clipper? Clipper paid, Boss paid. Who else has to pay? There's no refuge at Dasharoons. Will Champ be next?"

"Nothing's going to happen to Champ."

"Nothing good," Nhora said hopelessly, and was appalled. She made a small sound of distress and stifled further conversation by biting hard on a knuckle of one hand. She didn't speak again until they pulled up in front of the house. Servants were already at work, sweeping the veranda, watering flower beds. The house was filled with light and air, it had nobility in the morning: a monument to men, and an era, never to be seen again.

"Take the keys," Nhora said. "You'll need the car to get to town."

"Do you want to go?"

"No. Will you be seeing Champ?"

"As soon as I bathe and change."

Hackaliah must have observed their arrival; his bathwater—lukewarm—was ready when he reached his room. He scrubbed and thought of Nhora: her touch. Out of the bath Jackson studied the cut on his chin with a hand mirror and decided the scar would be trivial. He put down the mirror and stared vacantly out the window; the glass was loaded with light. Nhora's grave, elliptical eyes, shimmering with the same insubstantial daybreak gold. Eyes and the soul; vision and comeliness. The inevitability of his need for her. He tightened his buttocks in response to heated pressure in the groin, the thickening penis. But that wouldn't do, not yet.
We all lead unresolvable lives, Jackson
. His bloody suit had been whisked away to be cleaned. He put on a tan tropical worsted suit and went upstairs to call on his patient.

C
hamp was alone in the playroom, half-dressed, wearing an old striped robe over army pants and undershirt. He was skinny in the trousers, which were bunched at the waist. He had shaved himself. He was seated at a small table eating breakfast, doggedly because his hand wasn't steady. He looked up from the plate with eyes free of fever, looked through Jackson not as if he were absorbed in thought but rather steeling himself for something unpleasant that might also be coming through the door.

"Getting your strength back?" Jackson said amiably.

"I think so." He tried to refocus, but Jackson was made uneasy; it was as if apiece of Champ's mind had disappeared during the night, crumbling away from the mass.

He stared at the bandage on Jackson's chin. "What happened to you?"

"I took a tumble."

Aunt Clary Gene came in without a sound, very nearly sleepwalking. She unpinned a black hat with a veil. She looked grave-marked, thin as moon shadow, as if each death in the community reduced her closer to invisibility. "Thank you, doctor," she said. "For all you did last night."

"I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

Champ put his fork down. "What about last night?"

"Old Lamb passed on," said Aunt Clary Gene. She began brewing tea, filled with her usual quiet passion for whatever small task was at hand.

"Oh." Champ gazed at his plate. "I don't think I can eat any more."

"I'll just listen to your lungs then."

As he was applying the disc of the stethoscope Champ said, "I need exercise. Too weak."

"You can walk up and down the hall. No stairs." He completed his auscultation. "You're sounding much less congested, Champ. I'd still like X-rays, but I think they can wait for a couple of days."

"When is Nancy's funeral?"

"Tomorrow, I understand."

"I'd like to go."

"You aren't strong enough yet. The ordeal could give you quite a rugged setback."

Unexpectedly tears began to drain from Champ's eyes, but his expression was more sullen than sad. "We only had a little time together. Now I'll never see her again."

"I know how difficult it is for you," Jackson said, preparing an injection of penicillin.

"Nobody's been kind enough to tell me what happened to Nancy."

"It was her heart, Champ."

"Her heart," he repeated, without emphasis, but a shudder flicked across his shoulders. "Where was she going when she died?"

"She was on her way to San Francisco, to be with you."

"San Francisco," he said worriedly, making fists, testing his strength. A prolonged shudder this time. There was something black and threatening in his downcast brow. "That's a lie, isn't it?" he said, as if he were talking to a third person in the room.

Jackson hesitated, too long. "Why do you say that?"

"Because she called me, at the hospital. I don't remember when. Said she had to get out of here, because of Beau."

"She was afraid of Beau?"

Champ lifted his eyes. "Ask him," he said, smiling thinly and suspiciously, as if he had always been sure that Jackson and Beau were the best of friends.

"I can't, I don't know where your brother is. Could you roll up your sleeve for me?"

Champ's attention shifted to the syringe. "Putting something in or taking something out?"

"It's penicillin. I've been giving it to you right along."

Champ watched the syringe as if he were destined to be eternally fascinated by it. Then a dreary change came over him, he lost the keyed-up suspicious look and wandered from his line of attack. ". . . Okay. Just don't take anything out. Too much of me has disappeared already. You understand what I mean."

"Not exactly. Tell me more about Nancy. She called you in San Francisco and—"

"Had to find Beau. Nancy was trying to get to Beau. Or something like that. I meant to ask her what it was all about, coming home on the train last night. Was it last night? We talked for a long time. I told her how it had been for me in the war. There are men who love war. But I'm not one of them. Found that out once and for all. Nancy understood."

He smiled heartrendingly, at Jackson "Or did I imagine all that? She couldn't have talked to me, she was lying in her coffin."

"Champ, you've been through so much. Give yourself time." Jackson withdrew the needle and swabbed the spot with alcohol.

Nhora came in smiling expectantly, high shine to her face, hair sleekly tied at the nape of her neck. She was wearing riding pants and a gingham shirt in brown and orange.

"Champ, you look—"

Champ thrust Jackson aside with a strength Jackson wasn't prepared for. His other hand clamped just under Nhora's jaw with such force that her mouth was frozen open. Her eyes, glazed with panic, stared at the dangling airplanes. She staggered back, bearing his weight, until he got his other hand around her throat too and bent her savagely, thrusting her head far back as he tried to crush her windpipe. His body was against hers, groin to groin. He whined and shuddered like a dog in heat as he tried to kill her.

As Jackson grasped Champ by the wrists and attempted to wedge himself between them, Champ's charge of extraordinary strength failed. He suddenly released Nhora and collapsed heavily on the floor. She fell against the wall by the door, rasping for air, staring at Champ, ready to run for her life if he stirred. But Champ was out cold, eyes back in his head when Jackson turned him over, muscles twitching galvanically.

Jackson carried him to the padded deck chair and prepared a barbiturate for injection. Aunt Clary Gene stood dumbfounded at Champ's side.

"I want someone with him every moment. Someone strong enough to handle him."

"He was just the gentlest boy," she muttered. "Couldn't never do a hurtful thing like that. It's the truth. Champ just
couldn't
."