Angel City (41 page)

“How bad is it?” Harper said.

“
Merde, oh merde.
The undercarriage and wheels are all right. I will get you to Montségur. We must see to the animal.”

They walked toward the deer. They saw blood on the left hindquarters where the animal had been hit. Sensing them coming, the deer panicked, tried to climb to all four legs, but its rear legs would not stand, and the animal collapsed on the road. It struggled for a few seconds, then settled.

“Its back is broken,” Harper said.

“Or its legs. Either way, there is nothing to do but put it out of its misery. I'll get something from the taxi.”

The driver walked off.

Harper stared at the deer. Saw its wide, dark-colored eyes staring at him. He stepped ahead, slowly. The deer fidgeted but didn't panic this time. Harper knelt next to it, listened to the sound of its breathing. Quick, shallow. Harper sensed the deer was bewildered, unable to comprehend why its legs had given way, why it could not dash away into the woods. Harper lay his hand on the deer's chest, felt the warmth of its body, felt its racing heart.

“Animus facit nobilem,”
he whispered.

Harper felt the deer's heart calm a little.

The driver returned with a folded tarp and a tire iron.

“What the hell is that for?” Harper said.

The driver waved the tire iron like a hammer. “To put it out of its misery.”

“By beating it to death?”

“You think it better if I drive over it a few times? A few blows to the head and it will be unconscious. A few more blows, it will be dead.”

The driver dropped the tarp on the road.

“And what's that for?”

“To wrap it up and put it in the trunk of my taxi.”

“Sorry?”

“I have a cousin not far from Montségur, in Auzat. He's been out of work for a year. This deer will get him and his family through half the winter. You might have to help me lift it into the trunk, though.”

The driver stood over the deer's head, raised the tire iron.

“Stop,” Harper said.

“Quoi?”

Harper opened his coat, pulled his SIG from its holster. He pulled the slide, loaded a round into the chamber. The driver gasped.

“You're carrying a gun? In my taxi? A foreigner? What is this?”

“Yes, I'm carrying a gun in your taxi. And you're getting triple the meter for the ride because it was the only way I could bribe you to move your arse off the taxi rank. Now step aside. Let's get this over with.”

The driver eased out of the way.

Harper walked to the deer, leaned down, pressed the muzzle to the deer's head. He put his finger inside the trigger guard. He let out a slow breath. He looked at the deer's gray face, saw a wounded piece of life begging to be comforted.
Not yet, not now.
Harper's hand began to shake; he felt something wet burn in his eyes. He pulled away the gun, stood up.

“Shit.”

“What's wrong?” the driver said.

Harper looked at him. “Do you know how to shoot?”

“I was in the army.”

Harper held out the SIG. “Here, you do it.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because I can't.”

“Pourquoi pas?”

“Does it bloody matter?”

The driver stepped forward, traded his tire iron for the SIG. Harper bent down, gently laid the tire iron on the tarp. He knelt near the deer's head. The driver knelt next to Harper.

“I'm going to distract it,” Harper said. “When I tell you, set the muzzle to the back of its head, fire away from us. Do it quick. Understand?”

“Oui.”

Harper knelt near the deer, looked in its eyes. He touched the beast's chest, waited to feel its heart calm again.

“Fire.”

The shot echoed off the road and into the forest. There was a fluttering of birds and scattering of animals hiding in the nearby trees. The driver stood up. Harper waited with his hand on the deer, feeling its heartbeat fade.

“C'est le guet. Il a sonné l'heure.”

He stood up, took the gun from the driver. He pulled the slide, ejected the next round. The round fell and rang out as it hit the asphalt. Harper picked it up, dropped it in the pocket of his coat.

“What did you say to the animal, monsieur?” the driver said.

“I told it I was the watcher, and that this was the hour of its death.”

“You said that? To a dead deer?”

“It wasn't dead when I said it.”

The driver shook his head.

“Well, that's a very strange business. A foreigner pays me a fortune to take him to the least populated region of France and he's carrying a gun. I should call the gendarmerie.”

Harper held the palm of his right hand before the driver's eyes.

“Et memento hoc solum.”

The driver stared blankly as Harper spoke.

“Listen to the sound of my voice. Tonight, you were asked by the chief of police in Toulouse to drive me to Montségur in relation to a case involving national security. You were told nothing about me and instructed to ask no questions. You were told not to discuss this trip, or me, with anyone. It was made very clear to you that if you did, you'd be paid a visit by the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence. Twenty minutes ago, coming around the last turn, you hit a deer and broke its back. I shot it, finished it off. You said you wanted to take the carcass to your cousin so he'd have some meat for the winter. Just now you're a little shaken because of the accident, and the gunshot startled you. If you think about it, I'm very sure you'll realize this is what happened.”

Harper lowered his hand.

“You all right?” Harper said.

The driver blinked, looked at his taxi, the deer, his taxi again. He watched Harper holster the SIG.

“
Oui, ça va.
The gunshot. It startled me, I think.”

“It happens.”

The driver nodded, took a deep breath.

“
Allors
, I must get the animal into the trunk. I am sorry for the delay, monsieur.”

“No worries.”

The driver spread open the tarp. He grabbed the deer's front legs and tugged. He couldn't move it. He looked at Harper.

“Could you help me, monsieur?”

“Sure.”

Harper grabbed the back legs, and they dragged the deer onto the tarp. The driver wiped his brow.

“My cousin will eat for half the winter with this animal. You know, I feel terrible about the accident, but some good has come of it,
non
? Life is strange sometimes. I will bring my taxi closer. It will be difficult getting it into the trunk.”

The driver walked away.

Harper knelt down, covered the deer's haunches with the tarp. Before covering its head, he looked into its eyes again. All light was gone.

I

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER, THE TAXI ENTERED THE VILLAGE OF
Montségur. Harper looked at his watch: straight up on the witching hour. The driver pulled over, shut down the motor. There was a narrow lane ahead with oddly shaped houses on either side. Like a collection of mismatched stone boxes. No lights in the windows, no streetlamps along the lane.

“We are here, monsieur.”

Harper looked out his window. There were two stone basins below an iron spout. A trickle of water poured from the spout into the basins. Looked the sort of place women came to do their laundry in the Middle Ages. Given the look of the buildings on the lane, maybe they still did, Harper thought.

“You sure?” Harper said.

The driver nodded to the fountain.

“That is la fontaine d'Orgeat. That means we are at the entrance of the village.”

“Is there a hotel around?”

“There are rooms in people's homes that are rented. Where they are, I do not know, or if they are even open this time of year. I'm afraid you must see for yourself. I must get the deer to my cousin before it begins to rot.”

“Right.”

Harper opened his door. The driver turned quickly back to him.

“One thing, monsieur.”

“What's that?”

“Seeing as the chief of police in Toulouse told me to say nothing about you, how do I explain to my cousin about the bullet in the deer's head?”

Harper replayed the night. Left the bus in the back of La Dynamo after nine. The building was vibrating with a droning sound. Nobody in the neighborhood seemed to notice. He walked back to the train station. Ticket clerk got a right laugh when Harper asked for a ticket to Montségur. There was a bigger laugh when Harper asked about any trains in the morning. Seems there were no trains to Montségur, any time of the day. But there was a train to Foix. Seven and a half hours, then a thirty-three kilometer walk.

He went outside to the taxi rank. Presented himself to the driver on point as a British tourist who wanted to see the fortress atop Montségur by dawn's early light. The driver was as excited about driving anywhere as the one Harper had met that afternoon. Thus, three times the meter. Driver said,
“D'accord.”
Harper got in. Driver went twenty meters and stopped. Went into a
tabac
for an espresso and a smoke. Harper waited in the taxi twenty minutes. Finally, as his watch flipped to ten fifteen, they were on their way. No worries. Then the deer. Harper didn't want to think about it. He blinked himself back to nowtimes, looked at the driver.

“You'll come up with something.”

“But, monsieur, I don't want a visit from the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence. I haven't filed my taxes properly for fifteen years.”

Harper shrugged. “Use your imagination.”

Harper alighted from the taxi. The driver turned over the motor, made a three-point turn, drove away. Harper closed his coat and reached for his cigarette case. Easier now without the bandages on his hands, but the scar tissue on his palms was sore as hell. May take a day or two for the healing potion to fill in the cracks of the proximal phalanges, Krinkle told him. Suggested Harper try to avoid hitting any stone walls, or tough jaws for that matter.

Harper pulled a cigarette from his case and lit up. He looked up at the sky, saw a sea of stars floating between dark shores. The dark shores created by the shadowed forms of the Pyrenees. He turned slowly around. Somewhere out there, he thought, was a chunk of rock called Montségur. Radiance flooded into his blood, and the rhodopsin in his eyes became nine times more sensitive. His brain began to see the outline of jagged peaks. Then, above the narrow road and row houses, at 18° north by northeast, he saw it. Not a mountain looking like it'd been shaped over millions of years by fire and rain; more like it had been carved by a knowing hand. He saw the granite cliffs leading to the top of the pluton. There, against the north quadrant of the sky, he saw the fortress. At the far end of the fortress was the tower, standing like one more shadow in the night. His eyes drew a line from the tower to the sky. Directly above Montségur, Harper saw the constellation Draco.

“Swell, now what?”

He stepped to the fountain, saw a school of red-and-white-colored fish drifting in the water.
Caraccius auratus,
Harper thought, Sarasa comet goldfish. There was a sign on the stone wall above the fountain:
S'IL VOUS PLAÎT, NE DÉRANGER PAS NEMO
. Harper looked at the fish.

“Mind if I take a drink?”

Nemo, whichever one he was, didn't object.

Harper leaned over and drank from the spout. It was cold, and he drank deeply. He straightened up, wiped his mouth. Took another hit of radiance, watched the fish. He looked around. Place looked deserted. Thought about giving up on the hotel and just heading out for the fortress atop the pluton. Complications arose when he realized he didn't even know the way, and it was bloody dark.

“Like I was saying, now what?”

He saw a small hand-painted sign on a fence post. It looked old, almost buried in the weeds. The kind of sign no one would see unless they were looking for it. Top of the sign was an arrow pointing
that way
down the dark lane. Beneath the arrow were the words:

La Barraca. Chambre dans ma maison à louer. Pas de réservation nécessaire.

“Guess that answers that.”

Harper walked ahead, checked the buildings. They seemed to lean weirdly to the side. Pull one out, the whole bloody street would fall down. He scanned the windows . . . all the shutters drawn. There was a rise in the lane, and coming to a crest, a slash of light cut through the dark. It fell across a garden of wild grass and settled on the gate of a picket fence stretching across the road.

Harper stopped, looked back over his shoulder; nobody.

He looked ahead, took a long draw from his smoke, dropped it on the ground, and crushed it into dust. He walked ahead, saw the house beyond the gate. Simple place. Three floors, brown shutters, empty flower boxes in the windows. Coming closer he saw the open door of a shed next to the house. That's where the light was coming from, then came a hammer-on-steel clanging sound. The clanging stopped, then there were bursts of blue light and sparks of fire and acrid smoke. Had to be a welder with an oxyacetylene torch, or a coven of witches at play maybe . . .
Clang, clang, clang.
Either way, someone was up late, Harper thought.

He reached the gate, stood there, was only half surprised to see the sign on the gate:
La Barraca.
He waited for the clanging to stop. He sensed movement in the dark of the garden, then a bloody big dog—long white hair, huge paws, a head the size of a bowling ball—stepped from dark into light and stopped at the gate. It stared at Harper with black eyes. White slobber dribbled from its mouth. The clanging from inside the shed stopped.

“Shiva, de qué te nhaca? Qu'es aquò?”

Harper ran the words.
Shiva:
the destroyer, or transformer of the Hindu trinity of gods. The rest of it was Occitan, the indigenous language of the Pyrenees. The language of Bernard de Saint-Martin. The voice was asking,
Shiva, what's biting you? What is it?

“And isn't it funny how you know that one, boyo?”

Just then, the light from the door was eclipsed by a human form. Harper saw the shadow of a large man in dirty blue overalls and a welder's apron. He wore thick leather gloves on his hands, and his face was hidden behind a safety mask. The man raised the mask.

“Bonvengut.”

The radiance spiked in Harper's blood, and though the man was no more than a shadow, Harper saw the man's eyes were clean.

“Bon vèspre,”
Harper said.

“
Bon vèspre
would be more appropriate for the late afternoon, not the middle of the night. But I appreciate the attempt to speak my language.”

“What should I have said?”

“
Adieussiatz
would do it. Works as hello or good-bye, any time of day.”

“
Adieussiatz.
I'll keep it in mind. How did you know I speak English?”

“I guessed.”

Harper gave it a few beats.

“I saw your advert by the fountain. The one for a room.”

“And?”

“I could use a place to stay for the night, or I could use directions to the fortress.”

The man in the shadow didn't respond.

“By the way, my name is—”

“Don't tell me your name,” the man said.

Harper nodded. “If you say so.”

“But I am Serge Gasca.
Dintratz
, come in.”

Harper looked at the huge dog on the other side of the gate. It hadn't moved. Not even a twitch.

“What about the dog?”

“Qu'ei tranquille.”

Harper reached for the gate latch, stopped.

“How did you know I was standing out here?”

“The dog.”

“The dog didn't bark.”

“He moved from his place in the garden, the place he sleeps. He only moves when there is something interesting to see. And in this place, a man appearing from nowhere in the middle of the night asking for a place to stay, or directions to the fortress, is most interesting.
Dintratz.
”

“I didn't appear from nowhere.”

“No?”

“No. I took a cab.”

Harper pushed open the gate. It creaked. He stepped into the garden. The dog took one step forward; Harper stopped and held out his right hand. The dog sniffed at it, bumped it with his furry forehead, then turned and walked slowly toward the shed. Harper followed. The man in the doorway, the man who called himself Serge, came into focus. Dark hair, dark eyes, a face looking like it'd been cut from stone. He held up his soot-covered gloves.

“Don't think me rude if I don't shake your hand. I am in the middle of something.”

“No worries.”

Serge went into the shed, and the dog lay on the grass to the side of the door with a distinct
thump
. Harper stepped through the doorway. There were traces of iron oxide fumes and smoke, and an exhaust fan fitted in a side window was doing its best to clear the air. A single lamp was fixed in the middle of the ceiling, and it dropped a dome of light over the man's work space. There was a sculpture standing in the light. Bent and twisted iron rods in the outline of a human form. Head bowed, hands across its chest. Harper looked closer, saw something else: wings draped from its shoulders like mournful things.

“It's an angel,” Harper said.

“Yes, an angel,” the man said, picking up the oxyacetylene torch and spark lighter. “You should look away. I must finish this joint or its wings will fall off. Do you smoke?”

“Yes.”

“Don't.”

The man lowered his safety mask, opened the gas valves, struck the spark lighter. A knifelike jet of blue fire shot from the nozzle. He adjusted the regulator till the flame was three inches long. The intensity of the flame hurt Harper's eyes and he turned away, looked about the shed. As Serge worked the weld, there were bursts of blue light that lit up the shed. The corners were filled with scrap iron and junk, and along the back wall were more angels. Dozens of them standing in close order formation like some silent army, all in the same mournful pose. Harper considered crunching the odds of his showing up, finding no room in the town but for a place where a guy seemed to be waiting up in the middle of the night, making iron angels in a shed . . . He gave up. Serge shut down the torch, closed the gas. He took off his mask and gloves, lay them on a worktable. He inspected the weld joint.

“That should do it, my noble lord,” he said.

Noble lord,
Harper thought.
That's one I haven't heard before.
Then, running it through his mind again, he knew he had. Somewhere.

“You're an artist?” Harper said.

The man shook his head.

“No, I'm unemployed. I used to work in a textile factory up the road in Laroque-d'Olmes, till it closed fifteen years ago. This whole region used to be big in textiles, this village, too. We had a thousand residents once.”

“It looked empty, the village.”

“There are only one hundred of us left. It was ninety-nine, but we had a new arrival in 2009, a baby girl. The village was drunk for a week. But we have hikers and tourists in the summer. They come for a day or two, climb the trail to the fortress, then they leave. Now and again one of them buys one of my angels. Between this and that, my wife and I survive.”

“‘That' being renting a room in your house to people who show up in the middle of the night.”

“Yes.”

Harper nodded. “That's good, then.”

Serge looked at Harper.

“You'll be wanting to go to the fortress?”

“Yes.”

The man walked to the pile of scrap iron and junk, found a staff of knotted oak with a brass tip.