Lucky's Girl (8 page)

Where the fuck did these people work? What the fuck did they do for a living? Indian casinos only employed so many people and he’d seen only one logging truck since crossing the state line. Then it dawned on him. These people didn’t do shit. It had been really bad when he’d left but nothing had changed except that things were now much, much worse.

He shook his head and laughed bitterly. He flicked his cig out into the former Elton Lake, immediately lit another one. More broken people just meant more people for his parents to care for.

Abby and the Rev, Mom and Dad. Ha!

When it came down to it, they were the biggest losers in this misbegotten hive of losers. They lived to help others. They cared, they really did. Other stronger people would get theirs and get the fuck out, but not Abby and the Rev, not Mom and Dad! They stuck around, perpetually treading water trying to save drowning people too stupid to save themselves.

Fucking idiots
.

He looked out across the lake and wondered what was going on at the ol’ church tonight. Both dirt lots were full of cars, as was the open area in back used for the big picnic lunches every single fucking Sunday. He’d hated those more than anything. His parents blew the bank feeding half the town baked beans, Wonder bread, hot dogs, PB and J, and all the other white trash staples. There was singing and praying followed by more singing and praying. Then half the people they’d fed with their money and hard work went to Frankie’s Bar to get hammered and drive home.

Rinse and repeat every single week.

He frowned, the frown turning into a hard glare at the church. Less than a kilometer away. All those pathetic, useless people milling around hugging each other. Looking like they were all crying. Maybe a whole pack of them got saved tonight. They were gonna get off welfare and stop drinkin’! Stop smokin’ an’ fuckin’ an’ smokin’ meth! You betcha!

Half of them wouldn’t make it past midnight.

But there were an awful lot of them. The Rev sure did know how to pack em’ in, but this must be a new attendance record. He wondered what could bring this many losers out on this night, but the thought faded. He didn’t care. Just looking at them made him mad. Everything about this place made him mad.

But that wasn’t the real problem.

The Big Tree had called him back here after all these years, but when he’d gotten into the state the call had fallen oddly silent. Then, when he’d arrived here, fully expecting to have to freeze his ass off swimming out to Grove Island in the middle of the night, he’d found the lake… gone. He just walked across, through the white pines to the center, and there it was – The Big Tree. Totally silent. No sound, no impression, no images, nothing.

Maybe he needed to wait. Maybe something needed to happen. Maybe he needed to do something. Maybe he needed to Read the Signs. Maybe the Big Tree needed blood… That was definitely a possibility. The lack of certainty after such a magnetic pull was unnerving at first, but now it just made him mad. Was it possible that he’d made a mistake? Surely not. He was
Lucky
for fuck’s sake!

Then a glimmer in the other direction caught his eye. It was faint, but it was unmistakable where it had come from. He’d tried to not look in that direction because it would mean tumbling into the most painful aspect of his past; his betrayal by the Traitor. But he knew it couldn’t be
him,
just his wacky old Uncle Frank, hanging out on the pier, smoking and chewing beechnut, wondering why there was no church music to listen to as he stared out across the big empty lake.

***

Lucky had been here before, to this
Place,
in his dreams. When he’d first received the gifts of the Big Tree his dream world had become different. There were two existences here, overlapping, and he never knew which one he’d experience. But he’d learned that when his dreams took him to that Other Place he needed to take it dead seriously. Dreaming of the Place was part of Reading the Signs because the Place was where the signs came from. The Place existed in the here and now alongside the waking world, but also
somewhere else
. Time was different there. In a sense time held no meaning because past, present, and future all existed at once. Reading the Signs was a brief glimpse into a possible future, and the Place was where all possible futures existed.

The Place was a vast, empty featureless world of reddish-brown stone. He would find himself on that plain, only gradually getting a bearing on his surroundings. The sky was a curtain of pure black cloud whipped constantly by hurricane-force winds hurtling from all directions. But at ground level it was perfectly still, and perfectly silent.

All around was a bluish grey mist and, if he focused, it would begin to reveal its secrets. Figures would appear, revealing themselves to be ghosts. The world was full of them. Some saw him, some didn’t, some even tried to speak to him but others would ignore his presence; they would only exist for mere moments, vanishing quickly. The spirits of every person who had lived, or of those who were yet to be born, were here. Just as soon as he’d begun to understand what was happening around him, he became aware of another being in this Place.

He had seen some of its faces. The first was as a comet falling from the sky, piercing the covering of black clouds. He would run through the fog of ghosts toward where it had landed on the horizon but could never reach it. On a subsequent visit to the dream-place he found a pale sapling growing in the spot where the comet had landed. Every time he returned to the Place he’d find that the sapling had grown into a terrible and wondrous twin of the Big Tree. It was a tree of supple human skin where bark and leaves would ordinarily be found. He knew that others would be frightened of this, and that was why he had been chosen. Only someone of his strength could withstand the beauty and wonder of the Tree of Flesh, the Tree of Life.

He had never touched its glory in any of his dreams, but now he ran his hand across its trunk, feeling the life-blood course within and its heart beating far underground. He put his cheek against it, feeling its warmth. He felt its love and pride in him. It was his father, his mother, his lover, and his God. He closed his eyes and kissed it gently, in turn feeling warmth and wetness upon his face…

Lucky opened his eyes. He found himself in his sleeping bag at the foot of the Big Tree, his campfire having burned down to glowing coals. But he wasn’t alone. Terror, unknown by man since the dark ages, now seized him. He was looking straight into the eyes of a huge black wolf, its muzzle just inches from his face. It smelled of the blood caking its fur. It sniffed his face and then licked it, to taste and know him.

The black wolf sat back on her haunches, looking down at him expectantly, with neither fear or alarm. When his eyes had grown accustomed to the lambent glow of the coals he realized that this black wolf was not alone. He was surrounded by glowing orange wolf eyes on all sides, looking on him without pity, without fear.

Lucky’s fingers went to the .357 in the belt of his jeans and, as he did so, all the wolves moved out of the shadows, looking down on him as he lay in his sleeping bag. There were more than ten of them, more than he could ever shoot with six bullets, standing above him peering down, watching him shaking in horror.

Unable to control himself, his lips moved.
Why? Why did you bring me here to be murdered by wolves? I was the one! I
am
the one! I am your chosen vessel and I will bring you forth to walk amongst man!

As the words fell from his lips he went from whispering to shouting out to his God and to his audience of wolves. He knew they would be on him in seconds and he would be reduced to bloody bones.

But they didn’t attack. Except for the pure black one they all stepped back several feet. Then the black one sat down, and cocked its head while holding his gaze. The pair sat for an infinite moment, eyes locked like lovers. Another wolf came forward, dropping a bloody lump in his lap. It was a newborn ewe, alive and vibrating in terror. It looked like it had just been torn from the womb of its mother. His hand went to the knife in his belt, but his eyes stayed locked with the deep luminance of the wolf’s blue eyes.

The night was torn by the shrill cry of the ewe, and the exultation of the Pack.

And then, Lucky
knew
.

CHAPTER 11

“The Rev didn’t just believe in miracles, he depended on them. I think that’s what he always tried to give back, and that’s what made him different from ordinary men. Most men talk the talk, but few men can walk the walk. When we were young, still in our twenties, we met at Missionary College, and he told me he just… wasn’t scared, and never had been. He didn’t ever think there was a problem with going without so that another could have something to eat or a place to stay or a shoulder to cry on or just someone to listen. He didn’t ever even wonder how this would impact him or if he’d be able to make ends meet. He walked
as
a man of faith, not
like
a man a faith.”

The church was standing room only. Despite the hint of fall in the air outside it was hot with so many bodies, and so many tears. And everyone was here, because there was not a person in this forgotten part of America whose life hadn’t been touched by the Rev and Abby.

But despite the inspirational truth of her words, there was no painting over the broken-for-good tone. She smiled at the flock and read the readings, but the Rev gave the sermon.

She couldn’t fill his shoes.

It was over for Elton Township.

She knew it.

They knew it.

“And I know that every day when I wake up… and he’s not beside me, that I’ve got to get up and make the coffee. I’ve got to drive over to the church and open the doors, because there’s going to be people to feed, people who need…”

She trailed off. She knew that no matter what she said, she couldn’t replace what was missing. The flock would be lost without the shepherd and she couldn’t do it. The district headquarters of the church didn’t have anyone they could send, no one who could make the church self-sustaining like the Rev. They’d never understood how he’d done it in the first place.

“But I know he wouldn’t give up! He never did! When everything was so dark around him he brought the light of Jesus to others and I know he’d want me to…”

They’d never actually discussed this. This was part of who the Rev was too. He hadn’t been to a doctor in twenty years. They’d never had the money. Yeah, they could’ve saved up, but that would have meant that others would have had to go without. That’s just who he was. Not that he didn’t believe in medicine. He wasn’t one of those people, he just never thought about himself.

Kenny knew this better than anyone.

The kids noisily protested being woken up that morning, their first morning in a godawful little cabin on the other side of the country far from their home, and being told they were going to a funeral for someone they didn’t know
and had never even heard about
. Jake had complained all the way to the church and Jenny hid behind her imitation wayfarers. He only stopped when they got to the muddy parking lot and had a good look at where they were.

They were among their new neighbors. This was where they lived now. This town was poor in a way they hadn’t ever seen. They’d seen poor minorities in Houston, but they’d never seen dirt poor white people. It silenced Jake with its immediacy. For the first time since his mother had died he went an ashen color and grabbed his father’s hand out of fear.

He whispered, “Please daddy, take us back home, I’m not like these people.”

Kenny turned to his son in the parking lot. “I owe this man in a way I could never explain. We need to go in.”

For all his past defiance, Jake didn’t say a word and Kenny walked in holding both his kid’s hands.

They were lucky enough to squeeze into a pew about halfway towards the front so Jake and Jenny could see what was happening. Neither understood the singing or the praying and the crying. They had only been to the staid Lutheran church their grandparents attended at Christmas. This was a whole new world populated by people they hadn’t known existed.

There were a lot of faces Kenny recognized, but very few recognized him. They all looked old. He was nearing forty, but they looked much older. Weary. Unhealthy. Diminished and grey. He was tanned and muscular. They were pale and skinny or pale and flabby. They wore omnipresent flannel shirts and jeans, all of a uniformly dingy grey with colors that only seemed to accent
grey and old
.

Errol recognized him. Kaminsky recognized him. A few people gave him hesitant second looks. Frankie the bartender stared openly for a few moments, shook his head and turned back to the front.
Couldn’t be
…

Kaminsky looked terrible; chicken arms and a distended belly. Kenny’s uncle had said Kaminsky had started drinking after all the bad shit had gone down and Kenny had left for Texas. But that was back before Kenny had met his wife and kept in regular touch with his uncle, before he left him behind for his new life and his new family.