Rise the Dark (21 page)

T
he council fire had been planned for evening, but Eli's accelerated timeline forced him to move it to dawn, and for once he saw a benefit. The sunrise was more powerful than the sunset in this location; from the ridgetop, the earth seemed to be lit from within for a few spectacular minutes, an ethereal glow that spoke of the ancient world. That would matter to the group he was assembling. Any extra touch that enhanced their mission commitment was valuable, if not imperative. Eli's command was going to be tested during this ceremony, and he would need to call upon the natural world for power. While the gathering crowd had been pliable enough in initial talks, everything was different on the eve of action, and they would arrive with at least some level of doubt. The group en route was as close to battle-tested as any Eli could assemble, minus a few key parts. He thought of the women in the cabin, of the empty shackles that lined the walls, and the image was bittersweet. He had counted on five more alongside Sabrina Baldwin, and Lynn Deschaine had not been in that mix. But those people remained available to him for the future, and in the future, a world of fear would be easier to rule.

When darkness fell, chaos would reign, and the man who controlled the chaos? His ascent to leadership was natural order. Proof of this was in the history books of every civilization.

Eli read voraciously about biological warfare and understood both the potential and the challenge—you needed to determine how to infect the first wave of carriers with the virus. A careful study of human nature, however, told you that every human on earth already carried two viral qualities: fear and hope. Each was contagious and could spread rapidly under the right conditions, but at first glance they seemed to be natural enemies.

False.

Fear and hope were fundamentally joined, inseparable. Anyone whose fear drove him to make predictions, to offer dire warnings, nursed a secret hope that these things would actually come to fruition. If you devoted much of your energy to, for example, a political campaign against a candidate you feared deeply and then that individual rose to power, would you not wish him to fail? Perhaps with spectacular consequences?

Eli believed that most people would. And for those he had found on the radical fringes, the ones itching to be mobilized for a cause, it was simply a matter of joining their fear and their hope. This is what he had nursed so long among so many. First he coaxed forth a prediction born of fear—
The Islamic terrorists are coming; The Christians will kill us; We'll die when they take our guns; We'll die because they won't take our guns
; the details of these fears were less interesting to Eli than what they could do, because all fears harbored potential for action. They harbored, he believed, a secret hope:
The doubters will finally see that I was right.
Any prophet wanted his prophecy fulfilled.

And so Eli coaxed them, encouraged them, nurtured them. Then he solicited the promise:
When it happens, we will act.

When the western electrical grid went down, Eli was confident that at least seven groups of wildly different ideologies would be compelled to act, and he was hopeful about five more. Yesterday he began careful cloud-seeding of rumor, issuing predictions of a massive action from, depending on the message board or forum, ISIS, the U.S. government, the Tea Party, Greenpeace, the Ku Klux Klan, and Wall Street.

In return, he had his promises: If it happened, action would be taken, and—most critically—his varied cells promised that they would not be fooled by whatever narrative their opposition offered. Because
of course
they would offer an explanation,
of course
they would bury the truth in a lie. Eli had warned of this as well.

When a nation was attacked, the nation looked for an explanation, tried to understand what would incite anyone to take such action. It was an arrogant assumption that any strike against society implied an ideological cause, some bizarre attempt to
correct
society, rather than a clean and simple desire to watch it burn.

The group that would initiate the most significant terrorist strike ever made on North American infrastructure gathered on the ridge just before dawn. They shared only a few words of greeting, some no words at all. There was palpable tension. They had to be wondering how ready they really were. And, perhaps, wondering what they were doing there at all.

Eli shared none of their doubt. He'd been years in the planning of this operation, and in its study. If you could convince a band of people that the evil they were doing was not only justified but also the opposite of evil—a righteous act, a noble act—you could coax far more out of them than they would have ever dreamed. There was much to learn about humanity from watching a lynch mob.

The dozen he'd gathered here had been carefully culled from fringe environmental movements, castoffs drawn in by Violet's ludicrous appropriation of American Indian spirituality. In her bizarre ways, she was perhaps the most brilliant recruiter he'd found. He knew the secret of her success was her sincerity. She believed with a depth of passion, a true intensity, that few could match. When she spoke of the way the strike on the grid would provide a needed wake-up call for the nation, she
believed
it, and her words carried that.

There was no messenger so effective as a true believer.

She also preached nonviolent resistance. Eli had explained this dilemma to Garland and the two other guards he'd recruited, men who responded well to whispered assurances that only a select few were being trusted with the task of pulling triggers. None of them were present now. Eli didn't want any guns in sight.

As the sun made its first timid appearance on the horizon, a faint band of gray, Eli put his back to it and stood on the summit, looking down on the chosen twelve.

“We gather in darkness,” Eli said, his voice the deep, textured thunder that he had practiced so long to achieve, “because we do not fear darkness. We know its necessity. And we also know this—those who would keep us in darkness have reached their day of accountability.”

A few murmurs, a few nods. Eli held silence for several seconds, staring at them.

“Here is what we know,” he said, voice lower now, cool as the mountain wind. “We know without question that those in power, be they government actors or titans of wealth and greed, have manipulated the very planet itself for their own agendas, their own gains. The greatest gift we're given, the source of our very existence, has not only been abused, it has been
claimed
. There are many who think that they have dominion over the planet.

“Make no mistake. They will attempt to identify us as evil. To label this band of people who believe they have certain rights, certain freedoms, as enemies of humanity. They will say this about people who believe that the
very earth itself has certain rights and certain freedoms!
”

He shouted the last words, expecting to hear support, excitement.

Instead, the group was quiet, and the energy in the air was weak. They were uncertain. Hesitant.

He studied them and thought about their hopes and their fears. He knew the language that would incite them—it was what had brought them here. And yet now they seemed strangely unmoved.

He looked toward Violet. He wanted this to be his own moment, and he deserved it to be, but he'd arrived in this place through a special understanding of manipulation. Each audience had its own trigger.

“Violet,” he said. “I would like you to speak for the land.”

For several seconds she was silent, and he was afraid he'd made a mistake. If she could not inspire, things might unravel swiftly. Just before he was about to speak again, she broke the silence.

She didn't speak. She chanted. An unknown tongue, but a musical one, an ancient half wail that belonged to this place, to the peoples she'd studied for so long.

The murmurs of approval grew louder, the energy from the group changing. Eli saw one woman reach out and squeeze the hand of the man she'd come with. Another man closed his eyes and bobbed his head as if in agreement with the wordless song.

The sun was tinting the edges of the earth now, the gray giving way to a thin band of pink, and it was magical. It was perfect.

Violet stopped the strange chant.

“The land speaks,” she said softly. “The land speaks to those who care to hear. There are whispers from the high peaks, whispers within the deepest caves, the emptiest oceans. And for those who can hear, the tone has changed. The whispers are louder now, my friends; they are shouts. More than shouts, they are cries. The land is crying out, and do you know what it says?”

She paused, looked at every individual face, each of them beginning to take on a new clarity in the rising dawn light.

“It says that it will not be mocked.”

The woman who had been clutching her companion's hand now dipped her head as if she were about to faint. Another man had made a fist so tight his knuckles bulged. He held it in front of him like a weapon, but his eyes were locked on Violet.

All of their eyes were.

For this,
Eli thought,
tolerating her was worth it.

The truth was, he couldn't summon his usual contemptuousness of her. He'd become suddenly uneasy. There was a unique magic to her voice, the depth of the believer. He wanted to interrupt her, to reclaim control of the moment, but he knew better and willed the impulse down.

“Someday,” she said, “we will all be returned to the earth. This is the certainty of our existence, the only certainty. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Whether as ashes or dust, you will return to the earth. How do you wish to be greeted?”

No one spoke. Violet began to make a soft humming noise, rising and falling like a chant, and Eli knew that she had said all she intended to say. The baton was back in his hand.

“We will be challenged,” he said. “We will be pursued. We will be hated. All of this is understood and accepted, because the time has come. Not the day of reckoning, but the day of reminding. Perhaps we are not all as lost as it often seems. Perhaps there is more hope out there than we have often believed. But the reminder must be issued. The populace
must
be shaken. And then, I hope, I
pray,
that we will all find the essential things we lost along the way.”

He turned from them and faced the sunrise. The pink had deepened to crimson, and it lit him and cast his shadow large across the ground. He closed his eyes and breathed, deep inhalations and exhalations, seven of them, and then he spoke again without turning.

“The world awakens. She calls to us. Today is the day. If some of you choose to depart, you will not be stopped, nor will you be questioned or shamed. The task ahead is not for everyone. If anyone wishes to leave, now is the time, and go in silence.”

No one moved. He counted seven more breaths.

“So we begin. I will ask you to speak now. Not to me, but to the land. This is a sacred place, and it is filled with listeners, I assure you. Speak to them now. Share the day's message.”

They spoke nearly in unison but just enough ahead or behind each other to make the group sound larger than it was; their fourteen voices turned to forty. They spoke loudly, eagerly, and they spoke without fear. Eli closed his eyes with pleasure. Finally, it was here. Finally, they announced it to an unknowing world at the break of the western dawn.

“Rise the dark, rise the dark, rise the dark.”

B
y the time Larry was ready to go, the sun was fully risen and the Soda Butte glittered like scattered diamonds in the white light. Larry surveyed the Tahoe and said, “Damn nice vehicle, and I'd like to take it, but how's your back trail?”

It was a good question. By now the police probably had the make, model, and plate number.

“I don't think anyone knows that I headed this way when I left Red Lodge, but the vehicle is a risk,” Mark admitted.

“Kind of figured that. We'll take Blue, then.”

“Blue?” Mark had a bad feeling. “You don't mean the Ford?”

“Hell yes, the Ford!”

“That truck was barely running twenty years ago, Uncle.”

“I've made some improvements.”

The improvements certainly weren't visual. The 1971 Ford Sport Custom pickup was behind the cabin, and the wheels seemed to be attached to the axles. That was the best that could be said for the truck.

“Get your shit,” Larry said. Mark got his things out of the Tahoe and slipped his shoulder holster on. Larry watched without comment.

“Where are we headed?” Mark asked once he was in the truck, the passenger seat wheezing beneath him, and Larry cursing and pumping the gas as he tried to coax the engine to life. The exhaust let out a burst like a cannon shot and then settled down to a clatter that shook the dirt on the floorboards, but Larry smiled with pleasure, so evidently this was a good sign.

“Five Points Hot Springs.”

“You think Pate is holed up in a resort?” Five Points was an old-time inn built around a natural hot springs. It catered to people who wanted a taste of the rugged West but without leaving fine dining behind.

“No, I don't. But I think Salvador Cantu will be. He's blowing his cash at the bar down there and trying to blow his load with a waitress.”

“Who is Salvador Cantu?”

The truck went into motion, and it seemed that the lurch forward had been at least partially inspired by the engine.

“He runs meth out to the oil fields,” Larry said. “He's been doing well lately. The Bakken's been better to the drug business than it has to the oil business. He also helped with the whip on the day that I mentioned.”

His voice didn't change when he said that, but Mark's throat tightened.

They crossed the Soda Butte and turned onto 212 in Silver Gate. The Range Rider, an old boardinghouse and saloon, was just across the street. That had been Larry's favorite hell-raising spot in the old days. Mark wasn't looking at the town, though, but up at the once-wooded slopes of Republic Pass. The thick forest that faded out into the granite peaks was a grim gray burnout now, a testament to the pair of brothers who'd set it on fire three summers earlier. Blackwell, their names had been. Dangerous men.

Mark saw the giant buffalo that had been outside of Larry's cabin reappear alongside the road. “Is that your personal guard bison?” he asked.

“That's Jackson. He's a surly bastard. Chased some tourists into an outhouse last year and kept them there until he got bored.” Larry smiled. “I'm partial to Jackson.”

Outside of Silver Gate, Larry got the truck up as high as fifty, at which point the suspension system announced that was the limit. Mark was really beginning to wish they'd taken their chances with the Tahoe.

He wondered where Lynn Deschaine was and whether she knew there'd been a sunrise.

It was midmorning when they arrived at Five Points, and the old resort was quiet. Or at least it was quiet until they arrived. The blue Ford took care of that.

“Couple things we need to be clear on,” Larry said when he killed the engine, leaving a backfire and a cloud of exhaust smoke as final warnings. He'd been quiet for most of the ride, and now his voice was low and contemplative. “You want to move in a hurry, as I understand it.”

“I have to, yes.”

Larry nodded. “Sal Cantu is not going to want to move in a hurry. Such conflicts are sometimes unavoidable.” He sighed and worked a cigarette into his mouth. “He won't be staying in the main lodge. But they'll know him at the bar.”

He was right on both counts. When they walked into the dimly lit bar, with the blue-water pools of the hot springs looking bright on the other side of glass doors, there were only employees inside, and maybe half a dozen people out in the water, young couples drinking brightly colored drinks in plastic cups. The bartender, a young guy, asked what he could do for them, and Larry said they were looking for Sal Cantu, and the bartender's face went from friendly to wary.

“He's not in the lodge, and he won't be again.”

“Had some trouble with him?”

The kid picked up a dry glass and dried it again. “If you know him so well, then you'd know we had trouble with him.”

“Sure. But I was told he'd be here, and I was—”

“Fishing camp. We just rent the cabins, we don't own them, and we don't have the authority to evict. That's up to the individual owners.” He put the glass down and looked from Larry to Mark. “You two probably know the owner I'm talking about.”

Mark surely didn't, but Larry just nodded. “Right. Okay, boss. We'll take two shots of Maker's and then get out of your hair.”

It wasn't noon yet. Mark drank the whiskey with his uncle, though, and it sat sour and burning in his empty stomach as they walked back to the parking lot.

“Who owns that cabin at the fishing camp?” Mark asked.

“No idea, but it wasn't going to help me to say that. If Sal's been booted from the main lodge but they can't keep him out of one of the cabins, it belongs to somebody he supplies something to. Drugs or protection. Maybe both.”

“Protection?”

“Sal's not a small boy. Or a nice one.” Larry turned and gave Mark a hard look. He seemed like a starkly different man from the one who'd opened the door bleary-eyed and in his underwear just a few hours ago. A lot more like the man Mark remembered. The transformation told Mark plenty about how things were likely to go with Sal Cantu.

The fishing camp was on a dirt road that ran through pasture and down to a trout stream where there was a handful of limited-access, privately owned sites with small cabins that were rented out during peak season. Larry pulled the truck off the road, reached in his duffel bag, and got out a revolver with worn bluing, which he stuck in his belt. Then he brought out a length of paracord, put that in his back pocket, and grabbed what looked like a short piece of a belt. Mark knew it at once: a homemade blackjack. Larry had always carried one. He would cut inserts into a thick leather harness strap and load in pieces of lead shot. He referred to it as a slapjack because of the extra flex. He put that in his back pocket and said, “I'm an old man trying a young man's game today, Markus.”

He didn't seem dismayed by that.

They walked up the road and came to the gated drive. The gate was locked and there was barbed-wire fencing on each side. Larry climbed the gate looking very much like the young man he'd said he wasn't, and Mark followed.

They hadn't even reached the cabins before a door to one of them opened and a Hispanic man as thick and solid as an oil drum stood before them.

“Private property,” he said. “No fishing, no access, don't bother asking.”

He was a couple inches shorter than Mark but at least eighty pounds heavier, with an oversize jaw traced by a thin beard. His hair was cut short, and you could see white lines of old scars across his skull. He'd been looking primarily at Mark, but when he let his attention shift to Larry, there was a blink of recognition.

“Shit,” he said, “you really dumb enough to come back around looking for your sister, man? She's where she wants to be. Stay out of it.”

Larry looked to the side. There was silence for a moment. Then he nodded. Cantu had followed his glance and he looked confused when Larry nodded at nothing. Mark wasn't confused—it was the old gesture, the appeal for guidance from a voice that rarely counseled peaceful action. He wasn't surprised when his uncle's right hand flashed out like a cat's paw and he cracked Salvador Cantu in the face with the slapjack.

He hit him flush on the cheekbone, and Cantu reeled back and fell into the cabin's front wall but didn't go down. Instead he pushed off it with a roar of pain and rage and came at Larry with one heavy fist balled up and raised as if to knock Larry's head right off his shoulders. Mark caught his wrist before he could come out of the clumsy windup, wrenched his arm down, and slammed him back into the wall. Cantu threw a left hand that was more of an awkward slap than a punch but one that still landed on the side of Mark's head, and his strength made even the clumsy punch a heavy one. Mark took a step back, just enough to clear space, and then brought his right fist up under Cantu's jaw so hard that the man's teeth cracked together. Cantu reached for him as he fell, trying to tackle him, but Mark slipped the grasp and Cantu fell to his knees, his big torso swaying. Mark drew his gun and put the muzzle of the .38 to the top of his head. Sal Cantu's breath came in hot gasps, and he looked at Mark with hate, a red mouse already swelling high on his cheekbone. Behind them, Larry chuckled.

“How 'bout that,” he said. “You got some of your uncle Ronny in you after all, boy.”

Then he hit Cantu again with the slapjack, two rapid smacks, one above each knee, in the thick muscles of the quads, and Cantu grunted with pain and fell flat on the porch, writhing on his belly. Mark glanced at Larry, who was circling Cantu like a wolf around fallen prey. Mark wanted to tell his uncle that it was good enough, that they didn't need to push it any further; Cantu was down and they had the guns and there was no need to hit him again. Mark hadn't been the one tied to a trailer hitch and whipped, though. Larry would decide when it was done.

Larry took off his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his long white hair. When he put the cap back on he spent a little extra time bending the grimy bill, and Mark could see that the busy hands were designed to keep his emotions in check, bleed out a little of the tension that filled him.

“I need you to be able to talk, so be grateful for that,” Larry said. He kicked Cantu in the ass, hard. “Where's Pate?”

Sal Cantu looked like a trout left on the rocks, bug-eyed and fighting for breath, mouth open wide, a string of spit between his lips. Despite the pain he had to be feeling, though, there was a smile in his eyes, and the smile had risen at Pate's name.

“Speak,” Larry said.

Cantu lifted his head. It took some effort. “You actually think your sister matters, Larry?” he said. “You really think her tired old cooze means a damn thing?”

When Mark hit him, he did it so fast and so hard that even Larry said, “Shit!” Mark backhanded Cantu across the face with his .38, driving his head sideways, and then caught him again for a forehand, using the pistol like a tennis racket, two fluid swings that left Sal Cantu howling into his hands, curled up and bleeding on the porch. Mark saw Larry shift from side to side, but his uncle didn't say anything, just watched. Mark didn't look him in the eye.

“You've got a dangerous impression of things,” Mark told Cantu, who was writhing in pain, blood running between his fingers. “You think you know why we came here, and what we want, and what we left behind. You don't know any of those things.”

Cantu still had his hands up to his face, his fingertips looking as if they'd been dipped in red ink, but over them, his dark eyes were focused. He was listening.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” Mark said, kneeling down, “so you don't have to suffer the pain of your misconceptions any longer. I'm Markus Novak, and I'm not here because of anything that happened with my uncle or my mother or any of the people you consider relevant in this situation. That's important for you to understand. I'm here for something very different, all right? And I don't have time to waste.”

Cantu breathed through his mouth and stared at Mark and didn't speak. Mark looked at him for a moment and said, “You're going to test my seriousness here, aren't you?” He shook his head. “That's a poor play.”

Mark stood up and holstered the gun and extended his hand to his uncle without looking at him. He kept his eyes on Sal Cantu.

“Let me borrow that slapjack.”

Larry didn't hesitate. The weighted leather socked into Mark's palm. He grasped it, stepped back, and took a couple of short practice swings, testing the feel. It was perfect; heavy enough but balanced and flexible. A craftsman's answer to brass knuckles. Mark ran his thumb along the worn leather and advanced toward the bleeding man on the porch floor.

Sal Cantu watched him come and said, “I'll tell you where to go, but you'll get more than what you're ready for. With Pate, you'd better believe that.”

“Sure. Where is he?”

“There's a warehouse in Byron, maybe a mile out of town north on Route 5, toward the oil field. A big prefab deal with an eight-foot fence around it. Looks empty.” He was speaking to Larry now.

“But it's not empty,” Larry said. “He's there? Pate himself?”

“He's there.”

“It's a long drive if he isn't.”

“Guess you'll have to trust me.”

“Guess so,” Larry said, and then he reached behind him and withdrew the length of paracord he'd stuck in his pocket. He tossed it to Mark. “Hands and feet.”

Mark caught the cord, tossed the slapjack back to his uncle, and knelt to tie Cantu's hands.

“Hey,” Sal said. “The fuck you think you're going to do? I just told you—”

“When we find Pate, someone will find you,” Larry said. “Until we do, you'll join the missing. Consider that, and consider if you want to give different directions.”