Swan Song (76 page)

“I’ve got an axe!” another man said. “It ain’t too sharp, but it’ll get the job done!”

Other people stood up, volunteering. “We can tear down some of the empty shacks and use that wood, too!” a Hispanic man with a pale violet keloid on his face suggested.

“Okay, we’ll have to round up all the saws and axes we can find,” Bud Royce told Sister. “Jesus, I guess I always was half nuts! I might as well go the whole shell! We’ll have to assign the work details and thrash out the schedules, and we’d better get started right now.”

“Right,” Sister said. “And everybody who doesn’t want to help should leave and stay out of the way, starting this minute.”

About fifteen people left-but their places were instantly filled by others from outside.

As the crowd settled down again Sister glanced at Swan and saw the determination in her face. She knew that Swan had, indeed, made her decision-and she knew also that Swan was not going to be persuaded to flee Mary’s Rest and leave everyone else there to face the soldiers.

So, Sister thought, we take it one step at a time. One step and then the next gets you where you’re going.

“We know what we have to do,” she told the crowd. “Let’s get to work and save our town.”

Eighty - [A Five-Star General]

The hurting sound echoed through the freezing air, and Swan flinched. She pulled back on the rope bridle, checking Mule to a walk, and steam burst from Mule’s nostrils as if he, too, had heard and been disturbed by the noise. More hurting sounds came to her, like the quick, high whine of notes played on a steel guitar, but Swan knew she had to endure them.

They were the sounds of living trees being chopped down, to be added to the four-foot-high wall of logs, brush and dirt that encircled Mary’s Rest and the crop field.

Over the hurting sounds, Swan heard the steady chipping of axes at work. She said, “Go on, Mule,” and she guided the horse along the wall, where dozens of people were piling up more brush and timbers. All of them looked up and paused for a second as she passed, then returned to work with renewed urgency.

Bud Royce had told her, Sister and Josh that the wall needed to be at least six feet tall before the water was poured onto it-but time was getting short. It had taken over twenty hours of nonstop, backbreaking labor to get the wall to its present height and circumference. Out on the rapidly receding edge of the forest, work crews headed by Anna McClay, Royce and other volunteers were busy digging a network of trenches, then hiding them under a latticework of sticks, straw and snow.

Ahead of her was a group of people packing stones and dirt into chinks in the wall, their breath wisping up into the air. Among them was Sister, her hands and clothes grimy, her face reddened by the cold. A length of sturdy twine was draped around her neck and looped to the handle of the leather satchel. Nearby, Robin was unloading another wheelbarrow full of dirt. Swan knew he’d wanted to go with Paul, Bucky and three other young highwaymen when they’d headed north the day before in a gray Subaru, but Sister had told him they needed his muscle on the wall.

Swan reined Mule in and got off. Sister saw her and scowled. “What’re you doing out here? I thought I told you to stay in the shack.”

“You did.” Swan scooped up a double handful of dirt and jammed it into a chink. “I’m not going to stay there while everybody else works.”

Sister lifted her hands to show Swan. They were crisscrossed by bleeding gashes, made by small, sharp-edged stones. “You’ve got to save your hands for better things. Go on, now!”

“Your hands will heal. So will mine.” Swan packed more dirt and rocks into a hole between two logs. About twenty yards away, a number of men were wrestling more logs and brush into position as the wall grew higher.

Robin looked up at the low, ugly sky. “It’ll be dark in another hour. If they’re anywhere near, we might be able to see their fires.”

“Paul’ll let us know if they’re getting close.” She hoped. She knew that Paul had volunteered for a very dangerous job; if the soldiers caught him and the boys, they were as good as dead. She glanced at Swan, her fear for Paul nagging at her. “Go on, Swan! There’s no need for you to be out here tearing your hands up!”

“I’m not different, damn it!” Swan suddenly shouted, straightening up from her work. Her eyes flashed with anger, and crimson burst in her cheeks. “I’m a person, not… not some piece of glass on a damned shelf! I can work as hard as anybody, and you don’t need to make it easy on me!”

Sister was amazed at Swan’s outburst and aware that the others were watching as well.

“I’m sorry,” Swan said, calming down, “but you don’t have to shut me away and protect me. I can take care of myself.” She looked around at the others, at Robin, and then her gaze returned to Sister. “I know why that army’s coming here, and I know who’s bringing them. It’s me they want. It’s because of me the whole town’s in danger.” Her voice cracked, and her eyes teared up. “I want to run. I want to get away, but I know that if I do, the soldiers will still come. They’ll still take all the crops, and they won’t leave anybody alive. So there’s no need to run-but if everybody here dies, it’s because of me. Me. So please let me do what I can.”

Sister knew Swan was right. She, Josh and the others had been treating Swan like a fragile piece of porcelain, or like… yes, she thought, like one of those sculptures back in the Steuben Glass shop on Fifth Avenue. All of them had focused on Swan’s gift of stirring life from dead earth, and they’d forgotten that she was just a girl. Still, Sister feared for Swan’s hands, because those were the instruments that might yet make life bloom from the wasteland-but Swan was strong-minded and tough far beyond her years, and she was ready to work.

“I wish you’d find a pair of gloves, but I guess those are hard to come by.” Sister’s own pair had already worn out. “Well,” she said, “let’s get to work, then. Time’s wasting.” She returned to her task.

A pair of tattered woolen gloves was held up before Swan’s face.

“Take them,” Robin urged. His own hands were now bare. “I can always steal some more.”

Swan looked into his eyes. Behind his tough mask there was a spark of gentle kindness, as if the sun had suddenly glinted through the snow clouds. She motioned toward Sister. “Give them to her.”

He nodded. His heart was racing, and he thought that if he did something stupid this time he would crawl in a hole and just cover himself over. Oh, she was so beautiful! Don’t do something stupid! he warned himself. Be cool, man! Just be cool!

His mouth opened.

“I love you,” he said.

Sister’s eyes widened. She straightened up from her work and turned toward Robin and Swan.

Swan was speechless. Robin wore a horrified grin, as if he realized his vocal cords had worked with a will of their own. But now those words were out in the air, and everybody had heard.

“What… did you say?” Swan asked.

His face looked like he’d been weaned on ketchup. “Uh… I’ve got to get some more dirt,” he mumbled. “Out in the field. That’s where I get the dirt. You know?” He backed toward the wheelbarrow and almost fell into it. Then he wheeled it rapidly away.

Both Sister and Swan watched him go. Sister grunted. “That boy’s crazy!”

“Oh,” Swan said softly, “I hope not.”

And Sister looked at her and knew. “I imagine he might need some help with the dirt,” Sister suggested. “I mean, somebody really ought to help him. It’d be faster if two people worked together, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” Swan caught herself and shrugged. “I guess so. Maybe.”

“Right. Well, you’d better go on, then. We can take care of the work here.”

Swan hesitated. She watched him walking toward the field and realized she knew very little about him. She probably wouldn’t care for him at all if she got to know him. No, not at all!

And she was still thinking that when she took Mule’s reins and started walking after Robin.

“One step at a time,” Sister said quietly, but Swan was already on her way.

Josh had been hauling logs for eight hours straight, and his legs were about to give out as he staggered to the spring for a dipper of water. Many of the children, including Aaron, had the responsibility of carrying buckets of water and dippers around to the work crews.

Josh drank his fill and returned the dipper to its hook on the large barrel of water that stood next to the spring. He was weary, his sprained shoulder was killing him, and he could hardly see anything through the slit of his Job’s Mask; his head felt so heavy it took tremendous effort just to keep it from lolling. He’d forced himself to haul wood over the objections of Sister, Swan and Glory. Now, though, all he wanted to do was lie down and rest. Maybe an hour or so, and then he’d feel good enough to get back to work-because there was still so much to be done, and time was running out.

He’d tried to talk Glory into taking Aaron and leaving, maybe hiding in the woods until it was over, but she was determined to stay with him. And Swan, too, had made up her mind. There was no use trying to change it. But the soldiers were going to come, and they wanted Swan, and Josh knew that this time he was powerless to protect her.

Underneath the Job’s Mask, pain tore through his face like an electric shock. He felt weak, close to passing out. Just an hour’s rest, he told himself. That’s all. One hour, and then I can get back to work, broken fingers and busted ribs or not. Good thing that face-changing bastard gave up! I would’ve killed him!

He started walking toward Glory’s shack, his legs like dragging lengths of lead. Man! he mused. If those fans could see old Black Frankenstein now, they’d really hoot and holler!

He unbuttoned his coat and loosened his sweat-damp shirt collar. The air must be getting warmer, he thought. Sweat was running down his sides, and the shirt was stuck to his chest and back. Lord! I’m burning up!

He stumbled and almost fell going up the steps, but then he was inside the shack and peeled his coat off, letting it slip to the floor. “Glory!” he called out weakly, before he remembered that Glory was out digging trenches with one of the work crews. “Glory,” he whispered, thinking about how her amber eyes had lit up and her face had shone like a lamp in the dark when he’d given her the spangle-covered dress. She’d hugged it to herself, had run her fingers all over it, and when she’d looked at him again he’d seen a tear stealing down her cheek.

In that instant he’d wanted to kiss her. Had wanted to press his lips against hers and nuzzle her cheek with his own-but he couldn’t, not with this damned shit all over his face. But he’d peered at her through the narrowing slit of his one good eye, and it had come to him that he had forgotten what Rose looked like. The faces of the boys, of course, remained in his mind as clearly as snapshots-but Rose’s face was fading away.

He’d given Glory the dress because he’d wanted to see her smile-and when she had smiled, it was like a glimpse of another, better world.

Josh lost his balance and stumbled against the table. Something fluttered to the floor, and he bent over to pick it up.

But suddenly his entire body seemed to give way like a house of cards, and he fell forward onto the floor. The entire shack trembled with the crash.

Burning up, he thought. Oh, God… I’m burning up…

He had something between his fingers. The thing that had fluttered down off the table. He held it closer to his eye and made out what it was.

The tarot card, with the young woman seated against a landscape of flowers, wheat and a waterfall. The lion and the lamb lay at her feet, and in one hand she grasped a shield with a phoenix on it, rising in flame from the ashes. On her head was what looked like a glass crown, shining with light.

“The… Em… press,” Josh read.

He stared at the flower, looked at the glass crown and then at the young woman’s face. Looked closely and carefully as fever seemed to surge through his head and body like the opening of volcanic floodgates.

Have to tell Sister, he thought. Have to tell Sister… that the glass ring in her bag… is a crown. Have to show her this card… because Swan and the Empress… have the same face…

And then the fever seared all thoughts from his mind, and he lay motionless, with the tarot card clenched in his hand.

Eighty-One - [A Five-Star

General]

On the fourth night, fire burned in the sky.

Robin saw it as he filled buckets and barrels full of water to be loaded onto wagons and carried out to the wall. Every possible container, from plastic pails to washtubs, was being utilized, and the workers around the spring had no sooner filled one wagon or truck than another pulled up to accept a load.

Robin knew that the light glowing off the bellies of low clouds to the north was coming from the torches and bonfires of the army’s camp, maybe fifteen miles away. They would reach Mary’s Rest the next day, and the glaze of ice that now covered the completed seven-foot-high wall had to be thickened in these last hours with an all-out effort. His shoulders ached, and every pail, bucket and pot that he dipped in the spring felt as if it weighed fifty pounds, but he thought of Swan and he kept working. She’d caught up with him that day and walked at his side, and she helped him with the dirt just like any ordinary person. Their hands had been cut and callused just the same, and as they’d worked Robin had told her all about himself, about the orphanage and his years with the highwaymen. Swan had listened to him without judgment, and when he was finished with his story she’d told him her own.

He didn’t mind the pain in his body, had pushed aside the weariness like an old blanket. All he had to do was think of Swan’s face, and he was recharged with new strength. She had to be protected, like a beautiful flower, and he knew he would die for her, if that was how it had to be.

He saw the same strength in the other faces, too, and realized that everyone was pushing far beyond their limits. Because they all knew, as he did, that tomorrow was the hinge of the future.

Glory stood on her porch, staring toward the north, and put her hand on Aaron’s shoulder.

“I’m gonna give ’em a knock!” Aaron vowed, swinging Crybaby like a bludgeon.

“You’re gonna stay in the house tomorrow,” she told him. “Do you understand me?”

“I wanna be a soldier!” he protested.

She gripped his shoulder hard and spun him around. “No!” she said, her amber eyes furious. “You want to learn how to kill, and take what belongs to other folks? You want to make your heart like a stone, so you can stomp people down and think it’s right? Boy, if I thought you were gonna grow up that way, I’d bust your head open right this minute! So don’t you ever, ever say you want to be a soldier! You hear me?”

Aaron’s lower lip trembled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “But… if there ain’t any good soldiers, how do you keep the bad soldiers from winnin’?”

She couldn’t answer him. His eyes searched hers. Was it always going to be true, she wondered, that soldiers marched the land under different flags and leaders? Was there never really any end to war, no matter who won? And there her own son stood before her, asking the question.

“I’ll think about it,” she said, and that was the best she could do.

She looked out along the road to where the church had been. It was gone now, the wood used to fortify the wall. All the guns, axes, shovels, picks, hoes, knives-anything and everything that could be used as weapons-had been counted and distributed. There wasn’t much ammunition to go around. The Junkman had even offered to make “supersonic slingshots” if enough rubber bands could be found.

Paul Thorson and the boys had not returned, and Glory doubted they ever would.

She went inside, back to the room where Josh lay on the bed in a feverish coma. She looked down at the gnarled Job’s Mask and knew that beneath it was Josh’s true face.

In his hand was a tarot card. His fingers gripped The Empress so tightly that none of them, not even Anna, had been able to pry his hand open. She sat down beside him and waited.

At the northern rim of the wall, one of the lookouts who perched atop a jerry-built ladder suddenly shouted, “Somebody’s comin’!”

Sister and Swan, working together to pour water over their section of the wall, heard the cry. They hurried over to the lookout’s station.

“How many?” Sister asked. They weren’t ready yet! It was too soon!

“Two. No. Wait. Three, I think.” The lookout cocked his rifle, trying to see through the dark. “Two on foot. I think one of them’s carrying the third. It’s a man and two kids!”

“Oh, God!” Sister’s heart leapt. “Bring a ladder!” she called to the next lookout along the wall. “Hurry!”

The second ladder was lowered over the other side. First up was Bucky, his face streaked with dried blood. Sister helped him down, and he put his arms around her neck and clung tightly.

Paul Thorson came over, a three-inch-long gash in the side of his head, his eyes circled with gray shock. He was carrying over his shoulder one of the boys who’d helped Sister and himself make the trip to Mary’s Rest. The boy’s right arm was covered with dried blood, and bullet holes had marched across his back.

“Get him to the doctor’s house!” Sister told another woman, giving Bucky over to her. The small boy made a soft whimpering sound, nothing more.

Paul set his feet on the ground. His knees gave out, but Sister and Swan caught him before he fell. Mr. Polowsky and Anna were running toward them, followed by several others.

“Take him,” Paul rasped. His beard and hair were full of snow, his face lined and weary. Polowsky and the lookout eased the boy off Paul’s shoulder, and Sister could tell the boy was frozen almost stiff. “He’ll be okay!” Paul said. “I told him I’d get him back!” He touched the cold blue face. “Told you, didn’t I?”

They took him away, and Paul shouted after them, “You be careful with him! Let him sleep if he wants to!”

One of the other men uncapped a flask of hot coffee and gave it to Paul. He started drinking it so frantically that Sister had to restrain him, and he winced with pain as the hot liquid spread warmth through his bones.

“What happened?” Sister asked. “Where’re the others?”

“Dead.” Paul shivered, drank more coffee. “All dead. Oh, Jesus, I’m freezing!”

Someone brought a blanket, and Swan helped wrap him up. They led him to a nearby bonfire, and he stood for a long while getting the blood circulating in his hands again.

Then he told them the story: They’d found the army’s camp on the second day out, about sixty miles north of Mary’s Rest. The boys were born stalkers, he said; they’d been able to creep into camp and take a look around, and while they were there they’d punctured a few of the trucks’ tires. But there were a lot of cars and trucks, Paul said, and most of them were covered with metal plate and had gun turrets. There were soldiers all over the place, carrying machine guns, pistols and rifles. The boys had gotten out all right, and they and Paul had kept in front of the army as it advanced the next day.

But tonight something had gone wrong. There were flares and gunshots, and only Bucky and the other boy had gotten back.

“We were trying to get away in the car,” Paul said, his teeth still chattering. “We’d made it to about seven or eight miles from here. All of a sudden the woods were full of them. Maybe they’d been tracking us all day, I don’t know. A machine gun went off. Bullets hit the engine. I tried to get off the road, but the car was finished. We ran. I don’t know how long they kept after us.” He stared into the fire, his mouth working for a moment but making no sounds. “They kept after us,” he said finally. “I don’t know who they are, but they know their business.” He blinked heavily and looked at Sister. “They’ve got a lot of guns. Flares, maybe grenades, too. A lot of guns. You tell ’em to be easy with that kid. He’s tired. I told him I’d get him back.”

“You did get him back,” Sister said gently. “Now I want you to go to Hugh’s house and rest.” She motioned Anna over to help him. “We’re going to need you tomorrow.”

“They didn’t take it,” Paul said. “I wouldn’t let them kill me and get it.”

“Get what?”

He smiled wanly and touched the Magnum lodged in his belt. “My old buddy.”

“Go on, now. Better get some rest, okay?”

He nodded and allowed Anna to help him stagger away.

Sister suddenly lunged up the ladder, and her face filled with blood as she shouted toward the north, “Come on, you fucking killers! Come on! We see what you do to children! Come on, you sonofabitching cowards!” Her voice cracked and gave out, and then she just stood at the top of the ladder with steam bellowing from her mouth and nostrils and her body shaking like a lightning rod in a tempest.

The freezing wind blew into her face, and she thought she smelled bitter ashes.

There was no use standing up here and raving like a… like a New York City bag lady, she told herself. No; there was still a lot of work to be done, because the soldiers were going to be there very soon.

She descended the ladder, and Swan touched her arm. “I’m all right,” Sister said hoarsely, and both of them knew Death was on its way, grinning like a skull and slashing down everything in its path.

They returned to their places in the wall and went back to work.