Wish You Were Here (20 page)

‘Well, bloody good luck to them,' Wesley sighed. ‘I'm glad somebody gets something out of this ghastly business. What were you saying about Phase One?'

The girl lay back on a flat rock, her arms behind her head, her hair trailing down and just brushing the meniscus of the water without disturbing it. ‘The first part of the procedure,' she replied, gazing at the sky. ‘The easy bit.'

‘The easy . . .'

‘You bet. The first three experiences are really only to get you in the mood, accustom you to the environment, give you an idea of the sort of thing that goes on here. The actual character-forming, problem-solving part comes later; that's when we start addressing your deep-seated personal shortcomings and inadequacies. In your case . . .'

Wesley stood up. ‘Hang on,' he said. ‘I thought this was where all my dreams come true. All that stuff about deeply seated—'

‘Dreams,' the girl reiterated firmly. ‘Admittedly, some of the dreams that are about to come true tend to be the ones you get after a late-night cheese salad, but what the hell, a dream's a dream.'

Wesley frowned. ‘Usually I dream of playing the violin naked in front of packed concert halls. Or running away down corridors chased by big dogs and women with knives. There's also this really weird one where—'

‘All that sort of dream,' the girl said calmly, ‘comes out of your deep-seated personal shortcomings and inadequacies. ' She propped herself up on one elbow, swept a curtain of hair away from her dark, cool eyes and added, ‘You're not going to tell me you haven't got any? Personal shortcomings and inadequacies, I mean. Because if you are . . .'

‘Look.' Wesley turned round twice and kicked a pebble savagely. ‘Of course I have. Heaps of them. But I don't see how being attacked by goblins and watching Vikings drown is going to help me grow as a person. I thought it was more about sitting round in a circle in a school hall every Tuesday night talking about it with a lot of other - I mean, in the company of other people in the same position.'

‘That's encounter groups,' the girl replied. ‘Quite different. Not that I'm saying they don't work, up to a point. As I understand it, everybody goes away from them with the firm belief that they may be sad and pathetic, but at least there's twenty-nine other people in the same town who're even sadder and more pathetic than they are.Very useful stepping-stone on the path to self-reconstruction.' She smiled and slid off the rock. ‘But this way's more fun.'

‘Is it? I was the one the goblins wanted to eat, remember. '

‘I said more fun. I didn't say who for. You ready?'

Wesley took a couple of steps backwards. ‘What for?' he demanded.

The girl grinned; you might say ‘playfully', if you'd ever seen a cat playing with a dying bird. ‘Let's put it this way,' she said. ‘Nobody's going to expect you to play the violin.'

Wesley was just about to demand an explanation, coupled with a few explicit assurances about not having to take his clothes off, when the air was suddenly full of wingbeats, and a savage gust of air pushed him off his feet into the mud, face down.When he'd prised himself out of the mud and cleared a couple of gaps in the face-pack to see through, he saw a huge black, white-headed eagle, easily fifteen feet from wingtip to wingtip, lifting itself up into the air. Clasped in its talons, and struggling wildly, was the girl.

‘Help!' she screamed. ‘Don't just stand there,
do
something! This is not a drill!'

‘Huh?'

‘
Heelp!
' The girl's voice seemed to be ripped away from her by the slipstream from the eagle's wings. As he stared, he saw that its round cruel eye was fixed on him. There's an eloquence in eagles' eyes that beats verbal communication into a cocked hat.

‘Hey!' Wesley shouted. ‘What's happening?'

But the eagle and the girl were already small, receding dots against the sky. Wesley ran down to the water's edge, and stopped. There was nothing he could do anyway, except watch and see where it went.

First it climbed, soaring on the thermals that rose from the lake until it was nothing but a speck, a memory of its own outline. Then, just as Wesley was convincing himself that he'd lost sight of it and it was long gone, it started to descend, sweeping long, slow circles over the middle of the lake. Now it was directly between Wesley and the sun, but he kept track of it (rather cleverly, he couldn't help feeling) by watching its reflection in the water. Finally it spread its enormous wings and sailed lazily across the lake and up into the high mountain that stood at the lake's southernmost end. It climbed, put its wings back and glided in, pitching somewhere high among the rocks.

‘Christ!' Wesley said, and sat down again. Except at job interviews, in exams and on his first and only date with Stephanie Northrop from Vouchers, he'd never felt so helpless or so bewildered in all his life.

Just then, someone shot him in the back.

‘Hey,' said a voice behind him. ‘You felt that!'

Slowly, Wesley turned round. ‘Who the hell are you?' he asked.

‘My name's Talks With Squirrels,' the Indian warrior replied. ‘If you don't mind my asking, what exactly did you feel?'

‘Like somebody just poked me in the back with a stick,' Wesley answered. ‘Why?'

‘Not agonising pain or your whole life flashing in front of your eyes?'

‘Not really, no. Look, who are you?'

‘And you can see me all right? I mean, I'm not blurry at the edges or anything? You can't look straight through me at the trees behind?'

‘No. What was it you did just then?'

‘Shot you,' the Indian replied, indicating the bow in his left hand. ‘Right between the shoulder blades. Only this time, you noticed.'

‘
This time?
'

The Indian nodded. ‘I've been shooting you ever since you got off the bus,' he said casually. ‘Direct hit every time. By rights, if you were to drink a glass of water, you'd make somebody a first-class watering can.'

‘Hey!' Wesley wasn't quite sure how to react. On the one hand, he had this overwhelming urge to be very frightened indeed. On the other hand, by his own admission this lunatic had been using him as a dartboard for some time now, and he was apparently none the worse for it, so what was there to be frightened of? ‘Who
are
you?' he repeated.

Talks To Squirrels propped his bow against a tree and advanced, hand outstretched. ‘I'm a war leader of the now extinct Shashkehanna nation,' he said, not without a certain audible pride. ‘Prior to my death in 1703, I was the most feared and respected warrior this side of the Mississippi. Actually, since I died my average with the bow's gone up from 96.28 to 98.3, while with the tomahawk, at fifty yards . . .'

Instinctively, Wesley grasped the proffered hand. His fingers closed upon themselves, enfolding nothing.

‘You're dead,' he said.

‘In a sense,' the Indian replied. ‘Look, it's a bit hard to explain really. Try this. You've heard of negative equity?'

Wesley nodded. He had friends who talked about little else.

‘It's when you want to sell the house but you can't, because it's worth less than what's still outstanding on the mortgage, right?' The Indian shrugged. ‘Well, that's basically how it is with me and Life.'

‘I don't understand,' Wesley said.

‘You don't?' The Indian sighed. ‘It's not that difficult, for pity's sake. Look. In life, I made certain undertakings, right? I swore this really heavy oath by sun, moon and stars that I'd never rest till I'd killed every paleface between here and the Cedar River.'The Indian shrugged. ‘I underperformed, I admit it. Due, in no small part, to misleading information and a serious underestimate of the number of palefaces I was up against. You see, my sources led me to believe there were only thirty-four of them.'

‘Ah.'

The Indian nodded. ‘But I made the undertaking, nevertheless, and now I'm a bit like a kiddie who's getting his plate of cold shepherd's pie put in front of him every meal till he eats it all up. And since there's even more palefaces around now than there were back in the early seventeen-hundreds, I guess I'm fairly comprehensively stuck. Like I said; negative equity.'

‘Gosh.'

Talks To Squirrels shrugged, sat down on the rock and lit a pipe. ‘I'm allowed to smoke, it's one of the advantages of being dead,' he explained. ‘I'm intrigued, though.You see, there's no way you should be able to see me, let alone feel my arrows. Seems to imply that - nah, can't be that. Forget I spoke.'

‘Seems to imply what?'

The Indian waved his hand dismissively. ‘Please,' he said, ‘don't ask. Too silly for words. Don't want you thinking Death's addled my brains.'

‘Seems to imply what?'

‘Well,' the Indian said, ‘if you insist, and you promise not to laugh, it might be that you're becoming more real on this side than you ever were back where you came from.' He frowned, and blew a smoke ring. ‘But that's just plain dumb, because for that to work, you can hardly have existed at all back where you belong. Now, how could that be?'

Wesley rubbed his chin. To his surprise, he felt a slight texture of bristles; curious, since usually a shave lasted him three days. ‘Actually,' he said, ‘it's not quite as daft as it sounds.You might say I didn't really exist all that much, back home in Brierley Hill. Then again, in Brierley Hill, who does?'

The Indian looked at him. ‘Now you're the one talking gibberish,' he said. ‘I guess it means you're more than usually perceptive. Psychic or something. Tell me, when you hold them do teaspoons curl and try and climb up your wrist?'

‘No.'

‘No? Oh well. Anyway, it was good talking to you. Have a nice day, now.'

‘Just a minute.'Wesley leaned forward. ‘I don't know if you can help me, but . . .'

The Indian raised an eyebrow. ‘Look,' he said, standing up, ‘no offence, but if you want me to try and make contact for you with someone who's Passed Beyond, then forget it. I may be dead, but all that ouija-board stuff gives me the creeps.'

‘Listen,' Wesley said sharply. The Indian sat down again. ‘It's nothing like that. A moment ago, I was standing here talking to a girl . . .'

‘Nor,' said the Indian quickly, ‘am I in a position to help you review your personal relationships. Being dead, you lose touch.'

‘And an eagle abducted her,' Wesley continued severely. ‘Just picked her up and carried her off to that mountain over there. The pointy one. I think I'm supposed to rescue her or something.'

‘You are? Good Lord, how old-fashioned. I thought men these days weren't supposed to do that sort of thing any more. I thought it was all doing your fair share of the housework and not being afraid to cry.'

‘Look . . .'

‘You're sure she was being abducted? Maybe she just wanted her own space for a while, you know, to find herself or something.'

‘Shut up,' Wesley said. ‘Come to think of it, I'd probably be better off trying to handle this myself. Sorry to have troubled you.'

‘Don't be like that,' the Indian replied. ‘Just trying to be on your wavelength, that's all. Rescuing abducted maidens is bread and butter to me. It's all part of what being a warrior's all about. That's why they call us Braves.'

‘Yes?'

‘To our faces, anyhow.' The Indian leaned forward. ‘That mountain over there?'

‘Yup. The tall one with five trees near the top.'

The Indian nodded. ‘Lots of eyries up there,' he confirmed. ‘I can show you the secret path known only to the now extinct Shashkehanna nation, though actually it's quicker to follow the forestry trail. They've put in little finger-posts so you don't get lost.'

‘Whatever,' Wesley replied. ‘Can we start now, please, because—?'

‘And when it comes to sorting out large, aggressive birds of prey.' The Indian smirked. ‘Well, I was about to say “I'm your man,” but “I
was
your man, once” would be rather more accurate. Still, with my skill and experience and your strength and courage—'

‘We're stuffed,' Wesley said, sinking his chin in his hands. ‘Marvellous, isn't it? Unless I rescue that bloody woman, I'm liable to be stuck here indefinitely. And what have I got to work with? Me, and a dead Indian.'

‘The best kind, according to General Custer,' replied Talks To Squirrels cheerfully. ‘And he should know, damnit. Hey, kid, what are we waiting for? Let's go show those eagles what we're made of.'

Wesley frowned. ‘Oh yes, that reminds me. What
are
you made of?'

‘Ectoplasm,' the Indian replied promptly. ‘Marvellous stuff, except it's dry clean only. Come
on
, will you? I thought you were the guy who daydreams of adventure and glorious deeds.'

‘Yeah,'Wesley answered wretchedly, ‘that's me, isn't it? Hey, you. If I get killed in this ghastly place, will I have to hang around here for ever being a ghost, like you?'

‘I'm not sure, but it's a very real possibility.'

‘In that case,' said Wesley firmly, ‘you go first.'

 

‘Go
away
,' said Janice, irritably. ‘And you, the whole lot of you. Go on, shoo!'

The goblins didn't move. Instead, they just crouched where they were, simpering at her. Bashfully, one of them reached out and offered her a flower.

‘Get outa here!' Janice yelled, stamping her foot. ‘Jesus, don't you freaks understand English?'