Swan Song

Swan Song Page 21

"Hear my prayer, oh Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not Thy peace at my tears! For I am thy passin' guest, a sojourner, like all my fathers. Look away from me, that I may know gladness, before I depart and be no more." Glory hesitated for a few seconds, her head bowed, and then she closed the Bible. "That was the 39th Psalm," she told Josh. "Jackson used to like for me to read it to him."

Josh nodded, stared down at the coffin a moment longer - then scooped up the first shovelful of earth and dropped it into the grave.

When the grave was filled and the dirt was packed tight, Josh tapped the pine wood marker into the ground. The young wood carver had done a good job on it, and it would last a while.

"Mite cold out here," anna McClay said. "We ought to be getting back."

Josh gave the pickaxe and shovel to John Gallagher and walked over to where Swan lay sleeping in the folds of her coat. He bent down to pick her up, and he felt a chill breeze sweep past him. The walls of mist shifted and swirled.

He heard something rustle in the breeze.

a noise like leaves being disturbed, somewhere off through the mist to his right.

The breeze faltered and died, and the sound was gone. Josh stood up, staring in the direction from which it had come. There's nothing out here, he thought. This is an empty field.

"What is iti" Glory asked, standing beside him.

"Listen," he said softly.

"I don't hear anything."

"Come on!" anna called. "You're gonna freeze your butts solid out here!"

The air moved again, a breath of cold wind slanting from a different angle across the field.

and then both Josh and Glory heard the rustling noise, and Josh looked at her and said, "What's thati"

She couldn't answer.

Josh realized he hadn't seen Mule for a while; the horse could be anywhere out on the field, hidden by the mist. He took a step toward the rustling noise, and as the wind ebbed the sound ebbed as well. But he kept walking, and heard Zachial shout, "Come on, Josh!" He continued on, and Glory followed with aaron right at her side.

The wind turned. The rustling sound was getting nearer. Josh was reminded of a hot summer day when he was a boy, lying on his back in a field of high grass, chewing on a weed and listening to the wind sing like a harp.

The mist was tattering apart like old cloth. Josh vaguely made out Mule's shape through it, about fifteen or twenty feet ahead. He heard the horse whinny - and then Josh abruptly stopped in his tracks, because right in front of him was something wonderful.

It was a row of plants, all about two feet tall, and as the breeze stirred the mist away the long, slender fronds swayed and rustled together.

Josh reached down, gently running his fingers over one of the delicate stalks. The plant was a pale green, but scattered on the fronds were dark red splotches that almost resembled blood stains.

"My Lord," Glory breathed. "Josh... that's new corn growin'!"

and Josh remembered the dried kernel that had been stuck to the blood-caked palm of Swan's hand. He knew what she'd been doing out there in the cold and dark.

The wind picked up strength, shrilled around Josh's head and made the young cornstalks dance. It punched holes through the gray walls of mist, and then the mist began to lift, and in the next moment Josh and Glory could see most of the field around them.

They stood amid several irregular, weaving rows of pale green stalks, all about two feet high and all spotted with what Josh realized could very well have been drops of Swan's blood, absorbed right into the dirt and the dormant roots like fuel into a thirsty engine. The sight of green life in that devastated, snow-swept field almost knocked Josh to his knees; it was like seeing color again after a long blindness. Mule was nibbling tentatively at one of the plants, and a few crows swirled over his head, cawing indignantly. He snapped at them, then chased them between the rows with the exuberance of a colt.

"I don't know what's inside that girl," Josh recalled Sly Moody saying, "but she's got the power of life!"

He shook his head, unable to find words. He reached out to the stalk in front of him and touched a small green nub that he knew was an ear of corn, forming in its protective sheath. There were four or five others just on the one stalk alone.

"Mister," Sly Moody had said, "that Swan could wake the whole land up again!"

Yes, Josh thought, his heart pounding. Yes, she can.

and now he understood at last the commandment that had come from PawPaw's lips back in the dark basement in Kansas.

He heard a holler and whoop, and he looked back to see John Gallagher running toward them. Behind him, Zachial and Gene Scully followed. anna stood, staring with her mouth open, next to the teen-age girl. John fell down on his knees before one of the stalks and touched it with trembling hands. "It's alive!" he said. "The earth's still alive! Oh, God... oh, Jesus, we're going to have food!"

"Josh... how can... this bei" Glory asked him, while aaron grinned and poked at a stalk with Crybaby.

He inhaled the air. It seemed fresher, cleaner, infused with electricity. He looked at Glory, and his deformed mouth smiled. "I want to tell you about Swan," he said, his voice shaking. "I want to tell everybody in Mary's Rest about her. She's got the power of life in her, Glory. She can wake the whole land up again!" and then he was running across the field toward the figure that lay on the ground, and he bent down and lifted her in his arms and squeezed her against him.

"She can!" he shouted. His voice rolled like thunder toward the shacks of Mary's Rest. "She can!"

Swan shifted drowsily. The slit of her mouth opened, and she asked in a soft, irritated voice, "Can whati"  

Sixty-five

The wind had strengthened and was blowing through the forest from the southwest. It carried the aroma of wood-smoke, mingled with a bitter, sulphurous smell that made Sister think of rotten eggs. and then she, Paul, Robin Oakes and the three other highwaymen emerged from the forest onto a wide field covered with ashy snow. ahead of them, lying under a haze of smoke from hundreds of stove pipe chimneys, were the close-clustered shacks and alleys of a settlement.

"That's Mary's Rest," Robin said. He stopped, gazing around at the field. "and I think this is where I saw Swan and the big dude. Yeah. I think it is."

Sister knew it was. They were close now, very close. Her nerves were jangling, and she wanted to run toward those shacks, but her aching, weary legs would not permit it. One step at a time, she thought. One step and then the next gets you where you're going.

They neared a mudhole full of skeletons. The sulphurous odor was coming off it, and they gave it a wide berth as they passed. But Sister didn't even mind that smell; she felt as if she were dreamwalking in real life, exhilarated and strong, her gaze set toward the smoke-shrouded shacks. and then she knew she must be dreaming, because she imagined she heard the skittering music of a fiddle.

"Look there," Paul said, and he pointed.

Off to their left was a gathering of what looked to be thirty or forty people, possibly more. They were dancing in the snow, doing old-fashioned clogging steps and square-dance spins around a bonfire. Sister saw musicians: an old man in a faded red cap and a fleece-lined coat, sawing away at a fiddle; a white-bearded black man seated on a chair, scraping a stone across the ribs of a washboard he held between his knees; a young boy plucking chords on a guitar; and a thick-set woman beating a cardboard box like a bass drum. Their music was rough, but it swelled like a raw-boned symphony across the field, inviting the dancers to clog and spin with greater abandon. Snow kicked from their heels, and Sister heard merry shouts and whoops over the music. It had been a long time since she'd heard music, and she'd never seen a sight like this before: They were having a hoedown in the midst of a wasteland.

But then Sister realized that it was not quite a wasteland, for beyond the bonfire and the dancers were several rows of small, pale green plants. Sister heard Paul say, awestruck, "My God! Something's growing again!"

They walked across the field toward the celebrants and passed what appeared to be a newly-dug grave. There was a pinewood marker with RUSTY WEaTHERS carved into it. Sleep well, she thought - and then they were getting close to the bonfire, and some of the people stopped dancing to watch their approach.

The music faltered and ceased with a last fiddle whine. "How do," a man in a dark green coat said, stepping away from the woman he'd been dancing with. He was wearing a Braves baseball cap, and underneath its brim almost all of his face was scarred by an ugly brown keloid; but he was smiling, and his eyes were bright.

"Hello," Sister replied. The faces here were different from others she'd seen. They were hopeful, joyful faces, in spite of the scars and keloids that marred many, in spite of the protruding cheekbones and sunken eyes that spoke of long hunger, in spite of the pallid skin that had not felt the sun in seven years. She stared at the pale green plants, mesmerized by their motion as they swayed in the wind. Paul walked past her and bent over to reach toward one of them with a trembling hand, as if he feared the delicate wonder might evaporate like smoke.

"She says not to touch 'em," the black man who'd been scraping the washboard said. "She says to let 'em be, and they'll take care of themselves."

Paul drew his hand back. "It's been... a long time since I've seen anything growing," he said. "I thought the earth was dead. What is iti"

"Corn," another man told him. "Stalks just came up almost overnight. I used to be a farmer, and I thought the dirt wasn't fit to plant in, too. Thought the radiation and the cold had about finished it." He shrugged, admiring the green stalks. "I'm glad to be wrong. 'Course, they're not too strong yet, but anything that grows in that dirt - well, it's a miracle."

"She says to let 'em be," the black musician continued. "Says she can seed a whole crop field if we lets these first ones ripen, and we stands guard and keeps them crows away."

"She's sick, though." The husky woman, who had a vivid red keloid on her face, laid aside the cardboard box she'd been beating time to. "She's burnin' up with fever, and there ain't no medicine."

"She," Sister repeated. She heard herself speaking as if in a dream. "Who are you talking abouti"

"The girl," anna McClay said. "Swan's her name. She's in pretty bad shape. Got that stuff on her face even worse than you do, and she's blind to boot."

"Swan," Sister's knees were weak.

"She done this." The black musician motioned toward the young cornstalks. "Planted 'em with her own hands. Everybody knows it. That Josh fella's tellin' the whole town." He looked at Sister, grinned and showed a single gold tooth in the front of his head. "ain't it somethingi" he said proudly.

"Where have you folks come fromi" anna asked.

"a long way off," Sister replied, close to tears. "a long, long way."

"Where's the girl nowi" Paul took a few steps toward anna McClay. His own heart was pounding and the faint, rich odor of the stalks had been sweeter than the smell of any whiskey he'd ever poured into a glass.

anna pointed at Mary's Rest. "That way. In Glory Bowen's shack. It ain't too far."

"Take us there," Paul urged. "Please."

anna hesitated, trying to read their eyes like she used to do with the marks strolling on the carny midway. Both of them were strong and steady, she decided, and furthermore they would take no shit. The gaunt boy with the long hair full of feathers and bones looked to be a real hell-raiser, and the other kids appeared pretty tough, too; all of them probably knew very well how to use the rifles they were carrying. She'd already seen that the man had a gun tucked down in the waistband of his trousers, and the woman most likely was packing iron as well. But both of them had a need in their eyes, too, like the glimmer of a fire that burned deep inside. Josh had told her to be wary of strangers who wanted to see Swan, but she knew it was not for her to deny that need. "Come on, then," she said, and she walked toward the shacks. Behind them, the fiddler warmed his hands at the fire and then began playing again, and the black man scraped merrily at his washboard as the celebrants danced.

They followed anna McClay through the alleys of Mary's Rest. and, as Sister turned a corner about five or six paces behind the other woman, something shot out into her path from the mouth of another alley. She had to draw up sharply to keep from stumbling and falling, and suddenly she had a sensation of numbing cold that seemed to draw the breath from her lungs. She instinctively whipped the shotgun from its holster beneath her coat and stuck it into the leering face of a man who sat in a child's red wagon.

He stared up at her through deep-set eyes, and he lifted one hand toward the satchel that Sister held under her arm. "Welcome," he said.

Sister was aware of a series of clicks, and the man's fathomless eyes moved to look past her. She glanced back and saw that Paul had his Magnum in his hand. Robin was aiming his rifle, and so were the other three boys. They all had a deadly bead on the man in the red wagon.

Sister stared into his eyes; he cocked his head to one side, the grin widening to show a mouthful of broken teeth. Slowly he withdrew his hand and laid it across the stumps of his legs.

"That's Mr. Welcome," anna said. "He's crazy. Just push him to one side."

The man's gaze ticked between Sister's face and the satchel. He nodded. "Welcome," he whispered.

Her finger tightened on the shotgun's trigger. Tendrils of cold seemed to be sliding around her, gripping her, slithering down through her clothes. The shotgun's barrel was about eight inches from the man's head, and Sister was seized with an impulse to blow that hideous, grinning face away. But what would be under iti she wondered. Tissue and bone - or another facei

Because she thought she recognized the cunning glint in those eyes, like a beast patiently waiting for the moment to destroy. She thought she saw something of a monster who'd called himself Doyle Halland in them.

Her finger twitched, ready to fire. Ready to unmask the face.

"Come on," anna said. "He won't bite you. Fella's been hangin' around here a couple of days, and he's crazy, but he ain't dangerous."

The man in the red wagon suddenly drew a lungful of air and released it in a quiet hiss between clenched teeth. He lifted his fist and held it up before Sister's face for a few seconds; then one finger protruded to form the barrel of an imaginary weapon aimed at her head. "Gun goes bang," he said.

anna laughed. "Seei He's a looney!"

Sister hesitated. Shoot him, she thought. Squeeze the trigger - just a little harder. You know who it is. Shoot him!

But... what if I'm wrongi The shotgun's barrel wavered.

and then her chance was gone. The man cackled, muttered something in a singsong rhythm and pushed himself past her with his arms. He entered an alley to the left, and Sister stood watching the demented cripple go. He did not look back.

"Gettin' colder." anna shivered, pulling her collar up. She motioned ahead. "Glory Bowen's shack is this way."

The man in the red wagon turned down another alley and pushed himself out of Sister's sight. She let out the breath she'd been holding, and the white steam floated past her face. Then she returned her shotgun to its sheath and followed the other woman again, but she felt like an exposed nerve.

another bonfire was burning on the main street of Mary's Rest, casting warmth and light over twelve or fifteen people who stood around it. The ugliest, most swaybacked old horse Sister had ever seen was tied to a post on the front porch of one of the shacks; the horse was covered with a number of blankets to keep him warm, and his head was nodding as if he were about to fall asleep. Nearby, a small black boy was trying to balance a crooked stick on the ends of his fingers.

Two men, both armed with rifles, sat on the shack's cinder block front steps, talking and drinking hot coffee from clay mugs. Their attention turned from their quiet talk to anna.

"Folks here say they want to see the girl," anna told one of them, a man in a plaid coat and tan cap. "I think they're all right."

He'd seen their weapons, and now he rested his own rifle across his knees. "Josh said no strangers were allowed in."

Sister stepped forward. "My name's Sister. This is Paul Thorson, Robin Oakes, and I can vouch for the other boys. Now, if you'll tell me your name, we won't be strangers anymore, will wei"

"Gene Scully," he answered. "are you folks from around herei"

"No," Paul said. "Listen, we're not going to hurt Swan. We just want to see her. We want to talk to her."

"She can't talk," Scully said. "She's sick. and I've been told not to let any strangers through that door."

"You need your ears cleaned out, misteri" Robin, smiling with cold menace, stood between Sister and Paul. "We've come a long way. We said we want to see the girl."

Scully rose to his feet, ready to swing the rifle's barrel up at them. Beside him, Zachial Epstein also nervously stood up. The silence stretched. and then Sister gritted her teeth and started to climb the steps, and if the men tried to stop her, she thought, she was going to blast both of them to hell.

"Hey, anna!" aaron called suddenly. "Come look at the magic!"

She glanced over at him. He was still playing with that dumb stick. "Later," she told him. aaron shrugged and started swinging it like an imaginary sword. anna returned to the problem at hand. "Listen, we don't need any more shit around here. and nobody needs to get riled or hurt, either. Gene, why don't you just go on in and ask Josh to come speak to these folksi"

"We want to see Swan." anger reddened Paul's face. "We're not going to be turned back, lady!"

"Who's Joshi" Sister asked.

"Fella who's been travelin' with the girl. Takin' care of her. Her guardian, I guess you'd say. Welli Do you want to state your business to him, or noti"

"Bring him out."

"Go get him, Gene." anna took the rifle from him and immediately turned it on the strangers. "and now you folks can dump all that hardware in a neat pile next to the steps, if you please. You too, kiddies - I ain't your mama! Drop 'em!"

Scully started into the shack, but Sister said, "Wait!" She opened her satchel, attracting the direct interest of the rifle the other woman had, but she took care to move slowly, without threat. She reached past the glass ring into the bottom of the satchel, fished out what she was after and handed it up to anna. "Here. Give this to Josh. It might mean something to him."

anna looked at it, frowned and passed it back to Scully, who took it and went in.

They waited. "Some town you've got here," Robin said. "How much rent do the rats chargei"

anna smiled. "You'll be glad we've got plenty of rats after you taste some cooked up in a stew, smartass."

"We were better off back in the cave," he told Sister. "at least we had fresh air. This place smells like somebody's shit bucket over - "

The door opened, and a monster walked out. Gene Scully followed behind. Robin just stood and stared, his mouth agape, because he'd never seen anybody so ugly before. The big dude was easily the size of three regular men.

"Jesus," Paul whispered, and he couldn't help but be repelled. The man's single eye fixed on him for a few seconds, then moved to Sister.

She didn't budge. Monster or not, she'd decided, nobody was going to stop her from seeing Swan.

"Where did you find thisi" Josh asked, holding up the object Gene Scully had given him.

"In the parking lot of what used to be a K-Mart. It was in a town in Kansas called - "

"Matheson," Josh interrupted. "I know the place, from a long time ago. This belonged to a friend. But... do I know youi"

"No. Paul and I have been traveling for years, searching for someone. and I think the person we've been led toward is in that house. Will you let us see heri"

Josh looked again at what he held in his hand. It was one of Leona Skelton's tarot cards, the colors faded, the edges curled and yellowed. The legend on the card said THE EMPRESS.

"Yes," Josh said. "But just you and the man." and he opened the door to let them enter.  

Sixty-six

"You surei" Glory asked as Josh shut the door. She was stirring a pot of root soup on the stove, and she eyed the two strangers cautiously. "I don't like the looks of 'em."

"Sorry," Paul told her. "I left my tuxedo at the cleaners this morning." The room smelled like sassafras, and the stove was putting out a lot of heat. a couple of lanterns were set in the room, and by their smoky light both Paul and Sister could see what appeared to be blood stains on the floor.

"We had some trouble here last night," Josh explained. "That's why we have to be so careful about strangers wanting to see Swan."

Sister went cold, in spite of the room's comfortable warmth. She was thinking of that grinning cripple in the child's red wagon. If it was him, he could be wearing any face. any face at all. She wished she had that moment back, wished she'd blown the mask right off his skull to see what was hiding behind it.

Josh turned up a lantern's wick and examined the tarot card again. "So you found this in Matheson. Okay. But how did this card lead you herei"

"It wasn't the card that brought us. Tell me: Is there a tree somewhere that's in blossom, with Swan's name burned into the trunki I remember smelling apples. Is it an apple tree in bloomi"

"Yes. But that's back about fifty or sixty miles from here! Did Sly Moody send you after usi"

She shook her head, reaching into the satchel. "This sent us here," she said, and she withdrew the glass circle.

The colors leaped and pulsed. Glory gasped, dropping her spoon as her hand fluttered to her mouth. The walls glittered with lights. Josh stared at it, transfixed by its beauty, and then he laid the Empress card down on the table.

"Who are youi" he asked softly. "Why are you looking for Swan - and where did you find thati"

Sister said, "I think we have a lot to talk about. I want to know everything about you, and everything about Swan. I want to hear everything that's happened to you, and I want to tell you our stories, too. But right now I have to see her. Please."

With an effort, Josh pulled his gaze away from the glass ring and looked into Sister's face. Looked long and deep, saw the tribulations and hardships there; but he also recognized tenacity and a will of iron. He nodded and led Paul and Sister into the next room.

a single lantern backed with a shiny piece of tin hung on the wall, casting a muted golden glow. Swan lay on Glory's iron-framed cot, on the mattress that was stuffed with rags and papers. She was covered with a number of blankets that various people had donated, and her face was turned away from the light.

Josh walked to the bedside, lifted the blankets and gently touched Swan's shoulder. She was still burning up with fever, yet she shivered and held the blankets. "Swani Can you hear mei"

Her breathing was harsh. Sister's hand found Paul's and clenched it. In her other hand, the shades of the glass ring had turned to silver and gold.

"Swani" Josh whispered. "Someone's come to see you."

She heard his voice, summoning her back from a nightmare landscape where a skeleton on a skeletal horse reaped a human field. Pain shot through the nerves and bones of her face. "Joshi" she replied. "Rusty... where's Rustyi"

"I told you. We buried him this morning, out in the field."

"Oh. I remember now." Her voice was weak, drifting toward delirium again. "Tell them... to watch the corn. Keep the crows away. But... tell them not to touch it yet, Josh. Tell them."

"I have. They're doing what you say." He motioned Paul and Sister closer. "Someone's here to see you. They say they've come a long way."

"Who... are theyi"

"a man and a woman. They're here right now. Can you speak to themi"

Swan tried to focus her mind on what he was saying. She could sense someone else in the room, waiting. and there was something more, too; Swan didn't know what it was, but she felt her skin tingling as if in anticipation of a touch. In her mind she was a child again, staring with fascination at the fireflies' lights as they glowed against the window screen.

"Yes," she decided. "Will you help me sit upi"

He did, propping a couple of pillows up to support her. as Josh stepped away from the cot Paul and Sister had their first view of Swan's growth-covered head. Both eyeholes were now sealed up, and there were only small slits over her nostrils and mouth. It was the most horrifying Job's Mask that Sister had ever seen, much worse even than Josh's, and she had to fight off a shudder. Paul flinched, wondering how she could breathe or eat through that hideous crust.

"Who's therei" Swan whispered.

"My name is..." She lost her voice. She was scared to death. Then she drew her shoulders back, pulled in a deep breath and stepped to the side of the cot. "You can call me Sister," she began. "There's a man named Paul Thorson with me. We've - " Sister glanced quickly at Josh, then back to the girl. Swan's head was cocked to one side, listening through a tiny hole at her ear. "We've been looking for you for a long time. Seven years. We missed you in Matheson, Kansas; I believe we probably missed you in a lot of places and never knew it. I found a doll that belonged to you. Do you remember iti"

Swan did remember. "My Cookie Monster. I lost it in Matheson. I used to love that thing when I was a little girl."

Sister had to listen hard to understand everything she was saying. "I wish I could've brought it to you, but it didn't survive the trip."

"That's all right," Swan said. "I'm not a little girl anymore." She suddenly lifted her bandaged right hand and felt in the air for the woman's face. Sister drew away, but then she realized that Swan wanted to know what she looked like. Sister gently grasped her slender wrist and guided the hand over her facial features. Swan's touch was as soft as smoke.

Her fingers stopped when they found the growths. "You've got it, too." Swan's fingers continued across Sister's left cheek, then down to her chin. "Feels like a cobblestone road."

"I guess so. a doctor friend of ours calls it 'Job's Mask.' He thinks what's in the air causes some people's skin to crust over. Damned if I can figure out why it just screws up the face and head, though." She reached out and touched the girl's forehead, then quickly jerked her hand back. Under the Job's Mask, Swan was running a fever that had almost scorched Sister's fingers. "Does it hurti" Sister asked.

"Yes. It didn't used to hurt so much, but now... it's all the time."

"Yeah, mine, too. How old are youi"

"Sixteen. Josh keeps track of my birthday for me. How old are youi"

"I'm - " She couldn't recall. She hadn't kept up with her birthdays. "Let's see, I think I was in my forties on the seventeenth of July. I guess I might be in my fifties now. Early fifties, that is. I feel like I'm gaining on eighty."

"Josh said... you came a long way to see me." Swan's head was heavy, and she was getting very tired again. "Whyi"

"I'm not sure," Sister admitted. "But we've been looking for you for seven years, because of this," and she held the glowing ring with its single remaining spire up before Swan's face.

Swan's skin prickled. She sensed a bright light beating at her sealed-up eyeholes. "What is iti"

"I think... it's a lot of things, all rolled up into a circle of beautiful glass and filled with jewels. I found it on the seventeenth of July, in New York City. I think it's a ring of miracles, Swan. I think it's a gift... like a magic survival kit. Or a life ring. Maybe anybody could've found it, maybe I'm the only one who could have. I don't know. But I do know that it led Paul and me to you. I wish I knew why. all I can say is that... I think you're someone very special, Swan. I saw the corn growing out in that field, where nothing ought to be alive. I looked into this glass ring and I saw a tree in bloom, with your name burned into the wood." She leaned forward, her heart pounding. "I think there's work ahead of you. Very important work, enough to fill up a lifetime. after seeing that corn growing out there... I think I know what it is."

Swan was listening carefully. She didn't feel very special; she just felt weary, and the fever was pulling at her again, trying to drag her back to that awful place where the bloody scythe reaped a human field. and then what Sister had said dawned on her: "a ring of miracles... all rolled up into a circle of beautiful glass and filled with jewels."

She thought of the magic mirror and the figure she'd seen bearing a ring of light. That figure, she knew, had been the woman who now stood at her bedside, and what she'd been carrying had finally arrived.

Swan held out both hands toward the light. "May I... hold iti"

Sister glanced at Josh. He was standing behind Paul, and Glory had come from the other room. Josh didn't know what was going on, and all this ring of miracles talk was beyond him - but he trusted the woman, and he let himself nod.

"Here." Sister put it into Swan's hands.

Her fingers curled around the glass. There was heat in it, a heat that began to spread into her hands, through her wrists and forearms. Under the bandages, the raw skin of her hands had begun itching and stinging. "Oh," she said, more in surprise than in pain.

"Swani" Josh stepped forward, alarmed at the sound. The glass circle was getting brighter and pulsating faster. "are you o - "

The ring flared like a golden nova. all of them were blinded for a few seconds as the room was lit up as if by the flaring of a million candles. The memory of the white-hot blast in front of PawPaw's grocery streaked through Josh's mind.

Now a searing pain coursed in Swan's hands, and her fingers seemed locked to the glass. The pain rippled through her bones and she started to cry out, but in the next instant the anguish had passed, and left in her mind were scenes beautiful beyond dreams: fields of golden corn and wheat, orchards where trees bent under the weight of fruit, meadows of flowers and verdant green forests stirred by a breeze. The images poured forth as if from a cornucopia, so vivid that Swan smelled the aromas of barley, apples, plums and cherry trees in full bloom. She beheld dandelions blowing in the wind, forests of oaks dripping acorns into the moss, maples running sap and sunflowers thrusting up from the earth.

Yes, Swan thought as the images continued to flood through her mind in brilliant patterns of color and light. My work.

I know what my work is now.

Josh was first to recover from the glare. He saw that Swan's hands were engulfed by golden fire, the flames licking up along her arms. She's burning up! he realized and, horrified, he shoved Sister aside and grabbed the fiery ring to pull it away from Swan.

But as soon as his fingertips touched the glass, he was flung backward with such force that he left his feet before crashing into the wall, narrowly missing breaking most of the bones in Paul's body. The air was forced from his lungs with a noise like a ruptured steam pipe, and he crumpled to the floor, dazed from the worst knock he'd taken since Haystacks Muldoon had thrown him from the wrestling ring in Winston-Salem eleven years before. Damn thing repelled me, he thought, when thinking was possible again. He tried to struggle up and realized that the flaming ring had been cool under his fingers.

Still half blinded, Sister saw the strange fire, too, saw it crawling up Swan's arms; it snapped like the uncoiling of a whip and began to wrap itself around the girl's head.

The fire - noiseless and without heat - had shrouded Swan's face and head before Josh could get up from the floor. Swan made no sound and lay motionless, but she could hear a sizzling over the wonderful scenes that kept swirling through her mind.

Sister was about to grasp the ring herself, but as she reached for it Josh charged toward the cot again, almost flung her through the wall, braced his legs and got ready to withstand the jolt as he clenched his fingers around the ring.

This time it came smoothly free from Swan's hands. as he turned to smash it against the wall he heard Sister scream "No!" and she was on him like a wildcat.

"Wait!" Paul shouted. "Look at her!"

Josh held Sister at arm's length and swiveled his head toward Swan.

The golden flames that covered her hands were going out. The bandages had turned black.

as they watched they saw the fire - or what had appeared to be fire - being drawn into the Job's Mask like liquid into a dry sponge. The flames rippled, flared, and then disappeared.

Sister wrenched the ring from him and backed out of his reach. He went to Swan's side, put his arms beneath her shoulders and lifted her up, supporting her head with one hand. "Swan!" His voice was frantic. "Swan, answer me!"

She was silent.

"You've killed her!" Glory shouted at Sister. "God a'mighty, you've killed her with that damned thing!" She rushed to the bedside, while Sister retreated against the far wall. Her mind was reeling, and the explosion of light still burned behind her eyes.

But Josh could feel Swan's heart beating like the wings of a captured bird against a cage. He rocked the girl in his arms, praying that this shock wouldn't be the final burden. He looked up fiercely at Sister and Paul. "Get them out of here!" he told Glory. "Call anna! Tell her to lock them away somewhere! Get them out before I kill them my - "

Swan's hand drifted up, touched Josh's lips to silence him.

Sister stared at the glass ring; its colors had paled, and some of the trapped jewels had turned ebony, like little burned-up pieces of charcoal. But the colors were getting stronger again, as if drawing power from her own body. Glory grasped her arm to pull her from the room, but Sister jerked free. Then Glory ran out to summon anna McClay, who came with the rifle, ready for business.

"Get them out!" Josh shouted. "and get that thing away from her!"

anna started to reach for the ring. Sister's fist was faster; she struck the other woman with a noise like a hammer whacking a board, and anna McClay went down with a bloody nose. anna struggled to her feet and aimed the rifle point-blank at Sister's head.

"Stop it!" Swan said suddenly, her voice frail. She'd heard the shouts, the scuffling and the sound of the blow. The majestic scenes that had so ignited her imagination began to fade. "Stop it," she repeated. Strength was returning to her voice. "No more fighting."

"They tried to kill you with that thing!" Josh said.

"No, we didn't!" Paul protested. "We came here to see her, that's all! We weren't trying to hurt her!"

Josh ignored him. "are you all righti" he asked Swan.

"Yes. Just tired. But Josh... when I held it... I saw wonderful things. Wonderful things."

"What thingsi"

"Things... that could be," she replied. "If I want them to be, if I work hard enough."

"Joshi" anna was itching to put a bullet through the scraggly old woman who'd decked her. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "You want me to lock 'em up somewherei"

"No!" Swan said. "Leave them alone. They weren't trying to hurt me."

"Well, this bitch sure hurt me! I think my damned schnozz is busted!"

Josh eased Swan's head down onto the pillow. His face felt strange - itching and burning - where Swan's fingers had touched. "You sure you're okayi" he asked. "I don't want you to be - " and then he glanced at one of her hands, and his voice trailed off. "Don't try to hide it if... you're..."

The bandages, black and oily-looking, had come loose. Josh could see a glimpse of pink flesh.

He took her hand gently in his own and began to unwind the bandages. The cloth was stiff and started coming apart with little crackling sounds. Sister pushed the rifle barrel out of her face and walked past anna to the side of the cot. anna made no move to stop her, because she came forward to see as well.

With nervous fingers, Josh carefully peeled part of the black bandage away. It came off with some of Swan's injured skin adhered to it, and revealed underneath was bright pink, healing flesh.

"What is iti" Swan asked, breaking the silence. "What's wrongi"

He cracked part of the other bandage off. It crumbled like ashes between his fingers, and he saw pink, clean, unscarred skin across a section of Swan's palm. He knew that it should have taken at least a week for Swan's hands to scab over, and maybe a month for them to heal. He'd been most worried about her wounds getting infected, that maybe her hands would be scarred and ruined for the rest of her life. But now...

Josh pressed his finger against her pink palm, "Ow!" she said, pulling her hand away from him. "That's sore!" Her hands were stinging and tingling and as warm as if they'd been deeply sunburned. Josh was afraid to peel any more of the bandages off, not wanting to expose the tender skin. He looked up at Glory, who stood beside him, then over at Sister. His gaze fell to the gleaming glass ring in her protective grip.

a ring of miracles, she'd said.

and Josh believed it.

He stood up. "I think we've got a lot to talk about," he said.

"Yes," Sister agreed. "I believe we do."  

Sixty-seven

The shout of the Lord shook the trailer's walls, and the woman who lay on a bare mattress with a coarse blanket wrapped around her moaned in her tortured sleep. Rudy was crawling into her bed again, and he held an infant with a crushed head; she kicked at him, but his rotting mouth grinned. "Come on, Ssssheila," he chided her, his voice hissing through the blue-edged slash across his throat. "Is that how you treat an old friendi"

"Get away!" she screamed. "Get away... get away!"

But he was sliding up against her with slimy skin. His eyes had rolled back into his head, and decayed holes cratered his face. "awwww," he said, "don't be like that, Sheila. We got high and happy too many times for you to kick me out of your bed. You let everybody else in these days, don't youi" He offered her the blue-skinned infant. "Seei" he said. "I brought you a present."

and then the tiny mouth opened in that battered head and a wail came from it that made Sheila Fontana go rigid, her hands clamped to her ears and tears streaming from her wide-open, staring eyes.

The ghosts fragmented and whirled away, and Sheila was left with her own scream echoing within the filthy trailer.

But the shout of the Lord continued, this time pounding on the trailer's door. a voice from outside yelled, "Shut up, you crazy fool! You tryin' to wake up the fucking deadi"

Tears ran down her face, and she felt sick to her stomach; the trailer already smelled of vomit and stale cigarette smoke, and there was a bucket next to her mattress where she relieved herself during the night. She couldn't stop shaking, couldn't get enough air into her lungs. She fumbled for the bottle of vodka that she knew was there on the floor beside her bed, but she couldn't find it, and she wailed again with frustration.

"Come on, open the damned door!" It was Judd Lawry's voice, and he hammered at the door with the butt of his rifle. "He wants you!"

She froze, her fingers finally locked on the neck of the half-full bottle. He wants me, she thought. Her heart kicked. He wants me!

"You hear what I saidi He sent me to get you. Come on, get your ass moving!"

She crawled out of bed and stood with the bottle in one hand and the blanket in the other. The trailer was cold, and red light came from a bonfire blazing outside.

"Speak, if you can understand English!" Lawry said.

"Yes," she told him. "I hear you. He wants me." She was shaking, and she dropped the blanket to take the top off the vodka bottle.

"Well, come on then! and he says for you to put on some perfume this time!"

"Yes. He wants me. He wants me." She drank from the bottle again, capped it and searched for her lantern and matches. She found them, got the lantern lit and placed it on her dressing table, next to the cracked mirror that hung on the wall. atop the dresser was a forest of dried-up make-up bottles, lipsticks, bottles of scent that had long ago gone skunky, jars of cream and mascara applicators. Taped to the mirror were yellowed pictures of fresh-faced models clipped from ancient copies of Glamour and Mademoiselle.

She placed the vodka bottle next to the lantern and sat down in her chair. The mirror caught her face.

Her eyes resembled dull bits of glass sunken into a sickly, heavily lined ruin. Much of her hair had turned from black to a yellowish gray, and at her crown the scalp was beginning to show. Her mouth was tight and etched with deep lines, as if she'd been holding back a scream that she dared not release.

She peered into the eyes that looked back. Make-up, she decided. Sure. I need to use a little make-up. and she opened one of the bottles to smear the stuff on her face like a healing balm, her hands unsteady because she wanted to look pretty for the colonel. He'd been nice to her lately, had called for her several times, had even given her a few bottles of precious alcohol from a deserted liquor store. He wants me, she told herself as she scrawled lipstick across her mouth. The colonel used to prefer the other two women who'd lived in the trailer with Sheila, but Kathy had moved in with a captain and Gina had taken a .45 to bed one night. Which meant that Sheila was on her own in driving the pickup truck that hauled the trailer and earning enough gasoline, food and water to keep both the truck and herself going. She knew most of the other RLs - Recreation Ladies - who followed the army of Excellence in their own convoy of trucks, cars and trailers; a lot of the women had diseases, some were young girls with ancient eyes, a few enjoyed their work, and most were searching for the "golden dream" - being taken in by an aOE officer who had plenty of supplies and a decent bed.

It's a man's world, Sheila thought. That had never been as true as it was now.

But she was happy, because being summoned to the colonel's trailer meant she wouldn't have to sleep alone and, for a few hours at least, Rudy couldn't come crawling into her bed with his grisly gift.

Rudy had been a kick in life. But in death he was a real drag.

"Hurry it up!" Lawry shouted. "It's cold out here!"

She finished her make-up and ran a brush through her hair. She didn't like to do that, though, because so much of her hair was falling out. Then she searched the many bottles of perfume for the right scent. Most of their labels had come off, but she found the distinctive bottle she wanted and sprayed perfume on her throat. She remembered an ad she'd seen in a Cosmo magazine a long time ago: "Every man alive loves Chanel Number 5."

She hurriedly pulled a dark red sweater over her sagging breasts, squeezed herself into a pair of jeans and put on her boots. It was too late to do anything about her fingernails; anyhow, they were all but bitten away. She shrugged into a fur coat that had belonged to Gina. One more peek in the mirror to check her make-up. He wants me! she thought, and then she blew the lantern out, went to the door, unbolted and opened it.

Judd Lawry, his beard cropped close to his jawline and a bandanna wrapped around his forehead, glared at her and laughed. "Jeez!" he said. "You ever heard of a movie called The Bride of Frankensteini"

She knew not to answer him as she dug a key out of the fur coat and locked her door. He was always picking at her, and she hated his guts. Whenever she looked at him she heard the wail of a baby and the sound of a rifle butt striking innocent flesh. She walked right past him, in the direction of Colonel Macklin's silver airstream command center on the western edge of what had been Sutton, Nebraska.

"You sure do smell nice," Lawry said as he followed her between the parked trailers, trucks, cars and pitched tents of the army of Excellence. Firelight glinted off the barrel of the M-16 slung over his shoulder. "You smell like an open sore. When's the last time you took a bathi"

She couldn't remember. Bathing used up water, and she didn't have a lot of that to spare.

"I don't know why he wants you," Lawry continued, walking right at her heels. "He could have a young RL, a pretty one. One who takes baths. You're a two-legged lice farm."

She ignored him. She knew he hated her because she'd never let him touch her, not even once. She'd taken on everybody who could pay her with gasoline, food, water, pretty trinkets, cigarettes, clothes or alcohol - but she wouldn't take on Judd Lawry if his prick gushed refined oil. Even in a man's world, a woman had her pride.

He was still ranting at her when she walked between two tents and almost into a squat, square trailer painted pitch black She stopped abruptly, and Lawry almost barreled into her. His nagging ceased. Both of them knew what went on inside Roland Croninger's black trailer - the aOE's "interrogation center" - and being so close to it stirred in their minds the stories they'd heard of Captain Croninger's inquisition methods. Lawry remembered what Croninger had done to Freddie Kempka years ago, and he knew that the captain was best avoided.

Sheila regained her composure first. She walked past the trailer, its windows sealed with sheet metal, and on toward the colonel's command center. Lawry silently followed.

The airstream trailer was hooked to the cab of a diesel truck surrounded by six armed guards. Spaced at intervals were fires that burned in oil drums. as Sheila approached, one of the guards rested his hand on the pistol beneath his coat.

"It's okay," Lawry said. "He's expecting her." The guard relaxed and let them pass, and they walked up a set of intricately carved wooden risers that led to the airstream's closed door. The three-step staircase even had a bannister, into which was cut the grotesque faces of demons with lolling tongues, contorted nude human figures and deformed gargoyles. The subject matter was nightmarish, but the workmanship was beautiful, the faces and figures carved by a hand that knew blades, then sanded and polished to a high luster. Red velvet pads had been tacked down on the surface of each riser, as if on the steps to an emperor's throne. Sheila had never seen the staircase before, but Lawry knew it was a recent gift from the man who'd joined the aOE back in Broken Bow. It galled Lawry that alvin Mangrim had already been made a corporal, and he wondered how Man-grim had gotten his nose chewed off. He'd seen the man working with the Mechanical Brigade and hanging around with a gnarled little dwarf he called "Imp," and Mangrim was another sonofabitch he wouldn't dare turn his back on.

Lawry knocked on the door.

"Enter," came Colonel Macklin's raspy voice.

They went in. The front room was dark but for the single oil lamp burning atop Macklin's desk. He was sitting behind the desk, studying maps. His right arm lay across the desktop, almost like a forgotten appendage, but the black-gloved palm of his new right hand was turned up, and the lamplight glinted on the sharp points of the many nails that pierced it.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Macklin said, without lifting his leather-masked face. "You're dismissed."

"Yes, sir." Lawry shot a smirking glance at Sheila, then left the trailer and closed the door.

Macklin was calculating the rate of march between Sutton and Nebraska City, where he planned to lead the army of Excellence across the Missouri River. But the supplies were dwindling by the day, and the aOE hadn't made a successful raid since the destruction of Franklin Hayes's army back in Broken Bow. Still, the ranks of the aOE continued to swell as stragglers from other dead settlements drifted in, seeking shelter and protection. The aOE had abundant manpower, weapons and ammunition, but the grease that slicked the wheels of forward movement was running out.

The ruins of Sutton had still been smoking when the aOE's advance armored cars pulled in just before full dark. all that was worth taking was already gone, even the clothes and shoes from the piles of dead bodies. There were signs that grenades and Molotov cocktails had been used, and at the eastern edge of the burning debris were the treadmarks of heavy vehicles and the footprints of soldiers marching off through the snow.

and Macklin had realized that there was another army - perhaps as large as or larger than the aOE - heading east right in front of them, looting settlements and taking the supplies that the army of Excellence needed to survive. Roland had seen blood in the snow and reasoned that there would be wounded soldiers struggling to keep up with the main body. a small recon force might be able to capture some of those stragglers, Roland had suggested. They might be brought back and interrogated. Colonel Macklin had agreed, and Roland had taken Captain Braden, Sergeant Ulrich and a few soldiers out in an armored truck.

"Sit down," the colonel told Sheila.

She walked into the circle of light. a chair had been prepared for her, facing the colonel's desk. She sat down, edgy and not knowing what to expect. In the past, he'd always waited for her in his bed.

He continued to work on his maps and charts. He was dressed in his uniform with the army of Excellence patch sewn over the breast pocket and four bars of gold-colored thread attached to each shoulder to signify his rank. Covering his scalp was a gray woolen cap, and the black leather mask obscured his face except for his left eye. She hadn't seen him without that mask for several years, and she didn't particularly care to. Behind Macklin was a rack of pistols and rifles, and a black, green and silver aOE flag was tacked neatly to the pine paneling.

He let her wait a few more minutes, and then he lifted his head. His frosty blue eye chilled her. "Hello, Sheila."

"Hello."

"Were you alonei Or did you have companyi"

"I was alone." She had to listen hard to understand all his words. His speech had gotten worse since the last time she'd visited there, less than a week ago.