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CHAPTER VIII 

"All right Carl, how did he do it?" 

Martell and Harry were sitting in Martell's car, ready to leave for the reading. 

"He just whispered to me and walked out during the standing ovation. He was so calm about it I didn't realize anything strange had happened until everybody started staring at the empty place beside me. You really mean nobody noticed until then?" 

"I was sitting on your left, and I missed it completely. Remarkable. I suppose it all goes to show what a man can do with poise." 

"Poise? The man's plain arrogant." Martell started the car and pulled out of the lot. Their headlights briefly illuminated a bumper sticker that read, "Love the Earth — Spay Or Neuter Your Child." It wasn't far to the Andrew Volstead Memorial Auditorium, but they wanted to get good seats. 

"Well," said Harry, "some people say genius is above common courtesy." 

"Bull." 

"The man has paid his moral dues, Carl. At least for this world. Maybe you've got the nerve to criticize a man who's been tortured by Nazis. I'm not sure I do." 

"Arnold Stern did OK. You seemed to get on well with him." 

"We had a good conversation. We agree on very little, but we understood each other perfectly. It was refreshing." 

"I envied him his nerve in throwing Oski's trash back in his face. I wish I were more like him. I don't care if Sigfod Oski is Raoul Wallenberg in an eyepatch, he has no right to talk about — well, the handicapped — the way he did." 

"You're not supposed to say 'handicapped' anymore, you know, Carl. For a while it was 'disabled' and now it's 'physically challenged.' I'm not sure why. When I was handicapped I felt like a racehorse. When I became disabled I felt a little like Cain. Now that I'm physically challenged I feel like somebody wants to fight a duel with me." He was fiddling with his collar but it wasn't helping. 

"Well forgiveness is your business, Harry. You're a Christian and the injured party. I'm neither, so I'm free to hate the —" 

"Joanna liked Oski," Harry said softly. "Or rather, she liked his poetry. Odd when you think of it — she was the gentlest of God's creatures. What could she have seen in those grim sagas? Maybe she only enjoyed the way I loved them. I used to read them to her in the evenings sometimes, and I'd get carried away to an extent — well, to an extent I don't get much chance to anymore. I'd be waving my arms and shouting the words, my shirt coming apart in three places, and she'd smile and her eyes would shine. And then...." He sighed. "I can't hate him. Not while I remember those evenings." 

Inside the auditorium a line of folding chairs had been arranged on one side of the stage. Facing the stage, in front of the bleachers, hundreds more folding chairs had been set up in rows on the basketball court. Martell and Harry found the place nearly filled already, but they got seats near the middle of the right-hand section, close to the main entrance, not too far back. 

"You're sure you want to stay for this?" Martell asked as they sat. 

"Absolutely. Why suffer the man's worst and miss his best?" 

"Well his best had better be good." 

"Stay put, Carl. Unless you have the heart to leave a poor, physically challenged cleric to walk home by hand." 

Martell slumped in his folding chair, arms crossed. 

The auditorium filled quickly and through the cigarette smoke they watched as Dr. Lygre, various VIP's and Sigfod Oski processed onto the stage. The others sat while Dr. Lygre went to the podium. 

Listening to his introductory remarks (the same speech he'd test-driven at the banquet) and staring at Oski, Martell didn't notice the blonde woman until she had nearly reached the stage. 

But the moment she stepped into his right-eye peripheral vision she had his complete attention. His belly knew her before his mind did. 

His mouth formed her name. 

The woman stopped at the edge of the stage and gestured to Oski. He went down to the apron, knelt, and spoke to her. As they spoke he passed a long hand possessively down her shoulder and arm. Then he straightened and returned to his chair, and she started back toward the door. 

"What did you say, Carl?" asked Harry. 

Martell got up and excused himself down to the end of the row, head craning to watch her as she went out. If people stared at him, leaving before things had gotten started, he didn't notice. 

Outside in the darkness he looked from side to side. The woman was nowhere in sight. 

He set out down the sidewalk and followed it clockwise around the block. He didn't see her. 

He was running when he got back to the auditorium. There he stopped, turning around and around. 

"Elaine!" 

He went into the parking lot and looked in all the cars. She wasn't there. 

He sat on the concrete step of the building, under the bronze plaque dedicated to the author of the Prohibition Amendment. He hadn't had a cigarette in years, but he wanted one now. His hand hurt. The wind was cold. 

Elaine.  

Confound her for walking back into his life. 

He could hear Oski's muffled voice from inside. His voice was rich and sonorous, with boulders and saltwater in it. He couldn't make out any of the words. 

Confound Sigfod Oski. No question now of not hating him. 

Elaine, what's become of you?  

For two hours he sat on the cool concrete step. He hadn't been so miserable in a very long time. To be alone and rejected, alone and sitting in the cold and dark while all the rest were inside in the warmth and light and human fellowship — he knew the feeling from boyhood, when he had envied happier boys even while scorning them. He thought, It was always like this — you were born for this. 

His stomach clenched, and for a moment he couldn't breathe. The old self-pity was another lie, and there was no comfort in lies anymore for Carl Martell. 

He felt robbed. He felt judged and shamed. He wanted to say, "A man ought to have the right to a little bitterness!" but he couldn't say that either. 

He stood up, clutching his head. He felt as if he were vomiting with his mouth taped shut. 

He thought he'd go mad. 

Instead he cried. He sat again and cradled his head in his arms, arms on his knees, and wept honest tears for a long time, and the pain eased. At the end he was limp and a little numb. He sat shivering in a sort of suspended state, for how long he wasn't sure. 

Finally the doors opened and people began to come out. He got up quickly and worked his way in, against the flow. 

He found Harry in conversation with a small group of parishioners, all competing for better ways of saying how wonderful the evening had been, although parts of it were hard to follow. They left after a while, and Harry looked at Martell. 

"I'm sorry," Martell said. 

"You look terrible, Carl. What happened? No, wait — not here. Let's go out and talk in the car." 

"Do I really look that bad?" 

"You should see yourself." 

The slow walk gave Martell time to decide how much to tell. In the car he sat with his keys in his hand. "I'm not sure how to explain this," he said, "without sounding like somebody out of a bad Victorian poem. Probably there isn't any way." 

"It has to do with that woman?" 

"You noticed her?" 

"I think everyone noticed her. A remarkable beauty. She's someone you know?" 

"Her name is Elaine." 

"Elaine... of course." 

"How do you know about Elaine?" 

"You told me. Not much, but I could tell it was important to you." 

Martell shook his head. "I was under the delusion I'd kept her a secret. Which just goes to show something or other. 

"You've seen how it is, Harry. I don't date. I avoid every offer to set me up with some nice girl. Partly it's cowardice, fear of commitment, whatever the fashionable analysis is these days. But I have a hole in my soul, and it's shaped like Elaine. Nobody else can fill it." 

"Well, if you have to have a hole in your soul, I'd say hers is a pretty nice shape for it...." 

"I'm feeding you straight lines. Now that's appropriate. 

"It's been fifteen years. But when I saw Elaine tonight it was as if the time hadn't happened. I got the same jolt. It's not normal, Harry. I'm supposed to be saying that she's no longer the woman I remember, that the old flame has died. It should have died by now." 

"Who says? Am I supposed to scold you for fidelity?" 

"This isn't fidelity, it's neurosis. I'm not keeping any marriage vow. I'm hanging onto a fantasy." 

Harry clapped his hands twice. "Bravo. 'I know I'm a fool, but at least I despise myself.' You're looking for an absolute within yourself, Carl. You won't find it there. 

"Besides, who's to say you're neurotic? Or if you are, what's wrong with a little neurosis? Mental health is largely a matter of fashion. St. Augustine would tell you your celibacy makes you one of the few healthy people in town, though he'd say you came by it in a pretty poor way. Every generation writes new specs for the healthy personality, and each one in turn turns out to be a new kind of monster. Our monster is different from the Victorian monster, but he's no less a monster. 

"For all either of us knows, your passion might be exactly what God wants for you. You should talk to Him about it." 

Martell sat silent for a moment. "I have to see her." 

* * *

When Rory Buchan left the radio station after midnight, he found Thumb's Chevy waiting for him in the parking area. Thumb rolled the window down, and Rory saw that he had his ski mask on again. 

"Want to talk?" Thumb asked. 

Rory said, "I'm not sure." 

"Let's take a ride. Nothing interesting will happen, I promise." 

Rory shrugged and got in. Thumb drove to a quiet residential street, stopped and turned the engine off. There was dim light from a street lamp further down the block. Papery leaves blew from the elm trees and scraped along the roof. 

"Been thinking about our talk?" Thumb asked. 

"Haven't thought about anything else." 

"Decided anything?" 

"The more I think, the more confused I get." 

"I know just how you feel. When you were a kid, they told you to be nice to people and to leave justice to the cops and the courts. And here I come, telling you that there's some people you just can't be nice to, and that there's times when you've got to take the law into your own hands. God's ways aren't our ways, you know." 

"That's just it," said Rory. "Maybe God's ways aren't my ways, but why should I believe they're your ways either? I mean — Hitler said pretty much the same thing." Rory felt frightened to say it. He had seen Thumb kill. Probably. 

"Hitler was an evil man," Thumb said. "Let's make no mistake about it. And if I'm like him, then I deserve what he got and more, and the sooner the better. 

"But you know, nobody gets as far as he did without telling a piece of the truth. And if you believed the things he believed, well then what he said made sense. Of course what he believed was wrong and evil. But if he'd had his facts straight, he'd have been justified. You follow me? 

"Look. The Jews aren't an inferior breed — they're God's Chosen People, for Heaven's sake. And they don't run some secret world-wide conspiracy. 

"But suppose there were a conspiracy like that. Suppose there were people out there, people with great power, manipulating things to oppress people and pervert everything good. Then you'd be right to do something about it, even if you broke the law — in fact you'd have to break the law. 

"Everybody believes this, you know. No matter what they say, everybody's got somebody they'd like to see go into the ovens. Conservatives want to execute murderers and rapists. And no matter what the liberals say, you won't hear them weeping over the terrible injustices done to Himmler and Eichmann. If an abused wife burns her husband alive, the feminists make her a folk-heroine. 

"We all know deep down that there are some things just so awful that anybody who does them ought to be killed, and if it's slow and painful that's all right too. 

"There's human sacrificers out there, Rory. I know it for a fact. I believe you can't live in peace with people who do that. You've got to root the thing out, and sow the place with salt." 

"I don't think Leslie Prill was sacrificing anybody." 

"She was a carrier. Maybe other ways would have been better if we had more time, but we don't have time. It's all coming to a head. Soon. We know that." 

"How do you know that? How in — how do you know all these things you're so blasted sure about?" 

Thumb said, "I'm a prophet." 

Rory said, "I've heard a lot of people claim to be prophets. Most of the time they don't tell me anything the Bible doesn't already say a lot better. Or if they do, it turns out to be wrong." 

"Test me, Rory. I'll tell you something, and you see whether it doesn't happen. Deuteronomy 18:22 — When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him. 

"This is the word of the Lord to you, Rory: This morning, before you sleep, you'll meet a friend. Somebody you haven't thought of in years. I'll give you a call tomorrow, and you tell me if I'm wrong." 

"What do you want from me if I decide to join you?" 

"You have a voice that reaches all over this county. We need you to give a signal, to let people know when it's started." 

"When what's started?" 

"The battle. Armageddon, maybe. No, not Armageddon. But an early skirmish. Important enough. Important enough for our lives, if it comes to that." 

Rory stood on the sidewalk, watching the tail lights fade, shivering. He wondered what old friend could come forward at this hour, in this place, and what it would prove if one did. He wanted to think and pray, but he thought that going home would make things too easy for Thumb. 

Suddenly he knew where he should go. 

He drove his Golf out toward the farm where Leslie Prill had died. On the way he tuned in WEEP. The network news feed was on. 

 

"WEEP News, brought to you by Hinderaker's Grocery World. A spokesman for the Coalition for Rational Government today announced that the group will change its slogan, "Abolish the Constitution now — if it saves one life it will be worth it," which has drawn fire from extinctionists and animal rights' groups for its alleged anthropism. A spokesperson told reporters that the new slogan will be, "The Founding Fathers are dead — get over it."  

 

Rory switched the radio off when he reached the farm. The police had chained off the driveway so he pulled over by the mailbox and cut the engine. 

He hadn't slept the night before, and he felt it. 

"I liked her, Lord," he prayed. "I don't think she deserved to die." Why didn't he just go to the cops? Thumb had said they couldn't prove anything, but how did he know? And so what? He knew he was supposed to do what was right, not what was smart. If he was an accessory he should take the consequences. 

He knew the answer. It was Rowan. As long as he remembered Rowan, and what he did to Heather, he needed a way to fight back. He wanted Thumb to be right. He wanted to stop running scared. 

"Will you show me, Lord?" he prayed. "Will you show me who's right and who's wrong, and what I ought to do about it?" 

The crunch of feet on gravel took his attention, faint through the car windows. 

Oh boy. Don't get excited. It's probably nothing.  

Fast footsteps. Running. Who'd be running at this hour on a country road? 

The sound was approaching from behind. Rory craned his head to look over his shoulder. 

A slender shadow appeared at last. A jogger. It looked like a girl. 

The shadow stopped and tapped on his window. 

He was afraid to roll it down, but he did. 

A girl's voice panted, "You got the time, friend?" 

Rory switched on the dome light to see his watch. "1:07," he read. 

"Hamster! I can't believe it!" 

The name jolted him. Nobody had called him that since — 

He looked up at the face in the dim light. She was round-faced, dimpled, red-haired and freckled. Pretty. Not familiar. 

"I'm sorry —" he said. 

The girl laughed. "I'm not surprised you don't recognize me, Hamster. I was a lot younger and skinnier back then. They used to call me Zippy on the street. You remember?" 

Rory gaped. "Zippy! My — gee! The last time I saw you, I didn't figure you to make it through the winter! Hey, get in — we've got to talk!" 

The girl went around and got in on the passenger side. She sighed as she sat. 

"Old Hamster," she said. "Small world. Yeah, I almost didn't make it, back there. Of all the old gang, I thought I was the only survivor, except for Snorkel, and he's in a county hospital now, sucking paint chips. Whatever happened to you? Let's see — you dropped out just about the time Heather did. Everybody thought you'd bought it together." 

"I ran up against something I couldn't handle, so I got out. I'm a born-again Christian now, Zippy. I work at the radio station here in town. You look like you've straightened out too — did you find Jesus?" 

The girl smiled. "Sort of. I found the Way of the Old Wisdom. We believe Jesus was really one of us, only the disciples misunderstood. They turned me around, Rory. Turned me from a burned-out street junkie to a whole human being. Look at me. Clean five years. I run three miles a day. I eat healthy food and get lots of sunshine, or at least I did before I moved back to Minnesota, and I hardly ever black out anymore." 

"I'm glad to hear you got clean." Rory's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "But I'm sorry to hear you're a witch." 

"'Witch' is just a word, Rory. It means a way of relating to nature. It isn't true, what they say about witches. We don't hurt anybody — we help people. We heal. We protect. You should come and visit us sometime and see." 

"I'd like to do that," said Rory, thinking of Leslie Prill. 

"Come out anytime. We're doing exciting things. We've been watching Cerafsky's Comet. It's very important, the comet. Something's going to happen soon. Just tell the guys at the gate you're my guest. Say Young Goat Star invited you." 

"Young Goat what?" 

"Young Goat Star. It's my new name." 

"I never knew your old name." 

"Laura Tysness. My grandfather used to own the farm we're living on." 

"Oh, then you're the girl who gave her inheritance to her religion." 

"I hear Jesus recommended it. I did it out of gratitude, Rory. W.O.W. was there for me when I needed them. They saved my life. Our High Priest is really a fine man. I've never met anybody as totally loving and giving." 

Rory smiled. "We've got a lot to talk about." 

"Come and see us." She smiled back. 

* * *

With a jerk, the wolf woke. It shivered; not from the cold, though it was cold; and not from hunger, though it was hungry. A wolf's dreams are often terrible, but they are not remembered. This wolf remembered. 

A monstrous sight — a man had reached out his hand toward it. And the wolf, bound and held by some awful force, had been unable to flee. So it had snapped at the hand. Its jaws had clenched on the fist. They had stood face to face for a long minute, the man and the wolf, each reading in the alien eyes of the other the message without words: Between your house and mine there has been no peace since the world began. 

The wolf had strained at its bonds, but they would not yield. Maddened with fear, it had closed its jaws and bitten through flesh and bone, tasting the salt, forbidden blood under the sour man-smell. And the man had stood watching, as if unhurt, with those, mad, white human eyes. 

The wolf scrambled unsteadily to its feet. It felt the need of movement. The beckoning smell was on the wind, and the itching wriggled in its brain, and there could be no rest until the prey had been found. 

 

 

 

 

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