The Library at Mount Char Part 10

But David was so very strong. It was not until full dark, when the bronze belly of the bull began to glow a dull orange, that he began to shriek.

Whenever she thought of Father's face, it was by the light of that fire.

How rare it was to see him smile.

III.

Just before dawn the next day there were still small sounds coming from the bull, mostly from the head and neck. Carolyn wondered at this until she noticed that the bull's nostrils were actual openings; flues for those times the coals lay inside. The air from those openings must have seemed relatively cool, the only hint of mercy in all David's world.

How is he not dead by now?

But of course, it was his catalog. Father had trained him to survive grievous wounds and fight on. Also there were potions, tonics, injections. Like all of them, David was what Father had made. So however badly he might need to die, he could not.

Even so, by noon he had gone mercifully silent. Father kept them feeding the fire until just before dark. David, he said, was still alive. Carolyn didn't doubt that he really could tell somehow.

Father told them to stop feeding the fire shortly after twilight of the second day. It was out by midnight. By morning of the third day the bull had cooled enough to open, though the metal was still hot enough to leave a blister on Carolyn's forearm when she brushed against it.

What was left inside wasn't as bad to look at as she had feared. More than most of them, David was a devoted pupil. His craft was already very strong, second only to Father's.

He had cooked away almost to the bone before he died.

She and Michael helped Jennifer take him out. What was left was surprisingly light, dry and brittle. They put him on a makes.h.i.+ft stretcher made from an ironing board and hauled him down to one of the empty houses. There they laid him out in a large room on the main floor with dusty, moldering furniture piled in one corner. This is what Americans call the "living room," Carolyn thought, and giggled. Margaret smiled too. The others looked at her strangely.

Margaret examined the charred remains of David's skull, his arms pulled up into a boxer's stance by the heat of the fire, his mouth still open in his last scream. "He will be very deep." She turned to Father. "May I join him? Help him find his way back?"

Father shook his head. "Let him wander."

Carolyn wondered at this. She thought that Margaret meant David would be deep in the "forgotten lands," which, she'd gathered, was where you were both before you were born and after you died. But would he be deep because he had never died before, or because he had died so horribly? Or perhaps- Father was glaring at her. When he saw that he had her attention he glanced significantly. She followed his gaze back up the hill, to the bull. The question, of course, was outside her catalog. He knows, she thought, despairing. How can he know what I am thinking? She put the thought aside, but Father still glared. The pupils of his eyes reminded her of the greasy blackness of the bull's interior. Pinned by his stare, for a moment she imagined herself inside the thing, her ears ringing from the clang as the door swung shut. The only light would be a faint or orange glow visible through the nostrils as the heat began to rise. It would be warm at first, then a little uncomfortable, and then- "Never!" she hissed, desperate. I'll never think of it again! Never, never!

Only then did Father look away. She felt his gaze fall from her as if it were a physical thing. This is how the field mouse feels, when the shadow of the hawk pa.s.ses him by.

"Jennifer. Attend me," Father said.

Jennifer, whose catalog was healing, bustled to her feet, stood before him.

"You will bring him back. Make him whole again."

Up until then Jennifer had worked the craft of resurrection mostly with animals, and those only slightly dead-roadkill and the like. "I'll try," she said, casting a doubtful glance at the corpse. "But I-"

"Try hard." He said it with an edge in his voice. "The rest of you help. Bring her what she asks for."

Jennifer set to work. She dug three big bags of colored powder from her kit and set them around David's body. The rest of them fetched for her-mostly water, but other things as well; salt, honey, a goat p.e.n.i.s, several feet of eight-track tape. Jennifer chewed the tape in her mouth until it came away clear, then spat brownish stuff into David's eye sockets. Carolyn had no idea what this might be in aid of. Remembering Father's glare, she forbade herself to wonder.

Jennifer worked all through the night. Margaret sat up with her, though Carolyn and the others rested.

When she woke the next morning, David had begun to fill back in. The withered flesh of his torso had inflated a bit. A hint of pink was now discernible here and there in all the black. By the afternoon of the fourth day this was true of the skin of his arms, then his legs. That evening his lungs became distinguishable, then his heart, though it did not yet beat. By the fifth day he had flesh over most of his body, though it was still black and charred.

On the sixth day he moaned. Jennifer sent Margaret to ask Father if she might do something to ease his pain. Margaret went to ask with a speed that Carolyn found rather touching. She returned with a nod. Jennifer touched David's forehead with a tool she kept in her pouch and, a moment later, his moaning ceased. He didn't thank her, probably couldn't, not yet, but when he rolled his lidless eyes toward Jennifer, Carolyn saw grat.i.tude in them.

By the morning of the seventh day he was, to Carolyn's eye, completely healed. Perhaps that wasn't true, not yet, but it was close. He slept. His chest rose and fell in slow, even breaths. Jennifer was asleep as well, her first real rest in five days. Seeing Carolyn wake, Michael laid a finger against his lips. Carolyn nodded, then sat down near him.

Father threw the door open around midmorning, momentarily blinding Carolyn with the sunlight. He walked over to David and kicked him awake. David snapped to his feet, lightning-fast once again, if slightly dazed and blinky. Father said something to him in the language of murder, which Carolyn did not yet speak. David hesitated for a bare instant, then went to his knees. Father asked him something. David answered. She didn't know what was said, but his tone was perfectly humble, perfectly respectful.

Then, in Pelapi, "And there will be no more sharing of catalogs." Father surveyed the room. "Is that clear? Am I understood?"

All of them nodded. Carolyn thought that, without exception, they all meant it. She certainly did.

Father nodded then, satisfied. He left without shutting the door. When he was gone, Margaret went to David. She stood before him shyly, arms first dangling, then hugging herself. Then, surprising them all, she stretched her neck out and bit him on the ear, not quite hard enough to draw blood. "You sang so beautifully!" she said. She ran away, blus.h.i.+ng.

"I think she likes you," Jennifer said, deadpan. They all laughed.

David got quieter after that, more reserved, less p.r.o.ne to grin and tell jokes. A month or so later he broke Michael's arm for, he said, cheating on a wager, an archery contest between the two of them. Michael swore he had done no such thing. Jennifer fixed his arm without comment. Michael and David didn't hang around as much after that.

The following month, the final Monstruwaken paid them a visit. He was one of Father's favorite courtiers. They celebrated the visit with a feast. The pig, Carolyn was relieved to see, was dead before they roasted it. These feasts were always a big deal, even to her. If nothing else, the food was very good. But this time she thought the other children's celebrations were somewhat muted. The tongues of flame licking at the bull's belly reminded them of bad things.

Once, just for an instant, out of the corner of her eye, she caught David looking at the fire in a particular way. David did not notice her noticing him, nor did Margaret, standing next to him now. Carolyn did not say "uzan-iya" out loud, or even think it very clearly-she was learning-but for the rest of the night the phrase was never far from the surface of her thoughts. She recognized the look in David's eyes immediately. She had seen it many times, reflected in the black pools of her own heart.

The child who went into the bull had been aggressive, and sometimes casually cruel to the rest of them. But David had truly loved Father. But Carolyn knew for an absolute certainty that that was no longer true. Uzan-iya, they called it on the Himalayan steppe six thousand years ago. Uzan-iya-the moment when the heart turned first to murder.

One day David would move to kill Father. She could not guess when that day would be. She knew only that it would come.

For the first time, it occurred to her to wonder whether David might be of some use.

She pondered on this for many months.

Chapter 4.

Thunder

I.

Erwin Charles Leffington was an unusual guy. He knew that about himself. For one thing, he insisted that people call him Erwin. He wouldn't accept Charles or E.C., and never, ever Chuck. Erwin. As a little kid he had gone by Chuck for the first seven years or so. Then he started taking cla.s.ses two years ahead of his age group on account of because he was so smart and the teacher let his legal name slip. So, it was "Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin" that the McClusky twins screeched when they ambushed him after cla.s.s, "Erwiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn!" when they pushed his wadded-up A+ in algebra through his pinched lips and into his mouth, "Errrrrrrrrrrrwinnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!" as they worked his jaw, "ERRRRRRRRRRRRWIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" as they made him swallow, "Erwin" in a casual, almost friendly, tone while they beat him until he smiled and said thank you. After he grew up into a bada.s.s it crossed his mind to go back and pay the McClusky twins a visit, but in the end he decided against it. They had taught him a valuable life lesson at a young age, and on balance he was grateful.

Erwin had fight in him and, as luck would have it, he grew up to be a big motherf.u.c.ker. Erwin was what the crowd chanted when he ground his way through the defensive line and scored the winning touchdown at the homecoming game in his junior year. Erwin was what they called him at Fort Bragg from the day he enlisted-well, almost-right up to the day he retired. Part of it was that "Sergeant Major" or "Command Sergeant Major" was a f.u.c.king mouthful and he didn't want to inflict that on his men. But mostly it was because he liked telling officers to call him Erwin, liked the way some of them got a little flicker in their eyes when he said it, but they did it anyway.

Erwin wasn't in the Army anymore. Thirteen years in-just after his third tour in Afghanistan-he'd decided he'd killed enough people. He wasn't post-traumatic or anything. He still loved his men. He still thought the enemy were a bunch of a.s.sholes. He was just done with it. It was a Tuesday and he'd seen an Apache guns.h.i.+p basically disintegrate a sixteen-year-old knucklehead. It was the right thing to do, he was grateful to the guy flying the Apache for doing it-the kid was toting a Dragunov sniper rifle, a little banged up but perfectly serviceable, and he probably wasn't going into the hills to hunt goats. Given the same circ.u.mstances he'd cheerfully have ma.s.sacred the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d himself. He just didn't want to be in those circ.u.mstances anymore.

So a little while later he took a discharge and went out into the world. There he ended up teaching middle school art. That was some soothing s.h.i.+t right there. Not exactly what he was expecting to do, but it turned out he had nothing against tempera paint. He actually kind of liked making clay pots. What's more, he was surprised to discover that he was good at it. And the kids loved him. They respected him too. Not once did he ever have to raise a hand to even a single one of the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Truth to tell, most of them seemed a little scared of him. Teachers too, for that matter. And the school board, once or twice. Did they see smoldering bodies piled ten deep when they looked in his eyes? Was he flanked by ghosts when he walked down the hall? He didn't know. But once they realized he wasn't going to stab them in the face or blow them up, they relaxed. Well, they relaxed a little bit. Most of them.

After a while he relaxed too. He loved the kids-he allowed himself to love them-in a way he hadn't thought he was capable of anymore. When he got back from the war, his ability to love was in serious doubt-all you had to do was take one look at the smoking ruin of his marriage or maybe ask his half-forgotten family. In the civilian world, the volume was a lot lower, but he was still shouting. He knew that, he just couldn't seem to do anything about it. It crossed his mind to eat a shotgun. But after he thought about it he decided to take a chance. Really, what did he have to lose? So one time when he caught this little dude named Dashaen Morning Flower Menendez-he would never forget that name, why the f.u.c.k would you do that to a kid?-when he caught little Dashaen eyeing the little plastic dish of mac-and-cheese on his desk the same way the skinnies in Somalia had looked at his MREs, he took the kid aside thinking maybe he was poor or his mom was a junkie or some sad s.h.i.+t like that. Who the f.u.c.k couldn't come up with the money for a G.o.dd.a.m.n sandwich? This was America, for chrissakes.

But it turned out little Dashaen's mom had plenty of money. She was a phlebotomist or some s.h.i.+t. Money wasn't the problem. The problem was that the kid's dad was in some kind of hippie religion and he'd taught little Dashaen about nonviolence and talking through your problems and all that other c.r.a.p. Erwin had pointed out what a dumb idea this was at the parent-teacher conference and the crazy f.u.c.k brought up Gandhi. Clearly the man was insane, and little Dashaen was suffering for it. Erwin, himself no stranger to the problems of insane parents, took pity on him. It turned out he wasn't a nerd or anything like that, he'd just been handicapped by poor upbringing. All he needed was a clue. Once Erwin figured that out, he muttered a prayer of thanks to a G.o.d he didn't really believe in and set about providing said clue. He taught Dashaen how to kick the other little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in the b.a.l.l.s, b.l.o.o.d.y their noses, sneak up behind them and clap both hands over their ears-all the basics. Actually, he might have gone a bit far with that last one; Dashaen overdid it and one of the other mini dudes ended up with a little bit of permanent hearing loss. But after that everybody liked Dashaen and no one stole his lunch money, so basically it was a happy ending. Little Dashaen moved on to high school the following year. Erwin figured he'd seen the last of him. But then one rainy day in December he headed out to the mailbox in front of the duplex where he was staying. He remembered it perfectly. It was the eighteenth, a Sat.u.r.day. School was out on winter break. The people next door, the Michaelsens, had two little kids, and they were all decorating their tree. It was two in the afternoon. He was on his eighth scotch. He could hear Christmas carols through the wall, that one about Good King Wenceslas, Jingle Bells, Gramma Got Run Over by a f.u.c.king Reindeer. That s.h.i.+t didn't bother him. He wasn't jealous of the Michaelsens. He was happy for them. He didn't feel like he'd f.u.c.ked up in life. Getting apocalyptically drunk by yourself was just the sort of thing bachelors did around Christmas. Also, he wasn't thinking of the shotgun in the corner of his closet. At all. Then he opened the mailbox and, mirabile visu, little Dashaen had sent him a Christmas card. He took that card out of the mailbox with trembling hands, opened the envelope, and read it standing right there at the mailbox. It said Dear Erwin, Merry Christmas! I know it's not "cool" but I wanted to send you this card so you'd know all is good wit me. High scool sucks but it's also pretty cool, if you know what I mean. Probly it wouldn't of been if I hadn't met you. Wanted you to know I knew that. Wanted to say thanks. I'd invite you over for X-Mas dinner but I think my Dad is still mad.

Dashaen p.s. - I got me a girlfriend. That's her in the picture. Hawt ain't she?

When he was done reading it, Erwin went back into his half of the duplex and wept, the only time in his adult life he would ever do so. He wept for a good solid hour, then poured the rest of the scotch down the drain and turned on the TV and watched Charlie Brown. Before he went to bed he folded the card up and put it in his wallet. It would be there until the day he died.

Not long after that he felt better, more like himself, more able to do the sort of work he was good at. He resigned his teaching job at the end of the school year. Most everyone was relieved, though they were too polite to say anything. Or nervous.

Whatever.

II.

Now, on a sunny October morning with the last breath of Virginia summer hanging in the air, Erwin aimed his rental-a s.h.i.+tty little Ford Taurus-at an empty spot in the parking lot and slid to a stop with a spray of gravel. This drew glares from a couple of cops smoking and swapping lies around the corner of the jail. Erwin grinned at them and waved. He didn't give a f.u.c.k.

He got out of the car and looked around, then spat in the general direction of the sign reading COUNTY JAIL. He called out to the two guys sucking on their Marlboros, "That s.h.i.+t'll kill ya, y'know," then tipped his hat and grinned at them. "Just sayin'."

The younger cop peered over the top of his sungla.s.ses at Erwin like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The older one laughed. "I'll keep it in mind," he said. Actually, Erwin was wrong. The cops had less than two hours to live, but smoking would not be a factor.

The lobby of the jail was about like every other government building built in the past twenty years: cinder-block walls painted light-tan or dark-pale or something like that, linoleum floors-cheap but d.a.m.n s.h.i.+ny-and a gray water fountain that dispensed lukewarm water that tasted like p.i.s.s. Erwin drank it anyway. He was thirsty, and he'd had worse.

Looking around the lobby he counted at least half a dozen meth heads in various stages of strung-out, two drunks, and a redheaded kid who, in Erwin's opinion, was f.u.c.king schizophrenic.

He walked up to the window under the sign that said VISITORS REGISTER HERE and took out his badge. "Yeah, I'm Erwin," he began. "I'm with Homeland S'curity. I'm here to see-"

The attendant, a pudgy man in a green uniform that said VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS on one pocket and ROGERS on the other, didn't look up. "Fill this out," he said, pus.h.i.+ng a clipboard through a slot in the gla.s.s.

"Can I get-"

"Fill it out," said the deputy. "Then we'll talk."

Erwin sighed. The form ran three pages long, back and front. By the time he got done, a goodish line had formed ahead of him. He took his place behind a fat lady with dirty feet and a skinny girl of about sixteen with a bad Lynyrd Skynyrd tattoo on her back. Erwin was a little surprised to see that tattoo. Ronnie Van Zant had to have been in his grave ten years or more when the kid was born. But, he reflected, for a certain demographic Skynyrd is gonna be timeless. Like Elvis or the Virgin Mary. To whatever degree such a demographic existed, these two were definitely part of it. The fat lady had a kid named Billy who got caught with a truckload of stolen cheese.

Cheese?

It emerged that this was Billy's third time receiving stolen goods, so he was looking at a good long stretch. Momma wept steadily and noisily, saying things like "I raised them boys raht!" every so often. The skinny girl doled out Kleenex. Every so often she'd say something like "I just don't know what he was thinking," and pat her belly protectively. Erwin guessed that there would be another doomed idiot to take Billy's place in the trailer park in six months or so.

Fifteen sniffly minutes later he was back at the window. He didn't bother trying to talk, just pa.s.sed the form in and waited for the verdict. As a thirteen-year veteran of Army bureaucracy he was pretty sure he'd filled it out properly, but with a certain species of a.s.shole you could never really be sure.

The pudgy cop scanned the form carefully, all three pages, back and front. After a moment he nodded. "Looks good," he said, clearly disappointed. "I'll need to see two forms of identification, Officer"-he broke off and squinted at the form-"Leffington? Erwin Leffington?" He looked up for the first time.

"That's me," Erwin said. He held his badge up.

"Are you...you're not the Erwin Leffington, are you?"

Ah, f.u.c.k, he thought. Here we go. If he had one regret in life-which he did-it was letting that f.u.c.ker write the book about him. It seemed harmless at the time, but the book was what led to the movie. When the movie came out, that was basically all she wrote. "Prolly not."

"Command Sergeant Major Erwin Leffington? B Company, Second Battalion?"

Erwin just looked at him. For the first time in a good long while the taste of dust and cordite came back to him. He tried to cling to the image of little Dashaen, to the Christmas card, but all of a sudden he was drowning.

"Second Battalion of the Fifteenth?"

"Not for a while," Erwin said. He spoke very softly. "If we could just-"

"My brother is Jim Rogers," the fat guy said.

Erwin looked up at that, no longer drowning. "How is Sergeant Rogers?"

"He's better, sir. It was rough going for a while, but he's doing well now. He just had a son, born last May."

"Don't call me sir." Then, after a moment, "How's his leg?"

"He gets around OK. Now, anyway. Took the VA a while to get it adjusted right."

The news that Rogers was doing well helped, a little. "Your brother is a good man," he said. "You tell him I asked after him. Now, if we could-"

"Sir, he told us about you," the fat deputy said. "He told us what you done."

Erwin shuffled his feet. s.h.i.+t like this always made him uncomfortable. The silence stretched out. "Your brother is a good man," he repeated.

"My brother says the same about you. No, that ain't true. He says you're a great man. He says you're about the best soldier who ever wore a uniform, and a certified bada.s.s to boot." The fat deputy was looking at him with wors.h.i.+p in his eyes. His voice trembled as he spoke. "He says you saved his life, his and everybody-"

"Thanks," Erwin growled. Then, calmer, "All that, yeah, that was overhyped."

"My brother says different, sir." Then something horrible occurred to him. "I'm sorry about making you fill out them forms! If I'da known you was you I never woulda done that." His lips trembled. "I'm real sorry."