Riders In The Sky Part 22

Then Stars.h.i.+ne, the stuck-up creep, had turned thirteen only a few weeks ago, and suddenly she was this high and mighty hotshot, smarta.s.s teenager who was, to hear her talk, the greatest thing that ever walked the earth on two legs, and Moonbow had suddenly become the baby of the house.

Then ... and then there was her name.

Moonbow.

Living in the desert outside Las Vegas, it didn't matter. People may have looked at her a little funny once in a while, but no one ever really made fun of her. Not even in school, where some kids had names as truly weird as hers. There was one kid named Goldust, for crying out loud, and another who called himself Snakeyes and swore it was his real name. So she was who she was, and was called what she was called, and no one cared, no one bothered her.

Once Nevada had been left behind, however, everyone ... just everyone looked at her and Stars.h.i.+ne as if they'd crawled out of some big old mountain cave in the middle of the night, and she was getting real sick of hearing them say, "Hey, kid, your mother a hippie or something?"

Last week Stars.h.i.+ne announced that she wanted to change her name to Tiffany, and it was the only time Moonbow ever saw Momma lose her temper as bad as that. She'd grabbed Star by the shoulders and shook her, hard, and yelled that she had to be proud of her name, that it was what made her special, and if she ever even thought about changing it, Momma was going to whomp her within an inch of her life.

If Moonbow hadn't been so scared, she would have laughed at the terrified look on her sister's face.

The memory didn't change the fact, though, that she was still awfully miserable.

She sat on a log on the bank of some stupid river she didn't even know the name of, s.h.i.+vering a little in the coat that was too long, the one Beatrice had bought for her just last week. Her jeans were new and so they were too stiff; her sneakers were new, and they were stiff too, and would probably give her blisters before they were broke in. Their Thanksgiving dinner had been in a nice little restaurant that had cut-out turkeys and Pilgrims and Indians on the walls, and it was all right, she supposed, for a store-bought meal, but it wasn't the same as having Thanksgiving at home.

Which she didn't have anymore.

In serious misery, then, she hugged herself, watched her breath float away in the sunset's golden light, and hunched her shoulders when her sister sat beside her, buried in her own too-long coat. She wore a baseball cap pulled as low as she could get it, trying to hide the haircut she'd given herself the night her mother had lost her temper.

Somewhere out there, some kind of strange bird made some kind of strange noise; Moonbow didn't think it sounded very happy at all.

"This," said Stars.h.i.+ne, "sucks."

"I know."

"Big-time sucks."

"Yeah."

"I mean, who does old Harp think she is, ordering us around like that?"

"Momma's dream. That man, remember?"

"Screw Momma's dream, and screw the man, too. We all have dreams, Bow, but they don't take us all the way across the country." She stomped her feet to keep them warm. "This really sucks."

They watched the sluggish water lose its rippling sunset streaks, watched mist rise from the surface and slide into fog that crawled and puffed along the banks. The trees on the other side hardened into an uneven dark wall; a flock of geese called their way south overhead. Behind them, the dirty white wall of the lousy motel turned grey, then brown, then black, with only lighted windows to mark the fact that there was a wall there at all.

They listened to the river; they listened to their heartbeats.

"I'm gonna run away," Stars.h.i.+ne said at last.

Moonbow gasped, shook her head violently. "You can't, Star. G.o.d, you can't do that."

"I'm thirteen, I can do what I want."

"You're only thirteen," Moonbow told her. "If they don't catch you right away, somebody else will and they'll... you know. You know?"

"I don't care. I can't take this stupid c.r.a.p anymore. I want to stay in one place, Bow. I want to take Momma's gun and go back to Missouri to that place we had, and I want to stay there forever. And if anyone tries to make us move, I'll blow their stupid heads off."

They heard voices in the distance, men laughing. Moonbow figured they were going into that crumby-looking bar across the road from the motel. She didn't remember what it was called, but there was nothing but old pickups and vans in the hard-dirt parking lot when she'd left the room to come out here, and the neon stag over the entrance was missing two legs and an antler. She had overheard Beatrice say something to Momma about how this motel maybe wasn't such a good idea after all, and that had only added to her misery.

"If you go," she finally said, "I'm going with you."

They s.h.i.+fted closer to each other, b.u.mped shoulders, and maybe, she thought, Star wasn't really so bad after all.

The fog rose and slipped into the trees.

A honky-tonk bar band blasted the night each time the bar door opened.

"d.a.m.n," Star said, kicking at the ground. "It's freezing out here. Let's go inside and watch some TV."

"They only get three channels. I checked."

"Better than sitting out here, freezing our b.u.t.ts off."

"Momma still mad at you?"

Star didn't answer.

Quiet footsteps behind them, and when a long leg in jeans stepped between them, they moved aside to make room for their mother.

"It's cold out here," Jude said, rubbing her arms even though she wore a heavy coat. "You girls should come in where it's warm."

Her hair was waist-long and unbraided tonight, but her weighted veil was still on, only her large dark eyes showing, s.h.i.+ning in the dark. Moonbow knew that sometimes, when it was real hot, she took it off when she was in bed. Never anytime else. Not even when they were the only ones in the room, not even though they'd often told her that they wouldn't mind it if she did.

Momma never showed her face to anyone.

Not even to the man who would have made her his queen.

"So," Jude said, clasping her hands in her lap. "What do you think?"

"About what?" Stars.h.i.+ne asked sullenly.

Jude shrugged. "I don't know. Anything."

Stars.h.i.+ne stamped her feet again and yanked on her cap's brim. She muttered something Moonbow didn't catch, but she figured it wasn't too bad, because Momma didn't start yelling again, she only rapped a knuckle against Star's thigh.

Star said, "Ouch," but she didn't move away.

A car backfired on the road.

They could hear a pair of male voices raised in drunken argument.

"Nice place," Star said, her sarcasm thick.

"We'll be out of here in the morning, dear."

"And then where, Momma? Then where do we go?" Stars.h.i.+ne pushed off the log and walked to the riverbank's edge, swatting at the reeds that grew up to her waist. "When are we going to stop, Momma, huh? Is this what we're gonna do for the rest of our lives?"

Moonbow tried to signal her sister to shut up, but it was too dark now, and the fog too thick. If it hadn't been for the window lights, she wouldn't be able to see her at all.

"Darling," her mother said patiently, "I know you're tired. I know you're disappointed about leaving all your new friends. But-"

"I'm not disappointed," Star said angrily. "I'm sick, Momma. I'm sick of it all. I want... I want..."

"To go home," Moonbow whispered. She leaned against Jude's arm and sighed loudly. "It isn't fair, Momma. You know this isn't fair."

"But..." Jude's hands fluttered helplessly across her lap, through the air in front of her face, back to her lap again. "But we have to do this, kids. We have to. It's important."

Stars.h.i.+ne yanked a reed out by the roots and flung it as far as she could into the river. "Please, Momma, don't tell us about the stupid dream again, okay?"

Jude's voice hardened. "It isn't stupid. Believe me, it is not stupid."

"Enough, Momma, okay?" Star said wearily, and she trudged back to the log, sat next to her sister. "Enough. We don't want to hear it anymore."

"Is that true, Bow? Is that really true?"

Moonbow shuddered at the pain in her mother's voice, but she couldn't deny that Star was right. They had been dragged across more than half the country, no say at all in where they were going, what they were going to do. In the beginning it was kind of fun, an adventure, like one of those quests she saw in the movies and read in her books.

It used to be fun, staying out of school, living in a different place every day, eating in diners and fast food restaurants and real restaurants every day; it used to be fun, until they had settled in Missouri and were reminded of what it was like, how nice it was not to be moving anymore, how nice it was to be able to come back to the same room, the same beds, the same house.

Every day.

"Oh, Lord," Jude said, and pushed herself to her feet. "Oh, Lord, dear G.o.d, what the h.e.l.l have I done?"

2.

Beatrice, hands cupped under her head, lay on a queen-size bed that sagged almost comically in the center. She would have moved to the other one, but that mattress had a depression at the top that made it feel as if her head were hanging over a great hole. The ceiling, stained and peeling and sagging itself a bit near the far wall, appeared to recede when she stared at it too long, but there was nothing else to look at in this miserable little room. The television barely worked, the furniture was barely adequate, and when she'd looked through the mildewed drapes a few minutes ago, all she could see was that horrid little bar across the road.

If she could sleep, it would solve everything. At least for the time being. If she could sleep, she'd be shut of the children's complaints and Jude's silent protests and her own persistent doubts that somehow she had made a terrible mistake.

Sir John, she thought, I think I'm going to stop.

My dear Beatrice, he answered, his form thin and s.h.i.+mmering in front of the chipped and streaked door, you know you can't do that.

Yes, I can, dear. Believe me, I can.

And what will you do, then?

She sighed, s.h.i.+fted, and said aloud, "I'll go back to that lovely place we just left. The children love it there, n.o.body bothers Jude, and I think I can get my old job back."

Darling, really ... selling houses?

"I was getting d.a.m.n good at it, I'll have you know."

Yes. Perhaps you were.

"And I'll get better, believe me. And when we have enough money, we can move to a bigger place, with more people, more things to do, and I'll sell even more houses, John, and ... and ... do whatever I want and not have to worry about a b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n thing."

The ghost-if it was a ghost; she couldn't be sure, and she really didn't give a d.a.m.n-smiled wanly, shook its head sadly.

My dear, you can dream about selling castles in Wales for all I care, but it isn't going to change a thing. You cannot go back. You must go on.

A series of backfires made her jump, loud voices and stumbling footsteps had her squinting to be sure she'd put the latch on the door.

"John-"

I'm sorry, my dear, truly I am. Besides, how will you ever find someone else to love if you go back to that dreadful Missouri place?

"John, don't be silly."

I'm not, Beatrice, I'm not. In case you haven't noticed, I'm rather dead, and you're too young to be in mourning for the rest of your life.

"John, you haven't even been gone two years, for heaven's sake. It would be ... I don't know, unseemly."

Two years, two centuries, what difference does it make?

"Two centuries would mean I'm dead as well."

The figure smiled broadly, touched the side of its nose, and pointed at her with a long trembling finger.

Temper, my darling, temper.

Beatrice rolled onto her side, facing the wall.

That won't do it, you know, Bea. I'm still here.

"Don't I know it, you old goat," she muttered.

Sounds of a scuffle outside had her rolling over and sitting up quickly, feeling her heart beating hard, feeling a ribbon of cold encircle her neck.

Go on, my dear, the ghost told her gently; you really don't have a choice, you know. It's coming. Coming soon. And you have your part to play.

"d.a.m.n you, John Harp, I wish you were really here so I could strangle that scrawny little neck of yours."

What, and have to die all over again? I think not, my dear. I'll just stay in your imagination for a while longer, if you don't mind. It's so much safer.

She grinned, shook her head, and pushed a rough hand through her short brown hair, grimaced and raked her fingers through her bangs. She must be getting dotty, that's the only explanation, arguing with a ghost and threatening to kill it. Dotty, and tired, and not a little afraid.