Riders In The Sky Part 31

"What?"

"That's what the man said. Valium. You know, it-"

"I know what it is, Rick," he said sharply. "What I don't know is how it did what it did."

"h.e.l.l, that's easy. There's enough there to make you stupid for the rest of your life. Kind of." He shook his head, kicked lightly at a tire with a heel. "Man, I didn't know half of what the guy was talking about. I always thought it was, you know, what shrinks gave you to calm you down. You know, nervous rich lady stuff. I didn't know it helped if you were having a fit or something, things like that."

Casey turned the bottle over and over in his hand. "Neither did I, Rick. Neither did I."

"That dose there, though, it's enough to ..." He laughed shortly. "h.e.l.l, I already said that, didn't I? So how come, huh? Why'd the man lie to you?"

Casey didn't know.

Jordan started for the truck door, stopped, and shook his head. "You really don't know?"

"Nope."

"You find out, you tell me? I have to admit, I'm awfully curious."

"You and me both, Rick. You and me both." He tucked the bottle into a palm, rolled it back and forth. "And thanks. Thanks for doing this. I owe you one."

"Nah. No sweat." Jordan opened the door and climbed in, then stuck his head out the window. "You might want to move over there, Casey. You don't need being run over on top of everything else."

Casey moved, but slowly.

More questions, and he was getting angry because he was too exhausted to think them through.

"Something else," Jordan said after he started the engine.

"What?"

Jordan pointed up the road.

Casey turned and saw, almost hidden in the dusk, a car parked at the bend.

"They came to see you," Jordan explained. "From the looks of them, they got themselves beat up pretty good, too."

"Who are they?" he demanded. "Rick, who-"

But Jordan had already pulled the truck into a tight U-turn, the engine and m.u.f.fler too loud for talk. A hand waved over the roof, and the pickup was gone. Casey stared after it, the pill bottle tight in his hand, then stared at the car until a door opened, and a man slid out.

"Casey?"

He couldn't see clearly, didn't recognize the voice. Too tired to be tense, too confused and suspicious to answer. The only thing he was sure of was that Rick wouldn't have left him if there was any threat.

He hoped.

Then he heard another voice: "Casey? Reverend Chisholm?"

Oh my Lord, he thought; oh my sweet Lord.

He reached out with his free hand for something to hold on to. All it found was air, and it was still fumbling when Cora Bowes exploded from the car and ran toward him, crying, hands and arms flapping, until she fell against his chest and he had no choice but to hold her.

"Cora," he said, his voice deep and husky. "My G.o.d ... Cora."

a lifetime ago in a world dead and buried, three kids pulling a prank, and he'd caught them and lectured them and laughed and sent them on their way and one was dead and two were ...

two belonged to a lifetime ago in a world dead and buried.

He held her tightly, too stunned to speak, too many things abruptly awakened. Anger and joy and despair and the realization that he was about to fall. He held her more tightly, looked over her head, and saw someone hurrying toward him, arm in a sling tight to his chest.

His eyes widened.

He grinned despite the wail of failure that begged for his attention.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned, Reed?"

Reed Turner, heedless of his injury and ignoring Cora, fell against him too, clumsily, his good arm trying to encircle the larger man's back. He wasn't crying, but he couldn't speak.

Too much, Casey thought; this is too much, I don't... dear G.o.d, I can't- "Casey, it's good to see you again."

The man was tall, lank, and once he was close enough and Casey could see his face and that jumble of hair, he squeezed Reed and Cora so tightly they gasped and squirmed and squeezed him back.

"John," he said flatly, no emotion left in him.

Bannock nodded, almost sheepishly. A half turn to indicate the woman waiting hesitantly near the car. "That's Lisse Montgomery, Casey. She and I... well, we kind of had an adventure. We, uh ... we ... you were right, you know. When you called that time? You were ... hey, are you okay?"

He wasn't, and he wasn't about to play the role.

"The house," he said, blinking heavily. "I think you guys had better help me to the house."

4.

O.

n a mountaintop in Tennessee he sits on the great black and scowls at the twinkling lights of a large town spread across the far horizon, at the lighted roads that lead to it. He pushes at the brim of his hat until the hat rests above his forehead. His old-leather gloved hands are folded over the saddle horn. Leather creaks when he s.h.i.+fts. The bridle sings when the black bobs its head.

Beside him the long white car idles almost silently.

The driver's window is down.

The pa.s.senger window is down, and Joey, his hat off, sticks his head out and frowns.

"I felt something," he says.

Red nods. "Yep."

"It didn't work, huh?"

"Doesn't look like it."

"How can it not work?"

Red brushes a thumb over the pale stubble on his cheek. "Sometimes it just don't."

"That's stupid." And Joey yelps when Eula smacks him across the back of his head, yanks him back inside, and forces him to change seats with her.

"I apologize for the child," she says.

Red nods. Just once.

"Still, it seems ... odd, don't you think?"

A gentle criticism that makes him swing his head around. There is no expression on his face, and she looks straight ahead, hands in her lap. Waiting for an explanation.

The black stamps a hoof and backs up until Red and Eula are even.

"We've been doing this a long time," he says.

She nods. Just once.

"Maybe ... don't rightly know, but maybe we've kind of had it a little easy."

No reaction.

Joey whimpers.

"Maybe... maybe we tend to forget we are what we are. We ain't no more than that."

She looks at him for a long time before, at last, she nods, reluctantly, the possible truth of it.

"Maybe," he says quietly, "I was wrong."

No response.

None at all.

Then Susan says, "Together."

The black s.h.i.+es.

emerald sparks and scarlet fire "No more trying to even the odds, okay? because there aren't any odds, Red. There's only us. There's only them."

He takes a slow deep breath, and when he exhales fog is born on the ground, curls around the black's hooves, rises in patches and puffs above the white car's tires, spreads down the mountainside and soon smothers all the lights of the city and the roads.

"Yep," he says, and pulls his hat down. "Yep."

"Good."

He smiles. Not quick now; it lasts.

And Joey scrambles over Eula's lap, looks up at him, and says, solemnly, "I want to play."

When Red laughs ...

... down in the city, a thousand people scream.

5.

1.

E.

arly Wednesday afternoon, Lyman Baylor stands in the center aisle of his church, imagining the pews filled for Friday's Christmas as they had been on Thanksgiving, imagining himself up there in the pulpit, his words of such force and conviction that no eye is left dry, no soul left lost, no lips left without a smile.

So what do you think, Dad? he thought; you think I'm throwing it all away now?

The sun has reached the front of the building, slips into the nave from a small round window over the choir gallery, taking his shadow and stretching it toward the large cross hanging from the ceiling. There is little warmth left; the church is damp and chilled, but he's used to it, that's part of the building's character-no matter how hard the furnace works, there's always someplace that doesn't quite get the heat.

Behind him the front door opens.

"Ly?"