Riders In The Sky Part 46

"She what? Are you crazy?"

"Just doing my job, sir." , "G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Vale, you'd better be packed, because if this goes bad, I swear I'll run you out of town on a rail."

"Yes, sir," he said, nodding to Verna. "Yes, sir, I understand."

He hung up, rubbed his ear, and with his left foot nudged the suitcase resting in the well of his desk. "Dub, I'm telling you again, if you're wrong about this, I'm gonna look like ten kinds of a jacka.s.s, the mayor's gonna want your scalp, and I'm gonna be standing right behind him, sharpening the d.a.m.n knife."

Neely pushed out of his chair, clapped his hands once. "Then let's go, Sheriff. Saddle up, and let's get them there bad guys."

"In a minute, Dub, in a minute. For this kind of thing, I'm going to need reinforcements."

When the telephone rang, Stone exchanged a questioning glance with Lauder, then shrugged, and answered.

"Stone?"

"Indeed."

"This is Cutler."

"I know, sir, I know."

"Good, then get your a.s.s outta there. The sheriff'll be on his way in a few minutes, and he's bringing a posse."

Stone thanked him, hung up, and said, "Well, Dutch, it seems our luck isn't so good today. Pack up, we have five minutes."

"Where'll we go?"

"Seeing as how he's paying the bills, I suggest we drop in on the mayor."

7.

Casey stood in front of the storeroom closet.

The door was closed, and his hand on the k.n.o.b, but he couldn't yet bring himself to turn it.

His arm trembled; his throat was dry.

He glanced at the boots on the floor beside him and remembered an evening not so many years ago when he had walked up the main street of Maple Landing, moon casting his shadow ahead of him, boot heels hard on the ground, and he'd imagined himself the local hero, the gun-fighter who was out to protect the people of his town. He had laughed at the conceit then, knew it to be a vivid byproduct of his pride.

He wasn't laughing now.

If you do this, Case, you may not be around when it's over, you know.

They used to tease him, his friends, when he cursed now and then, and he never tired of reminding them that just because he was a priest didn't mean he wasn't a man. Not perfect, was how he put it; doing my best, but not perfect.

If you do this, the others may not be around, either.

He tightened his grip on the doork.n.o.b.

"Lord," he whispered, "no offense, but if this is wrong, I'd sure appreciate a lightning bolt about now."

He grinned.

He laughed.

He opened the door.

He showered in the hottest water he could stand, scrubbed himself as hard as he could without drawing blood. When the water began to chill, he turned it off, climbed out of the tub, and stood in front of the mirror, and sighed. Only once.

The coloring had left his hair; it was white again, pure white.

In the bedroom he put on the black jeans he hadn't worn since he'd thrown in the towel; the black collarless s.h.i.+rt that suggested he'd put on a few pounds; black socks over which he pulled the boots, wondering why he'd ever given them up. Lots of folks had laughed at them, mockingly called him an urban preacher cowboy, but he'd never found a pair of shoes that had been halfway as comfortable. And even if he hadn't become a priest, he would have worn black anyway, because he hated trying to figure out which color matched which. That, too, had been a great source of good-natured amus.e.m.e.nt among his friends.

Friends long gone.

Friends too long unavenged.

On the dresser he placed a small box lined with velvet, a gift from his momma. He opened it carefully, hesitated, fingers trembling, before he took out a simple gold cross on a simple gold chain, and hung it around his neck.

He opened a second box, a longer, wider one, velvet-lined, with narrow compartments, and again he hesitated. This was the last step. This was the final move. He could stop now, and nothing would change; he could stop now, still retreat. Dishonored perhaps, but still alive.

don't take your guns to town, son leave your guns at home The boy in the song hadn't left them, and he'd died.

A wry smile: you're stalling, Case, get moving.

He reached into the box and pulled out a white starched collar, used one hand to put it around his neck, used the other to close it in back with an amber tab. Quickly. Without thinking.

Then he turned around to face the bed. On it lay a black suit jacket and of black denim jacket. Except when his duties took him to the hospital or a meeting out of town, they were virtually interchangeable as far as he was concerned.

"Move it," he ordered quietly. "Move it, they're waiting."

He grabbed the denim, draped it over his arm, and hurried down the stairs, aware of how he sounded, too aware of the cold wings batting in his stomach, the faint buzzing in his head, the weakness in his legs.

"All right, ready or not," he called before he reached the bottom, trying to sound light and casual, wincing when he realized he had instinctively used what Reed called "the voice," the one that filled his church, the one that filled the valley that lay below his mother's grave.

To his embarra.s.sment they all stood when he walked into the front room, but of all the reactions he might have guessed he'd witness, he never would have guessed he'd see John Bannock, weeping.

He motioned the others to sit, stepped over to John, and grasped his shoulders.

"My ... son," John said, biting his lips.

Casey shook his head. "No, John, he isn't. You know that. He isn't your son, and he never was your son. He's one of them, John, and now they're all riding." He looked at the others. "And they know you're with me."

5.

1.

H.

e felt like the conductor of an orchestra that preferred its own rhythm. Standing in the kitchen, he waved his arms to direct food onto the table, sandwiches to be made, food to be microwaved, sandwiches on plates to be taken elsewhere, kids who didn't want to go elsewhere, Lisse who had reverted to waitress mode and spent twenty minutes giggling with the girls as she showed them carrying tricks ... he sang nonsense songs that had the Levin girls giggling in spite of their still obvious distrust of him, old cowboy songs that John sometimes joined in on with mostly the wrong words, a few hand-clapping, foot-stomping, raise the roof and the h.e.l.l with the neighbors Gospel pieces, and anything else he could think of so no one had time to ask questions.

The sun was nearly down when the house quieted, and he leaned against the sink, head down, looking for a decent breath.

"You're quite good, you know."

Moving only his eyes, he saw Beatrice standing in the doorway. "When you have to keep a bunch of teenagers from killing each other on a camping trip, you catch on pretty fast."

She sat at the table, blew an angel-wing out of her eye. "Do you have a plan? Or is that too presumptuous at this point?"

"Lady Harp, I-"

"Beatrice, please," she said quickly. "We're a little too involved for such formalities."

"Sure. And no, Beatrice, I don't have a plan. I feel like a general who's fighting a war on two fronts, and I'm making myself plenty dizzy just trying to keep them straight."

She picked up a spoon, tapped the bowl against her palm. "I should think one at a time would be best, don't you?"

"Pick one, then."

"Your problems on the island, I should think," she answered without hesitation. "The other will... today's Wednesday, New Year's Eve isn't until Friday."

"And what do you propose I do?"

She smiled. "Ah, there's where the general is supposed to make the decisions." She watched the spoon as though it were moving on its own. "But have you considered the possibility that the two are connected?"

He pushed away from the sink, dropped into the chair opposite her. From the living room he heard Cora laughing and one of the Levin girls protesting, and laughing.

"Beatrice, I'm not a general. And it's only been a few hours since I decided I was going to do something at all. I haven't had time to think, hardly time to take a breath."

"So you don't know why these people are after you."

He shook his head.

"Perhaps it's because someone else doesn't want you around."

He opened his mouth to tell her that was awfully farfetched, closed it when he realized it wasn't that farfetched at all. Two of the three people who had faced the first three Riders were here on Camoret Island. And he had a strong feeling Lady Harp had more to do with matters in Las Vegas than she'd admitted.

Impulsively he reached over and covered her hands, trapping the spoon into silence. "Beatrice, the Riders, they can't be killed, you know. They-" He closed his eyes for a second, then looked helplessly at her. "I don't know what's expected of me. Of us. I'm not Joan of Arc, I don't hear voices." A glance toward the living room, and he lowered his voice. "They forget that I lost, Beatrice. She's still out there, riding."

He watched her eyes move as she studied his face, and he could almost feel their touch. Wanted, for some reason, to feel their touch. Started but didn't retreat when she pulled her hands gently from under his, put them in her lap.

"By that definition," she said tightly, "we all did, didn't we? Are you telling me, then, it was all for nothing?"

He could almost feel the cold anger he saw in her eyes, in the set of her lips, and he pushed away from the table, walked over to the back door, and looked out at the yard. No demons lurking there, no gouts of h.e.l.lfire, no monsters-pale fading sunlight, and gra.s.s settling in for the winter, and a hedge with a ragged gap where he'd crashed through last night; fragments of blue sky, subtle movement to suggest a breeze.

He almost said it again: I don't hear voices, I'm not told what to do.

Instead, without apology: "They're riding together this time, and they have help."

"They've had help before."

"They've never ridden together before."

"Well, I'm not a tactician, Casey, but I'm fairly sure that a good principle in this case then would be to even the odds."

He turned with a rueful smile. "And what-"

He stopped when Lisse came to the door, held his breath when he saw the look on her face.

"What?" he said grimly.

"There's someone here, Casey. He says-"

He saw Hector Nazario over her shoulder, waiting by the front door, and he knew.

As Beatrice rose from her chair, he strode from the kitchen, eyes narrowed, a sudden hollow feeling in his chest. Lisse backed away hastily, pressed against the wall as he pa.s.sed. Hector's eyes widened when he saw the black, and the collar, and the size of the man who marched toward him down the hall.

"Hector," Casey said, so quietly that Hector took a step back.

He stammered, staring at the people gathered in the living room, staring at Casey.