Light the Hidden Things (10 page)

Martha laughed. “If fishing lies can keep a man out of heaven, then every day is ladies’ day up there.” She paused, then, thoughtfully, “Maybe that’s why it’s heaven.”

George watched Crow out the door. He said, “I was about to tell him he should vote for me.”

Pastor Richards said, “The man’s not even a state resident. You’re letting this mayor thing get out in front of you again.”

“Louise says I’m fixated. Fancy word. She picked it up from tv, I’ll bet. Dr. Phil. Judge Judy. One of them like that.” Shifting mental gears, he jerked a thumb at the door. “Peculiar man. I asked him was Crow a first name or a last name and all he said was yes. Doesn’t make the least bit of sense.”

Pastor Richards said. “It’s his last name. I liked him. I feel sorry for him, too, and I have no idea why.”

“’Cause he’s lonely,” Martha said.

Pastor Richards frowned. “You’re probably right, but I don’t believe he’s lonely the way you and I see it.” Looking to Martha almost apologetically, he went on, “You know, I think he’s afraid.”

George scoffed. “We talking about the same man? I see a lot of men in my store, and he doesn’t look like he scares much.”

Pastor Richards said, “I see a lot in my store, too, and I do believe he’s running from something. Maybe himself.”

“Way too deep for me.” George shrugged, turned to Martha. “People say we're all running from something. Wait’ll you hear what that Lila Milam’s up to.”

Martha said, “More to the point, I hope you’re up to teaching her how to use that Shopsmith.”

"Hold on. Teaching her's not..." George goggled. “How’d you know about that?”

Haughtily, Martha said, “I know stuff. It’s what I do, the same as you run for mayor and sell doorknobs and power tools and all. You just see she doesn’t hurt herself. Better yet, get someone to help her.”

“I was just telling the Pastor...” George almost got beyond that introduction. Martha’s experience prevailed. Most of George’s stories started with “I was just telling” and his ability to repeat long conversations verbatim, with explanations, was the stuff of local nightmares. Martha peered around him. “I’ll be right there, Estelle,” she said loudly, and shot past George with Olympian dash.

While George was turned to see what emergency had drawn off half his audience, Pastor Richards escaped with crafty silence that would have made the original serpent proud. When George turned back, his view of the Pastor was a shoe heel flashing out the door. George sulked onto a chair.

Outside, walking Front Street, Pastor Richards found himself disquieted by his morning. A fine morning, save for that one chilling moment.

Sometimes that's' the only love that's left.

Such a despairing thing to say.

On second thought, another disquieting thing was George Weathers suddenly being cryptic. What on earth would make an incurable optimist like him say we’re all running from something? Was there a certain slyness in the way he said it?

The Pastor's scalp tingled. He shook his head, then smiled, remembering Major simply shaking himself free of things he couldn’t understand. The Pastor concentrated on Crow. The more he thought about Crow’s words, the more meaning they took on. The anger was inescapable. Sadness, too. Something else, though; discipline. Of course. A man bound to a code.

But what might my own renewed fear do to my code?

There's no reason to believe anyone...

What happened was a different time. Yes, and a different man. I'm exactly who I should always have been.

He slowed, breathed deeply. He couldn't know when he left Martha’s and turned to his right that Crow had turned left. He was too engrossed in his thoughts to notice Major’s excited barking from Crow’s still-parked pickup when he passed. A shiver as light as one of his better casts brushed the back of his neck. He swatted at it nervously with the sudden understanding that he'd bonded with Crow not because of fly-fishing or Martha’s food or a love of dogs. It wasn’t even their mutual wry assessment of the human condition.

There was darkness in both of them, pain that longed for solace paired with a mind that rejected every answer to it. He squared his shoulders, marched forward. He said "Old fool," unaware he'd spoken aloud, unaware it resonated like prayer.

At the end of Front Street Crow stopped to look between the park's trees at the river.

A foul stench triggered gagging. It was nemesis. He was freezingly cold. A shimmering red curtain blinded him, turned the world into one color of a myriad shades. Stumbling away from the roaring, hissing thing in his head, he backed into a wall. Across the street tree and branches danced impossibly.

An attack of this ferocity was a thing of the past.

He fought. Surreal images snatched at his mind. The red of fire, the richer red of blood, the shimmering, unnameable red of loss. Explosions. Screams. Crisp, crackling bullets so close they left a burnt smell. He threw it all back. He pushed against the comforting solidity of bricks.

There was a time when attacks like this came with a voice shouting that every face turned his way was hostile; if he didn't destroy them, they'd destroy him. Part of Crow had listened attentively. He studied the people around him. Sometimes he imagined their deaths.

As snipers and bomb makers and suicidal maniacs had imagined his.

He attacked this new enemy inside him the same way he attacked the others.

The first battle was epic, a man alone on a Kansas prairie so featureless it had nothing but horizons. He stood in a dirt road and flailed, shouted up into a sun-fired blue that he knew the thing in him lived only to destroy him.

Dust rose in a cloud. No breeze carried it away, so it formed a gold-brown haze that cocooned him. Tears built muddy erosions through it.

Sometimes, to this day, he still tasted them, salt and earth.

He had no idea how long the fight lasted. The voice survived, but he'd broken it. Now he always suppressed it. It never stopped coming.

Yes, I'm afraid of you. I'll beat you anyway.

Crow's fists loosened. Realizing that he'd relaxed, if only for a moment, jarred him. He pushed against the wall harder. Then he heard the sound of defeat in the voice's cursing, fading back to whatever hell spawned it.

I won. Again.

Keep moving.

The madness was real, but it wasn't him. It was something else, a disease, a prince of lies. Most of the world couldn't imagine that.

He'd survived a world of pain with honor. He'd survive the aftermath with pride.

Himself.

His pickup was only a couple of blocks away. Inside the cab, on the road, was sanctuary. Separation from all problems but his own.

I can handle it.

Nothing hurts if you don't care.

There was the other force, though. The quiet, insistent one that brought no fear, but crushing dread. Power so strong it dismissed the red dream as light devours darkness. It didn't demand. It pleaded.

It forgave.

In return it wanted to claim his soul.

Crow's lungs burned like furnaces. The pressure of that patient power was almost unbearable.

You forged me in Your fire. "The best friend you could want. The worst enemy you can imagine." I lived that. I survived only because of Your protection. Why? So I could see You rip away every happiness in my life? You speak of love. You crushed mine. Forgiveness. Do you imagine that I forgive? You made a warrior then set me at war with myself. My self. Leave me to my demon. Every day I grow stronger; one day I'll kill it. And if I fail, don't dare tell me You care; You already destroyed me once.

He inhaled noisily. He stepped away from the wall. He watched ordinary people going about ordinary business. Ordinary leaves jostled on ordinary branches.

If I move toward the truck now, I’ll run. People will see a man breaking. They’ll understand nothing, but they’ll say they know how I feel. Liars.

His mouth was dry, his tongue felt like a ball of yarn. He trembled.

Straighten up, fool. That's crazy talk. It's worse than paranoid.
It's weak
.

He made himself cross the street into the park. Sweat trickled down his back. Under the arching trees, sure no one was watching, he closed his eyes and sagged against a thick trunk.

Patricia should have told me. All her strength, all her concern, went to her husband and her son. She had nothing left for herself.

Joe said it: “You killed her. Death’s what you do. Are you proud now?”

Until Joe blamed him - before Patricia took everything with her into death - the red dreams were just memories that got out of hand for a few minutes. A man faced them down.

“You killed her.”

My wife. His mother.

He opened his eyes and rolled his head from side to side. Loosening muscles slid across each other like slabs of grease. More secure with each step, he moved to the water’s edge where he hefted a softball-sized rock and heaved it. Impact sent up a plume of spray. Rushing current swept the splash downstream.

Just the night before - so long ago - the woman named Lila told him she pictured the river carrying away her troubles.

Throwing a another rock, then another, built his relief. He smiled, savoring the intoxication of being in control. A man who controlled himself gave himself time.

Time was both answer and question, though. How much time would it take to heal from the past?

Retracing his steps across the street he stopped abruptly, staring. While he’d been thinking of time, he was only a few yards from a shop with an old-fashioned hanging sign as large as a card table that said
Horologist
in ornate gilt. There was a clock in each of the shop’s twin windows, each at least four feet tall. Incredibly, the exposed works and freeform structure were exotic woods. Necessary metal was polished to a dazzle. Each piece was unique in the artistic rendering of the machine's mechanical demands. The pendulums, one spherical, the other a cube, swayed in perfect unison. Wooden gears ticked meticulous circles.

Crow was tempted to go inside for a closer look. The machines were intriguing. Besides, concentrating on something else helped deflect the flashbacks. He checked his watch and decided to do it.

The sound of two dozen more working clocks greeted his entrance. Rather than clacking, the wooden parts generated busy mumble he found soothing. Every instrument was large, the smallest about two feet square. A grandfather clock was at least seven feet high.

A man stepped through a door that revealed the workshop in back. Well into middle age, he was a blocky, bearded figure in white coveralls speckled with sawdust. Beard, leonine mane, and flowing eyebrows roosting over gold-rimmed glasses were all solid gray. He regarded Crow with a smile wide enough to allow gleaming teeth to peer through the brush. He carried his head at a peculiar angle, nose tilted skyward, but maintained eye contact with Crow while he brushed at the sawdust, saying, “Mornin’. Welcome to my shop. I’m Herman Odegaard. If you see anything you like, have questions, whatever, just sing out.” He waved an arm. “Store’s all yours.”

Crow knew the sound of a bad upper plate when he heard it. Herman’s sibilants rode the air on a tiny whistle. The fluting background notes made Crow think of a magazine article about Victorian English who believed fairies had parties at the bottom of the garden.

Herman continued, “Some people get uncomfortable in here. All that tick-tock makes them feel time’s making them older. Poppycock.”

It got Crow's attention. No one said poppycock.

Herman seized on Crow’s interest. “You think much of time? About what it is, I mean?”

Recovered, Crow said, “No,” and was turning away when Herman said, “You notice I set my clocks for different time zones?”

“No.”

For most people the response would have cut off the meager conversational gambit. Not so Herman. “Time affects us in different ways in different places. Time’s really an unpredictable friend. She can help you, hurt you, or just generally mess up your mind.” Herman pointed. “That wall clock? Oak flywheel, brass pendulum? That’s Greenwich, where time starts. Is that just like the Brits? Tell the whole world what time it is?” Warming to his theme, he gestured dramatically, endangering several thousand dollars worth of art. “I look at my Greenwich clock and I want a good cup of British tea. I mean
crave
it. Is that rational? No. It’s how time and place and culture are all jumbled up. Our poor brain can’t always sort them out.”

Herman bent forward, head still oddly tilted. He noticed Crow’s reflexive withdrawal. Undisturbed, Herman explained. “Bifocals. Slip down on my nose, have to lean my head back to focus on folks.”

Crow couldn’t help himself. “Can’t you get glasses that fit?”

“No need. I just leave them where they stop skidding. It makes me see the world a few degrees off plumb, but doesn’t everyone?” Without waiting for an answer, Herman continued, “A tourist bought a clock last week. I looked at the Greenwich piece while I was wrapping it. I offered to put it in the boot of his car. Greenwich time made me say boot instead of trunk. Jumbled, don’t you see?”