Mind of My Mind (12 page)

"And what?"

"And as soon as you get somebody to help you."

Clay stared at him. "You've got to be kidding."

"Man, you need somebody."

"The hell I do! Some crazy old man lived out here by himself, but me, I need

somebody. No! No way!"

"You want to try to drive the van into town yourself?" Suddenly Seth was shouting.

"How many people you figure you'll kill along the way? Aside from yourself, I mean."

Clay had not dared to drive since his last accident, in which he had nearly killed three

people. But obviously he had not been thinking about that. Seth spoke again, softly this

time. "Man, you know you're going to have to go into town sooner or later."

"I'd rather hitch in with somebody who lives around here," muttered Clay. "I could go

to that place we passed—the one with the windmill."

"Clay, you need somebody. You know you do."

"Another Goddamn baby sitter."

"How about a wife? Or at least a woman."

Now Clay looked outraged. "You want to find me a woman?"

"Hell no. Find your own woman. But I'm not leaving until you do."

Clay looked around the shack, looked out the open door. "No woman in her right

mind would want to come out here and share this place with me."

"This place isn't bad. Hell, tell her what you're going to do with it. Tell her about the

house you're going to build her. Tell her how good you're going to take care of her."

Clay stared at him.

"Well?"

"She's going to have to be some woman to look at these God-forsaken rocks and

bushes and listen to me daydreaming."

"You'll do all right. I never knew you to have trouble finding a woman when you

wanted one."

"Hell, that was different."

"I know. But you'll do all right." Seth would see that he did all right. When Clay

found a woman he liked, Seth would fix things for him. Clay would never have to know.

The woman would "fall in love" faster and harder and more permanently than she ever

had before. Seth didn't usually manipulate Clay that way, but Clay really needed

somebody around. What if something caught his mind while he was fixing food, and he

fell across the stove? What if a lot of things! Best to get him a good woman and tie her to

him tight. Best to tie Clay to her a little, too. Otherwise Clay might get mean enough to

kick her out over nothing.

And it would be a good idea to see that a couple of Clay's nearest neighbors were

friendly. Clay tended to make friends easily, then lose them just as easily because his

violent "epileptic seizures" scared people. People decided that he was either crazy or

going crazy, and they backed away. Seth would see that the neighbors here didn't back

away.

"I think I'll go back to Adamsville and make one of the store owners open up," he told

Clay. "You want to go along and start your hunt?" He could feel Clay cringe mentally at

the thought.

"No thanks. I'm not in any hurry. Besides, I need a chance to look the place over

myself before I think about bringing somebody else out here."

"Okay." Seth managed not to smile. He looked around the shack. There was an

ancient electric refrigerator in one corner waiting for the electricity to be turned on. And

in the storage room, he could see an old-fashioned icebox—the kind you had to put ice in.

He decided to bring back some ice for it. The electricity couldn't be turned on until late

tomorrow at the soonest, and he wanted to buy some food.

"Anything special you want me to bring back, Clay?"

Clay wiped his forehead on his sleeve and looked out into the bright sunlight.

"Couple of six-packs."

Seth grunted. "Yeah. You didn't have to tell me that." He went out to the van and got

in. The van was a big oven. He almost blistered his hand on the steering wheel. And he

was getting a headache.

He hadn't had a headache since his transition. In fact, this one felt like the ones he

used to get when he was approaching transition. But you only went through that once.

The sun must have been affecting him. Best to get moving and let the wind cool him off.

He started down the winding dirt path that led to the edge of his property. The path

crossed railroad tracks and met a gravel road. That road led to the main highway. The

place was isolated, all right. It was a bad place to get sick. And Seth was getting sick. It

wasn't the heat—or, if it was, the wind blowing through the van window wasn't helping.

He felt worse than ever. He was just reaching the railroad tracks when he lost control of

the van.

Something slammed into his thoughts as though his mental shield didn't exist. It was

an explosion of mental static that blotted out everything else, left him able to do nothing

other than endure it, and endure the fierce residue of pain and shock that followed it.

By some miracle, he did not wreck the van. He ran it into the sign that identified his

property as the something-or-other ranch. But the dry wooden signpost snapped easily

against the bumper and fell without damaging the van.

Seth lost consciousness for a moment. When he came to, he saw that he had managed

to stop the van and that he had fallen across the horn. He sat up wondering whether he

had made enough noise to alert Clay, back at the shack.

Several seconds later, he heard someone—it must have been Clay—running toward

the van. Then all real sound was drowned by the "sound" within his head. Mental static

welling up again agonizingly. It was not like transition. He received no individual violent

incidents that he could distinguish. Instead he felt himself seized, held, and somehow

divided against himself. When he tried to shield himself from whatever was attacking

him, it was as though he had tried to close a door while his leg or arm was still in the

doorway. He was being used against himself somehow.

He was vaguely aware of the van door opening, of Clay asking what had happened.

He did not even try to answer. If he had opened his mouth, he would have screamed.

When he finally found the strength to try again to defend himself against whatever

had attacked him, his defense was thrown back in his face. With it, he received his only

comprehensible communication from his attacker. A one-word command that left him no

opportunity for argument or disobedience.

Come.

He was being drawn westward, toward California, toward Los Angeles, toward

Forsyth, one of the many suburbs of Los Angeles, toward . . .

He could see the house he was to go to, a white stucco mansion. But he could not see

who called him there, or why he had been called, or how his caller was able to exert such

influence over him. Because he would definitely go to Forsyth. He had no choice. The

pull was too strong.

The intensity of the call lessened to a bearable din and the shock of the attack passed.

He and Clay would go to California. He couldn't leave Clay here alone in the desert.

And he couldn't stay to see Clay settled in. He couldn't stay for anything at all. Clay's

independence would have to wait. Everything would have to wait.

RACHEL DAVIDSON

Rachel had made herself sick by following Eli's suggestion. Thus it seemed only

reasonable that Eli take her place and preach the sermon today. And it was only

reasonable that she stay at the hotel, relaxed, semiconscious, so that her body did not

shake from this one illness that she was helpless against.

And since everything was so reasonable, she thought, why had she brought herself to

full consciousness despite her shaking? Why was she now in a cab on her way to the

church, hastily dressed, her hair barely combed, without a prepared sermon? Returning,

Eli would say, like an addict to her heroin.

Well, let Eli say whatever he wanted to. Let him do whatever he wanted to. But when

she reached the church, let him not stand in that pulpit one minute longer than it took him

to introduce her. But he would know that. He would take one look at her face and get out

of her way.

He and his ideas of how a healing should be performed! He had never performed one

in his life. Never dared to try, because he knew that, even if he managed to succeed a

time or two with great help from the sick person's own suggestibility, he would never

equal Rachel. He could never perform one tenth of the healings she performed, because

she never failed. What he would strain to do, what he would sweat over and call for

divine assistance with, she could do easily. Easily, but not without cost. The power, the

energy she used in a healing service had to come from somewhere. Eli had called her a

parasite, a second Doro. He had talked her into forgoing her usual "price." She had tried,

and that was why she was sick now. That was why the taxi driver, who was black too and

who knew the church at the address she gave, asked her sympathetically whether she was

going to see "that traveling faith healer."

"I'm going to see her, all right," said Rachel through her teeth. Her grimness must

have surprised him. He asked no more questions. A few moments later, when he pulled

up at the church, she threw him a few bills and ran in without waiting for her change.

She managed to remember her robe because wearing it had become such a habit with

her. Eli, as much a showman as a minister, had insisted on it through all the six years that

they had worked together. A flowing white robe.

The congregation was singing when she walked into the auditorium. Watery, pallid,

uninspired singing. They were making uncoordinated noises with their throats. And their

number! In her tours, Rachel was used to people sitting in the aisles, pushing in from

outside when there was no more room for them. She had filled circus-type tents when she

appeared in them. But there were empty seats out there now.