The Best of Lucius Shepard (46 page)

“Get out!” I
told him.

“You’re
workin’ yourself in real deep, man,” he said.

“This ain’t
no bullshit!” I said. “I will shoot.”

“Look here,
Curt,” he said. “S’pose we’re just plain ol’ ordinary grunts. You gonna shoot
us all? And if you do, don’t you think we’d have friends who’d take it hard?
Any way you slice it, you bookin’ yourself a silver box and air freight home.”

He came a
step toward me, and I said, “Watch it, man!” He came another step, his devil
mask split by a fierce grin. My heart felt hot and solid in my chest, no beats,
and I thought, He’s a ghost, his flesh is smoke, the paint a color in my eye.
“Keep back!” I warned.

“Gonna kill
me?” Again he grinned. “Go ahead.” He lunged, a feint only, and I squeezed the
trigger.

The gun
jammed.

When I think
now how this astounded me, I wonder at my idiocy. The gun jammed frequently. It
was an absolute piece of shit, that weapon. But at the time its failure seemed
a magical coincidence, a denial of the laws of chance. And adding to my
astonishment was the reaction of the other men: they made no move toward
Randall, as if no opportunity had been provided, no danger passed. Yet the tall
guy looked somewhat shaken to me.

Randall let
out a mewling noise, and that sound enlisted my competence I edged between the
tables and took a stand next to him. “Let me get the knife from him,” I said.
“No point in both of ‘em dyin’.”

The tall guy
drew a deep breath as if to settle himself. “You reckon you can do that, Curt?”

“Maybe. If
you guys wait outside, he won’t be as scared and maybe I can get it.”

They stared
at me, unreadable.

“Gimme a
chance.”

“We ain’t
after no innocent blood.” The tall guy’s tone was firm, as if this were policy.
“But . . .”

“Just a
coupla minutes,” I said. “That’s all I’m askin’.”

I could
almost hear the tick of the tall guy’s judgment. “Okay,” he said at last. “But
don’t you go tryin’ nothin’ hinkey, Curt.” Then, to Randall. “We be waitin’,
Randall J.”

As soon as
they were out the door, I kneeled beside Randall. Spittle flecked the clerk’s
lips, and when Randall shifted the knife a tad, his eyes rolled up into heaven.
“Leave me be,” said Randall. He might have been talking to the air, the walls,
the world.

“Give it
up,” I said.

He just
blinked.

“Let him go
and I’ll help you,” I said. “But if you cut him, you on your own. That how you
want it?”

“Un-unh.”

Well, turn
him loose.”

“I can’t,”
he said, a catch in his voice. “I’m all froze up. If I move, I’ll cut him.”
Sweat dripped into his eyes, and he blinked some more.

How ‘bout I
take it from you? If you keep real still, if you lemme ease outta your hand,
maybe we can work it that way.”

“I don’t
know. . . . I might mess up.”

The clerk
gave a long shuddery sigh and squeezed his eyes shut.

“You gonna
be fine,” I said to Randall. “Just keep your eyes on me, and you gonna be
fine.”

I stretched
out my hand. The clerk was trembling, Randall was trembling, and when I touched
the blade it was so full of vibration, it felt alive, as if 11 the energy in
the room had been concentrated there. I tried pulling it away from the clerk’s
neck, but it wouldn’t budge.

“You gotta
loosen up, Randall,” I said.

I tried
again and, gripping the blade between my forefinger and thumb, managed to pry
it an inch or so away from the line of blood it had drawn. My fingers were
sweaty, the metal slick, and the blade felt like it was connected to a spring,
that any second it would snap back and bite deep.

“My fingers
are slippin’,” I said, and the clerk whimpered.

“Ain’t my
fault if they do.” Randall said this pleadingly, as if testing the waters, the
potentials of his guilt and innocence, and I realized he was setting me up the
way he had Moon’s killers. It was a childlike attempt compared to the other,
but I knew to his mind it would work out the same. “The hell it ain’t!” I said.
“Don’t do it, man!”

“It ain’t my
fault!” he insisted.

“Randall!”

I could feel
his intent in the quiver of the blade. With my free hand, I grabbed the clerk’s
upper arm, and as the knife slipped, I jerked him to side. The blade sliced his
jaw, and he screeched; but the wound wasn’t mortal.

I plucked
the knife from Randall’s hand, wanting to kill him myself. But I had invested
too much in his salvation. I hauled him erect and over to the window; I smashed
out the glass with a chair and pushed him through.

Then I
jumped after him. As I came to my feet, I saw the painted men closing in from
the front of the PX and—still towing Randall along—I sprinted around the corner
of the building and up the slope, calling for help. Lights flicked on, and
heads popped from tent flaps. But when they spotted Randall, they ducked back inside.

I was
afraid, but Randall’s abject helplessness—his eyes rolling like a freaked
calf’s, his hands clawing at me for support—helped to steady me. The painted
men seemed to be everywhere. They would materialize from behiind tents, out of
bunker mouths, grinning madly and waving moonstruck knives, and send us veering
off in another direction, back and forth across the hill. Time and again, I
thought they had us, and on several occasions, it was only by a hairsbreadth
that I eluded the slash of a blade that looked to be bearing a charge of
winking silver energy on its tip. I was wearing down, stumbling, gasping, and I
was certain we couldn’t last much longer. But we continued to evade them, and I
began to sense that they were in no hurry to conclude the hunt; their pursuit
had less an air of frenzy than of a ritual harassment, and eventually, as we
staggered up to the mouth of the operations bunker and—I believed—safety, I
realized that they had been herding us. I pushed Randall inside and glanced
back from the sandbagged entrance. The five men stood motionless a second,
perhaps fifty feet away, then melted into the darkness.

I explained
what had happened to the MP on duty in the bunker—a heavyset guy named
Cousins—and though he had no love for Randall, he was a dutiful sort and gave
us permission to wait out the night inside. Randall slumped down against the
wall, resting his head on his knees, the picture of despair. But I believed
that his survival was assured. With the testimony of the clerk, I thought the
shrinks would have no choice but to send him elsewhere for examination and
possible institutionalization. I felt good, accomplished, and passed the night
chain-smoking, bullshitting with Cousins.

Then, toward
dawn, a voice issued from the radio. It was greatly distorted, but it sounded
very much like Randall’s.

“Randall
J.,” it said. “This here’s Delta Sly Honey. Do you read? Over.”“ Randall looked
up, hearkening to the spit and fizzle of the static. “I know you out there,
Randall J.,” the voice went on. “I can see you clear, sitting with the shadows
of the bars upon your soul and blood on your hands. Ain’t no virtuous blood,
that’s true. But it stains you alla same. Come back at me, Randall J. We gotta
talk, you and me.”

Randall let
his head fall; with a finger, he traced a line in the dust. “What’s the point
in keepin’ this up, Randall J.?” said the voice. “You left the best part of you
over here, the soulful part, and you can’t go on much longer without it. Time
to take that little walk for real, man. Time to get clear of what you done and
pass on to what must be. We waitin’ for you just north of base, Randall J.
Don’t make us come for you.” It was in my mind to say something to Randall, to
break the disconsolate spell the voice appeared to be casting over him; but I
found I had nothing left to give him, that I had spent my fund of altruism and
was mostly weary of the whole business . . . as he must have been.

“Ain’t
nothin’ to be ‘fraid of out here,” said the voice. “Only the wind and the gray
whispers of phantom Charlie and the trail leadin’ away from the world. There’s
good company for you, Randall J. Gotta man here used to be a poet, and he’ll
tell you stories ‘bout the Wild North King and the Woman of Crystal. Got
another fella, guy used to live in Indonesia, and he’s fulla tales ‘bout
watchin’ tigers come out on the highways to shit and cities of men dressed like
women and islands where dragons still live. Then there’s this kid from Opelika,
claims to know some of your people down that way, and when he talks, you can
just see that ol’ farmboy moon heavin’ up big and yellow over the barns,
shinin’ the blacktop so it looks like polished jet, and you can hear crazy
music leakin’ from the Dixieland café and smell the perfumed heat steamin’ off
the young girls’ breasts. Don’t make us wait no more, Randall J. We got work to
do. Maybe it ain’t much, breakin’ trail and walkin’ point and keepin’ a sharp
eye out for demons...but it sure as hell beats shepherdin’ the dead, now don’t
it?” A long pause. “You come on and take that walk, Randall J. We’ll make you
welcome, I promise. This here’s Delta Sly Honey. Over and out.”

Randall
pulled himself to his feet and took a faltering few steps toward the mouth of
the bunker. I blocked his path and he said, “Lemme go.”

“Look here,
Randall,” I said. “I might can get you home if you just hang...”

“Home.” The
concept seemed to amuse him, as if it were something with the dubious reality
of heaven or hell. “Lemme go.”

In his eyes,
then, I thought I could see all his broken parts, a disjointed miring of lights
and darks, and when I spoke I felt I was giving tongue a vast consensus, one
arrived at without either ballots or reasonable discourse. “If I let you go,” I
said, “be best you don’t come back this time.” He stared at me, his face gone
slack, and nodded.

Hardly
anybody was outside, yet I had the idea everyone was watching us as we walked
down the hill; under a leaden overcast, the base had a muted atmosphere such as
must have attended rainy dawns beneath the guillotine. The sentries at the main
gate passed Randall through without question. He went a few paces along the
road, then turned back, his face pale as a star in the half-light, and I
wondered if he thought we were driving him off or if he believed he was being
called to a better world. In my heart I knew which was the case. At last he set
out again, quickly becoming a shadow, then the rumor of a shadow, then gone.

Walking back
up the hill, I tried to sort out my thoughts, to determine what I was feeling,
and it may be a testament to how crazy I was, how crazy we all were, that I
felt less regret for a man lost than satisfaction in knowing that some
perverted justice had been served, that the world of the war—tipped off-center
by this unmilitary engagement and our focus upon it—could now go back to
spinning true.

That night
there was fried chicken in the mess, and vanilla ice cream, and afterward a
movie about a more reasonable war, full of villainous Germans  with
Dracula accents and heroic grunts who took nothing but flesh wounds. When it
was done, I walked back to my hooch and stood out front and had a smoke. In the
northern sky was a flickering orange glow, one accompanied by the rumble of
artillery. It was, I realized, just about this time of night that Randall had
customarily begun his broadcasts. Somebody else must have realized this,
because at that moment the PA was switched on. I half expected to hear Randall
giving the news of Delta Sly Honey. but there was only static, sounding like
the crackling of enormous flames. Listening to it, I felt disoriented,
completely vulnerable, as if some huge black presence were on the verge of
swallowing me up. And then a voice did speak. It wasn’t Randall’s, yet it had a
similar countrified accent, and though the words weren’t quite as fluent, they
were redolent of his old raps, lending a folksy comprehensibility to the
vastness of the cosmos, the strangeness of the war. I had no idea whether or
not it was the voice that had summoned Randall to take his walk, no longer
affecting an imitation, and I thought I recognized its soft well-modulated
tones. But none of that mattered. I was so grateful, so relieved by this end to
silence, that I went into my hooch and—armed with lies—sat down to finish my
interrupted letter home.