The Walking (12 page)

"It didn't die naturally," William said. "Something killed it. It looks like its insides were eaten out. Or sucked out through this hole at the top of the back."

"What could kill something like this?"

William looked at him. "I don't think we want to know." Jeb wanted to get out of the mountains immediately, but though it was a small range, there was no way they could make it through before tomorrow or the day after, and they were forced to set up camp on a flattened ridge. At least they were out of the canyon. He would have rather walked through the night and taken his chances with the cliffs and the darkness than sleep in that cursed place.

Whatever could bring down a monster like that could have them for dessert, but they both wove protective spells around the camp and decided to take turns standing watch for the night, prepared to either flee or right at the first sign of anything unusual.

Jeb's watch was first, but he saw nothing, heard nothing, and, though he kept his senses wide open, felt nothing. The horse, too, seemed calm. As far as he could tell, they were alone in this place, and he hoped that it remained that way. At least until morning.

He woke William when the moon was halfway across the sky, and the two of them switched places. He knew he had to rest for the grueling trek tomorrow, but he was not at all tired and was not sure he would be able to sleep.

He was out almost immediately after his head hit the saddlebag.

He dreamed of a town in which all of the houses were identical and where at sunset a dwarf roamed the community, placing metal spoons on the porches of those who would

die before dawn. He was living in one of the houses and was awakened in the middle of the night by a mysterious sound and went outside to investigate. But when he walked onto the porch, he felt something cold and hard touch his toes, heard a clattering noise. He looked down to see that he'd accidentally kicked a rusted metal spoon off the porch.

There was a snickering from the bushes, and when he looked more closely, he saw the face of a dwarf grinning evilly up at him.

He awoke in the morning feeling urtrested. William had already conjured a fire and was making coffee with some muddy water he'd found in a barely trickling creek a little farther along the trail. They drank their breakfast, packed up, and set out, both of them wanting to escape from these mountains as quickly as possible.

They did not speak much that day, or that night when they camped in a narrow ravine between two tall cliffs. It was as if a spell had been cast on them, even though they had carefully protected themselves.

The next day they left the mountains and it felt to Jeb as though he had awakened from a bad dream. The feelings that had been following him faded, and even the memory of the monster seemed not as sharp. He recognized the sensation. It was the exhilaration one felt after averting disaster. He had guiltily experienced a variation of it upon escaping Lynchburg and avoiding his father's fate, and he knew that this sudden lifting of dread was due not to any magic but to simple human emotion.

They'd had two days to think about what they'd come across back in the canyon, and while he himself had not been able to piece together any solutions, William struck him as a more pensive sort, a deep thinker, and he turned toward his newfound friend. "What do you. think killed that monster?" he asked

William shook his head, and Jeb understood that he did not want to talk about it. That was fine with him.

The landscape flattened out, and on this side of the mountains it seemed far less desolate. There were trees here. Bushes and grass.

There were still no signs of people, not even Indians, but other signs of life greeted them--birds circling in the sky, squirrels scampering along the ground, the: far-off roar of bear. Though this was still uncharted territory, they felt as thgugh they were easing back into the known world.

Their self-imposed silence ended as well, and they began to talk again.

They spoke of places they'd been, sights they'd seen along the way. Jeb had no destination, was not heading anywhere in particular, but William seemed to know where he wanted to go; his new friend had some sort of plan or specific intent.

He asked William. "Where are we headed?"

"South."

"I mean, where in particular?"

"Where were you headed when we met?"

Jeb shrugged. "No place."

William nodded. 'l'hat is the trouble with our kind, isn't it? We're never heading to something, we're always heading away from something."

"We have no choice. That's the way things are." William was silent for a moment. "There are other persecuted people," he said finally.

"People who have made a fresh start here in the West, who have built their own communities, away from everyone else, where no one bothers them. I've been thinking for some time that we could do the same. This is a land of opportunity because it is new and " open, ready to be molded into whatever shape its settlers choose. It is not bound by the models of the past. It does

' " not have to conform to any preexisting notion of what society should be. And it is big enough to support all."

Jeb suddenly understood what he was getting at. "A... town?" he said incredulously. "You're talking about a town of witches?"

"Why not? There is going to be an entire Mormon Territory Why not at least a town for us?" Smiling, he sidled next to his horse and withdrew from the saddlebag a letter, imprinted with the seal of the government of the United

States. 'Tve already written to Washington, and Fenton

Barnes, the man to whom I wrote, has talked to the president about my idea." "The president? Of the country?"

'The government is worried that the violence out here will scare people away, worried that Mexico will be able to exploit this country's divisions to its advantage. A lot of that violence is directed at us, at the Mormons, at those who are. different, and if they can keep us separated from the rest of the population by giving us our own lands, and thus retain at least the appearance of national unity..." He shrugged. "Well, they think it's worth it."

"So what does that mean? They're going to give us land in order to start our own town?"

William nodded. "Yes. Our own town, with our own local government and local laws. We'll be a recognized community, sanctioned by the federal government, segregated and protected by presidential order from the type of persecution we have faced in the past." He smiled, passed Jeb the letter. 'here is the authorization for me to take possession of the land in the name of our people."

"Where is it?" Jeb asked. "Where is this place?"

William looked at him. "In Arizona Territory. A place i called Wolf Canyon

He didn't realize until he woke up on Christmas morning that he had forgotten to even buy a tree.

Miles walked out to the kitchen, made coffee. All of the decorations were still in the garage, and he had not bothered to put up lights either. He was tempted to pretend this was just an ordinary day, that there was no Christmas this year, but when he turned on the TV and saw carolers singing in the New York snow as part of a prerecorded Today show celebration, he knew he would not be able to do that.

He had bought his father some presents, and though he had not yet wrapped them, he did so now. Being such a serious Christian, he'd expected Audra to take the day off, but the nurse had promised to come in, informing him that she would merely arrive a few hours later than usual. He'd bought Audra a present, too. Two presents, actually. One from him and one from his father. He wrapped those as well, inexpertly attempting to cover an awkwardly shaped wicker basket filled with various teas and an un boxed faux crystal vase with what was left of last year's festive snowman paper.

Leaving the nurse's gifts on the coffee table, Miles car fled his father's presents back to his room, filling his voice with a false Christmas cheer that was the furthest thing away from what he actually felt: "Merry Christmas, Dad!"

Bob awoke with a blink of his eyes but virtually no movement of his body. He tried to smile, but it looked more like a painful grimace, and when he attempted to adjust himself

and use his one good arm to push himself into a sitting position, the effort only served to list him to the left.

Miles placed the packages at the foot of the bed, then helped shift his father back into position. He placed the bed controls in Bob's good hand and waited while the top haft of the bed rose into an upright position.

"I hate this shit," his father said in the slurred whisper that was now his permanent voice, and the annoyance in his words was so pure that Miles could not help but smile. Whatever else the stroke had done, it had not affected his dad's personality.

"Merry Christmas," Miles said again.

"I don't know how merry it is."

"But it's Christmas, and, look, I've come bearing gifts!" He picked up the first package and placed it on his father's chest, letting him look at it for a moment before picking it up once more and carefully unwrapping it. "What do we have here, huh?" He opened the box, let his father watch. "Boots, Dad. Cowboy boots. You know those ones you saw last summer but were too cheap to buy?"

Bob said nothing, but Miles saw the glint of a tear in his eye, and he suddenly felt a little choked up himself. He quickly moved on to the next present.

"Hey, what's this?" He unwrapped the gift. "A Louis L'Amour book!"

He felt a hand grab his wrist. His father's hand, surprisingly strong.

He looked over at Bob's face and saw tears rolling freely down his cheeks. 'Thank you," his father whispered.

Miles suddenly realized that his dad had not expected them to be celebrating Christmas this year. He probably hadn't expected to even be here for Christmas, and Miles understood how much this meant to him.

He was glad that he'd bought the presents and wished that he'd made an effort to decorate the house. He should have thought more

about his father's feelings and tried to make this year just like every other. "You're a good son," Bob said, relaxing his grip. "I want you to know that. Just because I don't say it all the time doesn't mean I don't think it."

The lump in his throat returned, and Miles' eyes were watering with the threat of tears. "Thanks, Dad." He swallowed hard, maintained his smile and picked up another package. "Let's see what we have here."

There were two more presents to go, far less than they usually had, but a decent number under the circumstances. After Miles cleared the wrapping paper off the covers and scrunched it in the trash, his dad waved him back over.

"Look under the bed," Bob whispered. "I had Audra buy me something for you."

This was a complete surprise, and Miles crouched down, felt under the bed, and brought forth a rather large and heavy gift whose careful wrapping betrayed a female hand.

"Open it," his father said.

Miles ripped the red and green paper to reveal a boxed turntable.

"I found it several months ago and had Audrago get it for me. I know you have a lot old records you can't play because your stereo just has a CD. So I thought you might like this."

It was the best present his father had ever given him, not only because it was something he really wanted and would use but because of the thought put into it and the effort required to get it. His dad's presents usually consisted of items from Sears that he himself wanted, and Miles was impressed that he'd actually been thinking about the turntable for some time, that he'd noticed it and remembered it.

"Thanks," he said. 'this is great."

"Merry Christmas, boy." Bob pressed a button, lowering

the bed, apparently tired already, and Miles decided to let him alone for a while.

"I'll go heat up the coffee," he said.

Bob closed his eyes. "That sounds good."

He was snoring even before Miles left the room.

That, Miles thought, was one of the most disconcerting aftereffects of the stroke: the abrupt changes, the immediate shift from happy to sad, from wide awake to tired, with no cooling-down period, no time allotted for any gradations in between:

He walked out to the kitchen.

Bonnie called around eleven, pretending as though there was nothing wrong. She thanked him for the presents he'd sent, asked perfunctorily how Dad was, then went on to tell him of the morning of gift unwrapping they'd had at her house and the huge turkey dinner she was preparing.

Gil even came on the line for a second with some generic holiday greetings, and Miles responded in kind. He had never much liked his brother-in-law, but he'd always been able to maintain a polite facade, and he did so now as well. After Gil hung up the other phone, Miles asked his sister if she'd like to talk to Dad, and she felt obliged to say yes. When he went back, checked, and told her that their father was still asleep, though, he could tell she was relieved. He said he'd call back later, when Dad was awake, and the two of them hung up, exchanging inanities.

A short time later, he heard the whir of the bed motor from the bedroom, and he went back to let his father know that Bonnie had called.

Bob smiled. "How's our old friend GilT' he whispered. "He can still go from man to wuss in three seconds." Bob laughed. Or tried to. But the laugh became a cough, and the cough got stuck somewhere in his throat and all that came out of his father's grimacing mouth was a hard, harsh wheeze.

The two of them were still talking about Bonnie and Git when Audra showed up with a great Christmas dinner: microwave plates of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and a plastic sack filled with salad. Miles was genuinely touched, and after he gave the nurse her presents and watched her unwrap them, she heated up the food. He sat in a chair next to the bed, eating, while Audra cut up his father's turkey into small easily digestible pieces and carefully fed them to him.

As he'd suspected, Audra and his father had not initially gotten along, although in recent days they seemed to have reached a kind of truce. As he'd hoped, that confrontation seemed to have energized his father, who had been making much better progress than expected--particularly in regard to his speech: Twice a week he still went to the hospital for tests and therapy, and while there was no change in his longterm prognosis, the doctor and the therapists admitted that in the short term, he was making excellent progress.