To Make Death Love Us (19 page)

And the man on the
deck, that was Will Carney and it was not. The man waved at him, motioned him forward. He yelled
but the words were lost in the wind.

Marco found himself
marching into the sea. The water was warm as a kiss and blue as the sky. He stumbled through the
waves.

Strong arms took
him from the water, lifted him up into the ship.

Pepino was there,
with a shy grin on his face. And fat Paulette. And Colonel John in a toga just his size. The
faces of the crew were those of strangers and yet they were not strangers.

The ship whirled
around like a graceful swan, heading out to sea. The sail, blood red, sprang up the mast, pulled
by unseen hands.

The wind caught her
full and the ship went speeding ucross the waves like a dragonfly.

It was a thing of
wonder and Marco wanted very much to say so, but of course he could not speak nor could he hear.
It was all a dream. He knew that, but, somehow, he expected to hear, to talk. Wouldn't that be
the fitting end, to have what one was so long denied in the end?

And where was fair
Serena? He looked in vain for her in the silent faces of the crew.

And the ship sailed
off into the great mystery of the sea. And the strong man stood before the mast, hearing nei­ther
the crash of waves against the bow or the cries of the men who manned her.

That seemed sad,
somehow, and he missed Serena terri­bly.

The wind felt good
on Marco's face and the sun was a warmth that burned into him. The clean, sea air was as good as
life itself.

It was a bright and
beautiful dream, a wonderful going away. Marco knew it for what it was.

If only I could
hear, if only the dream were complete.

Will Carney came up
beside him, the man that might be Will Carney, and he held a stout length of rope in his hands.
The man who looked like Pepino came up and took one end of the rope. With his other hand, he
pushed gently on Marco's chest until he was forced to step back. His back came up against the
mast.

He felt no urge to
resist. There was a Tightness about everything that happened. Marco sensed that.

With the rope, they
lashed Marco tightly against the mast.

And then Marco saw
that the ears of the men were stopped up with white candle wax.

And thus they came
speeding across the waves toward the dark island.

Marco strained
against the ropes then, feeling restless, but not knowing quite why. Something was
happening.

The island was an
isle of dreams and crystal and white mist. On the shore, beautiful maidens danced and threw
flowers into the blue water. Fairest of them all, was a girl. No, not a girl, Serena, the queen
of them all, tall and fair and like pale fire in her beauty.

And she sang, and
the sirens joined her in that song and it was the rarest and most wondrous of all sounds. Marco
alone heard it, alone felt it tearing its way into his mind and heart. It was a song meant only
for him and it was summer and fire and ice and a thousand sounds he had never heard. It was all
he had ever imagined or ever dreamed. It was the cry of sea birds in rapture and the laughter of
children and the hum and keening of a thou­sand animal and human voices.

It was the sound of
love and pleasure and joy and the endless sighing of the sea and the ceaseless tides.

It was the sound of
his own heartbeat, the sound of his struggle against the ropes that bound his chest, the sound of
spring and the end of night.

Beautiful Serena,
he had found her at last.

A siren singing
ever so sweetly in his going away.

And the sound of
his own pain was as sweet as any human voice. Like the song that could not be resisted, like the
song that touched everything that ever had been in him, the pain flared like a great, shattered
crystal in his chest.

Marco slumped
against the ropes that bound him, against the pain.

And the song was
the sun in his face and the wind in his hair that stayed within him, until the mighty heart gave
out.

It had been a truly
wonderful going away.

Will came to with a
far-off cry ringing in his ears. He came awake to the feeling of something heavy pushing against
him. He opened his eyes and saw the rain sweeping past the window. Marco was leaning into him. It
was Marco trying to push him out of the truck to fall down to the rocks below where he'd be
smashed to his death. He fought back against the weight of the mute. They were, for a long while,
locked in silent combat. He turned his head to shout the Strong Man away. He looked into Marco's
slitted eyes and then saw the jaw agape, the tongue lolling from it. He screamed out in terrible
fear. He was being embraced and shoved to his destruction by a dead man.

"So you're finally
awake, are you, Will?" the Colonel said almost perkily.

Will pushed
steadily against the dead weight. Marco came slowly upright and then slid slowly backward into
the seat like a man settling to rest his weary bones. His head tipped back, the mouth still open,
tongue out like a tired hound's. The eyes were opened slightly and cocked a look at
Will.

"Goddamnit, Will.
Speak up. We need some tool for me to work on the ventilator. There's a screwdriver in there.
Give it to me."

Obediently, Will
bent over and scrabbled around on the floor with his good hand, keeping his eyes on Marco
all
the while, for fear the dead man
would attack him again. The cab tilted a fraction and Marco's head nodded a bit, as though
agreeing that such an attack was in his mind. Will found the screwdriver and, straightening back
up in the seat, handed it over his shoulder through the communica­tion window.

"Drop it," the
Colonel said and Will did.

"Marco's dead,"
Will said, as though by way of conversa­tion.

"Are you that
drunk, man?"

"I am most sober. I
wish that I
were
drunk."

The Colonel looked
at his companions. They had all heard the news. Paulette touched her eyes and found tears to wet
her fingertips. Pepino had no tears, being a philosopher, but he felt a tightness in his throat,
a lump as big as his heart.

The Midget glanced
at Serena, who placed her beauti­ful hands together as though in prayer and touched her lips with
the tips of her fingers.

When he handed the
screwdriver to Pepino, his hands shook. The Colonel did not want to believe it.

"You're that drunk,
Will."

"Marco's dead, I
tell you. His eyes are glazed open and his lips are blue," insisted Will.

The Colonel bowed
his head, grieving for his lost friend, for a mountain of strength that had so often in the past
been offered to him as strength when his small size gave him none.

The Rubber Man
inserted the blade of the screwdriver under the lip of the ventilator flange. He pried gently and
it gave, dropping little flecks of paint and rust into his eyes.

"Goddamn," he said,
and shook his head. He cleared his eyes with his fingers and went back to work. Delicately, he
pried all around the flange until the ring that held it in
place became loose. There were a half dozen screws in the flange that held
the tubular column of the shaft. They were eaten away with rust. The slots for the driver blade
could scarcely be found.

Holding his arms
high above his head and working without really being able to see, Pepino started first one, then
another, of the screws. There was the constant fear that the corroded metal would crumple clear
away and give no purchase for the screwdriver blade. But it held.

Pepino's hair and
the shoulders of his shirt were dusted with rust, which gleamed, even in the faint yellow light,
like the wind-blown dust of Mars.

He got his fingers
beneath the lip of the second flange and pulled the whole shaft out like the cork out of an
upside-down bottle.

Pepino turned his
head around and grinned at the Colo­nel. It was a grimace of pain, instead.

"What's the
matter?" the Colonel asked immediately.

"Arms hurt like
hell."

"Rest a
little."

Pepino lowered his
arms and twisted his torso. The pain did not stop.

"The mountain is
shuddering," Serena said very mat-ter-of-factly.

Spurred on, Pepino
stretched his arms up high again and removed the guts of the ventilator, the spindle, and the
vanes. The cap, shaped like a mushroom, was easily pushed aside, then. It clattered on the roof
and bounced once or twice before plunging over the side.

"What was that?"
Will cried out.

"That was Pepino
opening up our way out of here," said the Midget.

"What do you mean?
Tell me what you're doing?"

"We've got the top
off the ventilator, Will. I'm going out now," said the Colonel.

"Oh, thank God,
thank God!"

"No, Will, thank
the damned Juggler." The Colonel laughed.

"What are you
laughing about? You tell me. You mean to leave me here? You mean to get out and save yourself and
leave me here?"

"Leave you,
Will?"

"Leave all of us!"
screamed Will. "Don't help him! Don't any of you help him!"

The Colonel only
laughed by way of reply. He smiled at Pepino.

Pepino took his
place beneath the open port in the roof. He lifted the Midget first to his chest, like a child
held to a parent's breast, then to his shoulder. The Colonel stepped up on the Rubber Man's
shoulders and reached up. Pepino lifted him overhead, his muscles protesting with the
strain.

The Colonel's tiny
finger caught the outside rim and he pulled himself up and out into the rain. He turned at once
and popped his head back into the van for a moment.

"I'm going to open
the door in back now. Don't move. We've still got to clear all those goods out of the
way."

"Colonel John,"
Pepino said, looking up at him.

The Colonel waited
for what Pepino had to say.

"Do what you can,
Colonel, but if you can't do it in time, save yourself."

The Colonel wasted
no time playing at promises. He nodded and disappeared from the hole that now let fresh air into
the truck. If they were to die now, at least, it would be with the sweet smell of rain in their
mouths.

The Colonel didn't
trust the leather of his heels and shoes on the rain-slick steel roof. He feared a long,
skid­ding slide. So he clung like a limpet and slid on his belly like a snail. The wind gusted at
times and he clung, then,
with his
knees and fingernails. When the wind got at him, almost lifting him off the roof, he tried to
make himself smaller. If the wind caught him on the move, he would be sped to his death. He made
his way by inches, all the while wanting to move as fast as a sprinter leaping off the start­ing
blocks.

Inside the van,
Pepino looked at Paulette and then at Serena, who seemed to be looking back at him, as well. It
was very plain that they all felt monstrously afraid, now that the little tactician was gone. He
might be small but he had been, apparently, large enough to be their heart.

The Colonel found
his way to the tail of the truck. Eye-bolts used to lash down tarpaulins gave him foot- and
handholds. He swung down upon them like a Barbary ape.

When his toes
touched the slight ledge that accommo­dated the width of the hinges of the ramp, he paused and
reached out toward the hook that secured the hasp. He lifted it and dropped it free, then inched
his way along until he reached the hook and chain at the other end. He flung that free, as
well.

Now he returned to
the center and the sliding bolt that locked the ramp. He grasped it with both his small hands and
lifted it so that it would be free of the notches. He hadn't far to go now. He would slide the
blot and leap away as the ramp fell.

He grinned in
anticipation of the daring rescue he was effecting. He froze midmotion.

Were he to drop the
tailgate ramp, the entire contents might well tumble out, destroying the delicate balance, and
the truck and all in her would plunge away to death.

He clung there in
the rain and felt the deepest despair.

Inside the van,
Pepino sat down close to Paulette and prepared to die. It was all very well to cheerfully pretend
to hope but a wise man recognized an impossible situation when he saw one.

Serena felt Colonel
John's despair like a knife upon her consciousness, but there was nothing she could do. She was
exhausted past effort.

Colonel John looked
up toward the top of the mountain and whatever God was beyond the peak.