Part 30 (1/2)

And they carried me along with them, and nursed me. And when I woke up I didn't even know my name. You took it. You took away my name.”

”Stevens,” Loomis said. ”Brad Stevens.” His hand did not waver on the gun.

”Oh, I remember that now,” he said. ”I remember it all. I remember Aimee . . . I remember it all.”

”I'm glad about that,” Loomis said. ”I truly am. I've been waiting for you to remember for the most wearisome time. Not much sense in killing a person when he doesn't even know why.”

He tightened his grip on the trigger. ”But there's something more,” he said. ”More than that. Something you couldn't remember, because you never knew. Something I been meaning to tell you for a long time.

Longer than you could imagine.”

”Make sense,” said the man who called himself Cooper. ”Make some kind of sense.”

”Your name,” Loomis said. ”It ain't really Stevens. Not really. The name you've been trying so hard to remember isn't even your real name.

Isn't that a hoot? Isn't that the funniest thing you ever heard?” He laughed.

”Make sense,” said the man on the ground. ”You're still not making any.”

”Stevens,” Loomis said. ”That's just a name they gave you. The folks who picked you out at the orphanage. Picked out the pretty little baby.

That was their name. Good G.o.d-fearing folds. But they only wanted the one, and they wanted a baby, not a full-grown child. And for sure they didn't want a gimp.”

”I was adopted? You're saying I was adopted? How could you know that?”

”I was there, little brother. I was there. I was the gimp they pa.s.sed over for the pretty little baby. I was only four years old at the time.

But some things you really don't forget.”

”Brother?”

”Right,” Loomis said. ”You and me, we're children of the very same flesh. Arnold and Mary Jane LOomis. n.o.body ever changed my name.

n.o.body wanted the poor little crippled boy.”

”Our parents . . .”

”Dead,” Loomis said. ”Indians. They killed Pa. Killed Ma, too, after they got through with her. Would have killed us, too, except they got interrupted.”

Slowly, deliberately, the man who had been called Cooper climbed to his feet. ”We were separated?”

he said.

”For nearly thirty years. You eating your good home cooking and me eating poorhouse gruel. You growing into a solid citizen and marrying and farming. And me drifting from town to town like a piece of dried-up horse dung blown around by the wind. Never finding a place I could call home. And looking, looking for my little brother. And finally I found you . . .”

”Why?” he asked. ”Why did you do it?”

”I didn't mean to . . .” Loomis faltered. ”It was like a kind of madness came over me. Seeing your house and your farm and your wife, everything you had and I didn't, everything I hated you for having . .

But I don't know. Maybe that was what I was intending all along, intending to make you suffer just a little of what I had to suffer. I don't know. I don't think I meant to kill Aimee, but when I did, I knew I would have to kill you, too. And I thought I did. And then I saw you alive. And I realized that you didn't remember, didn't remember a single thing. So I just waited, watched and waited, until you did start to remember. So you would know why I had to kill you. And now it's time. It's time.”

”You can't stand yourself, brother, can you?” said the man who had been called Cooper. ”You and you, they don't get along at all. I can understand that. I been through a little of that myself. Not knowing who the h.e.l.l I was or what I might have done or what I should be doing.

But you find out. Maybe not your name, but how you should be living. If you're any good at all, you find that out.”

He took a step toward Loomis. ”But you're not any good, brother, and you never were. Sure, you had some lousy breaks, sure you did. But that isn't any kind of excuse for what you did. You're just no good to anyone, not even yourself. And if you kill me, you'll have nothing to live for. Nothing. Because n.o.body will know your name and n.o.body will care.”

Another step.

”But I care, brother. I care in the worst way. You made me care.

Buzzing around me like some housefly waiting to be swatted. Waiting for me to remember. Trying to make me remember. Remember you.”

Another step. He was only a few paces from Loomis now. He glanced down to his own gun on the floor of the stable. It was nearly within reach.

”Stay there,” Loomis said. ”Stay right where you are.”

He took another step.

”I remember you, brother. For what you did to me. No one else will.

Kill me and you'll be all alone again, alone with yourself, the way you always were. Run away now and you'll have something to keep you going.

Fear, brother. Fear. That's a kind of something. Something to make you feel alive. And me, too. I'll have something to keep me going, too.”

Loomis took a step backward. ”Don't move.” he said. ”Don't move or I'll kill you now.”

”What are you waiting for?” his brother asked him.

The gun wavered in his hand.

The man who called himself Cooper stopped swiftly and scooped up his own gun from the floor.

Two guns blared.

Loomis stood straight for a moment. A strange smile spread over his face. And then slowly, he crumpled to the floor of the stable.

The other continued to stand, in the clearing smoke, holding his wounded left arm.

”d.a.m.n,” he said softly, ”d.a.m.n.”

The lights in the screening room came up. One man was applauding vigorously. Smith. All heads turned toward him.

”Bit of an anticlimax,” Hurn said, ”don't you think? We were afraid it might be. I think, in a way, we were afraid of having to finish it.”

”On the contrary, Mr. Hurn,” Smith said. ”On the contrary. It's absolutely perfect. Perfect. Real mythic power. A glimpse into human condition. Into a world in which brother must slay brother, even as Cain slew Abel. Archetypal, Mr. Hurn. Archetypal.