Part 43 (1/2)

I got up, went past the pot with the key underneath, went up the cement-block steps. Lightning exploded across the sky, followed by a bellow of thunder.

Inside, Rommie was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table. His face was even whiter than George's. 'Kid's okay,' he said, forcing the words. 'But she looks like waking up . . . I can't walk anymore. My ankle's totally f.u.c.ked.'

I moved for the telephone.

'Don't bother,' Rommie said. His voice was harsh and trembling. 'Tried it. Dead. Storm must already have hit some of the other towns. Killed some of the equipment. Christ, I never had anything hurt like this in my life.'

I went to the drawers in the kitchen and began yanking them open one by one, looking for strapping tape, looking for clothesline, looking for any d.a.m.ned thing. If Kennedy pa.s.sed out from blood-loss while I was in here, the other George would take his gun, kill him, and then kill John as he lay unconscious on the smoldering gra.s.s. With them taken care of, he'd come in here and shoot Rommie and me. He'd finish with Kyra.

'No he won't,' I said. 'He'll leave her alive.'

And that might be even worse.

Silverware in the first drawer. Sandwich bags, garbage bags, and neatly banded stacks of grocery-store coupons in the second. Oven mitts and potholders in the third - 'Mike, where's my Mattie?'

I turned, as guilty as a man who has been caught mixing illegal drugs. Kyra stood at the living-room end of the hall with her hair falling around her sleep-flushed cheeks and her scrunchy hung over one wrist like a bracelet. Her eyes were wide and panicky. It wasn't the shots that had awakened her, probably not even her mother's scream. I had wakened her. My thoughts had wakened her.

In the instant I realized it I tried to s.h.i.+eld them somehow, but I was too late. She had read me about Devore well enough to tell me not to think about sad stuff, and now she read what had happened to her mother before I could keep her out of my mind.

Her mouth dropped open. Her eyes widened. She shrieked as if her hand had been caught in a vise and ran for the door.

'No, Kyra, no!' I sprinted across the kitchen, almost tripping over Rommie (he looked at me with the dim incomprehension of someone who is no longer completely conscious), and grabbed her just in time. As I did, I saw Buddy Jellison leaving Grace Baptist by a side door. Two of the men he had been smoking with went with him. Now I understood why Bill was holding so tightly to Yvette, and loved him for it - loved both of them. Something wanted him to go with Buddy and the others . . . but Bill wasn't going.

Kyra struggled in my arms, making big convulsive thrusts at the door, gasping in breath and then screaming it out again. 'Let me go, want to see Mommy, let me go, want to see Mommy, let me go - ' 'Let me go, want to see Mommy, let me go, want to see Mommy, let me go - '

I called her name with the only voice I knew she would really hear, the one I could use only with her. She relaxed in my arms little by little, and turned to me. Her eyes were huge and confused and s.h.i.+ning with tears. She looked at me a moment longer and then seemed to understand that she mustn't go out. I put her down. She just stood there a moment, then backed up until her bottom was against the dishwasher. She slid down its smooth white front to the floor. Then she began to wail - the most awful sounds of grief I have ever heard. She understood completely, you see. I had to show her enough to keep her inside, I had to . . . and because we were in the zone together, I could.

Buddy and his friends were in a pickup truck headed this way. BAMM CONSTRUCTION, it said on the side.

'Mike!' George cried. He sounded panicky. 'You got to hurry!'

'Hold on!' I called back. 'Hold on, George!'

Mattie and the others had started stacking picnic things beside the sink, but I'm almost positive that the stretch of Formica counter above the drawers had been clean and bare when I hurried after Kyra. Not now. The yellow sugar cannister had been overturned. Written in the spilled sugar was this:

'No s.h.i.+t,' I muttered, and checked the remaining drawers. No tape, no rope. Not even a lousy set of handcuffs, and in most well-equipped kitchens you can count on finding three or four. Then I had an idea and looked in the cabinet under the sink. When I went back out, our George was swaying on his feet and Footman was looking at him with a kind of predatory concentration.

'Did you get some tape?' George Kennedy asked.

'No, something better,' I said. 'Tell me, Footman, who actually paid you? Devore or Whitmore? Or don't you know?'

'f.u.c.k you,' he said.

I had my right hand behind my back. Now I pointed down the hill with my left one and endeavored to look surprised. 'What the h.e.l.l's Osgood doing? Tell him to go away!'

Footman looked in that direction - it was instinctive - and I hit him in the back of the head with the Craftsman hammer I'd found in the toolbox under Mattie's sink. The sound was horrible, the spray of blood erupting from the flying hair was horrible, but worst of all was the feeling of the skull giving way - a spongy collapse that came right up the handle and into my fingers. He went down like a sandbag, and I dropped the hammer, gagging.

'Okay,' George said. 'A little ugly, but probably the best thing you could have done under . . . under the . . . '

He didn't go down like Footman - it was slower and more controlled, almost graceful - but he was just as out. I picked up the revolver, looked at it, then threw it into the woods across the road. A gun was nothing for me to have right now; it could only get me into more trouble.

A couple of other men had also left the church; a carful of ladies in black dresses and veils, as well. I had to hurry on even faster. I unbuckled George's pants and pulled them down. The bullet which had taken him in the leg had torn into his thigh, but the wound looked as if it was clotting. John's upper arm was a different story - it was still pumping out blood in frightening quant.i.ties. I yanked his belt free and cinched it around his arm as tightly as I could. Then I slapped him across the face. His eyes opened and stared at me with a bleary lack of recognition.

'Open your mouth, John!' He only stared at me. I leaned down until our noses were almost touching and screamed, 'OPEN YOUR MOUTH! DO IT NOW!' 'OPEN YOUR MOUTH! DO IT NOW!' He opened it like a kid when the nurse tells him just say aahh. I stuck the end of the belt between his teeth. 'Close!' He closed. 'Now hold it,' I said. 'Even if you pa.s.s out, hold it.' He opened it like a kid when the nurse tells him just say aahh. I stuck the end of the belt between his teeth. 'Close!' He closed. 'Now hold it,' I said. 'Even if you pa.s.s out, hold it.'

I didn't have time to see if he was paying attention. I got to my feet and looked up as the whole world went glare-blue. For a second it was like being inside a neon sign. There was a black suspended river up there, roiling and coiling like a basket of snakes. I had never seen such a baleful sky.

I dashed up the cement-block steps and into the trailer again. Rom-mie had slumped forward onto the table with his face in his folded arms. He would have looked like a kindergartner taking a timeout if not for the broken salad bowl and the bits of lettuce in his hair. Kyra still sat with her back to the dishwasher, weeping hysterically.

I picked her up and realized that she had wet herself. 'We have to go now, Ki.'

'I want Mattie! I want Mommy! I want my Mattie, make her stop being hurt! Make her stop being dead! I want my Mattie, make her stop being hurt! Make her stop being dead!'

I hurried across the trailer. On the way to the door I pa.s.sed the end-table with the Mary Higgins Clark novel on it. I noticed the tangle of hair ribbons again - ribbons perhaps tried on before the party and then discarded in favor of the scrunchy. They were white with bright red edges. Pretty. I picked them up without stopping, stuffed them into a pants pocket, then switched Ki to my other arm.

'I want Mattie! I want Mommy! Make her come back! Make her come back!' She swatted at me, trying to make me stop, then began to buck and kick in my arms again. She drummed her fists on the side of my head. 'Put me down! Land me! Land me!'

'No, Kyra.'

'Put me down! Land me! Land me! PUT ME DOWN!' 'Put me down! Land me! Land me! PUT ME DOWN!'

I was losing her. Then, as we came out onto the top step, she abruptly stopped struggling. 'Give me Stricken! I want Stricken!'

At first I had no idea what she was talking about, but when I looked where she was pointing I understood. Lying on the walk not far from the pot with the key underneath it was the stuffed toy from Ki's Happy Meal. Strickland had put in a fair amount of outside playtime from the look of him - the light-gray fur was now dark-gray with dust - but if the toy would calm her, I wanted her to have it. This was no time to worry about dirt and germs.

'I'll give you Strickland if you promise to close your eyes and not open them until I tell you. Will you promise?'

'I promise,' she said. She was trembling in my arms, and great globular tears - the kind you expect to see in fairy-tale books, never in real life - rose in her eyes and went spilling down her cheeks. I could smell burning gra.s.s and charred beefsteak. For one terrible moment I thought I was going to vomit, and then I got it under control.

Ki closed her eyes. Two more tears fell from them and onto my arm. They were hot. She held out one hand, groping. I went down the steps, got the dog, then hesitated. First the ribbons, now the dog. The ribbons were probably okay, but it seemed wrong to give her the dog and let her bring it along. It seemed wrong but . . .

It's gray, Irish It's gray, Irish, the UFO voice whispered. You don't need to worry about it because it's gray. The stuffed toy in your dream was black You don't need to worry about it because it's gray. The stuffed toy in your dream was black.

I didn't know exactly what the voice was talking about and had no time to care. I put the stuffed dog in Kyra's open hand. She held it up to her face and kissed the dusty fur, her eyes still closed.

'Maybe Stricken can make Mommy better, Mike. Stricken a magic dog.'

'Just keep your eyes closed. Don't open them until I say.'

She put her face against my neck. I carried her across the yard and to my car that way. I put her on the pa.s.senger side of the front seat. She lay down with her arms over her head and the dirty stuffed dog clutched in one pudgy hand. I told her to stay just like that, lying down on the seat. She made no outward sign that she heard me, but I knew that she did.

We had to hurry because the old-timers were coming. The old-timers wanted this business over, wanted this river to run into the sea. And there was only one place we could go, only one place where we might be safe, and that was Sara Laughs. But there was something I had to do first.