Riders In The Sky Part 37

"Dad!" Ronnie protests with a laugh. "You have no idea how long it took me to pick that out."

He sighs again, twice as loudly, and looks sorrowfully at Rick. "She waits till the last minute, then grabs the first thing that sticks to her fingers that won't bite back. Every year, son; she does it every year. I'm telling you now, be careful, or you'll have a steamer trunk full of ties and underwear you wouldn't wear on a bet."

"Dad!" Ronnie's scowling this time. "Rick talk to him."

Rick holds up his hands-I'm not getting in this, don't even talk to me.

He has been invited to Christmas dinner, which Ronnie has cooked and which Whittaker' has supervised. Their halfhearted arguments last most of the morning and well into the afternoon, but he's jealous anyway, because none of it is very serious. She looks after her father, her father still acts as if she was fifteen years younger. He wishes he had a family of his own to treat him that way.

Whittaker makes a show of unbuckling his belt, pulling apart his bow tie, slapping his hands against his stomach. "Brilliant as always, my dear. Brilliant as always."

Ronnie, still sitting, mimes a curtsy, a finger pushed up under her chin. But she does blush a little.

"Yeah, great," Rick agrees, pleased, and not a little relieved, that he doesn't have to lie.

"She'll have you fat in no time," the old man warns with a grin. "You'll have to get a bigger boat just to get away from the dock."

"Dad," Ronnie says, "we're not married, you know."

"You will be," he answers confidently. "I just hope you two will figure it out before I am consigned to my grave, listening to your mother complain for the rest of eternity."

"Not nice, Dad," she scolds, rising to fetch the coffee.

"Her mother," he explains to Rick, "was a wonderful woman with but one bad habit-nothing in the universe ever satisfied her. And she was not... Lord forgive me, but she was definitely not the type to suffer in silence."

It takes a moment for Rick to understand that it's okay to smile. When he does, the old man nods his approval.

"Now." Whittaker takes his napkin from his lap and folds it to place next to his plate. "So what have you heard about the fish, young Jordan?"

"For crying out loud, Dad," Ronnie complains, bearing a tray of cups and cookies into the room. "I won't have talk like that at the table. It's Christmas, can't you take at least one day off?"

"And you, I suppose, have no desire to know more about your little legless friends?"

"It's not the same thing."

"All the more mysterious, don't you think? Two seemingly unrelated phenomena dealing with ma.s.s destruction of unknown cause and origin?"

"I think that's redundant," she mutters.

Whittaker ignores her. "As a matter of fact, since I had a feeling they wouldn't bother to let you know anything, I took it upon myself to contact the state marine biologist who took all those samples. Did you meet him?"

Rick shakes his head. After he'd made his report to Sheriff Oakman, he had gone to the Tower for his volunteer stint and had to watch the whole episode-vans and cars and men he supposed were scientist types-through his binoculars. No one spoke to him, before or after.

"Well, you'll be happy to know that thus far all they can tell me is that the fish are well and truly and still very dead."

"My taxes at work."

"My sentiments exactly."

"Dad, that's enough. Change the subject, okay?"

"Very well, my dear. What about..." He taps a finger to his chin and considers the ceiling for a while. "What do you know about the preacher who also happens to be an ex-con?"

Vale Oakman sits at his desk, catching up on reports. Everyone else is off or on standby for the holiday. His decision. It's better than sitting at home all alone.

The last report is a requisition to the mayor's office for a new dispatch radio. He's trying to make it look like a stupid accident instead of Freck going off the deep end.

"Whispering," Billy had said. "It kept whispering at me."

He had kept it up until Vale sent him home.

Verna, of course, was fit to be tied.

And now, in the empty building, he writes the report and tries to ignore the soft whispers he hears in the front room.

In the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Methodist church, where Sunday school and church committee meetings are held, two long tables have been set up, covered with a white cloth and dotted with small white vases of fresh flowers. There are twenty-nine people sitting there this afternoon, all but one very old, all but one having no one at home to cook dinner for them, or to take them away, even for one day.

This was Kitra's idea, first implemented several years ago, and with a decent number of volunteers, and some donations from the local restaurateurs, a fairly good meal has been a.s.sembled. Cheerful music plays over the loudspeaker system, Lyman makes the rounds telling jokes and teasing and once in a while whispering a requested prayer for health and good fortune, while Kitra oversees the cooking and serving.

The odd man out is Dub Neely, who sits at the end of the first table, the one nearest the three stairs that lead to the exit door. He has made a n.o.ble effort to clean himself, comb his hair, make sure his clothes are if not ironed, at least not smelling as if he'd just crawled out of a sewer.

Few bother to speak to him; even the elderly know his reputation and don't want this day spoiled by having to talk with a drunk. The only ones who show him kindness are the Baylors, and by the time he receives dessert, a large slice of German chocolate cake, he feels practically human again.

"Not bad for a soup kitchen, huh?" Lyman says, dropping into the chair next to him, planting his elbows on the table, chin in his palms. "Makes you feel good and sad at the same time. So how are you, Dub? Taking care of yourself?"

"Best I can, Pastor," Dub answers, brus.h.i.+ng crumbs from the corners of his mouth.

"Dub, you call me Pastor one more time, I'm gonna have to start dragging you to services."

Neely grins. A long-standing game between them, one he knows the minister can't win, one in which the minister refuses to accept defeat. "You talk to the other preacher yet?"

Lyman doesn't answer for a while. "No. Not yet."

"No offense, Pastor, but he ain't coming to you, you know."

Lyman nods.

"The way I figure it, he must be really out of it, you know? I mean, he didn't show up last night or this morning, right? Wasn't in church? You're a preacher, whether you preach or not, you got to go to church. So I figure he's out of it."

Lyman waves to an old woman at the far table, who has given him a bright toothless smile of thanks.

Dub finishes his cake, wipes his mouth carefully with a paper napkin, and pushes away from the table. "Got to go, Pastor. Got to take my daily const.i.tutional."

He stands, and Lyman stops him with a hand on his arm. "Dub, I've been meaning to ask you ..."

Dub looks down at him and knows with a sudden chill exactly what he's going to say. He shakes his head-don't ask, please don't ask.

Lyman's hand drifts to the table where it clasps the other into a double fist. "We, Kitra and I, we thought we were maybe going a little nuts. But it's true, isn't it."

Automatically Dub reaches for his flask, remembers where he is, and wipes his hand nervously on his coat instead.

Lyman doesn't look at him. "So what do you think it means, Dub? Have any thoughts?"

"You're the pastor."

Lyman laughs softly. "Yes ... I'm the pastor."

For the first time in a long time Dub feels a spike of temper, and lets it out. "I'm a drunk, Pastor, that's all I am. I hear things, I see things, most of the time it's because I'm swimming in an alcoholic haze with no regard for life or limb or the sanct.i.ty of human decency." When the minister looks up at him sharply, he grins. "That means I'm a drank, Pastor, and you shouldn't pay any attention to what I say."

He nods his thanks for the meal and the company, and walks as steadily as he can to the stairs. Only three, but suddenly they seem tripled, and higher, and the door at the top with the small gla.s.s window seems a million miles away. There's a small bra.s.s railing attached to the cinder block wall, and he grabs it hard when he hears Lyman say, "So how scared are you, Dub? How scared are you, really?"

In the middle of the harbor there's a large raft, and on the raft there's a large Christmas tree which, at night, gives off enough light to make it appear as if it's standing on a tiny island. Gulls stalk the wharves and piers, searching for food. Cats prowl and dogs root and a large blue heron glides overhead, heading for the marsh.

Some of the boats that haven't been placed in dry dock yet are festooned with colored lights from mast to cabin, bow to stern, one or two have artificial trees standing on their prows. The boardwalk that connects them all on the bay's south side is deserted. Everyone is home, or at someone else's home, either celebrating or taking the day off because everyone else is celebrating.

The Lucky Deuce rocks and sways with the easy roll of the low waves, occasionally rubbing against the tire b.u.mpers lashed to the dock.

When it explodes, the water burns.

Hector Nazario sits contentedly in front of his television set, stoically enduring yet another commercial interrupting his American football game. Gloria is on the phone to their relatives in Florida, and he half listens with a half smile to her praise of the awful gifts their grandmother has sent them, and to her artful dodging of the monthly question- when are you coming home, Georgia's no place for any respectable Nazario to live, so when are you coming home where you belong?

The commercial ends, there's a brief news report that interrupts the halftime sports report, and for the first time that day he frowns.

"Gloria," he says.

She covers the mouthpiece with one hand. "What?"

He points at the screen. *They say Pakistan has tested another bomb. On a missile, I think. India, too."

"So?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. It's Christmas, it's not right."

"Maybe they blow each other up, we don't have to worry anymore."

Maybe, he thinks; maybe not.

But the second half of the game isn't nearly as much fun.

4.

Casey stands at the foot of a jetty, bundled as warmly as he can be with what he has, shoulders up, elbows tight to his sides. He wants to go out there, but the tide is in and the waves are too high. He wouldn't get halfway there before he'd be slammed off and battered.

He had awakened that morning cursing the day he'd ever met those d.a.m.n kids, or had called that fool Bannock who looks like a young Abraham Lincoln. Had they gotten on with their lives, he would have gotten on with his as he'd reconstructed it, and no one would be hurt. And he wouldn't be feeling the way he did.

That tantrum hadn't lasted very long.

In fact, it had lasted just long enough for him to recognize the absurdity of it and start to laugh. No humor, just a laugh that escaped once in a while as he dressed, and ate breakfast, and read, and ate lunch, and finally decided it was time to hit the beach.

do you ever wonder if there's a third survivor He glares at the sea, King Canute willing the tide to retreat, then turns north and trudges along the edge of the beach's wet-sand ap.r.o.n.

A wave slips in and teases his shoes and retreats, and he watches for the bubbles that signal a sand crab's burrow; a pair of black-mask gulls land in front of him, squawking softly and skittering away when he doesn't veer around them; the upside-down skeleton of a horseshoe crab in a foam-filled depression; clutches of kelp not yet driven high enough to completely dry out; half a small nautilus sh.e.l.l; shards of other sh.e.l.ls bleached of most of their color; a tangle of mussel sh.e.l.ls the gulls have emptied and left behind.

do you ever wonder if there's a third survivor The honest answer, at the time, would have been no. He had survived, and for him that was all that mattered. Survival had destroyed him and everything he'd known; he had been too busy rebuilding to give a d.a.m.n about anyone else.

Since then, however...

He spots the whale family up ahead, and after one last disgusted look at the surf, angles across the sand toward them. He doesn't so much feel the need for communion as for a windbreak, and that somehow makes him feel guilty in a foolish sort of way. When he reaches Daddy, however, he's tempted to climb it, sit on top and play King of the Hill with the gulls and the crows who were scolding him from the trees.

Go south, he orders them silently; get a bird life and go south, you jerks.

He wanders among the boulders, brus.h.i.+ng the cold stone with his fingertips, poking a finger into a depression or a crack, brus.h.i.+ng away dry sand flung there wet by the wind or someone's racing foot. He blows his nose; he wipes a wind-tear from one eye. He looks up, once and sharply, when he hears the dull smack of a distant explosion. Or what sounds like an explosion but is probably a wave striking a deep recess in one of the jetties. When he hears nothing else, he moves to the front of Daddy's great head and leans back against it.

Stares at the ground.

At his feet, wearing those dumb walking shoes that he knows are nothing more than fat fancy sneakers.

Remembering, suddenly, what it used to be like, what he used to wear, and how comfortable it had all been.

Back when.

In the other life.

In the other life, when he had dared-as some had put it-to speak to the Lord not in archaic, Shakespeare-like language, but in ordinary conversation. How he used to walk into his church first thing each day and say, "Good morning, Lord," and see if there was anything special he had to do.

Blasphemy is how the more ritual-oriented of his paris.h.i.+oners had put it; you don't speak to G.o.d as if He were your equal.

They didn't understand that Casey had no such idea in mind. It was just his way. He often thought it had something to do with the fundamental differences between North and South; just as likely, it had something to do with the comfort he felt in the Presence.

G.o.d certainly hadn't struck him down for his cheek.

He figured that was a plus.