Brother Joe met his eyes and it was clear that there was much he wanted to say, but they both knew this wasn’t the time. Instead he took Grey’s hand and kissed it.
“May God’s mercy and protection be with you always.”
“Amen to that,” said Looks Away. “Now, how about we draw some of that water and get off the street? I doubt our Deputy Perkins or his employer will let this matter stand where it is.”
“So what? I’m not afraid of them, Looksie,” said Jenny.
Looks Away winced at the nickname, but he let the bucket slide down the well. “I’m not afraid of them coming back,” he said. “But let’s make it later than sooner. I’m fair parched.”
“Looksie?” echoed Grey, grinning.
“Don’t start,” warned the Sioux as he cranked up the laden bucket. “You wouldn’t be the first white man I’ve scalped.”
There was a sudden rumble, deep and heavy, and they all turned toward the west. Far out over the ocean was a massive bank of dark clouds that Grey could have sworn were not there five minutes ago. It was a storm front, and the clouds pulsed and throbbed with thunder. Lightning flashed within and it looked like red veins in the skin of some great beast.
“Looks like the town’s in for a break,” said Grey. “Stretch some canvas and catch the rain. Nothing beats a cup of fresh rainwater.”
“Not that rain,” said Jenny softly. “God…”
Brother Joe quickly crossed himself.
A wet wind whipped off the ocean and blew past them. It smelled of rotting fish and sulfur. Jenny wrapped her arms around her body and shuddered. Even Looks Away seemed to grow pale and nervous.
The first fat raindrops pinged on the tin roof of the nearest house. Fresh thunder growled at them. Closer now.
High above they heard the shrill and haunted call of that strange bird. It seemed to be pushed toward them on the stiff wind.
Rain splatted down on the street a block away and they watched the leading wall of the storm march toward them. Grey frowned at the storm. It was strange. It was … wrong. As the belly of the storm swelled outward like an obscene pregnancy, the lightning changed in color. Where a moment ago it had been like red veins, now it changed into a tracery of blue.
Grey knew that shade of blue. He’d seen it in Nevada. He’d nearly been killed by a burst of it.
“Looks Away—,” he began, but thunder exploded like artillery fire, smashing all other sounds into nothingness.
Inside the storm, behind the veil of slanting rain, something moved. Something vast, something that writhed like a nest of serpents. And tangled up with the growl of thunder he thought he heard something else. Something that roared with a voice from nightmare.
Looks Away glanced down at the bucket he held.
He let it fall.
“Run,” he murmured. Then as the rain thickened and as the sky turned black as sackcloth, he yelled it. “Run!”
The four of them turned and ran.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Running from a storm is like running from a forest fire or the fall of night. At first it seems possible, but then with every step the realities become apparent. What man can do, nature can overmaster.
“Get the horses!” Grey bellowed to Looks Away. “You take Brother Joe and I’ll take—.”
Before he could finish the statement a gray bulk slammed into him and sent him skidding into the stone well. He rebounded and whipped around in time to see Picky race away from him in a full-out panicked gallop. Queenie was neck and neck with her.
Grey wasted no time cursing the horses. Instead he launched himself to his feet, caught Jenny Pearl’s arm, and together they ran. He heard feet slapping on the dampening mud behind him.
“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God,” breathed Brother Joe with every step.
“Move your holy ass,” snapped Looks Away.
Rain pelted them, punched them, and chased them. Grey could see that the street up ahead was empty. Everyone had fled the coming storm. Two of the rocking chairs still wobbled, proof that their occupants had been there only a moment before.
The howl of the wind was a terrible thing to hear. It was the sound of souls in burning torment. It was the shriek of the tortured damned. As he ran, Grey tried to tell himself that it was the wind, only the wind. That the sound was some freakish side effect of ghost rock that was somehow caught up in this gale. That it was no more dire than the hiss of a burning fuse or the bang of gunpowder. Just a sound.
Only that.
But the rain burned as it struck his skin. It hissed and sizzled as if the storm had come howling up from Hell itself, carrying with it the screams of the dead. The cries of a thing that hated the living for what the quick had and the dead did not. It was a hungry, covetous sound that betrayed a greedy want of life. Or to see life torn down and swept away.
As Grey ran he heard human voices screaming, too. Rising to match the wind.
They came from inside houses. They came from behind closed doors and windows. And they came from the mouths of Thomas Looks Away, Jenny Pearl, Brother Joe.
And from his own mouth.
Jenny grabbed his sodden sleeve and jerked him sideways toward a rain-spattered porch. They raced up the three wooden steps and across the porch. Jenny fumbled in her skirt pocket for a key, stabbed it into the lock, turned it, shouldered the door open, and fell inward, dragging Grey with her. Brother Joe came through next, stumble-running from a push, and finally Looks Away staggered in. The Sioux slammed the door and began slapping at his skin, trying to swat away the stinging rainwater as if it were filled with biting gnats.
Jenny pushed past him and tore a curtain down. “Use this!”
They each grabbed a corner of the frilly yellow curtain and frantically dabbed and blotted themselves.
“It burns,” cried Brother Joe. “God, it burns.”
“Out of those clothes,” ordered Grey. “Now.”
Brother Joe, despite his pain, cast an appalled look toward Jenny, but the woman brusquely waved him off and began unbuttoning her blouse. Grey half tore his shirt getting it off. He yanked off his boots and shoved down his jeans. Looks away was already down to britches and Brother Joe pulled off his robe to reveal a thin and many times patched pair of what looked like woman’s cast-off bloomers.
All three of the men turned their backs on Jenny Pearl and she stepped out of her dress. Grey had a lingering afterimage of her in layers of white, and a bodice with a plunging neckline. There was another tearing sound and he half turned to see her rip down a second curtain and begin winding it around her slim body.
Thunder boomed and outside branches snapped from the oak tree on the lawn. Flying sticks hammered the front of the house.
“Stay away from the windows,” warned Grey.
“Looksie,” said Jenny, “the shutters.”
“Shite,” groaned the Sioux, but he ran to the closest window and opened it. Wincing into the spray, he snagged the pulls of the heavy wooden shutters and slammed them closed. Grey did the same with the window on the other side of the door as Brother Joe and Jenny ran to repeat this with the windows upstairs. By the time they were done, Grey and Looks Away had the rear and side windows shuttered. It darkened the house, but it felt far more secure. They grabbed the curtains and rags from the kitchen to mop up the stinging rain.
“Am I burned?” asked Looks Away, probing at his face with nervous fingers.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Grey, “but your skin’s red.”
“Hilarious. But it feels blistered.”
“It’s not. How’s mine?”
“The same. There must be something in the rain to cause this, but it doesn’t seem to be causing tissue damage.”
“Hurts like a bitch, though.”
“Yes, it damn well does,” agreed Jenny as she rejoined them. Grey became instantly and acutely aware of how transparent white undergarments could be when soaked with rainwater. He tried his level best to look anywhere but at her, and fai
led miserably. He felt his face burn even hotter, and that had nothing at all to do with the rain.
Outside the rain intensified. Grey bent and peered through the shutter slats. The rain fell in sheets that seemed to march like platoons of ghosts across the street.
“It’s starting to hail,” said Looks Away, then he stiffened. “Oh … bloody hell!”
“What is it?” asked Jenny, crowding beside him to peer between the slats.
When Brother Joe joined them, he immediately gasped and clutched his crucifix in a white-knuckled fist. “Dear Lord, save us from the horrors of the Pit.”
In silent fear, they stood and watched for long minutes, each of them staring in horror at what was falling with the rain.
Snakes.
And frogs.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
The snakes were strange and there were many kinds Grey had never seen. Not desert snakes like sidewinders and rattlesnakes. These were mottled and sinewy, more like sea snakes or eels. And the frogs were tiny and brightly colored. Livid greens and bright blues and shocking yellow. Some of the frogs landed in puddles and hopped away; others struck harder parts of the street that hadn’t yet softened to mud. These exploded into red that was immediately washed away. All of the falling animals steamed, though, as if plucked from boiling pots.
Overhead the lightning flashed with blue madness and it cast the entire street into an alien strangeness.
They could still hear the screams and the deeper bellows of whatever vast things they’d glimpsed inside the storm. Huge, stentorian cries rattled the glass in the frames and shook the timbers of the house.
“What’s happening?” whispered Jenny. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s the end of the world,” whispered Brother Joe. “This is the Beast come to conquer. God, bless us sinners and shelter us with your mercy.”
If Grey expected—or hoped—that Looks Away or Jenny would refute the monk’s words, he was mistaken.
Blue lightning struck a telegraph pole on the far side of the street and it exploded into a swarm of splinters. The wires broke apart and drooped in defeat to the muddy ground. Grey and the others cried out and shrank back as jagged splinters thudded into the mud and rattled against the windows like a hail of arrows. One of the panes cracked but did not break. Even so, Grey spread his arms and pushed Jenny and Brother Joe backward. Looks Away flinched away as another azure bolt hit the stump of the telegraph pole and set it alight. The blue flame burned like a torch despite the heavy rain.
“This is madness,” breathed Grey.
“Madness,” agreed Looks Away.
Outside the storm raged.
It went on and on and on as darkness closed its fingers around the town of Paradise Falls and tightened everything inside a big, black fist.
Chapter Twenty-Six
After a while the lightning and thunder began to ease, but the rain continued to hammer down. The thump of frogs and snakes had dwindled and stopped after the initial cascade. Now it was only rain.
The four of them had long since retreated to the subjective safety of Jenny’s kitchen and sat huddled around the table. As the storm eased, their focus shifted from the wrath of a perverse nature and more toward the others in the room. The men became increasingly aware of their state of undress, while Grey in particular remained distracted by Jenny Pearl’s lack of attire. With disheveled hair and a curtain for modesty she looked like some fairy princess from an old story. Even in the weird blue light of the storm she was beautiful.
It seemed to take her longer, however, to begin feeling self-conscious. She was clearly not overly concerned about modesty. Not that she flaunted herself, that was clear enough. It was just that she seemed to be a practical woman. Very grounded, and Grey admired that as much as her looks.
However she did finally turn away from the windows and pluck at the folds of cloth she’d wrapped around herself. “I’m going to get dressed,” she said. “There’s wood in the kitchen. Looksie, why don’t you make a fire in the stove and set some water to boiling. Once that’s going I’m sure you men can figure out how to dry your clothes. When I’m decent I’ll see about eggs or soup. Maybe a steak, if it hasn’t spoiled. And Brother Joe—you’d better get some hot coffee into you.”
“I-I’m o-o-o-k-k-kay,” said Brother Joe, but his teeth chattered the words into a stutter.
The hard look on Jenny’s face softened. “Don’t be silly. You’re turning blue. If you don’t get something hot into you, you’ll catch your death.”
“I’m f-f-fine,” he insisted.
“You’re not. You’ve got no meat on you to keep you warm, you skinny old thing.” Jenny chewed her lip in thought, then nodded to herself. “Look … my dad’s things are still in a trunk in his room upstairs. You boys can sort through and find something to wear. He was of a size, so his stuff will be big on everyone except Mr. Torrance.”
“Call me Grey. And, thank you kindly.”
She nodded, appraising him. “Come along then. This storm’s not going anywhere for a while and it’s getting cold in here.”
With that she turned and headed up the stairs into the shadows of the second floor.
Grey lingered, glancing at Looks Away.
“That,” he said quietly, “is some woman.”
“Indeed she is.”
“What happened to her pa?”
Brother Joe said, “The D-Devil t-t-took him.”
Grey looked to the Sioux for explanation.
“Bob Pearl was a good man. Everyone called him Lucky Bob. He was a real bull of a man, a sterling chap. Tough as leather, but fair-minded and honest as the day is long. He did a lot for the people of Paradise Falls, and after a while it seemed like he was the backbone of the whole town. He hated Nolan Chesterfield and hated Aleksander Deray even more, which is saying something because men like Lucky Bob Pearl seldom give in to hate. He had a big heart, as the poets say.”
“What happened?” Grey repeated.
“What happened is that he decided he’d had enough of what was going on, and he went out to see Aleksander Deray about setting things straight,” said Looks Away. “He wanted to appeal to him to be more fair with the water leases. However he never made it to Deray’s place. Or, at least that’s what Deray told people. Lucky Bob’s horse was found in a pit near the edge of the drop-off. It was dead, its bones nearly picked clean. I saw the body. The horse’s right front pastern was broken. The evidence suggested that Bob was riding along the edge and the horse stepped wrong, broke its leg, and fell into the pit. It was a long fall and there were plenty of rocks. Our fine Deputy Perkins concluded that when the horse fell, Bob Pearl pitched over the edge of the drop-off and went down into the salt water.”
“His body wash up?”
Brother Joe shook his head and repeated, “The Devil took h-him.”
“Devil or not,” said Looks Away, “Lucky Bob’s body never washed up.” He paused. “Around here the sea doesn’t willingly give up its dead.”
Grey thought about that, remembering the churning water and jagged rocks. And the things that moved beneath those troubled waves. He shuddered.
Then he cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Our horses are out there somewhere.”
Looks Away almost smiled. “I daresay they are. And while I value horseflesh as much as the next bloke—and maybe doubly so since I am, after all, Sioux—if you are primed to suggest that we venture out in that rain to corral them, then—.”
“Don’t!” said the monk without a trace of stutter.
“Not even a little chance of that, friend,” said Grey. “I was remarking on it is all. I was not and am not planning on putting one foot out that door until this storm stops.”
He almost added, If it stops.
“Bloody glad to hear it,” said Looks Away. “I—.”
From above came a stern call. “Are you coming or do I have to carry this son of a bitching case all by myself?”
&nbs
p; Grey grinned. “Yeah. Quite a woman.” He started toward the stairs then paused. “Looks Away—?”
“Yes?” the Sioux asked.
“I think we both know that you haven’t been entirely straight with me about what’s going on here.”
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“That’s not the same thing and you know it.”
Looks Away said nothing, which was answer enough.
“When we get settled,” said Grey, “we are going to have a full and frank discussion about this. About all of it, you hear me? Am I getting through to you on this?”
“You are,” said the Sioux. “And … we will. I think it’s high time for that conversation.”
They exchanged a single nod, and then Grey climbed the stairs as the storm’s intensity spun up again. It raged and the house creaked and Grey’s heart hammered.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“In here,” called Jenny Pearl, and Grey followed the sound of her voice down a darkened hall. It was a two-story house with a tin roof, and the rain made an awful din above his head. There were wrought iron sconces on the walls but the candles were unlit and cold. The darkened hall conjured an old memory in his mind, and he wasn’t sure if it was real or something belonging to a dream.
In the memory, a much younger Grey—a boy still too young to shave—crept along a corridor like this but longer, with dusty wood paneling and the framed faces of dead relatives scowling at him from the walls. Unseen mice squeaked behind the wainscoting and their voices sounded like sly laughter. A dead cockroach lay on its back, one leg continuing to kick as if death’s grip on it was tenuous. Cobwebs trembled in the corners as he reached the end of the hall and turned to follow a second and longer one. There were doors on either side. Shut and bolted. Always in his dreams those doors were locked against him. And even now, walking along Jenny Pearl’s hall, he passed closed doors and felt deliberately shut out by them. Or … was something else shut in?
That was the secret of those old dreams. That was the thing that gnawed at him. At the self who walked through those halls. At the dreaming boy in his bed who sweated and writhed as his young limbs aped the movements of walking where he did not want to walk. And at the man he was now. Big, strong, experienced, armed, ruthless, tough by any standard. And all three of them, all three aspects of himself, were afraid. Even the gunslinger. Even the killer he was now.