Dead Man's Song полностью

“Doesn’t mean jack. Karl Ruger was just a man. This is…him, you dig? This is my nightmare for thirty years. This is the reason I started drinking, the reason I sometimes want a drink so bad I get the shivers and shakes and want to scream. This is the reason sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night so terrified that I want to eat my gun just to stop from seeing his face every time I close my eyes. You don’t understand, and I hope to God that you never do, but what’s out there, the thing that used to live out there, was a monster. Don’t you get that? It was a monster! Not a man, not even an animal, but something unnatural, something that killed my brother, man. It ripped his throat out and tore his head off and…and…” Crow stopped and turned away, breathing hard, fists clenched at his sides. He drew in a long, steadying breath and tried it again. “You’re right, I’m out here just to get some kind of Twelve Step closure. Newt, I’m out here to try and save my own sanity.”

“Crow, I—”

“Hush. Just listen, man,” Crow said and they started walking again, slowly, side by side. “I’m out here to try and exorcise some of my personal demons, and I have to admit that I brought you along as kind of a witness. Maybe I need to prove to myself that I really did this. Who knows, maybe it’ll make a good sidebar for your feature. Maybe when we get out there all we’ll find is some moldering sticks that used to be a house and nothing else. Man, that would be so nice! But I needed to come out here, out to his house, just to see where he lived, to walk the earth he walked on, to touch things that he might have touched.”

“But…why?”

Crow drew in a deep breath and held it and Newton could see that he was steeling himself for something. What he finally said was, “Because I think Ubel Griswold might still be here.”

“What?”

“Yeah. How crazy does that sound? Now, you want to hear the really crazy shit?”

“I’m thinking no.”

“Want to know what Karl Ruger said just before he died?”

“Not anymore. I think I’d rather climb back up that hill and find that bar you were talking about.”

Crow stepped close and Newton could smell his sweat. “Right before he died…with his last breath, Ruger pulled me close and whispered ‘Ubel Griswold sends his regards.’” He stepped back. “What do you think of that?”

Newton was very aware of the gun at Crow’s hip and the machete in its sheath. He was aware of the stories he heard about how tough and dangerous Crow was. He was aware of his own heart hammering away in his chest. He was wondering what his chances were if he just turned and ran. The black forest around him was immense.

Chapter 23

(1)

“Hand me that trowel, honey?” Connie asked, holding out a gloved hand. She was kneeling on a rubber garden pad, her rump in the air, with her blond hair pushed up under a straw hat and a decorative smudge of potting soil on her cheek. Val handed her the trowel and watched as Connie set to work digging holes for some gardenias she’d had delivered from a greenhouse in Warrington. It was the first time since coming home that Connie had shown any real interest in doing something creative, and Val was taking it as a good sign. Last night Crow had arranged for Mark and Connie to go out for dinner and a show, and when they had gotten home there was just the faintest hint of something akin to romance between the two of them. Val thought that was even more hopeful. Maybe that was what it was going to take—real-world, ordinary stuff.

However, Connie wasn’t entirely rational. Val had patiently explained that this was the middle of October and that there was likely to be a frost soon and besides it was way too late in the year to be planting flowers, but Connie had patted her hand—actually patted her hand—and told her that whereas Val may known how to grow crops she didn’t really understand pretty stuff like flowers. Val had wisely shut up. It was better to sacrifice the gardenias than the moment. So far they had planted four trays of gardenias and three of marigolds. Val was amazed they had even found them this time of year, greenhouse or no. Connie was surrounding the front porch with colorful flowers and she was going about it with the single-minded relentlessness of a fanatic.

Diego had come up while they were still in the marigold phase and had even opened his mouth to say something, but Val had waved him off. Not wanting to call his boss crazy, Diego had just touched the brim of his hat, smiled, and melted back into the fields. The last of the late-season corn was being harvested and whole sections of the Guthrie farm were now bare.

“Is Mark going to be home for dinner tonight?” Val asked, trying to make it sound casual, but she could see the trowel falter for a moment.

“I think so,” Connie said with only the slightest hesitation and her trowel chopped into the dirt with a bit more force. “He has a Moose luncheon thingee and then he’ll be home.”

“Okay,” Val said. “Shall I cook?”