He nodded and handed her the letter, but she didn’t read it.
“Chicago. I wonder what kind of city that is?”
“Probably dirty,” Billy replied. “They’ve got gangsters up there, too.”
Ramona smiled. “I believe that was a long time ago you’re thinking of. But I suppose there are gangsters just about everywhere.” She rubbed her callused fingers; they were stiff and unresponsive. The lines in her face were many and deep. “I wonder what that institute would be like. Don’t you wonder sometimes?”
“No.”
“We could afford a bus ticket, if you wanted to go. From what I recall, they were eager to hear from you.”
Billy grunted, watching the small tongues of flame in the hearth. “They’d probably treat me like a freak.”
“Are you afraid to go?”
“I don’t want to go.”
“That’s not what I asked.” She stood over him for a moment more, then she went to a window and looked out. The breeze stirred reddening leaves. “You’ll be twenty-one in November,” she said. “I know…things happened to you when you joined that Ghost Show. I know that you came back home bearing scars. That’s all right. Only tough folks carry scars. Maybe I shouldn’t stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but… I think you should go to that institute, I think you should see what they have to say.”
“I don’t belong up there…”
“No.” Ramona turned toward him. “You don’t belong here. Not anymore. The land and the house are in fine shape, and now you’re just filling up your days trying to stay busy. What kind of life is ahead for you in Hawthorne? Answer me that.”
“A good life. I’ll work hard, and I’ll read, and I’ll keep up my music…”
“…and there goes another year, doesn’t it? Boy, have you forgotten everything your grandmother and I tried to teach you about the Mystery Walk? That you have to be strong enough to follow it wherever it leads, and that it’s up to you break new ground? I’ve taught you all I know about the ceremony, about the use of the jimsonweed and hemp, and how to recognize the mushrooms that must be dried and crushed into powder to be smoked. I’ve taught you what I know of the shape changer, and how it can use other souls against yours; I’ve taught you to be proud of your heritage, and I thought you’d learned how to see by now.”
“See? See what?”
“Your future,” she said. “The Choctaw doesn’t choose who’s to make the Walk; only the Giver of Breath can make that choice. Oh, many before you lost their faith or their courage, or had their minds swept away by evil forces. But when evil can break the chain of the Mystery Walk, then all that’s gone before is disrupted, all the learning and experience and pain might just as well be for nothing. I know that it left a scar on you that summer and autumn; but you can’t let it win. The ceremony is important, but most important is what’s out there.” Ramona motioned toward the window. “The world.”
“It’s not my world,” Billy said.
“It can be. Are you afraid? Are you giving up?”
Billy was silent. His experience on the Octopus was still burned into him, and there had been many nightmares of it to keep the wounds raw. Sometimes a cobra reared up in the darkness, and sometimes he had a gun that wouldn’t fire as the thing coiled closer toward him. Soon after arriving home that autumn, he’d taken the bus to Birmingham and had gone to the hospital to see Santha Tully. The nurse there had told him that Santha Tully had left the day before, and had gone back to New Orleans; he’d stood in the empty room she’d occupied, knowing he’d never see her again. He silently wished her good luck.
“I’m not afraid,” he said. “I just don’t want to be…treated like a freak.”
“And you think they will, at this institute in Chicago? You understand who and what you are; what else matters? But if the institute works with people like us, then they can teach you…and learn from you as well. I think that’s where you belong.”
“No.”
Ramona sighed and shook her head. “Then I’ve failed, haven’t I? You’re not strong enough. Your work isn’t done—it hasn’t really started—and already you think you deserve rest. You don’t, not yet.”
“Damn it!” Billy said sharply, and abruptly stood up. “Leave me alone!” He snatched Dr. Mirakle’s letter from her and angrily ripped it up, throwing the pieces into the fireplace. “You don’t understand what it was like on the Octopus! You didn’t hear it! You didn’t feel it! Leave me alone!” He started past her, toward the front door.
“Billy,” Ramona said softly. When he turned, she held out the piece of coal in the palm of her hand. “I found this on the top of your dresser this morning. Why did you take it out of the drawer?”
He couldn’t remember if he had or not. Ramona tossed it to him. There seemed to be heat in it, and it gleamed like a black, mysterious amulet.
“Your home is here,” she said. “It’ll always be here. I can take care of myself, the house, and the land; I’ve done it before. But you’ve got to go into the world and use what you know, and learn more about yourself. If you don’t you’ve wasted everything that’s gone before you.”
“I need to think,” he told her. “I’m not sure what to do.”
“You’re sure. You’re just taking your time coming around to it.”
Billy clenched the piece of coal in his fist. He said, “I want to sleep out tonight, out in the forest. I want to be by myself for as long as it takes.”
Ramona nodded. “I’ll get some food ready for you, if you…”
“No. If I can’t catch my food or dig it up, I won’t eat. I’ll just need a sleeping bag.”
She left the room to get what he wanted. Billy put the coal into his pocket and stepped out onto the porch; he wanted to lie on Southern earth tonight, to watch the stars move and let his mind drift. It was true that he’d felt the Hillburn Institute in Chicago pulling at him. He was curious as to what kind of place it might be and what might lie ahead of him in a city that size. Chicago seemed as far away as China, and just as foreign. It was true also that he was afraid.
He faced the horizon, ablaze with the colors of late autumn. The musky scent of dead summer wafted in the air like old wine. He didn’t want to leave all the work to his mother, but he knew she was right; the Mystery Walk was beckoning him onward, and he had to follow.
Ready or not, he thought, recalling the games of hide-and-seek he used to play with Will Booker, whose symbol of faith in Billy’s potential rested in his jeans pocket, here I come…
46
THE BLUE-AND-SILVER Canadair Challenger had been in the air for less than an hour, and was now streaking over central Arkansas at twenty-three thousand feet. The late October sky was a dazzling blue, while beneath the jet a rainstorm whipped Little Rock.
Wayne Falconer, sitting in the plane’s “quiet pocket”—the area just behind the flight deck—was stunned and delighted. This silent eagle made his Beechcraft seem like a clumsy moth. Leaving the ground at Fayette’s airport had been one of the most sublime feelings he’d experienced. Up here the sky was so clear and blue, and he felt as if he’d left his worldly responsibilities very far behind. He wanted a jet like this, he had to have one and that was all there was to it.
The business jet’s interior was done in dark blue and black, with a lot of shining chrome and waxed wood surface. The motorized swivel-and-reclining seats were upholstered in black Angus steerhide, and there was a long comfortable-looking sofa next to a fruit and vegetable juice bar. Danish teakwood tables were bolted to the carpeted floor in case of rough weather; on one of the tables were neatly arranged copies of the Falconer Crusade’s magazine. Everything in the long, spacious cabin sparkled with cleanliness, as if someone had polished every fixture and surface with a strong disinfectant cleanser. The oval Plexiglass windows, George Hodges had noticed, didn’t have one streak or fingerprint on them. He’d decided that this Mr. Augustus Krepsin must be a very fastidious man, though something about the display of C
rusade magazines bothered him; it was maybe too clever, and was trying to win Wayne over too fast. Krepsin’s assistant, Mr. Niles, bothered Hodges too. The man was polite, intelligent, and well informed about the Crusade’s business policies, but there was something about his eyes that disturbed Hodges; they looked soulless, and they lingered on Wayne far too often.
Hodges sat a few seats behind Wayne, closer to the high whine of the twin jet engines at the rear of the fuselage. Niles, Hodges had noticed, was quick to take the seat across the aisle from Wayne. Henry Bragg was paging through a Field and Stream a couple of seats behind him. Bragg was pleased to be away from his wife and three stairstep children; he sipped ginger ale through a straw and watched the clouds move far below, a dreamy and contented smile on his face.
Beth, their attractive young flight attendant, came down the aisle with a cup of orange juice for Wayne. The cabin was more than eight feet wide and six feet high, so she had no trouble making her way to the young man. “Here you go,” she said with a sunny smile. “Can I get you a magazine?”
“No, thank you. What’s our airspeed now, ma’am?”
“Beth. Oh, I think we’re flying around five hundred miles per hour by now. I understand you’re a pilot.”
“Yes, ma’am. Beth, I mean. I’ve got a Beechcraft Bonanza, but it’s nothing like this. I’ve always loved planes and flying. I…always feel so free when I’m up in the air.”
“Have you ever been to California?”
He shook his head, sipped at the orange juice, and put the cup down on his service tray.
“Sun and fun!” Beth said. “That’s the life-style there.”
Wayne smiled, though uneasily. For some reason, Beth reminded him of a half-forgotten nightmare: a dark-haired girl slipping on a slick platform, the awful noise of her head hitting the sharp edge, the sound of painfully exhaled breath and water closing over her like a black shroud. In the past three years his face and body had thickened, and the texture of his red hair had become dense and wiry. His eyes were deep-set and glowed as blue as the sky beyond the jet’s windows. But they were haunted eyes, holding back secrets, and there were purplish hollows beneath them. He was very pale except for a few rashes of late-blooming acne across his cheeks. “Beth?” he said. “Do you go to church?”
Mr. Niles had given her a thorough briefing on Wayne Falconer before they’d left Palm Springs. “Yes I do,” she said, still smiling. “As a matter of fact, my father was a minister just like yours was.”
Across the aisle, Niles’s eyes were closed. He smiled very slightly. Beth was a resourceful person who could think on her feet.
“An evangelist,” Wayne corrected her. “My daddy was the greatest evangelist that ever lived.”
“I’ve never seen you on television, but I’ll bet it’s a good show.”
“I hope it does good for people. That’s what I’m trying to do.” He smiled wanly at her, and was pleased when she returned his smile with sunny wattage. She left him to his thoughts, and he drank his orange juice. He had just finished a three-day-long healing revival in Atlanta. It was estimated that he’d touched five thousand in the Healing Line, and he’d preached three scorching hellfire-and-brimstone messages. He was bone-tired, and in two weeks the Falconer Crusade was booked into the Houston Astrodome for yet another revival. If only he could find a record of a jet engine in flight, Wayne thought, maybe he could sleep better; the sound would soothe him, and he could pretend he was very far away from the Crusade, flying across a night sky sparkled with stars.
His daddy had told him buying this record company was a smart move to make. He should listen to this Mr. Krepsin, and trust in what the man said, his daddy had told him. It would all work out for the best.
“Wayne?” Mr. Niles was standing over him, smiling. “Come on up to the flight deck with me, will you?”
Niles led the way forward and pulled aside a green curtain. Wayne was breathless at the sight of the cockpit, with its magnificent control panel, its gleaming toggles and gauges and dials. The pilot, a husky man with a broad sunburned face, grinned below his smoke-tinted sunglasses and said, “Hi there, Wayne. Take the co-pilot’s seat.”
Wayne slipped into glove-soft leather. The engine noise was barely audible way up here; there was only the quiet hissing of air around the Challenger’s nose. The windshield gave an unobstructed, wide-angle view of brilliant blue sky dotted with high, fleecy cirrus clouds. Wayne noticed the movements of the control yoke before him, and knew the jet was flying under autopilot command. The instruments he faced—altimeter airspeed indicator, horizontal situation indicator, attitude director, and a few more he didn’t recognize—were set in a Basic T formation, similar to the Beechcraft panel but of course much more complex. Between the pilot and co-pilot was a console holding the engine thrust throttles, the weather radar controls, the speed brake lever, and other toggle switches Wayne knew nothing about. He stared at the panel with rapt fascination.
“Everything’s right there,” the pilot said, “if you know where to look for it. My name’s Jim Coombs. Glad to have you aboard.” He shook Wayne’s hand with a hard, firm grip. “Mr. Niles tells me you’re a flyer. That right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay.” Coombs reached up to an overhead console and switched off the autopilot. The control yokes stopped their slight correction of ailerons and elevators; the Challenger slowly began to nose upward. “Take her and see how she feels.”
Wayne’s palms were sweating as he gripped the guidance wheel and placed his feet against the hard rubber pedals that controlled the rudder.
“Scan your instruments,” Coombs said. “Airspeed’s still on autopi, so don’t worry about that. Bring your nose down a few degrees. Let’s level her off.”
Wayne pushed the yoke forward, and the Challenger instantly responded, the silver nose dropping back to level flight. He had overestimated, though, and had to pull slightly up from a six-degree downward pitch. The plane began to roll just a bit to the right, and Coombs let Wayne work with the yoke and pedals until he’d gotten the jet trimmed again. The controls needed a feather-light but decisive touch, and compared to this he’d had to fight the Beechcraft across the sky. He grinned and said in a shaky voice, “How was that?”
Coombs laughed. “Fine. Of course, we’re about a hundred miles off our flight path, but you’re okay for a prop-jockey. Want to co-pilot me into Palm Springs?”
Wayne beamed.
Less than two hours later the Challenger was landing at Palm Springs Municipal Airport. In the co-pilot’s seat, Wayne watched intently as Coombs went through the landing procedure.
Two Lincoln Continental limousines awaited the Challenger. Wayne was escorted by Niles into the first one, and Hodges and Bragg climbed into the other. They started off together, but after ten minutes the Mexican driver of the second limo announced he felt “something funny” and pulled off the expressway. He got out to check, and reported that the left rear tire was going flat. Hodges watched the car carrying Niles and Wayne driving away out of sight, and he said tersely, “Fix it!”
The driver had already pocketed a small icepick-like blade as he unlocked the trunk to get the spare.
Wayne was driven along the edge of a huge golf course. A purple line of mountains undulated in the distance. Everywhere there was green grass being saturated with water from sprinklers, and palm trees sprouted bright green fans. The limo turned into a residential area where only roofs and palm trees showed high above stone walls. A uniformed watchman waved to them and opened a pair of wide wrought-iron gates. The limo continued up a long driveway bordered with bursts of red and yellow flowers, carefully trimmed hedges, and a few large species of cactus. Gardeners were at work, pruning and spraying. Wayne caught a glimpse of a red-slate roof capped with turrets, and then there was a huge structure before him that was perhaps the strangest house he’d ever seen.
It was made of pale brownish stone, and was a riot of angles and protuberances, blocks upon blocks, hig
h towers, mansard roofs and gables and Gothic arches and masonry carved in geometric shapes and statuelike figures. It looked like the work of ten insane architects who’d all decided to build a structure on the same property and connect them with clothes, parapets, and sheltered walkways. Work was still going on, Wayne saw; more stones were being placed one atop the other by workmen on a scaffolding. There was no telling how many floors the place had, because one level seemed to stop in midair and another shot up at a different place. But, oddly, only the ground floor had windows.
The limo pulled under a porte cochere, and Mr. Niles escorted Wayne up a few stone stairs to a massive front door. It was opened for them by a white-jacketed Mexican butler with a brown, seamed face. “Mr. Krepsin’s expecting you, Mr. Falconer,” the butler said. “You can go up immediately.”
“This way,” Niles said. He led Wayne across a gleaming hardwood floor to an elevator; when the elevator doors opened, a rush of cool dry air came out. As they ascended, Wayne could hear the quiet throbbing of machinery somewhere in the house, growing louder as they rose.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the others?” he asked.
“They’ll be along.” The doors slid open.
They stood in a featureless white room. A pair of glass doors stood just opposite them, and beyond that was a dimly lit corridor. Machinery hissed and hummed from the walls, and Wayne could smell the distinct odor of disinfectant.
“If you’ll be so kind,” Niles said, “as to take off your shoes? You can put these on.” He stepped across to a chrome-topped desk and picked up one of the several pairs of cotton slippers. A box of surgical gloves sat atop the desk as well. “Also, if you’ll take any change you might have in your pockets and put it in one of these plastic bags? Currency, too.”
Wayne took his shoes off and slipped into the cotton ones. “What’s this all about?”
Niles did the same, taking the change out of his pockets and putting it in a bag. “Shoes and money carry bacteria. Will you put on a pair of gloves, please? Ready? Follow me, then.” He pressed a button on the wall next to the doors and they slid quickly open, like a pair of automatic supermarket doors. When Wayne followed him through, into an atmosphere that was cooler and noticeably drier than the rest of the house, the doors thunked shut like the closing of a bear trap. The corridor, illuminated by recessed lighting, was totally bare and uncarpeted; the thick stone walls radiated a chill, and somewhere in them an air-purifying system hissed faintly.