The Talisman

  "Then you must have seen that . . . that thing."

  "Reuel?" Jack shook his head. "Reuel must have been out in the Blasted Lands then, having a few more radical cobalt treatments." Jack thought of the running sores on the creature's face, thought of the worms. He looked at his red, puffy wrists where the worms had bitten, and shuddered. "I never saw Reuel until the end, and I never saw his American Twinner at all. How old were you when Osmond started showing up?"

  "I must have been four. The thing about the . . . you know, the closet . . . that hadn't happened yet. I remember I was more afraid of him after that."

  "After the thing touched you in the closet."

  "Yes."

  "And that happened when you were five."

  "Yes."

  "When we were both five."

  "Yes. You can put me down. I can walk for a while."

  Jack did. They walked in silence, heads down, not looking at each other. At five, something had reached out of the dark and touched Richard. When they were both six

  (six, Jacky was six)

  Jack had overheard his father and Morgan Sloat talking about a place they went to, a place that Jacky called the Day-dream-country. And later that year, something had reached out of the dark and had touched him and his mother. It had been nothing more or less than Morgan Sloat's voice. Morgan Sloat calling from Green River, Utah. Sobbing. He, Phil Sawyer, and Tommy Woodbine had left three days before on their yearly November hunting trip--another college chum, Randy Glover, owned a luxurious hunting lodge in Blessington, Utah. Glover usually hunted with them, but that year he had been cruising in the Caribbean. Morgan called to say that Phil had been shot, apparently by another hunter. He and Tommy Woodbine had packed him out of the wilderness on a lashed-together stretcher. Phil had regained consciousness in the back of Glover's Jeep Cherokee, Morgan said, and had asked that Morgan send his love to Lily and Jack. He died fifteen minutes later, as Morgan drove wildly toward Green River and the nearest hospital.

  Morgan had not killed Phil; there was Tommy to testify that the three of them had been together when the shot rang out, if any testimony had ever been required (and, of course, none ever was).

  But that was not to say he couldn't have hired it done, Jack thought now. And it was not to say that Uncle Tommy might not have harbored his own long doubts about what had happened. If so, maybe Uncle Tommy hadn't been killed just so that Jack and his dying mother would be totally unprotected from Morgan's depredations. Maybe he had died because Morgan was tired of wondering if the old faggot might finally hint to the surviving son that there might have been more to Phil Sawyer's death than an accident. Jack felt his skin crawl with dismay and revulsion.

  "Was that man around before your father and my father went hunting together that last time?" Jack asked fiercely.

  "Jack, I was four years old--"

  "No, you weren't, you were six. You were four when he started coming, you were six when my father got killed in Utah. And you don't forget much, Richard. Did he come around before my father died?"

  "That was the time he came almost every night for a week," Richard said, his voice barely audible. "Just before that last hunting trip."

  Although none of this was precisely Richard's fault, Jack was unable to contain his bitterness. "My dad dead in a hunting accident in Utah, Uncle Tommy run down in L.A. The death-rate among your father's friends is very fucking high, Richard."

  "Jack--" Richard began in a small, trembling voice.

  "I mean it's all water over the dam, or spilled milk, or pick your cliche," Jack said. "But when I showed up at your school, Richard, you called me crazy."

  "Jack, you don't under--"

  "No, I guess I don't. I was tired and you gave me a place to sleep. Fine. I was hungry and you got me some food. Great. But what I needed most was for you to believe me. I knew it was too much to expect, but jeepers! You knew the guy I was talking about! You knew he'd been in your father's life before! And you just said something like 'Good old Jack's been spending too much time in the hot sun out there on Seabrook Island and blah-blah-blah!' Jesus, Richard, I thought we were better friends than that."

  "You still don't understand."

  "What? That you were too afraid of Seabrook Island stuff to believe in me a little?" Jack's voice wavered with tired indignation.

  "No. I was afraid of more than that."

  "Oh yeah?" Jack stopped and looked at Richard's pale, miserable face truculently. "What could be more than that for Rational Richard?"

  "I was afraid," Richard said in a perfectly calm voice. "I was afraid that if I knew any more about those secret pockets . . . that man Osmond, or what was in the closet that time, I wouldn't be able to love my father anymore. And I was right."

  Richard covered his face with his thin, dirty fingers and began to cry.

  6

  Jack stood watching Richard cry and damned himself for twenty kinds of fool. No matter what else Morgan was, he was still Richard Sloat's father; Morgan's ghost lurked in the shape of Richard's hands and in the bones of Richard's face. Had he forgotten those things? No--but for a moment his bitter disappointment in Richard had covered them up. And his increasing nervousness had played a part. The Talisman was very, very close now, and he felt it in his nerve-endings the way a horse smells water in the desert or a distant grass-fire in the plains. That nerviness was coming out in a kind of prancy skittishness.

  Yeah, well, this guy's supposed to be your best buddy, Jack-O--get a little funky if you have to, but don't trample Richard. The kid's sick, just in case you hadn't noticed.

  He reached for Richard. Richard tried to push him away. Jack was having none of that. He held Richard. The two of them stood that way in the middle of the deserted railroad bed for a while, Richard's head on Jack's shoulder.

  "Listen," Jack said awkwardly, "try not to worry too much about . . . you know . . . everything . . . just yet, Richard. Just kind of try to roll with the changes, you know?" Boy, that sounded really stupid. Like telling somebody they had cancer but don't worry because pretty soon we're going to put Star Wars on the VCR and it'll cheer you right up.

  "Sure," Richard said. He pushed away from Jack. The tears had cut clean tracks on his dirty face. He wiped an arm across his eyes and tried to smile. "A' wi' be well an' a' wi' be well--"

  "An' a' manner a' things wi' be well," Jack chimed in--they finished together, then laughed together, and that was all right.

  "Come on," Richard said. "Let's go."

  "Where?"

  "To get your Talisman," Richard said. "The way you're talking, it must be in Point Venuti. It's the next town up the line. Come on, Jack. Let's get going. But walk slow--I'm not done talking yet."

  Jack looked at him curiously, and then they started walking again--but slowly.

  7

  Now that the dam had broken and Richard had allowed himself to begin remembering things, he was an unexpected fountain of information. Jack began to feel as if he had been working a jigsaw puzzle without knowing that several of the most important pieces were missing. It was Richard who had had most of those pieces all along. Richard had been in the survivalist camp before; that was the first piece. His father had owned it.

  "Are you sure it was the same place, Richard?" Jack asked doubtfully.

  "I'm sure," Richard said. "It even looked a little familiar to me on the other side, there. When we got back over . . . over here . . . I was sure."

  Jack nodded, unsure what else to do.

  "We used to stay in Point Venuti. That's where we always stayed before we came here. The train was a big treat. I mean, how many dads have their own private train?"

  "Not many," Jack said. "I guess Diamond Jim Brady and some of those guys had private trains, but I don't know if they were dads or not."

  "Oh, my dad wasn't in their league," Richard said, laughing a little, and Jack thought: Richard, you might be surprised.

  "We'd drive up to Point Venuti from L.A. in a rental car. There was a motel we
stayed at. Just the two of us." Richard stopped. His eyes had gone misty with love and remembering. "Then--after we hung out there for a while--we'd take my dad's train up to Camp Readiness. It was just a little train." He looked at Jack, startled. "Like the one we came on, I guess."

  "Camp Readiness?"

  But Richard appeared not to have heard him. He was looking at the rusted tracks. They were whole here, but Jack thought Richard might be remembering the twisted ripples they had passed some way back. In a couple of places the ends of rail-sections actually curved up into the air, like broken guitar-strings. Jack guessed that in the Territories those tracks would be in fine shape, neatly and lovingly maintained.

  "See, there used to be a trolley line here," Richard said. "This was back in the thirties, my father said. The Mendocino County Red Line. Only it wasn't owned by the county, it was owned by a private company, and they went broke, because in California . . . you know . . ."

  Jack nodded. In California, everyone used cars. "Richard, why didn't you ever tell me about this place?"

  "That was the one thing my dad said never to tell you. You and your parents knew we sometimes took vacations in northern California and he said that was all right, but I wasn't to tell you about the train, or Camp Readiness. He said if I told, Phil would be mad because it was a secret."

  Richard paused.

  "He said if I told, he'd never take me again. I thought it was because they were supposed to be partners. I guess it was more than that.

  "The trolley line went broke because of the cars and the freeways." He paused thoughtfully. "That was one thing about the place you took me to, Jack. Weird as it was, it didn't stink of hydrocarbons. I could get into that."

  Jack nodded again, saying nothing.

  "The trolley company finally sold the whole line--grandfather clause and all--to a development company. They thought people would start to move inland, too. Except it didn't happen."

  "Then your father bought it."

  "Yes, I guess so. I don't really know. He never talked much about buying the line . . . or how he replaced the trolley tracks with these railroad tracks."

  That would have taken a lot of work, Jack thought, and then he thought of the ore-pits, and Morgan of Orris's apparently unlimited supply of slave labor.

  "I know he replaced them, but only because I got a book on railroads and found out there's a difference in gauge. Trolleys run on ten-gauge track. This is sixteen-gauge."

  Jack knelt, and yes, he could see a very faint double indentation inside the existing tracks--that was where the trolley tracks had been.

  "He had a little red train," Richard said dreamily. "Just an engine and two cars. It ran on diesel fuel. He used to laugh about it and say that the only thing that separated the men from the boys was the price of their toys. There was an old trolley station on the hill above Point Venuti, and we'd go up there in the rental car and park and go on in. I remember how that station smelled--kind of old, but nice . . . full of old sunlight, sort of. And the train would be there. And my dad . . . he'd say, 'All aboard for Camp Readiness, Richard! You got your ticket?' And there'd be lemonade . . . or iced tea . . . and we sat up in the cab . . . sometimes he'd have stuff . . . supplies . . . behind . . . but we'd sit up front . . . and . . . and . . ."

  Richard swallowed hard and swiped a hand across his eyes.

  "And it was a nice time," he finished. "Just him and me. It was pretty cool."

  He looked around, his eyes shiny with unshed tears.

  "There was a plate to turn the train around at Camp Readiness," he said. "Back in those days. The old days."

  Richard uttered a terrible strangled sob.

  "Richard--"

  Jack tried to touch him.

  Richard shook him off and stepped away, brushing tears from his cheeks with the backs of his hands.

  "Wasn't so grown-up then," he said, smiling. Trying to. "Nothing was so grown-up then, was it, Jack?"

  "No," Jack said, and now he found he was crying himself.

  Oh Richard. Oh my dear one.

  "No," Richard said, smiling, looking around at the encroaching woods and brushing the tears away with the dirty backs of his hands, "nothing was so grown-up back then. In the old days, when we were just kids. Back when we all lived in California and nobody lived anywhere else."

  He looked at Jack, trying to smile.

  "Jack, help me," he said. "I feel like my leg is caught in some stuh-stupid truh-truh-hap and I . . . I . . ."

  Then Richard fell on his knees with his hair in his tired face, and Jack got down there with him, and I can bear to tell you no more--only that they comforted each other as well as they could, and, as you probably know from your own bitter experience, that is never quite good enough.

  8

  "The fence was new back then," Richard said when he could continue speaking. They had walked on a ways. A whippoorwill sang from a tall sturdy oak. The smell of salt in the air was stronger. "I remember that. And the sign--CAMP READINESS, that's what it said. There was an obstacle course, and ropes to climb, and other ropes that you hung on to and then swung over big puddles of water. It looked sort of like bootcamp in a World War Two movie about the Marines. But the guys using the equipment didn't look much like Marines. They were fat, and they were all dressed the same--gray sweat-suits with CAMP READINESS written on the chest in small letters, and red piping on the sides of the sweat-pants. They all looked like they were going to have heart-attacks or strokes any minute. Maybe both at the same time. Sometimes we stayed overnight. A couple of times we stayed the whole weekend. Not in the Quonset hut; that was like a barracks for the guys who were paying to get in shape."

  "If that's what they were doing."

  "Yeah, right. If that's what they were doing. Anyway, we stayed in a big tent and slept on cots. It was a blast." Again, Richard smiled wistfully. "But you're right, Jack--not all the guys shagging around the place looked like businessmen trying to get in shape. The others--"

  "What about the others?" Jack asked quietly.

  "Some of them--a lot of them--looked like those big hairy creatures in the other world," Richard said in a low voice Jack had to strain to hear. "The Wolfs. I mean, they looked sort of like regular people, but not too much. They looked . . . rough. You know?"

  Jack nodded. He knew.

  "I remember I was a little afraid to look into their eyes very closely. Every now and then there'd be these funny flashes of light in them . . . like their brains were on fire. Some of the others . . ." A light of realization dawned in Richard's eyes. "Some of the others looked like that substitute basketball coach I told you about. The one who wore the leather jacket and smoked."

  "How far is this Point Venuti, Richard?"

  "I don't know, exactly. But we used to do it in a couple of hours, and the train never went very fast. Running speed, maybe, but not much more. It can't be much more than twenty miles from Camp Readiness, all told. Probably a little less."

  "Then we're maybe fifteen miles or less from it. From--"

  (from the Talisman)

  "Yeah. Right."

  Jack looked up as the day darkened. As if to show that the pathetic fallacy wasn't so pathetic after all, the sun now sailed behind a deck of clouds. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees and the day seemed to grow dull--the whippoorwill fell silent.

  9

  Richard saw the sign first--a simple whitewashed square of wood painted with black letters. It stood on the left side of the tracks, and ivy had grown up its post, as if it had been here for a very long time. The sentiment, however, was quite current. It read: GOOD BIRDS MAY FLY; BAD BOYS MUST DIE. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE: GO HOME.

  "You can go, Richie," Jack said quietly. "It's okay by me. They'll let you go, no sweat. None of this is your business."

  "I think maybe it is," Richard said.

  "I dragged you into it."

  "No," Richard said. "My father dragged me into it. Or fate dragged me into it. Or God. Or Jason. Whoever it was
, I'm sticking."

  "All right," Jack said. "Let's go."

  As they passed the sign, Jack lashed out with one foot in a passably good kung-fu kick and knocked it over.

  "Way to go, chum," Richard said, smiling a little.

  "Thanks. But don't call me chum."

  10

  Although he had begun to look wan and tired again, Richard talked for the next hour as they walked down the tracks and into the steadily strengthening smell of the Pacific Ocean. He spilled out a flood of reminiscences that had been bottled up inside of him for years. Although his face didn't reveal it, Jack was stunned with amazement . . . and a deep, welling pity for the lonely child, eager for the last scrap of his father's affection, that Richard was revealing to him, inadvertently or otherwise.

  He looked at Richard's pallor, the sores on his cheeks and forehead and around his mouth; listened to that tentative, almost whispering voice that nevertheless did not hesitate or falter now that the chance to tell all these things had finally come; and was glad once more that Morgan Sloat had never been his father.

  He told Jack that he remembered landmarks all along this part of the railroad. They could see the roof of a barn over the trees at one point, with a faded ad for Chesterfield Kings on it.

  " 'Twenty great tobaccos make twenty wonderful smokes,' " Richard said, smiling. "Only, in those days you could see the whole barn."

  He pointed out a big pine with a double top, and fifteen minutes later told Jack, "There used to be a rock on the other side of this hill that looked just like a frog. Let's see if it's still there."

  It was, and Jack supposed it did look like a frog. A little. If you stretched your imagination. And maybe it helps to be three. Or four. Or seven. Or however old he was.

  Richard had loved the railroad, and had thought Camp Readiness was really neat, with its track to run on and its hurdles to jump over and its ropes to climb. But he hadn't liked Point Venuti itself. After some self-prodding, Richard even remembered the name of the motel at which he and his father had stayed during their time in the little coastal town. The Kingsland Motel, he said . . . and Jack found that name did not surprise him much at all.