The Talisman

  Jack put his arm around Richard's shoulders. "I want you to know something," he said.

  "What?" Richard's small face was tear-streaked but defiant.

  "I love you," Jack said.

  Richard's eyes snapped back to the surface of the road. Jack kept his arm over his friend's shoulders. In a moment Richard looked up--looked straight at Jack--and nodded. And that was like something Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer once or twice really had said to her son: Jack-O, there are times you don't have to spill your guts out of your mouth.

  "We're on our way, Richie," Jack said. He waited for Richard to wipe his eyes. "I guess somebody's supposed to meet us up there at the Mobil station."

  "Hitler, maybe?" Richard pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. In a moment he was ready again, and the two boys walked into Storyville together.

  7

  It was a Cadillac, parked on the shady side of the Mobil station--an El Dorado with a boomerang TV antenna on the back. It looked as big as a house-trailer and as dark as death.

  "Oh, Jack, baaaad shit," Richard moaned, and grabbed at Jack's shoulder. His eyes were wide, his mouth trembling.

  Jack felt adrenaline whippet into his system again. It didn't pump him up any longer. It only made him feel tired. There had been too much, too much, too much.

  Clasping the dark junk-shop crystal ball that the Talisman had become, Jack started down the hill toward the Mobil station.

  "Jack!" Richard screamed weakly from behind him. "What the hell are you doing? It's one of THEM! Same cars as at Thayer! Same cars as in Point Venuti!"

  "Parkus told us to come here," Jack said.

  "You're crazy, chum," Richard whispered.

  "I know it. But this'll be all right. You'll see. And don't call me chum."

  The Caddy's door swung open and a heavily muscled leg clad in faded blue denim swung out. Unease became active terror when he saw that the toe of the driver's black engineer boot had been cut off so long, hairy toes could stick out.

  Richard squeaked beside him like a fieldmouse.

  It was a Wolf, all right--Jack knew that even before the guy turned around. He stood almost seven feet tall. His hair was long, shaggy, and not very clean. It hung in tangles to his collar. There were a couple of burdocks in it. Then the big figure turned, Jack saw a flash of orange eyes--and suddenly terror became joy.

  Jack sprinted toward the big figure down there, heedless of the gas station attendant who had come out to stare at him, and the idlers in front of the general store. His hair flew back from his forehead; his battered sneakers thumped and flapped; his face was split by a dizzy grin; his eyes shone like the Talisman itself.

  Bib overalls: Oshkosh, by gosh. Round rimless spectacles: John Lennon glasses. And a wide, welcoming grin.

  "Wolf!" Jack Sawyer screamed. "Wolf, you're alive! Wolf, you're alive!"

  He was still five feet from Wolf when he leaped. And Wolf caught him with neat, casual ease, grinning delightedly.

  "Jack Sawyer! Wolf! Look at this! Just like Parkus said! I'm here at this God-pounding place that smells like shit in a swamp, and you're here, too! Jack and his friend! Wolf! Good! Great! Wolf!"

  It was the Wolf's smell that told Jack this wasn't his Wolf, just as it was the smell that told him this Wolf was some sort of relation . . . surely a very close one.

  "I knew your litter-brother," Jack said, still in the Wolf's shaggy, strong arms. Now, looking at this face, he could see it was older and wiser. But still kind.

  "My brother Wolf," Wolf said, and put Jack down. He reached out one hand and touched the Talisman with the tip of one finger. His face was full of awed reverence. When he touched it, one bright spark appeared and shot deep into the globe's dull depths like a tumbling comet.

  He drew in a breath, looked at Jack, and grinned. Jack grinned back.

  Richard now arrived, staring at both of them with wonder and caution.

  "There are good Wolfs as well as bad in the Territories--" Jack began.

  "Lots of good Wolfs," Wolf interjected.

  He stuck out his hand to Richard. Richard pulled back for a second and then shook it. The set of his mouth as his hand was swallowed made Jack believe Richard expected the sort of treatment Wolf had accorded Heck Bast a long time ago.

  "This is my Wolf's litter-brother," Jack said proudly. He cleared his throat, not knowing exactly how to express his feelings for this being's brother. Did Wolfs understand condolence? Was it part of their ritual?

  "I loved your brother," he said. "He saved my life. Except for Richard here, he was just about the best friend I ever had, I guess. I'm sorry he died."

  "He's in the moon now," Wolf's brother said. "He'll be back. Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon. Everything comes back, like the moon. Come on. Want to get away from this stinking place."

  Richard looked puzzled, but Jack understood and more than sympathized--the Mobil station seemed surrounded with a hot, oily aroma of fried hydrocarbons. It was like a brown shroud you could see through.

  The Wolf went to the Cadillac and opened the rear door like a chauffeur--which was, Jack supposed, exactly what he was.

  "Jack?" Richard looked frightened.

  "It's okay," Jack said.

  "But where--"

  "To my mother, I think," Jack said. "All the way across the country to Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire. Going first class. Come on, Richie."

  They walked to the car. Shoved over to one side of the wide back seat was a scruffy old guitar case. Jack felt his heart leap up again.

  "Speedy!" He turned to Wolf's litter-brother. "Is Speedy coming with us?"

  "Don't know anyone speedy," the Wolf said. "Had an uncle who was sort of speedy, then he pulled up lame--Wolf!--and couldn't even keep up with the herd anymore."

  Jack pointed at the guitar case.

  "Where did that come from?"

  Wolf grinned, showing many big teeth. "Parkus," he said. "Left this for you, too. Almost forgot."

  From his back pocket he took a very old postcard. On the front was a carousel filled with a great many familiar horses--Ella Speed and Silver Lady among them--but the ladies in the foreground were wearing bustles, the boys knickers, many of the men derby hats and Rollie Fingers moustaches. The card felt silky with age.

  He turned it over, first reading the print up the middle: ARCADIA BEACH CAROUSEL, JULY 4TH, 1894.

  It was Speedy--not Parkus--who had scratched two sentences in the message space. His hand was sprawling, not very literate; he had written with a soft, blunt pencil.

  You done great wonders, Jack. Use what you need of what's in the case--keep the rest or throw it away.

  Jack put the postcard in his hip pocket and got into the back of the Cadillac, sliding across the plush seat. One of the catches on the old guitar case was broken. He unsnapped the other three.

  Richard had gotten in after Jack. "Holy crow!" he whispered.

  The guitar case was stuffed with twenty-dollar bills.

  8

  Wolf took them home, and although Jack grew hazy about many of that autumn's events in a very short time, each moment of that trip was emblazoned on his mind for the rest of his life. He and Richard sat in the back of the El Dorado and Wolf drove them east and east and east. Wolf knew the roads and Wolf drove them. He sometimes played Creedence Clearwater Revival tapes--"Run Through the Jungle" seemed to be his favorite--at a volume just short of ear-shattering. Then he would spend long periods of time listening to the tonal variations in the wind as he worked the button that controlled his wing window. This seemed to fascinate him completely.

  East, east, east--into the sunrise each morning, into the mysterious deepening blue dusk of each coming night, listening first to John Fogerty and then to the wind, John Fogerty again and then the wind again.

  They ate at Stuckeys'. They ate at Burger Kings. They stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken. At the latter, Jack and Richard got dinners; Wolf got a Family-Style Bucket and ate all twenty-one pieces. From the sounds, he a
te most of the bones as well. This made Jack think of Wolf and the popcorn. Where had that been? Muncie. The outskirts of Muncie--the Town Line Sixplex. Just before they had gotten their asses slammed into the Sunlight Home. He grinned . . . and then felt something like an arrow slip into his heart. He looked out the window so Richard wouldn't see the gleam of his tears.

  They stopped on the second night in Julesburg, Colorado, and Wolf cooked them a huge picnic supper on a portable barbecue he produced from the trunk. They ate in a snowy field by starlight, bundled up in heavy parkas bought out of the guitar-case stash. A meteor-shower flashed overhead, and Wolf danced in the snow like a child.

  "I love that guy," Richard said thoughtfully.

  "Yeah, me too. You should have met his brother."

  "I wish I had." Richard began to gather up the trash. What he said next flummoxed Jack almost completely. "I'm forgetting a lot of stuff, Jack."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Just that. Every mile I remember a little less about what happened. It's all getting misty. And I think . . . I think that's the way I want it. Look, are you really sure your mother's okay?"

  Three times Jack had tried to call his mother. There was no answer. He was not too worried about this. Things were okay. He hoped. When he got there, she would be there. Sick . . . but still alive. He hoped.

  "Yes."

  "Then how come she doesn't answer the phone?"

  "Sloat played some tricks with the phones," Jack said. "He played some tricks with the help at the Alhambra, too, I bet. She's still okay. Sick . . . but okay. Still there. I can feel her."

  "And if this healing thing works--" Richard grimaced a little, then plunged. "You still . . . I mean, you still think she'd let me . . . you know, stay with you guys?"

  "No," Jack said, helping Richard pick up the remains of supper. "She'll want to see you in an orphanage, probably. Or maybe in jail. Don't be a dork, Richard, of course you can stay with us."

  "Well . . . after all my father did . . ."

  "That was your dad, Richie," Jack said simply. "Not you."

  "And you won't always be reminding me? You know . . . jogging my memory?"

  "Not if you want to forget."

  "I do, Jack. I really do."

  Wolf was coming back.

  "You guys ready? Wolf!"

  "All ready," Jack said. "Listen, Wolf, how about that Scott Hamilton tape I got in Cheyenne?"

  "Sure, Jack. Then how about some Creedence?"

  " 'Run Through the Jungle,' right?"

  "Good tune, Jack! Heavy! Wolf! God-pounding heavy tune!"

  "You bet, Wolf." He rolled his eyes at Richard. Richard rolled his back, and grinned.

  The next day they rolled across Nebraska and Iowa; a day later they tooled past the gutted ruin of the Sunlight Home. Jack thought Wolf had taken them past it on purpose, that he perhaps wanted to see the place where his brother had died. He turned up the Creedence tape in the cassette player as loud as it would go, but Jack still thought he heard the sound of Wolf sobbing.

  Time--suspended swatches of time. Jack seemed almost to be floating, and there was a feeling of suspension, triumph, valediction. Work honorably discharged.

  Around sunset of the fifth day, they crossed into New England.

  47

  Journey's End

  1

  The whole long drive from California to New England seemed, once they had got so far, to have taken place in a single long afternoon and evening. An afternoon that lasted days, an evening perhaps life-long, bulging with sunsets and music and emotions. Great humping balls of fire, Jack thought, I'm really out of it, when he happened for the second time in what he assumed to be about an hour to look at the discreet little clock set in the dashboard--and discovered that three hours had winked past him. Was it even the same day? "Run Through the Jungle" pumped through the air; Wolf bobbed his head in time, grinning unstoppably, infallibly finding the best roads; the rear window showing the whole sky opening in great bands of twilight color, purple and blue and that particular deep plangent red of the down-going sun. Jack could remember every detail of this long long journey, every word, every meal, every nuance of the music, Zoot Sims or John Fogerty or simply Wolf delighting himself with the noises of the air, but the true span of time had warped itself in his mind to a concentration like a diamond's. He slept in the cushiony backseat and opened his eyes on light or darkness, on sunlight or stars. Among the things he remembered with particular sharpness, once they had crossed into New England and the Talisman began to glow again, signalling the return of normal time--or perhaps the return of time itself to Jack Sawyer--were the faces of people peering into the back seat of the El Dorado (people in parking lots, a sailor and an ox-faced girl in a convertible at a stoplight in a sunny little town in Iowa, a skinny Ohio kid wearing Breaking Away-style bicycle gear) in order to see if maybe Mick Jagger or Frank Sinatra had decided to pay them a call. Nope, just us, folks. Sleep kept stealing him away. Once he awoke (Colorado? Illinois?) to the thumping of rock music, Wolf snapping his fingers while keeping the big car rolling smoothly, a bursting sky of orange and purple and blue, and saw that Richard had somewhere acquired a book and was reading it with the aid of the El Dorado's recessed passenger light. The book was Broca's Brain. Richard always knew what time it was. Jack rolled his eyes upward and let the music, the evening colors, take him. They had done it, they had done everything . . . everything except what they would have to do in an empty little resort town in New Hampshire.

  Five days, or one long, dreaming twilight? "Run Through the Jungle." Zoot Sims's tenor saxophone saying Here's a story for you, do you like this story? Richard was his brother, his brother.

  Time returned to him about when the Talisman came back to life, during the magical sunset of the fifth day. Oatley, Jack thought on the sixth day. I could have shown Richard the Oatley tunnel, and whatever's left of the Tap, I could have shown Wolf which way to go . . . but he did not want to see Oatley again, there was no satisfaction or pleasure in that. And he was conscious now of how close they had come, of how far they had travelled while he drifted through time like a whistle. Wolf had brought them to the great broad artery of I-95, now that they were in Connecticut, and Arcadia Beach lay only a few states away, up the indented New England coast. From now on Jack counted the miles, and the minutes, too.

  2

  At quarter past five on the evening of December 21st, some three months after Jack Sawyer had set his face--and his hopes--on the west, a black El Dorado Cadillac swung into the crushed-gravel driveway of the Alhambra Inn and Gardens in the town of Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire. In the west, the sunset was a mellow valediction of reds and oranges fading to yellow . . . and blue . . . and royal purple. In the gardens themselves, naked branches clattered together in a bitter winter wind. Amid them, until a day not quite a week ago, had been a tree which caught and ate small animals--chipmunks, birds, the desk clerk's starveling, slat-sided cat. This small tree had died very suddenly. The other growing things in the garden, though skeletal now, still bided with dormant life.

  The El Dorado's steel-belted radials popped and cracked over the gravel. From inside, muffled behind the polarized glass, came the sound of Creedence Clearwater Revival. "The people who know my magic," John Fogerty sang, "have filled the land with smoke."

  The Cadillac stopped in front of the wide double doors. There was only darkness beyond them. The double headlights went out and the long car stood in shadow, tailpipe idling white exhaust, orange parking lights gleaming.

  Here at the end of day; here at sunset with color fanning up from the western sky in glory.

  Here:

  Right here and now.

  3

  The back of the Caddy was lit with faint, uncertain light. The Talisman flickered . . . but its glow was weak, little more than the glow of a dying firefly.

  Richard turned slowly toward Jack. His face was wan and frightened. He was clutching Carl Sagan with both hands, wringing the paperback
the way a washerwoman might wring a sheet.

  Richard's Talisman, Jack thought, and smiled.

  "Jack, do you want--"

  "No," Jack said. "Wait until I call."

  He opened the rear right door, started to get out of the car, then looked back at Richard. Richard sat small and shrunken in his seat, wringing his paperback in his hand. He looked miserable.

  Not thinking, Jack came back in for a moment and kissed Richard's cheek. Richard put his arms around Jack's neck for a moment, and hugged fiercely. Then he let Jack go. Neither of them said anything.

  4

  Jack started for the stairs leading up to the lobby-level . . . and then turned right and walked for a moment to the edge of the driveway instead. There was an iron railing here. Below it, cracked and tiered rock fell to the beach. Farther to his right, standing against the darkling sky, was the Arcadia Funworld roller coaster.

  Jack lifted his face to the east. The wind that was harrying through the formal gardens lifted his hair away from his forehead and blew it back.

  He lifted the globe in his hands, as if as an offering to the ocean.

  5

  On December 21st, 1981, a boy named Jack Sawyer stood near the place where the water and the land came together, hands cradling an object of some worth, looking out at the night-steady Atlantic. He had turned thirteen years old that day, although he did not know it, and he was extraordinarily beautiful. His brown hair was long--probably too long--but the sea-breeze swept it back from a fine, clear brow. He stood there thinking about his mother, and about the rooms in this place which they had shared. Was she going to turn on a light up there? He rather suspected she was.

  Jack turned, eyes flashing wildly in the Talisman's light.

  6

  Lily felt along the wall with one trembling, skeletal hand, groping for the light-switch. She found it and turned it on. Anyone who had seen her in that moment might well have turned away. In the last week or so, the cancer had begun to sprint inside her, as if sensing that something might be on the way which would spoil all its fun. Lily Cavanaugh now weighed seventy-eight pounds. Her skin was sallow, stretched over her skull like parchment. The brown circles under her eyes had turned a dead and final black; the eyes themselves stared from their sockets with fevered, exhausted intelligence. Her bosom was gone. The flesh on her arms was gone. On her buttocks and the backs of her thighs, bedsores had begun to flower.