The deathstone, p.19
The Deathstone, page 19
Now Ron moved into the bathroom, stripped, washed quickly, then put on his pajamas. It all seemed to take forever. He reached over to turn out the lamp beside the bed, stopped. He gazed from the balcony doors. There were two small lights flickering in the hills. Flickering lights like candle flames. He watched as they grew larger, then went out.
What was that sound? Another small tap against the window pane. He took a step forward. Then, pushing the glass doors open, he stepped onto the balcony. He peered out into the darkness. The night was quiet. Still.
He leaned over the railing and glanced around. A figure stealthily emerged from the shrubs. A bit of necklace glinted in the moonlight.
“Who is it?” Ron whispered.
“Cynthia,” was whispered back. “I must speak with you.”
“About what?”
“Please, meet me. Tomorrow morning.”
“But—”
“At the stone atop the hill. Eleven o’clock.”
“No, I won’t be there...”
“Tomorrow. Eleven o’clock,” she repeated.
He looked down at her; there in the moonlight, an exquisite molding, her face softly shaded from the darkness below, highlighted by the moon-glow above.
How beautiful she was.
How incredibly beautiful. If it was loveliness, it was also an agony as well. He must protect himself against her, build a wall of abstinence, make himself look away.
Not daring to stand there any longer, he returned to the bed. For a moment he did not move. Some dread surrounded him, nameless and deep, something beyond the room, closing in on him.
He slowly drew back the sheets, slipped into bed, scornful of his desire. He knew there was no remedy for it. Sleep. He needed more than anything else to get a good night’s sleep.
He stirred a little, turned on his side, saw breasts and thighs. Slowly he imagined Cynthia lying down beside him. In the distance Chandal watched; she was smiling. He turned away from Chandal into the awaiting arms of someone younger. He tried not to touch her. No, he would not touch her. He would fall asleep, forgetting she was there. Forgetting...
...she
...was
There.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TUESDAY MORNING THE HEADLINE ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE Brackston Sun read: MARDI GRAS! Ron scanned the newspaper momentarily, then tossed it aside. Without forming a conscious decision, he had begun to keep track of time. The antique clock in the hallway chimed the hour. He glanced in its direction, then followed Chandal and Kristy into the kitchen. The small clock on the kitchen wall was a few minutes fast. At approximately one minute past nine, he sat and chatted with them as Nancy poached eggs and served them on toast with bacon, and added a stack of pancakes as a special treat for Kristy.
Nancy appeared edgy. Or was it he who seemed to rest on the brink of edginess. He was aware of the beating of his heart, a pervading sense of apprehension.
He still felt the same when, an hour later, he sat on the terrace watching Chandal clip roses from the rose bush. She moved with an easy air, picking and choosing which of the flowers to assassinate. He had never liked to cut flowers for that very reason. There was something so amputated about them. So doomed.
“Ron?”
“Humm?”
“Do you think it’s possible for us to stay in Brackston a few more days? Until Friday?”
Ron could feel her looking at him, waiting for some kind of reaction to her question. “You promised me a week in San Francisco,” he said calmly.
With no sign of being upset, she said: “Of course. You’re absolutely right. I’d completely forgotten.”
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Not at all. You’ve been talking about Frisco for days now. I think we should spend some time there.” She shielded her eyes against the sun for a moment. “God, wasn’t that awful last night? I thought the man was having a heart attack or something,” she said.
“Did you know that some of Mrs. Taylor’s guests were town Elders?”
“No,” she said with surprise. “Are you sure?”
“Didn’t you hear Tyler Adam last night. He kept addressing them as Elders. Odd, don’t you think?”
“What is?”
“That Alister would call the Elders superstitious fools right to their faces.”
“Which ones, I wonder?”
Chandal’s face had become flush with anxiety and a sudden rush of tension. She jabbed at the rose bush, thrusting the flowers into her basket haphazardly. “OW!” she shrieked.
“Get stuck?”
“Damn, that hurts.”
“That’ll teach you to pick on those poor defenseless flowers.”
“Defenseless, hell!” she cried, sucking on the tip of her finger.
The door at the side of the house opened, creating a slight creaking sound. He turned to see who it was. It was Mrs. Taylor and Kristy.
“Mother, wait ’til you see! Wait ’til you see!” Kristy cried and ran to Chandal’s side.
“My word, what’s all the shouting about?”
“Look, look!”
Kristy held out her puppet with a great rush of pride and joy. Sweat dotted her cheeks and glistened like a hundred crystals. Carefully she handed the puppet to Chandal and then stood very still. Wonderingly, she awaited her mother’s appraisal.
“I can’t believe it. She’s beautiful, Kristy. Just beautiful.”
Mrs. Taylor moved up behind the child and placed her hands lovingly on her shoulders. “I believe Kristy’s puppet has a chance of winning the contest tonight. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Chandal glanced at Ron. “Here, Kristy. Show it to your father.”
Even before Kristy had reached him, he said: “I’m afraid we won’t be here tonight, Mrs. Taylor.”
Kristy stopped short.
“Oh? I thought—” Mrs. Taylor turned to glance at Chandal. “But... tonight is Mardi Gras.”
“The car will be ready this afternoon,” Ron said. “If we start out right away, I think we can make Nevada by nightfall.”
“Oh, that’s such a shame,” Mrs. Taylor breathed.
Undaunted, Kristy smiled and handed Ron the puppet. “Look at her, Daddy. Mrs. Taylor did it all. She even has eyelashes. See?”
Ron looked at the puppet speculatively, seeing the symmetry in its unusual beauty. Across the puppet’s face, a blue satin veil seeded with real-looking pearls. The shoes were also made of soft satin. The dress was empire waisted, full skirted. There was something pure and virginal about the cloth.
Unexpectedly, his thoughts turned inward, focused on the beguiling young lady who would wait for him in the hills. He tried to concentrate hard on his motives during the past few days. He came away with few answers, but he acknowledged to himself that he was going to meet with her. He had to find out if she knew anything. The only question left was how he was going to slip away from the house without drawing attention.
Kristy reached out now and lifted the puppet gently from his hands. Beauty on top of ugliness, Ron mused. Only yesterday, or was it the day before, the puppet had been a monstrosity. And now...
“But so pretty,” Chandal said. “So very pretty.”
Kristy smiled with a satisfied air.
“I will see to it that Kristy’s puppet is entered tonight in the contest,” Mrs. Taylor said. “Even if she can’t be there.” She gave Chandal a quick conspiratorial half-smile.
“Thank you,” Chandal said. “It’s very sweet of you.”
“Oh, by the way,” Mrs. Taylor began, turning to Ron. “Your assistant called yesterday.”
“Oh?”
“With all the rush, I forgot to mention it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. I’ll get back to her.”
“I’m surprised she called. Chandal had mentioned this was a nonworking vacation.”
“It’s important that I keep in touch with my office.”
“Of course.” She smiled. “Kristy?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Would you like to practice your singing for a while?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Come along then.”
Hand in hand, they moved into the living room. Through the open doorway Ron watched Kristy flush deeply as she positioned herself beside the piano. When he next looked at her, the joy of the moment had crowded out her embarrassment. She sang beautifully, a thin voice that rode the still air like a bird heading south for the winter. She had no trouble following the complicated arrangement, as if she had sung to Mrs. Taylor’s accompaniment for years.
In the midst of listening to his daughter’s singing, the idea came to him. It rose up fully formed, a perfect excuse to leave the house, unlikely to arouse Chandal’s suspicion. Still he sat there lazily until he heard the hall clock chime the half-hour. Abruptly he rose to his feet.
“Del, I’m going to slip out for a while.”
“Where to?”
“A surprise.” He grinned.
“For whom?”
“Mrs. Taylor. A gift. She’s been so nice to us, I thought—”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she said with surprising lack of curiosity. And something else. Eagerness? “Go on,” she said, “I’ll cover for you.”
“And you?” he asked stupidly. As though he were now looking for an excuse not to go.
“I don’t know, it’s such a beautiful day, I’d like to...” She paused.
“It may take awhile.”
She leaned in and kissed him. “We’ll be here,” she said, her voice trailing away into a lush whisper. Then she hurried away, flashing a smile back over her shoulder, walking as fast as she could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE WHOLE SKY WAS COVERED WITH OPAQUE CLOUDS THAT HUNG like a soft white blanket above the valley; motionless, their stillness echoing the silence of the vastness as far as the eye could see.
As he climbed, the sun shone on his back and drew large beads of sweat from his body. He stopped for a moment, threw himself down on a rock, and sucked at the drops of sweat that covered his lips. His tongue came away with the taste of salt. He watched as a lizard, brown as the soil, slid jerkily past him and disappeared behind a rock.
Back on his feet again, he continued to climb but ten minutes later found that he was only halfway to the top. Every now and then he’d stop to rest and glance back toward the town. By now it resembled nothing more than a toy village laid out beside a child’s train set. Each time he thought he’d reached the stone, he would find that he was only at the next ridge, the stone elusively wavering in the distance.
He stopped again to catch his breath. With his hands shielding his eyes from the sun, he stared at the huge stone atop the mountain. Its size defied all calculations of its distance from where he was. As the light changed the stone seemed to move further away into the distant shadows where the valley turned to the west farther still. The more he studied what lay ahead, the more skeptical he became about being there.
He pushed on, doggedly tracking the best paths, the little shortcuts through the rock that made the climb the least bit easier. At last, at the top of another ridge, his efforts were rewarded. The stone lay ahead only a hundred or so yards in front of him where the ground fell away into a plateau.
He walked a little ways to the edge of the cliff and stood staring, stunned at so much wide-open space. From horizon to horizon, wide as the rim of the world and so vast his eyes ached from an effort to encompass it, the sun poured a savage flood of heat onto the endless landscape as if hell-bent to beat into submission anyone foolish enough to be caught in its midst. Yet there was something more than heat and space which held his attention. A challenge of sorts emanated from the land itself, as if daring him to succumb to its power. Like an evil spirit, it beckoned and mocked him.
Hot and sweaty, he stood there. He tried to close his eyes. His eyelids flickered, trying to block out the light, but the strain became too great and he opened them again to relieve the pressure. The long climb from the valley had pushed him to his uttermost limits, and now he sat and leaned against the shaded side of the stone for support.
Eyes closed, he let the strain of the climb leave his body, melt away down through his legs. Little by little, his body relaxed and he felt the cool stone caressing his flesh. Oh, God, he felt so uncommonly good. Excited almost. His mind rang like a bell. He began to laugh. It suddenly dawned on him that it was one hell of a place to rendezvous. Still, people must come here. Frank Hadley had said the stone was famous. He almost got up to study it from a distance. No, too exhausted for that. Better just to sit there. Wait. He stopped laughing abruptly, partly because he hadn’t the strength to continue, but mostly because he had suddenly found his laughter implausible. He stared at his watch. It was twenty minutes to twelve.
He glanced around. There was nobody. He could feel his aloneness, smell it. Had he gotten here too late? Had Cynthia come and gone? With effort, he rose to his feet. His eyes scanned the vast horizon which was stripped of all traces of contemporary civilization. He felt so helplessly alone, without ancestors or descendants, standing on the thin edge of existence—standing at the foot of...
“The stone around which moving is done,” the wind whispered.
The thought took a long time to reach him. A very long time. Only after he had moved back to study the stone from a distance, after he had walked its perimeter several times, after he had heard the bells again, only this time he realized the sound was coming from the town below, only then did he realize he was staring at the stone he had dreamt about so often.
The realization did not stun him or even catch him by surprise. It was as though he had known all along, but only now had let himself acknowledge the fact.
His eyes fixedly stared down at the ground now. There, in the arid earth, a small red flower grew amongst the stones. One flower unlike any he had ever seen before. It was the only color visible to his eyes. Red, redder—the reddest of all flowers. Alone. What have I gotten myself into?
Instantly alert, as only someone pursued could be alert, he gazed up, down, around, in one quick, all encompassing glance.
He remained on guard for a long time. First standing, then sitting, always waiting. It was a few minutes past three when he came to his senses and realized Cynthia Harris was not going to show.
He halfway was glad she hadn’t shown. Yet another part of him wished to hell she had. He wondered why his prior ignominious encounters with the girl had not completely dampered his zeal to be with her. She was trouble, he knew that. But she also seemed to hold the key to questions and answers that thus far had eluded him. No matter, she hadn’t come and that, as they say, was that.
Moments later his slow disappointed strides carried him away down the first slope. A dangerous way to go, he thought, and veered to his left. In the distance he heard an odd sound: at first it put him in mind of chickens screeching; then he thought it must be the cry of a hawk, shrill and metallic; then he wondered if it might be the waterfall, its swift water creating thin echoes against the rock below.
The curious sound rose and fell, and went silent. But it soon was heard again from somewhere closer by. Breathing heavily, he edged along the rocks, then climbed the ridge; the sun shifted to his back. He wasn’t sure of his direction now, only the smell of his own sweat and exhaustion. He stopped suddenly when he heard voices and laughter ahead.
And then—and then, just over the next ridge, he found himself staring down in astonishment at a group of children. They were huddled at the edge of the canyon. Rowdy and shrill, they waved sticks and clubs in the air while shrieking with laughter. Were they playing? he wondered. Then he flinched when he realized they had all come together, having trapped something within their tightly knit circle. An animal maybe. He wasn’t sure. They each took turns striking the creature with their sticks; their cries disproportionately loud, each shrill note echoing in the vastness of stone above.
“Hey, you down there!” he shouted. “What are you doing?”
They laughed louder, squinted at him, their faces drawn into grotesque grimaces of mirth. Recklessly, Ron began to climb down the hill. All the children froze now, as if their facial muscles had locked into place—eyes peering menacingly up at him, ugly snarls possessing their lips. From beneath their feet a hand reached out, then another. In a moment the creature stood, naked and bloodied. Then screamed. Ron shuddered when he realized it was Cynthia Harris.
Instantly they swarmed all over her. They rode upon her back, driving her once more to the ground. Others had picked up stones and began hurling them at her.
Acting before he had time to think, Ron hurriedly dropped to the clearing below. No sooner had his feet touched bottom than the children were upon him. Like a pack of wolves, exactly like a pack of wolves, they seized him and drove him to the ground. They were all over him now, picking at his eyes, biting into his arms and legs. For a terrible instant he thought he was going to die. He tried to force his shoulders upward as far as possible, and then felt the blow of a heavy object across his forehead. In a rush of hot air he felt moist and knew he was bleeding. His head had begun to reel, his eyelids fluttered as he heard them wail with all the hysterical joy of warriors delighting in their fallen enemy.
Seeing idiots and monsters where only children should be, he looked around for Cynthia. He felt the last remains of his breakfast turn sour in the pit of his stomach as he watched her, arms wide, running toward him, past the flailing sticks, past the half-human specters that clawed at her body.
She howled like a mutilated animal as they slashed the tendons behind both her knees with a knife. Crazed, she spun around, ran toward the edge of the canyon. Ron had never felt so helpless in his life. He tried to rise but fell to the ground. He tried again. He screamed out in rage, falling to the ground again, his face and eyes buried in a swirl of dust.
