Currency of Souls (24 page)

"What kinda loose ends?"

I avoid answering by pretending my clothes are proving tough to locate, even though they're laid out right here at my feet.

"Tom?"

It isn't until I have my underwear and pants on that I answer her. She's looking impatient, worried, ready to reach for something to threaten the information out of me.

"I'm turning over my badge tonight," I say.

"Why?"

"Because it's the way it's supposed to go."

"That sounds like a crock of shit."

I smile at her and sit back down on the bed. "Does, doesn't it?"

She scoots close, drapes her arms over my shoulders, rests her head against my back. "If you're plannin' some kind of heroic exit, that's one thing, but if you're figurin' to walk out of here without tellin' me why, you'll be doin' it without your balls."

"Nice."

This is a tough one, and I'm not sure how much I can say, how much I'm
allowed
to say, so I guess it's best to just keep it simple and hope she understands. "I'm done with this town, Iris, and it's more than done with me. I should've handed over the reins years ago to someone who might have done something more than stand around watching people die. Can't do it anymore."

"Then don't, but that don't mean you have to leave."

"I'm afraid it does."

Her grip tightens on my shoulders. "Then let me come with you."

"I would if I could."

"Why can't you?"

"Because you wouldn't much like where I'm going." I bring my hand up to hers, squeeze it tight.

"What if I don't let you leave? What if I keep you prisoner? I could do it you know."

"I don't doubt it."

She pulls her hand free, withdraws her arms and sits up. "What's going to happen?"

"Something good," I tell her. "And something bad."

She says nothing else, just watches as I get dressed. She doesn't cry, won't cry, but I can tell she wants to.

When I'm ready to go, I carefully pick my way through the candles until I'm at the door. There's no mad rush from Iris, no sobbing farewell. She just sits there, knees drawn up, hand on her chin, studying me.

With my fingers on the door handle, I give one last look at her. "You know just because you can't leave with me, doesn't mean you can't leave."

"I know."

"Big world out there. Could be a better place for you in it. Never know."

"Never know," she echoes, and scoots down under the sheets.

"Wish I'd had more time to get to know you."

"You had plenty of time, Tom. We've lived a stone's throw from each other for a long time."

"True. Guess I was busy."

"Guess you were. And blind."

I can't argue with that, so I don't, but when I start to open the door, she starts talking again.

"I've never loved anyone, Tom, and I'm not goin' to say I love you, because I don't. But I know people, and I know you better than you think."

"Yeah, seems everyone but me does."

"Your wife loved you though. No doubt about that."

"Hope so."

"I saw it in her eyes every time she looked at me. 'Course, we weren't friends or nothin' but you can tell a lot by the way someone looks at you. She was wonderin' if you'd ever spent time with me, or if you wanted to, if maybe when you were in bed you were thinkin' about me, and every time I saw that look, I shook my head, and she'd smile just a little bit. The kind of smile someone gives you when they've accepted a whore's wisdom but don't want them to know it."

Our eyes meet and something powerful passes between us, maybe it's some of that same power she has that knocks lights out. Maybe it's trying to quench my soul before I do more damage.

"You should go" I tell her. "Get the hell out of Milestone. Find some place where the people are still alive."

"I'm still alive, Tom. And with all the things I got stuck in here," she says, tapping a finger against her forehead, "it don't matter where I go. They'll follow. So I might as well stay right here. Same as it don't matter where you're headin'. You'll still be the same man tryin' to run away from his shadow in a place where the sun never stops shinin'."

"Iris..."

"Now you best get on if you're goin'."

"Take care."

"Take care yourself."

She turns away from me, and I guess that's my cue to leave, so I do.

Three steps from the bottom of the stairs, I hear her sobbing.

* * *

Cadaver dreams of two young boys, one blond, the other raven-haired, sitting in vibrant green grass, the sun warming their legs as they play with toy soldiers, which are scattered around them in the frenzied order unique to combat. The blond boy giggles as his plastic tank appears from nowhere and mows down his brother's army. The raven-haired child swats him, hurt and frustration on his face.

This particular war is defused in an instant by the soft calming voice of the woman sitting in a lawn chair a few feet away, a magazine spread open, obscuring her face. "No fighting," she says, "Or you can go right back in the house and help your father clean out the attic."

The boys are quiet, sulking, but once the raven-haired child locates a soldier the tank missed in its calamitous charge, a victorious smile crosses his face as he guns down his brother's ranks. They are caught unaware and fall accordingly. The blond boy shrieks, and calls in reinforcements. The battle is on.

The woman in the lawn chair sighs, but it is a 'boys will be boys' sigh, and not at all annoyed.

In this summer-lit yard, life is good.

Cadaver awakes, and he is smiling too.

He is sitting on a smooth flat limestone rock at the bottom of the hill, head bowed, and though his eyes are gone, the cool breeze invigorates him, reminds him of all he has lost and all he will soon gain.

Minutes pass. Night sounds carry on waves to his ears. He waits, ragged breaths whistling through the rent in his throat above the box that gives him his words.

It grows dark.

And then, ice crawls through his veins, chilling him from the inside out. As anticipated, there is pain, for he is aware that he cannot be released from his duties without being reminded of the suffering that has been his stock-in-trade. These are secondhand agonies, all of them hard earned, all of them real. He grunts. Something touches the back of his hand, then again. The breeze seems to be blowing through him now and he relishes the feel of it.

"Soon," he says and the smile cracks his face. Teeth drop into his lap, tumble and hit the floor with a sound like pebbles. The flesh begins to slide. The box in his throat starts to rust, disintegrate.

"Soon," he says, one last time, his hair shedding and tickling what remains of his face as it falls.

Flesh withers; organs shrivel. Bones begin to crumble.

Cadaver sighs.

In his mind, the woman in the lawn chair is peering at him above her magazine. He can tell by the wrinkles around her eyes that she is smiling—
Boys will be boys
—and when next the breeze blows, there is only an old raincoat full of dust for it to attend to.

Chapter Nineteen

"If you're plannin' on goin', now'd be the time, boy."

The animals have filled the yard now, necks straight, eyes glittering, but still they make no noise. It's as if they're waiting for something. The sight of them standing there motionless, ears pricked up, is unsettling, but Brody knows better than to be threatened by so docile an animal, no matter how many of them there are. Hell, for all he knows the old man's got a vegetable patch out back and they're here to raid it. The only threat they could possibly present is if they stampeded and rushed him, but even then the car's much closer to him than they are.

"
Move
for Chrissakes," hisses the old man.

"Because of a bunch of deer? Man, take it easy." But as the words leave his mouth, the calm he has forced into them sounds utterly false.

"To
you
, maybe, but right now you're blockin' Red Cloud's shot."

"Shit." Instinctively Brody ducks, arms covering his head, and swivels on a heel to see where the hidden shooter is. He scans the house, then the yard, and it is here his gaze halts. The blood drains from his face. Somehow, the deer are closer now, almost level with the Dodge, and one of them has mounted the hood like some unfunny parody of a hunter's prize. It stares at him with black eyes, head cocked a little to the left, thick antlers like a bleached tree branch reaching for the stars.

Brody feels the air change, a sensation he is accustomed to only when he is presenting the threat. But to feel it now means there is a very real danger here, and that mystifies him, until he recounts the events of the past few hours and realizes that nothing should, or ever will, surprise him again.

This belief continues for a few moments more, until the deer on the hood of the car begins to speak. "
Come out Blue Moon
." The voice is a croaking whisper much like Cadaver's, but stronger, and its lips don't move. Nevertheless, despite how insane it makes him suspect he might be after what he's gone through, Brody has never been more sure of anything in his life.

The fucking
deer
is talking.

Behind him, there's a sound like a stick swishing through air and then a thump and clatter as the deer on the Dodge tries to keep its balance, then crumples and rolls, hooves beating a tattoo against the metal. Blood smears the hood, and now the creature is making all-too-normal animal-in-pain sounds, which surprises Brody, who almost expected to hear it scream in a human voice. The deer hits the ground, still moving, and Brody can see there's a long stick protruding from the side of its neck. An arrow.

"Stay down, boy."

Brody does, but looks over his shoulder.

The formerly inanimate cigar store Indian pays him no mind as it thumbs another arrow into its bow and draws back the string.

Brody breathes disbelief, and pushes himself away until he collides painfully with the porch railing. "No way in
Hell
."

The whispering has spread, pouring from the unopened mouths of the deer herd like a breeze through the canopies of leaves overhanging them. More sharp reports as hooves meet metal and Brody is forced to resign himself to the incredible reality of the situation: In the yard, there are talking deer.
Pissed off
talking deer, and all that's keeping them at bay, for the moment at least, is a wooden Indian whose every move is accompanied by a creak as flakes of dead wood fall like dandruff from his shoulders.

"
Jesus
."

"Just stay d—"

"Yeah, I
heard
for Chrissakes. What the hell is happening here?"

The Indian lets his arrow fly. It hits home; another deer stumbles and falls.

"The short version: Long time ago my father and his friend made a mistake that got a lot of their tribe killed," Blue Moon tells him from behind the door. "They stole somethin' precious from a rival tribe. A statue of a deer, made from obsidian and wood, supposed to contain the spirits of every animal the tribe had killed. When caught, they put a curse on Red Cloud. They turned him to wood. My father escaped his bonds and stole a horse. They never caught him. Days later, the rival tribe attacked my father's people, massacrin' them for the theft of a sacred statue."

Brody's eyes drift to the wooden Indian. Grim-faced, time-roughened joints creaking, the creature loads another arrow.

"My father spent the rest of his life runnin' from his tribe in their various guises: coyote, hawk, cougar...deer. When he died, the curse was passed on to me. They're punishin' me for his crimes. And they'll punish you if you get in their way."

Brody looks over his shoulder. Incensed, the herd pours over the Dodge on a wave of frantic whispers. The sound of them now is deafening. He scrambles away from the railing, puts his back to the door, wishes he had his knife, or better yet, his gun. He has never felt so vulnerable, and in truth, afraid, as he is at this moment. Sweat trickles into his eyes; he blinks it away. But,
Death by deer
, he thinks, and splutters a laugh. No one will ever believe it. He elbows the door." Let me in, man."

"I can't."

"Then toss me out a weapon or something.
Anything
."

"You don't need one. In protectin' me, Red Cloud will protect you too."

Helpless to do anything but watch, Brody draws his knees up as the deer that have made it onto the Dodge leap toward the house only to be struck down in mid air by the arrows from the wooden Indian's bow. Red Cloud's feet haven't moved from his small rectangular pedestal; only his arms look alive. They reload the bow, faster and faster, until they become a blur, and above them, the Indian's painted eyes are narrowed, mouth down-turned in a grimace. The wooden points of the arrows cleave the air, thudding into the hides of the seemingly endless ranks. As they fall, the deer turn to clouds of dust, which in turn swirl upward as if caught in a vortex. And in those miniature twisters, there are screaming faces.