Greenmantle (28 page)

Twilight had become night while she was driving home from Ottawa. The house was dark. Everything was dark—and quiet, too, now that the car engine was still. Her breathing was loud in her ears. She lost the outline of the pickup until her eyes adjusted to the lack of light.

It’s Earl, she thought as she made out the truck’s bulk in her lane once more. God damn him! She thought of what Tony had told her this morning, thought of what she knew of Earl from her own experiences with him, but she was so angry at the moment that she forgot to be scared. He was
not
going to move into her life again. Nor into Ali’s. And he was definitely not getting a cent of the Wintario money.

She unclipped her seatbelt, opened the car door, and stepped out on to the road. Its uneven surface made it difficult to walk in her pumps, even though the heels weren’t all that high. It wasn’t until she neared the truck and its dark shape bulked beside her that she had to wonder just what in God’s name she thought she was doing.

She
was going to stop Earl? She put a hand against the side of the truck’s bed for balance as a tremor of fear went through her. This was not smart, she told herself. Not smart at all. She ran a hand nervously through her hair, tugging at a knot in the curls. The smart thing to do would be to go up to Tony’s and come back with him and his friend Tom.

She started to turn, then heard something move near the front of the truck. A shadow pulled away from the wheel, rose to its feet to become a man. Everything went tight inside Frankie’s chest and she found it hard to breathe. She backed away, but the shadow followed her. There was a ringing in her ears, and something else as well. It took her a long moment to realize what it was: the music from Ali’s tape, but the real thing this time, not information stored on magnetic tape.

“I want my dog, lady.”

The man’s voice startled her. She knew a momentary relief that it wasn’t Earl’s voice, then the fear came clawing back. Who was this?

“Y-your…dog…?” she asked.

“I’m looking for him, lady. His name’s Dooker. You better give him back….”

Frankie continued to back up. “Look,” she said. “I don’t know anything about your dog. Does it look like I’ve got a—” She bumped into the hood of her own car and there was nowhere left to go. The man continued to advance until he stood over her.

“I want him, lady.”

His breath was stale in her face. A small cry escaped her lips as he grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Please…” she began.

He shook her roughly. “I want…I want…”

Frankie tried to break his grip on her, to no avail. She could still hear the eerie music spilling out of the woods, low and distant, but immediate at the same time. It made her feel weak and strong, all at once, but while one part of her was falling under its spell, her fear of the man and what he was doing was stronger.

She lifted her knee, but the skirt she was wearing was too narrow to give the blow much power. Where it should have connected with his groin and doubled him over, all it did was make him grunt. His grip tightened on her shoulders. Suddenly he half-lifted her and threw her down on the hood of her car. Holding her down with one hand, he started to tear at her skirt with the other.

“Want you,” he growled.

* * *

Lance was in that special place by the river where he and old Dook used to go when it came to him that Dook wasn’t dead—he was going to shoot his own dog?—and he hadn’t run off. Not Dooker. He’d been stolen. Old man Treasure’s daughter—she had his dog, no ifs, ands or buts about it. That’s where he’d first heard the music. She’d used the music to trap old Dook, just like she was trying to trap him. Filling his head with crazy shit.

He got up from the riverbank and into the truck. Turning the pickup around, he headed back along the dirt roads to the Treasure place, only when he got there the place was empty.

He parked in the lane and walked around the house peering into the windows and muttering to himself. Every once in a while he’d start calling for Dooker, but then he’d stop right away, the loudness of his voice startling him. When it started to rain, he hunched in the cab of his pickup, staring at the house through the rain-splattered windshield, wiping the glass every time the condensation built up too much. When the rain stopped, he went back to prowling the grounds, keeping a wary eye on the woods behind the house.

He checked the barn, calling softly for the dog. The need to see Dooker, to know the old feller was okay, kept building up in him. His head ached as the pressure increased until he finally had to sit down again. He leaned back against the front wheel of his pickup and closed his eyes.

He had to have open ground around him. Even the familiar interior of the pickup’s cab made him claustrophobic. At some point he realized that he must have dozed off—dreaming of shotguns and Dooker dying, but—Christ on a cross—there was no way that was true. The next thing he knew it was dark.

He heard a car engine sputter and die. Turning, he saw its head beams on the road just before they winked off. A door opened and then he listened to someone walk across the road and onto the driveway. He waited until whoever it was had come too close to run away before he could talk to them, and then he stood up.

He was feeling a little better now. His head didn’t hurt so much, and while he still wanted to find Dooker, the need to do so was no longer burning as painfully inside him. His eyes were well adjusted to the dark by the time he saw the blond woman standing by his truck.

He couldn’t tell a whole lot about her face in the poor light, but the shape of her looked real good in the narrow skirt and top she had on. He started out asking her about Dooker, but then he heard it coming—first on the edges of his consciousness, then building up, louder and louder. That music. He should’ve run, he thought. He should’ve just taken off when he had the chance, but now it was too late. And in another moment, it didn’t matter anymore.

He felt the heat in his groin and when he followed the woman as she backed out of the lane, he wasn’t seeing her the same anymore. She was a field that needed ploughing now. A bitch in heat. He could smell the blood on her. And Lord, oh, Lord, he needed to ride her.

Her skirt tore like paper and as she lifted her hands to claw at him he just grinned and bulled his face in against her breasts, away from her nails. With his left hand, he loosened his grip on her shoulder and grabbed her neck. His other hand tore at her undergarments. The music continued to burn in him as he bared her womanhood to the night air.

Her smell was so strong he could hardly breathe. She wasn’t struggling so hard now, so he let go of her neck and tore at her blouse. Lifting his head, he arced his head back as far as it would go and let out a howl. Right about then, a car came around the curve and stabbed him with its headlights.

* * *

The man in the van was just getting ready to leave his vehicle for another circuit of the house and its grounds when he heard the music start up. Closing the rear door, he hefted his crossbow, head cocked as he listened. What the hell was that? He started through the trees, heading for Valenti’s house when he heard, overtop the soft piping, first a man howling like some kind of animal, then the sound of a car.

He doubled back, crossed the road that led up to Valenti’s place at the same time as a car went by the turnoff, slowed and came to a halt. By the time its doors opened and the occupants were getting out, the man with the crossbow had entered the trees on the other side of the road and was working his way closer to where the car had stopped.

All of a sudden, he thought, the night had gotten interesting.

* * *

Howie knew a moment’s panic when their headlights caught the two figures struggling on the hood of the car on the road in front of them. All three of them saw the man raping the woman, but only Howie thought that it might be Earl.

“Don’t—” he began, then shut his mouth. Don’t stop, he was going to say. Don’t get involved. But Lisa was already standing on the brake. “Don’t let him get away!” Howie finished.

As soon as the car came to a halt, he opened the door on his side. Sherry pushed past him. Lisa was already on the road. When Howie glanced at her, he saw that she had something in her hand. It looked like a tire iron.

“You bastard!” she screamed.

The rapist lifted his head. For one moment, Howie thought the guy was going to have a go at all of them, but then he bolted and ran for the pickup that was parked in the lane. The woman he’d been abusing started to roll off the hood of the car. Lisa, faced with the choice of going after the man or catching the woman, opted for the latter. Sherry stopped to give her a hand. Howie, after taking a few steps toward the pickup, stopped as well when the truck’s engine turned over, then caught. Weaponless, there wasn’t much he could do but watch the pickup bounce across the lawn, dip into, then up out of the ditch, and finally tear off down the road. Once it hit the road, he turned back to the women.

The rapist’s victim was having trouble breathing. He had tried to choke her, Howie thought. Then, as he moved in closer, he saw enough of her features and that spill of blond hair to know just who it was that they’d rescued tonight. Earl’s ex! Jesus H., wasn’t that just too fucking weird?

“For God’s sake,” Sherry told him. “Don’t gawk at the poor woman.”

Howie quickly shifted his gaze away from the woman’s breasts.

“Don’t try to talk,” Lisa was saying to her. “Just take it easy. We scared him off. He’s not going to hurt you now.” She glanced up at Sherry. “Should we take her to the hospital?”

“Jeez, I don’t know. Is she badly hurt?”

“I…I’m okay now,” Frankie managed. She tried to sit up and fumbled at the ruin of her blouse. Lisa helped support her.

“Are you sure?” Sherry asked.

Frankie nodded slowly. “I live…I just live over there.” She pointed at the dark house.

“Well, we’ll get you inside,” Lisa said. “Is there anyone we can call for you? There doesn’t look to be anyone home.”

“My daughter’s staying with a neighbor—just up…just up the road.”

“We’ll get you inside first,” Sherry said, “and then we’ll see about your daughter. How old is she?”

“Fourteen.”

Sherry put her arm around her while Lisa supported Frankie from the other side. “We should probably get you cleaned up first—before we get her. What do you think?”

Frankie nodded gratefully. When Sherry turned to Howie to ask him to put the cars in the lane, she saw he was just standing there in the lane, head cocked.

“Howie…?” she asked.

“Listen,” he said. “Can’t you hear it?”

“Hear what…?” But then she didn’t have to ask anymore. They could all hear it now. It was a plaintive lost sound that they could easily have missed if Howie hadn’t pointed it out.

Listening to it, tears welled up in Frankie’s eyes and she was surprised to realize that they weren’t for herself, for what she’d just gone through, but for the sheer beauty of the music itself. The soft piping went through her, casting light on the tattered shadows that lay inside her.

“What is it?” Lisa asked softly. She glanced at Frankie, saw the tears in her eyes glistening in the moonlight, but saw also that Frankie was smiling at the same time.

Howie got nervous when he first heard the music. He was worried about the stag showing up, worried about the feeling he’d had this morning about being hunted. But then he started to really listen to it and he found himself sympathizing with the rapist’s victim and pissed as hell with the rapist.

It was a weird feeling for Howie. He’d always sort of figured that what went on between a guy and a girl, well, that was their business. Maybe things’d get a little rough on the broad sometime, but hell, they all wanted it, didn’t they? Only now… The music was so sad. His chest felt tight. He glanced at Sherry and wondered what it’d be like if she was his girl, say, and some guy tried to stick it to her. Sherry chose that moment to look at him. She couldn’t read his face, but she reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. That only confused Howie more.

He shook his head suddenly, clearing it. “Maybe I should move these cars,” he said.

His words broke the spell. While his two companions helped Frankie into the house, he got into her car and started it up. What’s Earl going to say? he wondered as he pulled the car into the lane. Jesus, things were really messed up. But then he thought, why the fuck should I worry about what’s with Earl? Earl wasn’t here and maybe, just maybe, it was time for Howie Peale to do something for himself for a change.

* * *

The man waited until they were all inside the house before he rose from the cedars where he’d been hidden and started up the road to Valenti’s house. He wasn’t sure what to make of what he’d just seen. His mind was still filled with the strains of that soft and distant music he’d heard.

It had done something to him, that music. He’d felt something wake inside him in response to it. What, he wasn’t sure. But something.

Cradling his crossbow, he continued up the road, forcing himself to concentrate on the business that had brought him here in the first place. It was time to check and see if Tony Valenti had returned home yet.