[Oxrun Station] The Bloodwind (12 page)

He stopped and turned his head slowly toward her, the beak of his hat shadowing his eyes.
"Easy for you to say, Miss.
You
ain't
got the damned kids tramping all over the place."

She looked down at the yard, at the foot-plus deep
snow untouched except for a few bird tracks and a place
near the hedge where a dog had floundered.
"Hardly
tramping all over, Mr. Goldsmith."

"Not now," he said, as if she should have known better.
"Night.
Have
t'get
my sleep and they come around banging at the walls, climbing to the porch." He spat over the side, dark tobacco juice. "
Oughta
all be
home.
Not like the old days. My old
man'd
switch
my ass bloody if I ever came home with some neighbor
complaining.
Ain't
right."
He glared at her, his jaw working slowly. "You teachers
oughta
teach '
em
bet
ter. Give '
em
values. Soft is what they are.
Soft in the
heart, soft in the head."

She tried to remain solemn, to at least take him
seriously. But with his faded straw hair jutting out from under the
cap,
his oversized coat,
and his
cuffed and
uncreased
trousers he reminded her too much of an overworked scarecrow. And dire grumblings from a
scarecrow were not exactly a prophet's strength.

"I do my best," she told him, with a smile so wide
she could feel her cheeks ache. "But none of us are
perfect."

"Could work at it, though," he said, turning back to
his work.

A snort meant for a laugh and his shoulder began to shake. Pat groaned loudly to show she'd heard him and
stepped inside, closed the door. It was Homer's turn
now, and his reflection she was making. But she hadn't
taken two steps up when Kelly's door opened and Ab
bey beckoned her back down.

"What?" she said, slipping out of her
coat.
"Never
mind, don't tell me." She put a finger to her chin and
considered the front door. "Kelly has met this abso
lutely fabulous man in Harley. He's rich, owns a bank, and he has a twin brother. Naturally he's much too busy
to come pick you guys up tonight, so you agreed to
meet them in town. And naturally, Kelly is too chicken to
ask me to borrow my car because King's still hasn't
finished with whatever needs fixing." She looked back
and grinned. Abbey was laughing.

The brakes,
Abbey sighed, her expression doleful
and resigned.
The mechanic says if we don't have them
repaired now we're going to end up in a ditch if we drive the car again.

"And the man with the bank?"

No man. We just want to go to the movies. Kelly thinks the manager is cute.

Pat couldn't help the laugh that bubbled in her throat.
"Well, is he?"

Abbey shrugged, waggled her hand. He was so-so.

"Does he have a brother?"

Pat, that's not fair.

"You know," she said, "I really ought to start charging you guys rent or something.
But sure, why not.
I'm
not going anywhere tonight. I'll get Goldsmith to let me
in." She fished in her pockets.
"Nope.
I'll bring them
down later, okay? Give me a couple of minutes and I'll
let you have them."

Abbey beamed.
I'll pay you back.

"You do and I'll cut your throat. Just tell Kelly I want an invitation to the wedding."

A spurt of laughing applause followed her up the
stairs, continued until the door shut and her coat was on the rack. Then she sighed and decided she was hungry
again, made herself a sandwich for lunch and, thinking
of her breakfast, forced down a small salad. Once done,
she rolled up her sleeves and went into the workroom, lost almost an hour before she remembered the keys.
Telling herself she needed a break anyway, she dusted off her hands and brought the keys down to Abbey's. When she knocked, however, there was no response;
when she rang the bell (which would activate a series of
bulbs throughout the apartment) Abbey didn't answer. She shrugged and ran upstairs again, grabbed an enve
lope from the secretary in the
livingroom
and stuffed the keys in, put Abbey's name on it and left it on the table by the front door. Tit for tat, she thought,
and grinned when she imagined what her mother would
say.

"Patrice, you mean to say you actually leave your
car keys right there in the foyer? Right there where
anybody can pick them up and steal your car? Honestly,
I just don't know what you're thinking of."

And if Pat mentioned friendship and trust and
Oxrun
Station, her mother would only scoff and triple-lock the
penthouse door.

"Score one for
Oxrun
," she said as she returned to the workroom, and lost time again until the dark arms
of the trees had snaked across the floor and set her eyes
to blinking.

She stepped back and wiped the back of her hand
over her face. It was nearly done at last.
Tomorrow.
Perhaps tomorrow, if she could bring herself to work
for another five or six hours.
There were only the teeth left, and the way her eyes were stinging she knew she
didn't dare attempt to do them now. One slip, one
chipped tooth, and the whole thing would be ruined.

"Lucky boy, Homer," she said, returning the statu
ette to its place in the kitchen. "Only a few more hours
and it'll be all done."

She yawned, and stretched. A nap on the sofa, she
decided. An hour, and then I'll cook me some dinner.

But just as she lay down she sat up again, quickly.
"Damn!" They'd done it to her again. Oliver and Ben
and Harriet, by making that ill-timed telephone call and
thinking that was what she'd gone over about, had
sidetracked her from demanding an apology from Oliver.

And it was curious, very curious. As she recalled the
confused conversation and saw Oliver standing next to the mantel, she could not bring to mind anything in his
face that even hinted of guilt once the matter had been
straightened out.
Almost as if he'd not done it at all.

A mystery, she thought, a sudden great yawn making
her jaw pop. God, I hate mysteries!

But her legs were already too relaxed to support her,
her arms too heavy to do more than flop. The glove,
then, was something she would have to face later. Right
now she would rest. After all, it wasn't as if something
had been taken, something that was hers.

And when the telephone rang, she muttered, "Go to
hell," and slept.

THE knocking was light, and persistent. Pat didn't
want to hear it, but it refused to leave, becoming louder,
more frantic, adding to it the faint call of her name. She
groaned and sat up, wincing at a sharp tug in the small
of her back. The heels of her hands pressed hard against
her eyes to drive off sleep, and what felt like a thin
layer of cotton over her teeth made her want to spit. It
was a stupid thing, taking a nap in the late afternoon;
she never felt rested afterward, and though this was one
of the few times she'd awakened without a headache
she still felt as though a rubber hammer were working
hard to rectify the error.

It was dark. And when she swung her legs to the
floor and stood, a shin cracked against the coffee table.
She swore and reached behind her, fumbling along the
outline of the sofa until her hand found the brass pole of
the floor lamp. A tug at the chain and both bulbs glared
on, shutting her eyes against imagined pain while her
free hand rubbed angrily at her leg.

"All right!" she called when the knocking started again.

She walked slowly to the door, massaging her back,
her neck, shaking her head vigorously until she thought
she could at least pretend successfully to be human
again. She wondered at the time, certain that more than her allotted hour had passed and hoping it wasn't so late
that she'd be awake until dawn because she'd slept so late
now.

"All right, all right," as her hand reached for the knob and slipped off. She glowered at it, tried again,
and pulled the door open. Harriet was in the hallway, coat open, hands ungloved, and her eyes puffed from
hard weeping. Pat immediately reached out for her and
took her into the room, closing the door softly and
guiding her to the sofa. The girl slipped out of her coat
awkwardly, her head stiff and her gaze steadily on the magazine pile while she swallowed several times and
rubbed a trembling hand across her lips.

"Coffee," Pat said, and without giving Harriet an
opportunity to protest she hurried into the kitchen and set the kettle on the stove. A choked-back sob drifted
after her. She pinched hard at her cheek to bring herself more awake, drummed her fingers on the stove to hurry
the boiling. There was, however, no real rush to get back; she could have guessed easily what had happened, that one of the boys had attempted something
with Harriet that Harriet wasn't prepared for. For
all the
girl's outward worldliness in a campus situation far
different from her own, she was still a small-town girl
whose parents demanded values much of the rest of the
student body had long since replaced with values of its
own. It would come as no surprise to her to learn Harriet was still a virgin.

The water boiled, the kettle shrilled, and within min
utes she had cups, sugar, and creamer on a tray.

Harriet was leafing through a magazine, looked up
sheepishly and sniffed. A wadded tissue was buried in
one palm.

"Drink," Pat said. "You look like you're freezing to
death. My god, girl, how long have you been walking
out there?"

"What time is it?" Harriet asked, holding her cup in
both hands and sipping. Then she glanced at the watch
on her own wrist. "Eight. About two hours, I guess. Give or take."

Pat dropped into the far corner and pulled one leg to
the cushion. Watched silently, wondering if perhaps she
should have added some brandy to the coffee. Harriet's
face, she could see now, was less ravaged by her
weeping than it was by the brutal dry cold
—her cheeks were flushed as if burned, her lips cracked and chapped,
her red hair tossed and tangled by too many encounters
with corner-winds she hadn't bothered to duck.
A glance
up to the windows.
Beyond, the air was black and
brittle, cold just looking at it, without need of a wind to
bring the temperature home.

Harriet set her cup back on the tray. "Thanks," she
said.

"No problem. What's the trouble?"

The girl hunched over her legs, hands gripping her knees tightly, leaving them to clasp into a single large
fist.
"After you left today."

"Oh."

Harriet suddenly gestured angrily at the air. "It isn't
fair! They think you owe them something. They think
it's your job to make them rich and famous. All they've
talked about for the past four months is that dumbass
show in New York." She turned to her, and her eyes
had narrowed in rage, in sorrow. "I wish you'd never
brought it up, Doc, I really do. It's not that I'm un
grateful or anything, but
..."
She gestured again,
helplessly. "You know how they are."

Pat inhaled slowly and puffed her cheeks, blew out the breath loudly and rapidly. "I know how they used to be, yes. Assuming, of course, we're talking about
the cowboy and Ben. I know they used to be eager, and
enthusiastic, and they used to listen to advice even if they didn't like what they were hearing. I know they
used to have a grip on the stage of their development, and they used to believe that they had a definite large slice of raw talent that needed to be directed. It goes
without saying this all applies to you, too."

Harriet lifted a shoulder in an apathetic shrug. "Yeah,
well, they're not that way anymore."

"Are you blaming me?"

There was no need for an answer.

"Oliver said he wouldn't have felt so stupid talking to that Mr. Curtis if
you'd've
taught him how to deal
with people like that. He said the guy was pretty close
to being rude to him, and Oliver almost hung up on him."

"Oh my god, he didn't, did he?"

Harriet shook her head. "But he said he felt like it.
And he says ..." Her hands twisted in her lap, her head bowed.

Pat watched the display for only a moment before lifting her gaze to the windows. The lamp behind her cast little light beyond the sofa and the table, and the
panes were gauzed rectangles set in winter-dark ice. It
occurred to her rather incongruously that she ought to
take the curtains down at least and have them cleaned
before they yellowed, maybe even take the draperies to the cleaners. She couldn't remember the last time she'd
done it.

Harriet was saying something, looked at her reproach
fully when she realized Pat wasn't listening. Pat smiled
weakly, nodded for her to continue.

"We've been arguing almost since you left, you know."

"I hope," Pat said, "someone took my side."

"I did." The pain, then, the effort it had cost her to
say those two words, and Pat wanted to embrace her, to
rock her, but did nothing.

"Well? I guess you're here either to warn me or ask
me a favor.
A little of both, right?
Would you rather
have some wine instead of all that caffeine?"

Harriet, startled into a brief smile, shook her head.
"Ben said he was beginning to think we were getting a
raw deal, that we should stop listening to everything
you say and get things like shows and stuff done on our
own. He said we were good enough, we must be or you
wouldn't have started all this. I told him he wouldn't
know the first place to start and he said he could always
ask Mr. Billings. He said you weren't the only one in the world who knows how to do this stuff."

"He's right," Pat told her. "He's absolutely right.
There's no reason at all why any of you should take my
word as gospel, ever.
As an expert, yes, but not as
law."
She waited, but there was no reaction. "There's
more."

"Oliver wants to quit school and live in New York."

Pat opened her mouth, but the sound that broke out was more like a croak than the oath she wanted. She
stood and paced out of the lamp's glow, back again and
stood in front of Harriet, the table between them. "Oli
ver
Fallchurch
, if I may use my professorial rights here, is an
addlepated
adolescent whose grasp of the realities
of the field he thinks he's chosen is virtually nonexis
tent in any context whatsoever.''

Harriet stared at her, obviously fighting a grin. "What?"

"Ollie is a shithead," she said. "He wouldn't last a week in New York. What about Ben?"

Harriet shrugged. "Sometimes he agrees with Oliver,
sometimes with me. But he's mad, Doc. He's really mad. And I don't understand it because you never
promised anything for any of us, except that you'd try
this Curtis for us. That's all you ever said, right?"

She nodded.

"Well, that's what I told them. And the next thing I
knew we were running all over the place yelling and
screaming and Oliver was punching out my mother's
ferns
..."
She stopped and giggled. "You ever try to
punch out a fern?"

Pat
sighed
her relief and sat again, closer this time,
feeling less at bay. "Harriet, you know there are times
when you're not nearly as dumb as you let people think."

The girl started as if touched by a flame, rubbed a hand gently along one cheek.

"So what do you want me to do, Harriet? Do you want me to talk to them?"

"No!" Her hand shifted to cover her mouth. "I'm
sorry; I didn't mean to snap at you. But when they left
they were ready to kill, if you know what I mean, and I
just wanted to let you know. Maybe by Monday they'll
be okay, I don't know.
Maybe.
I just thought you should know because
—"

"I should be prepared for the worst?"

Harriet looked
at
her, the lamplight bleaching her color, yet sifting shadows into her eyes. "Yes," she
said quietly. "Something
like
that." Then, before Pat
could react, she was on her feet and rushing toward the door. One arm caught in a sleeve as she tried to fling on
her coat and she cursed at it loudly, glancing fearfully
back over her shoulder as if Pat might come after her.

Pat, however, remained where she was. As suddenly
angered as she was over the girl's dramatics, she knew better than to follow. All she would get now would be
more of the same, only this time couched in typical
Trotter hysterics. And when the door slammed shut, she
rose and walked to the French doors, pulled aside the
curtain and watched as Harriet darted into the street to
the opposite sidewalk, running in spite of the patches of
snow still on the pavement, her coat flapping behind her, her arms close to her sides. She was gone in seconds.

A week ago, even a couple of days, and she would
have been scrambling for the closet to hide in, or for the
telephone to call Greg and demand protection and sympathy for the collapse of her world or the destruction of
her enemies. She might even have had a glimpse of
some
thing
lurking in the early-evening darkness, out
there beyond the trees, waiting for her and watching.

But that was done now.

All she could do was feel an understandable twinge
of self-pity for what she believed was her own failure in
properly preparing the trio for what lay beyond
Hawksted's
walls, and a certain amount of disgusted anger at Oliver's childishness and Ben's fickle loyalty. She would
talk to them, but she would wait until Monday when her
temper had calmed and her mood stabilized. For now
she had work to do.
Homer and his twin.
And she
would be damned if Oliver was going to take Greg's
pleasure from her.