The Last Western (68 page)

Felder was not there; only his voice was there, filtering through the bulkhead from the pilot’s cabin. Willie opened the pilot’s hatch, and Felder’s face, turning up suddenly and lit by the gleam of the instrument panel, seemed excited, exalted.

He had been talking in a low tone over the radio.

“It will be a few minutes,” he said.

“Whenever you say, Brother Herman.”

The cockpit reeked of roses. There was a crackling sound on the radio, then a voice.

“There will be hunters out even now—drinking—shooting birds. They could be in the way. They—”

Felder turned off the radio.

“We’ll proceed immediately to Regent Fields. According to the plans, you speak to Mr. Regent at midnight, the beginning of the day.”

“Yes.”

“Our informants say there are many hunters out even now, friends of Regent. Perhaps you would prefer to wait until morning.”

“No.”

“Then we’ll set up just inside the fences of the property—about a mile from the guest house. There will be warm fires, tents, food. Regent has even built some modular shelters we understand.”

“Herman,” said Willie, coming closer to Felder, “I meant what I said earlier.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Felder, busying himself with the instrument panel.

“I forgive you.”

“There’s nothing to be forgiven,” Felder said in the same calm way. “You are ill—much worse off than you know. You are imagining all sorts of things.”

Willie came closer still. The snow beat down on the cockpit.

“Please,” said Felder.

The cockpit door swung to and Joto was there.

“Men are at door—time to go.”

Felder got up from the pilot seat and quickly brushed past Willie.

“Let’s go,” he said to the others in the cabin.

Willie switched on the radio, but there was nothing but static.

“Have thermos of soup, Brother Willie,” said Joto. “Please drink.”

“Yes,” said Willie, already feeling cold because of the snow and because death had breathed upon him and because he knew now nothing could save him.

The men in the plane seemed to have calmed a little, having once more convinced themselves that Willie’s hunger had brought him to a delusional state.

Out on the airfield the wind blew freezing pellets into their downturned faces as they hurried toward the lights of automobiles.

Willie staggered in the wind; Truman caught him and half-carried him toward a car.

“Truman,” he said, “it is easier to believe. Is that not so?”

Truman grunted.

Willie said, “Let me walk, please.”

Truman released him.

Willie, feeling a little stronger, looked at the cars. They formed a black column reaching back into the storm.

The airport beacon swept across the cars. There were men scurrying about, shouting to one another. It seemed to Willie that it was something that had been rehearsed—a white demonstration that had nothing to do with him.

The beacon swept around once more, this time illuminating the figure of Herman Felder. He looked like a general shouting instructions to his troops.

“Herman!” Willie shouted feebly, but the beacon flashed away and Felder was swallowed in darkness.

“This car—” Joto cried from behind, and Truman guided Willie into a long black limousine that had the look of a funeral coach.

In the car Willie coughed—a fit of coughing seized him.

“Drink this,” said Joto, holding a thermos of soup to his lips.

Willie sipped the soup; it tasted bitter. The car now began to move.

“Who is with me?” said Willie. “Who is in the car?”

“I am here,” said Joto.

“Thatcher Grayson is here, son,” said Grayson.

“Truman is driving,” said Joto.

“I am with you also,” said a figure hunched in the front seat.

“Who is that?” said Willie.

The figure turned his head, and the beacon light etched the face of Father Benjamin, old beyond old, old as the last photo of the famous poet after he had suffered the final stroke and did not expect to hear anything again but only the everlasting silence.

“Father Benjamin,” Willie said, “you see that it is necessary? Some things cannot be helped. I did not ask to be born. Nor do I ask to die.”

At the word
die
, the car jerked suddenly to the side, then skidded into the other lane. Cries of fear, prayer, protest came from the brothers.

“Please,” said Willie. “Please Truman.”

The car skidded away again, then slowly fell back into line with the others.

“Peace, my brothers,” said Willie. “Let peace come now. There are important things to do and to be done.”

“You are in delirium,” said Joto in the darkness. “If you drink soup, you feel better in head.”

“Pray, brothers,” said Benjamin softly. “Pray.”

They were silent going into the storm.

The procession entered the downtown of Springfield, all lighted and candled for the Christmas season. Over the main street, making an arch of green and white lights, the businessmen of the town had put up a sign: THE SPRINGFIELD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SALUTES ITS LORD, THE BABY JESUS OF BETHLEHEM, PRICES TO SUIT ANY BUDGET.

Willie could see bright shops, their windows filled with toys. The snow kept falling in large wet flakes. The wind, broken by the city, had died down. The town seemed to be a set from an old-time play about coming home for Christmas.

He tried to pray, tried to listen, but all he heard was the pounding of his heart in the cage of his chest.

The tomb of Lincoln, topped by a blue Star of David and a red cross, loomed before them. The procession slowed, turned, then began to move more quickly.

He felt his heart accelerate with the motion of the car. His dream came over him again. When they broke into open country, he was up above the storm, flying without effort. He could see the storm below him, and below the storm, a dull monotonous terrain.

He was to find the green message for the others but there was no green growing thing anywhere and he knew that the old, the borrowed dream was worthless, a drug that his system had developed a tolerance for.

A persistent moaning filled the skies around him. A different kind of storm was coming. He did not know that it was only Truman weeping voicelessly as he drove on, trying to make words for events that no words existed for and asking God to come into being so that events could have meaning even though, he knew, it made no sense to ask God to exist.

The wind came across the plains like a scythe swung by a maniac.

In the Versailles Room
of the Regent lodge, its giant mirrors reflecting the flames of a thousand candles, the One Hundred Most Important Men in America toasted each other with crystal goblets of champagne.

“By God,” said George Doveland Goldenblade, pointing to the 3-D TV screen at the end of the magnificent room, “it restores your faith in the American dream.”

The TV showed throngs of citizens pouring into Times Square to await the coming of L-Day. Chanting
Onward Christian Soldiers
they looked like figures preparing for battle.
Victory!
they shouted. And
Long live Old Glory!
It was as if a crusade were being launched.

The program switched from Times Square to other cities where L-Eve celebrations were underway. There were interviews with movie and television personalities, who called L-Day a wonderful gesture, a magnificent moment for mankind, something that would make the universe a better place in which to live. There were special programs of
This Is Your Death
. From time to time the cameras would pick up the L-Eve dance in the Roosevelt Grille with the music of the Guy Lombardo Orchestra.

The Versailles Room seemed remote from these events. It was a show unto itself, a scene of bibulous medieval fellowship. The men, dressed in formal hunting attire—bloodred jackets, black leather boots, blue and white striped breeches—had this day killed 160,000 ploves, and the fields surrounding the lodge were covered with feathers and bird flesh. A few guests were still hunting, though it was night now and the snow made the shooting difficult.

Goldenblade turned to Archbishop McCool. “Any word yet?”

“They are only a few minutes away, Mr. Goldenblade. Near a small town. Babylon Bend, I believe they call it.”

“Excellent, excellent. We’ll go to meet them.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Goldenblade,” said Archbishop McCool, smiling his handsome smile. “I believe Mr. Regent wishes to meet His Holiness alone.”

“Of course—I knew that. So many distractions of late. By the way, where is Bob?”

“Gol-
lee
, Mr. Goldenblade, I don’t know. I sure don’t.”

Nor did anyone else know where Robert Regent was.

Throughout this day of shooting there had been many rumors. He was in Springfield, soon to reach the lodge. He was in Chicago. He had been seen, someone said, in Peoria, Illinois shortly after noon. He
had
arrived and was now resting in one of the lodge’s cabins. He was on the grounds, disguised as a plove guide, or as one of the hunters.

“He could be in this very room,” said Goldenblade, turning to Frank Carlisle of Carlisle Personal Chemistry.

“For all I know, you are Bob Regent,” said Carlisle, a man of fifty whose face twitched horribly.

“Don’t be ridiculous! You know who I am.”

“You could be made up. So many people in my organization are made up now, I don’t know who the vice-presidents are. Even my wife seems made up half the time.”

“What do you mean?” Goldenblade snapped.

“I’m telling you, people today are all in disguise, so you don’t know who’s operating. First it started as a joke, maybe. But now, a man doesn’t know who he’s operating with, or on.”

“You mean on the videophone?”

“On video or live, in person, it’s all the same,” said Carlisle. “People turning into other persons. Somebody should stop it.”

“You know what your trouble is, Frank? You got monist homosexuals in your organization. That will screw you up every time.”

Carlisle’s face was a moving jigsaw puzzle, with none of the pieces fitting together.

“Dove, if you are Dove, I would no more discuss intraplant personnel problems with you than I would discuss your sex life or that of your wife.”

Goldenblade’s mouth fell open. “What the hell is wrong with you? You talk like somebody who’s lost his computer. What have you been doing, taking some of your own chemicals?”

“Look here, Goldenblade, if you are Goldenblade, I would no more discuss what I take with you than I would the sex life of whatever that is over there.” Carlisle pointed to McCool.

“That’s an archbishop.”

“How do I know that? How do I know it isn’t Regent? How do I know it isn’t Goldenblade?”

“I’m Goldenblade.”

“You’re just begging the question,” said Carlisle. “You and the archbishop could have switched any time in the last hour.”

“Switched what?”

“Each other.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You could have even switched him,” said Carlisle.

Goldenblade put his thumb in his mouth. Revolving the thumb while he sucked upon it, he said slowly, “Why not do this for a while, Frank? Maybe it’ll clear what’s left of your goddamn brains.”

And he walked away.

The One Hundred Most Important Men laughed and drank champagne.

Black servants, dressed in colonial costume and white wigs, brought whole pheasants to them as they stood before the hearth or watched the L-Eve proceedings on the 3-D TV.

“Those two clowns of Regent’s—where are they?” Goldenblade said.

“Mr. Cole and Mr. Ware?” said Archbishop McCool. “Gol-
lee
, Mr. Goldenblade, I believe they’re still hunting.”

“It’s night for Chrissake. How can they see the birds?”

“I’ll be goshdarned if I know, Mr. Goldenblade. But somebody said they were trying to set a record.”

On the television, George Goldenblade saw the face of his brother, huge and veined like agate, the eyes bulging and mad.

Over the speaker came his high-pitched chant, “Zap! Zing! Splat! Splash! The Holy Spirit will break their ass!”

The camera cut to a raving mob gathered on a hillside below. The crowd returned the cardinal’s chant in litany fashion.

“Look at that,” said Goldenblade huskily. “That used to be a fine man.”

Archbishop McCool tried to think of something to say that would make George Goldenblade feel better.

“Emotional distress sometimes does strange things to a person,” he said at last.

Goldenblade stiffened. “What you mean, Archbishop Grace, is that Brother Eminence Earl has burnt a transistor—only you don’t have the lousy genitals to say so.” With this, Goldenblade went out to find Cole and Ware. His brother’s voice boomed after him: “Zap! Zing! Splat! Splash! The Holy Spirit will… .”

The snow swirled down in great flakes; the slightly rolling fields were deep with it. From the steps of the lodge Goldenblade thought that the snow looked strange, gathered into odd little mounds and drifts, thousands of them. Then he remembered the birds.

Shotguns sounded off to the left. Goldenblade thought that the shots came from Easter Gorge, a shallow irregular valley near the side entrance road to the fields. In the afternoon he had seen a small mountain of birds stacked there. They had been butchered trying to escape the fields through a break in the fence at the end of the gorge.

He adjusted his snow boots and waded into the white mire. The birds lay everywhere. It was like walking on Jello.

Squish. Squish. Squish.

“Jesus,” said Goldenblade. “And God. And Mary. And Christ.”

More shots smacked into the air, amazingly close.

“Hey!” Goldenblade shouted. “For Christ’s sake!”

Crouching low, frantically humming the
Only-Therefore
hymn, Goldenblade headed toward a slope that lay between Easter Gorge and the access road to the lodge.

“This is George D. Goldenblade!” he called into the wind. “Don’t shoot or by Jesus Franklin Roosevelt Christ, I’ll prosecute!”

Four shotgun blasts answered him, and Goldenblade pitched forward into the snow. Immediately two birds plumped onto the ground near his head. He heard drunken laughter.