The figure on the floor by the bed still hadn’t stirred or made a sound, causing Ryan to wonder if he was asleep.
Jak walked softly into the room, and Ryan turned to look at him, the yellowish light illuminating the narrow, lean face.
“That Michael?”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah, it is. He must’ve come in through the door at the back.”
“He all right?”
“Can’t tell. He hasn’t said a thing. Just kneeling there.”
Ryan turned back toward the bed. “Michael, where’ve you been?”
Finally the shadowy figure stirred, the white face angling toward them. The eyes were black pits in the ivory mask.
“Been in the barn.”
“The barn. Which one?”
“Big one.”
“Hayloft?” Jak asked, moving a couple of steps closer to Michael.
“Yeah. Under the hay.”
“You injured?” Ryan also walked nearer to the teenager. “Shot or anything?”
“No.” The voice was so muffled that Ryan and Jak couldn’t even be sure of what he’d said.
“What?”
“No,” he said, louder.
Loud enough to attract the attention of the others, who suddenly filled the doorway to the bedroom.
“Is that young Michael that I see there?” Doc asked, as a rectangle of brighter light spilled across the carpet from the dining room.
“Yeah,” Ryan replied. “Michael. Get up and come in the other room, so we can talk properly.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Stay here.”
Ryan laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder, making him flinch as though he’d been touched by a white-hot branding iron. “You can’t stay in here, Michael.”
“It’s all I want, Ryan.”
His voice sounded like it was made from tempered steel, stretched thin and taut.
Mildred joined Ryan by the side of the teenager. “Be better if you come out. Have something to eat and drink. You must be hungry and thirsty, Michael.”
“No.”
“Not thirsty? Got some well water in a crystal pitcher on the table there. Frosted and cold. That sound good to you? Must be an age since you had something to drink. How long is it, Michael, since you drank?”
“Morning. No, it was lunch. Had some apple juice then. Bread and cheese.”
“You’d been working in the barn, hadn’t you? That’s what you said when we left.”
“Yeah. Went back after a meal.”
“And you were there when it all happened?”
Michael nodded. Suddenly he levered himself upright by his hands on the bed, standing and looking straight at the friends with something that lay halfway between fear and defiance.
Jak moved too fast for anyone to stop him, grabbing Michael by the throat, like a terrier with a rat. It crossed Ryan’s mind that Michael, normally, would have had the heightened combat reflexes to stop anyone, even someone as lightning-quick as Jak Lauren. But it was all too obvious that things weren’t normal.
“What fuck happened?” Jak demanded.
His fingers were tightening, and Michael’s face was suffused with blood, his eyes wide, his mouth sagging open. But he never even lifted a hand to try to protect himself from the albino’s murderous attack.
“Let him go, Jak,” Ryan said. “Let him go right now, or I’ll have to make you.”
“He knows it all.” Jak relaxed his grip a fraction, allowing the other young man to draw in a shuddering breath. “Knows it all and’ll tell it all.”
“Not if you throttle him, Jak.” Mildred spoke briskly, as though she were addressing a stubborn child. “Just let him go and we can all go into the parlor. Michael can have a good long drink of cool water, then we can sit down and let him quietly tell us what went down here.” Jak let go so suddenly that Michael stumbled and would have fallen if it hadn’t been for Mildred’s steadying hand.
“Good, Mildred,” J.B. said quietly. He’d drawn a knife ready to stop Jak from chilling Michael, but now he was able to sheathe it again.
Ryan was last out of the bedroom. He slowly eased the door shut, glancing behind him at the two figures lying motionless on the bed.
“Not all way, Ryan,” Jak said. “Leave bit open.”
Michael drained the glass of water in a single gulp, wordlessly holding it out for a refill, finishing that one off nearly as quickly.
“Want another.”
J.B. shook his head. “Make you puke. Shock of cold water on an empty stomach. Wait a few minutes and let that settle.”
“Sure.”
The room fell silent.
Jak was sitting by a small side table, with Mildred between J.B. and Doc on the faded brocade sofa. Dean was on the floor, his back against the wall, to the right of the long window. Krysty had one of the deep, comfortable armchairs, her legs crossed. Ryan was next to her, leaning forward, his chin in his hands.
Michael was in the last of the big chairs, sitting slumped, head down, staring at the pattern on the rug.
Jak broke the quiet. “Come on. We know some what happened. Don’t know who or why or when. Don’t know lots, Michael. You can tell.”
“Yeah. I can tell, all right.”
“Then let’s hear it, Michael.” Ryan steepled his fingers. “From the start.”
“Jenny was a bit feverish around the middle of the day. Christina gave her a bath out back in the tub. She loved that. Played with her wooden duck and the carved piglet. Cheered her up. Then, I went back to working in the hayloft and Christina put Jenny to bed in her room.”
“What did Chris do then?”
“Don’t know, Jak. I was hot and sweaty and covered in bits of chaff. Got everywhere. Stuck to my skin and made it itch. In my eyes and nose and mouth.”
He stopped and looked at the empty glass on the floor. Dean saw the movement and scooted across to pick it up. He left the room and returned with it filled once more to the brim with the cool well water.
“Thanks.” He swallowed slowly.
Ryan watched him closely. Whatever had happened during the afternoon, it had left deep scars in Michael’s soul, a soul that was already spiritually challenged by all the experiences of the past few months.
The hands holding the glass were trembling, and the deep-set brown eyes skittered all around the room, looking everywhere, but studiously avoiding anyone else’s face. The teenager looked thinner, with a strained, dark intensity that revealed more of his quarter-Crow background.
“Go on.” Jak was like a statue, his head and body motionless, his red eyes not moving from Michael’s face.
“Saw the bath of water still there in the yard. Tormented me. Like Our Savior in the wilderness for forty days and nights, when Satan came to tempt him. Tempt him away from what was right and leave him to wallow in the mire of sloth and cowardice and self-preservation.”
“But Jesus resisted the temptations, didn’t he, Michael?” Mildred asked.
He ignored her, sipping more of the water, some of it dribbling over his stubbled chin and down onto his black denim shirt. He sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his mouth.
“I left the barn and stripped off this shirt. Washed the dust and stuff off of me. Christina saw me from the kitchen window and came out with some lemonade. It was real good. She was baking some cherry pies.”
Krysty glanced at Ryan. “They took them, as well,” she said quietly.
“Gave me a pie, fresh out of the oven. It burned my fingers, but it was good. Sweet, hot and good.” He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. “Feel weary to the bone.”
“Keep going.” Jak opened his mouth as if he were going to say more, then caught Ryan’s eye and closed it again.
“Must rest soon.”
“Be able to go to bed after you’ve finished telling us the story.”
“Sure, Ryan. It’s not truly sleep that I want. Just to rest for a while. Did I say the cherry pie burned my fingers? It did. Dipped them in the tub to cool them. I was just walking back toward the barn when I saw”
“Saw what?” J.B. asked, leaning toward the young man.
“Dust. Two lots. One was north. A long, long way off. It was the Navaho.” He looked up, seeing bewilderment on everyone’s face. “Oh, I didn’t know then it was them. Saw them later. Yeah. Later.”
“Who else did you see?” Ryan was becoming more and more concerned for Michael’s mental well-being. His mind seemed to be somehow slipping sideways, making it difficult for him to focus on things, hard to stick to a coherent, chronological account of the facts.
“More dust. Closer. Lots closer. Could just about hear the engines.”
“More than one engine?”
“Sure, J.B., there were two of them. Painted like in camouflage colors. Sort of small tanks.”
“Big blasters? Like cannon?”
Michael shook his head. “No. Machine guns.”
“Tracks or wheels?”
“They had wheels.”
“How many?”
“Three, I think. Orno, they had four wheels. I mean, each side. Big wheels.”