Mildred wiped her hands on her thighs and stood. “Michael couldn’t have done it any better if he’d been trained by a state executioner. Probably not so well, in fact. The fall was enough to break the neck. Dislocate the vertebrae. There is typical occlusion of the carotid artery and a almost instant cutting-off of the blood supply to the brain. The mercy of death would have come very quickly for the boy. I would think within, at the most, a handful of seconds.”
“That fast?” Krysty said. “That’s something to hold on to, anyway.”
Mildred looked at her in the gloomy half-light. “Perhaps, at the risk of being pedantic, I should say that clinical death would probably not occur for several seconds longer, but he would have become unconscious the moment he fell. There would really have been no suffering at all.”
“Sure not strangled?” Jak asked.
“I’m sure. There would have been the typical speckled marks of a hemorrhage here.” She pointed to the pale skin just behind the ears. “And there are none. Other clinical signs. But, no, Jak. Michael died as he wished. Very quickly and free from pain.”
“Free at last, free at last, God Almighty, he’s free at last,” Doc muttered.
Nobody else said anything.
IT WAS DOC who found the letter.
There was an old wooden pen with a rusted metal nib propped against a porcelain inkwell on a small bureau beneath the narrow window of the bedroom. The letter, folded twice, lay under it. On the outside was written the words For my friends.
The old man carried it into the living room, holding it gingerly by one corner.
“The young fellow has left us a note,” he said. “Who wishes to read it first?”
Ryan looked up. “Read it out loud, Doc. Best we all hear it at the same time.”
“I would rather not.”
“Please,” Krysty said.
“Very well. If you insist. Allow me to sit down, then I shall commence.”
The room fell silent. Once again, in the distance, there was the faint ticking of the clock.
Everyone was there, sitting around on the sofa and on chairs, listening.
” ‘My friends For I’ve always thought of you as friends, perhaps the only ones I have ever had. This is to say goodbye to you all. By the time that you find this, I hope that I will have gone far away into the distant land and taken the road less traveled.”‘ Doc coughed. “Then there is a small aside for my benefit, where he comments that I will be surprised to learn he knew any poetry.” He blew his nose. “‘It’s around three in the morning, and I haven’t slept. I just went into the bedroom and tried to whisper to Christina and little Jenny that I was sorry I had failed them. I think they might have heard me where they are gone. It made me feel a small bit better.'”
Dean stood. “I don’t think I can hear all this,” he said. “Can you call me when you finished reading?”
“No.” Ryan sighed. “Part of growing up is not walking away from things you don’t like, Dean. Letter’s for all of us. You as well. I know this is hard, but Michael would have wanted us all here. Sit down again.”
Doc waited until the boy was settled before carrying on. “There’s so many things I could say, but time passes and I have a date with a rope. My first nineteen years were spent in closed order at Nil-Vanity, and I thought then that I was happy. But I know now that I wasn’t. Happiness is trying new things, new foods, new places. The day you give up on that is the day they measure you for the long wooden box. Then I was trawled here into Deathlands, a place of horrors, violence and brutality and’ Something’s crossed out there. I can’t read it.” Doc sniffed, fumbled for his swallow’s-eye kerchief and blew his nose. “Sorry. ‘But I also found values that I’d never dreamed ofcourage, humor and loyalty. So many, many things. Someone somewhere once said that the definition of courage was grace under pressure, didn’t they? Mildred, you told me that, I think.'”
“Ernest Hemingway, Michael,” she said. “Him, of all people.”
Doc nodded. “Don’t aim to bore you, so Dean can relax. The last weeks seem to have been more and more difficult for me. Dark shadows at my shoulder and like a trap with no way out of it. The business with Dorothy was hard.’ He underlined that last word,” Doc said.
“Can I get me a glass of lemonade from the kitchen?” Dean asked.
“Not much more, dear boy,” Doc replied. ” ‘I’ve felt like a man trying to run through quicksand. The harder you try, the quicker you sink. Then what happened yesterday Well, that was about the end of the line for me. Time to take what J.B. calls the last train to the coast, I guess. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go and try and help Christina I can’t properly explain. Still blurred in my mind. I swear that it wasn’t that I was scared. Not scared of dying. Truthfully I wasn’t. I just couldn’t move. Couldn’t. Couldn’t. Couldn’t.’ ”
“That’s a classic symptom of a serious psychosis,” Mildred commented. “Clinical depression. It disrupts the way you act and think.”
“The last bit of all is like a brief message to each of us. Shall I read them out as well?”
“Sure, Doc. Go ahead.” Ryan settled himself in the deep armchair and looked out through the open door, across the vastness of the New Mexico desert.
“First to Dean. ‘You were the nearest I ever had to a true companion, Dean. Forgive me for being such a shithead the last few days. Try and remember the old Michael. That would be the hot pipe way.'”
The boy stood and walked slowly, with dignity, out into the early-morning sunshine. Ryan did nothing to stop him.
“You next, John Barrymore,” Doc said, turning to face the Armorer. ‘”I know how you value the skills of combat, J.B., and I feel I let you down badly. But you said that failure brought its own price. By the time you read this, I’ll have paid that price. Keep your blasters oiled.'”
“Yeah.” J.B. glanced sideways at Mildred, who gripped his hand.
“I am reminded of something that Rudyard Kipling once wrote,” Doc said hoarsely. “He said that each man must pay the price to live with himself on his own terms. Well, I’m sure he put it better than that. But it seems to me that poor Michael has chosen to do precisely that.”
“Go on, Doc,” Jak said. “Time’s passing and there’s three graves need digging.”
“Of course. Dr. Wyeth, you are the next that the lad addresses. ‘You and me, Mildred, had something in common. We never thought to finish up in Deathlands. Without your wisdom and your help, I would never have made it as far as first base. Thanks and goodbye.'”
“Goodbye, Michael,” she said in a clear voice.
“Krysty?”
“Go on, Doc.”
” ‘I wish I’d been able to have the time to sit down and talk more, Krysty. About your”seeing” and all that. I guess that there’s plenty more regrets if I thought about it. Sorry if I let you down as well.’ ”
“No, Michael. You didn’t let me down. Didn’t let anyone down at all.”
“Next line is for me.”
“Let’s hear it, Doc.”
“Very well, Dr. Wyeth, very well. ‘Had some laughs, didn’t we, Doc? First off I thought you were a stupe old fart. Now that it’s all too late, I know better. You’re a wise old fart.'” The old man’s voice broke, and he resorted once more to the kerchief. “Don’t ever change, Doc. And every now and then think about your young friend from the past. What was that line you once said about forgetting and smiling?'” Doc looked apologetic. “I once reminded him of that small jewel of verse ‘Better by far you should forget and smile, then that you should remember and be sad.’ Poor, poor boy.”
“Anything to say to me?” Jak asked.
“Yes. Ryan is the last one in the letter, but you are next to last. ‘I never knew you properly, Jak, but Ryan and the rest kept mentioning you. I know how much they all admired you and the way you’ve handled yourself. Certainly I liked you a lot and I guess I can say that I actually loved Christina and the baby. I know that you’ll go to your grave blaming me for it. Well, I’m off to mine in a couple of minutes, and I swear that I’ll die with their faces in my mind’s eye. I am so sorry, Jak. If I could think that one day you might find it in your heart to forgive me Well, it’ll make eternity easier to handle.'”