Bill Pronzini - Acts of Mercy

Incredulously Harper said, “Press conference?”

“Yes.”

“What for, if not about Wexford?”

“You’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Good Christ, Nicholas-”

“I have my reasons for not wanting to talk about it beforehand,” Augustine said, and dug his heels lightly into the bay’s sides. Casey Jones broke into an immediate canter, hooves kicking up small puffs of dust and needles-and in instant consort the gelding surged to match its pace. Harper made a small involuntary cry; panic cut at him again as the muscles rippling along the gelding’s back caused the saddle to roll sharply beneath him. He threw his arms around its neck, clinging desperately, his buttocks jarring with small painful thuds against the hard leather seat.

Augustine maintained the trot for more than a minute, until the trees thinned and the trail emerged near the rocky shoulder of the gorge. Harper could hear the muted rumble of the river, and in terror imagined the horse stumbling, rearing, flinging him out of the saddle and across the ground and over the edge. But then Augustine reined the bay back to a slow walk, and the gelding immediately responded in kind. Making wheezing, snorting sounds through vented nostrils, it walked up beside Casey Jones again.

Harper straightened in the saddle, his breath coming rapidly, and caught onto the pommel to steady himself. He saw Augustine looking at him with thin amusement, felt his face flame. He resisted the need to rub at his smarting buttocks and recaptured his dignity by fixing the President with an angry glare.

“What are you trying to do to me?” he said. “You know I can’t handle a horse when it starts to run.”

“That was hardly a run, Maxwell,” Augustine said mildly. “Just a brisk uphill trot.”

“I could have been killed.”

“Oh, nonsense. Even if you’d fallen off you wouldn’t have hurt anything except your pride.”

The President urged Casey Jones into a faster walk, giving Harper no opportunity to reply. The gelding lifted its head, still snorting, but this time-to Harper’s relief-it did not follow suit; it lowered its head again, as if to say “The hell with it,” and continued to plod upward. The bay moved out to a four-length lead, climbing to Lookout Point where the two point-riding Secret Service agents waited.

The high ground there was flat and grassy, backed by a sheer granite wall, bordered on its other sides by forest and the deep river gorge. Across the gorge the wooded slopes fell away steeply to the northeast, so that you could see a series of small grassland hollows and ridges stretching for miles to the base of a broad, almost perpendicular peak. When Augustine reached Lookout Point he dismounted, dropped Casey Jones’s reins, and walked over near the precipice. One of the agents called out to him to be careful. He nodded, waved at the man in a dismissive way; then he stood with his hands clasped at his back, staring out at the distant valleys.

The gelding struggled up the last few yards to the high ground and stopped without Harper having to draw rein and immediately began to graze. He dismounted with awkward care, aware of the eyes of the agents, and flexed his cramped legs and hips. The air up here was thin; it made him feel vaguely light-headed as he crossed toward Augustine in hesitant strides.

He stopped five feet short of where the President stood because the jagged walls of the gorge were visible and his perspective of the sheer drop to where the river raged below-more than two hundred feet-made his stomach churn sourly. Looking at the view to the northeast was no better; he focused his attention on Augustine and kept it there.

The President glanced around at him. “Magnificent sight, isn’t it.”

“If you say so.”

“Like one of those rare dreams,” Augustine said, “where everything is beauty and peace.” His eyes were bright, as distant as the valleys. “The Hollows has always seemed that way to me, you know.”

Harper said, “Nicholas-”

“When my father was alive, we had two thousand head of cattle out there. Did I ever tell you that, Maxwell? Two thousand head of the finest Herefords and Aberdeen Angus in the world. The Hollows was a working ranch in those days. But it got to be too expensive to maintain the herd, and when we lost a couple hundred head during a disastrous winter I decided to sell it off. It’s odd, but looking out there I can almost see the ghosts of those lost cattle-red-and-white and black ghosts grazing in the valleys.”

God, Harper thought. He said, “Why did you call a press conference for tomorrow morning?”

“What?”

“I said, why did you call a press conference?”

Augustine released an audible breath. The brightness in his eyes seemed to dull, and he blinked. “And I told you,” he said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m entitled to know.”

“Are you? I think not.”

“Does it have something to do with Israel? With Oberdorfer? With domestic issues? With your campaign?”

“It has something to do with everything,” Augustine said. There was a sudden sharpness in his voice. “Now that’s all I’m going to say. I’m the President, Maxwell; I’ll thank you to remember that.” And he turned back to the gorge and his view of the valleys and the ghosts of his vanished cattle.

Harper realized his hands were clenched, flattened them out again. When he pivoted himself he saw the Secret Service bodyguards, all four of them present now, staring over at him and at the President with blank Justice-like faces. He ignored them, walked stiff-backed to where a fallen log formed a bench at the far end of the clearing. He sat on the log and tried not to look at Augustine standing at the rim of the gorge. And kept looking at him in spite of himself.

Press conference, he thought.

Secrecy, he thought.

Christ!

Yes, Elizabeth, what is it?

You asked me to come by at three o’clock, Mrs. Augustine. Don’t you remember?

Three o’clock. Yes.

Is everything all right?

Why shouldn’t everything be all right?

Well-you seem preoccupied…

Do I? It’s because painful decisions have been made in this house today, Elizabeth. Terribly painful decisions.

What decisions?

And they should have been made long before this. Now I pray to God it’s not too late.

I don’t understand You’re not supposed to understand.

Mrs Augustine…

No. I’ve said too much already; I’m talking too much. I suppose it’s because you inspire confidence. You always have.

Are you sure you don’t want to discuss it?

I can’t discuss it. Don’t press me, Elizabeth. Please.

All right, Mrs. Augustine.

You’ll find out soon enough-part of it, anyway. Everyone will find out soon enough.

At dusk Saturday night, after a quiet and somewhat mechanical dinner with Claire, Augustine sat out on one of the iron-filigree patio chairs, worrying the bit of a billiard briar and waiting for Justice.

When he and Harper and the bodyguards had returned from their ride at four-thirty, Christopher had approached him outside the stable, looking worried, and asked to speak with him. But he himself had been abstracted and weary of Maxwell’s querulous complaints and questions, and he had only wanted to get away quickly to the manor house for a shower and a drink. So he had told Justice he would see him here tonight and then left him there with Maxwell.

He would keep this meeting as brief as possible, Augustine thought. Because it seemed obvious to him what was on Justice’s mind, and discussing it endlessly served no constructive purpose. He had already concluded what must be done, while sitting in his study this morning and watching the toy train board, and he was not about to invite painful dialogue by confiding what it was to anyone. Not Justice, not Harper, not any of his other aides. Not even Claire (although he knew she intuited exactly what his decision was). They would all find out at the press conference tomorrow.