Уолтер Мосли - Blue Light

He had soiled himself. The room smelled strongly of the man. I changed his clothes and washed him off with water from his rain barrel. I wiped the blood from his face and cleaned the wounds. All the while he cried and moaned.

“He just came in and and and and...,” Eric whined.

“Was it a black man?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I never did a thing. He was little and I wasn’t scared at first, but he was so strong.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“He said that it was a surprise. He said that it was a present for a friend. Why did he do this to me?” While Eric cried, I held him in my arms.

I got him into the bed and set his hands and feet as best as I could. Then I opened some canned beans and put them on a chair next to his bed. I put water there and set up the door so that he could push it open to go outside to piss and shit.

While he slept, I searched the cabin. I found a.22-caliber target pistol, a good-sized hunting knife, and a box of Hershey candy bars. These I took for myself.

Gray Man had passed Eric’s way a day before, maybe a few hours more than that. He must have passed me on his way toward Treaty. Either he didn’t see me or, more likely, he felt that I was beneath his notice. I was intent on making that his big mistake.

“Eric,” I said, shaking the ruined man.

“What?” He started awake, thrusting his hands out in fear. When the hands touched me, though, he recoiled in pain.

“I’ve got to go for a while,” I said. “You have food right here and I jammed the lock on the door for you to go outside if you’ve got to go.”

“How’m I gonna get back in?” he cried.

“There’s a big crack at the bottom,” I said. “It’ll hurt but you can get your foot under there and pull it open like that.”

“Don’t leave. Please.”

“I have to, Eric. Alacrity’s back there.”

“She has friends there. You said she did. Please take me with you.”

“The man who did this to you will be there. You don’t wanna get near him again, believe me.”

“Please,” he begged. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’ll be back.”

“He’ll kill you and then I’ll die here.” Eric tried to grab me, but his hands were useless.

I left him crying there on his bed. He was calling out to me like a lost child. I knew he was right, that I might not return and that he might die, but I had to go back to War.

I thanked Juan Thrombone for all the years he had me working on his tree farm. Toward the later years we’d sometimes work through the night, pushing the growth rate of the trees until they were almost completely mature by the fourth day. The extra-large buckets we fashioned held fifty pounds of water at least. We carried a bucket in each hand, trotting from the lower field to the upper without a stop, for eighteen hours and longer. It was the tea we drank that gave us such strength, that’s what Juan told us.

“Brewed from the dead leaves of the blue sequoias. It is just weak enough not to hurt your delicate natures.”

I jogged for ten hours straight before having to rest. It was deep night and the moon was exactly half full. The candy bars were all gone, so all I could do was sleep. The sun was far into morning by the time I woke up.

My feet hurt as I went, but I kept thinking of Eric and his ruined and bloody feet.

By midday I could hear the trees screaming. It was the singing trees, not the bellowing ones. They were keening a solitary note of fear.

I ran harder. The pistol in my pocket had five shells in it. I kept thinking about stars going nova and stones breathing life. I hoped that I could create miracles with what little I had.

The woods went suddenly quiet when I was no more than a mile from the cathedral of War. It was an abrupt silence in my mind that came on so quickly, it disoriented me. I fell to the ground feeling the deep exhaustion of my day-and-a-half run. I lay there on the damp earth thinking about standing but nowhere near the act. Every muscle and cell in my body screamed for water, for oxygen, and for rest. My lungs couldn’t take a deep enough breath. My fingers and toes were numb. And even though I was thinking about rising, my head was hanging down. It came to me that I was dying, that the exertion of my supermarathon, coupled with the sudden extinction of the singing trees, had depleted me. My eyes were open but the midday light faded still.

Then came the rumbling. The Bellowing Trees in great anguish began their bass song. It wasn’t fear but disgust and anger. It was the outrage of the earth against the abomination of Gray Man. I saw him in my mind, and strength flowed back into me. I was called back to life by the trees.

It was not only me but bear and butterfly, bird and gnat. The life of the forest around the cathedral, which had been so silent, surged. A large copper-colored bear lumbered past me. I stood up under a current of broad-winged black-and-white and red monarchs.

We all raced for the grove of Bellowing Trees. Along the way I saw the corpses of two of the coyote brood. Bloody and broken, they lay like Eric Beauvais’s hands and feet.

When we came into the grove of singing trees, it was as if we had come into a wood after years of blight. Black fungus hung from their limbs, the once green needles were brown and fallen. As quickly as they had grown, Juan Thrombone’s trees died. Sickly and brittle, the whole grove was dead. Not one note of life or calling was left.

Death had taken their souls with him into the valley of the Bellowing Trees.

I took the lead in the headlong race toward Death. My longtime flirtation with suicide was now a reality. I had no illusions that anyone could stand up to Grey Redstar. But I would not let him frighten me; I would not let my friends die without help.

Before I noticed that the bears and butterflies had stopped, I was almost on top of him. Gray Man. The rush and chatter of animals around me, coupled with the rumbling of the blue sequoias, had masked his presence. I suppose that was a stroke of luck. I say this because the recognition and anticipation of Death’s approach is enough to shatter the bravest man or woman’s resolve. But to sense Death and approach it is contrary to the very notion of life. I do not know that I would have had the courage to go on if I had sensed Gray Man.

He was leaning over Coyote, bearing down on her throat as she clawed at his groin and chest. Max was on Death’s back, tearing viciously at his neck and head.

Blue light emanated from all three. A vibrant yellowish light came from Coyote. Max’s dull blue aura was almost erased by the indigo coming from Gray Man.

I moved deliberately from the wood and held Eric’s pistol to Gray Man’s head. I pulled the trigger many more times than there were bullets to fire. Every shot entered the dead man’s brain.

He stood from the now inert form of Coyote. He slapped Max from his back, sending the poor dog flying.

“Pity,” he said. Then he reached out, brushing my forehead with his fingertips.

I fell to the ground, nothing but mindless weight. From my side I could see Gray Man moving toward the grove of Bellowing Trees. He was naked and skinny, hunched over and stalking.

I took aim with the pistol and pulled the trigger. The chamber was empty but I would have missed anyway. The thought of my lying on my side, shooting at a man who was already dead made me laugh. My weakness, combined with impotent courage, seemed to be the funniest joke anyone could tell. And once I started laughing, I couldn’t stop. I laughed so hard that I convulsed and writhed, tittering like Horace LaFontaine and choking on my tongue. I rolled up on my knees, trying to get away from that black humor. I lurched to my feet, no longer dying, coughing on the ridiculous nature of my mind.