George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

"He spent almost all of his junior year in the hospital. We wrote each other constantly, I went to visit him, and he was sometimes allowed to come back for home visits. He changed a great deal during that year. He was still like a time bomb waiting to go off, but he was far more controlled and self-contained than he had been. He had new medication, which was far better than the stuff he'd been given before. Also, he had something else; someone at the hospital had begun teaching him the martial arts as an outlet for his aggression and a means of obtaining self-control. Veil practiced his martial arts and read about them every free moment. That second stay at the hospital saved him. He had tremendous respect for the teachers and therapists there, and maybe it was the way he talked about them that made me finally get my act together years later, go to college and get a degree in order to become a teacher myself. But that was a long time coming. I still had a lot of wildness to get out of my own system.

"Veil liked to roam at night on his motorcycle-and I roamed with him. By this time he'd gained a very big rep around the area as a fighter, and there was always somebody who wanted to take him on. Veil always obliged all comers, whether it was in the parking lots of bars or in some field where a fight had been prearranged. It wasn't long before a lot of money started changing hands at these matches, with Veil making a lot by betting on himself and giving large odds. Sometimes he'd fight three or four men in one night. I didn't understand something-not then. I thought Veil was fighting for the money, but he wasn't. The others were fighting for money, or a reputation as the man who beat Veil Kendry. Veil was literally fighting for his life, his sanity; fighting was the only way he could keep his demons at bay."

There was a prolonged silence, and once I thought I heard Jan Garvey try to stifle a sob. However, when she spoke again, her voice was clear and strong.

"Then he got in trouble with some local sheriff's deputies. He was only seventeen, but he really was an incredible fighter, what with the karate he'd learned and the moves he was always making up. A lot of macho men around here didn't like the fact that a seventeen-year-old kid should have such a big rep. When one of the deputies got his jaw broken in a challenge match with Veil, he got four of his buddies to go after Veil and try to arrest him. Veil beat up all four of them. Then he was arrested by the State Police. Everyone in three counties, including the State Police, knew about the challenge matches, and the judge had a pretty good idea of what had really happened. He sympathized with Veil, but also-justifiably-considered Veil to be an increasingly dangerous man. The charges were dropped in exchange for Veil's agreeing to enlist in the army. Veil did, and two weeks later he left. I drove him to the bus station. It was the last time I ever saw him."

"Did he ever write to you, Jan?" Garth asked.

"Once, early on while he was still in basic training. It was to say he loved me, but also to say good-bye. He wrote that, for better or worse, the army was the only chance he had for a new life, and he was putting everything in the past behind him. He was setting me free."

Now Jan Garvey abruptly crossed the room and turned on the lights. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, but dry. "I don't know whether all my talking has helped you," she continued in a firm voice as she poured more bourbon into our plastic cups, "but it's certainly helped me. All these years; I guess I never realized how much these memories of Veil have haunted me. There was, and is, nobody like Veil, and I guess it was those memories that broke up my marriages. I had such mixed emotions when I started reading about his growing success as an artist. I hated him for leaving me behind, for forgetting about me, and I realized at the same time that I still loved him. Then I knew I was happy for him. He'd finally found another way to fight his demons; his painting was a new kind of salvation." She paused, sighed, sipped at her bourbon. "Now, you say somebody is trying to kill him."

"Yes," I said. "Jan, Veil was very successful in the army. He was most certainly an outstanding combat soldier, because somewhere along the line he was made an officer-probably a field commission. And he was promoted steadily, to the rank of full colonel. What you've told us helps us to understand better a lot of things about him, but there are still too many important gaps missing. Something happened to him toward the end of his career in the army, and somehow we have to find out what it was. Please think very carefully. You told us he only wrote you that one letter. Can you think of anyone, anyone at all, he might have written to regularly over the years?"

"I doubt he wrote to anyone," the woman said distantly, in a voice so low I could hardly hear her, "but Gary probably knows what happened to him."

"Gary?"

Once again there was a prolonged silence, and Jan Garvey seemed cut adrift on a sea of thought and memory. "Forget I mentioned that name," she said at last. "Gary can't help you; he can't even help himself. All Gary will do is kill you."

Suddenly I thought I had a pretty good idea what had upset Matthew Holmes when we'd first mentioned that we were looking for someone in connection with arson and murder. There also seemed a good possibility that Garth really had seen a fire in the storm. "Jan," I said, "earlier you talked about the madness in Colletville. You were talking about Veil, of course, and yourself. Then you said that you'd come back here because you'd defeated the madness, but that somebody else may have come back because he was defeated by it. Did you mean Gary?"

"Yes," the woman replied softly. "I shouldn't have said that; I had no right. I have a big mouth."

"Why don't you have the right? Why is it wrong to talk about Gary?"

"I told you he can't help you."

"I don't understand. You said that he may know what happened to Veil. Why wouldn't he want to help?"

"It's not that he won't; he can't. I mean that literally. Gary Worde is quite insane, and very, very dangerous."

"Jan," Garth said, rising to his feet and setting down his cup, "where can we find this Gary Worde?"

"You can't," the teacher answered softly. "Nobody knows where to find him, and you mustn't try. It can only bring harm to you, and perhaps to Gary. Leave him alone."

"We have to try, Jan," Garth said, a slight edge to his voice. "Remember that there are lives at stake here."

I rose, went to a window and stared out into the darkness. A cold draft blew in my face. "Jan," I said, "all over America there are so-called 'hidden veterans'-men who came home from the war with very deep emotional wounds they found they just couldn't handle. They can't, or won't, function any longer in our society, and so they go off to live by themselves wherever they can find solitude. They go into wilderness areas where they can live off the land, with as little contact with other people as possible. Is Gary Worde this county's hidden veteran? Is he up in those mountains?"

Turning away from the window, I saw Jan Garvey nod. "Gary has no contact with anyone at all," she said quietly. "At least none that anyone around here has heard of, and we would hear."

"How does he get food and clothing?" Garth asked.

"Nobody knows. I suppose he could get food by trapping, but clothing and other things …?" She finished with a shrug.

"How long has he been up there?"

"Almost nine years. Sometimes you'll see a campfire up there at night, and then you won't see another one for a long time. You think maybe he's dead, but then one night you'll see another fire, in a different place. I think he must move around a lot; there's a great deal of wilderness around here."

"How do you know the campfires aren't set by hikers or hunters?"