George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

"In summer, maybe. But not in winter-not in those mountains."

I asked, "Why would this man know what happened to Veil in the war? Southeast Asia's a big place."

"He might know. Gary was Veil's closest friend, besides me. They enlisted together. Gary had his problems, too, and so he decided to go off with Veil. I know they went through basic training together, in the same unit. Gary used to write home fairly regularly, and his family shared the news with everyone."

"When Gary came home, did he talk about the war?"

Jan Garvey shook her head. "Never. Everyone knew right away that Gary was in a lot of trouble. Later, we found out that he'd spent six months in a V.A. mental hospital before he'd been discharged to come home. He'd gone away an overweight kid, and he came back looking like an old man who'd been in a concentration camp. Everyone tried to help as much as they could, and for a while he lived in a little converted room over his parents' garage. He suffered from night terrors; sometimes, you could hear him clear across town screaming in the middle of the night. Then, after a time, I guess he started suffering from the same terrors during the day. He couldn't work, because he'd just drift off in the middle of doing something, squat down, and cover his head. Then he'd start screaming."

"It sounds like classic postcombat stress syndrome," Garth said to me, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Severe."

I nodded in agreement, looked at the woman. "Jan, why didn't his family, or the authorities, have him committed to a V.A. hospital?"

"His parents were going to. Gary had begun to fantasize that the Viet Cong were waiting just outside town and were going to come in after him. Everyone knew he was psychotic, and people were afraid he was going to explode and kill himself, or somebody else. The problem was that Gary was as terrified of going back to the mental hospital as he was of his phantom Viet Cong; apparently, his experiences there were as much a nightmare for him as whatever happened to him in the war. We all felt a responsibility toward him. This is a close-knit community. The feeling was that we'd sent him off to war as a kid of seventeen, and he'd come back … worse than dead. Nobody wanted to cause him any more suffering. We wanted to take care of him, but we just didn't know how. Finally, Gary solved the problem for all of us. One day in August just before sundown, nine years ago, he came out of the room over his parents' garage, walked down the middle of the street to the edge of town, and just kept going up into the mountains. That's where he's been ever since."

Garth shook his head. "Hasn't anyone from around here ever gone up to look for him?"

Jan Garvey nodded. "Yes; once. And one of the men in the search party almost had to have a leg amputated after he walked into some kind of mantrap Gary had set. After that, everyone has just left Gary alone. There may be a lot of traps like that up there; Gary's still fighting the war in his mind."

"I'd think he'd be a danger to hunters and hikers," Garth said, still visibly upset.

"Oh, he most certainly is. The county has posted the entire area, and everyone around here stays well away from any of the sites where fires have been spotted. Also, we try as best we can to warn away strangers; a few years ago, one man came back with a story about how a wild man had almost killed him. So far, obviously, we've been lucky. Don't expect help from anyone, state troopers included, if you do decide to go up there looking for him." The woman paused, smiled thinly. "Colletville and the surrounding towns really don't want it known that we're running a kind of huge, open-air insane asylum for one maniac on public lands."

Garth grunted, walked across the room, and stopped directly in front of the woman. "Whatever happens, we won't make trouble for Gary, or this town." Garth paused, reached out and gently gripped Jan Garvey's shoulder. "I don't mean to frighten you, but there are a few things you have to know. I very much wish that Mongo and I could walk out of here with you now and take you to dinner, but we can't. We can't even be seen together. Mongo and I have been very careful. As far as we know, we weren't followed up the Thru-way; nobody who shouldn't know is aware that we're in Colletville, or that we've talked to you. But we can't be absolutely certain. Now, just in case we're wrong and men come to talk to you, you simply tell them about this conversation-all of it except for the part about Gary Worde. That's very important. Nothing that you know is a threat to these people, but Gary Worde may very well be a threat. If you can follow these directions, everyone-including your friend in the mountains-should be safe."

"I understand," the woman said evenly. "I know you're going to look for him. Please be very careful. Remember that he's crazy."

Garth smiled, jerked a thumb in my direction. "So's Mongo. The two of them will get along just fine."

After leaving the school by a back entrance, we went through our usual ritual of driving slowly and watching in our rearview mirrors for lights. There were none.

Despite the storm, we found a place where we were able to pick up a pizza and a six-pack of beer for our dinner. Back at our motel, before sitting down to eat, Garth called his precinct station house.

There was news.

The NYPD had kept in touch with the Seattle Police Department regarding the deaths of Loan Ka and his family, and Kathy. The Seattle police, at Garth's urging, were treating the deaths as murders, but still had no leads in the case. However, something curious had happened within hours of the explosion, and the police there were wondering if Garth thought there might be a connection. Three local Hmong, men with criminal records for extortion and illegal use of explosives, had been found murdered, their corpses dumped in an alley near a station house. The men's bodies had been mutilated, skinned from the necks almost down to the waists; the coroner's report indicated that they had been alive when the skinning had been done, and it was the torture that had killed them. Furthermore, the right thumb of each man had been severed, and the missing digits had not been found.

Garth suggested that Seattle be advised not to waste any more time or manpower on the case.

The next day we outfitted ourselves with camping and survival gear, and supplies. We bought small-bore rifles and ammunition, then used another chunk of Veil's ten thousand dollars to rent a large, heavy Jeep with four-wheel drive. With our gear and a half dozen ten-gallon cans of gasoline strapped down in the back of the Jeep, we headed up into the mountains.

We knew we were going to have to get lucky; we could drive for weeks through the Catskills without seeing any sign of our quarry, and the problem was further complicated by the fact that our hidden veteran certainly wasn't going to be hanging out near any main road. After all his years in the mountains, Gary Worde would almost certainly have built at least one semipermanent shelter, but it would be far away from roads, people, and towns. Besides the extra gasoline, Garth and I had purchased sturdy hiking boots.

The starting point for our search would be the mountain where Garth thought he had spotted a campfire the night before, and that was the general direction-south by southwest-in which we headed, constantly keeping our eyes on the Jeep's dashboard compass. Occasionally we veered off the main road to explore ice- and snow-covered side roads. While Garth drove, I scanned the surrounding countryside with high-powered binoculars, looking for signs of-anything. What I saw was a lot of deer, a few hearty winter hikers exploring the foothills, and a group of brightly clad cross-country skiers. That was it.

The mountain where Garth thought he had seen the fire turned out to be ten miles away-which probably meant that he hadn't seen anything more than some random reflection of light in the window glass. It made no difference; we had to start somewhere, and that mountain seemed as good a place as any. Without some glimpse of fire or smoke, our chances of finding Gary Worde were a good deal less than minuscule.