George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

"Once, I went to New York to visit Veil, without telling anyone where I was going," Worde said at last. "Veil thought that coming to New York and staying with him might be good for me. Fuck, it didn't take me long to see that he was crazier than I was, although for different reasons. Also, he handled his craziness differently; he was always brawling, and he could kind of hold things together in his head as long as he was fighting. I'd had enough fighting and seen enough blood and broken bodies to last me a lifetime. I had no way of freeing myself the way Veil did. I figured there was no sense in my going to hell in his handbasket, so I came back to Colletville. Still, that visit to New York helped me in one way; it helped me to realize that the only time I really ever felt good was when I was by myself, up in these mountains.

"Still, for some reason I thought I just had to learn to live my life like everyone else-work, and have a family, and be a part of society. I'd come up to these mountains on weekends, but during the week I'd try to be … like them. It didn't work; everything got worse. I was rapidly becoming an alcoholic, and I started to get DT's to go along with my nightmares. Once, I nearly killed a man because I thought he was a VC sneaking up on me; he was just a businessman in a blue suit walking down the sidewalk in the middle of the day.

"I knew I was going to have to be sent back to the V.A. mental hospital, and I knew I'd die there. Then I realized what I had to do. I made one phone call-to Veil, telling him what I planned to do. Then I walked up into these mountains, and I've been here ever since. It was a good decision; I can only survive where there's solitude."

Gary Worde refilled our coffee cups, and for a time we sat quietly, watching through a window as a huge moon rose into the night sky.

Finally Worde continued: "When I walked into the woods, I had nothing but the clothes on my back and a hunting knife. Fortunately, it was summer, so I had time to build a crude shelter for the winter. I'd been in… Special Forces. I was well trained in survival craft, and that helped. But that first winter was rough. I don't know how I survived, but I did, literally living in caves, like an animal. I built snares, ate the flesh of whatever I caught, and used the pelts for warmth. As strange as it may seem, in the middle of all that physical misery I was happy. And I was so exhausted every night just from doing what I had to do to stay alive that I slept without dreams. I didn't miss booze; in fact, I didn't miss anything. For the first time in as long as I could remember, my mind was clear.

"I moved around a lot in that first year, and I looked pretty ragged, to say the least. I know I scared the shit out of a couple of hunters who came across me. Also, some people may have been caught in large snares I set for deer. After that, I think people became afraid of running into me because the hunters and hikers stayed away.

"Some time later, Veil-who's one hell of a tracker, in case you didn't know-found me up here. He'd changed, mellowed; he'd found a new way to fight off his own nightmares. I'd found peace in isolation, and he'd begun to find it in art. I think we must have talked for two days straight, without sleeping. He'd brought me things-canned food, tools, medicine, clothing-that he'd lugged all over creation while he was looking for me. He hadn't come to ask me to go back with him, because he understood why I had to be where I was. He just wanted to see me, and do what he could to make things more comfortable for me.

"He came back four more times that year when he found me, bringing me more things and helping me to build this cabin. After that, his visits became routine things, and I looked forward to them very much. He'd brought me steel traps, and I was able to set up good traplines. I cured the pelts of the animals I caught, gave them to Veil on his visits to sell back in New York to pay for the supplies he brought me. While he was here we'd talk and work on certain martial arts techniques that are difficult to describe, but are best practiced in places like these mountains."

I thought I had a pretty good idea what Gary Worde was talking about; I remembered the silent walking technique Veil had taught me, and which I had used to sneak up on Loan Ka's sons in Seattle. I wondered what other deadly arts the two men had practiced here, but did not ask.

Garth and I helped the man wash the dishes and cooking utensils, using water drawn from a spigot in a rain barrel suspended near the open hearth to keep the water from freezing. When we had finished, Worde removed one of four carved pipes from a rack, filled it with a mixture, and lit it. Almost immediately, the air inside the cabin was filled with the sickly-sweet smell of marijuana. He offered the pipe to us, and we declined. And we waited. As Gary Worde had told us, and as he had made abundantly clear, his sense of time was not ours. He would tell us what we wanted to know, assuming he possessed the information, when he was ready, and not before.

"Veil told me certain things which you'd probably like to know about," the hidden veteran continued at last in a flat, matter-of-fact tone as he stared out the window into the moonlight-washed night. "There were two reasons why he felt he could talk to me about these matters. First, I'm up here where nobody can find me; second, he knew he could trust me to keep my mouth shut even if people could find me. It's very dangerous information-dangerous to Veil, and dangerous to anyone else who shares it."

"We're well aware of that, Gary," I said quietly. "But now that information may be the only thing that can save Veil, and us. A lot of innocent people have already died because of Veil's secrets."

"Veil's not responsible for that."

"I didn't say he was, although it's difficult to understand why he's done certain things the way he has. All we want to do is stop the killing, and nail whoever is responsible. Do you know who that is?"

Now Gary Worde slowly turned toward us; half his face glowed in the flickering orange light from the fireplace, the other half remained hidden in shadow. "Maybe now is the time to talk about those things, maybe it isn't. I hear you when you say Veil's in trouble, and that you need this information to help him. That's heavy. But what I know about Veil is heavy, too, and I'm not at all sure I'm going to share it with you unless you can convince me that you have a very good reason for wanting to know it."

"We believe Veil wants us to have the information, Gary."

"Then why didn't he tell you himself?"

"Because we live in the city, not in the mountains, and that made us too vulnerable. We believe Veil wanted, rightly or wrongly, for us to discover things this way, bit by bit. This is a guess, but I think that in Veil's mind he believed this was the best-maybe the only-way to get the truth out with any chance for his survival, and ours."

"Convince me of that," Worde said, sitting back down on his stool by the hearth. "We have all the time in the world."

"Veil doesn't."

"Tell me what's happened."

I did, starting at the beginning when I had walked into an unlocked, brightly lighted-and empty-loft.

Apparently, I was convincing.

"Lieutenant General Lester Bean," Gary Worde said without hesitation when I had finished talking. "That was the name and rank of the officer in the helicopter that brought Colonel Po into Laos and took Veil out."

"Not Robert Warren?" I asked. "That was the name of the general that signed Veil's discharge papers."

Worde shook his head. "No; I never heard of any General Warren.

Bean was Veil's army C.O. The man in the civilian clothes was a guy by the name of Orville Madison. A real fuck."

I looked at Garth and even in the dim firelight could see him stiffen on his stool. I felt absolutely no satisfaction over the fact that I had picked Orville Madison's name out of a newspaper five days before. There was nothing for me in Worde's confirmation but a cold, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. There was something almost anticlimactic in hearing Gary Worde link Orville Madison to Veil; now that we virtually knew for certain that Madison was the killer hunting Veil and us, I didn't have the slightest idea what we were going to do with the information. I was afraid-not only for Veil, Garth, and myself, but for the country.