David Barbour - Shadows Bend

“No, I wouldn’t,” said Glory.

“I’m sorry. Terribly sorry. It ain’t in my nature to hit a lady.”

“I’m hardly a lady, Bob. At least not by your standards.”

“At least not when a demon is riding you,” said Smith, putting a coiled length of utility rope on the table. “I’m glad I didn’t try to take that knife from you.” He handed Howard a towel for his bleeding hand. “You might Want to dress that wound now. There’s water over here. Medical supplies here.”

“I can take care of myself,” said Howard. “You two go on ahead.”

“Call if you require assistance,” said Lovecraft.

“Yeah.”

Smith and Lovecraft retired into the study with the Necronomicon, leaving Howard and Glory alone in the kitchen, illuminated by a single lamp.

“Let me help you with that hand,” said Glory. “I’m really sorry Bob. I don’t know what came over me, and I don’t remember a thing.”, “Well, then you don’t recall my hittin’ YOU?”

Glory shook her head. “But I feel like shit, if that helps.”

Howard grimaced at her language.

“No, the demon didn’t make me say that.” She approached him, and while he considered her with suspicion, she washed his hand in a water basin and then painted it with iodine. Howard hissed through his teeth and then whistled a few bars as she applied a salve and dressed the cut with gauze and a clean cloth.

“How do you feel?” asked Howard. “A normal person woulda had a busted lip or some bruisin’ from how I hit you.”

“My face feels a little numb, but I’m all right.”

“Musta been the demon protectin’ ya.”

“Either that, or your right hook isn’t what it used to be.”

“I’m sorry,” said Howard. “I was just reactin’, ya understand?”

“Maybe I would a done different if I thought it through.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Glory. “It’s a good thing I don’t remember. I don’t have it to hold against you.”

“You don’t remember nothin’?” Howard said, blushing.

“Nothing.”

“Well, that’s good then, ‘cause I don’t reckon Novalyne woulda approved.”

“Approved of what? Who’s Novalyne?” Glory poured the blood tinged water out into the rigged sink and placed the iodine back on the shelf.

“Oh, nothin’,” Howard said with a laugh. “Novalyne’s my girl friend. Wonderful gal.”

“Why, I’m surprised, Bob.”

“Huh? You surprised I got a girlfriend?”

“No, it was your tone of voice. You sounded so romantic and wistful.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Howard was quiet for a moment. “It’s too bad Ma don’t approve of her. Can’t figure women, you know.”

“Maybe she feels threatened.”

“Huh? Why would she feel threatened?”

“Oh, you know,” said Glory. “Mother is always the central woman in a man’s life. You’re always her baby, no matter how old you are. It’s natural for any mother to feel like her baby’s girlfriend is an intruder. After all, who’s going to take better care of her baby than she could?”

Howard tried moving his fingers under the dressing. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said. “These days it’s me takin’ care of Ma.”

“Then your girlfriend is interfering by taking up some of your attention, too.”

“Yeah.” He mumbled something under his breath. “Hey, how are ya feelin’? Any demons comin’ on?”

Glory laughed melodiously. “I’m okay now. Let’s make some tea.”

IT WAS MORE than an hour before Lovecraft emerged from Smith’s study with a satisfied smirk. “I see you haven’t had to hog-tie the lady,” he said to, Howard.

“She’s been behavin’ ladylike.”

“We have succeeded in decoding some coordinates,” said Lovecraft.

“Come, and we’ll show you.”

In Smith’s study, they had spread a chaotic array of maps and charts all across the large desktop. At each end, under the flickering lamps, there were piles of paper scrawled with figures in pencil. On the floor and in the corners were heaps of crumpled paper.

“We finally figured it out,” said Smith. “And here are the coordinates, which seem to indicate a rather remote place in New Mexico.”

“I’m tired and out of sorts,” said Glory, “but even without any scientific training, I can tell you that’s impossible.”

“We arrived at the coordinates with a method contrary to what you are assuming,” said Lovecraft.

“There couldn’t have been geographical coordinates in the book because they didn’t exist when it was supposed to have been written,” Glory continued. “And, in any case, the New World wasn’t even discovered by the Europeans until the end of the Thirteenth Century!”

Lovecraft gave a rather patronizing smile. “Quite observant,“he said. “But the numbers in the book were not geographical coordinates. They were numerals designating the ascension of a star called Shub Niggurath in a constellation that looks vaguely like a goat’s head. What took us all this time was to work in reverse to determine the spot from which the rising of the star would be visible at the date and time indicated. And thus this disarray of stellar charts and conversion tables.”

“Still,” Glory insisted, “they couldn’t have known that the star would have been visible from the New World. How did the author know there would be land at that spot?”

“Irrelevant,” said Lovecraft. “The New World was not known by man, but who is to say that the Old Ones did not know the geography of the entire planet? This text comes down from them the way in which the Bible is said to be the divine word of God.”

“I guess I’ll accept that.” It took only a moment’s reflection for her to realize the absurdity of arguing with them after what she had been through. “It’s no less believable than any of the other things,” she concluded.

Smith touched Glory’s shoulder. “There’s another odd coincidence,” he said. “As you might know by now, HP’s Necronomicon was modeled on an ancient text called The Astronomica.”

Glory smiled. “Well, according to some people, the stars are the dead, aren’t they? It isn’t so remarkable a coincidence.”

“Touché,” said Smith.

Lovecraft frowned. “Well, Miss McKenna, despite what you might see as my derivative nature, I seem to have been an unconscious conduit of information unknowable to me. And since what has transpired in recent days appears to maintain a remarkable closeness to the details in my weird fiction, I suggest we continue to assume such parallels while they are useful.

“According to our calculations, we must now journey back the way we came to the state of New Mexico, to a place near the Carlsbad Caverns. On Klarkash-Ton’s map, we found an area labeled ‘Shadows Bend.’ The name causes me to shudder involuntarily, and I say that not simply out of a tendency toward hyperbole.”

“You’ve proved your point, I think,” said Howard.

Glory couldn’t help but giggle behind her hand at Lovecraft, but she straightened her face and apologized to him. “I must still be under the influence of the demon,” she said.

“Indeed, you must be,” Lovecraft replied. He turned to Smith. “Come with us, Klarkash-Ton. There’s plenty of room in the car, and God knows what manner of assistance we might require of you.”

“I’m sorry.” Smith gestured at the cabin around them. “I have all this to take care of, and my parents are both old and infirm, as you know. If I were a bachelor living on my own, I’d like nothing better, but I’m afraid I’ll have to bow out of this adventure. I shall send my best thoughts with you all.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” said Glory.