David Barbour - Shadows Bend

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Smith replied. “As ever a poet waited for a nymph.”

They only exchanged the briefest of hugs and a lingering friendly kiss, but the air between them held a charge of intense affect. Howard, looking up from the car, did not fail to notice.

“Good-bye,” Glory whispered as she walked back to the car under Howard’s watchful eye.

“Good-bye and Godspeed!” Smith called. He waved at the sedan as it tumbled down the dusty drive back toward the road. Glory waved back through the rear window which glimmered like clear water in the sunlight, and through the passenger’s front window, Lovecraft’s arm flapped a few times like a featherless bird’s wing as the Chevy traversed the ruts and bumps.

It was a clear day, the sky a milky sort of blue. White puffs of cumulus floated like giant, tom cotton balls above the horizon toward the west. But when Smith looked in the direction his friends would be going, he had a certain premonition of foul weather.

As Smith stepped back in through the front door, remembering Glory all voluptuous in the soft moonlight, he sensed something in his. study. He hesitated, wondering if he should run out and try to call back the others, but by then he was at the threshold, and he could see the two dark shapes silhouetted against the window. For a split second, he thought his parents had returned, but then he knew exactly who they were. They were dressed in black, or at least appeared to be on the surface. Their features were indistinct-not obscured in shadow, but shadow itself. To a typical man they might have maintained the illusion of humanness, but to Smith, absorbed in the arcane, they leaked their true and terrible forms: claws, not hands; creased and fleshy wings, not suit lapels. He was struck momentarily by a strong vertigo as he entered their inhuman aura; he expected ill intention, hostility, evil, but what he felt, instead, was an unexpected diplomacy and a distant sense of reverence. It must be the proximity of the book, he thought. They could kill me or do things far worse, and yet they are behaving as if they are in some holy place. He did not know what to do or what to say, so he forced himself to be calm and rational.

“Hello, gentlemen,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The figures were silent for a long moment, then the one on the left, the one whose black aura extended farther into the alien dimension, replied: “Hello. Gentle. Man. I. Have. Heard. A. Lot. About. You.”

“Really?” said Smith, forcing a smile. Behind him, the door swung shut in a gust of cold wind.

WHILE GLORY AND LOVECRAFT DROWSED, Howard drove without a word down from the foothills of Auburn into Sacramento, joining Highway 99 southbound through the Central Valley. He tried to keep his mind focused on the task at hand, a favor that had somehow escalated into an unbelievable quest, but he couldn’t help flashing back, again and again, to the image of Glory and Smith in the meadow. He had to relax his grip on the wheel periodically when he noticed the fingertips of his injured hand turning white.

By noon, as they passed through Fresno, the heat of afternoon had: turned the Chevy into a hotbox. Howard blinked away the stinging , sweat that kept trickling into his eyes and stubbornly drove on, awake only with the strength of his anger and annoyance.

“Bob,” said Lovecraft, unfurling his wrinkled handkerchief, “I myself enjoy this sort of heat, which I imagine is salutory to my cold blood, but perhaps we should pause for some liquid refreshment?”

Howard only glared at the road ahead. “It’ll have to wait.”

Glory roused herself from her semiconscious state and lit a cigarette. In a moment the interior of the car was swirling with smoke blown about from the single open window.

“Put your window down, HP,” Howard said.

Lovecraft grimaced as if it were the smoke that annoyed him, but the wince he gave as he turned the crank was of a different sort of pain. “The heat is pleasant, but I must complain that the smoke causes me to imagine the Inferno.”

“If I can’t have something to drink, I might as well smoke myself totally dry,” said Glory, blowing another large plume. She was quiet for a few moments before she leaned forward and said over Howard’s right shoulder, “I’m guessing you didn’t get my hint. I’m about to mess the backseat here, if you know what I mean.”

Howard said nothing.

Lovecraft looked at Glory, who merely shrugged her shoulders. He turned his gaze back to Howard. “Bob, I believe Miss McKenna is in dire need of a ladies’ room.”

Still, Howard failed to respond. He merely adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and clenched his jaw with a bit more force as the scabs under his bandage broke. Just ahead was a Mohawk gas station with the usual placards and a sign that advertised the cleanliness of their bathrooms. Lovecraft glanced at the gas gauge which, from his angle, read just shy of empty.

“Bob, unless you are operating this automobile on some miracle fuel unbeknownst to the rest of us, I believe we are in dire need of gasoline. From the pressure in my bladder, I wager we will attain an equilibrium of fluids as I dispose of the number of gallons we are likely to need.”

Without a word, Howard suddenly hit the brakes and twisted the wheel, skidding across a patch of gravel, just missing the Mohawk Indian signpost as they slid into the gas station and stopped in a cloud of dust. They were some fifty feet from the pumps. Howard opened his door and got out.

“Then get some gas, dammit,” he said through the open door. He stalked off toward the rest rooms.

Lovecraft slid over into the driver’s seat, pulled the door shut, and managed to make it to the pumps after a few alarming grinds from the gearbox. “Hello, there, my fine fellow,” he called to the attendant.

“Honor us with a full tank, if you please. And do not spare your efforts on the various windows.”

“I wasn’t kidding. I’m about ready to burst,” said Glory. “Excuse me.” She stepped out of the car and stretched, brushing her hair back with her fingers, and then she walked in the same direction Howard had taken a few moments earlier.

Lovecraft shut off the ignition and drummed his fingers along the top of the steering wheel. He noticed a dark crust along the top ridge and absentmindedly began to pick at it until he realized it was the blood from the cut on Howard’s hand.

“WOULD YOU MIND terribly explaining to me the purpose of this juvenile behavior? Bob?”

Howard finally erupted. “Damn it, HP. She-She…” He was so upset his words sputtered before he regained enough composure to continue. “She had-she was with him!”

“With whom? To what are you referring?”

“Smith. She-with-had-was with him last night.”

“I see. And for what particular reason does this trouble you so terribly much?”

“Any man worth his salt should be offended by this-this… It’s immoral!”

“Indeed,” said Lovecraft. “Fine words coming from a man who makes his living hawking salacious tales of a thieving barbarian who , frequently beds a bevy of women to whom he is hardly betrothed.”

“Now that ain’t fair, HP! This is the real world we’re in.”

“Indeed. And is it not in this real world that Miss McKenna’s past was known to us? We were well aware of her past… indiscretions long before we arrived at Klarkash-Ton’s cabin, were we not? And if you were gallant enough to offer her the privilege of our company, knowing her moral character, is it not hypocritical of you to be thus offended when her behavior is merely in keeping with what you assumed of her to begin with?”

Howard frowned. “Now you’re soundin’ like a damn lawyer,” he said, markedly calmer. “But I guess you’re right, ain’t ya? If she’s a whore to begin with, why should I get all fired up if she acts like one with Smith?”